I disagree with this take. You want the virologists doing this because those viruses exist in this world. The fact the scientists are concerned about something different proves the point to me.
I disagree with this take. You want the virologists doing this because those viruses exist in this world. The fact the scientists are concerned about something different proves the point to me.
Yeah, I understand the desire to have stricter protocols around it (and I don't know enough about virology to argue one way or the other about whether these precautions were adequate), but the...
Yeah, I understand the desire to have stricter protocols around it (and I don't know enough about virology to argue one way or the other about whether these precautions were adequate), but the idea that virologists shouldn't study viruses like this at all is just absurd. That only puts us behind if/when these viruses are transmitted to humans, which can and quite frequently does absolutely happen without any labs involved.
The idea that the viruses being studied here would never have come into contact with humans were it not for these scientists also seems pretty silly to me -- even if the locales are really so remote that no humans would venture there were it not for science, surely the author is aware that viruses like these can spread within animal populations?
I see this as being about how the research is done, not whether it’s done at all. Why aren’t such labs using stricter levels of biocontainment and also located in remote areas, for defense in...
I see this as being about how the research is done, not whether it’s done at all. Why aren’t such labs using stricter levels of biocontainment and also located in remote areas, for defense in depth That is, such a lab shouldn’t be in Wuhan or any other large city.
Your quote from the blog post explicitly points out that the author doesn't think this research should be happening at all, as it directly criticizes others for focusing on biosafety measures.
Your quote from the blog post explicitly points out that the author doesn't think this research should be happening at all, as it directly criticizes others for focusing on biosafety measures.
And from later in the post He says they shouldn't be done. His focus has been the risk of lab leaks for ten years, I get that he's concerned and has some expertise. But I don't agree with him...
And from later in the post
Collecting exotic viruses and doing gain-of-function research probably represent well under 0.01% of the NIH budget. We should just stop these activities.
He says they shouldn't be done. His focus has been the risk of lab leaks for ten years, I get that he's concerned and has some expertise. But I don't agree with him based on the opinion of other experts.
I guess it’s ambiguous, but I read it as saying biocontainment levels are not enough. (Emphasis added.) Anyway, I agree that it may be worth doing some research, but under much stricter conditions.
I guess it’s ambiguous, but I read it as saying biocontainment levels are not enough.
Scientists should not be going out into remote caves and collecting exotic viruses to bring back into the middle of a large city.
(Emphasis added.)
Anyway, I agree that it may be worth doing some research, but under much stricter conditions.
I don't think it's particularly feasible to run such a lab as remotely as would be necessary to have a sufficient effect on the risk level without losing access to necessary infrastructure,...
I don't think it's particularly feasible to run such a lab as remotely as would be necessary to have a sufficient effect on the risk level without losing access to necessary infrastructure, supplies, and personnel.
It will be more expensive, but telescopes are an example of scientific facilities built on remote mountains. There are also entire universities located in rural areas.
It will be more expensive, but telescopes are an example of scientific facilities built on remote mountains. There are also entire universities located in rural areas.
The risks of human transmission would not be effectively reduced by merely moving to a rural area, though. In order to reduce risk beyond what can be done through existing biosafety measures...
The risks of human transmission would not be effectively reduced by merely moving to a rural area, though. In order to reduce risk beyond what can be done through existing biosafety measures within a city, you would need to take much more extreme measures than what you describe for other non-virology research. Otherwise moving the lab to a remote area serves as an expensive and needless security theater rather than actually increasing biosecurity.
Antarctica is isolated because people don't/can't just come and go all the time. That allows some real isolation and security. Unless people can't leave (and can't present at conferences or...
Antarctica is isolated because people don't/can't just come and go all the time. That allows some real isolation and security. Unless people can't leave (and can't present at conferences or collaborate with colleagues in other labs, etc. ) you don't really reduce the risk, unless the time it takes to show symptoms is so fast you can lock down everyone very fast.
It seems to me like common sense that a disease outbreak in a remote village is easier to contain than one in a large, crowded city. This would be as a last resort if other containment measures...
It seems to me like common sense that a disease outbreak in a remote village is easier to contain than one in a large, crowded city. This would be as a last resort if other containment measures fail.
