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Fauci Backed Wuhan Lab with Millions of Dollars for Risky Coronavirus Research

Story finally made it to Newsweek today, though it has been bouncing in the belly of the internet for a while. Apologies if already posted by someone before.

Just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.

The work entailed risks that worried even seasoned researchers. More than 200 scientists called for the work to be halted. The problem, they said, is that it increased the likelihood that a pandemic would occur through a laboratory accident.

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

This doesn’t prove our current coronavirus came from the Wuhan lab, though it is a possibility to keep on the table. In any case, what’s up with giving money to the Chinese? All this brings his judgment into question— seems like he likes to play with fire.

Guess Fauci never read Frankenstein. Or Bill Joy.

Joy is a creator of many technologies that made modern computer technology possible. His place in the pantheon of tech gods was secure, back in the year 2000. Then he wrote this seminal essay in Wired Magazine that considered the dark, dangerous side of technology—nuclear, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering—after being challenged to read a passage from a book his friend Ray Kurzweil was reading.

The essay he wrote in response challenged too many assumptions technologists had of endless progress towards a perfect future. People viewed him as the skunk at the picnic afterwards.

While talking and thinking about Kurzweil, Kaczynski, and Moravec, I suddenly remembered a novel I had read almost 20 years ago -The White Plague, by Frank Herbert—in which a molecular biologist is driven insane by the senseless murder of his family. To seek revenge he constructs and disseminates a new and highly contagious plague that kills widely but selectively. (We're lucky Kaczynski was a mathematician, not a molecular biologist.)

Awareness of the dangers inherent in genetic engineering is beginning to grow, as reflected in the Lovins' editorial. The general public is aware of, and uneasy about, genetically modified foods, and seems to be rejecting the notion that such foods should be permitted to be unlabeled.

But genetic engineering technology is already very far along. As the Lovins note, the USDA has already approved about 50 genetically engineered crops for unlimited release; more than half of the world's soybeans and a third of its corn now contain genes spliced in from other forms of life.

While there are many important issues here, my own major concern with genetic engineering is narrower: that it gives the power—whether militarily, accidentally, or in a deliberate terrorist act—to create a White Plague.

It’s long and won’t be every one’s cup of tea. However, it brings up dark possibilities which are very relevant for us today.

https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/