Cowards die many times
"On reading," by Simon Wain-Hobson, is a weekly discussion of scientific papers and news articles around gain of function research in virology.
Since January 2024, Dr. Wain-Hobson has written weekly essays for Biosafety Now discussing risky research in virology. You can read his entire series here.
On wondering why so many virologists remain silent.
There’s still so much unsaid.
Everything comes down to people. It’s not merely institutions and rules although they are important – for example, why is the discussion taking place in the US and almost nowhere else?
Why did virologists the world over not question the resurrection of the Spanish flu virus? Or the DGOF papers of Fouchier and Kawaoka? Or the DGOF on coronaviruses coming from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Or the hit job, no, endless hit jobs on the COVID lab leak hypothesis way before data was in?
To pass on anyone may be regarded as a misfortune; to pass on all looks like utter weakness. This must be rooted out, or else virologists will pass on more issues until a huge error is made by which time ‘Sorry’ will be a lightning rod. Lawmakers will move in with blunt instruments and mess up virology for years.
Virology has had a wonderful run from the late 70s. As many viruses have small genomes they featured prominently in the explosion of gene cloning in the 70s. Indeed, the two were inseparable. The sequence of the first genome published was that of the humble RNA bacteriophage (bacterial virus) MS2 – a mere 3567 building blocks were enough. The first human genome libraries were made curtesy of the DNA bacteriophage lambda.
The power of Sanger sequencing – the brilliant realization of controlled stopping of DNA copying – was on display for the PhiX174 and G4 bacteriophage genome sequences. The top was the combination of shotgun cloning (smashing up DNA with ultrasound) into bacteriophage M13 DNA followed by Sanger sequencing. It swept in the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genome in 1982 and DNA sequence assembly using computers. Order from fragmentation. Wild!
From then on, the flood gates were wide open.
Add to that ever faster and cheaper DNA synthesis, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that discombobulated biology, the genomics revolution and use of viruses to transfer DNA into human cells and the reader can see how we got to where we are so fast.
In parallel, AIDS burst upon the world. A mere handful of cases in Los Angeles and New York were spotted even though the pandemic had been ramping up for two decades in Eastern Central Africa.
With polio on its last legs due to massive vaccination campaigns, there was a debate about what to do with lab stocks of poliovirus. Should they be destroyed? Eckard Wimmer realized there was another dimension to the poliovirus eradication debate - the plethora of poliovirus genome sequences in the databases. He set about the first chemical synthesis of any genome. Once done his group was able to make poliovirus particles a finding published in 2002 (Going places).
This made many think. As genetic information alone was enough to make a virus, how the hell was eradication possible? Eradication now depended on responsibility and goodwill, not just vaccination as was the case before.
Given this, might things even go backwards? Yes. They quickly did.
It required some ferreting around in permafrost for cadavers of victims to 1918 Spanish flu virus, the determination of the gene sequence and, hey presto, the resurrected virus was upon us by 2005. In response to a simple ‘Why?’ question from a US Congressman, a last-minute editorial in Science reassured us it would help with the development of flu drugs and vaccines.
The problem is, we’ve seen no evidence of any help these past 20 years.
The editor of Science magazine, the top in science publishing, wrote So would I, given our own convictions, the timing, and what we had learned from our consultations… have published the paper even if the NSABB had voted otherwise? Absolutely—unless they had it classified.
Evident is the gung-ho, we know best, leave it to us to peddle science fiction. We’ve seen this before. Back in the 80s we were reassured by the US Department of Justice that the first US strain of the AIDS virus used to make the diagnostic test was not that of the French group at the Pasteur Institute. Subsequent work showed that it was.
From 2005 on the science disinformation machine has been blocked in the on position.
A few years later papers emerged where a furin cleavage site was engineered into human and bird flu viruses with little effect for some on disease. For others the result was clearly a DGOF outcome. Yet these were not enough.
