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Vin LoPresti's avatar

This goes far beyond hyper-nationalistic bloviators like Mr. Cotton. It's part and parcel of the inability/unwillingness to limit the scope of research or at least stringently enforce biosafety requirements. As a molecular biologist, someone might expect me to be gung-ho about pursuing all lines of research in immunology and virology: the free-inquiry version of science. But science within a rapacious capitalist system is science in need of serious regulation, and Mary Shelley was prescient about the inability of humans to exercise restraint; but at least the impacts of her "monster" were far more limited than the potential impacts of careless gof research. In the context of a profit-mad society, gain-of-function (gof) research is driven by Pharma profiteering, despite the fact that there may be individual scientists who are motivated by higher ideals, such as protection of society from infectious diseases. Gof research is incredibly chancy because we tinker with genetic systems whose complexity is as yet barely appreciated by researchers and is mostly opaque to the public and the investor class. It appears operationally impossible to adequately regulate such research, at minimum to ensure that it's done only under BSL3/4 laboratory safeguards. This is a question of scientific ethics, not of nationalism.

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Riff McClavin's avatar

Tom Cotton personifies a system which rewards dysfunction, rebranding it into what's called "a serious person, a friend of Israel, and a good God-fearing Christian." Washington swarms with such creatures and there is no systemic alternative. Until we call out and smash this conveyor belt of shite, the road to hell we're travelling should surprise no one.

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