Thread by @Ayjchan

Another key piece on risks of lab-based outbreaks by @fastlerner @theintercept

"it is not at all clear that tracking down virus-infected wildlife in remote locations, to which the U.S. devotes.. substantial [$].. helped us prepare for our current crisis"
theintercept.com/2021/12/28/cov…

"Virtually every part of the work of outbreak prediction can result in an accidental infection. Even with the best of intentions, scientists can serve as vectors for the viruses they hunt — and as a result their work may put everyone else’s lives on the line along with their own"

Dennis Carroll, who designed and led Predict:
“It’s fool’s gold to think that you’re going to predict which is the next virus. But you can begin forecasting where that emergence is most likely to occur... I probably never should have named Predict ‘Predict’”

Edward Holmes et al wrote in @Nature in 2018, "dubbed the idea that scientists could prevent the next pandemic by genetically characterizing all viruses the “forecasting fallacy” and urged his fellow researchers to focus on more cost-effective approaches to mitigate disease"

On Wuhan Institute of Virology:
“Despite the fact that they had been conducting intensive surveillance & characterization of SARS-like coronaviruses, they failed to identify the SARS-like coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that jumped into humans right where they were doing their studies”

Jesse Bloom:
"if it is actually the next pandemic virus and you’re collecting it and bringing it back to a lab and studying it, there’s some risk that if something goes wrong, it could cause a pandemic"
theintercept.com/2021/12/28/cov…

“There was a concerted effort to actually take some of these samples from Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and bring them to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” said @gdemaneuf “That’s a big change because now we have a direct link between Laos and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

@gdemaneuf "The Intercept reached out to 6 of the scientists EcoHealth Alliance listed as viral sampling collaborators in its letter to the NIH, including.. [their] contact in Laos"

Only the contact in Cambodia replied, saying they did not have info.

@gdemaneuf Read the whole @theintercept article by @fastlerner

"the NIAID’s funding for virus research, which ballooned because of bioterrorism fears, has inadvertently resulted in what could be a bioterror arsenal if it fell into the wrong hands"

theintercept.com/2021/12/28/cov…

Filippa Lentzos:
“It’s not clear how NIH is doing risk assessment or whether they’re completely outsourcing it to the grantees.”

@theintercept: Post-pandemic “[NIH] was still struggling to understand what biosafety protocols had been in place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology”

@FilippaLentzos in @theintercept
"The pressure to transgress those [safety] norms is built into the profession of science. “You have to push the envelope. That’s what gets recognition, not just peer recognition, but that’s what gets funding. That’s what gets publication.”"

@FilippaLentzos @theintercept From @colbertlateshow, @jonstewart says about scientists:

"I love them and they do such good work but they are going to kill us all...

Here's how I believe the world ends... somewhere in a lab, a guy goes 'hurhur, it worked!'"