It's not about the security of the labs, it's them doing the work at all, along with the location of the lab not just the location. They're not in rural isolated areas due to logistics both of...
They’re right about the inadequacy of BSL-2 labs, but they entirely missed the far, far greater problem with this study. Scientists should not be going out into remote caves and collecting exotic viruses to bring back into the middle of a large city! Hello?
It's not about the security of the labs, it's them doing the work at all, along with the location of the lab not just the location.
They're not in rural isolated areas due to logistics both of supplies and of people. We do research in Antarctica or in space only for things that can't be done elsewhere because it's super expensive.
And the scientists themselves have to be willing to work somewhere. Isolated for months/years instead of home to families or getting take out is not a winning job offer.
My point was that you only do research in isolation when necessary because it's miserable and expensive. If you can get both virologists ( and all their pipettes and other supplies) to live in a...
My point was that you only do research in isolation when necessary because it's miserable and expensive.
If you can get both virologists ( and all their pipettes and other supplies) to live in a small rural town away from job opportunities and quality schools for their families, easy transportation, etc go for it. They're in cities because that's the logistics they need for both supplies and to retain staff.
Or you're paying them higher wages to make up for the fact they're away from families - and if they can travel on the weekend you're eliminating the benefit - and increasing your costs for basically everything else by pulling it further away from major supply chains.
I live in a small town so I'm aware of that. But the things I listed - supplies being further from supply chain and wages for highly specialized jobs are both going to be higher so you didn't...
I live in a small town so I'm aware of that. But the things I listed - supplies being further from supply chain and wages for highly specialized jobs are both going to be higher so you didn't address any of my points at all.
I don't think either of us really know what it would really cost, but given that millions of lives are at stake, I suspect it would be worth the money.
I don't think either of us really know what it would really cost, but given that millions of lives are at stake, I suspect it would be worth the money.
If you're not even willing to discuss the points then I don't understand why we're having a conversation. I don't know the exact numbers but I do know you have to pay highly educated scientists...
If you're not even willing to discuss the points then I don't understand why we're having a conversation. I don't know the exact numbers but I do know you have to pay highly educated scientists more to move to the middle of nowhere and that logistics will be more expensive. I know the last part partially based on the fact that my groceries are more expensive in my small town that is only 10 minutes away from a larger City. Also, I'm basing this on what virologists said the last time this conversation came up. If people can travel away from the rural area unlike antarctica or space, then all of those precautions are pretty much mot because they can just go to the big city and bring the dangerous virus there on their weekend excursion.
Simply dismissing that is neither of us know the cost makes there be no point having any sort of conversation at all. Especially when in the article he doesn't even want more rural areas. He wants none of this research to happen.
ETA, all I can find with a quick search on the topic is that RFK is pushing against a lot broader research on viruses and that the scientists I'm following still don't believe lab leak is the most likely.
I do see your arguments as valid reasons for skepticism, but I think you sometimes go beyond saying that you're unconvinced? When you argue that the opinions you oppose are unreasonable or...
I do see your arguments as valid reasons for skepticism, but I think you sometimes go beyond saying that you're unconvinced? When you argue that the opinions you oppose are unreasonable or invalid, it's like maybe we shouldn't be discussing them at all. It seems pretty severe?
In this case, I think it's just true that none of are experts in what it costs to build, staff, and supply a virology lab and it doesn't seem particularly dismissive. After all, many virologists probably don't know that much about it either, since doing the science isn't the same as building and running the facilities?
We are making hand-waving arguments based on common-sense considerations. So I could say that the shipping charges for delivery by truck of pipettes (or anything else that fits in a truck) to a rural lab are unlikely to be all that expensive, but I've never looked into it and there are likely other things that cost more.
So that's why I don't think it's worthwhile to go into it point by point. I don't mean that to be dismissive.
In this case, I'm not sure that the article I posted is entirely convincing and perhaps I'm overly kind in interpreting it; I rather glossed over the part where he's saying it shouldn't be done at all. But I posted it because I think it raises interesting questions: given what we know about the dangers, why are some virology labs near cities? Couldn't this work be done somewhere else?
Also, how much difference would it make to locate them elsewhere? It probably depends on how it's done. Maybe the rules for living there should limit travel somehow?
