Hey Pandora, put down that pox...

[dneal]

Guess who has been researching monkey pox...

The conspiracy theorists will be running wild with this for the next couple of weeks at least, but I have concerns for other reasons.

China is a military and economic competitor, with designs on creating a sphere of influence throughout Southeast Asia. They're also a totalitarian government with a horrendous record of human rights abuses. Hong Kong is no longer independent. Taiwan is becoming more contentious. Japan is investing militarily.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology recently published a paper on the research they've been doing on monkeypox during the last 2 years or so. Yep, monkeypox. The NIH granted almost $10 million to Leidos to research monkeypox vaccines, starting in 2020. You can imagine where this may or may not lead, in the mind of the Alex Jones types, at least.

More importantly though, China is working on viruses that can be weaponized - with our help and money. Chinese scientists in our universities, and money from our taxpayers. This isn't a good idea, even if their labs aren't leaky.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E6cD-VWhQY


May 31, 2022 Wuhan Institute of Virology published on monkeypox research 3 months ago, NIH also have been researching monkeypox treatment

NIH Link (https://reporter.nih.gov/search/sLt357_GeUyXtIUvUOY0MQ/project-details/10506292#sub-Projects)

Total funding, $9,824,009

The funding supports a clinical trial to identify effective treatments for monkeypox

A re-emerging pathogen

A disease of epidemic potential

Causes significant morbidity and can result in death

Human cases have been increasing in sub-Saharan Africa since 2000

Sporadic outbreaks outside of Africa have occurred

Similarity between MPXV and the variola virus,

coupled with concerns about the potential of the variola virus as a potential bioterrorism agent,

have placed monkeypox treatments at the forefront of public health and scientific research agendas in many countries.

Article in Virologica Sinica (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1995820X22000414)


Efficient assembly of a large fragment of monkeypox virus genome as a qPCR template using dual-selection based transformation-associated recombination (Feb 2022)

Since MPXV infection has never been associated with an outbreak in China, the viral genomic material required for qPCR detection is unavailable.

Using viral DNA recombinations

Transformation-associated recombination (TAR),

to assemble large DNA constructs

A 55-kb genomic fragment of monkeypox virus in VL6-48B (yeast cells)

What is Virologica Sinica? (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/virologica-sinica/about/aims-and-scope)

Virologica Sinica, the official journal of Chinese Society for Microbiology,

will serve as a platform for the communication and exchange of academic information and ideas in an international context.

Discussion section

However, this DNA assembly tool applied in virological research could also raise potential security concerns,

especially when the assembled product contains a full set of genetic material that can be recovered into a contagious pathogen.

Recently, a group of scientists was funded by a biotech company to synthesize a full-length horsepox virus genome and recover it into an infectious virus (Noyce et al., 2018).

Not surprisingly, such a controversial achievement has received enormous attention and raised global debate on its biosecurity implications (DiEuliis et al., 2017; Koblentz, 2017, 2018; DiEuliis and Gronvall, 2018).

In this study, although a full-length viral genome would be the ideal reference template for detecting MPXV by qPCR, we only sought to assemble a 55-kb viral fragment, less than one-third of the MPXV genome.

This assembly product is fail-safe by virtually eliminating any risk of recovering into an infectious virus while providing multiple qPCR targets for detecting MPXV or other Orthopoxviruses (Li et al., 2010).

Our world in data monkeypox (https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/monkeypox)

Spain and Belgium ‘gay events’

UK

Cases, + 11 = 190

20,000 doses of a smallpox vaccine

offered to close contacts of those diagnosed with monkeypox

reduce the risk of symptomatic infection and severe illness

Dr Rosamund Lewis, WHO

It's very important to describe this because it appears to be an increase in a mode of transmission that may have been under-recognised in the past

unfortunate if monkeypox exploit the immunity gap left by smallpox 40 years ago

there is still a window to close the outbreak

[dneal]

I realized that most of the Chinese threat is something that I've been listening to briefs on for many years now. Their initiatives in Africa (like building free roads for mineral rights) or South America (negotiating ports, offering free military equipment, etc...), and the assessment in the National Defense Strategy, etc...

