Boston University scientists were condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory - Octo

[sharon sanders]

This post is a replacement post to the original post make on this topic. We will not be censored - even a sideway attempt. Now I am going to expand this topic on this thread since apparently it is a problem for somebody.

hat tip Mary Wilson for the original post.



PUBLISHED: 11:02 EST, 17 October 2022 | UPDATED: 17:03 EST, 28 October 2022


Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory.

DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study.

The researchers were attempting to discover whether the spike protein on the Omicron variant – responsible for making it the most transmissible of Covid strains to date – is also behind the virus having a particularly mild effect on infected hosts, with most suffering only slight illness.

The resultant chimera was only slightly less deadly than the Wuhan strain, indicating that the spike protein is not behind the attenuation of its effects on hosts.

more....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...kill-rate.html


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Also from the original thread:

Nature: Spike and nsp6 are key determinants of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 attenuation

 

[sharon sanders]

A press release from Boston U:


NEIDL Researchers Discover New SARS-CoV-2 Weak Spot—Which Could Inspire Improved Vaccines

JANUARY 11, 2023

snip

In this case, the chimeric virus was attenuated and stayed that way throughout the study. When the researchers compared Omicron, Washington, and Omi-S in cells grown in petri dishes, says Saeed, “We found the chimeric virus was weaker compared to the wild-type virus.”

But it still wasn’t as weak as Omicron, suggesting it wasn’t just the spike that was responsible for that variant’s relative lack of pathogenicity.

“We showed that spike had minimal contribution to the disease-causing ability of Omicron,” says Saeed.

They also tested the three virus variants in bioengineered animal models—mice engineered to be more susceptible to disease—and saw the same patterns emerge.

The original virus killed 100 percent of infected mice, Omi-S had an 80 percent mortality rate, and all mice survived their brush with Omicron. When those results were originally released by Saeed’s research team in a draft form, they sparked some confusion, with a number of largely right-wing media outlets wrongly assuming that those percentages meant the viruses had the same mortality or kill rates in humans. That was not true, says Saeed—and it’s a point he and his coauthors clarified in the final Nature paper.

more...

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2023/neidl-researchers-discover-new-sars-cov-2-weak-spot/

 

[Mary Wilson]

NEIDL
Boston University National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories

IN THE NEWS


NEIDL RESEARCHERS DISCOVER NEW SARS-COV-2 WEAK SPOT—WHICH COULD INSPIRE IMPROVED VACCINES
IN IN THE NEWS, RESEARCH
Original article from The Brink by The Brink Staff. January 11, 2023 Nature publishes BU-led COVID…


BU RESPONDS TO NIH FUNDING CLARIFICATION REQUEST AFTER FALSE STORIES ABOUT NEIDL’S COVID WORK
IN IN THE NEWS, RESEARCH
Original article from The Brink by The Brink Staff. November 4,…


FACT CHECK-BOSTON UNIVERSITY HYBRID COVID VIRUS KILLS 80% OF MICE, NOT PEOPLE
IN IN THE NEWS, RESEARCH
Original article from Reuters by Reuters Fact Check. October 25, 2022 Social media…


LAB MANIPULATIONS OF COVID VIRUS FALL UNDER MURKY GOVERNMENT RULES
IN IN THE NEWS, RESEARCH
Original article from the New York Times by Carl Zimmer and Benjamin…


WHICH COVID STUDIES POSE A BIOHAZARD? LACK OF CLARITY HAMPERS RESEARCH
IN IN THE NEWS, RESEARCH
Original article from Nature by Ewen Callaway and Max Kozlov….


BU LAB WASN’T REQUIRED TO CLEAR POTENTIALLY CONTROVERSIAL STUDY WITH NIH, DIRECTOR SAYS
IN FEATURED, IN THE NEWS, PRESS RELEASES, RESEARCH
Original article from STAT by Helen Branswell. October 18, 2022…


NEIDL RESEARCHERS REFUTE UK ARTICLE ABOUT COVID STRAIN
IN FEATURED, IN THE NEWS, PRESS RELEASES, RESEARCH
Original article from The Brink by The Brink Staff. October…

https://www.bu.edu/neidl/category/in-the-news/

 

[Mary Wilson]

Fact Check-Boston University hybrid COVID virus kills 80% of mice, not people

OCTOBER 25, 20226:44 AM
UPDATED 3 MONTHS AGO

By Reuters Fact Check

... The study was not conducted in humans, and the chimeric virus was never tested in people. The experiments were done on mice engineered to have a specific human cell-receptor that makes them susceptible to being infected by the coronavirus.

The head of the lab in question stated that the 80% figure had been misrepresented online. “This was a statement taken out of context for the purposes of sensationalism,” Ronald Corley, the Director of the university’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) said in a statement published online (here).

The lead author of the study, Mohsan Saeed, said in the statement: “Consistent with studies published by others, this work shows that it is not the spike protein that drives Omicron pathogenicity, but instead other viral proteins. Determination of those proteins will lead to better diagnostics and disease management strategies.”

The results of the study in mice can’t predict what would happen if people were infected with the hybrid virus, an expert told Reuters.

... Richard Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University agreed that the effect of the Omi-S on humans is “unknowable” based only on mouse experiments. But he emphasized that is a reason the study was potentially dangerous.

“The risk posed by the novel lab-generated coronavirus is that it has the high immune-escape properties of omicron BA/1 and has higher lethality than omicron BA.1 in mice engineered to display human receptors for SARS-like coronaviruses,” Ebright said in an email.

... Missing context. The pre-print found that the lab-created chimeric virus Omi-S killed 80% of specially-engineered mice that were infected with it, which is a lower lethality rate than the same type of mice experienced with the original SARS-COV-2 virus but a higher rate than with the Omicron variant. The mice are not representative of what would happen in humans, and the lethality of the experimental strain in people is “unknowable,” but some scientists worried that the experimental virus might combine the ancestral strain’s virulence with Omicron’s high transmissibility.

https://www.reuters.com/article/fac...rus-kills-80-of-mice-not-people-idUSL1N31Q0ZK

 

[Emily]

The results of the study in mice can’t predict what would happen if people were infected with the hybrid virus, an expert told Reuters.

... Richard Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University agreed that the effect of the Omi-S on humans is “unknowable” based only on mouse experiments. But he emphasized that is a reason the study was potentially dangerous.

So they all admit the mice suffered abuse with no benefit to human wellness. Well, I guess the experimenters get a publication and found a way to use a grant.