Gaslighting bird flu

 Most people know that Covid was a lab lead from gain of function research funded by Fauci via Ecohealth to the Wuhan lab. 

But as I pointed out a few weeks ago, they are continuing to lie about this in this Scientific American article that quotes the Chinese doctor believed to be responsible for the leak claims they didn't have that covid in their refrigerators (which were examined four years after the lab leak by her, not one week after the problem appeared by a neutral authority).

So anyway, the gaslighting continues.

The LATimes has a scare article that bird flu is going to kill us all. (alternative link): I post it here because both sites get turned off by pop up windows telling you to pay for the article, and I posted it here in large print so I can read it later at my leisure. So sue me LATimes. I have no money, but they could shut down my blog. PFFT>

Why scientists say we are fighting H5N1 bird flu with one hand tied behind our backs

The National Animal Disease Center research facility in Ames, Iowa, tests milk samples amid an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu among dairy cattle. (USDA Agricultural Research Service via Associated Press) By Susanne Rust and Karen Kaplan Dec. 24, 2024 3 AM PT 

Share Gain-of-function research became controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic. But without it, “we’re just flying in the dark” when it comes to H5N1, said Felicia Goodrum, a molecular virologist at the University of Arizona.

actually her CV says she is a leukemia expert, but of course if you have leukemia you easily get all sorts of weird infections. 

As the H5N1 bird flu virus steamrolls its way across the globe — killing wild animals, commercial livestock and even some people — scientists and health officials fear we’re on the precipice of another global pandemic.

it has been around for years, and most of the deaths were people in close contact with birds or who ate infected meat of sick birds which usually are killed when they get sick. That is why at one point, Jakarta banned back yard chickens which in SEAsia are not for food but fighting cocks, but VietNam merely ordered fighting cocks to get a vaccine for the chickens (yes there is a vaccine but it's hard to give a shot to 1000 chickens in a chicken house) ... I think I read that the future might be to give chickens an oral mRNA vaccine to stop the epidemic but don't quote me).

But when, where and how that could come to pass is hard to predict — in part, some researchers say, because of guardrails the federal government has placed around gain-of-function research.

it's the government's fault. /sarcasm

The term describes experiments that seek to understand a virus’ potential to adapt to new hosts, spread more easily, survive longer in the environment and cause those infected to become sicker. Though many scientists view the approach as a critical tool for conducting biological research, other experts have long complained that it’s unacceptably risky — a reputation exacerbated by persistent speculation that the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic was created in gain-of-function experiments in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

 

That led many virologists to steer clear of the work to avoid its stigma and regulatory red tape. Some in the field say that has deprived officials of valuable information that could have helped them anticipate and prepare for H5N1’s next moves. “Do I believe if that research was more widely accepted, we’d have a better grip on this virus and what it might do next? Or how quickly it could change? Or what that would take?” asked Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds. “YES.” Felicia Goodrum, a molecular virologist at the University of Arizona, said gain-of-function research could enable health officials to recognize worrisome H5N1 mutations and identify targets for antivirals and vaccines. “Without it, we’re just flying in the dark,” she said.

but they already have a bird flu vaccine, and newer ones in the work. and the article hints they already did gain of function research to find the data, although it is unclear about this. 

  Just one mutation can make H5N1 bird flu a threat to humans, California researchers say Dec. 5, 2024

but the vaccine could aim at other sites to give immunity, not on the one site that allows transmission.  

Critics of this line of research don’t see it that way. They say the work is too dangerous, making it possible for a souped-up pathogen to escape into the environment where people have no natural immunity. Even worse, they argue, it could wind up in the hands of nefarious actors who could use it as a bioweapon. These risks outweigh the promise of work that may not be as helpful as its supporters suggest, said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

What scientists and health officials need to know to contain the outbreak, Lipsitch argues, are things like which animals are infected, which people have been exposed, how many of them caught the virus and how sick they became as a result. “Those are basic epidemiology and veterinary questions,” Lipsitch said. “I can’t think of any route by which gain-of-function studies could have informed — much less answered — those questions.”

well, the Asian cases had a high mortality, but knowing Asia (and knowing chicken farms) one wonders if most people didn't get very sick so didn't go to the hospital: the US studies suggest this happened in the US dairy worker cases. that I discuss below.