Here's a good example, with their initiatives in Samoa, the Solomon Islands, etc... presented clearly. A 15 minute podcast from former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright.

May 31st, 2022. China Moves Closer to Hawaii

Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-presidents-daily-brief/id1617887885?i=1000564668040)
Podplay (https://www.podplay.com/podcasts/the-presidents-daily-brief-909409/episodes/may-31st-2022-china-moves-closer-to-hawaii-update-on-wheat-shortage-95150188)
Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/episode/5OP5loyIb1YKGavOTHSJjh)

[Bold2013]

Hopefully we can learn from covid pandemic for any future ones because it seems like it might be the new normal/method.

[dneal]

C'mon, that's really where you want to go with this topic?

[Chip]

Conspiracy babble aside, given overpopulation, the ravaging of habitats and species, global travel and commerce, and climate change, we seem to have set up ideal conditions for the spread of epidemic disease.

Who's responsible?

Look in the mirror.

[dneal]

Ok, but should we be collaborating with the Chinese government on virus research?

The thing that really concerns me is that they reportedly sequenced the virus (1/3 of it) from scratch.

[Chip]

If they were actively responsible for COVID, they've certainly suffered the consequences.

Hard to imagine they'd do it again.

[dneal]

Yet they did, with monkey pox.

[Lloyd]

Yet they did, with monkey pox.
If this a fact?

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[dneal]

Yet they did, with monkey pox.
If this a fact?

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70391

[Lloyd]

What classifies a virus as weaponizable versus non-weaponizable?

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[dneal]

That's a good question, and how many governments get around the issue (and treaties) through "dual-use" issues.

"We're not weaponizing anthrax, we're just studying it..."

I can post several articles if you like on China's bio programs - to include State Department warnings.

Do you trust the Chinese government?

-edit-

I may have misunderstood your question. Viruses like monkey pox are related to small pox, which is definitely deadly (sans vaccine). Look how COVID naturally mutated to essentially defeat vaccines (although not as lethal). China's research is DNA sequencing (genetic editing, in layman's terms), and they do a lot of CRISPR research/experiments.

[Lloyd]

Do you trust our government? Do you trust our country's labs that have government oversight?

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[dneal]

Here are some public source articles. Ignore the noise on whether COVID did or didn't leak from a lab. That's going to be in anything recent, with assertions one way or another due to politics. What's important is whether or not the Chinese are working on bioweapons, either for offensive purposes or defensive purposes.

Daily Mail UK - China was preparing for a Third World War with biological weapons - including coronavirus - SIX years ago, according to dossier produced by the People's Liberation Army in 2015 and uncovered by the US State Department (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9556415/China-preparing-WW3-biological-weapons-six-years-investigators-say.html)


Beijing has considered the military potential of SARS coronaviruses since 2015
The bombshell document was accessed by US State Department investigators
Scientists examined manipulation of diseases 'in a way never seen before'
Foreign affairs committee's Tom Tugendhat says evidence is a 'major concern'

U.S. Air University - Biohazard: A Look at China’s Biological Capabilities and the Recent Coronavirus Outbreak (https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Wild-Blue-Yonder/Article-Display/Article/2094603/biohazard-a-look-at-chinas-biological-capabilities-and-the-recent-coronavirus-o/)


