USDA funding bird flu gain-of-function research

A U.S. Senator has raised the alarm over U.S.-Chinese bird flu research funded by the US Department of Agriculture that reportedly includes gain-of-fuction experiments. But the USDA and scientists involved insist there is no threat to people.   

Lawmaker raises new flap over U.S.-funded virology research that critics call risky | Science | Jon Cohen:

February 16, 2024 - "A U.S. senator has thrown a political spotlight on yet another U.S.-Chinese research collaboration that critics suggest includes dangerous experiments that could create 'superviruses' capable of sparking a pandemic. But contrary to assertions raised by Senator Joni Ernst (R–IA), none of the U.S. funding for the project goes to foreign researchers, and scientists who are part of the collaboration challenge other concerns she raised. And the U.S. funding agency she questioned this week issued a blistering response.

"Prompted by information given to her by a group that opposes animal research, the White Coat Waste Project, Ernst on 14 February sent a letter to the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that said she was 'troubled' to learn about an avian influenza study its researchers are conducting with scientists at the United Kingdom’s Roslin Institute and China’s Institute of Microbiology. USDA approved the $1 million grant in 2020 to better understand the evolution of newly emerged avian influenza viruses.... The letter focuses on experiments in the study that repeatedly pass viruses through birds and laboratory cell cultures, which Ernst writes is a '"gain-of-function" technique that can create a pathogen that can more easily jump species.' 

"For more than a decade, debates have focused on defining what constitutes a gain-of-function study, and the question has recently heated up because of unproven assertions that researchers working with bat coronaviruses created SARS-CoV-2, the pandemic coronavirus. Ernst [who] sits on an agriculture committee that oversees USDA ... explicitly links the USDA study to U.S.-funded work with bat coronaviruses that took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. She notes some U.S. intelligence experts contend SARS-CoV-2 escaped, or leaked, from the facility.... 'Alarmingly,' she adds, the 'Biden USDA' grant is funding a Chinese researcher who is affiliated with WIV.

"In an email, a USDA spokesperson said, 'USDA’s funding is only being committed to the specific components carried out by our own team located in Athens, Georgia, and is not any way contributing to research taking place in the U.K. or China.' What is more, the spokesperson added, 'what Senator Ernst lays out in her letter is far off base from what’s actually transpiring, and on top of that is based on approval decisions that predate this Administration.' If the senator has concerns about USDA research, the spokesperson advised, 'she should reach out to us directly before putting misinformation in a press release or public letter.'

"The collaboration’s Chinese partner, Liu Wenjun, is with the Institute of Microbiology, and though he was part of a multi-institution project with WIV, Liu says that has ended. 'The purpose of three countries collaborating is to exchange the research data through the surveillance and transparency to combat this global infectious virus transmission,' Liu said in an email. 'We hope the public understands the purpose of our collaboration is to control global diseases.'

"Roslin virologist Paul Digard, the lead U.K. investigator in the collaboration, says there are several other misleading details in the letter. 'Not only is there no transfer of money between the countries, there’s no transfer of reagents or materials,' Digard says. As important, Digard says the collaborators are not attempting to passage viruses to make them more transmissible in birds or mammals, ... he says. 'This is very much focused on transmission from wild birds to poultry, and how the long-range dynamics of that reflects the sequences of the virus.' The researchers are also evaluating the impact of influenza vaccines on poultry.

"Ernst’s letter focused on one experiment that uses Japanese quail, an unusual avian species that has receptors for both human and bird flu viruses. The quail, the researchers note, can be an 'indicator species' of the potential a flu virus has to jump into mammalian hosts. Digard says concerns about the quail studies are misplaced as the critics confuse the dangers posed by different types of flu viruses, only some of which can cause serious disease. The quail studies only involve flu viruses with so-called low pathogenicity.

"Critics of gain-of-function research, however, say the intent of an experiment isn’t the key factor. If an experiment could create more dangerous viruses, they contend it should be subject to intensive review before being allowed to proceed."

Read more: https://www.science.org/content/article/lawmaker-raises-new-flap-over-u-s-funded-virology-research-critics-call-risky

NEW PANDEMIC, Avian Flu Could KILL 60% Of People, Lab Did GAIN OF FUNCTION To Make It Infect Mammals | Timcast | February 16, 2023: 
(note: this is a year-old video based on a different Science report):

Study finds little to no evidence masks stop Covid

A major review by the Cochrane Institute has found little to no evidence that surgical masks made any difference to Covid infection or death rates. 

