Showing posts with label Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Show all posts

Wednesday 5 May 2021

The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?

‘If the case that SARS2 originated in a lab is so substantial, why isn’t this more widely known? As may now be obvious, there are many people who have reason not to talk about it. The list is led, of course, by the Chinese authorities. But virologists in the United States and Europe have no great interest in igniting a public debate about the gain-of-function experiments that their community has been pursuing for years.

‘Nor have other scientists stepped forward to raise the issue. Government research funds are distributed on the advice of committees of scientific experts drawn from universities. Anyone who rocks the boat by raising awkward political issues runs the risk that their grant will not be renewed and their research career will be ended. Maybe good behavior is rewarded with the many perks that slosh around the distribution system. And if you thought that Andersen and Daszak might have blotted their reputation for scientific objectivity after their partisan attacks on the lab escape scenario, look at the second and third names on this list of recipients of an $82 million grant announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in August 2020.

‘The US government shares a strange common interest with the Chinese authorities: Neither is keen on drawing attention to the fact that Shi’s coronavirus work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health. One can imagine the behind-the-scenes conversation in which the Chinese government says, “If this research was so dangerous, why did you fund it, and on our territory too?” To which the US side might reply, “Looks like it was you who let it escape. But do we really need to have this discussion in public?”

‘Fauci is a longtime public servant who served with integrity under President Trump and has resumed leadership in the Biden Administration in handling the COVID-19 epidemic. Congress, no doubt understandably, may have little appetite for hauling him over the coals for the apparent lapse of judgment in funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

‘To these serried walls of silence must be added that of the mainstream media. To my knowledge, no major newspaper or television network has yet provided readers with an in-depth news story of the lab escape scenario, such as the one you have just read, although some have run brief editorials or opinion pieces. One might think that any plausible origin of a virus that has killed three million people would merit a serious investigation. Or that the wisdom of continuing gain-of-function research, regardless of the virus’s origin, would be worth some probing. Or that the funding of gain-of-function research by the NIH and NIAID during a moratorium on such research would bear investigation. What accounts for the media’s apparent lack of curiosity?

‘The virologists’ omertà is one reason. Science reporters, unlike political reporters, have little innate skepticism of their sources’ motives; most see their role largely as purveying the wisdom of scientists to the unwashed masses. So when their sources won’t help, these journalists are at a loss.

‘Another reason, perhaps, is the migration of much of the media toward the left of the political spectrum. Because President Trump said the virus had escaped from a Wuhan lab, editors gave the idea little credence. They joined the virologists in regarding lab escape as a dismissible conspiracy theory. During the Trump administration, they had no trouble in rejecting the position of the intelligence services that lab escape could not be ruled out. But when Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, said the same thing, she too was largely ignored. This is not to argue that editors should have endorsed the lab escape scenario, merely that they should have explored the possibility fully and fairly.

‘People round the world who have been pretty much confined to their homes for the last year might like a better answer than their media are giving them. Perhaps one will emerge in time. After all, the more months pass without the natural emergence theory gaining a shred of supporting evidence, the less plausible it may seem. Perhaps the international community of virologists will come to be seen as a false and self-interested guide. The common sense perception that a pandemic breaking out in Wuhan might have something to do with a Wuhan lab cooking up novel viruses of maximal danger in unsafe conditions could eventually displace the ideological insistence that whatever Trump said can’t be true.

‘And then let the reckoning begin.’

Read here (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 5, 2021)

Thursday 25 March 2021

Did former CDC director offer a ham sandwich theory of Covid-19? Maybe. Maybe not.

‘As Robert Redfield awoke Friday morning, he found himself transformed in his TV into a gigantic target of viral scorn.

‘The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lifted many expert eyebrows from their microscopes, telling CNN’s Sanjay Gupta he believes the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 originated in a lab in China. In clips CNN aired from an upcoming special this Sunday (which Gupta dubbed an “autopsy” of the pandemic), Redfield dismissed the possibility that the virus could have evolved sufficiently on its own to have “somehow jumped” quickly from bats to humans. “I just don’t think this makes biological sense,” Redfield told Gupta, arguing it’s easier to conclude that the virus gained greater efficiency at infecting humans inside a lab.

Read here (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Mar 26, 2021)

Monday 8 March 2021

Can vaccinated people transmit COVID-19? The answer will be key to ending the pandemic

‘There’s been positive news about how effective the vaccines might be in preventing transmission—but as several experts note, some studies that have been made public so far are inconclusive. Until we have a better answer on transmission, social distancing, hand hygiene, testing, and mask wearing will remain important in the fight to limit and eventually end the pandemic.

‘A recent, unpublished Israeli study showed a nearly 90 percent reduction in infections among the vaccinated population. Wired magazine writer Megan Molteni noted that the media framing of the study may have been overly optimistic. While the headlines about this unpublished study were wildly enthusiastic, the reality is more nuanced.  “Israel finds BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine reduced virus transmission,” read one headline. But Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, told Wired he was skeptical about drawing any conclusions about the extent to which the Pfizer vaccine cut transmission rates. He told the magazine that to accurately study asymptomatic transmission, both vaccinated and unvaccinated people should be regularly tested. “The testing rates were such a hodgepodge, I don’t know you can make any conclusions about how much the vaccine cut transmission in Israel, let alone assigning a number as concrete as 89.4 percent,” he told Molteni.’

Read here (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 9, 2021)

Sunday 22 November 2020

Is emergency use authorisation the best way to get a Covid-19 vaccine to the public?

‘While an emergency use authorization may be the speediest way for public health officials to begin a vaccination campaign, it may not end up shaving that much time off of a more traditional route to government approval. Using a different expedited process, the FDA cleared a novel Ebola vaccine in just six months. Polls have shown that many Americans are wary of getting a COVID-19 vaccine. Other paths toward granting official approval to COVID-19 vaccines may get vaccines to the public almost as quickly as emergency use authorization can—while providing the public with greater reassurance that those vaccines are safe and effective.’

Read here (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov 23, 2020)

Worst ever Covid variant? Omicron

John Campbell shares his findings on Omicron.  View here (Youtube, Nov 27, 2021)