🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#1. “nothing’s ever eradicated as long as you have the sequence, right?” - Vincent Racaniello

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735261699330287

#2. “this is a panel to look at flu proposals, essentially” - Vincent Racaniello

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735264585306472

#3. “Would we be upset if we, for example, found out today that some other country was doing CoV research to create more pathogenic or more transmissible CoVs in the absence of some very clear international standards” - Tom Inglesby

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735268519366701

#4. “by the look on your face maybe you and I should chat offline about it”

Chris Hassell (chair of the P3CO review committee) responds to a question from James Le Duc about whether projects outside of the NIH are included in the P3CO review

This exchange is noteworthy given when it occurred- January 23, 2020.

Earlier that day, Le Duc and Anthony Fauci had an 8am, in-person meeting. At the time, LeDuc ran one of the few BSL-4 biocontainment labs in the US at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He also trained many Chinese scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in BSL-4 biosafety procedures.

Later in the day (~4:30 that afternoon) LeDuc and former Ft. Detrick BSL-4 biolab director Dave Franz had a conference call with Robert Kadlec (who was working at HHS at the time).

source: https://openthebooks.com/substack-historic-release-dr-anthony-faucis-official-work-calendar-november-2019–march-2020/

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735272625488276

#5. “nothing that has gone on at the Dept of Defense would have fallen under [the P3CO framework]”

Chris Hassell (chair of the P3CO review committee) responds to a question from Marie-Louise Hammarskjold about whether agencies other than NIH are performing ePPP research

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735274978578903

>>21166969

🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#6. Extended discussion between Mark Denison and Chris Hassell (chair of the P3CO review committee) on the difficulties of doing a risk/benefit analysis and the scope of the P3CO

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735278208438466

#7. Mark Denison mentions there may be a COVID case at Texas AM, which leads to a joke about the spread of the virus, followed by a “well-timed” cough at the end

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735280993198084

#8. Pamela Silver discusses an example of how the drive to publish in high-profile journals endangers us all

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735283958510044

#9. ePPP research enthusiast Jessica Belser expresses concerns with the way dangerous research is communicated to the public in the media and on TWiV

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735287913976195

#10. Ken Bernard makes an argument for secrecy in scientific review, which Marc Lipsitch counters (see clip #11, below)

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735292015743454

>>21166975

🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#11. Marc Lipsitch responds to Ken Bernard’s argument for secrecy in the review process. (see clip #10, above)

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735295673245787

#12. Ken Bernard claims that ~50% of the US NATO allies think the US has an offensive bioweapons program

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735298584084711

#13. “If Judy Miller wrote an article about it, it would like we were doing offensive bioweapons work”

Ken Bernard mentions a project from 2004 that was stopped by the public affairs office because it would not pass the “NY Times test”

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735301444645079

#14. “just because there is a definition on a page doesn’t mean that’s how its being practiced in real life” - Jessica Belser

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735304623890547

#15. “The public health contributions resulting from research with enhanced potential pandemic pathogensso called gain-of-function studiesare clear” - Jessica Belser

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735306972918029

>>21166983

🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#16. Marie-Louise Hammarskjold asks Gigi Gronvall about the lack of data for accidents to base risk assessments on (at 1.5x speed)

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735309917319476

#17. Ken Bernard mentions that the policies they are discussing don’t cover entities not taking money from the US government (at 1.5x speed)

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735312727285821

#18. Marie-Louise Hammarskjold discusses (1) prior concerns the panel had that any policy recommendations that had would be too broad and thus hamper MERS and SARS research and (2) concerns that the public will react negatively if there is not enough transparency in deliberations on risk-benefit analysis

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735315092799488

#19. Chris Hassell (chair of the P3CO review committee) mentions that not having a policy that applies to non-federally funded work may represent a vulnerability

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735318184038513

#20. Chris Hassell (chair of the P3CO review committee) claims that the emergence of COVID-19 emphasizes the need for more research that would qualify for review under P3CO (i.e. work that creates enhanced potential pandemic pathogens)

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735320352469367

>>21166990

🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#21. “The intention was to allow a deliberative process to make sure that some of those “seven deadly sins”…were not stopped”

Ken Bernard, who was involved in writing the original charter for the NSABB, describes the origin of the NSABB, the Fink Report, and how the NSABB was not created to guard against the bad use of research but rather to make sure concerns over safety did not stop scientific progress

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735323166843012

🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#22. Gerald Parker (chair of NSABB) asks Chris Hassell (chair of the P3CO review committee) about transparency

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735326094749786

Source: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=35665

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1809735329089196264

Fmr. WH COVID Coordinator Ashish Jha Now Says Vaccine Mandates May Have Been a Mistake

“In the long-run [mandates] bred a lot of distrust and were harmful as well…Hindsight on this is 20/20 but in the future, to the extent that there are mandates, I think they are going to be very, very narrow.”

https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1810664901452386613

Full Interview: https://t.co/CEytyxF3sd