Posted on 10/20/2014 12:08:06 PM PDT by Whenifhow
While federal and state agencies institute new policies and procedures in light of Ebola making an appearance in the U.S., the White House has called for a suspension on research involving other viruses with deadly potential for the time being.
On Friday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced its moratorium on funding new gain-of-function research, saying it plans to further assess its risks and benefits. It also called for a voluntary stop on current research in this field.
Because the deliberative process launching today will aim to address key questions about the risks and benefits of gain-of-function studies, during the period of deliberation, the U.S. Government will institute a pause on funding for any new studies that include certain gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, SARS and MERS viruses, the announcementstated. Specifically, the funding pause will apply to gain-of-function research projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.
The White House isnt forcing any current research to stop, but encouraged those conducting work that falls under this category to voluntarily pause their research while risks and benefits are being reassessed.
The funding pause will not apply to the characterization or testing of naturally occurring influenza, MERS and SARS viruses unless there is a reasonable expectation that these tests would increase transmissibility or pathogenicity, the statement added.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, explained in his own statementthat such studies to potentially make viruses more deadly or pathogenic is done to enable the assessment of the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents, and inform public health and preparedness efforts.
Collins acknowledged that there are biosafety and security risks that need to be understood better.
An example is the research being done on H5N1. A couple of years ago, a studyshowed how the bird flu could mutate to become easily transmissible to humans. At the time, there was controversy over whether the methods should even be published and it later was. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist with the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who lead this research, told Nature he will comply with the governments directives for gain-of-function studies to stop for the time being.
I hope that the issues can be discussed openly and constructively so that important research will not be delayed indefinitely, he said though, according to Nature.
The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the National Research Council of the National Academies will be integral in addressing these issues to develop recommendations for such research.
The broader life-sciences community will be encouraged to provide input through both the NRC and NSABB deliberative processes. The funding pause will end when the U.S. government has adopted a Federal policy regarding gain-of-function studies on the basis of the deliberative process described above, which is expected to occur 2015, White House said.
Isn't that what Obama did when he took money away from the unit tasked with fighting ebola and gave it to Solyndra?
Full Title:
Government Stops New Funding and Calls for Voluntary Pause on Research of Pandemic Potential of Pathogens
While federal and state agencies institute new policies and procedures in light of Ebola making an appearance in the U.S., the White House has called for a suspension on research involving other viruses with deadly potential for the time being.
Disease is not a single-organism problem. Simply looking at those pathogens that grow in western Africa, you could come up with any number of ways to die. Ebola is getting all the press these days, but you wouldn’t want to die from the other diseases that are just as nasty, either.
Epidemiologists were warning about this much earlier in 2014.
I posted a link here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3190930/posts?page=13#13
I really do wonder if this had something to do with the outbreak in West Africa.
Could be, but the dems were asking for more funding as usual.
This isn’t about funding, or even politics. It’s about hubris.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Truthfully “gain of function” research is problematic from the start. While it is possible to make a pathogen more lethal by guiding its development that way, that isn’t how nature works. It is useful primarily to create biological weapons.
Nature uses a far longer path, in which pathogens compete against their own kind, then compete with other microorganisms, then have to contend with the immune systems of its hosts.
Importantly, the end goal is not harm, but reproduction. If the pathogen is too harmful, it creates a situation where it has to become less harmful, or die out. This is when a disease is new, it is most lethal. Over time it gets less harmful until it is just “background” in the bodies of its host.
Some viruses have been around so long that human DNA has integrated most of the viral genetic pattern as part of our own.
So what?
Just as long as they don’t stop funding such ground-breaking studies like what kind of deodorant bi-polar lesbians use and how many expensive anti-virals can we use on gay men so they can continue to have anal intercourse w/o the trouble of wearing condoms we’ll be OK...
From your link:
“The government hospital at Kenema was apparently used as part of a research project into Lassa fever sponsored by the US. It has been reported that both USAMRIID and infectious disease specialists at Tulane University were involved.
It would be nice to know what exactly they were doing, and if their research involved any gain-of-function experiments which could have affected the Ebola virus. As I understand it, some virologists believe that by experimenting with mutations that make a virus more virulent, they can produce more effective vaccines.
This approach apparently is quite controversial within the public health community, as many believe that it has the ability to generate a potential pandemic pathogen.”
Looking at the ramp up to this more virulent outbreak, the timing of these researchers “poking the bear” sure is suspiciously coincidental.
Just to be clear— that was my speculation.
The Guardian article that I linked has specifics on gain of function virus experiments.
So, reading between the lines here; are they intimating that the current Ebola outbreak might be the result of someone’s bio-research that went awry?
Or worse. Did some bio-researcher intend for the current Ebola outbreak to happen?
Agree, and with this latest suspension in funding, it makes your speculation that much more plausible.
Maybe Poppa-Doc OBola could cut back $40 million on vacations, or even his golf "greens fees".
Dems always asking for more money for programs , and now their Ebola czar, Mr Solylindra, is in charge of funds distribution.
Why don't I get a warm, fuzzy feeling about this request for cut backs ..
could it be that no one in this administration ever tells the truth ? Naw ,.. that can't be it /s
The white Hut priorities are, and have been mis-directed, generally at the expense of American citizens.
Possibly this Ebola is more virilent due to academic tampering under "gain of function " ?
This might also explain why CDC protocols are insufficient for the current Ebola strain mutation.
However spending the taxpayers money on such vital research like why Chinese prostitutes don’t wash their genitals and why many lesbians are overweight will continue unabated.
This sounds a little bit like, “I’m not sayin’ the horses are out, but would somebody please shut the barn door?”
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