The NIH awarded a $3.4 million grant to the non-profit organization EcoHealth Alliance Inc. over six years, funding research to study the risk of bat coronavirus emergence. This sum of money was administered by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the institute of the NIH directed by Fauci. EcoHealth Alliance then awarded part of the money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology ($598,500 over five years).
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This framework defined PPP as a pathogen that is “likely highly transmissible” and “likely highly virulent and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or mortality in humans”. An enhanced PPP is one that results “from the enhancement of the transmissibility and/or virulence of a pathogen”. Under this framework, enhanced PPPs do not include pathogens that are naturally circulating and have been recovered from nature.
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Stanley Perlman, a microbiologist at the University of Iowa, told FactCheck.org that EcoHealth’s research was about “trying to see if these viruses can infect human cells and what about the spike protein on the virus determines that.” According to FactCheck.org, Perlman did not think there was anything in the EcoHealth grant description that would be gain-of-function research.
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A 2017 study published by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, listing the NIH as a funding body, appears related to this grant[4]. The researchers wanted to test whether the spike protein of new wild coronaviruses, which they isolated in bats, would allow the coronaviruses to enter human cells.
The problem with studying coronaviruses is that they are hard to culture in the lab[5]. To carry out their study, the researchers used the genetic sequence of a coronavirus (WIV1) that does replicate in vitro (in the lab) and inserted the spike proteins of the newly isolated viruses. In this way, they could test whether the newly isolated viruses could replicate in human cells in a lab dish.
Data included in the publication[4] showed that these experiments did not enhance the viruses’ infectivity. The experiments therefore did not make viruses more dangerous to humans or more transmissible.
There are differing opinions on whether or not what the researchers at WIV did counts as gain of function research:
However, Richard Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and a critic of gain-of-function research, told the Washington Post that “the research was—unequivocally—gain-of-function research. The research met the definition for gain-of-function research of concern under the 2014 Pause.”
And Kevin Esvelt, a biologist at the MIT Media Lab, stated in a fact-check by PolitiFact that “certain techniques that the researchers used seemed to meet the definition of gain-of-function research”.
On the other hand, Joel Wertheim, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California San Diego, told PolitiFact that the experiments carried out in the 2017 study, despite using recombinant RNA technology, don’t meet the criteria for gain-of-function research in virology.
So to summarize: from what we know, researchers at WIV inserted a spike protein from a naturally occuring coronavirus into another coronavirus that was capable of replicating in a lab and infecting human cells. But the genome of this resulting virus seems too different from that of coronavirus for it to have been a direct ancestor of the pandemic causing coronavirus.
Overall I don’t feel like enough people are linking their sources when they make statements like “I’d give the lab leak hypothesis a probability of X%”.
I think Eliezer ignores how important prestige is for the Chinese. We got them to outlaw human cloning by telling them that doing it would put the Chinese academic community in a bad light.
We likely could have done the same with gain of function research. Having their first biosafety level 4 lab for the Chinese likely was mostly about prestige. Having no biosafety 4 labs while a lot of other countries had biosafety 4 labs wasn’t something that was okay for the Chinese because it suggests that they aren’t advanced enough.
I do think that it would be possible to make a deal that gives China the prestige for their scientists that they want without having to endanger everyone for it.
So to summarize: from what we know, researchers at WIV inserted a spike protein from a naturally occuring coronavirus into another coronavirus that was capable of replicating in a lab and infecting human cells. But the genome of this resulting virus seems too different from that of coronavirus for it to have been a direct ancestor of the pandemic causing coronavirus.
The Chinese took their database with the database about all the viruses that they had in their possession down in September 26 2019. In their own words they took it down because of a hacking attack during the pandemic (which suggests that starts for them somewhere in September). If we would have the database we likely would find a more related virus in it. Given that the point of creating the database in the first place was to help us in a coronavirus pandemic taking it down and not giving it to anyone is a clear sign that there’s something that would implicate them.
On the other hand, Joel Wertheim, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California San Diego, told PolitiFact that the experiments carried out in the 2017 study, despite using recombinant RNA technology, don’t meet the criteria for gain-of-function research in virology.
Basically, people outside of the virology community told them that they have to stop after exposing 75 CDC scientists to anthrax and a few weeks later other scientists finding a few vials of small pox in their freezer.
The reaction of the virology community was to redefine what gain of function research happens to be and continue endangering everyone.
It’s like Wall Street people when asked whether they do insider training saying: “According to our definition of what insider training means we didn’t”.
Overall I don’t feel like enough people are linking their sources when they make statements like “I’d give the lab leak hypothesis a probability of X%”.
Wow, this is quite the post! I’ve been looking for a post like this on LessWrong going over the lab leak hypothesis and the evidence for and against it, but I must have missed this one when you posted it.
I have to say, this looks pretty bad. I think I still have a major blindspot, which is I’ve read much more about the details of the lab leak hypothesis than I have about the natural origin hypothesis, so I still don’t feel like I can judge the relative strength of the two. That being said I think it is looking more and more likely that the virus was probably engineered while doing research and accidentally leaked from the lab.
Thanks for writing this up. I’m surprised more of this info doesn’t show up in other articles I’ve read on the origins of the pandemic.
I’m surprised more of this info doesn’t show up in other articles I’ve read on the origins of the pandemic.
I was too when I researched it. I think it’s telling us something about the amount of effort went into narrative control.
Take for example Huang Yanling, who was in the start of the pandemic called “patient zero” till someone discovered that she works at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese started censoring information about her. The fact that the NIH asked the EcoHealth alliance about where Huang Yanling is suggest that the US government (that has CIA/NSA who wiretap a lot and hack people to try to get some idea what’s going on) does consider this to be an important piece of information.