Does this finally put the mask debate to bed? 'Gold standard' analysis of 78 studies and 1million people finds face coverings made 'little to no difference' to Covid infection or death rates | Daily Mail = Caitlin Tilley:

February 2, 2023 - "Masks made 'little to no difference' to Covid infection or death rates, according to one of the most comprehensive meta-analyses of face coverings. The research - carried out by the Cochrane Institute, the 'gold standard' of evidence-based reviews - looked at 78 global studies involving over a million people. Results indicated that surgical masks reduced the risk of catching 'Covid or a flu-like illness' by just five percent - a figure so low it may not be statistically significant. The researchers [also] said harms caused by masks - including hampering children's schooling - were poorly measured in the studies, meaning any small benefit on infection rates may be outweighed....

"While initially viewed as a virus prevention measure, masks have become a prominent symbol of the Covid culture wars in the US. Officials issued mixed messages about their effectiveness at the beginning of the pandemic. Studies that came later failed to show definitively that masks prevented Covid — yet millions of Americans were forced to abide by mandates. 

"Some of the researchers involved in the Cochrane review previously analyzed the evidence on masks in November 2020. That review was criticized because it did not include any studies from the Covid pandemic due to limited research at the time. A separate Danish study in the spring of 2020 with over 6,000 participants found that wearing a mask made no statistical difference to whether or not people got Covid. But its researchers struggled to find a prominent journal willing to publish the results. 

"The Cochrane researchers updated their review with 11 additional studies involving more than 600,000 people, bringing the total number of studies to 78. The analysis was published this week in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews journal. Some of the additional studies looked at Covid, while others were conducted before the pandemic and looked at flu and other respiratory illnesses.  They included Covid pandemic trials - two from Mexico and one each from England, Norway, and Bangladesh, plus the Danish study.... The main outcomes the Cochrane researchers measured were the number of flu- and Covid-like illness cases and any adverse events that came about from the intervention.... The researchers noted a high risk of bias in the studies and a 'relatively low adherence with the interventions', making it difficult to draw firm conclusions....

"To compare the effect of masks on preventing the spread of Covid and flu, the Cochrane researchers looked at 12 trials — two in healthcare workers and 10 in the community. They found that in the community, wearing a face mask reduced the risk of catching either flu or Covid-like illness by five percent. The study suggested that there is actually a one percent increased risk of testing positive if you wore a mask, but the margins are too small to say this for certain. The team said both these results were 'moderate certainty evidence'.

"They also looked the effect of higher grade masks such as N95s compared to standard surgical masks but were less sure of their impact. The CDC only recommended that people wear N95s two years into the pandemic. This part of the analysis looked at five studies — four in healthcare workers and one in households — with 16,000 participants in total. They found that wearing a mask reduced chances of clinical respiratory illness by 30 percent. But Professor Carl Heneghan, of the University of Oxford, who was an unlisted author on the paper, recognized that 'harms were rarely measured and poorly reported', meaning it was 'very low‐certainty evidence'. N95 masks are even more uncomfortable than surgical masks because of their thick material and tight fit. Nurses who wore them for long periods of time during the pandemic reported cuts and scarring on their faces as a result....

"The debate around masks first turned sour in 2020 when health officials flip-flopped on their effectiveness.... The CDC website currently states that masks can help protect the wearer and others from Covid. The agency is still recommending Americans wear masks in places with high transmission levels, such as on public transport."

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11702865/Masks-make-little-no-difference-Covid-infections-massive-cross-country-meta-analysis-finds.html

Read study: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

Ontario medical officer rules out mask mandate

 Viral surge linked to 'negative consequences' of extended mask mandates: Ontario's chief medical officer | National Post - Elizabeth Payne:

December 15, 2022 - "Ontario’s chief medical officer of health waded into the controversial issue of 'immunity debt' Thursday, saying the issue needs more study but it makes sense to him that pandemic public health measures such as masking are a factor in the record numbers of young children becoming seriously ill with respiratory viruses this year. Partly because of that, Dr. Kieran Moore ruled out any new mask mandates in the province unless COVID-19 changes significantly and vaccines and treatments are no longer effective.

“'Masking was one of our only tools when we didn’t have vaccines and we didn’t have oral outpatient treatments like Paxlovid. It was something we were dependent upon, but we are obviously seeing that there are some negative consequences to not being exposed to the normal respiratory pathogens over time,' he said during an interview with [the National Post]....