I'm reminded of the National Radio Quiet Zone, which seems like a pretty severe restriction on what technology people there can use. But it's for science, so presumably it was considered worth it.
I don't think we can answer those questions, but I'm curious enough about it that I'd be interested in reading any responses that experts make to Professor Salzberg's blog post. Or if you can ever find what you read before, that might be interesting too. In-depth expert responses might be hard to find in all the noise, though.
This is a big assumption to make on a public forum. I can tell you I have not built a virology lab, but I have been involved in projects building multiple large facilities that contain labs and...
In this case, I think it's just true that none of are experts in what it costs to build, staff, and supply a virology lab and it doesn't seem particularly dismissive. After all, many virologists probably don't know that much about it either, since doing the science isn't the same as building and running the facilities?
This is a big assumption to make on a public forum. I can tell you I have not built a virology lab, but I have been involved in projects building multiple large facilities that contain labs and clean room environments, which are less secure and likely a lower grade clean room than is required in a virology lab. That seems relevant enough for me to ballpark it as, at minimum, comfortably in the high 8 figure to low 9 figure range, likely higher depending on containment measures, security, size, etc.
You’ll likely need to bring in specialized construction crews who are capable of building the facility, which will be marked up due to the travel, etc. - because it’s very unlikely you’ll find anyone who has experience locally. Then you also need to factor that extra cost in when considering preventative or emergency service of specialized equipment (whether HVAC or lab equipment).
On top of all that, the more remote and/or locked down you are, the greater the premium you’re going to have to pay for talent - most of whom will want to be near a city. At some point, it just isn’t financially feasible.
For the record, the scientists/staff who are remotely senior absolutely will have an idea of what it costs to run - at least on an order of magnitude level. Overhead is going to be factored into things like project budgets, which isn’t a complete picture but enough to extrapolate from.
What you're saying broadly tracks with my understanding, thanks for bringing the knowledge! I think if you add in staff not staying in the small town or on-site and leaving for vacations, family...
What you're saying broadly tracks with my understanding, thanks for bringing the knowledge!
I think if you add in staff not staying in the small town or on-site and leaving for vacations, family visits and such, unless you kept people there intentionally and mandated it, you'd have all this extra expense for very safety gain.
Absolutely. There are definitely hardcore folks who would sign up to be sequestered away in some remote lab, but not nearly as many as the number of highly talented people who want to have normal...
Absolutely. There are definitely hardcore folks who would sign up to be sequestered away in some remote lab, but not nearly as many as the number of highly talented people who want to have normal lives outside of work. Even those hardcore few would probably only sign on for a short term contract, and would still want the occasional trip to go visit friends and family or do something fun during their term.
If your staff is leaving to spend every weekend in the closest major city anyway, the facility location really isn’t going to make a meaningful difference.
I just don't understand replying with "welp none of us know the answers" it's thought terminating. If you don't want to discuss it, them don't? I want to talk through it and have with others. It's...
I just don't understand replying with "welp none of us know the answers" it's thought terminating. If you don't want to discuss it, them don't? I want to talk through it and have with others.
It's worth considering why things are this way, because it's not like the people that built the existing labs are idiots who never considered the risk of viruses escaping.
Pipettes were, for example, a singular example of all of the logistical problems with an extended supply chain. Not a desire to go through lab supplies individually. Similarly Rural areas aren't inherently isolated if your scientists leave and go to nearest city, or fly out for conferences on the regular. Those are things we may not be able to answer but we can absolutely recognize.
If I find a response I'll post it but as for my past things posted on the lab leak theory, they're here on Tildes but I'm not particularly interested in litigating the theory. So feel free to go look but I don't have it bookmarked and no search in the app.
It may seem to make sense to want to document all strains of all viruses in the way that we want to document as much as we can about the animal kingdom, but bat guts are literally specially...
It may seem to make sense to want to document all strains of all viruses in the way that we want to document as much as we can about the animal kingdom, but bat guts are literally specially designed to mutate new viruses. Which is to say, these novel viruses are not phylogenetically interesting and are not representative of the general ecosystem of viruses.
I don't think you're taking into account the scale of human ecosystem encroachment, global trade (including legal or illegal wildlife export), human migration and warfare, and other considerations...