Why doesn’t the name appear in the NewYorkTimes? Very odd...
It seems impossible for a simple he-said/she-said article about the questions from the NIH to EcoHealth to appear in any of the major publications.
After reading more it seems that according to John Holdren (Head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy) the Chinese came to US politicians to discuss how topics like gain of function research should be regulated:
The top Chinese people came to talk through what the implications of these technologies are, and how we should think as a global science community about regulating them.
China’s leaders aren’t completely irresponsible. They messed up in Wuhan by allowing the lab to without enough trained personal to operate it safely but I would expect that it’s a combination of goals to have the lab on the one hand and the information about the security issues not going to the right people because the people who are responsible for the lab don’t want to look bad.
I doubt that Xi Jinping knew that he had a biosafety 4 lab without enough trained personal to be run safely.
I think the fact that mistakes like this are so understandable is precisely why gain of function research is dangerous. One mistake can lead to a multi-year pandemic and kill 10 million people. With those stakes, I don’t think anyone should be doing gain of function research that could lead to human deaths if pathogens escaped.
Eliezer seemed to think that the ban on funding for gain of function research in the US simply led to research grants going to labs outside the US (Wuhan Institute of Virology in particular). he doesn’t really cite any sources here so I can’t do much to fact check his hypothesis.
Upon further googling, this gets murkier. Here’s a very good article that goes into depth about what the NIH did and didn’t fund at WIV and whether such research counts as “gain of function research”.
Some quotes from the article:
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There are differing opinions on whether or not what the researchers at WIV did counts as gain of function research:
So to summarize: from what we know, researchers at WIV inserted a spike protein from a naturally occuring coronavirus into another coronavirus that was capable of replicating in a lab and infecting human cells. But the genome of this resulting virus seems too different from that of coronavirus for it to have been a direct ancestor of the pandemic causing coronavirus.
Overall I don’t feel like enough people are linking their sources when they make statements like “I’d give the lab leak hypothesis a probability of X%”.
I think Eliezer ignores how important prestige is for the Chinese. We got them to outlaw human cloning by telling them that doing it would put the Chinese academic community in a bad light.
We likely could have done the same with gain of function research. Having their first biosafety level 4 lab for the Chinese likely was mostly about prestige. Having no biosafety 4 labs while a lot of other countries had biosafety 4 labs wasn’t something that was okay for the Chinese because it suggests that they aren’t advanced enough.
I do think that it would be possible to make a deal that gives China the prestige for their scientists that they want without having to endanger everyone for it.
The Chinese took their database with the database about all the viruses that they had in their possession down in September 26 2019. In their own words they took it down because of a hacking attack during the pandemic (which suggests that starts for them somewhere in September). If we would have the database we likely would find a more related virus in it. Given that the point of creating the database in the first place was to help us in a coronavirus pandemic taking it down and not giving it to anyone is a clear sign that there’s something that would implicate them.
Basically, people outside of the virology community told them that they have to stop after exposing 75 CDC scientists to anthrax and a few weeks later other scientists finding a few vials of small pox in their freezer.
The reaction of the virology community was to redefine what gain of function research happens to be and continue endangering everyone.
It’s like Wall Street people when asked whether they do insider training saying: “According to our definition of what insider training means we didn’t”.
I have written all my sources up at https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wQLXNjMKXdXXdK8kL/fauci-s-emails-and-the-lab-leak-hypothesis
Wow, this is quite the post! I’ve been looking for a post like this on LessWrong going over the lab leak hypothesis and the evidence for and against it, but I must have missed this one when you posted it.
I have to say, this looks pretty bad. I think I still have a major blindspot, which is I’ve read much more about the details of the lab leak hypothesis than I have about the natural origin hypothesis, so I still don’t feel like I can judge the relative strength of the two. That being said I think it is looking more and more likely that the virus was probably engineered while doing research and accidentally leaked from the lab.
Thanks for writing this up. I’m surprised more of this info doesn’t show up in other articles I’ve read on the origins of the pandemic.
I was too when I researched it. I think it’s telling us something about the amount of effort went into narrative control.
Take for example Huang Yanling, who was in the start of the pandemic called “patient zero” till someone discovered that she works at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese started censoring information about her. The fact that the NIH asked the EcoHealth alliance about where Huang Yanling is suggest that the US government (that has CIA/NSA who wiretap a lot and hack people to try to get some idea what’s going on) does consider this to be an important piece of information.
Why doesn’t the name appear in the NewYorkTimes? Very odd...
It seems impossible for a simple he-said/she-said article about the questions from the NIH to EcoHealth to appear in any of the major publications.
After reading more it seems that according to John Holdren (Head of the
Office of Science and Technology Policy) the Chinese came to US politicians to discuss how topics like gain of function research should be regulated:
China’s leaders aren’t completely irresponsible. They messed up in Wuhan by allowing the lab to without enough trained personal to operate it safely but I would expect that it’s a combination of goals to have the lab on the one hand and the information about the security issues not going to the right people because the people who are responsible for the lab don’t want to look bad.
I doubt that Xi Jinping knew that he had a biosafety 4 lab without enough trained personal to be run safely.
I think the fact that mistakes like this are so understandable is precisely why gain of function research is dangerous. One mistake can lead to a multi-year pandemic and kill 10 million people. With those stakes, I don’t think anyone should be doing gain of function research that could lead to human deaths if pathogens escaped.