Trump Reportedly Preparing an Executive Order Banning Federal Funding of Gain-of-Function Research
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing an executive order curtailing funding of “gain-of-function” research on pandemic pathogens, in what would seem to be an effort to prevent the next pandemic from spilling out of a federally funded laboratory.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was hashing out the details of an order that would impose at least a temporary pause on funding of experiments that could make viruses more transmissible and or deadly.
Proponents argue that this work is necessary for identifying future pandemic threats.
“People can bury their heads in the sand, but there are lots of viral threats out there, and you’re not going to be able to solve that threat without understanding viruses,” Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and biosafety expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health told the Journal.
Yet the Trump administration’s forthcoming pause would hardly be a novel initiative.
The last three presidential administrations have all attempted to apply additional restrictions to gain-of-function research involving pandemic viruses over concerns that such research could cause a pandemic via lab accident or be used by nefarious actors to produce a bioweapon
Article from Reason.com
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