I don't think you're taking into account the scale of human ecosystem encroachment, global trade (including legal or illegal wildlife export), human migration and warfare, and other considerations in the spread of zoonoses.
At this point, if a pathogen exists in the wild somewhere, humans will probably have to worry about it eventually, whether as a direct disease risk, a threat to the agricultural species we depend on for food, or an affliction of our companion animals. There are cultures and places where bushmeat (including bats and monkeys) is a necessary dietary protein source, where there's constant migratory animal traffic, and where there's little barrier between rapid human expansion and uncontacted wildlife. All of these places are now connected by an extensive web of human travel and commerce.
We absolutely need information on emerging threats as fast as we can get it, or we go back to isolated, xenophobic armed camps.
I'm not saying we can categorize and analyze everything, but we did just have a pandemic apparently caused by those bat stomachs, we probably need to understand how that works and keep somewhat up...
I'm not saying we can categorize and analyze everything, but we did just have a pandemic apparently caused by those bat stomachs, we probably need to understand how that works and keep somewhat up on that.
If he's just talking about this one thing, I'm not enough of an expert to say, and I'd say that the article does a poor job of articulating it.
But the mere fact that this is a legitimate question–that it’s possible the pandemic started in a lab–ought to be enough to shut down all activities where scientists, no matter how well-meaning they are, venture into remote sites and bring dangerous viruses back to cities. We just don’t need to do that. Virtually all of those viruses will never make it anywhere near humans unless we help them along.
I just don't agree with this. Especially if it wasn't a lab leak (which again is the model that seems most likely to me)
I'm all for better understanding the strange biology of bats, but that doesn't necessarily require seeking out novel viruses. As for the lab leak question, the bottom line is that it's a very...
I'm all for better understanding the strange biology of bats, but that doesn't necessarily require seeking out novel viruses.
As for the lab leak question, the bottom line is that it's a very plausible theory and that, from a perspective of safety, it should be accepted as true and we should operate under its implications. What that means here precisely, I'm not completely sure, but the risks far outweigh the benefits of ignoring the lab leak theory.
I don't agree that we should accept it as true, I do think that we should increase the security of labs, I also think that functionally "we" have very little control over what other countries,...
I don't agree that we should accept it as true, I do think that we should increase the security of labs, I also think that functionally "we" have very little control over what other countries, especially China, do with that.
Like I said, I'm not a bat gut expert, but I do believe we should be actively studying "wild" viruses. If he's just saying we shouldn't go poke bat gut virii, well, ok, maybe? But he wrote a much broader case than that even just in the quote above.
If he just means "we" as in the NIH, ok maybe? But that doesn't stop the research internationally either. Lots of things are a small piece of the larger whole. But I'll definitely be looking at the experts I follow to see if they have other thoughts.
To clarify, we should accept it as true from the perspective of safety. As for studying novel pathogens outside of bats, I suppose the same principle but on a smaller scale also applies. Not...
To clarify, we should accept it as true from the perspective of safety. As for studying novel pathogens outside of bats, I suppose the same principle but on a smaller scale also applies. Not everything that happens in the ecosystem is of significant biological interest to human medicine and, given the risk of studying pathogens in animals that humans minimally interact with, there's a question about whether we are getting our money's worth danger-wise. This is essentially the argument that respected people like Lipsitch have made. I'd prefer there be a clear articulation of the value of each of these projects to human medicine before funding them, versus assuming that everything we learn about the ecosystem will be significantly worthwhile and will override the risk of this type of research.
My point is that I'd accept it as true for purposes of improving safety at labs, not shutting down research entirely. If we weren't doing that research would we have been able to understand...
My point is that I'd accept it as true for purposes of improving safety at labs, not shutting down research entirely.
If we weren't doing that research would we have been able to understand SARS-COV-2 as quickly, or would it actually compromise our safety not to be doing that? I'm not the expert, but my inclination is always away from stopping science due to risk.
I'm not necessarily arguing that we should categorically shut down this research, but we should have a strong and clear reason before deciding to fund these types of projects. Well, if we're doing...
I'm not necessarily arguing that we should categorically shut down this research, but we should have a strong and clear reason before deciding to fund these types of projects.