"The theory, which has been widely criticized by some experts, is that public health measures were so effective at stopping COVID-19 and many other seasonal viruses that it has left very young children especially highly susceptible this year now that mandates have been lifted and more viruses are circulating. It counters some evidence that exposure to COVID is affecting some peoples’ immune cells and weakening their immunity. 

"Moore said it makes sense that people with Long COVID have some kind of immune dysregulation and the province is reviewing the hypothesis. But he said his personal belief is that 'we have more susceptible children that have not been exposed previously and that is causing this rise'. He added that masking will always be an important public health tool when unknown pathogens are spreading and there are no other tools available 'but once we have therapeutics and vaccines, continued masking can decrease our overall immunity to other viruses. That is a lesson I think we are learning.'

"In recent weeks, the Red Cross has been deployed to assist at CHEO, hundreds of pediatric surgeries have been cancelled across the province, children have had to be airlifted hundreds of kilometres from home for critical care and one pediatric surgery chief said he feared some children won’t make it because of dangerously long waits for needed surgery.... Moore confirmed that at least two children, between 10 and 13, have died of influenza this fall in the province and that several other pediatric deaths are being investigated as possibly related to influenza.... 

"Ontario has just expanded eligibility for the COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccine to children between 5 and 11 ahead of what Moore said is likely to be a new pandemic surge, driven by the BQ.1 and BQ1.1 Omicron sub-variants. Ontario is watching the situation in Quebec, which is starting to see a pandemic surge, he said, and working to understand more about how evasive and transmissible the new COVID-19 subvariants are.

"Although he essentially ruled out new mask mandates under the current situation, Moore does advise people to wear masks, especially in crowded public places such as on transit or in malls, and to get all vaccines they are eligible for to protect themselves against flu and COVID-19."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/local-news/cmoh-links-viral-surge-to-negative-consequences-of-extended-mandates-rules-out-new-ones-for-now/wcm/6d36a8fe-4570-4bb2-83f3-5da5dd9af6a2

Scientists expect Sars-Cov-2 to become endemic

The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means | Nature - Nicky Phillips: 

February 16, 2021 - "For much of the past year, life in Western Australia has been coronavirus-free.... The state maintained this enviable position only by placing heavy restrictions on travel and imposing lockdowns.... But the experience in Western Australia has provided a glimpse into a life free from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. If other regions, aided by vaccines, aimed for a similar zero-COVID strategy, then could the world hope to rid itself of the virus?

"It’s a beautiful dream but most scientists think it’s improbable. In January, Nature asked more than 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists working on the coronavirus whether it could be eradicated. Almost 90% of respondents think that the coronavirus will become endemic — meaning that it will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come.... 'Eradicating this virus right now from the world is a lot like trying to plan the construction of a stepping-stone pathway to the Moon. It’s unrealistic,' says Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

"But failure to eradicate the virus does not mean that death, illness or social isolation will continue on the scales seen so far. The future will depend heavily on the type of immunity people acquire through infection or vaccination and how the virus evolves. Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds are also endemic: but a combination of annual vaccines and acquired immunity means that societies tolerate the seasonal deaths and illnesses they bring without requiring lockdowns, masks and social distancing.....

"'The virus becoming endemic is likely, but the pattern that it will take is hard to predict,' says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist from Georgetown University, who is based in Seattle, Washington..... This is one scenario that scientists foresee for SARS-CoV-2[:] The virus sticks around, but once people develop some immunity to it — either through natural infection or vaccination — they won’t come down with severe symptoms. The virus would become a foe first encountered in early childhood, when it typically causes mild infection or none at all, says Jennie Lavine, an infectious-disease researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

"Scientists consider this possible because that’s how the four endemic coronaviruses, called OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1, behave. At least three of these viruses have probably been circulating in human populations for hundreds of years; two of them are responsible for roughly 15% of respiratory infections. Using data from previous studies, Lavine and her colleagues developed a model that shows how most children first come down with these viruses before the age of 6 and develop immunity to them1. That defence wanes pretty quickly so it is not sufficient to block reinfection entirely, but it seems to protect adults from getting sick, says Lavine. Even in children, the first infection is relatively mild.

