Some housekeeping
"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.
This news piece by two staff journalists gives positions from both sides but clearly comes down on the side of performing Fouchier/Kawaoka GOF research on the currently circulating H5N1 cow flu virus.
Before getting to the full story, we’re treated to two bullet points:
• Gain-of-function research became controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• But without it, “we’re just flying in the dark” when it comes to H5N1, said Felicia Goodrum, a molecular virologist at the University of Arizona.
There are enough errors already to merit a little cleaning up, hence the essay’s title. First bullet: GOF research became controversial following Fouchier talking up his H5N1 bird flu work adapting it to ferret aerosol transmission circa 2011. Remember his words: He mutated the hell out of H5N1 while someone finally convinced me to do something really, really stupid. He created probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make. The journalists are merely 13 years out of sync.
Second bullet: As such viruses can’t be tested on humans we will remain forever in the dark. Of course, a dark mind could always appropriate the work. However, the remark is par for the course for a virologist who has been pro-GOF flu research, supported pushback, fought oversight and advocated censorship of dissenting opinion. Numerous essays have exposed the hollowness of articles co-authored by Dr. Goodrum (Going places, Flights from reason, Perilous posturing) Censoring virology). Quite a dark track record.
The piece starts with a little theatre: As the H5N1 bird flu virus steamrolls its way across the globe – killing wild animals, commercial livestock and even some people - scientists and health officials fear we’re on the precipice of another global pandemic… But when, where and how that could come to pass is hard to predict — in part, some researchers say, because of guardrails the federal government has placed around gain-of-function research.
Actually, H5N1 bird flu falls to earth, as do all bird flu viruses (Skyfall), and onwards to wild animals. This has happened ever since birds and ducks acquired flu infections eons ago. Recently, it was reported that SARS-CoV-2 had crossed over to pet animals, more cats than dogs, in astonishing proportions yet they were not decimated. This happened. In cows the infection is relatively mild, unlike some H5N1 strains in chickens which are highly pathogenic. Given that the interval between human flu pandemics is between 9-40 years or so - we’re already 15 years on from the last one - we’re living close to the precipice of another flu pandemic. It could be 2026 or… until it happens. Get over it. Oh, and while we’re into detail, a global pandemic is a pleonasm.
With the second sentence we’re into pandemic prediction which belongs to cloud cuckoo land. We’ve gone through this n times before. GOF research à la Fouchier & Kawaoka will not help (Following the science). Do some more reading, perhaps some of the latest papers from Drs. Fouchier and Kawaoka (Flu lobbying). Or Observer bias.
A long-time supporter of bird flu GOF research, Dr. Casadevall, is down as saying that the studies offered valuable confirmation that the bird flu virus had the potential to spark a human pandemic. This is a confusion of the studies offered valuable confirmation that the bird flu virus could become transmissible by aerosols, which is different. The Fouchier and Kawaoka studies could never inform virologists whether these viruses could provoke a pandemic. In just over a century, only H1N1, H2N2 and H3N2 flu viruses have provoked human pandemics.
However, as these novel human viruses exist, it would be wise to treat them as having pandemic potential if only to ensure proper biosafety containment and biosecurity concern surrounding their upkeep. Pandemic potential is in the eye of the virologist.
Yet come to think about it, it doesn’t matter what those who perform the work think or what On reading opines. The information is on the web so numerous labs can make them, perhaps one run by a dark mind. On top of which nobody in regulatory circles have shown any serious concern, which why the Risky Research Review Bill should pass into US law.
Back to the LA Times piece.
Sometimes words can be hard to wield precisely. Take the following: Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University who studies influenza viruses. “We’re all being extra careful because nobody wants to be accused of having done something unsafe.” If you’re working on a virus you work within the guidelines set for that virus. Measles virus in BLS-2, Ebola in BSL-4. You do not work extra carefully for fear of being accused of doing something unsafe. You work carefully to protect yourself. Period. It is this negative aspect nobody wants to be accused of having done something unsafe that begets the underreporting of lab acquired infections. It feeds the blame game (Lab acquired infections) which ultimately boomerangs on the virologists.
Or again: Those hurdles can delay a research project by several months or more, if they are approved at all, she said. The uncertainties have acted as a deterrent, especially for scientists in the early stages of their careers. There may well be uncertainties but first, do no harm. You’d demand that of your doctor, so apply it to yourself. Also, those scientists in the early stages of their careers will be working in the labs of established bosses who have fixed the research agenda. Its these bosses who are putting the careers of their younger collaborators in peril. It’s got nothing to do with regulations or admin.
“The thing I’m most afraid of today is a recombination event between the stuff going around in cows and the seasonal flu,” Casadevall said. If both viruses infected the same mammal at the same time, their components could mix and match in a way that creates “a strain that is able to infect humans very easily, and for which we don’t have immunity.” Dr. Casadevall is right, especially as this happens all the time in ducks with multiple flu infections. But wait a moment, didn’t Dr Kawaoka do his H5N1 GOF experiments using a reassortant virus, something akin to a recombinant virus?
