A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

[bathroommonkey76]

Source: New York Times

Federal officials on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal.

Such work can now proceed, said Dr. Francis S. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, but only if a scientific panel decides that the benefits justify the risks.

Some scientists are eager to pursue these studies because they may show, for example, how a bird flu could mutate to more easily infect humans, or could yield clues to making a better vaccine.

Critics say these researchers risk creating a monster germ that could escape the lab and seed a pandemic.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih.html?mtrref=www.google.com

[Miigwech]

1. Send trump to inspect the labs

[cstanleytech]

2. On one hand its risky but on the other without the ability to conduct such

investigations it hampers the ability for doctors to develop counters to such things should some other country develop such a virus for a weapon to use against us or should such a virus develop naturally even.

[eggplant]

8. Most of the Manhattan Project scientists regretted splitting the atom. n/t

[cstanleytech]

15. Yes, scientific discoveries can be used to harm people but I do not believe

it to be wise to let the potential fear of that to interfere in research.

[RKP5637]

26. Agree!!! n/t

[LanternWaste]

33. Responses such as yours illustrate an already solved dilemma

Responses such as yours illustrate an already solved dilemma--- does the one-liner, bumper-sticker response take into account the nuance and complexity?

At best, hardly. It ignores (blithely or blindly) both the Research Ethic and the ethical conundrums occurring within the scientific community in regards to ethics

Cambridge Applied Ethics is the current gold standard in textual treaties on the topic. But Bernard Rollins' Science and Ethics, being much shorter may be more up your alley.

You project fear as a primary inhibitor of research, but the above sources lay out concern rather than fear (though I can see how replacing the words would take the wind out of your fortune-cookie's sail).

[disalitervisum]

3. Pandora's Box

[2naSalit]

4. +1

[Turbineguy]

5. Yeah.

After all, who doesn't miss Dr. Mengele?

[jmowreader]

6. They're going to keep the ban on making biological weapons, correct?

We have a psychopathic president. As long as we make sure the bastard doesn't get the idea to take these "new and improved" more lethal germs and spray them on North Korea, we're good.

[lostnfound]

20. Build a wall, problem solved.

All the way to the moon.

[They_Live]

7. Finally, some good news

for this holiday season.

[SCVDem]

9. The Andromeda Strain

This is how so many Sci Fi movies and shows start.

[LudwigPastorius]

10. The good news: Trump won't get a chance to blow the entire planet to hell.

Tha bad news: Hello, Captain Trips

[irisblue]

11. What could go wrong?

From the article.
SNIP
Critics say these researchers risk creating a monster germ that could escape the lab and seed a pandemic.
SNIP
In 2011, an outcry arose when laboratories in Wisconsin and the Netherlands revealed that they were trying to mutate the lethal H5N1 bird flu in ways that would let it jump easily between ferrets, which are used to model human flu susceptibility.

Tensions rose in 2014 after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention accidentally exposed lab workers to anthrax and shipped a deadly flu virus to a laboratory that had asked for a benign strain.
That year, the N.I.H. also found vials of smallpox in a freezer that had been forgotten for 50 years.
End
This sounds like a movie premise.

[CrispyQ]

29. The rich will wait out a plague in their million dollar bunkers.

I can't imagine life in a bunker & how awful it would be.

[milestogo]

12. Can we mail them to people we don't like?

[dembotoz]

13. We can't even keep bad fish contained

Expect better with a virus?

[enough]

14. Damn. So great they're lifting all those pesky regulations. NT

[truthisfreedom]

16. What could possibly go wrong?

[Laffy Kat]

17. What the fuck is wrong with our country? nt

[denbot]

18. Its as if Lex Luther stole the election.

Well, it would be if Lex was an idiot grifter.

[Initech]

31. I'd say these assholes are more like Spiderman's Norman Osbourne from Oscorp.

[burrowowl]

19. Use the POS for a guinie pig!

[Vinca]

21. Don's intent on killing us one way or the other.

Someone needs to penetrate the cotton candy veil and tell him he's not immune.

[Cold War Spook]

22. Doesn't the government have a testing site?

I think they call it the New York City subway system.

[kaotikross]

23. Because this always works out fine in horror movies

I'm sure this won't be the start of the zombie pandemic or the plague or anything.

[Bayard]

24. The Stand, Walking Dead

And you can never have enough lethal viruses.

[Squinch]

32. Look closer to reality: Lyme Disease.

[haele]

25. Population engineering.

One "oopsie" on a virus that attacks those with lowered immune systems (accidental or otherwise), sending it out in the wild and it infects the majority of the population.
Then anyone who can't afford to either isolate themselves from infection or to get quick critical care will risk a Spanish Influenza type pandemic - mainly lower paid social workers, the elderly and disabled, working poor and/or minorities in condensed communities will die off before TPTB can get a grip on the pandemic.

And then, this country will become one big Pleasantville. Lots of job openings that can be filled with thoughtless drones. Well-off whites, their fellow travelers, and their drones and sycophants.
You know that's what the GOP, White Identity Nationalists and Christianists are hoping for...

Haele

[Freethinker65]

27. But stem cell research is still evil, right?

[RKP5637]

28. I wonder, is Trump a virus? n/t

[Orangeutan]

30. The other half of this pairing:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210006670