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Ogmius815 posted:The real problem here is an uncritical and fetishized view of science. If it's "science" it must be good! Well, just to be honest... yes. If we only undertook research that we had clearly defined uses for, we wouldn't really have done much research at all. X-rays were discovered because somebody noticed their film was being exposed in weird patterns, and then we used them for medicine after we understood what was going on. Very little research occurs because someone goes "well, I bet I could use misgrown cultures to kill bacteria!" Instead, Alexander Fleming accidently misgrew cultures and then noticed that they had antimicrobial properties. We never know what something can do until we research it. If we don't have a use for smallpox specifically (and several have been pointed out), it could mean that there is no use for it specifically, or just that we haven't researched it enough to find out. And there's no way to confirm that there's no use for it. Science is a way of thinking, and I would argue that it's never bad to know more, even if you don't have practical uses in sight, simply because you don't know until you've done the research. (ADDED FOR CLARIFICATION) Not to say that safety isn't a key factor that shouldn't be taken into account, but practicality is not the main driving force behind research. The other main point that I really want a response to is: if it's so easy to remake smallpox if we for some reason needed it, then how does destroying it serve as a deterrent for use as a weapon at all? EDIT: Actually, another thought occurred to me. The incremental cost of destroying smallpox, vs the incremental safety benefit, is probably absurdly small. It's not as simple as tossing a couple vials into an autoclave, there would need to be significant debates, discussion, organization, etc, including both the US and Russia, in order to even get started. Then we have to do a full count, double check it, search everywhere there could possibly be more, triple check it, then finally destroy it. For the amount of money and manhours we'd put into that? We could probably make a serious jump towards eliminating polio. I'll be honest, I think those researchers have better things to be doing. Karia fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 23:51
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Ogmius815 posted:The real problem here is an uncritical and fetishized view of science. If it's "science" it must be good! What do you think science is? We don't know as much as you think we do, and by ending the small pox virus we permanently end an avenue of research. Just because we don't know what we do with it yet doesn't mean it has no purpose in the future.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:39
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twodot posted:While dishelved's treatment of that was pretty disingenous, they give a pretty clear reason, behold: Neither of those are smallpox-specific antivirals. ST-246, for example, is effective against all orthopoxviruses, and interferes with a gene that also exists in cowpox and vaccinia (remember, these two viruses are over 95% similar to smallpox!). It's also extremely hard to see how smallpox retention is necessary to antiviral development, given that it's impossible to test any smallpox drug against smallpox due to several properties of smallpox that make it a lovely experimental subject. As for the other drug, that's an anti-herpes drug that may be useful against many other families of virus, it's not a targeted anti-smallpox drug.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:57
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ITT I argue with Victor Frankenstein.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:05
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Ogmius815 posted:ITT I argue with If you're going to do sci-fi horror comparisons, better go whole hog.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:12
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Absurd Alhazred posted:If you're going to do sci-fi horror comparisons, better go whole hog. Yeah I like your joke better.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:20
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Ogmius815 posted:ITT I argue with Victor Frankenstein. Like, your arguments boil down to "BUT SMALLPOX SCARES ME" and now calling people Frankenstein.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:54
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Main Paineframe posted:Neither of those are smallpox-specific antivirals. ST-246, for example, is effective against all orthopoxviruses, and interferes with a gene that also exists in cowpox and vaccinia (remember, these two viruses are over 95% similar to smallpox!). It's also extremely hard to see how smallpox retention is necessary to antiviral development, given that it's impossible to test any smallpox drug against smallpox due to several properties of smallpox that make it a lovely experimental subject. As for the other drug, that's an anti-herpes drug that may be useful against many other families of virus, it's not a targeted anti-smallpox drug.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:00
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Maybe if I blindly defend dangerous scientific research that doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose Niel Degrasse Tyson will finally notice my posting and invite me to his house and we'll be best friends forever! 