If we weren't doing that research would we have been able to understand SARS-COV-2 as quickly, or would it actually compromise our safety not to be doing that?
Well, if we're doing counter-factuals, you can't ignore considering whether Covid-19 pandemic would ever have happened if we didn't do this research.
I get what you're saying, but ultimately it's a heuristic to say that it's better to not get in the way of science just because of risk. If it's true that it is, then the argument that the benefits outweigh the risks can and should be made on specific grounds.
Which is why I lean towards improved lab safety not research cessation, like I said. But practically since we can't make the research stop everywhere, (and the NIH isn't doing that much of it...
Which is why I lean towards improved lab safety not research cessation, like I said. But practically since we can't make the research stop everywhere, (and the NIH isn't doing that much of it anyway) I'm not sure any of these opinions matter much.
But again I'm basing this all on other experts I've read so I'll have to see if they've engaged with this substack at all. I get your point, I just don't know that the conclusion makes sense to me..
ETA in general Steven Salzberg is very respected in the community, except for his belief in the lab leak theory afaict.
Zeynep Tufekci wrote an opinion piece using the same news hook: We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives - (New York Times gift link)
Zeynep Tufekci wrote an opinion piece using the same news hook:
Fwiw the virologists I follow on Bluesky are pretty solid that it's not a lab leak scenario. I've linked them here before, but my not a virologist translation is that there are two slight...
Fwiw the virologists I follow on Bluesky are pretty solid that it's not a lab leak scenario. I've linked them here before, but my not a virologist translation is that there are two slight variations in SARS-COV-2 from the jump that suggests two points of entry into the human population and that even one of the traces of those initial outbreaks aligned with people that had been at a particular cave.
I would need a high level of evidence and confidence to believe a single point of origin, much less lab leak at this point.
I don’t believe it will ever be proven one way or another in a way that settles the debate, but regardless of that, safety standards should be improved.
I don’t believe it will ever be proven one way or another in a way that settles the debate, but regardless of that, safety standards should be improved.
A team of scientists in Wuhan, China collected viruses from bats in remote caves, brought the viruses back to Wuhan, and started doing experiments. They discovered that one of the viruses, which they called HKU5-CoV-2, seems to be really good at infecting human cells. How exciting, they thought! After more experimentation to confirm how dangerous this virus was, they published their results in a prestigious scientific journal, Cell, just a couple of weeks ago.
What the heck??? Did they learn nothing at all from the COVID pandemic? This is incredibly risky work, and I was astonished to see that it’s still going on – and not only is it going on, but it’s happening at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, widely considered to be the possible source of the pandemic, although that remains controversial. (More on that note below.)
I first heard about this last week, when two US-based virologists, Ian Lipkin and Ralph Baric, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about these experiments. Lipkin and Baric are concerned that the Chinese virologists used “insufficient safety precautions” when doing their experiments. Most of their article focuses on the use of BioSafety Level 2 (BSL-2) instead of BSL-3 or BSL-4, which they point out would be much safer.
They’re right about the inadequacy of BSL-2 labs, but they entirely missed the far, far greater problem with this study. Scientists should not be going out into remote caves and collecting exotic viruses to bring back into the middle of a large city! Hello? Didn’t we make this point enough already? Focusing on the biosafety level is like telling someone who is driving at 200 kph straight towards a 1000-meter cliff that they ought to buckle their seatbelts.
I disagree with this take. You want the virologists doing this because those viruses exist in this world. The fact the scientists are concerned about something different proves the point to me.
Yeah, I understand the desire to have stricter protocols around it (and I don't know enough about virology to argue one way or the other about whether these precautions were adequate), but the idea that virologists shouldn't study viruses like this at all is just absurd. That only puts us behind if/when these viruses are transmitted to humans, which can and quite frequently does absolutely happen without any labs involved.
The idea that the viruses being studied here would never have come into contact with humans were it not for these scientists also seems pretty silly to me -- even if the locales are really so remote that no humans would venture there were it not for science, surely the author is aware that viruses like these can spread within animal populations?
I see this as being about how the research is done, not whether it’s done at all. Why aren’t such labs using stricter levels of biocontainment and also located in remote areas, for defense in depth That is, such a lab shouldn’t be in Wuhan or any other large city.