A 2005 US Department of State compliance report noted that “China maintains some elements of an offensive [biological weapon] capability in violation of its BTWC obligations. Despite China’s declarations to the contrary, indications suggest that China maintained an offensive [biological weapon] program before acceding to the Convention in 1984.”13 Since signing the BTWC, China has been a stringent supporter of the treaty, desiring to improve both the verification mechanism of the treaty as well as strengthen export controls to prevent the proliferation of biological materials. However, according to a US intelligence official, China was the biggest export violator of all, as it had sold dual-use equipment and vaccines with both civilian medical applications and biological weapons applications. These exports likely turned into the beginnings of the Iranian biological weapons program. Then in 2006, China updated its export control list to restrict 14 additional biological agents from being exported from the mainland.14 Despite these actions, it is still believed that China has helped Iran and other Middle Eastern nations build their biological weapons programs.
Reports from the United States in 2010, 2012, and 2014 all state essentially the same thing, that China likely possesses a biological weapons program, but the extent of that program remains unknown to the public.15 According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, it is clear that “China possesses the required technology and resources to mass-produce traditional [biological weapon] agents as well as expertise in aerobiology.”16 Today, it is likely that China’s current dual-use infrastructure acts as the basis for its offensive biological capability.
The 2005 US Department of State report also identifies two facilities that have links to an offensive biological weapons program: the Chinese Ministry of Defense’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology (IME) in Beijing, and the Lanzhou Institute of Biological Produces (LIBP).17 China responds that the former is a biodefense-focused facility and the latter is a vaccine production facility. In addition to these two central laboratories, it is estimated that there are at least 50 other laboratories and hospitals being used as biological weapons research facilities.
China’s dual-use infrastructure also gives outsiders an idea of the composition of its offensive program. In 2007, China created a 20-year plant to study natural and human-made epidemics to create protective equipment for biodefense.18 It was part of China’s very public biodefense efforts. China is also known for its advancements in dispersal and delivery systems. A journal article titled, “China’s Biological Warfare Programme: An Integrative Study with Special Reference to Biological Weapons Capabilities” reports that
It is fairly clear that certain RF have fully mastered the aerobiological technologies needed for effective dispersal of BWA, both pathogens and toxins, and probably infected vectors (insects) as well. The quality, extensiveness, and characteristics of aerobiological works—including the component of nano-aerobiology—conducted by the related facilities, unambiguously lead to that postulation. They are also able, in all likelihood, to construct the functional conjunction combining dispersal devices, various warheads and delivery systems—including surface-to-surface missiles—in terms of operational biological weaponry.19

This report makes it clear that China has an advanced capability for deploying and dispersing aerosolized biological weapons. This sort of advanced capability is especially worrying because aerosolized diseases are the most contagious type of disease and have the potential to infect the largest number of people.

Washington Times - Second China defector gives biological weapons information (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/sep/16/second-china-defector-gives-biological-weapons-inf/)


U.S. intelligence agencies recently increased their knowledge of China’s covert biological weapons program with the help of a defector from the People’s Liberation Army, according to people familiar with the incident.

The defector escaped from China and traveled to Europe, where he is under the protection of a European government security service, according to the sources. The PLA defector believes that Chinese intelligence has penetrated the U.S. government and is therefore wary of cooperating with the CIA and other Western spy agencies.

Still, the defector has provided some information about China’s biological arms program that has reached the U.S. government. No other details of the defection could be learned.

However, the defector is the second person from China to provide information about Chinese biological research with potential weapons applications.

Chinese virologist Yan Li-meng fled to the United States from Hong Kong this spring and charged in news interviews that the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic was manufactured in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and appears to be designed from two viruses stored in a PLA laboratory.

The State Department provided new details about China’s covert biological weapons program in a recent report on arms compliance.

“The United States has compliance concerns with respect to Chinese military medical institutions’ toxin research and development because of the potential dual-use applications and their potential as a biological threat,” the report said. “In addition, the United States does not have sufficient information to determine whether China eliminated its assessed biological warfare program, as required under Article II of the [Biological Weapons] Convention.”

[dneal]

Do you trust our government? Do you trust our country's labs that have government oversight?

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Not the question. This thread is about China.

[Lloyd]

Do you think that the USA is doing this, too? If be surprised if we and our allies, and our foes, aren't exploring this even if only for the knowledge of how it might be used and how to create counter measures.

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[Lloyd]

I trust Russia far less than I do China.

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[dneal]

We, other western nations and Russia spent a lot of time during the Cold War researching biological warfare.

I trust Russia more than China, but that's not saying much.

Russia's days of global ambitions are long gone. That's not the case with China.

[Lloyd]

WHO says that monkey pox has been spreading for some time out of Africa.

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[dneal]

You’re still ignoring the point.

[Chip]

You’re still ignoring the point.

I can see the point.

https://i.imgur.com/VA0m4AU.jpg

But I thought it would be impolite to remark.

[dneal]

*yawn*

Is this what you want this forum to be, Chip?

I've been laughing at your "Look at me! I'm a cowboy!" dress-up pics for a while. We play the picture game if you want, but you won't like it.