It took the Kawaoka and Fouchier experiments on the H5N1 bird flu virus to set off the DGOF controversy. Virologists avoided it like the plague. Why? Because of the December 30, 2011 Op Ed in the Washington Post by Drs. Fauci, Nabel and Collins promoting the work. Basically, folks, move along. This had a global chill; an omerta ensued. Just to make sure that everybody had heard the word, it was backed up by a piece in the top scientific journal Science six months later.
This second shot tried to calm the troubled waters with feel-good sentences such as The public, which has a stake in the risks and the benefits of such research, deserves a rational and transparent explanation of how decisions are made. Readers will know by now that the only benefits were private, aka for the researchers, while the risks were always public/global. Also, no transparent explanation was ever forthcoming. We do learn that research that could enhance the transmissibility of H5N1 viruses clearly is DURC. In today’s parlance that means DGOF which is no longer possible.
For info, the DURC issue had been flagged up clearly in post 9/11 America by way of the 2004 Fink Report. Biologists paid lip service, yawned and moved on.
Then there was a moratorium on DGOF flu and coronavirus research for a few years. This is not surprising as Ron Fouchier had been saying publicly that he wanted to do DGOF experiments on the SARS1 coronavirus. As a result of the flu virus uproar, it appears comparable work on coronaviruses was outsourced to China by way of the NGO EcoHealth Alliance in New York City. In the end it was done by Dr. Ralph Baric with collaborators at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
An obviously DGOF paper on chimeric coronaviruses was published in Nature Medicine in 2015, although many in the NIH claimed it was not. Next up was the 2018 DEFUSE project submitted to the USG agency DARPA which describes making bat coronaviruses with a variety of cleavage sites in the Spike protein, a design that has a canny resemblance to SARS-CoV-2. DARPA refused the proposal citing DGOF concerns.
And then there was COVID-19. Shortly. After.
The exhilarating, whirlwind adventure ushering in the genomic era of virology saw a singular, albeit tiny offshoot in the early 21st century. Mainstream racked up unprecedented knowledge in virology, novel targets for therapies, some new vaccines and PCR being performed in tents on street corners around the world during COVID. It was a force for good that continues to deliver.
The offshoot went the way of revving up viruses making agents indistinguishable from biological weapons of mass destruction – care to recall the toll of COVID?
And so, just as at school, the whole class (virology) suffered due to the wayward, tangential ideas of a tiny minority (the DGOFers). What is stunning is the silence of the majority who, if they dare to venture an opinion, which is rare, support DGOF research and a natural origin for the COVID virus. Yet in private, or if quoted anonymously, more than a few clearly have concerns (High risk research and public trust).
They were and are afraid of getting embroiled in messy issues they are not well versed in like ethics, DURC, risk/benefit analyses as well as discussing with the public. They were and are afraid of a small but vocal contrarian group who consider DGOF research on viruses necessary, dixit key members of the American Society for Microbiology. Above all, given the chill from the top of the NIH, they were and are scared that any contradictory comment might result in their grants not being funded or renewed. Above all.
The same went for COVID origins. The number of hatchet jobs that appeared in the scientific literature in the first half of 2020 is amazing. Why? A lab leak would hurt the science establishment, the NIH and perhaps create geopolitical tension if the finger was pointed at China. While it is important to understand a catastrophic event like the Covid-19 pandemic, all of us, perhaps, should be careful what we wish for. Suppose that the western world collectively concluded that the leak of a virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was responsible for the pandemic but was unable to provide sufficient proof to convince the Chinese government. The likely outcome would be a diplomatic and trade war that could drive a global economic depression - or worse.
Since when has geopolitics been a part of textbook virology? What is this veiled threat be careful what we wish for? With nonsense like this, facts quickly became dispensable. Anything other than a viral zoonosis was trashed yet there were no data anywhere back then. Many of these hatchet publications were mired by conflicts of interest and double talk.
