Research papers indicate that SARS-CoV-2 may be a bioweapon

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by rnrmf1971

And on the opposite side of the conspiracy theories is this news, today:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/conspiracy...ry?id=69827832

The above article links to these:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/0...n-of-covid-19/

Hi Christian,
Thanks for providing these links, I will read them with interest.

And once more, let me clear: I am not purporting any conspiracy theories.

What I am doing is reading scientific publications, including Nat. Med. where scientists at UNC Chapel took a non-pathogenic strain of a CoV, SHC014 and deliberately engineered it to be pathogenic.

Something I note from your first reference above:
....with the researchers concluding "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

No, they don't believe any laboratory-based scenario is plausible. That is not the same as not possible.

When I was young scientist just starting my career, I was sitting in graduate course in protein biochemisty, listening to an emeritus professor proclaim that all enzymes that catalyze a biochemical reaction were PROTEINS. I raised my hand and asked, "Don't you think that RNAs could catalyze a biochemical reaction?" He harrumphed and said, "No! ALL enzymes catalyzing biochemical reactions MUST be proteins!"

Well, 6 years later, Thomas Cech won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of...guess what? Catalytic RNAs. Something I predicted 6 years earlier in that graduate Biochem class.

No less than Francis Crick said that there was no such thing as reverse transcriptase. You can ask Howard Temin, who won the Nobel Prize, along with David Baltimore for...the discovery of reverse transcriptase, about that, and all the papers that Temin tried to publish about RT that were flat rejected by the journal, Virology, without review.

So, I am well familar with various scientists making claims of what is not "plausible". I'm staying true to being a good scientist and remaining skeptical.

Let me quote the paper once again:

"Utilizing the SARS-CoV infectious clone, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse adapted SARS-CoV backbone."

It's not only plausible, very similar work was done in 2015 on a bat coronavirus and the work was published in a scientific journal: Nat. Med. 2015 December; 21(12): 1508–1513. That this clone was created in a lab that was much demonstrated with data to be more pathogenic for human airway epithelia than wild-type SHC014 is a FACT.

And I am posing a reasonable question: if you're just doing "molecular surveillance", which I fully understand the rationale and value for doing, then WHY would a team deliberately genetically engineer a pathogenic virus from a non-pathogenic one?

Its a very reasonable question from a scientific and public health point-of-view.

If there was a sound and reasonable explanatation for this from a scientific and public health perspective, I'm all ears.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.

I think it’s a bit premature to jump to conclusions?

I’d be more interested in the odds of recombination of such viruses but I don’t have sufficient background to understand the topic. Perhaps someone can take a look and tell us what the odds are of this Chinera virus emerging from recombination in nature? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3324781/

I will take a look, thanks, Serge.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

Hi Christian,
Thanks for providing these links, I will read them with interest.

And once more, let me clear: I am not purporting any conspiracy theories.

What I am doing is reading scientific publications, including Nat. Med. where scientists at UNC Chapel took a non-pathogenic strain of a CoV, SHC014 and deliberately engineered it to be pathogenic.

Something I note from your first reference above:
....with the researchers concluding "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

No, they don't believe any laboratory-based scenario is plausible. That is not the same as not possible.

When I was young scientist just starting my career, I was sitting in graduate course in protein biochemisty, listening to an emeritus professor proclaim that all enzymes that catalyze a biochemical reaction were PROTEINS. I raised my hand and asked, "Don't you think that RNAs could catalyze a biochemical reaction?" He harrumphed and said, "No! ALL enzymes catalyzing biochemical reactions MUST be proteins!"

Well, 6 years later, Thomas Cech won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of...guess what? Catalytic RNAs. Something I predicted 6 years earlier in that graduate Biochem class.

No less than Francis Crick said that there was no such thing as reverse transcriptase. You can ask Howard Temin, who won the Nobel Prize, along with David Baltimore for...the discovery of reverse transcriptase, about that, and all the papers that Temin tried to publish about RT that were flat rejected by the journal, Virology, without review.

So, I am well familar with various scientists making claims of what is not "plausible". I'm staying true to being a good scientist and remaining skeptical.

Let me quote the paper once again:

"Utilizing the SARS-CoV infectious clone, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse adapted SARS-CoV backbone."

It's not only plausible, very similar work was done in 2015 on a bat coronavirus and the work was published in a scientific journal: Nat. Med. 2015 December; 21(12): 1508–1513. That this clone was created in a lab that was much demonstrated with data to be more pathogenic for human airway epithelia than wild-type SHC014 is a FACT.