"Whether immunity to SARS-CoV-2 will behave in the same way is so far unclear. A large study of people who have had COVID-19 suggests that their levels of neutralizing antibodies — which help to block reinfection — start to decline after around six to eight months. But their bodies also make memory B cells, which can manufacture antibodies if a new infection arises, and T cells that can eliminate virus-infected cells, says Daniela Weiskopf, an immunologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California, who co-authored the study.... 

"The 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed more than 50 million people, is the yardstick by which all other pandemics are measured. It was sparked by a type of virus known as influenza A, which originated in birds. Almost all cases of influenza A since then, and all subsequent flu pandemics, have been caused by descendants of the 1918 virus. These descendants circulate the globe, infecting millions of people each year. Flu pandemics occur when populations are naive to a virus; by the time a pandemic virus becomes seasonal, much of the population has some immunity to it. Seasonal flu still has a significant toll globally, claiming roughly 650,000 lives per year. Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, thinks the coronavirus might follow a similar path ... and others say the virus could also settle into a seasonal pattern of annual winter outbreaks similar to flu.... 

"The future of SARS-CoV-2 will also depend on whether it establishes itself in a wild animal population. Several diseases brought under control persist because animal reservoirs, such as insects, provide chances for pathogens to spill back into people. These include yellow fever, Ebola and chikungunya virus. SARS-CoV-2 ... can readily infect many animals, including cats, rabbits and hamsters.... The virus has also passed between minks and people. If it became established in a wild-animal population and could spill back into people, it would be very difficult to control, says Osterholm. 'There is no disease in the history of humankind that has disappeared from the face of the Earth when zoonotic disease was such an important part of, or played a role in, the transmission,' he says."

Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2

What happened to the flu?

The Unexpected Case of the Disappearing Flu | Illumination - M.G. Sunde, Ph.D.:

January 16, 2021 - "During the months preceding the surge of SARS-CoV-2 infections this fall and winter, many public health officials expressed concern about the potential for a 'double-barreled' respiratory virus season. In this scenario, healthcare facilities would be totally overwhelmed by: 1) patients afflicted by infections caused by endemic respiratory viruses (such as influenza) that occur during any normal year, and 2) a massive influx of coronavirus patients. Fortunately, such a catastrophe did not come to pass. The reason for this is an unprecedented reduction in flu prevalence for the 2020–21 season.

"Before proceeding, it should be noted that not all acute respiratory infections during the so-called 'flu season' actually result from influenza viruses ... with the causative pathogen commonly going unidentified. Other viruses causing the same general suite of symptoms include: rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, adenoviruses, respiratory syncytial viruses, among others.

"Many public health experts have made statements regarding the reduction in influenza cases this season. These experts have attributed the phenomenon to such things as flu vaccinations, hand-washing, mask-wearing, and social distancing. However, these explanations are largely implausible for the following reasons:

1. As previously discussed, a large number of acute respiratory infections are not caused by influenza viruses, so vaccination against influenza cannot explain the overall low rate of hospital visits for influenza like illnesses (ILI) this season. Moreover, given that the benefits of flu vaccination have been largely overstated, it is unlikely that this year’s flu vaccine has reached an unprecedented level of efficacy.... For example, a recent Cochrane Review found that 'influenza vaccines probably have a small protective effect against influenza and ILI, as 71 people would need to be vaccinated to avoid one influenza case'.
2. As with SARS-CoV-2, the spread of influenza virus via fomites is not thought to be a significant route of transmission. As such, hand-washing likely plays a minimal role in mitigating the spread of many respiratory viruses.
3. The reduction (or more accurately disappearance) in influenza cases has occurred in all geographic regions, regardless of the nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that have been employed. This disappearance coincides with the arrival of SARS-CoV-2, and is consistent worldwide: Influenza detections were not simply reduced, there was a worldwide disappearance.
4. If the wearing of masks was capable of almost entirely removing influenza from circulation, as has been observed, then this approach would also eliminate SARS-CoV-2....  Since SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and various other respiratory viruses are largely spread by fine-particle aerosols in indoor settings, an intervention that works for one should logically work for the other. But in spite of the stringency of interventions, SARS-CoV-2 cases have skyrocketed. At the same time, ... adenoviruses, which are also spread via aerosolized particles, have been consistently detected throughout the coronavirus pandemic. If mask usage were almost entirely removing influenza and coronaviruses from circulation, why not SARS-CoV-2 and adenoviruses, which share similar virion sizes and modes of transmission?...

