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So what exactly will the destruction of the samples accomplish if smallpox can by synthesized by pretty much any developed nation? This is a serious question.
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Jul 9, 2014 03:59
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GROVER CURES HOUSE posted:Correction, confirmed illiterate. Are you unaware that polio is reemerging in areas it was thought to be eliminated from?
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Jul 9, 2014 04:00
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Ogmius815 posted:Are you unaware that polio is reemerging in areas it was thought to be eliminated from? Yes, you have problem with words. Please read the first post on this page, slowly, and respond. Thank and God Bless
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Jul 9, 2014 04:02
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Ogmius815 posted:The fact that I'm now being mocked for being anti-nuclear proliferation is really telling. We're not mocking you for being anti-nuke proliferation. Hell, I'm not even mocking you. I'm trying to point out that you're getting upset over something that is completely illogical. Smallpox does not make for a good weapon, and kills indiscriminately. Meaning your citizens are going to get sick and die, as well as anyone else who happens to be in the area. Which will turn it from a single attack on one person, into an international incident that infects dozens of countries, because tourism exists. Meaning *Yes* Every single country would get involved. Ogmius815 posted:Are you unaware that polio is reemerging in areas it was thought to be eliminated from? What a coincidence, we're talking about a bunch of people in this thread that are against vaccines and are causing outbreaks of diseases that previously weren't as big a problem as before. I wonder if these two things are connected.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:04
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Ogmius815 posted:The U.S. can't stop Syria from gassing its own people but BOY HEY if a major power ever decided to use a bio-weapon here comes the world police! Americans don't care about brown people in far off lands. They care about dying in horrific numbers. Are you old enough to remember the swine flu freakout? And this is a real threat, not a slightly grumpy version of the flu. We would do poo poo fast. Are you even trying anymore?
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Jul 9, 2014 04:04
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Ogmius815 posted:The U.S. can't stop Syria from gassing its own people but BOY HEY if a major power ever decided to use a bio-weapon here comes the world police! You're right. we should have immediately gotten into another war that would have led to thousands more dead, to oust another dictator and install a puppet governme- oh wait, we don't have to install a government or even shoot bullets to fight a smallpox outbreak. I mean I guess they could shoot darts with the smallpox vaccine on them, but that'd be silly.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:07
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Mrit posted:Americans don't care about brown people in far off lands. They care about dying in horrific numbers. And, frankly, chemical weapons are the runty red-headed stepchildren of the WMD family. As horrifying as a gas attack can well be, the worst phosgene or sarin in the world doesn't spread like an Anthrax pandemic nor annihilate like an H-bomb.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:07
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Guys we can't get rid of all these world-destroying nuclear weapons, they might eventually be useful for mining Veldspar from asteroids in Jita. EDIT: Lol ^^^ "Anthrax pandemic".
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Jul 9, 2014 04:08
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Ogmius815 posted:Guys we can't get rid of all these world-destroying nuclear weapons, they might eventually be useful for mining Veldspar from asteroids in Jita. Again, we should clearly go and immediately nuke all countries with nuclear weapons. After all there is a chance that either through an accidental launch, or an outright attack, that they will hurt us, or other people. It's the only logical choice. And yeah, 'Pandemic'. Not so much, Sorry buddy, Anthrax doesn't spread from person to person like a virus would.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:11
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Ogmius815 posted:Guys we can't get rid of all these world-destroying nuclear weapons, they might eventually be useful for mining Veldspar from asteroids in Jita. Agreed. In fact, what's with this whole 'endangered species' thing? Who cares that the panda is almost extinct? I mean, its not like a panda is really that useful, its just a black and white bear that can't cut it. The only reason to bother is sentimental... unless genetic biodiversity is something we need to keep in mind as important.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:14
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E-Tank posted:I'd say its a good enough reason. Because the last known cases of smallpox in the world happened not in a third-world country, but in a research lab where smallpox got into the air ducts and infected someone, who wasn't diagnosed until she went to the hospital - more than a week after she was infected. Luckily, she only spread it to one person, but that was a potential epidemic right there, and Patient Zero died from her sickness. Vaccine can be made without having the smallpox virus around, but that's only the vaccine - if an unvaccinated person is infected, there's nothing that can be done for them besides quarantine and prayer, and we don't regularly vaccinate against smallpox anymore, so all it takes is one mistake to get the disease back into the wild. The risk is slim, but the benefit is nonexistent - there are plenty of very very close relatives of smallpox that are far less lethal and far more useful for research and experimentation. Mrit posted:Smallpox as a biological weapon is dumb. Super dumb. No government going to use it as such. Anthrax? Sure, it doesn't spread. Smallpox would ravage everyone. Mutually Assured Destruction was even dumber but it was the US and Russia's primary defense against nuclear war for decades. I'm pretty sure the same line of thought underlies both countries' retention of smallpox stocks: "We would never conduct a first strike with it, that's just stupid, but if THEY conduct a first strike against US with it then we're going to make drat sure they're hit just as bad, and that'll act as deterrence to stop them from doing it in the first place". And I'm sure the black budgets of both countries are setting aside a few million a year towards "find a way to make smallpox that will infect them but not us", even if it's incredibly unlikely that we'll ever come up with such a thing. The Army is known to have a smallpox research program going on using the CDC stocks, and they reported some big breakthroughs in causing smallpox infections in ways not previously thought possible about a decade ago, which I'm sure was for totally innocent purposes and in no way the product of research toward potential offensive uses.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:15
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E-Tank posted:Again, we should clearly go and immediately nuke all countries with nuclear weapons. After all there is a chance that either through an accidental launch, or an outright attack, that they will hurt us, or other people. It's the only logical choice. Putting a few virus samples through an autoclave is not really equivalent to preemptive nuclear strikes on world powers. Sorry.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:15
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Mrit posted:Agreed. You might be joking, but pandas are effectively extinct as a matter of biodiversity. Having a few hundred specimens mostly in zoos is not "biodiversity".