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Jul 10, 2014 03:05
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Ogmius815 posted:Maybe if I blindly defend dangerous scientific research that doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose Niel Degrasse Tyson will finally notice me and invite me to his house and we'll be best friends forever! Again there are tons of breakthroughs that happen through science that 'doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose' and destroying every bit of smallpox means we will literally never have the chance to study/test it ever again. Are you a loving psychic who knows that suddenly in the future we'll have literally no use ever for it?
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Jul 10, 2014 03:06
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twodot posted:What's your point here? It's not at all relevant whether those antivirals are smallpox-specific, these scientists are asserting that smallpox is useful for developing specific antivirals which can be used against smallpox, the fact that they are also useful against other viruses doesn't diminish the need for antivirals which are effective against smallpox. The point is that existing leading antivirals which are effective against smallpox are not yet fully vetted. It's not, though. Actual, physical smallpox samples are of little use in antiviral research, mostly because anything that works against cowpox, monkeypox, and vaccinia will work against smallpox too, and anything that works against smallpox will also work against those three viruses, and all three of those viruses are far more useful in smallpox research than smallpox itself is, because smallpox has certain properties that make it absolute garbage to experiment with.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:18
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Main Paineframe posted:It's not, though. Actual, physical smallpox samples are of little use in antiviral research, mostly because anything that works against cowpox, monkeypox, and vaccinia will work against smallpox too, and anything that works against smallpox will also work against those three viruses, and all three of those viruses are far more useful in smallpox research than smallpox itself is, because smallpox has certain properties that make it absolute garbage to experiment with.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:28
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Holy gently caress everyone on both sides of this "debate" are loving idiots. Judging by the loving responses and repitition and completely ignoring every other point that everyone has made for the last... three pages? Four? Side 1: Destroy it because there's a miniscule change of bad stuff! Side 2: Keep it because it might be useful once it's gone its gone forever! Side 1: That's not true, we can make more. Side 2: So what's the point of destroying it? Side 1: Because there's a miniscule chance of bad stuff! What's the point of keeping it? Side 2: It might be useful someday, and once it's destroy it's gone forever! Rinse. Repeat. Pre-edit: Actually, I forgot the following - Side 1: Scientists say we should destroy it! (WHO) Where's YOUR experts? Side 2: Scientists say we should keep it! (CDC) Where's YOUR experts? Rinse. Repeat. If no one has a point that isn't one of those points, can we please go back to talking about goddamn antivax idiots instead of making them look good by comparison? GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 03:56
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GlyphGryph posted:If no one has a point that isn't one of those points, can we please go back to talking about goddamn antivax idiots instead of making them look good by comparison? Yeah, this is seriously a boring derail. I often find derail arguments about controversial topics entertaining (largely as honeypots for people with really dumb opinions), but this one is incredibly boring. The stakes aren't even that high; it probably won't make much of a difference whether we destroy the last Smallpox samples or not.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:35
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So I came across a comment the other day that most of the people who get measles are the ones who get vaccinated against it. Is there any source for this?