The controversy dates to 2011, when two independent research groups said they had conducted gain-of-function experiments that resulted in strains of H5N1 that could be spread via air between ferrets, a species used to model influenza’s behavior in humans.

 

H5N1 was first identified in wild geese in China in 1996 and soon spread among birds in Asia, jumping to people on hundreds of occasions along the way. More than half of those known infections were fatal. The high mortality rate and geographical spread of the virus prompted then-President George W. Bush to establish a $7.1-billion program to prepare for its inevitable arrival on U.S. shores. He spearheaded the establishment of a global surveillance and preparedness network via the WHO, as well as a national one. He also directed federal funds into the stockpile of vaccines and antiviral medications, as well as millions of dollars toward laboratory research. U.S. Geological Survey biologist Dan Ruthrauff watches a mist net for birds in the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge. World & Nation A Killer Takes Wing Jan. 10, 2006 Amid this flood of support, Yoshihiro Kawaoka‘s team at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Ron Fouchier‘s at Erasmus University in the Netherlands simultaneously began to experiment with H5N1, introducing genetic mutations into its RNA to see what changes could transform it from a virus that passed easily between birds into one that passed efficiently between people.

yup. They actually did that. 

Kawaoka and his colleagues combined the H5 hemagglutinin gene from the bird flu virus with genes from the 2009 H1N1 swine flu virus. Then they coaxed their hybrid to evolve in a way that allowed it to bind with mammalian cells rather than bird cells. They found that four mutations in the H5 gene were enough to create a virus capable of spreading between ferrets in neighboring cages. Meanwhile, the researchers in Fouchier’s lab tinkered solely with H5N1. They added a handful of mutations that helped fuel previous flu pandemics, then infected their ferrets. The virus didn’t spread on its own at first, so the scientists helped it along by transferring it from the noses of infected animals to healthy ferrets. After 10 such passages, the virus had evolved to the point where it spread on its own from one ferret to another. The studies offered valuable confirmation that the bird flu virus had the potential to spark a human pandemic, said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an immunologist and infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins University. “Before those experiments were done, we did not know whether H5N1 had the biological capacity to become mammalian-transmissible,” he said. But they also underscored the risk that scientists could accelerate the threat. “That was the original gain-of-function poster child,” Casadevall said.

yup. It took awhile but the scientists managed to make the bird flu transmissable to humans in their lab.  

  Concern that information in the studies could be put to ill use prompted Kawaoka and Fouchier to voluntarily pause their work in 2012, and their papers were published only after passing a thorough safety review by the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.

because they realized that bad guys could read their paper and manufacture a dangerous bioweapon. But anyway, they did manage to publish it.

But the bad news: it's not just bad guys who are the danger: 

Gain-of-function research resumed the following year. Fears were revived in 2014 after federal labs mishandled samples of smallpox, anthrax and H5N1.

italics mine. 

Nobody was sickened, but it prompted a three-year freeze on federal funding for gain-of-function experiments involving particularly dangerous pathogens, until stricter oversight rules were put in place.

 

Plans for such experiments now go through several layers of review at a potential researcher’s institution. If the work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, additional reviews follow.

translation: Lots of paperwork that if followed correctly and no one made any mistakes would stop a leak from happening. 

“There are a lot of regulatory hurdles to assure there’s appropriate risk mitigation,” said Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University who studies influenza viruses. “We’re all being extra careful because nobody wants to be accused of having done something unsafe.” 

 translation: no one wants to be accused of doing something unsafe, meaning there is a strong motivation to cover up any mistake.

Those hurdles can delay a research project by several months or more, if they are approved at all, she said. The uncertainties have acted as a deterrent, especially for scientists in the early stages of their careers. “It’s definitely uncomfortable to do gain-of-function research,” Goodrum said. “We’re discouraging people from entering the field.”

