On vaccines

[OftenWrong]

1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:

Not when the "departments" all have different takes on things.

Right. Because China does it better.

So why don't you move there then.

[ExFlyer]

1 hour ago, OftenWrong said:

Right. Because China does it better.

So why don't you move there then.

China???  It is the Americans that are making claims.

As I said before, China will not say anything, they will not incriminate themselves.

[myata]

Some of the facts up there in the links and they are established facts, by the House commission smell quite strongly and not really of honest and transparent science. Commissioned a study with a predetermined outcome then cited it as "evidence"... false "pangolin" trail.. but OK. This is really interesting and intriguing mystery, sure. Let's see, there are three main lines of possibilities:

- purely natural origin. Challenges: previous coronaviruses MERS, SARS that were actually traced to animals, all had quite high transmission barrier so individual quarantines worked (even then a great health care system managed to achieve one of the highest mortality rates internationally). If the emerging virus had some time to develop in the human population, why hasn't it been detected before it reached very high rate of transmission? A very lucky mutation and undetected development both have strong tension with plausibility.

To sum, another coronavirus with stark differences to the known ones: very high transmission, no known animal host. Two different strains squares already small likelihood. Still, the preferred theory?

- field sample leak: may explain the emergence of the epidemics in Wuhan, but not the origin of the infection; if sample was collected and not altered, the question of origin still open. Can somewhat explain two strains: while one was developing naturally, the other leaked from an earlier sample.

- modified virus leak: one of the exchanges stated what virus genome "gain of function" work authorized by NIH grant was done with different genetics, but: how would it know and would it know? Supposed to be done and what was happening in the reality isn't necessarily the same. And we may never know with certainty any time soon.

Anyways, the modified virus theory could explain the origin (perhaps as in one communication, "through culture selection" just a bad day of a lab worker), transmission, and depending on the work culture that we may not know any time etc, multiple strains. If the attention to safety measures was.. low then a squared probability of a leak could still be higher than of two independent host jumps. There's another possibility for two strains, that after the initial contamination in the market the strains were developing independently for some time in two different areas, e.g. "market" and "institute". A temporal analysis of the very early cases could shed the light, but doesn't look like anybody bothered in the rush to discredit "the conspiracy".

As it stands now, the "preferred" theory would imply a simultaneous combination of all of: a) two independent transmission events b) from unknown animal host c) with starkly different transmission characteristics from known zoonotic events plus d) within a very short window of time. Nobody noticed anything unusual here, while all cheered for the preferred theory? Or deep, serious problem(s) with independence, quality and transparency in some branches of modern science? 

Edited March 7, 2023 by myata

[Goddess]

The reason GoF on viruses has been allowed at all is because some people think it will help in having a vaccine ready to go, when a pandemic hits.

There are others who think this kind of research carries more risks than benefits and should not be allowed because accidental ab leaks happen way more often than most of know.

Is Gain-of-Function Research a ‘Risk Worth Taking’? Or ‘Insanity’? (thefp.com)

How likely is a lab leak?

A 1995 epidemic of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus is believed to have come from a lab. A 2003 case of SARS was traced back to a Singapore lab. Multiple cases of SARS in 2004 in Beijing likely originated in a lab, a World Health Organization report found. A 2007 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was believed to come from a UK lab. In 2002, cases of West Nile Virus were acquired in labs. In 1979 more than sixty people, who lived downwind from a Soviet military facility, died from anthrax that escaped from the building. In 2019, a lab leak of aerosolized Brucella in China infected more than 10,000 people. 

“The record of laboratory accidents and accidental infections in the most secure and highly scrutinized government labs shows that such accidents are inevitable,” Lipsitch wrote in one of his many papers on the topic.

You’re scaring me!

Those instances are just a sample. The American Biological Safety Association maintains a database of hundreds of case studies of laboratory-acquired infections, in case you really want to panic. To be clear, this is not a list of leaks specifically related to GOFROC, but the point is that lab accidents happen with surprising regularity. 

Can any of this research be done safely?

Moreover, Bryce Nickels told me there is a temptation for scientists to work at lower safety levels, because fewer restrictions make research easier to conduct. Some of the coronavirus research conducted in Wuhan was done at BSL-2—a level that a number of experts believe is far too low.

[myata]

1. Serious efforts, if not massive, that needs to be evaluated somehow, to divert the direction of research and attention of the research community and general public to an unverified and weak in my personal opinion, based on the arguments presented, hypothesis appears to be confirmed in the recent releases of information.

2. An attempt of a coverup by Chinese authorities in the early days of the pandemic, a fact.

3. Some viral genome research in China was funded by NIH and that great humanitarian corporation (confirmed) haven't seen indications of specifically a) Corona-type virus and b) Gain of Function research.

With pp. 1 - 3 together (if / when confirmed), plus plausibility of lab mishaps and accidents, the general appearance of the matter can become quite ugly indeed.

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by myata

[myata]

So given these perspectives, I think we absolutely need to get to the bottom of this mystery. Dr. Fauci's commissioned evidence can be a great scientific exploration in theory but the public has the right to know the true, factual answer to a simple question: what has actually happened? could it be that we just lived through the first, ever, instance of a human-engineered pandemic?

No theories, finger-pointing accusations, only a clear, objective answer supported by solid, confident, factual evidence.

Edited March 8, 2023 by myata

[myata]

I'll leave this here for the record. In a normal democracy, questions would have been raised and answers obtained. Medical ethics standards would have been read and enforced. Don't count on that, here. In some decades, a useless inquiry out of your pocket, maybe. You paid for it.

NACI Guidance, 3.03.2023

"Very, very safe profile" (some doctor, CBC, 15.07.2022)

Finland does not recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy under 18 years

Sweden: "Vaccination against covid-19 is recommended only for special groups of children".

P.S. no, it's not going to get better. Why would it? How?

Edited March 11, 2023 by myata