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Jul 9, 2014 04:16
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Mrit posted:Agreed. Actually, genetic biodiversity is exactly the reason. It's important, based on the idea that was brought up of "once this is gone it is gone forever." Just because it isn't useful now doesn't mean that it never will be. Plus, "people think pandas are cute and like them and looking at them makes people happy" is actually plenty justification to keep pandas in the world.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:17
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(I was being sarcastic)
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Jul 9, 2014 04:18
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Main Paineframe posted:Because the last known cases of smallpox in the world happened not in a third-world country, but in a research lab where smallpox got into the air ducts and infected someone, who wasn't diagnosed until she went to the hospital - more than a week after she was infected. Luckily, she only spread it to one person, but that was a potential epidemic right there, and Patient Zero died from her sickness. No you don't understand, all of these very real risks mean nothing because we "might" be able to do "something" with smallpox samples in the future.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:18
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Ogmius815 posted:No you don't understand, all of these very real risks mean nothing because we "might" be able to do "something" with smallpox samples in the future. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. As will be any potential scientific benefit from it in the future. Yes, we 'Might' be able to do something with it, just as it 'Might' be used as a weapon, or released accidentally. I'm beginning to see a pattern here in our arguments. They seem to boil down to "What if we need it?" "What if we don't?" And frankly I'm getting tired of it. I think I'm just going to say 'I'll have to agree to disagree'. This has gotten to be a big derail and if we really want to discuss this we should probably make another thread about it.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:22
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Ogmius815 posted:The idea that a smallpox outbreak in a poor country would result in immediate international action is also totally hilarious. Because every time there's a human crisis in a foreign country there's the U.S. with unlimited and totally efficacious interventions am I right guys? Ogmius815 posted:The U.S. can't stop Syria from gassing its own people but BOY HEY if a major power ever decided to use a bio-weapon here comes the world police! People seem to be taking the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa very seriously, yes. ETA: E-Tank posted:This has gotten to be a big derail and if we really want to discuss this we should probably make another thread about it. Woops! 
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Jul 9, 2014 04:34
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Hedera Helix posted:Isn't there an international agency that the stocks could be handed off to, so that it isn't destroyed outright, but so that the Americans and Russians won't potentially be able to use it as a biological weapon? No there is no such agency, because all of the relevant ones have heavy American or Russian control by design. Jack Gladney posted:The big danger with smallpox is that it will get out unexpectedly because some old sample nobody knows about gets disturbed. As happened yesterday afternoon. Nobody got sick, though. That's the thing of it all though. Those samples has been assumed destroyed, unlike the samples in the high security containment facility outside Atlanta that's supposed to hold all the samples. Ogmius815 posted:I don't know maybe Russia wants to gently caress up Estonia or something. Maybe the virus just gets out because of poor security in some lab in eastern Europe. The chances are remote, but, once again, no one has articulated any clear benefit at all for not destroying the virus other than "well it might somehow come in handy sometime" which could be used to justify anything and is thus terrible reasoning. Russia's never going to destroy theirs so why would we bother destroying ours? But the great thing is, really, that no matter how much you whine about the thing, it's never going to be destroyed unless someone accidentally nukes both Atlanta and Novosibirsk.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:00
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That's not a reason not to destroy the samples we do have access to. The fewer samples there are stupidly being played with, the better off we are.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:34
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Ogmius815 posted:That's not a reason not to destroy the samples we do have access to. The fewer samples there are stupidly being played with, the better off we are. 0 are being stupidly played with. You can't have negative smallpox. Frankly I'm shocked you aren't hollering over our various epidemic flu samples from 1918 on up, or the samples of that one livestock disease we eradicated.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:38
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You lost this debate when you failed to provide a coherent account of what benefit keeping the samples might have.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:43
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Ogmius815 posted:You lost this debate when you failed to provide a coherent account of what benefit keeping the samples might have. It's been pointed out a number of times, you just refuse to acknowledge it: we cannot possibly know what might be useful in the future; it is absolutely conceivable that it can be useful in future research. Research is the benefit. The potential for it to be useful is the loving benefit you willfully dense idiot. It doesn't need to be any more specific than the fact that scientific research and innovation isn't predictable. Should we toss fossils too after studying them? Why would we need them, just chuck 'em right?? Hell, why keep anything once we've studied to the best of our ability as of the year 2014? It's not like science will ever develop and identify new analytics and methods, we're done here, pack it up e: in summary J Corp posted:Your gut feeling on it not being useful for research in the future doesn't count as a valid reason for destroying it. wheez the roux fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 07:51
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Ogmius815 posted:You lost this debate when you failed to provide a coherent account of what benefit keeping the samples might have. Your gut feeling on it not being useful for research in the future doesn't count as a valid reason for destroying it.