To some, the timing couldn’t be worse. At least 65 people in the U.S. have been infected with H5N1 since it arrived in North America in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

65 cases in four years. Got it.  

Most of the cases have involved workers on dairy and poultry farms, and their symptoms — including conjunctivitis and upper respiratory irritation — have tended to be mild. But in two cases, people have become severely ill, including a person in Louisiana and a teenager in Canada.

so two very sick people in four years but no deaths. Out of 65 cases in four years. But how many people got the disease and never sought medical care or were diagnosed? In other words, the virus in humans is not very lethal. 

There is no evidence that the virus can spread directly from one person to another, the CDC said.

yes. but just wait: in time, that could happen. 

Scientists expect that will change sooner or later. With flu season picking up steam, the risk is rising. “The thing I’m most afraid of today is a recombination event between the stuff going around in cows and the seasonal flu,”

this is one of the unproven theories behind the 1918 flu epidemic: ordinary flu combined with bird flu. But the high mortality might have been because of spread in close contact (army barracks) or due to the malnutrition during World War I due to blockades and poor nutritional status.

Casadevall said. If both viruses infected the same mammal at the same time, their components could mix and match in a way that creates “a strain that is able to infect humans very easily, and for which we don’t have immunity.” “That is a gain-of-function experiment being done by nature,” he added. It’s a point that Webby suggested as well, noting that gain-of-function experiments are a whole lot safer in a sealed-off Biosafety Level 3 laboratory equipped with special ventilation systems and other precautions “than on a farm.”

True, except for the danger of a lab accident....but here is the dirty little secret: as these docs note: Gain of function research might produce the strain that will evolve spontaneously: Influenza tends to mutate a lot. So their research might be useless.

But Lipsitch and others say the fact that the virus is constantly mutating and changing calls into question the relevance of gain-of-function research. A viral strain that can be concocted in a laboratory is not necessarily going to match whatever emerges in the environment. “There’s a big element of randomness in evolution,” Lipsitch said. “The fact that an experiment goes one way in the lab doesn’t mean it will go the same way somewhere else.”

 

Even if it’s a close match, Lipsitch said, there’s “compelling evidence that what you learn in one strain can be the opposite for a very closely related strain. So the generalizability is very low.” He cited a paper that took the mutations that made H5N1 “more mammal-friendly” in Kawaoka’s and Fouchier’s experiments and applied them to a slightly different version of the virus. In that case, the researchers found “a completely different effect.” These shortcomings make the research risks harder to justify, said Nicholas Evans, a bioethicist at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

“I think what the gain-of-function debate has yet to answer is, ‘What is the social value of these studies?’” he said. To Evans, there appears to be very little, especially considering the lack of urgency in the government’s response. “Saying that this particular piece of extremely niche biological research into H5N1 would have made a material difference in an outbreak that has largely been characterized by a lack of interest on behalf of public federal agricultural and public health regulators just is kind of nonsense to me,” he said. Kawoaka declined to discuss his research, and Fouchier could not be reached.  

 That is unclear: does he mean that the government has no interest so it's not important?

but hey: The mRNA vaccines are here, and there is money to be made, so things might change.

The bird flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cows is prompting development of new, next-generation mRNA vaccines — akin to COVID-19 shots — that are being tested in both animals and people.

In June 2024, the U.S. Agriculture Department is to begin testing a vaccine developed by University of Pennsylvania researchers by giving it to calves.

 

Michael Imperiale, a virologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the experiments conducted by Kawaoka and Fouchier are extremely useful as blueprints of what to watch out for as the virus sweeps the globe.

is the bird flu virus sweeping the globe? Yes, in chickens, and chickens and eggs are a cheap source of high level protein for the poor, so this is a problem for poultry farmers and in preventing malnutrition in the urban poor.  

