The White House today announced a policy banning federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function (DGOF) research and establishing an independent federal review board to implement the ban.
US Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research
"Dangerous gain-of-function research" is research with a biological agent that seeks, achieves, or has a substantial risk of achieving one or more of the outcomes listed below and could result in significant negative societal consequences:
i. Enhancing the harmful consequences of the biological agent;
ii. Disrupting beneficial immunological response or the effectiveness of an immunization against the biological agent;
iii. Conferring to the biological agent resistance to clinically or agriculturally useful prophylactic or therapeutic interventions against that biological agent or facilitating its ability to evade detection methodologies
iv. V. vi. vii. Increasing the stability, transmissibility, or ability to disseminate the biological agent; Altering the host range or tropism of the biological agent; Enhancing the susceptibility of a human, animal, or plant host population to the biological agent; or Generating or reconstituting an eradicated or extinct biological agent."
"'Potential DGOF' is research with a biological agent that could potentially result in one or more of the outcomes listed in the DGOF definition above and could result in significant negative societal consequences."
Ebright: "Fauci willfully violated federal policies on gain-of-function...research; committed conspiracy to defraud, fraud, perjury, destruction of federal records, and obstruction; and caused a pandemic that killed 20 million and cost $25 trillion"
Ebright: "I am pleased that, at last, the process of holding Fauci accountable for his crimes--a process that was side-tracked by Biden's autopen pardon--may be starting."
Ebright: "The autopen pardon may protect Fauci from arrest and prosecution, but subpoenas, public hearings with testimony under oath, debarment from eligibility for federal employment and contracting, and a clawback of federal pension and benefits should be on the table."
There were two funding cutouts between the NIH and the reckless coronavirus gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology: (1) Peter Daszak on NIH grant AI110864, and (2) Peter Hotez on NIH grant AI098775.
"Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe, both researchers with the NIH at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory were charged today in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to smuggle monkeypox into the US and giving false statements to federal law enforcement"
"Vincent Munster, a citizen of the Netherlands, 53, is the Chief of the Virus Ecology Section, Laboratory of Virology at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana. Claude Kwe, a citizen of Cameroon, 38, is a research fellow in Munster’s section. "
"The work of both men is focused on 'emerging viral pathogens and how those pathogens 'cross the species barrier.' They work at a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory"
HHS letter: "This is to notify you...I have suspended you and initiated proceedings to debar you from participating in Federal Government procurement...programs....[Y]ou lack the present responsibility to participate in Federal procurement...programs."
"NIH found that, based on his own statements and published research, Dr. Ralph Baric was engaged in GoF research that was subject to the October 17, 2014, U.S. Government funding pause and NIH Notice Number: NOT-OD-15-011, Funding Pause for Certain Types of Gain-of-Function Research Projects to that effect, and continued to participate in in GoF research even after being notified of this by the NIH."
"Also, the NIH found that Dr. Ralph Baric was not forthcoming surrounding his Wellcome Trust grant in documents submitted to the NIH."
"Dr. David Relman went cold at his laptop as an A.I. chatbot told him how to plan a massacre...[T]he chatbot explained how to modify an infamous pathogen in a lab so that it would resist known treatments."
"Worse, the bot described in vivid detail how to release the superbug, identifying a security lapse in a large public transit system...The bot outlined a plan to maximize casualties and minimize the chances of being caught."