Chinese lab playing around with Ebola virus
- Thread starter Phil C. McNasty
- Start date
I'm not anti-vax at all. I took Hep A vaccine many years ago when I went to Panama and there was an outbreak.Oh.
Shocking.
This has become an anti-vax thead.
If a new virus appears on the planet of course we should come up with a vaccine.
But other then that I dont think labs should be mucking around with dangerous viruses like Ebola to find a vaccine which we dont really need
There are many viral diseases without vaccines. Plus viruses mutate sort of how SARS mutated into COVID. A cursory google search shows these 10 diseases as not having vaccines:
- Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis)
- Chikungunya
- Dengue
- Cytomegalovirus
- HIV/AIDS
- Hookworm infection
- Leishmaniasis
- Malaria
- Respiratory Syncytial Virus
- Schistosomiasis
Loading…
www.npr.org
You are also forgetting that virus research goes beyond just vaccines. They can be used to diagnose illnesses, treat illnesses, develop drugs and vaccines, surveillance, detection and prevention initiatives. I am no infectious disease expert, but saying that research is not needed, without knowing anything about said research, or all the different ways it can help is uninformed opinion. I mean without research how would you have come up with a vaccine for small pox etc? What if there are other more serious illnesses that come up in the future and how will you respond if you dismantle virus research infrastructure? I mean the very reason we were able to come up with a vaccine for COVID is because of all the good work that was done throughout the years.
Just anti-science in general?
OK then.
We will disagree on the "public health is good, actually" thing.
Ah, so that wasn't a "there are no viruses we need a vaccine for" it was a "there are no viruses we need a new vaccine for" statement?
We have already established you are against all research, so forgive me if I read it as broader than it was.
Can't happen. But just in case, let me know if you see Dustin Hoffman and Renee Russo in the same place.
Is there an HIV vaccine? They've been working on it for decades with no luck. What makes you think that they'd be able to come up with a vaccine in times for an ebola-like virus before the 90% kill rate spreads worldwide?
Hookworm is also not a virus. Its what the name says, a worm.
HIV has a treatment called protease inhibitors.
All the other diseases you mentioned arent likely to turn into a pandemic
How can I be anti-science when I've owned plenty of bio stocks in the past??
I'm currently still holding Novavax which was up almost 100% yesterday btw
novavax stock price - Google Zoeken
www.google.ca
Novavax stock doubles after Sanofi deal marks 'new chapter' for company
Novavax stock popped Friday on news of a licensing deal and minority stake from Big Pharma player Sanofi.
I'm very much pro science, but I dont think playing around with Ebola virus is a good idea
How do you know they won't become a pandemic? As I said viruses mutate covid being an example. What about the other points I made about virus research.?
How do you know a mutated Ebola virus a bio firm is working on cant leak and cause a pandemic??
Last edited:
They came up with a smallpox vaccine AFTER that virus had causes millions of deaths.
Of course in that case developing a vaccine is a good thing.
Can you name 1 vaccine thats been developed BEFORE a pandemic started??
@Kautilya @Valcazar why do you waste time with this idiot? Can't you see the MO of his responses? It's atypical of the brainwashed, quick to deflect, answer with questions, misinform, mislead, and misdirect.
How do you react to a pandemic without prior research, meaning studying existing viruses provide tools and information to defend against future pathogens. It's like asking a mechanic to fix an EV car, when he never learned about them before. Or asking for financial advice from an Amish person who never left thir community.
How do you react to a pandemic without prior research, meaning studying existing viruses provide tools and information to defend against future pathogens. It's like asking a mechanic to fix an EV car, when he never learned about them before. Or asking for financial advice from an Amish person who never left thir community.
It can, and that is why they take stringent safety precautions. Even so sometimes it does leak, but they act quickly to identify patient zero, and use contact tracing to immediately quarantine and contain. There have been many lab leaks. How many have turned into a pandemic?
Yes. It takes time to develop vaccines.
The bottomline is virus research is not just about vaccines and has many other uses, and possibly impacts multiple areas of medicine that you and I are not experts in. You cannot afford to dismantle existing research infrastructure because in the future we may have a pandemic and be unable to respond.
I mean who in their right minds would recommend STOPPING medical research as we progress? There was no virus research in the 17th or 18th century. Did they not have pandemics? Even regular viruses used to kill people more often than they do today and they dont kill nearly as much today, thanks to virus research.