And he’s surprised more people aren’t talking about their value. “No one seems to point out the fact that those gain-of-function experiments ... gave us an important piece of information, which is that that virus can jump,” Imperiale said.

the ability of viruses to jump species has been known for centuries: E.g. the first vaccine for Rabies was because the virus jumped from mad dogs to humans, and that was invented in 1885. And the original cowpox experiment that resulted in doctors learning that small pox could be prevented by a more benign method than giving people mild cases of the disease was discovered by Jenner in 1798, after he noticed that dairy maids had lovely complexions (no small pox scars) but had a history of catching cow pox.

Other gain-of-function experiments conducted on H5N1 years ago have tipped off scientists about potential mutations that could help the real-world virus spread more easily through the air, get better at infecting cells in the mammalian respiratory tract, and become resistant to antiviral medications.

italics mine. Theory that might or might not be true. 

 

“Those experiments 10 years ago were so informative,” Lakdawala said. “It helped us be better prepared.”

Really? 

 

But unless the scientific community stands up for the work and challenges its negative image, that won’t be the case in the future, Goodrum said. “It’s very likely that we will be less prepared for the next pandemic than we were for the last one.”

Translation: give them money and let them do this dangerous research or they will blame Trumpieboy for the next epidemic because he stopped funding research similar to that which gave us the last epidemic of COVID. 

 

  With government shutdown looming, what happens to bird flu surveillance?

 

author Karen Kaplan covers science and medical research for the Los Angeles Times. She has been a member of the science team since 2005, including 13 years as an editor. Her first decade at The Times was spent covering technology in the Business section as both a reporter and editor. She grew up in San Diego and is a graduate of MIT and Columbia University.

so what does the NIH say about bird flu?

I get the weekly reports from the CDC.

well, in the last few weeks they have had articles on how addicts use fentanyl, Dengue fever, Rocky mountain spotted fever etc etc.

The last one on bird flu was on: (ta da!) November 7.

so this is a big outbreak right? No actually:

Infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5) viruses have been detected sporadically in dairy farm workers in the United States since April 2024.

and lots of the farm workers got sick, right?

this report is from a sample of workers who were in close contact with sick dairy cattle (not all of the workers were tested and most of them spoke Spanish, suggesting maybe malnutrtion could bias their ability to get sick): italics mine:

In both states, a convenience sample of persons who work in dairies was interviewed, and blood specimens were collected. Among 115 persons, eight (7%; 95% CI = 3.6%–13.1%) had serologic evidence of recent infection with A(H5) virus;

and they got sick from contact with sick cows:

Among persons with serologic evidence of infection, four recalled being ill around the time cows were ill; symptoms began before or within a few days of A(H5) virus detections among cows.

A total of 115 dairy workers (45 in Michigan and 70 in Colorado) were interviewed and had serum specimens collected; the total number of dairies contacted or workers employed across these dairies was not recorded across states (Table 1). Dairy workers typically spoke Spanish, and 72% of interviews were conducted in Spanish.

Specimens were collected at a median of 49 days after first exposure (IQR = 47–59 days) based on the date HPAI A(H5) infection in the herd was confirmed. Among all workers, 21 (18%) reported receipt of the 2023–24 seasonal influenza vaccine. Workers reported multiple job tasks; those most frequently reported included cleaning manure (62%), milking cows (59%), and moving or hauling cattle (49%).

Now remember: of all those tested only 8 had evidence of a bird flu infection. But 46 workers were sick during that time. Meaning that maybe some of those who tested positive for antibodies to bird flu might not have been sick from bird flu but from another virus going around. Again, italics mine.

Among all 115 dairy workers, 46 (40%) reported feeling ill shortly before or during the period that A(H5) virus infection was confirmed in cows on the farms where they worked (Table 3). Four of these illnesses were among the eight workers with serologic evidence of infection; among these persons, signs and symptoms most frequently reported were red, draining, or itching eyes (three). These signs and symptoms were also frequently reported among workers who were ill but who had negative HPAI A(H5) serology (26 of 42; 62%).

