Posted on 02/05/2021 7:55:56 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
That's very funny. The fact that I am a scientist and don't support conspiracy theories does not make me a ChiCom apologist. And I have never worked in Big Pharma--in fact, one reason I joined the military was so that I could have a career that does not involve pharmaceutical companies. (That's because a scientist working on a project that a pharmaceutical company axes becomes suddenly unemployed.)
“Analysis Proves COVID Is Lab-Made Virus” - the latest article among many the ChiCom Virus is not natural.
Actually, what I can find using that exact search phrase does not provide any evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is anything other than a naturally emerged virus. The evidence would be contained in the virus sequence itself--and it's just not there. (Just like there are tell-tales that an image is photoshopped, an engineered virus would also contain tell-tales that would be apparent to any expert who examines the sequence.)
Dr. Steven Quay with 360+ published medical studies among the top one percent of scientists worldwide holding 90 US patents agrees with me and not you stating:
First, the evidence of 360+ published medical studies is a bit lacking. On PubMed, the database where medical journal articles are catalogued, I can find 70 studies with "Quay S" or "Quay SC" listed as an author. I cannot confirm whether they are by this Steven Quay.
Dr. Quay is the founder of "Atossa Genetics, Inc." It appears that this company focuses on breast cancer diagnostics, and has lately tried to capitalize on Covid-19 (no, there is nothing wrong with companies jumping in where they see a new market opportunity).
On his personal website, "drquay.com," he links to Google scholar. Most of the articles there are about development of contrast agents for medical imaging, or drug delivery compounds. A lot of those references are patents, which are not considered medical studies. What I don't see there are published articles on virology, microbial genetics, etc., that would lead me to think he would have any special expertise in the analysis of a virus, especially with regards to its origin.
I downloaded his article, "Bayesian Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Origin." It does not offer any definitive proof of anything other than a natural origin of the virus. It is conjecture built on speculation, and is not peer-reviewed. It would not take 193 pages to present proof of a laboratory origin to the virus; the reason this analysis is so long is that he spends a lot of time explaining why his readers should accept his premise that circumstantial evidence is proof.
I can only speculate as to why he wrote this article. I do find that the stock price of his company has recently risen slightly. Maybe this article was an attempt to bring attention (and therefore investors) to his company.
I will finish up this post with a link to an article published in Forbes and written by a former commander of USAMRIID (where I once worked): Did Covid-19 Come From A Lab? Was It Deliberate Bioterrorism? A Biodefense Expert Explores The Clues. In this article, he discusses some of the indicators we would see in a disease that was engineered in a lab and released--and the fact that these don't apply to SARS-CoV-2.
No.
They collected samples of coronaviruses from a population of bats. They found many strains of coronavirus within this population. They found that the coronaviruses were all very similar, except for one protein, the S protein, which differed significantly among the virus strains.
They also had a couple of strains of coronavirus in the lab that are known to infect humans.
What they did was to take the lab viruses and replace their S proteins with the S proteins from the wild viruses to see whether the viruses with the wild type S proteins could infect human cells. Some of them could. This means that the wild viruses that naturally contain those S proteins could potentially infect humans.
More than an S protein is needed for a virus to be able to infect humans. They did not describe further research into whether the viruses from the bat population can infect humans.
This is not gain of function research. This kind of research, in which a protein from one organism is genetically inserted into another organism in order to study its function is very common. I did that kind of research (with mammalian proteins) in order to get my PhD.
A true gain of function experiment would result in an organism that has abilities that it would never naturally acquire. For instance, those neon colored zebra fish you can see for sale at pet stores are all gain of function organisms, since zebra fish do not naturally fluoresce in neon colors. (They were created for research, but have commercial value.)
2. Why was/is this ‘research’ illegal in the United States ?
True gain of function to make a pathogen more virulent, or to make a non-human pathogen able to infect humans, etc., is illegal for the reason that we do not need or want another virulent pathogen. After spending centuries trying to combat pathogens, why would we want to create new ones? Also, any research to develop biowarfare agents is strictly forbidden.
Oh it doesn’t matter. He’s the chosen Won.
I’m not buying a single piece of your “scientific” generalities.
You haven’t disproven anything I wrote from earlier but your brandishing an ego without anything to counter the facts to date.
This is not news about the Wuhan Level IV Lab and the ChiCom Virus escaping.
Frankly, I don’t care what your public posture is about and ego is all I see.
That you claim to be some sort of scientist doesn’t prove anything and the wealth of evidence from intelligence to scientists is more than substantial.
I’ll stick with them versus your generic denials.
Have a nice weekend.
Q. “Did they manipulate the virus to get it to be able to infect humans ?”
A.
