Lab-leak/wet-market scenarios are 'equally implausible' and claims about threats posed by GoF research 'overblown' (including by a 'very nervous' Tony Fauci)
Injecting a GOF pathogen into humans would likely result in nothing happening, if the history of challenge trials has any say. Even if they did mange to make a subject sick, it is still a giant leap from that to an entity capable of causing a worldwide pandemic. The only pandemic has been one of scientific hubris.
Every conception of a pandemic I have seen involves a "spreading" disease.
So, building on the idea of injections causing illness, aggravating an endemic agent, or dispersing clones - I do think it's possible to create or harness the appearance of a spreading thing that way.
But that's very different from how pandemics are conceptualized in the mind of the public and "sold" by authorities and scientists.
I agree with Gupta about the opportunity cost and how we should spend the money on strengthening the healthcare infrastructure because if there is a pandemic there is very little we can do about it. I think it is hubris to believe that scientists can predict what nature can do before it happens. I think you missed Simons point also when he says how do we know what pathogens have pandemic potential because we can't inject them into humans and test them. It is a very valid and key point to the whole discussion.
Past performance is a pretty good indicator of what nature can/can't do. So what I challenge in general is the idea that nature has EVER produced a pandemic. (I say no and that pandemics are creatures of political science and economics, not observable biological phenomena).
I transcribed the whole session so I did see his point, but my focus was Gupta's perspective. Here's the section you're referencing (below). I don't think it's insignificant; what your take on the significance to Gupta's POV?
Laura: I think you need to first talk specify “gain of function research on pandemic potential pathogens” not just on your random e-coli that you're inserting –
Gupta: It's not random, that's what – Yeah okay,
Laura: So pandemic potential pathogen. It’s very tiny subset that we're talking about…
Gupta: Okay, so that that's an interesting point, because what I was going to say next is - and you're doing that but not everyone is, is the problem. So the third point is collateral damage, and I think the collateral damage is that all of this kind of research is become -- is perceived as being dangerous. Now, of course – yes, if we could say restricted to non things that have Pandemic potential. I just don't think we know enough about what has pandemic potential…
Wain-Hobson: You cannot do the experiment. It's unfalsifiable, because if you make a pathogen, you can't inject it into people, and you can't set off a pathogen and say, “Oh yes. That actually, that experiment makes a pandemic” because people --
Gupta: So what are we supposed to do? Not make --
Wain-Hobson: It's unfalsifiable. Therefore, you can, you can say, “I think that this could have…” and you cannot get better than that.
Gupta: Well I think you could, you can get better than that because you can say, “What is the likelihood that this thing will cause the next pandemic?
Wain-Hobson: Now, if we get into pandemic [indiscernible]
Gupta: … in order to do that you need to have an evolutionary ecological…
Wain-Hobson: …our track record on predicting pandemic strengths is zero. Now people pretend–
Gupta: Yes, that's because it's not possible.
Wain-Hobson: There you are, you've answered your question. Thank you.
Gupta: Yes, I know. But that means -- that does not mean that we should stop research into important areas of infectious disease.
Laura: Let me, just let me just say that Mother Nature is very capable of killing us we don't need to help her.
Gupta: I don't think we are helping her. I think it's hubris. I think it is hubristic to think,
to vaguely –
Laura: Maybe we are. It is hubristic - it's like Icarus flying too close to the sun. Scientific hubris.
There’s never been a pandemic. Even Spanish Flu was a name given to an entirely different event and largely inserted into the literature later, mostly much later.
We’re told more people died of Spanish flu than in WW1. You’ll find no contemporary evidence of this beyond a few articles that I believe are plants by the perpetrators.
The strongest evidence of its recent rise to salience is people like me. We were definitely not taught about this, allegedly the worst thing since the medieval plagues, at school or university.
People rarely die FROM influenza. Most people, especially those in 1918, died from lack of antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial pneumonias. We saw the same occur in 2020 as doctors failed to treat patients. People are not meant to be on ventilators for weeks at a time and this practice leads to secondary infections. I had one case that tested positive for flu, went to the hospital where they tested her positive for SARS so they put her on a vent. She subsequently got several bacterial infections and a fungal infection but she survived all that and suddenly died on the day she was to be discharged. These types of things should never happen with modern day advanced medicine.
Finally catching up with this one. Extremely interesting. Rare to read anyone who is dispassionate and factual nowadays. What can I say? Yay, Sunetra Gupta! Thanks for assembling this. I'll have to also watch the video when I have some time. Given some of the people in attendance, that must have struck like a bomb!
