Then they later admit, " In a limited number of cases when a full virus does not contain any known gain of function mutations, such virus may be engineered to enable the assessment of antiviral activity in cells." (I'm not exactly clear what that means, but it reads like they do gain-of-function to me. I've learned that when people are usually unclear on very important statements it's often the worse interpretation that's true, otherwise they'd have a reason to be clear).
Then they quickly defend "It is important to note that these studies are required by U.S. and global regulators for all antiviral products and are carried out by many companies and academic institutions in the U.S. and around the world."
So I'd take this to mean one of two things:
1) Gain of function research is required & happening everywhere and they just stopped telling everyone because it's so political so we now weasel-word around it; if you were technical you'd understand
or
2) They are twisting words very hard in this press statement about what is "required"
To make a simplistic analogy (necessarily imperfect but sufficient for these purposes), consider instead a computer virus. If an antivirus company patches the binary in order to make it easier to study its behavior (for example, in order to make it more debuggable), that’s “engineering” the virus but it’s not “gain-of-function.” If the company instead patches the virus so that it can take advantage of a new 0-day exploit and spread further, that’s “gain-of-function.”
Whether gain-of-function research is capable of revealing new insight into transmissible diseases not obtainable elsewhere is a point of debate among biologists, but one can be well assured that a for-profit operation isn’t going to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Engineering the virus on the other hand, or in other words making mutations in viral components, is basically a description of “doing basic molecular biology” and is non-optional.
The sort of allegation that Pfizer is responding to is more or less the equivalent of someone recording an engineer calling themselves “hackers,” visiting “Hacker News,” then writing an exposé claiming that this proves Company X is in the business of computer crime.
The activity mentioned in the Pfizer press release that skirts closest to “gain-of-function” is actually a bit you didn’t mention at all, where they’re required by regulatory bodies to determine how the virus might resist an antiviral. Unlike computer viruses, biological ones mutate under treatment pressure. The closest analogy for a computer virus might be if it phones home and downloads a new payload to modify its behavior when it detects the presence of some antivirus software. For obvious reasons, studying how a pandemic virus would mutate in response to approved drugs is both necessary and icky, hence why Pfizer discussed its biosecurity measures. The distinction they make (rightly) between this research and a “directed evolution” or “gain-of-function” experiment, is that they’re reading out an answer to the question “Does the virus mutate when we treat with this antiviral drug, and if so, how?”, not culturing viruses iteratively in the presence of drug until they obtain an optimized treatment-resistant virus.
One interesting thing to note is another weasel word "In a limited number of cases when a full virus does not contain any known gain of function mutations, such virus may be engineered to enable the assessment of antiviral activity in cells." It sounds like they're saying "We might do gain of function without knowing it."
Obviously this shouldn't be interpreted as some tinfoil-hat "making a supervirus." But given lableaks have happened 50 or so recorded times[1], scrutiny is obviously warranted. I'd be cucious exactly what the oversight is at such labs, and whether there are whistle-blower protections/policies should anybody witness anything dangerous (be it deliberate or simply failing to follow safety procedures).
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...
Right before that claim, they mention another set of studies that don't require gain-of-function engineering. The regulations probably refer to those, and Pfizer is hoping we'll misinterpret their statement and think the regulations demand gain-of-function.
I would be very surprised if regulations required genetically engineering more dangerous virus strains.
They have released a video that appears to show a Pfizer director saying they are mutating new COVID lines for vaccine purposes.
On every thread about Veritas recordings, there's always people like hnbad who try to stop people watching the videos by labelling it as "far right" i.e. if you're progressive, you're not allowed to look. It's just more lies. There's nothing "far right" about what they do. The people in the videos literally speak for themselves, and often admit to the worst case scenarios that had previously been considered absurd conspiracy theories. Pfizer planning to create COVID variants so they can later sell vaccines for them - tinfoil crazy uncle stuff, except it comes direct from the mouth of a Pfizer employee who has been briefed on the initiative.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a vaccine maker is doing research on the virus and what all that entails. What would strike me as "tinfoil crazy uncle" stuff would be if he had said they had plans to release new viruses in order to sell vaccines. But who knows - the profit incentive can drive all sorts of innovation - especially in medicine where the stakes are life and death.
