How do you know a mutated Ebola virus a bio firm is working on cant leak and cause a pandemic??
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?
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??
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.