I believe an accidental lab pandemic is much more likely than a deliberate pandemic in the near future. The solutions of biosecurity startups and nonprofits will be tested then but its unclear they would compete well against established vaccine & therapeutics manufacturers.
🔬Scientific progress depends on discovery, but also the freedom to question, debate, and examine evidence wherever it leads.
In the spirit of that ideal, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of our NIH Scientific Freedom Lecture Series, an exciting new forum aimed at advancing transparency, rigor, and open scientific inquiry.
Please join me March 20 at 2:30pm ET for our inaugural talk, titled “Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19” featuring a conversation with Matt Ridley, D.Phil.
Guests can attend in person at the Masur Auditorium in NIH Building 10 or online via the NIH videocast page. https://bit.ly/3PsHAu5
R to @gadboit: Ralph Baric was even asked this question point blank and couldn't come up with a single example.
R to @gadboit: That's why I find accusations of grifting hilarious because no one sane would want to be in this position for the money 🥳
R to @gadboit: I don't buy into the idea that nothing can be done, the problem is too hard, so please ask someone else.
R to @gadboit: Gain-of-function research that can cause pandemics has not benefited the public or national security. I'd like to hear one clear case where this has happened.
R to @gadboit: We have entered an era of fierce political animosity where no gov official can rely on keeping their job when the administration changes. The window of time one is given is determinate. It would be better to focus on using the time one is given instead of trying to extend it.
R to @gadboit: Speaking to Christian principles of stewardship, if one has been given the power and the responsibility to prevent the loss of millions of lives, you cannot make excuses like waiting for someone else to fix the problem for you.
R to @gadboit: We already saw the previous NIH director and NIAID director lose their positions over Covid-19 origins. The current NIH director should be the first to know if any research funded by NIH can cause pandemics and strive for early intervention.
This concerns millions of lives.
R to @gadboit: Let's say another lab pandemic arises from work funded by NIH post-2025. The NIH director cannot say, I left the checking to other people and washed my hands of it.
I took part in several simulations regarding exactly this long before SARS-CoV-2 emerged. Dr. Chan is correct: under the circumstances she describes here, a pathogen with a CFR of 10%, a high R0, and unmitigated transmission is perfectly capable of causing societal collapse.
R to @Ayjchan: Detection/surveillance is important.
Masks & PPE + a functional distribution system are important.
Clean air is important.
Medical countermeasures are important.
Even with all 4 pillars in place, a highly transmissible + moderately deadly virus can collapse governments.
R to @Ayjchan: A pathogen does not need to be designed, with or without AI, to be 100% deadly in order to pose civilization-ending risk.
R to @Ayjchan: I estimate 10-20% lethality with majority infected needing hospitalization is sufficient to end civilization as we know it.
This point doesn't seem to be appreciated by those who believe accidental lab leaks aren't capable of being catastrophic.
R to @Ayjchan: One point I appreciated in their discussion was that a virus doesn't need to be 100% lethal to upend society.
It just has to be lethal enough that essential workers decide they won't go out and expose themselves and their loved ones to death.
R to @Ayjchan: Link to podcast:
https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/463-privatizing-the-apocalypse
Link to substack:
https://robreid.substack.com/p/the-deep-lunacy-that-was-almost-deep
Listened to 'Privatizing the Apocalypse', a conversation on the dangers of virus hunting & pandemic resurrection between @Rob_Reid & Sam Harris @MakingSenseHQ
The number of people capable of causing pandemics is growing. Governments are not tracking & regulating this research.
With Runnin' Down a Dream published, I want to turn my attention to the accompanying foundation. Details: http://rdad.org Simply, micro-grants for people that are inspired by the book, but need a boost. I am actively looking for a Director. Details in next thread.
I hope Congress passes the bipartisan Risky Research Review Act to regulate federally-funded dangerous gain-of-function research.
It would be the first lasting change made by US government since Covid-19 (1M+ in US dead, $16T loss to US) to prevent more lab-based pandemics.
Why hasn't the current ODNI declassified any of the intelligence linking Covid origins to the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
The Covid-19 Origin Act of 2023 was unanimously passed by the House and Senate and was signed by the President.
R to @NIH: Link to the lecture next Friday:
https://videocast.nih.gov/watch/244438a5-0e6b-11f1-9f14-124f0a52e769
Matt Ridley will be giving the inaugural lecture for @NIH's new lecture series for scientific freedom next week.
Topic: Covid origins.
I hope NIH staffers will keep an open mind and attend the lecture.
In reality, those involved with this dGOF research and those who knew about this unnecessarily dangerous research had a responsibility to be transparent with all authorities and the public. That information would have informed the response and may have prevented the pandemic.
