Corporate news media is finally beginning to ask about US government funding for research at the virus research lab in Wuhan, China. Connections between this research and the worldwide coronavirus pandemic have not been established and may not even exist, although time will tell. However, news reports say that our NIH was indirectly funding “gain of function” research for viruses, and this raises questions: What is “gain of function” research for viruses? What functions would we want viruses to gain? What new functions would a researcher want to engineer into a virus? Why would we want to add new functions to a virus? And why would we fund an adversarial country to do this?
I can think of several possible answers to these questions, and you probably can, too. Some of them are sinister while others may be wishful thinking. In the interests of transparency and honesty, wouldn’t it be nice if our government would give us straightforward answers?
A Cup of Brouhaha 