Let’s fact check. We identified a reassortant H5 HA/H1N1 virus—comprising H5 HA (from an H5N1 virus) with four mutations and the remaining seven gene segments from a 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus—that was capable of droplet transmission in a ferret model. Dr Kawaoka did more than 13 years ago what Dr. Casadevall fears in 2025. Journalists, please don’t question him any more on flu. He’s pushed back on GOF virology so many times he’s not sound.
Oh, and by the way, as the world’s population has never encountered H5 immunologically speaking, you’d expect a flu virus reassortant like the one made by Dr Kawaoka to usain bolt across the globe if ever it got out or was duplicated by a dark mind because of its 8 genome segments, 7 came from a human pandemic virus that was an unquestionable success story. The epitome of madness.
Then follow remarks from the other side. Dr. Marc Lipsitch from Harvard said, The fact that an experiment goes one way in the lab doesn’t mean it will go the same way somewhere else. So true. See also Observer bias.
Dr. Nicholas Evans a bioethicist at the University of Massachusetts Lowell noted, I think what the gain-of-function debate has yet to answer is, ‘What is the social value of these studies? That is the question. One for which readers may find answers among these essays (Ethics of GOF virology).
We learn that Kawoaka declined to discuss his research, and Fouchier could not be reached. It appears that the past champions of bird flu GOF research are more levelheaded today than many of their colleagues.
As not every paragraph of the LA Times piece needs bleach, let’s move to last two short paragraphs. “Those experiments 10 years ago were so informative,” Lakdawala said. “It helped us be better prepared.” If you were informed, good for you. As to the latter sentence, please provide one piece of data showing us how it helped handling the COVID epidemic or the latest seasonal flu.
But unless the scientific community stands up for the work and challenges its negative image, that won’t be the case in the future, Goodrum said. “It’s very likely that we will be less prepared for the next pandemic than we were for the last one.”
• If it has a negative image, then there may be good reasons for that. As it happens Fouchier and Kawaoka have changed their minds.
• Perhaps you did not read the independent UK report into the COVID pandemic about the difficulties of being prepared, or noted the nonsense coming out of the NIH on flu which showed they followed the science when it suited them (Following the science).
The reporters do well to report comments from both sides, but they take verbatim scientists remarks for they do not have the wherewithal to recognize they are being disinformed by those pushing GOF virology. Who? Drs. Goodrum and Casadevall to name but two. While this is understandable it ends up passing on disinformation to your readers. This is a difficulty and danger that has been mentioned by the former New York Times science writer Donald McNeil in his recent book The Wisdom of Plagues.
Science is not democratic. If two scientists have different positions or opinions concerning a phenomenon that’s OK. However, they do experiments and over time one of them is right and the other not. Sometimes reality holds part of each of their positions. And if you do the experiment that shows the other to be wrong, then they are well and truly wrong. Maintaining the erroneous position becomes silly or a character defect (Two plus two).
Science is not part of a culture war between elites and the people. Science attempts to get to the bottom of things so that we can, sometimes, make things like the liquid crystal display screens you are using to read these words or a novel anti-cancer drug. Science helps people. You can’t make a smartphone, or a biological weapon for that matter, out of beliefs. Which is why dual use research of concern needs addressing.
Journalists can’t interview say 20 scientists and take a poll. Old dogs like On reading, know the majority is not always a good guide. Now this may be infuriating but it’s a simple fact. The essay ‘Following the science’ showed just how hard pandemic preparedness is. It’s very tough for everyone, scientists, public health people and the public. If you dare take sides do your utter best, be skeptical and cross check. And once your story is out don’t be surprised if a few scientists reach for the bleach.
Conclusion
An under researched article with some howlers from scientists, aka a wasted effort.
Aside 1
Consider two quotes from the flu virus community that haven’t been used before in these essays. They help explain why H5N1 and H7N9 bird flu viruses haven’t gone pandemic.
• Our findings indicate that dissemination of viruses at these levels is unlikely and offers an explanation as to why, despite significant numbers of human infections, a mammalian transmissible H5N1 has not yet emerged.
• We conclude that human-adapted H7N9 viruses are unlikely to emerge during typical spillover infections. Our findings are instead consistent with a model in which the emergence of a human-transmissible virus would be a rare and unpredictable, though highly consequential, “jackpot” event.
There are GOF studies on H5N1 bird flu and it hasn’t gone pandemic. They didn’t help us prepare for flu outbreaks in US cows.
Aside 2
Dear journalists, there is nothing personal as we’ve never communicated. It’s just about getting the facts right. Society pays scientists to get to the bottom of things and it can be very tough on us. Don’t think for a second that science is easy. Society understandably expects returns on that investment, albeit not all the time for, as Albert Einstein said, If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?