Among the four workers with positive test results, feverishness, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, diarrhea, and headache were each reported by one worker; these signs and symptoms were also reported by persons with negative serology results. Among persons with serologic evidence of infection, illness onset occurred a median of 5 days before the date of detection of HPAI A(H5) virus among cows within the dairy where they worked.

Those testing positive for bird flu got sick before the cattle got sick?

meaning maybe their illness wasn't from bird flu caught from the cattle. (or maybe they gave the bird flu to the cattle?). 

here in the summary they note how few of the workers who milked the cows and cleaned up the shit got sick:

In this analysis, 7% of exposed dairy farm workers in Michigan and Colorado had serologic evidence of infection with HPAI A(H5).

and this part suggests most of them simply didn't get very sick

In this analysis, 7% of exposed dairy farm workers in Michigan and Colorado had serologic evidence of infection with HPAI A(H5).

here is the latest report on the CDC web page.

What to know H5 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows with several recent human cases in U.S. dairy and poultry workers. While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures. CDC is using its flu surveillance systems to monitor for H5 bird flu activity in people.

and here is the summary:

H5 Bird Flu Detections in USA 

• Dairy cattle: Ongoing multi-state outbreak

• Wild Birds: Widespread

• Poultry Flocks: Sporadic outbreaks

• Mammals: Sporadic infections

• Person-to-person spread: None

• Current public health risk: Low

One more thing: It is hunting season, so did any hunters catch bird flu from migratory birds? There are sporadic news stories of dead birds being found.

Ducks Unlimited article:most wild birds with the low pathogenic (mile variation) of bird flu don't have symptoms.

Avian flu does not pose a food safety risk when wild or domestic poultry products are handled and cooked properly.

The severity of avian flu varies based on the subtype of the circulating virus and is classified as either low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) or high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

 

Most avian flu subtypes are LPAI and cause little or no signs of illness in domestic or wild birds and pose no threat to human health. These subtypes are found every year in waterfowl.

The subtype responsible for the outbreak that began in 2021 is highly pathogenic, and thus is of heightened concern.

I found this part interesting:

Data from a 2022–23, DU-funded study of waterfowl hunting dogs in Washington state found evidence of HPAI antibodies in only 2% of sampled dogs. As of September 2024, there has been only 1 confirmed case of a domestic dog dying from HPAI infection in North America

because dogs eat raw meat.

the real danger is to the Poultry industry:

Domestic poultry have no natural immunity to HPAI, and so experience nearly 100% mortality when infected. High concentrations of domestic birds facilitate transmission throughout poultry barns. These vulnerabilities mean that HPAI can have devastating economic consequences to the poultry industry and protein supply chain.

................................

they actually were doing gain of function research on bird flu ten years ago:

From Univ of Minnesota:CIDRAP news

In a controversial study published 2 years ago Dutch scientists described a lab-modified strain of H5N1 influenza virus that was capable of airborne transmission among ferrets. Now the same researchers say they have identified five specific mutations that gave the virus this ability, a claim that is renewing debate about the risks of conducting and publishing such experiments. Writing in Cell, the scientists said they identified two combinations of five mutations that affected specific characteristics of the virus and collectively enabled it to spread by air. They assert that the findings will help in the effort to detect early warning signs of flu strains that could cause a pandemic. But other experts question the scientific value of the findings and argue that they are not worth the risks involved in conducting such experiments and publishing the full details. They assert that the research poses a risk of either accidental or intentional release of dangerous viruses.

here is another article from back then, in Nature Magazine:

World View Published: 27 March 2013 H5N1 viral-engineering dangers will not go away Simon Wain-Hobson