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Jul 10, 2014 04:48
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Buried alive posted:So I came across a comment the other day that most of the people who get measles are the ones who get vaccinated against it. Is there any source for this? I've got their source right here:  I don't see it in the CDC's page on it, and they list some serious side-effects. The only way in which this could potentially be true is if this person means that most of the people who got the measles from the latest infection were vaccinated, which makes sense, since the vast majority of people got MMR, and it does have a non-zero failure rate.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:57
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Karia posted:EDIT: Actually, another thought occurred to me. The incremental cost of destroying smallpox, vs the incremental safety benefit, is probably absurdly small. It's not as simple as tossing a couple vials into an autoclave, there would need to be significant debates, discussion, organization, etc, including both the US and Russia, in order to even get started. Then we have to do a full count, double check it, search everywhere there could possibly be more, triple check it, then finally destroy it. For the amount of money and manhours we'd put into that? We could probably make a serious jump towards eliminating polio. I'll be honest, I think those researchers have better things to be doing. And sometimes you never know where that might be... http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/smallpox-vials-found-unapproved-laboratory
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Jul 10, 2014 14:19
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Again there are tons of breakthroughs that happen through science that 'doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose' and destroying every bit of smallpox means we will literally never have the chance to study/test it ever again. Are you a loving psychic who knows that suddenly in the future we'll have literally no use ever for it? twodot posted:Ok cool, and your panel of experts in the field asserting this is where? Right here, bucko quote:May 18, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – When the World Health Assembly (WHA) considers the fate of the remaining stocks of smallpox virus this week, the debate is likely to be framed in part by a report from a group of independent experts that says the only strong reason for keeping the virus is to satisfy strict regulatory requirements for new vaccines and antivirals. Money shot: literally the only ones arguing to keep it around are the US and Russia, and the only significant research use would be live in vitro testing, which is rather risky given how infectious it is. Th existing research using smallpox has not been very effective, and there is no research case that we need specifically smallpox for anything, the other poxviruses are more than adequate. And don't try to lean on the "regulatory issues" here, those boil down to nothing more than "the US and Russia passed a law that says they get to keep their weapon stocks". Independent experts are more than OK with eradicating it, given that this disease no longer occurs in humans, has no real need for research apart from some outdated regulatory requirements, and is crazy dangerous to work with. And if we really needed it anyway, we could just build it from sequenced DNA. The idea that you've somehow presented compelling uses for keeping live smallpox virus around is absolutely absurd, you have thrown up your hands and said "who knows!?" and nothing more. This argument is analogous to keeping a loaded gun in the house for no good reason. Can you put it in a safe and be reasonably sure that it won't be stolen or your kid isn't going to shoot himself? Yeah, probably. On the other hand, if you have no need for it, why are you keeping it around at all? Dumb hypotheticals don't measure up to the risk of keeping one of the most lethal pathogens in recent history around in live form, however remote you consider the chance of release. Just to be clear, your behavior is exactly the same as that of gun nuts, only instead of a piece of metal you're clinging to the right of nation-states to keep a highly infectious, extremely lethal pathogen that can cause millions or billions of deaths if something untoward were to happen. And that's actually being generous - if anything, you're more akin to the crowd who think it's a great idea to let individuals keep artillery pieces and other tools of mass death. That's what smallpox boils down to for nation-states - it just lacks other plausible uses. For that matter, why have we limited this to two repositories? If it's such a great tool for research, and this research is perfectly safe, then there's no downside. If other nations build secure repositories, why not let them have samples too? The same logic applies as the US and Russia keeping it and performing "research" after all. China's a superpower these days, and it wouldn't be fair to shut Europe out, why not four repositories? More access means more research and results after all! Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 15:55
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Buried alive posted:So I came across a comment the other day that most of the people who get measles are the ones who get vaccinated against it. Is there any source for this? Assuming we've got desired vaccination rates, this should be true, hopefully! 99.5% vaccination rate with a 1% failure rate and a 100% infection rate for non-vaccinators would still mean there would be more infected vaccinators than non-vaccinators. I don't know if it's true for now, I haven't seen the data, but if you've got a vaccine with a failure rate at all it's the state you end up hoping for.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:54
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GlyphGryph posted:Holy gently caress everyone on both sides of this "debate" are loving idiots. Judging by the loving responses and repitition and completely ignoring every other point that everyone has made for the last... three pages? Four? This is a dumb derail but in the latest WHO report from the previous page the consensus was to keep the virus alive, not for vaccine research but for antiviral research. quote:Members of the Committee were asked to consider whether live variola virus was needed for further essential research for public health benefit on antivirals for smallpox. The majority view within the committee was that live variola virus was needed for the further development of antiviral agents against smallpox
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Jul 10, 2014 18:05
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Sixteen glass vials, sealed with melted glass, wrapped in cotton and placed in a cardboard box in a storage room kept at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I wonder what the poor bastard who found them went through emotionally when he realized the labels said "variola".
