{"id":2350,"date":"2023-01-31T15:55:16","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T21:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=2350"},"modified":"2023-01-31T15:55:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T21:55:18","slug":"when-is-it-ok-to-make-germs-worse-in-a-lab-its-a-more-relevant-question-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/01\/31\/when-is-it-ok-to-make-germs-worse-in-a-lab-its-a-more-relevant-question-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"When is it OK to make germs worse in a lab? It&#8217;s a more relevant question than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2023\/01\/27\/1151867224\/virologists-science-oversight-risky-experiments\">NPR<\/a>) Over 150 virologists have signed on to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.asm.org\/doi\/10.1128\/mbio.00188-23\">commentary<\/a>\u00a0that says all the evidence to date indicates that the coronavirus pandemic started naturally, and it wasn&#8217;t the result of some kind of lab accident or malicious attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They worry that continued speculation about a lab in China is fueling calls for more regulation of experiments with pathogens, and that this will stifle the basic research needed to prepare for future pandemics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The virologists issued their statement a day before advisors to the federal government completed a review of the existing oversight system for experiments that might make existing pathogens even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At a meeting Friday, those advisors voted to endorse, with minor modifications, a set of recommendations that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/osp.od.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/DRAFT-NSABB-WG-Report.pdf\">call<\/a>&nbsp;for expanding a special decision-making process. This process currently weighs the risks and benefits of experiments that might change &#8220;potential pandemic pathogens&#8221; in ways that could make them more dangerous.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(NPR) Over 150 virologists have signed on to a\u00a0commentary\u00a0that says all the evidence to date indicates that the coronavirus pandemic started naturally, and it wasn&#8217;t the result of some kind of lab accident or malicious attack. They worry that continued speculation about a lab in China is fueling calls for more regulation of experiments with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid","category-science-and-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2351,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions\/2351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}