Your quote from the blog post explicitly points out that the author doesn't think this research should be happening at all, as it directly criticizes others for focusing on biosafety measures.
And from later in the post
He says they shouldn't be done. His focus has been the risk of lab leaks for ten years, I get that he's concerned and has some expertise. But I don't agree with him based on the opinion of other experts.
I guess it’s ambiguous, but I read it as saying biocontainment levels are not enough.
(Emphasis added.)
Anyway, I agree that it may be worth doing some research, but under much stricter conditions.
I don't think it's particularly feasible to run such a lab as remotely as would be necessary to have a sufficient effect on the risk level without losing access to necessary infrastructure, supplies, and personnel.
It will be more expensive, but telescopes are an example of scientific facilities built on remote mountains. There are also entire universities located in rural areas.
The risks of human transmission would not be effectively reduced by merely moving to a rural area, though. In order to reduce risk beyond what can be done through existing biosafety measures within a city, you would need to take much more extreme measures than what you describe for other non-virology research. Otherwise moving the lab to a remote area serves as an expensive and needless security theater rather than actually increasing biosecurity.
Antarctica is isolated because people don't/can't just come and go all the time. That allows some real isolation and security. Unless people can't leave (and can't present at conferences or collaborate with colleagues in other labs, etc. ) you don't really reduce the risk, unless the time it takes to show symptoms is so fast you can lock down everyone very fast.
It seems to me like common sense that a disease outbreak in a remote village is easier to contain than one in a large, crowded city. This would be as a last resort if other containment measures fail.
But I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
It's not about the security of the labs, it's them doing the work at all, along with the location of the lab not just the location.
They're not in rural isolated areas due to logistics both of supplies and of people. We do research in Antarctica or in space only for things that can't be done elsewhere because it's super expensive.
And the scientists themselves have to be willing to work somewhere. Isolated for months/years instead of home to families or getting take out is not a winning job offer.
You don’t have to go so far as Antarctica. Most of the American West is pretty desolate, outside a few large cities. China has remote areas, too.
My point was that you only do research in isolation when necessary because it's miserable and expensive.
If you can get both virologists ( and all their pipettes and other supplies) to live in a small rural town away from job opportunities and quality schools for their families, easy transportation, etc go for it. They're in cities because that's the logistics they need for both supplies and to retain staff.
Or you're paying them higher wages to make up for the fact they're away from families - and if they can travel on the weekend you're eliminating the benefit - and increasing your costs for basically everything else by pulling it further away from major supply chains.
Some prices are higher, but the overall cost of living in rural areas is often lower than in cities. (In particular, due to rents being lower.)
I live in a small town so I'm aware of that. But the things I listed - supplies being further from supply chain and wages for highly specialized jobs are both going to be higher so you didn't address any of my points at all.
I don't think either of us really know what it would really cost, but given that millions of lives are at stake, I suspect it would be worth the money.
If you're not even willing to discuss the points then I don't understand why we're having a conversation. I don't know the exact numbers but I do know you have to pay highly educated scientists more to move to the middle of nowhere and that logistics will be more expensive. I know the last part partially based on the fact that my groceries are more expensive in my small town that is only 10 minutes away from a larger City. Also, I'm basing this on what virologists said the last time this conversation came up. If people can travel away from the rural area unlike antarctica or space, then all of those precautions are pretty much mot because they can just go to the big city and bring the dangerous virus there on their weekend excursion.
Simply dismissing that is neither of us know the cost makes there be no point having any sort of conversation at all. Especially when in the article he doesn't even want more rural areas. He wants none of this research to happen.
ETA, all I can find with a quick search on the topic is that RFK is pushing against a lot broader research on viruses and that the scientists I'm following still don't believe lab leak is the most likely.
I do see your arguments as valid reasons for skepticism, but I think you sometimes go beyond saying that you're unconvinced? When you argue that the opinions you oppose are unreasonable or invalid, it's like maybe we shouldn't be discussing them at all. It seems pretty severe?
In this case, I think it's just true that none of are experts in what it costs to build, staff, and supply a virology lab and it doesn't seem particularly dismissive. After all, many virologists probably don't know that much about it either, since doing the science isn't the same as building and running the facilities?
