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Gain-of-function research has many purposes, including gauging the potential for treatment and vaccines to work against a particular pathogen. But this type of research is also used to manipulate a virus or other pathogen to test its potential to go human to human or to be deadly. And therein lies the problem.
Scientists have wrestled with the consequences for decades. When Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier, Ph.D. conducted gain-of-function research in 2012 to determine the number of mutations (four) it would take for an H5N1 bird flu virus to travel human to human, it prompted none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci to support an H5N1 research moratorium as a result.
Yet in the years that followed, it was Fauci and others who supported certain types of gain-of-function research to test a virus’ potential involving what is known as Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (EPPP). “Potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs) are bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms that are likely highly transmissible and capable of wide, uncontrollable spread in human populations and highly virulent, making them likely to cause significant morbidity and/or mortality in humans.”
But there are many problems with this approach, leading to Dr. Robert Redfield and myself to call for a moratorium on all this type of gain-of-function research as far back as 2021.
TRUMP BANS FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ‘DANGEROUS’ GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH
Whereas Fauci and others have relied on an international consortium of scientists, we believed then, and now, that it is impossible to verify both safety and containment outside the borders of the U.S., and many times even within these borders. There is also the danger of a roadmap to consider, where a bioterrorist might get ahold of these plans. At the same time, with advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer analysis, there is less and less reason to believe that actual gain-of-function research involving manipulating real viruses is necessary or prudent.
For years now, the vast majority of Americans have believed that COVID came from a lab in Wuhan. This consensus has only increased as intelligence agencies, including the FBI, and national public health agencies like the CDC, have put their thumbs on the scale. But it is also important to ask the follow-up question. If COVID did come from a lab, then what should that mean going forward?
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Doesn’t it in fact mean that there should be a moratorium placed on this kind of gain-of-function research around the world? The answer to that question is a definite yes, which is one of the reasons why the delay and obfuscation at the beginning of the pandemic in terms of origins was so harmful.
That is also why President Donald Trump was correct to issue an executive order on Monday that will block federal funding for “dangerous” gain-of-function research in China, Iran, and elsewhere, including the U.S., where there is “the legitimate potential for societal harms that this kind of research poses.”
The White House fact sheet on the subject also said, “For decades, policies overseeing gain-of-function research on pathogens, toxins, and potential pathogens have lacked adequate enforcement, transparency, and top-down oversight.”
The order will also deputize the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies to identify the threat level of biological research. It also singled out the potential for lab-leak incidents for gain-of-function of function research such as those conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
There have been funding pauses placed on gain-of-function before here, including in 2017, but they haven’t worked, either because of reversals, or ignoring of these orders both outside our borders and even within.
Still, the president’s executive order on Monday is a necessary warning step, even if so many other steps have already been taken to put the world directly out of danger.
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