“What they did was to take the lab viruses and replace their S proteins with the S proteins from the wild viruses ...”
“ ...a protein from one organism is genetically inserted into another organism...”
We have to create it in order to study it for when it gets out.
“...biowarfare is strictly forbidden.”
Good thing it is STRICTLY forbidden, otherwise someone, (” cough,,,”) might do it.
We have to create it in order to study it for when it gets out.
You didn't actually understand what I described, did you?
No new pathogen was created. They avoided popping the viruses directly extracted from bats into human cells to see if they caused infection, because they don't know anything about the behavior of those viruses. One of those viruses could be extremely virulent in humans, and they did not want to risk culturing a highly virulent human pathogen. So, instead of playing around with wild viruses of unknown pathogenicity, they took one single component of those viruses, the S protein, and tested that single component in a controlled environment using viruses of known properties. By testing in this controlled manner, they determined that some of the wild viruses have the ability to attach to human cells. This does not mean that those wild viruses are human pathogens, because other proteins are required in addition to the S protein. But it means that those wild viruses could potentially be human pathogens, since their S proteins do attach to human cells and function like the native S protein of the lab viruses.
Again, no new pathogen was created.
Again, no new functions were added to any virus.
This kind of research is extremely common among scientists who want to explore the function of a single protein. Personally, I have taken a mouse protein and put it into yeast, bacteria, human cells, hamster cells, and mouse cells, in order to study its function in a controlled system.
Without doing this kind of research, we will never understand the factors that make a zoonotic virus capable of causing human disease which could cause pandemics. The more we understand, the better able we are to handle a pandemic when it emerges. The goal would be to understand microorganisms well enough to prevent outbreaks and pandemics, but we are a LONG way from there. As it is, the research that has been done on SARS, MERS, and the many wild coronaviruses gave us a huge head start when SARS-CoV-2 emerged. Would you rather scientists stop trying to understand why and how viruses cause pandemic potential human disease, so that the next time an unknown organisms pops up and becomes a pandemic, we have absolutely NO knowledge to guide our response?
You didn’t actually understand what I described, did you? :
The virus was CHANGED, in other words MODIFIED, in the Wuhan lab before it “got” out, WASN’T IT ?
Why is this ‘research’ ILLEGAL in the United States ?
I would be entirely happy funding a one-way scientific investigation to a far away planet where all you “We MUST Do This, because Science.” types can merrily concoct away as long as you don’t return.
“The more we understand, the better we are able to handle a pandemic when it emerges.” i.e. “We have to create it in order to study it for when it gets out.”
I have thought that the virus was originally being developed in the US, engineered to kill elderly people, so as to ‘solve’ the Social Security ‘crisis’.
But when the Trump Administration came in to power, it was hastily moved to China for completion, because China has a similar predicament in 25 years of so, they will become a nation of old people because of their ‘One Child Policy’ for the last 50 years. They will not be able to afford the healthcare or support of these billion old people.
But, due to their innate corruption and incompetence, they virus was inadvertently let loose upon the world before it was completed.
Just MY thoughts......................
Changing a virus is not the same as giving it a new function. What they did by testing S proteins from wild viruses in their lab virus was to see if wild S proteins enabled the virus to attach to human cells--a property the lab virus already had.
Also, that lab virus is not the cause of the pandemic. The genetic sequence of the lab virus is already known and published in databases. The first step anyone does when analyzing a new genetic sequence (e.g. the SARS-CoV-2 sequence) is to compare it to all known sequences. Thus, if SARS-CoV-2 were actually the lab virus, that would have been determined immediately, more than a year ago.
If you have an experimental car, and you start changing tires on it to test how well different tires work, are you giving the car new functions that it never previously had? That is analogous to the virus research described in that paper. They were testing different versions of the same protein to see if they function as well as the protein that the lab virus already had.
Why is this ‘research’ ILLEGAL in the United States ?
Gain of function research is illegal. Research to compare the function of variants of the same protein derived from different species is not illegal.
“Changing a virus is not the same as giving it a new function. “
After they CHANGED (MODIFIED) it IN THE LAB it could do/did things that it could not do before.
If you have an experimental car, and you start changing tires on it to test how well different tires work, you are CHANGING/MODIFYING the performance of the car, and arguably altering the function (say from a street model to a racing model).
“Gain of function research is illegal. Research to compare the function of variants of the same protein derived from different species in not illegal.”
So why did HerrDoktor FuaxiGates have to offshore it?
I suspect that you’re not so exDem as you present given your slippery semantic
justifications and misdirection (it was not from lab).
I take it you’ve been able to read/respond to a FR post today by Starman417 titled: ‘COVID 19 is the risk Fauci said was “worth taking”’; written by DrJohn at Flopping Aces
The laboratory virus could infect human cells using its S protein.