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Jul 10, 2014 18:11
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Irradiation posted:This is a dumb derail but in the latest WHO report from the previous page the consensus was to keep the virus alive, not for vaccine research but for antiviral research. No, the latest WHO report (from their AGIES) actually recommended that it be destroyed. There's two committees studying this within the WHO, one wants to keep it for antiviral research and the other committee thinks they're full of poo poo. quote:1. Members of AGIES conclude that there is no need to retain live variola virus for the further development of diagnostics. This confirms the previous conclusions reached byAGIES in 2010. If you read the report itself, they discuss the animal models using smallpox, which haven't produced useful models because smallpox doesn't act the same in other animals, and the antiviral research, which has been very successful using other poxviruses as surrogates. So basically the debate comes down to a handful of narrow uses of the virus, which a significant number of experts empaneled by the WHO consider to be unnecessary and un-fruitful despite concerted research by multiple teams, against the risk of allowing the continued existence of an incredibly virulent, incredibly lethal pathogen. One which we've finally managed to eradicate in the wild at great expense and difficulty. However, chronologically speaking this is "the latest WHO report", as this one came out in December 2013 and the ACVVR report came out in September 2013. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 18:27
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Paul MaudDib posted:Independent experts are more than OK with eradicating it, given that this disease no longer occurs in humans, has no real need for research apart from some outdated regulatory requirements, and is crazy dangerous to work with. And if we really needed it anyway, we could just build it from sequenced DNA. And most importantly, it's drat near impossible to test, because smallpox only infects humans and is way too dangerous to safely infect people with. Animal testing of smallpox antivirals is done on monkeys infected with monkeypox, and if we ever did anything like testing smallpox antiviral on humans, we'd do it with cowpox or vaccinia, not smallpox. And using smallpox's close relatives instead of smallpox is known to be good enough, and has been known to be good enough for ages. Thanks to the smallpox vaccine, we have more than a century of experimental evidence that cowpox and smallpox are so similar that anything that kills one will also kill the other. The problem with looking for reports and sources on smallpox destruction is that the subject is highly politicized and scientists' reports are often restricted by the agenda of their employer. For example, when pro-destruction advocate Donald Henderson took a job working for the HHS, he went virtually silent on the subject of smallpox in order to avoid difficulties with his employer which, as a government agency, was very pro-retention. Once he left government employ, he went right back to advocating for destruction of smallpox stocks. I don't think it's a coincidence that reports from government agencies like the CDC and HHS are in line with the US government's official position that their smallpox stocks must not be destroyed. When it comes to the WHO, the AGIES report posted by Paul MaudDib, which advocated for smallpox destruction, was authored by scientists from poorer countries like India, Oman, and Kenya and didn't have a single US or Russian member, and third-world countries are known to be pushing pretty hard for the destruction of smallpox stocks. The other committee which authored a report arguing for retention, ACVVR, is dominated by American and Russian members. It's hard to tell how much of any given report is political and how much is pure science, but politics definitely plays some kind of factor, and I'm inclined to think it's a deciding factor in a lot of these reports since the actual scientific conclusions are pretty much the same from both sides.
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Jul 10, 2014 19:10
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But it's science. Why are you guys so dumb at science? Surely only someone who doesn't know or else hates science would disagree with me. I don't even have to say what the science will accomplish. Science just can't ever be bad or hurt people. You're just like those bad guys who want to teach godjesus in science class. Let me guess art history major? 
Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 19:23
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This is the most pedantic and annoying conversation. Can we talk about morons who won't give their kids the pertussis vaccine again?
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Jul 10, 2014 19:59
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Holy Christ, stop responding to the mouthbreather. This is worse than the autist genocide derail.
