A science in the shadows

These techniques have a wide variety of uses, including tweaking mouse genes to limit fat deposits and creating mutations in pathogens to estimate future threats.

Eight years ago, Collins and Fauci helped put in place high-level reviews and other safeguards in response to concerns raised by Relman and aides to President Barack Obama, who were alarmed by what they saw as insufficient scrutiny of the research with ferrets. The NIH leaders and the Department of Health and Human Services pledged to subject the work to increased transparency and vetting. This included forming a review group of federal officials known informally as a Ferrets Committee to vet proposed projects for safety and worthiness.

However, Collins and Fauci in recent years have helped shape policy changes, directly and through their aides, that undercut the committee s authority, according to federal documents, congressional testimony and interviews with dozens of present and former officials and science experts.

In 2017, a change made under their watch removed the committee s power to block the projects, recasting the panel as strictly an advisory body.

Another change at that time redefined gain-of-function research, giving NIH leaders greater leeway to approve projects without referring them to the review committee. Some researchers had complained that far-reaching reviews would slow NIH approvals and scientific progress.

Since then, the experiments have continued to unfold amid secrecy, and HHS, which administers the review committee, has kept its work confidential: No agendas, meeting minutes or other records of its proceedings are public. Even the names of the federal officials assigned to serve on the committee, which has spanned the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, are kept secret.

In an interview for this report, both Collins and Fauci and their senior aides disputed that the policy changes had weakened oversight of the research. Both NIH leaders pointed to safeguards that remain in place.

Reasonable people do not all completely agree on the ideal way to frame the oversight of these very sensitive experiments, Collins said, adding: There are some who see the risks as greater and the benefits as less. And vice versa.

Lab accidents, Collins said, are certainly a concern. & You want to mitigate that by having the highest possible containment for any kind of experiment that might lead to trouble.

via www.msn.com

H/t MG.

Neither we or the PRC should be doing this sort of research — that seems the reasonable conclusion of 2 million dead (that’s 50% x 4 million dead) on the cost side of the ledger. I am not aware of any concrete benefits from this sort of research, except papers published and nice houses in the suburbs paid for. The pecuniary cost of the pandemic to the world must be in the trillions. So take half of that as well. Half because conservatively that’s the probability of the virus having escaped from a lab. At an absolute minimum, Congress should decide this, not a couple of boffins with superiority complexes.