And I am posing a reasonable question: if you're just doing "molecular surveillance", which I fully understand the rationale and value for doing, then WHY would a team deliberately genetically engineer a pathogenic virus from a non-pathogenic one?

Its a very reasonable question from a scientific and public health point-of-view.

If there was a sound and reasonable explanatation for this from a scientific and public health perspective, I'm all ears.

Great story Stephen. Reminds me of myself (although much more mundane topic) in 7th grade. I asked my science teacher if he can explain the "ball lightning" that I witnessed myself while I was child in Russia. The teacher told me not to fantasize and that such things do not exist... Well, they do and I saw it clearly with my own eyes not to mention numerous stories from the elders who witnessed them as well.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Great story Stephen. Reminds me of myself (although much more mundane topic) in 7th grade. I asked my science teacher if he can explain the "ball lightning" that I witnessed myself while I was child in Russia. The teacher told me not to fantasize and that such things do not exist... Well, they do and I saw it clearly with my own eyes not to mention numerous stories from the elders who witnessed them as well.

Yup. I've personally witnessed ball lightning myself...while walking through the Stanford University campus, of all places.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by jimtranr

Much as hard data is indispensable in dealing with the life-and-death mess we're confronted with now, I view speculating about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 absent verifiable proof as, at best, a parlor-game distraction and, at worst, an unhelpful contributor to the politicization of what is, and should remain, an uncontaminated-by-politics public health issue to be dealt with by healthcare professionals.

Well, that's what I'm trying to get at, Jim. The origin of SARS-CoV-2 by reading published scientific papers. Nothing less, nothing more.

This thread was based on a foundation of scientific research, and the questions it raised for me when reading published scientific papers. As someone who spent his career as a molecular biologist, I don't consider reading molecular virology publications to be a parlor-game distraction. And, with all due respect, I'm not speculating in the absence of proof, I'm reading the actual published scientific literature, with data, in this field in trying to understand its possible origins.

I'm raising what I consider rational and logical questions to this published scientific work. And frankly, when I read published scientific literature about genetically engineering a non-pathogenic viral organism to become a highly pathogenic virus as part of a federally-funded Gain-of-Function research program for Influenza, SARS, MERS and coronaviruses, that raises questions for me.

So, far, there has been no discussion of politics, and I hope we can keep it that way.

Best regards, Stephen.

[PHC1]

Scientists will be busier than ever in the near future. Now that the permafrost zones are melting, they are revealing our old enemies, which are waking up after centuries of dormant slumber. People and animals have been buried for centuries in those zones.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170...-are-waking-up

[eljr]

Originally Posted by jimtranr

Pandemics have been on the prediction radar for decades as changes in climate and globalization have fostered both the development and transmission of infectious pathogens. They've spawned a cottage industry for novelists and filmmakers (Wolfgang Petersen's 1995 "Outbreak", anyone?). So psychics, who like broken clocks, may come up right twice a day, have what are likely to be better than even odds in "forecasting" a pandemic--perhaps not least one in a year that's written in a conveniently round number like 2020.

Much as hard data is indispensable in dealing with the life-and-death mess we're confronted with now, I view speculating about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 absent verifiable proof as, at best, a parlor-game distraction and, at worst, an unhelpful contributor to the politicization of what is, and should remain, an uncontaminated-by-politics public health issue to be dealt with by healthcare professionals.

did we read the same OP?

" unhelpful contributor to the politicization"

what on earth are you referring to?

[GreginNH1]

Stephen,

Thanks for posting this. It is fascinating (and perhaps alarming). I will do some more reading on this.

[Robert_Anderson]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

Hi Mark,
The only conclusion I can come to is that this work was specifically being funded as part of program that may been designated something along the lines of "The U.S. Government Deliberative Process Research Funding on Selected Gain of Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses."

This is why its likely CDC, USARMID, or WHO did not delve into it; it was a funded government resarch program.

In other words, there was a government program that was funding this research...before it was paused by the Federal Government in the "U.S. Government Deliberative Process Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain of Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses."

Some time 2015 time-frame, I would surmise. After the Ebola outbreak in 2014, I would think.

It's hard to believe the CDC would not be made privy to any funded government program that could potentially cost American lives. If so, that would be terrible judgment. Interesting post, though.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by Robert_Anderson

It's hard to believe the CDC would not be made privy to any funded government program that could potentially cost American lives. If so, that would be terrible judgment. Interesting post, though.

Oh, the CDC knew about it, as did NIH.