Injecting a GOF pathogen into humans would likely result in nothing happening, if the history of challenge trials has any say. Even if they did mange to make a subject sick, it is still a giant leap from that to an entity capable of causing a worldwide pandemic. The only pandemic has been one of scientific hubris.
Every conception of a pandemic I have seen involves a "spreading" disease.
So, building on the idea of injections causing illness, aggravating an endemic agent, or dispersing clones - I do think it's possible to create or harness the appearance of a spreading thing that way.
But that's very different from how pandemics are conceptualized in the mind of the public and "sold" by authorities and scientists.
I agree with Gupta about the opportunity cost and how we should spend the money on strengthening the healthcare infrastructure because if there is a pandemic there is very little we can do about it. I think it is hubris to believe that scientists can predict what nature can do before it happens. I think you missed Simons point also when he says how do we know what pathogens have pandemic potential because we can't inject them into humans and test them. It is a very valid and key point to the whole discussion.
Past performance is a pretty good indicator of what nature can/can't do. So what I challenge in general is the idea that nature has EVER produced a pandemic. (I say no and that pandemics are creatures of political science and economics, not observable biological phenomena).
I transcribed the whole session so I did see his point, but my focus was Gupta's perspective. Here's the section you're referencing (below). I don't think it's insignificant; what your take on the significance to Gupta's POV?
Laura: I think you need to first talk specify “gain of function research on pandemic potential pathogens” not just on your random e-coli that you're inserting –
Gupta: It's not random, that's what – Yeah okay,
Laura: So pandemic potential pathogen. It’s very tiny subset that we're talking about…
Gupta: Okay, so that that's an interesting point, because what I was going to say next is - and you're doing that but not everyone is, is the problem. So the third point is collateral damage, and I think the collateral damage is that all of this kind of research is become -- is perceived as being dangerous. Now, of course – yes, if we could say restricted to non things that have Pandemic potential. I just don't think we know enough about what has pandemic potential…
Wain-Hobson: You cannot do the experiment. It's unfalsifiable, because if you make a pathogen, you can't inject it into people, and you can't set off a pathogen and say, “Oh yes. That actually, that experiment makes a pandemic” because people --
Gupta: So what are we supposed to do? Not make --
Wain-Hobson: It's unfalsifiable. Therefore, you can, you can say, “I think that this could have…” and you cannot get better than that.
Gupta: Well I think you could, you can get better than that because you can say, “What is the likelihood that this thing will cause the next pandemic?
Wain-Hobson: Now, if we get into pandemic [indiscernible]
Gupta: … in order to do that you need to have an evolutionary ecological…
Wain-Hobson: …our track record on predicting pandemic strengths is zero. Now people pretend–
Gupta: Yes, that's because it's not possible.
Wain-Hobson: There you are, you've answered your question. Thank you.
Gupta: Yes, I know. But that means -- that does not mean that we should stop research into important areas of infectious disease.
Laura: Let me, just let me just say that Mother Nature is very capable of killing us we don't need to help her.
Gupta: I don't think we are helping her. I think it's hubris. I think it is hubristic to think,
to vaguely –
Laura: Maybe we are. It is hubristic - it's like Icarus flying too close to the sun. Scientific hubris.
Gupta: I think there is very little –
Laura: We're not infallible.
There’s never been a pandemic. Even Spanish Flu was a name given to an entirely different event and largely inserted into the literature later, mostly much later.
We’re told more people died of Spanish flu than in WW1. You’ll find no contemporary evidence of this beyond a few articles that I believe are plants by the perpetrators.
The strongest evidence of its recent rise to salience is people like me. We were definitely not taught about this, allegedly the worst thing since the medieval plagues, at school or university.
My children, however, had it in their curricula.
People rarely die FROM influenza. Most people, especially those in 1918, died from lack of antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial pneumonias. We saw the same occur in 2020 as doctors failed to treat patients. People are not meant to be on ventilators for weeks at a time and this practice leads to secondary infections. I had one case that tested positive for flu, went to the hospital where they tested her positive for SARS so they put her on a vent. She subsequently got several bacterial infections and a fungal infection but she survived all that and suddenly died on the day she was to be discharged. These types of things should never happen with modern day advanced medicine.
I don't think there is evidence anyone dies from influenza.
What there IS evidence of is the U.S. government using testing etc to blame more P&I deaths on influenza, especially since 2015
Finally catching up with this one. Extremely interesting. Rare to read anyone who is dispassionate and factual nowadays. What can I say? Yay, Sunetra Gupta! Thanks for assembling this. I'll have to also watch the video when I have some time. Given some of the people in attendance, that must have struck like a bomb!