The only valid concern you have seems to be that there is an increase in risk of deadly pathogens leaking and killing everyone. So, the recommendation should be to improve containment and safety standards. Not to shut down research itself. That is like burning your house down because you have a rat in the attic.
Looks like I'm not the only one who voices concern.
But science.org must be anti-science as well then, huh??
The number of high-containment labs studying the deadliest known pathogens is booming. A new analysis warns the growing number of labs is raising risks of an accidental release or misuse of germs such as the Ebola and Nipah viruses.
“The more labs and people working with dangerous pathogens, the risks go up,” says biosecurity expert Filippa Lentzos of King’s College London, who started the Global BioLabs mapping project 2 years ago with Gregory Koblentz of George Mason University.
Worldwide, there are 51 biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) labs in 27 countries, according to the Global BioLabs Report 2023, which was released on 16 March. These labs have the highest level of safety and security standards, where workers often wear protective suits. Fifty-one is roughly double the number that existed about a decade ago. Many BSL-4 labs were built in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States to develop biodefense countermeasures and in response to the 2003 multicountry outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Three-quarters of the BSL-4 labs are in urban areas, creating risk for more people if a pathogen escaped.
Eighteen BSL-4 labs are slated to open in the next few years, most in Asian countries such as India and the Philippines, that want to bolster responses to local threats and future pandemics. The report also documented 57 operating BSL-3 “plus” labs, mainly in Europe, which are BSL-3 labs with extra safety and security measures. Researchers often use these labs to study animal pathogens such as highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza.
Global spread
Although most biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) and biosafety level-3 plus (BSL-3+) labs are in Europe and North America, Asia is also home to many of these facilities where dangerous human and animal pathogens are studied. The number of BSL-4 labs there will double in the next few years.
Concerns about an increasing number of BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs aren’t new, but they have grown since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic began in 2019. One hypothesis is that the virus came from a lab. And many countries, particularly those building their first BSL-4 labs, lack strong policies and methods to monitor such labs, the report says. Only Canada has legislation overseeing all experiments, even those with no government funding, that are considered “dual use” because the results could potentially be used to cause harm.
The report urges the World Health Organization to strengthen guidance and individual countries to agree to audits by outside experts to ensure that their labs meet international standards.
But science.org must be anti-science as well then, huh??
Loading…
www.science.org
The number of high-containment labs studying the deadliest known pathogens is booming. A new analysis warns the growing number of labs is raising risks of an accidental release or misuse of germs such as the Ebola and Nipah viruses.
“The more labs and people working with dangerous pathogens, the risks go up,” says biosecurity expert Filippa Lentzos of King’s College London, who started the Global BioLabs mapping project 2 years ago with Gregory Koblentz of George Mason University.
Worldwide, there are 51 biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) labs in 27 countries, according to the Global BioLabs Report 2023, which was released on 16 March. These labs have the highest level of safety and security standards, where workers often wear protective suits. Fifty-one is roughly double the number that existed about a decade ago. Many BSL-4 labs were built in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States to develop biodefense countermeasures and in response to the 2003 multicountry outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Three-quarters of the BSL-4 labs are in urban areas, creating risk for more people if a pathogen escaped.
Eighteen BSL-4 labs are slated to open in the next few years, most in Asian countries such as India and the Philippines, that want to bolster responses to local threats and future pandemics. The report also documented 57 operating BSL-3 “plus” labs, mainly in Europe, which are BSL-3 labs with extra safety and security measures. Researchers often use these labs to study animal pathogens such as highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza.
Global spread
Although most biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) and biosafety level-3 plus (BSL-3+) labs are in Europe and North America, Asia is also home to many of these facilities where dangerous human and animal pathogens are studied. The number of BSL-4 labs there will double in the next few years.
Concerns about an increasing number of BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs aren’t new, but they have grown since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic began in 2019. One hypothesis is that the virus came from a lab. And many countries, particularly those building their first BSL-4 labs, lack strong policies and methods to monitor such labs, the report says. Only Canada has legislation overseeing all experiments, even those with no government funding, that are considered “dual use” because the results could potentially be used to cause harm.
The report urges the World Health Organization to strengthen guidance and individual countries to agree to audits by outside experts to ensure that their labs meet international standards.
Except it's never called a vaccine is it? You'll always be asked if you got your flu shot.
Because it was generally accepted that vaccines weren't an annual thing.
Of course they changed the definition of the word so as to make the Covid shots more palatable to the general public.