We are making hand-waving arguments based on common-sense considerations. So I could say that the shipping charges for delivery by truck of pipettes (or anything else that fits in a truck) to a rural lab are unlikely to be all that expensive, but I've never looked into it and there are likely other things that cost more.
So that's why I don't think it's worthwhile to go into it point by point. I don't mean that to be dismissive.
In this case, I'm not sure that the article I posted is entirely convincing and perhaps I'm overly kind in interpreting it; I rather glossed over the part where he's saying it shouldn't be done at all. But I posted it because I think it raises interesting questions: given what we know about the dangers, why are some virology labs near cities? Couldn't this work be done somewhere else?
Also, how much difference would it make to locate them elsewhere? It probably depends on how it's done. Maybe the rules for living there should limit travel somehow?
I'm reminded of the National Radio Quiet Zone, which seems like a pretty severe restriction on what technology people there can use. But it's for science, so presumably it was considered worth it.
I don't think we can answer those questions, but I'm curious enough about it that I'd be interested in reading any responses that experts make to Professor Salzberg's blog post. Or if you can ever find what you read before, that might be interesting too. In-depth expert responses might be hard to find in all the noise, though.
This is a big assumption to make on a public forum. I can tell you I have not built a virology lab, but I have been involved in projects building multiple large facilities that contain labs and clean room environments, which are less secure and likely a lower grade clean room than is required in a virology lab. That seems relevant enough for me to ballpark it as, at minimum, comfortably in the high 8 figure to low 9 figure range, likely higher depending on containment measures, security, size, etc.
You’ll likely need to bring in specialized construction crews who are capable of building the facility, which will be marked up due to the travel, etc. - because it’s very unlikely you’ll find anyone who has experience locally. Then you also need to factor that extra cost in when considering preventative or emergency service of specialized equipment (whether HVAC or lab equipment).
On top of all that, the more remote and/or locked down you are, the greater the premium you’re going to have to pay for talent - most of whom will want to be near a city. At some point, it just isn’t financially feasible.
For the record, the scientists/staff who are remotely senior absolutely will have an idea of what it costs to run - at least on an order of magnitude level. Overhead is going to be factored into things like project budgets, which isn’t a complete picture but enough to extrapolate from.
What you're saying broadly tracks with my understanding, thanks for bringing the knowledge!
I think if you add in staff not staying in the small town or on-site and leaving for vacations, family visits and such, unless you kept people there intentionally and mandated it, you'd have all this extra expense for very safety gain.
Absolutely. There are definitely hardcore folks who would sign up to be sequestered away in some remote lab, but not nearly as many as the number of highly talented people who want to have normal lives outside of work. Even those hardcore few would probably only sign on for a short term contract, and would still want the occasional trip to go visit friends and family or do something fun during their term.
If your staff is leaving to spend every weekend in the closest major city anyway, the facility location really isn’t going to make a meaningful difference.
I just don't understand replying with "welp none of us know the answers" it's thought terminating. If you don't want to discuss it, them don't? I want to talk through it and have with others.
It's worth considering why things are this way, because it's not like the people that built the existing labs are idiots who never considered the risk of viruses escaping.
Pipettes were, for example, a singular example of all of the logistical problems with an extended supply chain. Not a desire to go through lab supplies individually. Similarly Rural areas aren't inherently isolated if your scientists leave and go to nearest city, or fly out for conferences on the regular. Those are things we may not be able to answer but we can absolutely recognize.
If I find a response I'll post it but as for my past things posted on the lab leak theory, they're here on Tildes but I'm not particularly interested in litigating the theory. So feel free to go look but I don't have it bookmarked and no search in the app.
It may seem to make sense to want to document all strains of all viruses in the way that we want to document as much as we can about the animal kingdom, but bat guts are literally specially designed to mutate new viruses. Which is to say, these novel viruses are not phylogenetically interesting and are not representative of the general ecosystem of viruses.
I don't think you're taking into account the scale of human ecosystem encroachment, global trade (including legal or illegal wildlife export), human migration and warfare, and other considerations in the spread of zoonoses.
