One thing I think Europe as a whole gets right (including the UK) is the approach to animal experimentation: you need a "triple license" to do it, with the institution, the lab/scientific project and the scientist themselves personally all separately required to be up to scratch and examined in detail. You can't just buy 700 white lab mice without this -- it's a specific criminal offence -- and in most countries the implementation of the directive is in terms of permissive acts, i.e. unless everything is exactly right, you're committing a crime and are personally liable for it.
I'm not saying it's perfect -- far from it -- but the separation of powers, the explicit independent cost-benefit exam done at the point of project licenses, and a tough and regular inspection framework do give me some confidence in what is unfortunately a necessary evil.
This thing sounds both like a pathogen breeding facility and deeply, deeply unethical.
While there is something to the idea that making something that's illegal more illegal will help prevent it from happening, that isn't a silver bullet. So it's entirely possible that such things are happening in the UK also.
Wonder what happened to the occupants of the warehouse. The article doesn't mention if criminal action is being taken against them or not, or who the individuals were.
Eggs are used to replicate viral material. Best examples are true vaccines. Remember the sudden rise of egg prices recently? Lasted almost 2 months. Before your knee jerk reaction to this which is truly speculation please consider the following wiki on limited hangouts:
12 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 26.3 ms ] threadMove fast and break things, especially the law.
I wonder how common something like this is. They had disease samples on-site, and CRISPR made genetic modification really cheap. Scary.
I prefer to say "innovating on the regulatory side". ;)
https://youtu.be/Ysh9ILpvBpg?t=5m15s
I'm not saying it's perfect -- far from it -- but the separation of powers, the explicit independent cost-benefit exam done at the point of project licenses, and a tough and regular inspection framework do give me some confidence in what is unfortunately a necessary evil.
This thing sounds both like a pathogen breeding facility and deeply, deeply unethical.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36914487
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout
Discernment is not effortless.