US Politics

Don't Kill Bill

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WI_Red said:
The Paul/Fauci discussion has 2 parts:

1. Is the EcoHealth Alliance work in Wuhan, funded by NIH/NAID, gain of function work?
2. Did the COVID-19 pandemic result from that work?

Let's start with 2 as this is the conclusion Paul wants to make and what prompted the "the only person lying here is you" jab by Fauci. Paul tried on numerous occasions to tie the work done at Wuhan to the pandemic. If you watch the complete exchange it is how he framed his questions. Based on all the information available (ie the grant abstract and resultant publications) this is impossible. This was simply not the type of work being funded. As I stated above, someone could have been working outside the scope of the grant, but that is always possible regardless of the grant or organization.

On the GOF. Based on the way I (and other waaaaaayyyy smarter people) read the US governments definition of GOF work in the 2014 U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses - October 17, 2014 (phe.gov) I do not think the research was GOF. By a VERY literal definition of GOF (which is what I think Dr. Ebright is using) it would be, but that would mean every experiment ever done in science would be creating, or using, gain of function organisms.

- want to study the human insulin gene for diabetic research? You make a GOF mouse that expresses it
- want to study safely study Yersinia pestis (the bacteria that causes the "plague")? You insert a gene from one of the virulence associated plasmids into the benign background strain Yersinia pseudotuberculosis
- want to study the SARS-COV spike protein in a safe background (which is what EcoHealth wanted)? You make a chimera using the S protein and a well defined, attenuated, mouse viral backbone and infect human cells.

This is how research is done, and no scientists I have ever worked with would seriously consider any of the above examples as actual GOF research. The issue is in the wording, not in the reality. The twitter thread by Alina Chan (linked it he BBC article) does a good job of discussing this.


A long Edit:

I should clarify my last statement. I am approaching this as a microbiologist, not as a scientist in general. I was trained to always be conscious of considering GOF when designing experiments. For instance, a classical method of creating bacterial gene deletions is to replace the gene with an antibiotic resistance gene and then grow the bacteria on/in a media containing the antibiotic. The reason for this is 2 fold: 1) the only way for the gene to be expressed is for the antibiotic resistance gene to replace the gene you want to knock out so.... 2) The bacteria still surviving will have your gene knocked out and all other cells will be killed.

The bacteria I worked on, Streptococcus pneumonia, has been around long enough that most strains in the wild are unfortunately resistant to ampicillin (a penicillin derivative) but still susceptible to cephalosporin class drugs. For this reason we would use ampicillin as our marker but never use a cephalosporin class drug. Either method will provide that strain with a GOF it did not have, but only in the latter drug will the GOF confer an advantage should it escape the lab. Any time we made knock ins/outs we always had to map out with our PI the possible outcomes for just this reason.
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I am not saying any of this is wrong but,

I think it has a third part though. Fauci is talking to the public he is paid by, to inform them, he knows there is a common misconception about a term like gain of function he should make that clear.

Sexual relations as per Bill Clinton. Saying well we never defined the term and legally I'm in the clear doesn't mean he wasn't avoiding the point. Yes its embarrassing but also its important if you want to be believed.
 

WI_Red

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Don't Kill Bill said:
I am not saying any of this is wrong but,

I think it has a third part though. Fauci is talking to the public he is paid by, to inform them, he knows there is a common misconception about a term like gain of function he should make that clear.

Sexual relations as per Bill Clinton. Saying well we never defined the term and legally I'm in the clear doesn't mean he wasn't avoiding the point. Yes its embarrassing but also its important if you want to be believed.
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I'll take the smallest of breaks from my self imposed COVID talk ban to just say that while I don't disagree I do not think that setting is/was the appropriate place. He has to respond to the questions asked by the senators and they are able to cut him off at any time (that "reclaiming my time" bullshit). He should come out and give an interview where he walks people through the terminology.

Ok, ban reinstated.
 

Don't Kill Bill

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WI_Red said:
I'll take the smallest of breaks from my self imposed COVID talk ban to just say that while I don't disagree I do not think that setting is/was the appropriate place. He has to respond to the questions asked by the senators and they are able to cut him off at any time (that "reclaiming my time" bullshit). He should come out and give an interview where he walks people through the terminology.

Ok, ban reinstated.
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Sorry if I have forced you back into the mire.
I know its all partisan and spun to a ridiculous level so I do cut him some slack and I would not want his job at all.

If you think about the number of instances now, where really important issues like for example the banking crisis are well beyond common understanding it is more important than ever, that the people we pay to look out for our interests in their fields of specialty do so openly and without equivocation. It might even help if they admit more often that they can't be sure so we at least understand that there are uncertainties.
 

nimic

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WI_Red said:
I'll take the smallest of breaks from my self imposed COVID talk ban to just say that while I don't disagree I do not think that setting is/was the appropriate place. He has to respond to the questions asked by the senators and they are able to cut him off at any time (that "reclaiming my time" bullshit). He should come out and give an interview where he walks people through the terminology.

