Public Pressure Needed to Shut Down Biolabs

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

The Board on Life Sciences; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Committee on Science, Technology, and Law; Policy and Global Affairs; Board on Health Sciences Policy; National Research Council; Institute of Medicine, Washington (DC), held a seminar titled “Potential Risks and Benefits of Gain-of-Function Research: Summary of a Workshop” and published their proceedings in the National Academies Press (US); 2015 Apr 13.

“Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, classified types of GoF research depending on the outcome of the experiments. The first category, which he called “gain of function research of concern,” includes the generation of viruses with properties that do not exist in nature. The now famous example he gave is the production of H5N1 influenza A viruses that are airborne-transmissible among ferrets, compared to the non-airborne transmissible wild type. The second category deals with the generation of viruses that may be more pathogenic and/or transmissible than the wild type viruses but are still comparable to or less problematic than those existing in nature. Kawaoka argued that the majority of strains studied have low pathogenicity, but mutations found in natural isolates will improve their replication in mammalian cells. Finally, the third category, which is somewhere in between the two first categories, includes the generation of highly pathogenic and/or transmissible viruses in animal models that nevertheless do not appear to be a major public health concern. An example is the high-growth A/PR/8/34 influenza strain found to have increased pathogenicity in mice but not in humans. During the discussion, Dr. Thomas Briese, Columbia University, further described GoF research done in the laboratory as being a “proactive” approach to understand what will eventually happen in nature….Dr. Ralph Baric, University of North Carolina and a member of the symposium planning committee, explained that GoF experiments for CoV research encompass a very diverse set of experiments that are critical to the development of broad-based vaccines and therapeutics. Like Subbarao and Kawaoka, Baric listed experiments important for the identification of determinants of pathogenesis and virulence, defined the virus-host interaction networks, and described the alleles responsible for susceptibility and the host response patterns that drive a pathogenic or protective responses.”

So as Baric indicates, the stated purpose of GoF research is to develop vaccines and therapeutics. But what happens if the GoF virus is leaked from the laboratory with NO vaccines or therapeutics? We found out with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It was only until the McCullough Protocol and similar regimens were developed during 2020 could hospitalization and death be avoided. Government interventions came far too late with only anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies having a significant therapeutic impact in preventing hospitalization and death.