per the Lancet:
"The US moratorium on gain-of-function experiments has been rescinded, but scientists are split over the benefits—and risks—of such studies. Talha Burki reports.
On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext
From the Washington Post
"Working carefully with influenza viruses they have engineered in isolated biocontainment laboratories, scientists in Europe and the United States have identified several mechanisms by which the virus might evolve to transmit efficiently in the ferret, the best animal model for human influenza infection. This research has allowed identification of genetic pathways by which such a virus could better adapt to transmission among people. This laboratory virus does not exist in nature. There is, however, considerable concern that such a virus could evolve naturally. We cannot predict whether it or something similar will arise naturally, nor when or where it might appear."
And
"Given these uncertainties, important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-worth-taking/2011/12/30/gIQAM9sNRP_story.html
From the New York Times
"Prompted by controversy over dangerous research and recent laboratory accidents, the White House announced Friday that it would temporarily halt all new funding for experiments that seek to study certain infectious agents by making them more dangerous.
It also encouraged scientists involved in such research on the influenza, SARS and MERS viruses to voluntarily pause their work while its risks were reassessed.
Opponents of this type of research, called gain of function — for example, attempts to create a more contagious version of the lethal H5N1 avian influenza to learn which mutations made it that way — were elated."
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-funding-for-risky-biological-study.html
And Finally from Homeland Security Digital Library:
"A U.S. NIH [National Institute of Health]-funded $3.7 million project was approved by Trump's Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci in 2015, after the Obama White House imposed a ban on 'monster-germ' research. In October 2014, the federal government declared a moratorium on gain-of-function research to weaponize viruses related to influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). As a result, the research was outsourced to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is currently at the center of scrutiny for the Covid-19 pandemic."
= new reply since forum marked as read
because this place sometimes....