Governments, funders and regulatory authorities must urgently address the risks posed by gain-of-function research, says Simon Wain-Hobson. Barely two months after a small group of influenza virologists lifted a moratorium on work to make the H5N1 avian flu virus as transmissible between humans as seasonal flu, researchers are at it again. Earlier this month, a Dutch scientist proposed similar experiments with other avian flu viruses, as well as the SARS coronavirus. And a fortnight ago, scientists in Germany and Switzerland reported how they had tweaked canine distemper virus to make it grow in human cells. The logic behind these kinds of experiments, collectively called gain-of-function (GOF) research, is to identify combinations of mutations that could allow an animal virus to jump to unprepared humans. By knowing the mutations, the thinking goes, we can better prepare and marshal our scientific defences against a possible threat. GOF research on avian flu provoked heated controversy, much of it covered by this journal. That controversy did not go away with the lifting of the moratorium. On the contrary, it continues to fester. Officials in Washington DC are putting the finishing touches to new guidelines for the review, regulation and oversight of this kind of research. The chill winds that we can anticipate blowing from policy-makers as a result could affect all of us who research viruses and their pathology. To avoid this, researchers in this field need to learn lessons from the past. Rather than use the avian flu moratorium to seek advice, listen and foster debate, many influenza scientists engaged in an academic exercise of self-justification. There was a single large open meeting, at the Royal Society in London, which engaged a wider audience, including bioethicists. The recent calling off of the moratorium by 40 flu researchers alone — not funders, governments or international bodies — says it all. The flu community simply hasn't understood that this is a hot-button issue that will not go away. There are parallels here to my own field of HIV. In the early days of research, HIV scientists, buoyed by huge research monies, exuded hubris, promised a vaccine within two years, and all sorts of other things. The crunch came when they realized that they had to engage seriously with patient groups. The result is that HIV patients became the most faithful collaborators of HIV clinicians. It is too easy for scientists in a field to dismiss criticism and ideas from outside. Here are the issues that must be openly addressed about GOF work with avian flu, the SARS coronavirus — or any other virus. Influenza virologists are going down a blind alley and the powers that be are blindly letting them go down that alley. First, is the virological basis for the work sound? The outcomes of the H5N1 experiments are dominated by the artificial-selection systems used. If aerosol-transmitted virus is systematically passaged from ferrets with severe respiratory distress, then the research teams will end up with a transmissible and highly virulent strain. Likewise, if animals with mild symptoms are chosen, a transmissible virus of low virulence would ultimately emerge. Whether nature will take any of these courses is unknown. Take dog breeding. Ruthless selection of alleles over a short period has produced phenomenal phenotypic variation — dachshunds, salukis, whippets and setters. Would nature have come up with the dachshund? Second, infectious-disease researchers are fond of saying that microbes do not respect barriers. So who makes the rules and provides oversight? Barely a sound has emerged at the international level. The World Health Organization has held essentially closed-door meetings and has failed singularly to widen the debate. Third, what if these groups generate a highly pathogenic and transmissible virus — which I suspect, within two years, they will? Then what? Should the virus be shared? Should research on this novel virus strain of catastrophic potential be highly restricted? Fourth, what if there were a leak or a small outbreak? Crippling lawsuits would follow. Are the academic institutions sufficiently covered in terms of insurance? Are university regents or chancellors even aware of the power, and dangers, of the modern molecular biology going on in their labs? Again, not a word has emerged. Fifth, the world has never been more densely populated. Is it appropriate for civilian scientists to make microbes more dangerous? Is creating a novel human virus antisocial? Was there a failure of duty on the part of funders and regulators? What is the ethical position on such work? Here there has been a start, but as yet there is no consensus. The global ramifications of GOF research have simply not been sufficiently explored and discussed. Influenza virologists are going down a blind alley and the powers that be are blindly letting them go down that alley, which is tantamount to acquiescing. So let's be clear: the end game could be viruses more dangerous than the Spanish flu strain. H5N1 GOF work — indeed all virological GOF work — should be suspended until virologists open up and engage in public discussion of their work and the issues it raises. Given that the flu community failed utterly to use the year-long hiatus to good effect, it is clear that an independent risk–benefit assessment of GOF work is needed.

the bad news? The article has links to how they are restarting such research and is essentially a protest to this.