"In his seminal work The Transmission of Epidemic Influenza, Edgar Hope Simpson provides some discussion regarding such disappearances, which have been observed throughout history....

The phenomenon, christened the vanishing trick, has characterized most subsequent major and minor changes of influenza A virus. Strains that have been causing all the type A influenza in the world for perhaps a dozen years will vanish and next season be replaced by a novel strain....

"Subsequent research has borne out real world examples related to the phenomenon described by Simpson. According to a group of researchers at Yale, it is likely that a 2009 autumn rhinovirus epidemic interrupted the spread of influenza. The authors of that study write: 'one respiratory virus can block infection with another through stimulation of antiviral defenses in the airway mucosa'. Results from another study, conducted in mice, support those findings. Mice were infected with either a rhinovirus or a murine coronavirus, and it was found that both attenuated influenza disease. Moreover, it was observed that the murine coronavirus infection reduced early replication of the influenza virus. 

"In another study, negative interactions between noninfluenza and influenza viruses were suggested. According to the authors: 'when multiple pathogens cocirculate this can lead to competitive or cooperative forms of pathogen–pathogen interactions. It is believed that such interactions occur among cold and flu viruses'. A recently published study examining the effects of interactions between an adenovirus and influenza in mice suggested that certain respiratory infections could impede 'other viruses’ activities within the respiratory tract without attacking unrelated viruses directly'. Finally, in a paper entitled 'A systematic approach to virus–virus interactions', the authors state: 'increasing evidence suggests that virus–virus interactions are common and may be critical to understanding viral pathogenesis'.

"Since the current disappearance of various endemic influenza and coronaviruses cannot logically be attributed to NPIs (for the reasons previously discussed), biological phenomena (interactions between viruses), which are currently not well understood, present a far more plausible explanation."

Read more: https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-unexpected-case-of-the-disappearing-flu-64fd1fa5e909

Woodstock festival happened during flu pandemic

Woodstock Occurred in the Middle of a Pandemic | American Institute for Economic Research - Jeffrey A. Tucker:

May 1, 2020 - "In my lifetime, there was another deadly flu epidemic in the United States. The flu spread from Hong Kong to the United States, arriving December 1968 and peaking a year later. It ultimately killed 100,000 people in the U.S., mostly over the age of 65, and one million worldwide.... If it would be possible to extrapolate the death data based on population and demographics, we might be looking at a quarter million [U.S.] deaths today from this virus....

“'In 1968/69,' says Nathaniel L. Moir in National Interest, 'the H3N2 pandemic killed more individuals in the U.S. than the combined total number of American fatalities during both the Vietnam and Korean Wars'....

"I was 5 years old and have no memory of this at all. My mother vaguely remembers being careful and washing surfaces, and encouraging her mom and dad to be careful. Otherwise, it’s mostly forgotten today. Why is that?

"Nothing was closed by force. Schools mostly stayed open. Businesses did too. You could go to the movies. You could go to bars and restaurants. John Fund has a friend who reports having attended a Grateful Dead concert. In fact, people have no memory or awareness that the famous Woodstock concert of August 1969 – planned in January during the worse period of death – actually occurred during a deadly American flu pandemic that only peaked globally six months later. There was no thought given to the virus which, like ours today, was dangerous mainly for a non-concert-going demographic.

"[*Note: an earlier version said no schools closed. But a reader pointed me to an academic article that says '23 [states] faced school and college closures' but implies that this was due to absenteeism. This further underscores how aware people were at the time of the disease; the stay-open practice was a deliberate choice.]

"Stock markets didn’t crash because of the flu. Congress passed no legislation. The Federal Reserve did nothing. Not a single governor acted to enforce social distancing, curve flattening (even though hundreds of thousands of people were hospitalized), or banning of crowds. No mothers were arrested for taking their kids to other homes. No surfers were arrested. No daycares were shut even though there were more infant deaths with this virus than the one we are experiencing now. There were no suicides, no unemployment, no drug overdoses attributable to flu....

"The only actions governments took was to collect data, watch and wait, encourage testing and vaccines, and so on. The medical community took the primary responsibility for disease mitigation, as one might expect. It was widely assumed that diseases require medical not political responses....

"If we used government lockdowns then like we use them now, Woodstock (which changed music forever and still resonates today) would never have occurred. How much prosperity, culture, tech, etc. are [we] losing in this calamity?"

Read more: https://www.aier.org/article/woodstock-occurred-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.