A colleague has called it evidence-free knowledge, an oxymoron and spoof on the scientific mantra of evidence-based knowledge, which is a pleonasm.
Let’s be blunt; evidence-free knowledge is a belief. People have a right to their beliefs in their own homes. They don’t have a right to ram them down the throats of others and certainly not publish them in scientific journals. They’re allowed to be ignorant, in the sense of the verb to ignore. That said, ignorance can never become fact.
They are permitted to do so because topicality is important to high-profile journals. Some people need to know, some want to know while others are just curious. Topicality also helps with sales and subscriptions. Sssh!
For the COVID pandemic provoked by a novel virus we were s… scared. Journals turned to specialists - they were not experts because the virus was novel. What they got was a lot of talk about coronaviruses, the SARS1 virus, which is fine, but told us little useful.
Yet when it came to COVID origins, anaphylactic shock ensued. That such nonsense was and still is published is proof that journal standards go down, sometimes abysmally, when topicality is concerned.
Journals are part of the science establishment and take themselves seriously. Yet it turns out that topicality is their Achilles heel. Their track record on DGOF and COVID origins, areas On reading knows well, is deplorable.
The vocal minority has transgressed. For them scholarship is meaningless. Get a paper into a top journal and your career will get a fillip, no matter if your findings or opinions are questionable. Papers feed into getting more grants which beget more papers. As this vocal minority has spotted that topicality is the Achilles heel of scientific publishing, they home in on it. Endlessly.
A vocal few are chewing up taxpayers’ money for themselves. Accountability? Zero. Oversight? If you dare.
This is dangerous for it comes with huge financial, human and societal costs. Slowing down science by failing to engage with the hard questions. Slowing down science via obfuscation and waste of grant money. Setting students and post docs on worthless research – they too have careers to make and are set off on the perilous paths. How can you remain excited when you’re pushing 2+2=5 at the behest of your lab boss?
Does anyone need reminding of the >25M dead, long COVID, the grief passing to lingering sadness at not being able to go to Mum’s funeral?
Yet the virologists remain silent, despite the fact that the NIH hierarchy has changed.
Virology is too important to be imperiled by nonsense and cowardice. Which is why we’ll keep hollering.
Aside 1
Please click on the cowardice hyperlink to a short video that says a great deal.
Aside 2
Speaking out when you’re young and looking for a job is not easy. You must be careful. Understand, got it. On reading was young in the last millennium and experienced from the inside the hardball of the Franco-US dispute over HIV-1. By the by, the most complete work on this subject is ‘Science Fictions’ by John Crewdson, Pulitzer Prize winner.
What is unacceptable is the silence of those with tenure.
In these essays, whenever ‘science fiction’ shows up it is a hat off to Crewdson, a remarkable gent; courage from head to toe. Particularly the head.
Aside 3
Comments above are confined to biology something On reading knows well. Many of the same ills undoubtedly hinder other fields. For example, colonizing space is a belief. Nowhere in our Solar System is there such a colorful planet with water omnipresent. Do explore space as much as possible says this unconditional fan of the US Gemini, Apollo and Voyager programs, but colonize space? Give us a break. The rocket is the least efficient form of human transport.
Aside 4
Fortunately, AIDS is a treatable disease today. It is unique among transmissible human viruses in that it kills >99% of those infected. This is possible given that it is a slow remorseless infection requiring some 5-10 years to destroy the immune system which puts up a heroic struggle.
The death toll is between 38 to 53 million people. Nearly 41 million are infected and need therapy or else all will succumb. It’s far from whipped.
Aside 5
Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar, Act 2 scene 2
Great essay. Have you considered slightly re-working it into a form suitable for a widely read publication? There's always a chance that the NYT or WaPo or somebody might take it.
p.s. As a physicist I particularly appreciated the aside about space colonization, which is a favorite fantasy of 8-year old boys and tech lords.
This is how Philippics are meant to be done.