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Jul 11, 2014 01:35
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 Doot doot doooooot dooot dooot dooot dooot  Spock...?  As suspected, the probe's transmissions are the songs sung by viruses. Viruses?  Specifically the Variola Virus  That's crazy Spock! Who would send a probe hundreds of light years to talk to a virus? It's possible viruses were on earth far earlier than man. Viruses were heavily hunted by man. Variola has been extinct since the 21st century. Thanks, no doubt, to mouthbreathers who don't know science. It is possible that an alien intelligence sent the probes to find out why they lost contact. My god... Spock...Start your computations for time warp! Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jul 11, 2014 |
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Jul 11, 2014 02:05
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Ogmius815 posted:
Oh, man, now you got me rooting for Smallpox. 
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Jul 11, 2014 02:20
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Oh, man, now you got me rooting for Smallpox. Oh god, this thread has become stupid.
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Jul 11, 2014 12:31
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
Ogmius815 posted:
And the Oscar for best use of William Shatner's head in a snarky reply goes to...
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Jul 11, 2014 14:21
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blowfish posted:Oh god, this thread has become stupid. Pretty much. Thanks Ogmius815.
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Jul 11, 2014 14:56
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Jul 11, 2014 15:01
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Tigntink posted:This is the most pedantic and annoying conversation. Can we talk about morons who won't give their kids the pertussis vaccine again? The thing that drives me insane is I went to a local chiropractor a few weeks ago because I threw my back out doing some labor and thought it would help. I remember going to this guy years ago and he kept playing a video of a young girl who got cancer from a vaccine or some poo poo, the video was really vague and never gave answers to anything. I go back 3 years later and he is still PLAYING THE VIDEO ON A LOOP.
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Jul 11, 2014 18:37
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To Battle posted:The thing that drives me insane is I went to a local chiropractor a few weeks ago because I threw my back out doing some labor and thought it would help. I remember going to this guy years ago and he kept playing a video of a young girl who got cancer from a vaccine or some poo poo, the video was really vague and never gave answers to anything. I go back 3 years later and he is still PLAYING THE VIDEO ON A LOOP. You would let someone twist your damaged back that thinks vaccines cause cancer... and then went back? Why not go to an actual doctor?
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Jul 11, 2014 20:06
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So you went to a chiropractor and he didn't know poo poo about actual medicine. Shocker.
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Jul 11, 2014 20:07
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Haha, in hindsight it was pretty stupid going to a chiropractor but my back defiantly felt a lot better. But that's my point,Mrit posted:You would let someone twist your damaged back that thinks vaccines cause cancer... and then went back? Haha in hindsight it was pretty stupid going to a chiropractor for some back problems but I still had no idea about outspoken he was about poo poo he didn't understand. I thought maybe it was a one time deal with some vaccine side effect he read about or something but Jesus he went all out with the poo poo he was showing. Are all of them like this?
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Jul 11, 2014 20:16
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To Battle posted:Haha, in hindsight it was pretty stupid going to a chiropractor but my back defiantly felt a lot better. But that's my point, Chiropracty is a bullshit pseudoscience alternative medicine, basically the modern Western equivalent of acupuncture, so it shouldn't really be surprising that over one-third of all chiropractors are anti-vaxxers.
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Jul 11, 2014 20:30
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Yeah avoid Chiropractors, at best they are just performing therapeutic massage (which accounts for why you may feel better after seeing one, massage can definitely have it's benefits) and at worst they are dangerous pseudoscience types who can gently caress your back up. You need your back.
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Jul 11, 2014 20:48
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Yea reminder that the joke 'chiropractors aren't doctors' isn't some snooty elitism thing, it's a literal fact that they don't have to have anything but laughably pathetic 'schooling' that can in most areas be done on a weekend seminar. The only decent ones are basically overpriced massage therapists, which is fine as its own thing if you like paying ten times as much for a massage treatment, but the bad ones are the ones who can literally break your back with their lack of education.
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Jul 11, 2014 21:06
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Yeah I figured as much, to be honest I had no idea you could get a doctorate in chiropractic, a DC. I just though it was some dude that can help relieve back pain like a massage therapist like you said above. Though to be honest I'm not surprised with all the new age nonsense. Also this guy said he takes x rays now. What the gently caress would he need an x ray machine for.
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Jul 11, 2014 21:24
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