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Jul 9, 2014 08:28
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Ogmius815 posted:You lost this debate when you failed to provide a coherent account of what benefit keeping the samples might have. I take some level of comfort in knowing that actual scientists are smart enough not to take your anti-intellectual Chicken Little bullshit seriously. J Corp posted:Your gut feeling on it not being useful for research in the future doesn't count as a valid reason for destroying it. Basically exactly this. At no point have you come up with a coherent and sensible reason to destroy the virus beyond the frankly ridiculous idea of weaponized smallpox, which is problematic for reasons that have already been enumerated but no, no, you know so much better, clearly.
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Jul 9, 2014 12:46
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To be fair, this really isn't clear-cut at all, largely because of the homology with other poxviruses. The "coherent and sensible" reason is simply that there is a non-zero risk of transmission, which is why the WHO recommends destroying the stocks. Speaking as a scientist, I really wouldn't be upset either way.
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Jul 9, 2014 14:33
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disheveled posted:To be fair, this really isn't clear-cut at all, largely because of the homology with other poxviruses. The "coherent and sensible" reason is simply that there is a non-zero risk of transmission, which is why the WHO recommends destroying the stocks. Speaking as a scientist, I really wouldn't be upset either way. Exactly, there's much less deadly poxviruses in the event that we really need to have a live virus to work with (we needed to create a new vaccine, etc). The hypothetical that we need smallpox, specifically smallpox, to perform some unspecified  research is absolutely ludicrous and flies in the face of both science what the actual scientists are saying right now.Remember that the original vaccination process was "use cowpox" and we haven't eradicated cowpox. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 14:45
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Hey guys just a debating tip: if your reasoning could support doing literally anything, it isn't very good reasoning.
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Jul 9, 2014 14:51
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Even if we did eradicate all the stocks, isn't the fact that we have it completely sequenced enough to support this nebulous future research? I dunno how virology works or if you need the actual body of the live virus itself.
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Jul 9, 2014 14:56
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Ogmius815 posted:You lost this debate when you failed to provide a coherent account of what benefit keeping the samples might have. Nope, we've all cited multiple reasons int he past. I am noting here how you have nothing to say about all the other deadly yet basically extinct diseases being kept in samples in labs though, you're only shrieking over smallpox. mdemone posted:Even if we did eradicate all the stocks, isn't the fact that we have it completely sequenced enough to support this nebulous future research? I dunno how virology works or if you need the actual body of the live virus itself. The fact we have completely sequenced it also means that it could be recreated and used for bad purposes even if you destroy all existing samples, which means destroying the existing secured samples accomplishes nothing.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:54
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Paul MaudDib posted:Exactly, there's much less deadly poxviruses in the event that we really need to have a live virus to work with (we needed to create a new vaccine, etc). The hypothetical that we need smallpox, specifically smallpox, to perform some unspecified You're advocating purposeful extinction. As someone with a biology background, that's a very difficult course of action to support. * That's a one way road, and I'm just not seeing the problem with keeping small samples locked up in a -80C/LN/etc freezer in a secure facility. The effort to steal such samples seems to be at the same order of magnitude of effort/cost as making your own. * We're all mature enough to understand the difference between eradicating a disease within a specific (human) population and full on extinction, right? No one is going to quote half my post and try to claim I don't support common sense harm reduction and public health policy, right?
