This is all tricky to follow. The big problem is that you don’t know whether any given State Dept person is investigating this stuff in good faith or is a Trumpist ghoul trying to cook something up to please the boss. I think the sourcing for this quote is Thomas DiNanno’s team, which is potentially a Trump ghoul squad, although there’s nothing really conclusive.
It includes a CV from Shi, the lead scientist at WIV, where she mentions 1.2 million in funding from NIH for her GoF studies on bat coronavirus.
Explain to me again how Fauci wasn’t lying to Rand Paul?
I think the defense is either that the NIH funded EcoHealth Alliance and then EcoHealth Alliance funded WIV, or possibly that the NIH was funding bat virus research at WIV that is distinct from gain of function research. The first is obviously super-weak, the second
Ok I’m kinda pissed. You made me read some of that VF article, and your description here falls into “flat out lie” territory.
What was actually said:
Shi Zhengli herself listed U.S. government grant support of more than $1.2 million on her curriculum vitae: $665,000 from the NIH between 2014 and 2019; and $559,500 over the same period from USAID. At least some of those funds were routed through EcoHealth Alliance.
It says nothing about gain of function in that part of the article. Come on.
I read scientific articles (like real scientific journals) and I’m even published (I’m pumped about my new pubmed indexed citation). It’s the type of article I have little patience for.
I’m struggling with how you read that then decided to defend Rand fucking Paul. It doesn’t say what you said it did, and it wasn’t even close. Rand Paul is purposely being a moron for political purposes, you should remain extremely skeptical of anything he says, not glom onto anything that might support what he said a little bit.
Jesus Christ the article quotes multiple senior US officials who all agree we funded GoF research at the lab and were actively discouraging public statements on the possibility of a lab leak because of the unwanted attention it might bring to that funding. You’re right, the CV doesn’t specifically mention GoF, but the article describes the work the lab was doing and the published research they did during the timeframe when they received these grants, which involves GoF research.
It’s entirely reasonable to ask you to actually cite what you’re referring to. You tried once already, it ended up not being true.
This is being done for a reason btw. I want you to specifically support your assertion and pin you down on a falsifiable position. I don’t care about the VF article or the article written by some piece of shit racist, they aren’t serious scientific pieces and aren’t worth paying attention to.
However, if you’re going to use those articles to support your argument, I want you to pick out what you think is important. Otherwise I’m left guessing at what you mean or are referring to. That’s fine when it’s a page or two, but when it it comes out to ~40-45 pages in print preview that’s not a fair ask.
Guy whose contributions of outside source materials and reputable links consists entirely of a single twitter thread is demanding a fully cited and auditable academic trail for any and all comments.
That, of course, is a complete lie. I’m asking for the specific part of the 40+ page article that he thinks supports his position after he chose one that didn’t support his assertion.
“ Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo . Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.”
Describing creating chimeric viruses in a lab with a spike protein that makes it more infectious to humans.
In addition to offering preparation against future emerging viruses, this approach must be considered in the context of the US government–mandated pause on gain-of-function (GOF) studies22. On the basis of previous models of emergence (Fig. 4a,b), the creation of chimeric viruses such as SHC014-MA15 was not expected to increase pathogenicity. Although SHC014-MA15 is attenuated relative to its parental mouse-adapted SARS-CoV, similar studies examining the pathogenicity of CoVs with the wild-type Urbani spike within the MA15 backbone showed no weight loss in mice and reduced viral replication23. Thus, relative to the Urbani spike–MA15 CoV, SHC014-MA15 shows a gain in pathogenesis (Fig. 1). On the basis of these findings, scientific review panels may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating strains too risky to pursue, as increased pathogenicity in mammalian models cannot be excluded.
Acknowledging that what they did was GoF research and may conflict with the then-existing US ban on that type of research.
Research in this manuscript was supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease and the National Institute of Aging of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) under awards U19AI109761 (R.S.B.), U19AI107810 (R.S.B.), AI085524 (W.A.M.), F32AI102561 (V.D.M.) and K99AG049092 (V.D.M.),
So yes. It appears she is in on it too. I don’t know what to tell you, it’s a hard day when you learn for the first time that the government sometimes lies to you.
So you’re citing work done in the USA to call Fauci a liar for saying the NIH didn’t support gain of function work in Wuhan and the creation of a virus modifying with a mouse virus to say the NIH is lying when the “NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported “gain-of-function” research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans.”
Once again, you not understanding what you’re reading has led you to an erroneous position. If you have any other questions, let me know.
The work in the paper was done both in the US and at WIV.
And the mice being used had humanized lung tissue. The virus wasn’t “modified with a mouse virus” it was bat coronavirus modified with a spike protein from a different bat coronavirus that was known to be infectious to humans in the same way the sars-cov2 spike protein is. Like, you’ve been fucking gaslighting me about the things I’ve posted on this topic for weeks.
Edit: I might be wrong on the humanized mice for this experiment. Looks like regular mice and then just human tissue samples.
The lab work done in that paper that you’re concerned about was in North Carolina. You’re simply wrong about that. Feel free to show otherwise. You, again, don’t know what you’re talking about.
Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone.
I suppose my post was sloppily worded, but that’s not a human SARS virus either.
‘Humanized’ lung tissue is also, you know, not human lung tissue.
I think it’s fair to question if that type of research is a good idea, and frankly, it’s beyond what I’m willing to really definitively weigh in on. The only way you could use that paper to support Rand Paul’s statement or call the NIH a liar is through ignorance however.
I was wrong about what this says. Still mad at ikes tho
Viruses, cells, in vitro infection and plaque assays.
Wild-type SARS-CoV (Urbani), mouse-adapted SARS-CoV (MA15) and chimeric SARS-like CoVs were cultured on Vero E6 cells (obtained from United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases), grown in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) (Gibco, CA) and 5% fetal clone serum (FCS) (Hyclone, South Logan, UT) along with antibiotic/antimycotic (Gibco, Carlsbad, CA). DBT cells (Baric laboratory, source unknown) expressing ACE2 orthologs have been previously described for both human and civet; bat Ace2 sequence was based on that from Rhinolophus leschenaulti , and DBT cells expressing bat Ace2 were established as described previously8. Pseudotyping experiments were similar to those using an HIV-based pseudovirus, prepared as previously described10, and examined on HeLa cells (Wuhan Institute of Virology) that expressed ACE2 orthologs.
I suppose I could be wrong, but that sure appears to be the source of the HeLa cells, given that literally everything else in that part of the paper is a source. It’d be weird as hell to do all the lab work in NC and fly across the world with a virus in a level 3 facility.
I read this one, carefully. You still don’t understand it.
