Jay Bhattacharya Distinguishes Two Types of Gain of Function Research

I did not appreciate this distinction. Until I saw Bari Weiss' interview of Jay Bhattacharya, I assumed that all gain of function research was dangerous.

I created this transcript of the above interview:

Bari Weiss: Should gain a function research be banned, okay?

Jay Bhattacharya: So you have to be careful here. There's some gain of function research which is entirely benign, has no chance of causing a pandemic and would advance a use that is vital tool for advancing human health, right? So, for instance you have some protein you want expressed so that you can use it as a treatment, like insulin, is a good example of this. You change the DNA of a of an E coli, use the E coli bacteria to produce the insulin cheaply. That's gain of function work. There's nothing wrong with that.

But there is gain of function work that has the potential to cause a pandemic. You take a virus you find in a bat cave in China, Coronavirus, you add a biochemical element. This Is not theoretical. You add an element to it that makes it more transmissible among human cells and then you do that in a setting where it might infect the lab technician who takes it home without knowing it infects their family and causes a pandemic that causes so much damage.

That kind of research, or any research that has any capacity of causing a pandemic through gain of function, work should be banned. I think it has no place among the toolkit of scientists. You have a few scientists taking risks on behalf of the entire human population, and they do it in an unregulated way that makes absolutely no sense to me. Even if you don't agree that that is what led to this past pandemic--I happen to think it does--But even if you don't agree going forward, why would you say yes, you should take that risk? There aren't enough benefits to that kind of research to warrant causing a pandemic that can kill 10 million, 20 million people, if you include the lockdown harms and caused trillions of dollars of damage and set society back for so long. What knowledge gain would be worth that?

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Discusses Trump’s Tariffs and the U.S. Economy

There's a big difference between longer form interviews and the 20 second hit jobs you see on legacy media. In this interview, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent discusses Trump's tariff plan. He makes two main points. This is an effort to bring back the middle class. Second, his main concern is that the US no longer manufactures physical things and this constitutes a major security risk. I agree with both of these points. I don't claim to know all of the risks and benefits of jacking up tariffs, but I do know that the countries who are most complaining are the ones who have been nailing the US with tariffs for years. Bessent also discusses the effect of tariffs on the US stock market, making the argument that the market is lagging in reaction to far more than the tariffs. Further, in recent times, the fact that the market has generally been rising has not reflected the true state of the US economy, especially on Main Street. I also agree with Batya Ungar-Sargon, who has made a strong case that the biggest divide today in the US is between the long-suffering middle class and the wealthier elites, who have become the main concern of Democrats.

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Maine Legislature Censures Member for Commenting on Male Participation in Female Sports.

Among other things, this situation raises First Amendment issues:

From FIRE:

Three weeks ago, Representative Laurel Libby of Maine’s 64th District posted on Facebook that a high school athlete won first place in girls’ pole vaulting at the Class B state championship after having competed the year before in the boys’ event and finishing in a tie for fifth place.

Libby’s post is constitutionally protected. She was speaking out about the policy in her state, set by the Maine High School Principals Association, that a high school athlete may participate in competitions for the gender with which they identify. Her post was also part of a nationwide debate. Maine Governor Janet Mills and President Trump have publicly sparred over the president’s executive order proposing to cut off education funding if states do not ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports.

But just days after Libby’s post, the Maine House speaker and majority leader demanded she take it down. When she refused, the majority leader introduced a censure resolution — to be heard in the House the next day — because Libby’s post had included photos and the first name of the student, who is a minor. Libby sought to defend herself in the hastily called House vote, but was repeatedly cut off. The censure resolution passed 75-70 on a party-line vote.

If all the censure did was express disapproval of Libby’s actions, that would be one thing.

A state legislative body is entitled to express displeasure with a member’s actions, which by itself does not violate the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court recently ruled.

But in Libby’s case, the Maine House went further, much further. When Libby refused to apologize for her protected speech, the House speaker declared she would be barred from speaking on the House floor or voting on any legislation until she capitulated. Thus, the House majority party has precluded Libby from doing her job and effectively disenfranchised her constituents, end-running Maine constitutional provisions that say a representative cannot be expelled absent a two-thirds vote or recall election.

Continue ReadingMaine Legislature Censures Member for Commenting on Male Participation in Female Sports.

About Cleaning House at the FDA

From "A Midwestern Doctor," who I follow. The article is mostly a sharp edged exposé of the gross incompetence and corruption of FDA Director Peter Marks, who was reportedly ejected from the FDA last week. But there is also this:

[C]onsider this quote from Peter Rost, a former executive at Pfizer and one of the few pharmaceutical leaders to speak out against the industry:

It is scary how many similarities there are between this industry and the mob. The mob makes obscene amounts of money, as does this industry. The side effects of organized crime are killings and deaths, and the side effects are the same in this industry. The mob bribes politicians and others, and so does the drug industry … The difference is, all these people in the drug industry look upon themselves – well, I’d say 99 percent, anyway – look upon themselves as law-abiding citizens, not as citizens who would ever rob a bank … However, when they get together as a group and manage these corporations, something seems to happen … to otherwise good citizens when they are part of a corporation. It’s almost like when you have war atrocities; people do things they don’t think they’re capable of. When you’re in a group, people can do things they otherwise wouldn’t, because the group can validate what you’re doing as okay
.

One couldn't conjure up a better real life example of Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil. Oh, and as independent researchers (and all the rest of us) are denied access to comprehensive vaccine injury data, consider this quote by Arendt:

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism…

Here are a few excerpts about the "work" of Marks:

•He asserted VAERS overreports vaccine injuries when in reality less than 1% of injuries make it into VAERS (as the government never wanted a publicly available injury database and once a law forced its creation, the government has worked for decades to undermine VAERS).

•He “compassionately” claimed the Federal vaccine injury compensation program existed to help individuals injured by vaccines and that they could sue a vaccine manufacturer if they were unsatisfied with the verdict—when in reality it is nearly impossible to have most injuries be acknowledged by that program and even harder to be able to sue a manufacturer outside of it).

•He argued that “vaccine immunity is superior to natural immunity” (which is false as vaccine immunity often creates a very narrow immunity pathogens rapidly evolve a resistance to). Then as people started to point that out, he pivoted to stating “vaccines do not put you at risk of infection like an actual infection so they are superior due to the lower risk entailed in become immune” and was not called out for moving the goalpost from efficacy to safety.

Note: there is also strong evidence vaccine side effects are often much greater than those from a natural infection (best demonstrated by how many more people have permanent complications from the vaccines than a COVID infection.

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