Consider that they are also a political spying organization, as successfully argued in front of the DC Circuit Court (link at bottom)
Taking into account the court's findings and other easily available material like Wikipedia it beggars belief to include this group in the echelons of great investigative journalism and should cast skepticism on any "reporting" they release.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_17-cv-010...
But no, you crafted your shitty statement so that the only reasonable reading is the technically incorrect one -- i.e. that Pfizer is planning to create AND SPREAD variants so they can later sell vaccines for them. Not exactly a shining beacon of integrity, are you?
Furthermore, they conduct surreptitious recording of their interviewees, which is illegal in some places they operate (a felony in California). They need to be shut down as a criminal organization.
Also I guess soon chatgpt will gain this function by reading your narrative.
If you lied 10000000 times before, so your claim that 1+1=2 is no longer valid?
> Project Veritas is an American far-right activist group founded by James O'Keefe in 2010. The group produces deceptively edited videos of its undercover operations, which use secret recordings in an effort to discredit mainstream media organizations and progressive groups. Project Veritas also uses entrapment to generate bad publicity for its targets, and has propagated disinformation and conspiracy theories in its videos and operations.
Regardless of what you may think of the recordings themselves, the presentation and editing is often extremely misleading and credentials of the recorded individuals are often overstated to help create a narrative.
This looks like normal journalism.
That said, here's an example of why I dislike this "argument."
Joseph Bruno, Dean of Students, Francis W. Parker School: “So, I’ve been the Dean for four years. During Pride -- we do a Pride Week every year -- I had our LGBTQ+ Health Center come in [to the classroom]. They were passing around butt-plugs and dildos to my students -- talking about queer sex, using lube versus using spit.”
The school's response:
A school spokesperson said the dean was “filmed without his knowledge or permission while describing one example of our inclusive, LGBTQ+ affirming a comprehensive approach to sex education. Veritas deceptively edited the video with malicious intent.” [1]
Notice, they say absolutely _nothing_ about whether they [2] pass around butt-plugs and dildos. If anything, their statement lends to the idea that they do in fact do that. I do not care if the Dean was "misled" or the video is "edited" unless that disproves what the Dean claimed. My bar isn't that high at all.
--
[1] : https://www.wane.com/news/private-school-defends-dean-after-...
[2] : edit, as some believe my original wording (do give out sex toys to kids) was disingenuous
via https://nitter.net/Tim_Roehn/status/1619281947741806592#m
so they practice gain of function.
and i bet they don't do that in the us. wasn't there some interesting back and forth about ominous us led bio engineering labs in the ukraine? someone with a link to that senate hearing with rand paul iirc. </TFH>
It is laughable that the conservatives/Republicans/Fascists of my country (US) are all against evil X. And they literally do not understand what evil X is. But they are indeed against it.
It is hard to see what the end game of this nonsense. I am sure there is an ending part to it but so far it is just dummies saying gain of function over and over hoping it sticks.
Let's say you were tasked with making a virus like COVID-19. How would you go about it?
I think the answers obvious you take a potential source virus like the coronaviruses in bats and expose humans. You could literally culture the virus and inject it into a human.
Let's put on tinfoil hats, and say you could run this experiment in a prison. If you're careful you could introduce it at a bloc and culture the result if an infection seems to spread.
After a few cycles you're likely to get something like COVID out the other end. This is the bioengineering we do for attenuated pathogen vaccines.
So what exactly do they mean that it'd be impossible to bioengineer COVID?
Then have the world media present you as the Oracle of Delphi because you had such an accurate prediction.
But, it could all be true. The level of detail is pretty convincing, not something you'd make up on the spot. So I am actually happy some congress people are taking it on and would like to see a more bipartisan effort there.
So, in the case this is real, now what? (I'd also think the next step would be to uncover more before going public and letting the investigated company purge everything, which makes me lean further towards assuming this is nothing but a publicity stunt).
^ obviously sarcasm, but my bullshit detector goes off every single time Pfizer does something.