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Jul 9, 2014 16:50
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Solkanar512 posted:You're advocating purposeful extinction. As someone with a biology background, that's a very difficult course of action to support. With respect to infectious disease, but especially with respect to viruses, and especially especially with respect to smallpox, no, I do not think that is a given at all. There is a reason there is continuous debate about this. That said, it looks like present research efforts are sufficient to justify keeping live smallpox. WHO Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research Report of the Fifteenth Meeting, Geneva, Switzerland, 24–25 September 2013 http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/97033/1/WHO_HSE_PED_CED_2013.2_eng.pdf?ua=1 quote:The members of the Committee were, by and large, in agreement that live variola
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Jul 9, 2014 17:18
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Ogmius815 posted:Hey guys just a debating tip: if your reasoning could support doing literally anything, it isn't very good reasoning. Good tip, here's another one: You're don't get to ignore facts presented because they nullify your argument.
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Jul 9, 2014 18:47
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Ogmius815 posted:2. This is just science fetishism; actual research on smallpox has never produced anything of value and isn't going to any time soon. This is the same stupid logic that leads to scientists producing superstrains of influenza to no discernibly useful end. There is a purpose to those studies, and it is potentially useful. WHO, NGOs, and national agencies monitor sylvatic influenzas. Influenza has 3 natural hosts, pigs, humans, and birds. Yearly flu tends to not be so bad because it is a flu that comes from humans, we have a lot of natural resistances to it, but it spreads quite a bit. Swine flu is a lot worse, we don't encounter it normally so it is a lot more dangerous and pigs are pretty close to humans as far as the influenza virus cares so it still spreads pretty easily. Bird flu on the other hand is very deadly even to healthy adults, but almost never spreads human to human. These deadly influenzas that are being made in labs are attempts to make bird flu that is highly virulent. When a virus is created that is capable of spreading easily among hosts (usually ferrets, rarely guinea pigs), the virus and hosts are destroyed except for samples that are kept until companies that make flu vaccines decide whether they'd like a sample. Any sample that isn't sent for making flu vaccines is then destroyed. The full virus sequence is provided to national agencies, WHO, and companies that make vaccines 60 days before the study is published. Once these sorts of studies are done, bird flu that is only a few mutations away from being a potentially deadly outbreak can be known and culls can be done to stop them before there's an outbreak. The only reason not to do the studies is because of a belief that you can successfully perform effective culls in the standard manner of doing them just once a worker catches it.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:15
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disheveled posted:With respect to infectious disease, but especially with respect to viruses, and especially especially with respect to smallpox, no, I do not think that is a given at all. There is a reason there is continuous debate about this. You're misunderstanding me. I'm only saying that I have a background in biology, and that background makes me feel very uncomfortable about the idea of purposeful extinction. The rest of the post is just window dressing. I'm not dismissing other arguments as out of hand, and I'm certainly not trying to say there's no reason for debate.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:35
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The argument that eradicating smallpox *is extinction* and therefore wrong is no better than the argument that abortion "is killing" and therefore wrong. Still waiting to here what we're actually going to accomplish using smallpox that we can't accomplish with other very similar pox viruses.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:11
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Ogmius815 posted:Still waiting to here what we're actually going to accomplish using smallpox that we can't accomplish with other very similar pox viruses. You've already been told this.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:17
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Ogmius815 posted:The argument that eradicating smallpox *is extinction* and therefore wrong is no better than the argument that abortion "is killing" and therefore wrong. Last time I checked, an abortion doesn't forever eliminate every living example of a particular species. Quit being so disingenuous. Dropping your lovely attitude might make this a more productive discussion. quote:Still waiting to here what we're actually going to accomplish using smallpox that we can't accomplish with other very similar pox viruses. disheveled posted:That said, it looks like present research efforts are sufficient to justify keeping live smallpox. This was like two posts down, why did you ignore it?
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Jul 9, 2014 22:28
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That report doesn't give any account of why similar research on "antivirals" can't be accomplished using literally any other virus than this one horrible dangerous one that you say should never be a problem again. All of the "benefits" of research you people claim to have cited are incredibly nebulous. This is to weigh against the very real potential for a lab accident to cause infection which, by the way, has already happened and could easily happen again/. The real problem here is an uncritical and fetishized view of science. If it's "science" it must be good!
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Jul 9, 2014 23:20
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Ogmius815 posted:That report doesn't give any account of why similar research on "antivirals" can't be accomplished using literally any other virus than this one horrible dangerous one that you say should never be a problem again. quote:Is work on additional compounds essential in view of the very advanced stages of development for ST-246 and CMX001? Some members of the committee felt that until licensure is reached for the lead compounds, live virus should be retained in the event that the lead compounds fail to be licensed and identification/development of other compounds is required. Others felt that it was so unlikely that the lead compounds would not be licensed that live virus was no longer needed.
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Jul 9, 2014 23:27
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