Ok, ban reinstated.
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WI_Red

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Don't Kill Bill said:
Sorry if I have forced you back into the mire.
I know its all partisan and spun to a ridiculous level so I do cut him some slack and I would not want his job at all.

If you think about the number of instances now, where really important issues like for example the banking crisis are well beyond common understanding it is more important than ever, that the people we pay to look out for our interests in their fields of specialty do so openly and without equivocation. It might even help if they admit more often that they can't be sure so we at least understand that there are uncertainties.
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No worries. I made the mistake of venturing into the mains and getting into it in the "should the squad get vaccinated" thread. Between that, dealing with the anger/depression of family in the medical community who are losing patients, and general day to day conversations I just need a break from it in the one place no one can force me to engage. :)

I would agree in principle with your statement, but I would add that in science, like in any other field, you can always find an "expert" to agree with your point of view. In this sense Fauci and pretty much anyone trying to explain why Rand Paul is an ass clown in this case, beyond his usual ass clownness, is a losing position because Paul will trot our his experts who claim it is GoF and that will be the narrative on the right and Fauci saying its not will be the narrative on the left. The truth is not in the middle, but verrrrrrry left of middle.
 

WPMUFC

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O’SULLIVAN: Have you been vaccinated?
DENNIS: No.
O’SULLIVAN: Why not?
DENNIS: Not going to.
O’SULLIVAN: Any particular reason?
DENNIS: God gave us natural immunities to everything. Why would you wanna interfere?
O’SULLIVAN: You’re an older man than I am. You’re probably in the — what the government would say is the risk category.
DENNIS: Well, who come up with that?
O’SULLIVAN: The scientists and the doctors.
DENNIS: Who told them to say that?
[…]
O’SULLIVAN: Even though it’s the Trump vaccine, the doctors, the scientists–
DENNIS: That ain’t a Trump vaccine. He did it to please everybody that put the pressure on him.
O’SULLIVAN: He got the shot himself.
DENNIS: Who says he got the shot? He got fixed up.
O’SULLIVAN: He got the shot. He got it in January I think before he left the–
DENNIS: I don’t think he got the shot. I think he got some stuff to make him better.
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https://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-rep...he-government-would-say-is-the-risk-category/
I think this is pretty much the perfect encapsulation of the USA in 2021
 

WI_Red

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With all the bullshit going on I am going to post this. It is off topic but it made me grin for a solid minute, which is saying something. I guess to make it on topic I can say that sports is one of the few remaining refuges away from politics here in the US.

 

NotThatSoph

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I'm sure all politicians agree that they'd never ever act on any insider information, so this legislation would achieve is to ban an inferion alternative to cheap index funds. I predict a bipartisan consensus.
 

Beans

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NotThatSoph said:
I'm sure all politicians agree that they'd never ever act on any insider information, so this legislation would achieve is to ban an inferion alternative to cheap index funds. I predict a bipartisan consensus.
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It’s legal for Congress people to buy and sell on insider information, which they do.
 

NotThatSoph

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Beans said:
It’s legal for Congress people to buy and sell on insider information, which they do.
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Meanwhile I regularly get annoying messages from my bank just in case I've recently befriended someone important. I'm not that social, you don't have to check in every fortnight.
 

nimic

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Raoul said:
This is better than SNL

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It's weird, I'm actually finding him hard to watch. I usually have no problem watching these kinds of people make absolute fools out of themselves (which is why I usually watch the GOP Primary debates), but watching this guy makes me feel almost like I'm watching a particularly good cringe-inducing episode of The Office.
 

Dr. Dwayne

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nimic said:
It's weird, I'm actually finding him hard to watch. I usually have no problem watching these kinds of people make absolute fools out of themselves (which is why I usually watch the GOP Primary debates), but watching this guy makes me feel almost like I'm watching a particularly good cringe-inducing episode of The Office.
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Lies. You are watching Hornblower again.
 

WPMUFC

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Starve the poor like animals by cutting welfare so they will be greatful and motivated by hunger for shit jobs
 

WI_Red

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50/50 chance he actually has COVID. 100% chance he owns Regeneron stock.
 

WI_Red

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Surprised this is barely being covered. Maybe the media doesn't want to interrupt their "We never should have left Afghanistan" narrative?

 

WI_Red

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Drifter said:
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I looked this guy up and in doing so stumbled on a holy feck of gerrymandering. I was mystified how a district that includes Athens, GA (home of UGA) could be in a district that is +15 R, especially when Athens would make up 1/5th of the whole districts population. How? They. Split. The. County. In. Half! They completely nullified a progressive city/county by splitting it.
 
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