R to @Ayjchan: I think we could've skipped the whole bat soup, pangolin, raccoon dog, frozen foods saga.
Probably also would've saved the Proximal Origin authors from themselves.
R to @Ayjchan: Imagine if, in Jan 2020, US intel agencies & the public had been told that scientists in Wuhan had been collecting close relatives of SARS-CoV-2 from a mine with unexplained pneumonia cases, they had been making tons of chimeric viruses with published & unpublished sequences, sometimes leading to surprise gain-of-function (virus growth and lethality in humanized mice), and said they would put novel furin cleavage sites into novel SARS-like viruses, all at BSL-2 (not high containment), and 3 of the scientists in that exact lab had a Covid-like illness in November 2019.
The Covid origins cover up showed that top virologists - some are US intel assets - suffered an abrupt loss of intelligence or became parties to a conspiracy to shut down public discussion of a catastrophic lab leak in Wuhan.
By 2018, these virologists knew gain-of-function bat coronavirus experiments were planned or ongoing in Wuhan and the scientists there were making chimeric, genetically modified viruses out of sequences that weren't shared with the public or other scientists.
Yet, when Covid emerged, these same virologists authored or ghost authored influential papers claiming a lab origin was a conspiracy theory.
R to @usrtk: Since this work was described in an EcoHealth Alliance 2018-2019 progress report to NIH, it could be said that the NIH funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create chimeric MERS-like viruses (possibly outside of high containment) prior to the pandemic.
R to @usrtk: In 2021, EcoHealth Alliance separately told NIH about chimeric MERS experiments at the WIV (2 years late!). Unclear which sequences were used since these chimera did grow and infect cells whereas the one mentioned in the 2018 email did not.
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Year-5-EHAv.pdf
R to @usrtk: Baric (US virologist) published on the same novel MERS-like CoV in 2023 but also didn't mention whether he had tried creating chimeric MERS-CoV as Shi (Wuhan virologist) suggested in 2018.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adg5567
R to @usrtk: Worth pointing out:
The WIV paper describing the novel MERS-like virus and pseudovirus experiments was only submitted Jan 2018, published June.
Feb 2018 email: they already made chimeric MERS-CoV virus with the sequence and didn't publish the results.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6002729/
R to @usrtk: Afaik there is no US law stopping any capable scientist from enhancing novel SARS and MERS-like viruses outside of high containment.
No law prohibits the sale of reagents for this work.
And, if the results are novel, there's nothing stopping top journals from publishing it.
R to @usrtk: Again and again, virologists justify gain-of-function research by saying the viruses they're enhancing have not been shown to infect humans or are "animal viruses".
GOF will only be constrained once the virus causes an outbreak in humans.
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/12-5-2025-Partial-Production-for-USRTK-v.-NIH-Case-No.-24-cv-2785-JEB-NIH-FOIA-Request-63076.pdf
R to @usrtk: USTRK also unearthed this 2018 email where Wuhan and US scientists discussed having conducted recombinant MERS-like virus experiments not described in any public grant or paper at the time.
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Li-email-to-Shi-about-sharing-422-spike-sequence.pdf
R to @usrtk: SARS-like viruses can and have escaped from high containment labs (BSL3 and 4).
It's atrocious that the public isn't informed about planned or ongoing experiments in their local labs that could have major consequences for their health and safety.
R to @usrtk: Page 10: We will... introduce (RaTG13) or ablate (SARS2) proprotein convertase furin cleavage sites... recover recombinant viruses... Virus growth will be evaluated in... primary human airway epithelium and other primary human lung cells.
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Post-outbreak-RaTG-SARS2-proposal.pdf
New FOIAs by @USRTK show US virologists proposed putting furin cleavage sites into viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 (Covid) AFTER the pandemic began.
There's still no gov oversight of privately funded work on pathogens that aren't select agents.
R to @Ayjchan: I feel that this case would've gotten 1000x more attention if only one of the illegal biolab's computers was labeled with "AI".
R to @Ayjchan: Shockingly, the illegal biolab had purchased pathogens from accredited & respected US labs that apparently hadn't vetted their clients thoroughly.
A bill to track the sale of dangerous pathogens was introduced last Oct but I've heard is unlikely to pass.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5747/text
R to @Ayjchan: Without testing, it was impossible to "fully assess the potential risks.. posed to the community. It is possible that there were other highly dangerous pathogens.. in the coded vials or otherwise unlabeled."
Also impossible to know which other US communities are affected.
R to @Ayjchan: The head of the illegal biolab was a fugitive that had stolen US IP worth hundreds of millions, and claimed that his fraudulent activity would help “defeat the American aggressor and wild ambitious wolf!”