A moratorium on research that modifies the potential virulence of avian influenza virus has now been lifted. Credit: JAMES CAVALLINI/SPL An international group of scientists this week ended a year-long moratorium on controversial work to engineer potentially deadly strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus in the lab. Researchers agreed to temporarily halt the work in January 2012, after a fierce row erupted over whether it was safe to publish two papers reporting that the introduction of a handful of mutations enabled the H5N1 virus to spread efficiently between ferrets, a model of flu in mammals (see Naturehttp://doi.org/fxv55r;2012). Both papers were eventually published, one in Nature1 and one in Science2. Now, in a letter simultaneously published on 23 January by Nature3 and Science, the 40 scientists involved say that the moratorium has served its purpose: allowing time for authorities to review the conditions under which the research could be safely conducted and for scientists to explain the public-health benefits of the work. Scientists who now have official approval in their countries to conduct such research “have a public-health responsibility to resume this important work”, the letter states, “because the risk exists in nature that an H5N1 virus capable of transmission in mammals may emerge”. The move follows a large international workshop convened 17–18 December by the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to discuss ‘gain-of-function research’ — that intended to increase the transmissibility, host range or virulence — in H5N1 viruses, and the development of US rules for stricter oversight of research in this area. The proposed rules require an assessment of, for example, whether the scientific aims of such studies could be addressed using alternative, less-risky approaches, and whether biosafety and biosecurity risks can be adequately mitigated. They are expected to enter into force soon, allowing scientists working in the United States or on US-funded grants to restart such research.​

there is a danger that in nature, mutations will allow person to person transmission. So they plan to do experiments in how to make the virus transmissiable from person to person so that they will be prepared for when this happens. Except of course the mutations they make in the lab might not be the same mutations that evolve spontaneously (influenza mutates quickly which is why Flu vaccine doesn't always work).

But the scientific community remains divided on whether the practical benefits of the research outweigh the risks of an accidental or deliberate release of a lab-created flu strain. Ian Lipkin, a specialist on emerging infectious diseases at Columbia University in New York, believes that the risks are high and, worse, that such research may end up being done in labs with insufficient biosafety standards.

article on how scientists are making this safer.and that article has this ominous sentence:

The debate has drawn attention to, and exposed gaps in, the rules that govern ‘dual-use’ research — work that can bring public benefit but might also be used for harmful purposes.

translation: The gain of function research will help make vaccines in case of a mutation, but can also be used to engineer germ warfare.

and yes the USA if funding this.

The United States is the main funder of such research, and what it decides is key to international thought. The proposed framework for assessing H5N1 gain-of-function research, outlined by the US National Institutes of Health at an international meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, in December, spells out several criteria that such research would need to meet before being funded. One can quibble with some ambiguities in the wording of those proposals, but overall the framework should serve as an important checklist. The criteria include sensible questions, such as whether safer, alternative approaches exist that could address the same scientific points

Wikipedia list of germ releases from labs: Probably not complete of course. Note that one Chinese lab release of Brucellosis infected 10 thousand people. That release was from a lab making a vaccine.

there are plenty of other lab leaks and not all get publicity.

Southern medical journal article August 2021.

In 1977, the H1N1 virus was thought to have leaked from a Chinese laboratory.18 During the first outbreak of SARS in 2004, two accidental releases from a Beijing laboratory were reported to have occurred.  In 1979, anthrax spores were released accidentally from a Soviet research facility near Sverdlovsk, Russia.  These events provide some background for accidental-release theories for SARS-CoV-2. As reported in Nature Medicine, had there been genetic manipulation, it would have been done with a reverse-genetic system used for betacoronaviruses.

and the author lauds the WUHAN lab for knowing the viral sequence so they could make the vaccine faster.

Ironically, vaccine development received a head start from the same laboratory studying coronaviruses in Wuhan that was suspected of leaking the virus. This laboratory had already sequenced the viral genome and shared its code, thus eliminating months of standard vaccine research

remember I quoted the batlady of Wuhan who gave a talk to a Tokyo conference a month or so ago that none of the viruses in her lab matched the one that started the covid epidemic?

If that was true, then how did they find the viral sequence to make the vaccine so fast? Anyone? Anyone?