[Chip]

Not playing.

[Chuck Naill]

*yawn*

Is this what you want this forum to be, Chip?

I've been laughing at your "Look at me! I'm a cowboy!" dress-up pics for a while. We play the picture game if you want, but you won't like it.

Why not post some photos of you dressed up like a soldier?

[dneal]

Why?

[Lloyd]

Why?
He loves a man in uniform and needs a bit of stimulation.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[dneal]

Why?
He loves a man in uniform and needs a bit of stimulation.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

Yeah, it did sound a little "what are you wearing"...

[Lloyd]

Me and the missus prefer to play Little Bo Peep and the straying sheep... although it can get messy. Don't ask who plays who....

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[dneal]

lol

[TFarnon]

Scientists are scientists. Some like to collaborate with others in their or related fields. Some don't. I've worked with both. My favorite PI (PhD version of a boss) collaborated with everyone, which meant I worked on a lot of very different things, and one main thing.

It isn't that the scientists sequenced the virus, because that's one of the things that kind of scientists do. I could probably just type in the appropriate keywords into the NCBI BLAST search engine and pull up the entire sequence for any number of pathogenic microoganisms, from viruses to parasites. Something more troubling that has happened at least once is that once the genome of a given virus has been sequenced, a lab can (and did in the case of a poliovirus) then synthesize that genome without resorting to host microorganisms to do so. What has kept that from happening on a wider scale is that relatively speaking, the poliovirus genome is tiny. Other viruses like influenza. poxviruses or Ebola, not so much. Some of those genomes are huge.

The point of sequencing any given virus, and then making copies of the genome is to study things like virulence factors. In the more benign sense, the goal is to find targets for pharmacological intervention. In the not-so-benign sense, there is always the possibility that tinkering with that genome could accidentally or intentionally make an organism that is the stuff of pandemic nightmares.

[TFarnon]

Oh, fer cryin' out loud! Okay, so I ate, breathed and excreted molecular biology for 8 years. However, the point of this was NOT to generate a pathogen. The point was to develop an accurate, sensitive assay for testing whether someoone has monkeypox or not. And it seems that's what they did. This development merely means there may be a reliable test that can be used across a variety of platforms to test for infection.

I always want to think that what I did was dead easy, and understandable by anyone. Then a post like this shows that this is not the case. It does not mean you are stupid or pig-ignorant. It means that what I did was a lot more complex and involved than I thought. It means that what I now do is more complex and involved than I think (blood banking). I, and probably most people, take their "everyday" knowledge for granted.

[TFarnon]

Don't ascribe evil governmental plots to create bioweapons when at least in the US research labs are porous and lax on basic laboratory safety. There is nothing as dangerous as a postdoctoral fellow. Nothing. Graduate students aren't much safer, but they usually aren't allowed to work with the really dangerous stuff. Based on my work with foreign grad students and postdocs, they aren't any safer than US students and postdocs. These people aren't intentionally dangerous. They just aren't as careful as they should be.

[dneal]

Don't ascribe evil governmental plots to create bioweapons when at least in the US research labs are porous and lax on basic laboratory safety.

No one did that, and the first post makes the point that conspiracy theorists will have a heyday with the notion.

That does not mean that governments (nefarious or not) have not or do not experiment with bioweapons - either through the development of or defense against. See: Defense Threat Reduction Agency. You may have experience in labs, but apparently not in the assessment of global threats in a classified setting.

The larger concern is small state actors with limited resources developing bioweapons in lieu of nuclear weapons. Large state actors (China, for example) do cause legitimate concern - to include accidental leaks.

The point of the OP is to raise the question about whether or not it is wise to work closely with a peer competitor whose behavior and intentions are questionable or concerning. It's akin to aiding a country to develop a nuclear energy program that instructs and provides the physical capabilities to use that program for nuclear weapons.

[Chuck Naill]

[QUOTE]

The point of the OP is to raise the question about whether or not it is wise to work closely with a peer competitor whose behavior and intentions are questionable or concerning. It's akin to aiding a country to develop a nuclear energy program that instructs and provides the physical capabilities to use that program for nuclear weapons.


The rational answer is no.