Ah yes, the infamous 2011 day-before-New-Year's-eve WaPo op-ed. Clearly timed to elicit as much studied debate among the American public as possible. A public who in fact are contemporaneously in the middle of all sorts of post-Christmas winter vacations, and who probably couldn't be bothered to open up a laptop that day, much less digest molecular biology arcana for fueling delightfully heated discussion in the family car on the way to the slopes.
An op-ed I feel will increasingly likely be seen by historians as the ur-text of the pandemic 7-8 years hence.
Great to read these words from a stalwart virologist!
"We cannot predict whether it or something similar will arise naturally, not when or where it might appear".
This seems clear even to someone with minimal knowledge of the field. As the author writes, the discussion should have ended there.
Ah yes, the infamous 2011 day-before-New-Year's-eve WaPo op-ed. Clearly timed to elicit as much studied debate among the American public as possible. A public who in fact are contemporaneously in the middle of all sorts of post-Christmas winter vacations, and who probably couldn't be bothered to open up a laptop that day, much less digest molecular biology arcana for fueling delightfully heated discussion in the family car on the way to the slopes.
An op-ed I feel will increasingly likely be seen by historians as the ur-text of the pandemic 7-8 years hence.
Fauci date. Notice they announced GoF resuming week before Christmas 2017.
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research
Was under impression Fouchier (and Munster) didn't publish full manuscript?