Lokasenna
Posts: 9297
Joined: 3/3/2012 From: Iowan in MD/DC Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted Dec. 19, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih.html "Federal officials on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal. Such work can now proceed, said Dr. Francis S. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, but only if a scientific panel decides that the benefits justify the risks. Some scientists are eager to pursue these studies because they may show, for example, how a bird flu could mutate to more easily infect humans, or could yield clues to making a better vaccine." "When the moratorium was imposed, it effectively halted 21 projects, Dr. Collins said. In the three years since, the N.I.H. created exceptions that funded ten of those projects. Five were flu-related, and five concerned the MERS virus. That virus is a coronavirus carried by camels that has infected about 2,100 people since it was discovered in 2012, and has killed about a third of them, according to the World Health Organization." Mildly concerning, but we know that this coronavirus wasn't made in a lab. Is "the scientific panel" the institutional review board process? If so, that is rather stringent and any risk of harm to humans has to be mitigated or conclusively shown to be worth it. It's worth noting that "compassionate use" falls outside of this process specifically because treatments that haven't yet met the stringent "prove it doesn't have negative side effects" part of the process would not pass.
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