The sole and only reason that people are giving this any credence is because Trump-adjacent people are pushing it.
There's no evidence anyone can make a virus. This is just conspiracy mongering to try to take responsibility for an almost non-existent response away from the US government, and especially away from Trump himself.
I will say as someone trying to keep an open mind throughout all of this that the fact that thinking certain thoughts is equivalent to "taking a side" is just, so frustrating. I want to own my personal opinions because they're mine, not because of whatever Trump said. I hate that I can't speak my voice and have a debate without making people think I'm this or that, because nobody knows my philosophy through my username alone.
Maybe there should be a social media site just for politics, and you should have to fill out a questionnaire about where you stand on hot button issues before you're allowed to comment on anything. People could hover over your name to figure out if you belong in their bubble or not.
Personally, I think it's very desirable to have your own opinions. But that means being able to rationally defend those opinions against polite, mild criticism.
If you can't explain your opinions when asked politely, or the explanation amounts to "I was told", or your opinion changes when some authority changes their opinion, there's a problem. If you can't accept polite critiques, and answer them politely, there's another problem.
I totally agree with you! I think there is a difference between mindlessly following the narrative vs. sticking to your own opinions based on the information you've collected.
The paper I cited above is a specific example of a team constructing a virus from a RNA sequence that they bought commercially, and then using it to infect human cells in vitro. The virus they constructed is a coronavirus very similar to sars-cov-2. Note that the spike sequence was provided by the Wuhan lab, and it's the spike sequence that makes sars-cov-2 so infectious.
The paper has been cited 121 times. You will find more examples there:
"Despite predictions from both structure-based modeling and pseudotyping experiments, SHC014-MA15 was viable and replicated to high titers in Vero cells (Supplementary Fig. 2b). Similar to SARS, SHC014-MA15 also required a functional ACE2 molecule for entry, but uses human, civet, and bat orthologs (Supplementary Fig. 2c, d). To test the ability of SHC014 spike to mediate infection of the human airway, we examined 2B4 Calu-3 cells, a human epithelial airway cell line8, and found robust SHC014-MA15 replication comparable to SARS-CoV Urbani (Fig. 1c). To extend these findings, primary human airway epithelial cultures (HAEs) were infected and indicated robust replication of both viruses (Fig. 1d)."
They constructed a virus and tested in vitro on human cells and found robust replication. The exact chimeric virus they created would cause human disease if it escaped.
Note that Zheng-li Zhi is co-author. She is a virologist associated with the Whuhan lab. As the paper states, she supplied the sequences for the spike protein.
It is hard to believe this article would be ignored "because Trump".
8 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 399 ms ] threadThere's no evidence anyone can make a virus. This is just conspiracy mongering to try to take responsibility for an almost non-existent response away from the US government, and especially away from Trump himself.
Maybe there should be a social media site just for politics, and you should have to fill out a questionnaire about where you stand on hot button issues before you're allowed to comment on anything. People could hover over your name to figure out if you belong in their bubble or not.
If you can't explain your opinions when asked politely, or the explanation amounts to "I was told", or your opinion changes when some authority changes their opinion, there's a problem. If you can't accept polite critiques, and answer them politely, there's another problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_virus
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding.
The paper has been cited 121 times. You will find more examples there:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/citedby...
"Despite predictions from both structure-based modeling and pseudotyping experiments, SHC014-MA15 was viable and replicated to high titers in Vero cells (Supplementary Fig. 2b). Similar to SARS, SHC014-MA15 also required a functional ACE2 molecule for entry, but uses human, civet, and bat orthologs (Supplementary Fig. 2c, d). To test the ability of SHC014 spike to mediate infection of the human airway, we examined 2B4 Calu-3 cells, a human epithelial airway cell line8, and found robust SHC014-MA15 replication comparable to SARS-CoV Urbani (Fig. 1c). To extend these findings, primary human airway epithelial cultures (HAEs) were infected and indicated robust replication of both viruses (Fig. 1d)."
They constructed a virus and tested in vitro on human cells and found robust replication. The exact chimeric virus they created would cause human disease if it escaped.
Note that Zheng-li Zhi is co-author. She is a virologist associated with the Whuhan lab. As the paper states, she supplied the sequences for the spike protein.
It is hard to believe this article would be ignored "because Trump".