At this point, if a pathogen exists in the wild somewhere, humans will probably have to worry about it eventually, whether as a direct disease risk, a threat to the agricultural species we depend on for food, or an affliction of our companion animals. There are cultures and places where bushmeat (including bats and monkeys) is a necessary dietary protein source, where there's constant migratory animal traffic, and where there's little barrier between rapid human expansion and uncontacted wildlife. All of these places are now connected by an extensive web of human travel and commerce.
We absolutely need information on emerging threats as fast as we can get it, or we go back to isolated, xenophobic armed camps.
I'm not saying we can categorize and analyze everything, but we did just have a pandemic apparently caused by those bat stomachs, we probably need to understand how that works and keep somewhat up on that.
If he's just talking about this one thing, I'm not enough of an expert to say, and I'd say that the article does a poor job of articulating it.
I just don't agree with this. Especially if it wasn't a lab leak (which again is the model that seems most likely to me)
I'm all for better understanding the strange biology of bats, but that doesn't necessarily require seeking out novel viruses.
As for the lab leak question, the bottom line is that it's a very plausible theory and that, from a perspective of safety, it should be accepted as true and we should operate under its implications. What that means here precisely, I'm not completely sure, but the risks far outweigh the benefits of ignoring the lab leak theory.
I don't agree that we should accept it as true, I do think that we should increase the security of labs, I also think that functionally "we" have very little control over what other countries, especially China, do with that.
Like I said, I'm not a bat gut expert, but I do believe we should be actively studying "wild" viruses. If he's just saying we shouldn't go poke bat gut virii, well, ok, maybe? But he wrote a much broader case than that even just in the quote above.
If he just means "we" as in the NIH, ok maybe? But that doesn't stop the research internationally either. Lots of things are a small piece of the larger whole. But I'll definitely be looking at the experts I follow to see if they have other thoughts.
To clarify, we should accept it as true from the perspective of safety. As for studying novel pathogens outside of bats, I suppose the same principle but on a smaller scale also applies. Not everything that happens in the ecosystem is of significant biological interest to human medicine and, given the risk of studying pathogens in animals that humans minimally interact with, there's a question about whether we are getting our money's worth danger-wise. This is essentially the argument that respected people like Lipsitch have made. I'd prefer there be a clear articulation of the value of each of these projects to human medicine before funding them, versus assuming that everything we learn about the ecosystem will be significantly worthwhile and will override the risk of this type of research.
My point is that I'd accept it as true for purposes of improving safety at labs, not shutting down research entirely.
If we weren't doing that research would we have been able to understand SARS-COV-2 as quickly, or would it actually compromise our safety not to be doing that? I'm not the expert, but my inclination is always away from stopping science due to risk.
I'm not necessarily arguing that we should categorically shut down this research, but we should have a strong and clear reason before deciding to fund these types of projects.
Well, if we're doing counter-factuals, you can't ignore considering whether Covid-19 pandemic would ever have happened if we didn't do this research.
I get what you're saying, but ultimately it's a heuristic to say that it's better to not get in the way of science just because of risk. If it's true that it is, then the argument that the benefits outweigh the risks can and should be made on specific grounds.
Which is why I lean towards improved lab safety not research cessation, like I said. But practically since we can't make the research stop everywhere, (and the NIH isn't doing that much of it anyway) I'm not sure any of these opinions matter much.
But again I'm basing this all on other experts I've read so I'll have to see if they've engaged with this substack at all. I get your point, I just don't know that the conclusion makes sense to me..
ETA in general Steven Salzberg is very respected in the community, except for his belief in the lab leak theory afaict.
Zeynep Tufekci wrote an opinion piece using the same news hook:
We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives - (New York Times gift link)
Fwiw the virologists I follow on Bluesky are pretty solid that it's not a lab leak scenario. I've linked them here before, but my not a virologist translation is that there are two slight variations in SARS-COV-2 from the jump that suggests two points of entry into the human population and that even one of the traces of those initial outbreaks aligned with people that had been at a particular cave.
I would need a high level of evidence and confidence to believe a single point of origin, much less lab leak at this point.
I don’t believe it will ever be proven one way or another in a way that settles the debate, but regardless of that, safety standards should be improved.
That point is fine, it's just not what this article suggested. The author minimized the concerns of actual virologists and highlighted different ones.
From the blog post: