Neuron
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/
Above is a good summary. Here’s my personal take if interested:
Short story is an nih grant was awarded to a US based non profit research coalition, and the grant involved collaboration among multiple institutes. NIH funds are generally given to US based researchers primarily, but it’s also common if you have a good reason for the project to have international collaboraters on the grant as well. In this case they were collaborating with the Wuhan virology institute, who are obviously going to be very helpful in any collaboration to study corona viruses, since multiple novel corona viruses have been found or made the jump to humans in China before. So yes, a small portion of a much larger grant was sent to Wuhan, who helped provided corona virus samples for US researchers to study.
As an aside it’s also mentioned there was another corona virus 96% similar in genome to covid was previously isolated by that lab from bats. But saying that’s proof they artifically made covid from that virus is pretty ridiculous, altering genomes to that extent and still having a functioning virus is basically science fiction, would take an absurd amount of technology and resources that just do not exist currently. For comparison, humans and chimpanzees have 98.8% similar genomes, so 96% is really not that close. To get from 96% similar to covid even in the much smaller viral genome would still involve at least 1200 changes to different nucleotides across every gene and structural non coding regions and still have all the proteins it encodes not only somehow still work and be expressed correctly but do this even better than before. We’re struggling along with just slight changes to one gene at a time in genetic engineering currently.
Another point that keeps coming up, is research that was done in North Carolina (not China) that some people argue as gain of function research but by other definitions is not (if nih considered it gain of function research it would not have been funded due to a funding pause with that). This keeps being conflated with US funding gain of function research in China, which is not the case.
All in all, the NIH was absolutely interested in funding research into corona viruses because of the fear that something like this would happen after multiple novel corona viruses that started pandemics. I’m still very skeptical of the lab leak theory personally, when we already have multiple instances of novel corona viruses causing epidemics lately, like obviously it could happen again and still can. I suppose it’s possible this virus was found somewhere else, then brought to the lab, then leaked from the lab, but then it would have already been circulating and could have caused a pandemic anyways even without a lab leak. I think people just want to have an easy answer or someone to clearly blame, when the whole world is actually to blame for some extent with out terrible responses to potential pandemics and actually chronic underfunding to this problem that should be a high priority for the whole world. And probably will be happening with only greater frequency as we encroach further on habitats and become more and more densely populated and interconnected. Saying oh we just need to lock down viral labs even more (which hey I’m not even saying is a bad idea, keep that stuff locked up tight), is a much simpler problem to tackle so people would rather go after that than the true larger issues we’re facing with our poor abilities to surveil for and respond to potential pandemics.
Hope some found that interesting at least, sorry for the novel.
Thanks for posting that! The grant was interesting. Specific aims page is down on page 107 to save others who want to read it some time.
One of their main hypotheses they wanted to test was that covid viruses they found in animals in the Wuhan market would have greater fitness than those found in wild animals due to spillover between multiple species and other differences in the environment, which in light of current events seems a reasonable hypothesis.
IANAL, but can read, and I think many people here are totally missing what this ruling actually says and doesn’t say. It says the standard that Colorado used in this man’s trial was too loose and would theoretically allow for conviction of protected speech. They did not say the speech in this case was definitely protected. They did not say it wasn’t threatening. It’s quite possible that if Colorado now chooses to retry the case that a jury would still decide he was guilty under the stricter standard too, but they have to retry him with a trial and jury working under that stricter standard, so that the overly loose law can’t be used to theoretically restrict protected speech under the first ammendment in the future. The supreme court just corrected the standard Colorado was using and kicked it back to them, they did not exonerate the guy unless Colorado chooses not to try him again. The headlines are all being written to be extra inflammatory and misleading.
Just to take it to an extreme and make it extra simple, let’s say we pass a law that says, you are guilty of murder if you are anywhere vaguely near where someone was killed. A guy is caught on video clearly murdering someone. They take him to court and tell the jury in their official jury instructions, if this man was vaguely near where the murder occurred he is guilty. They of course find him guilty. Supreme court steps in and says, wait, sure he’s probably guilty, but the standard you had the jury judging him by was ridiculous, that can’t be the standard for a murder conviction, and would probably result on infringement of multiple constitutional rights if you keep using that standard. Do a new trial with a better standard.
They didn’t say that at all. They said the standard Colorado is using to convict people is too loose, and could theoretically be used to restrict constitutionally protected speech. They were not ruling on merits on if this speech is protected or not. It probably isn’t. Now the case has been sent back to Colorado, not closed. Colorado can retry him, and it’s quite likely they would win even under the stricter standard. But they can’t try him under a loose standard that could allow for protected speech to be criminalized. This has very little to do with the actual case, and a lot to do with the law that Colorado was using. Most articles written about this are lacking in information and misleading at best, you could find better information on the ruling on scotusblog or the ruling itself.
No this isn’t really it in this case. There was a law passed by congress called the heroes act. It explicitly gave the power to the executive branch to “waive or modify” loans in response to national emergencies. Corona virus pandemic was legally declared a national emergency, so Biden invoked the law to waive and modify the loans. The supreme court is really out here in left field, bending over backwards as to why the executive branch can’t use the heroes law in this way. John Roberts wrote some ridiculous stuff about how “waive” and “cancel” aren’t the same or something. The conservatives claim to be “textualists” but this is a false front, they just claim whatever partisan republican priority at the time they feel like.
It was authorized by congress, specifically the heroes act. It gave the executive branch the power to “waive or modify loans” in reponse to a national emergency, and cornavirus was declared one. The law passed by congress explicitly gives Biden the power to do this. It’d a terrible ruling by the court. Not to mention the suing parties have no standing to begin with, and the suit never should have even gone forward on that basis in the first place.
This is a terrible precedent. Some federal action might affect a company which might pay the state taxes at some point so the states get to sue now? That could apply to nearly anything the federal government does! This is a terrible ruling for so many reasons. Naked partisan hackery by the conservative judges. The court needs reform badly.
This is interesting. Before our recent glut of new migraine medicines we were off label using candesartan for migraine pretty frequently. And of course the classic propranolol or even metoprolol.