They exchanged its S protein with the S proteins from wild viruses.
Some of those wild S proteins also allowed the lab virus to infect human cells.
This means that the wild viruses, with those wild S proteins, can potentially infect human cells.
No gain of function. None. Only determining which of the wild viruses might be capable of causing human disease, without actually doing experiments with the wild viruses.
If you have an experimental car, and you start changing tires on it to test how well different tires work, you are CHANGING/MODIFYING the performance of the car, and arguably altering the function (say from a street model to a racing model).
You are not changing the function of the car. You change the way it interacts with the road by changing the tires, with no other modifications. Will it go down the road if you put giant tractor tires on it? Tiny go kart tires? Tires made with solid rubber? Tires made of balloon rubber? White tires? Goodrich tires? Michelin tires? Mud and snow tires? Overinflated tires? Underinflated tires?
Once you test the car with all of those different tires, you have a much better idea of how different tires affect the ability of the car to go down the road. In no way have you given the car the ability to do something cars cannot typically do. Your car couldn't fly before the tire experiment, and it still can't fly.
I suspect that you’re not so exDem as you present given your slippery semantic justifications and misdirection (it was not from lab).
Ah, the personal insults. In other words, you can't find fault with my explanation that the Wuhan researchers did not conduct gain of function research, but you really want to believe that they did.
Guess what. Nature produces countless viruses all the time. I suppose you would rather we do no research to understand those viruses, so that the next time a dangerous one emerges, we'll be as helpless to do anything as the Europeans were when confronted with the black death in the middle ages. Personally, I want the research to be done so that we have as much knowledge as possible and are ready for the next dangerous disease outbreak.
“In other words, you can’t find fault with my explanation that the Wuhan researchers did not conduct gain of function research, ...”
I absolutely have found fault with your explanation in that you are splitting legalistic semantic hairs to say what is clearly not true. IN THE WUHAN LAB researchers “exchanged” (THEY CHANGED IT) which allowed it to do something it could not already do.
“You are not changing the function of the car.”
Again semantic hair splitting. If you modify a car from a street model to a racing model you are changing it’s function.
WHY did HerrDoktor Faux have to offshore this ‘not gain of function’ research ???
In the English language, increased function =, is, equals, ‘gain of function’.
He “pushed AIDS as a heterosex disease”? It was about to wipe out a whole generation in that means of transmission in Africa before George Bush’s billions which no one ever seems to remember.
You are absolutely correct,
the change from a ‘street’ car to a ‘racing’ car is not a change of function or a new function; it is a GAIN of function.
I know, that’s a part of the public record.
Right. As if putting "racing" tires instead of "street" tires on my car gives it new functions that it never had. It never was able to fly before, and now... oh, it still can't fly.
A gain of function is when you give a virus a function that it does not naturally have. No one did that. All they did was to test wild forms of the protein that allows viruses to attach to cells, to see if the wild proteins would allow the lab virus to attach to human cells, a property it already had. And since some of the wild proteins enabled the virus to attach to human cells, the researchers deduced that some of the wild viruses can attach to human cells. And that, therefore, there is a real danger that someone could catch a new coronavirus disease from those bats.
Once again, in English, GAIN equals INCREASE equals GAIN;
NOT new.
Even HerrDoktor FauxiGates understood this, which is why he had to sent it to CommunistChina where international rules be damned. (or was it because it was cheaper, or better scientists, or “peaceful” PLA scientific study or ... )
mebbe since they understand English the way you apparently do that is a good place for your “argument”. You might even be able to cash in on that CCP, err, oops, umm, WHO (let’s Seriously, HONESTLY get to the bottom of this) investigation fund.
I am using scientific terminology here and am not engaging in your game of trying to twist English words to mean something other than the scientific terminology I am describing.
Once again, gain of function is research designed to impart a brand new function to an organism that it never had.
It is *not* research that changes the kinetics of a reaction, such as the kinetics of receptor/substrate binding. That is, either a virus attaches to a cell surface receptor, or it doesn’t.
Likewise, either a tire acts to transfer force from the wheel and axle to the road, or it doesn’t.
Look, I get what you’re trying to do here. The facts don’t support your conspiracy theory, and you really like your conspiracy theory. So you’re trying to spin my words to support your insupportable conspiracy.
If you want to get riled up about a conspiracy, how about focusing your anger on the Chicom government that decided to try to hide the outbreak? That persecuted the doctors who noticed that there was a problem instead of taking decisive actions early on to contain the outbreak? Whose purposeful cover-up allowed the outbreak to spread to other countries and become a pandemic? Focus your anger appropriately on the real Chicom conspiracy.
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