US Politics

WI_Red said:
Almost any molecular manipulation of a virus, or bacteria (my field) could be classified as "gain of function". For instance, one of the most basic practices in bacteriology is the replacement of a gene of interest with a gene that encodes antibiotic resistance (usually ampicillin). This allows you to "find" those cells in which your gene of interest was deleted and will kill all "wild-type" cells. Similarly in viral research you will see scientist insert viral proteins from one virus into another virus (that is deemed benign) to study what the function of that protein is. To put it simply, I can cut off Messi's left foot and graft it onto my knee, but that doesn't mean I have gained the ability to score a worldy.

Besides, what was in conflict here was not if the Wuhan Institute was doing GOF research, but if the NIH/NAID was funding it. The scope of the awarded grant to EcoHealth would suggest that this was NOT a funded purpose of the grant. Is there a chance that someone was operating outside the scope of the award? Sure, but from what I have read that is not likely the case unless you take a VERY liberal definition of GOF as your basis.

In any case, Paul's ultimate goal, which he actually SAYS, is to make a case that NIH research resulted in the deaths pf millions of people.
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Well here a bbc article, with an expert saying it was gain-of-function, and another saying that "There is not always consensus [on gain-of-function research] even amongst experts, and institutions interpret and apply policy differently."

If that's the case, it seems a bit disingenuous to act like it's outrageous to consider such research as gain of function.

https://www.bbc.com/news/57932699
 
Beans said:
Well here a bbc article, with an expert saying it was gain-of-function, and another saying that "There is not always consensus [on gain-of-function research] even amongst experts, and institutions interpret and apply policy differently."

If that's the case, it seems a bit disingenuous to act like it's outrageous to consider such research as gain of function.

https://www.bbc.com/news/57932699
Click to expand...

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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Democrat Breaks It Down: "The Supreme Court That Dark Money BUILT"



Surprised this guy is still alive. He's not a saint himself, but he as certainly exposed the corruption and dark money running in politics. Unfortunately, MSM will not touch this subject.
 
Why is it that any RWNJ I know goes on some rant about vaccines or economics or military or yadda yadda, and often only when the President is a Democrat, it ultimately comes to the point when "we're becoming Venezuela!" enters the conversation?
 
This (by Democrats) is a more drastic version of what Republicans did to the governor's powers after a Democrat won the office (but before he formally took charge) in NC. In this case, a socialist won the primary.

 
Ar this trajectory the americans would tore themselves apart in 10 years. Every 4 years is a stretch on extreme direction.

Before long they'll move on to using jailtime as weapon. If trump is successfully indicted and sent to prison all bets are off. Doesnt matter if it's justified or not there will be retaliation.

Them senators have dirts on everyone and anyone.

But sadly they'll probably find a shithole country to bomb and find a common baba yaga for everyone too hate.
 
always skeptical of "nobody is covering this" but it seems consistently true wrt labour issues



i scrolled way down on the NYT page and found nothing, even in the much smaller national and city headlines:
sNvBcVT.png
 
berbatrick said:
always skeptical of "nobody is covering this" but it seems consistently true wrt labour issues



i scrolled way down on the NYT page and found nothing, even in the much smaller national and city headlines:
sNvBcVT.png
Click to expand...

Of course. Both sides and the media count on big business money, so why would they give 2 shits about labor?
 
berbatrick said:
always skeptical of "nobody is covering this" but it seems consistently true wrt labour issues



i scrolled way down on the NYT page and found nothing, even in the much smaller national and city headlines:
sNvBcVT.png
Click to expand...

They don't want to give people ideas. This country needs organized labor protests like I need oxygen.
 


The legislation, which is up for a vote in the Republican-controlled county legislature on Monday, would add police officers and other "first responders" to the county's Human Rights Law, which protects individuals from discrimination based on their race, religion, gender and sexual orientation. No other profession is included in the law.

The legislation, sponsored by Legis. Josh Lafazan, a Woodbury independent who caucuses with Democrats, and Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove), would allow the county attorney to sue on behalf of officers if they are harassed, menaced or injured due to their status as a "first responder."
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@Eboue multiple hate-crime posts here, better start deleting
 
nimic said:
I'm not sure I'm following this. Are you saying the kind of people who believe in conspiracy theories are so unreliable that we shouldn't believe them when they say they believe in conspiracy theories? That seems like some sort of very circular logic. I don't think it's possible to say that as many as 20% of people are just lying.

I certainly agree that many people, particularly they kind that would agree with the sorts of statements I quoted, have views that are logically inconsistent, but I don't think the right conclusion to that is that they don't actually hold those beliefs. People have always held logically inconsistent views. Just look at how many poor, working class whites, many of whom are on welfare, vote for Republicans. The same phenomenon can be seen in most of the western world, really. I'm sure many of the people in the survey, if pressed, wouldn't be able to reasonably articulate why they held those views, but I still think they believe they're right.
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They hate the other parties more than anything. It's already on ABDems level. Policy has nothing to do. And to be fair to them D or R wont get them better anyways, same shit different year.

Some highly intellect GOP might feel the need to secure their ideologies from D invasion. I dont agree but i can see how they value the old system, call it the better good in their eyes. Some are just pure racist, some are stupid and believe shits like Qanon.

Imho conspiracy theorist and qanon are just mask. Nobody is that stupid. They just need a clown mask to hide their motives (usurpation, insurgence, etc). With this at least they can pretend it's the deep state, it's hillary.

It is what it is. Every sane joe and jane knows the why, the million dollar question is how to fix it?
 
I 100% know where (at least the contents) are and I have no problem with it other than that I am super jealous. I take issue with the author not knowing it is whisky, not whiskey in Japan.

 
Fantastic news. I am guessing this means final FDA clearance is not too far behind.

 
Finally!


The story about Cuomo and the DOJ that dropped this morning was probably the final straw. This tweet actually made me laugh out loud

 
MY Governor! shudder to think what might have happened in 2020 had Walker not been (very narrowly) defeated!

 
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.
Click to expand...


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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