===================

this is all about gain of function experiments to protect people and the danger of a lab accident.

But what if someone leaks it deliberately? What stops most countries from doing this is blowback: it will return and kill their own people unless you stop person to person spread (e.g. anthrax is a good weapon because it doesn't spread beyond the initial release).

oh by the way: Remember all that fuss about Iraqi WMD that propaganda first said they had, then the MSM and powers that be said never existed? Well, Israel just bombed a bunch of WMD in Syria, reminding one of those satellite reports of trucks taking stuff to Syria shortly before the US invasion...apparently these sites only had missiles and chemical weapons, but as the CNN article shows, the bombings were highlighted in a way making one think it was just Israel being wicked and bombing stuff to be mean, with paragraph two mentioning strategic weapon sites: You don't know this means WMD until you read to paragraph six that mentions chemical weapons. But it is not about biological weapons.

a 2014 article admits:

Very little open source information exists to characterize Syria’s interest and potential activities in biological warfare (BW). Official U.S. government assessments note that Syria’s infrastructure could support the production of biological agents, but make no definitive comment on whether or not a program actually exists. ...

it did mention that dual function use (the lab that uses a germ to make a vaccine also makes the germ as a weapon).

Instead, discussions on this topic have focused on speculative extrapolations of Syrian dual-capable industry and on Syrian political motivations. Such analysis can be neither detailed nor comprehensive. Although the existence of a biotechnology industrial base would suggest that Syria has some indigenous expertise useful for developing a biological weapons capability, it does not imply and cannot confirm the existence of an offensive biological weapons program. Furthermore, from the Syrian perspective, the tactical utility of deploying biological weapons is questionable given that their use against its foremost security concerns, whether foreign or domestic, poses a significant risk of “blowback.”

translation: they probably could make biological weapons but could kill their own people if the disease spread person to person and Assad wouldn't risk that. Uh Isis might, but that's another worry for another time.

in contrast, it is well known that Syria has used chemical weapons against civilians (as did Sadam Hussein).

EBOOK: Medical management of BIological weapons.

US Army review on biological warfare.

explains why Covid was not a biological weapon: it spread too slowly and only killed high risk people, not military age men. And the vaccines did stop the spread (the death rate went down with giving it out: you can argue repeated shots were not needed but initially it did slow the epidemic).And it notes a lot of the conspiracy theories against the US biolabs are China and Russia propaganda trying to divert attention to the more probably lab leak theory from Wuhan and the dirty little secret that both countries have  active bioweapon programs.

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So is the hysteria about bird flu just the same ones who shut down the world economy for covid for two years instead of two months, which might have been warranted? 

And are the gaslighting articles such as the one I quote at the start of this long essay a way to persuade the public (and Trumpieboy's RFK JR) to let them do this risky research?

Or is the reason twofold: One, allow gain of function research and two: let the WHO treaty that allows them the power to order countries how to response to the next epidemic be passed?

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the fear is that bird flu mixed with either human or pig flu was behind the 1918 epidemic of influenza.

But that epidemic hit a civilian population suffering from malnutrition from World War I (blockades and collapse of the food distribution system especially in Eastern Europe). and in soldiers poorly ventillated barracks.

That epidemic killed young people more than the elderly, who might have had immunity from previous influenza epidemics:

Van Wijhe et al. (6) returned to the question of the origins of the 1918 virus by exploring the epidemiologic imprint of the 1918 virus on Danish mortality records, echoing recent work on immune imprinting (18–20). They identified several age breakpoints in pandemic mortality that were suggestive of the cycling of different influenza strains between the mid-19th century and the 1918 pandemic. Most notably, they argued for co-circulation of 2 subtypes of influenza virus (carrying type I and II hemagglutinin surface antigens) between 1873 and 1908. As a result, persons born between 1873 and 1908 (aged 10–45 years during the 1918 pandemic) may have been primed by either hemagglutinin type, potentially explaining the intriguing age profile of pandemic mortality in adults.

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so what have I left out of this discussion?

Follow the money?