Gain-of-Function? How about Reduction-of-Function instead?

As Bird Flu Worries and WHO Rhetoric Heats Up, We Need Better Options.

Let’s ask a simple question that no one seems to be able to satisfy an answer for us: What is the purpose of Gain-of-Function Research?

The narrative around it (and those funding it) constantly resorts back to the idea that we need to have this risky research done in order to be prepared for the next pandemic. But then when the next pandemic came - Covid - we weren’t prepared at all. This, all despite the fact it was a virus that scientists had been working on specifically in their research. The Wuhan Lab even had genomic sequences posted on their website (that they removed and later reinstated).

If they were doing all of this in order to be prepared - as they claimed - then why weren’t they?

A scary rumbling has been circulating in the media lately around the avian bird flu virus. It is being found in more and more mammals and even humans, and the WHO is “worried” about the possibility of human to human transmission. All of this comes just prior to the Biden Administration’s expected signing of the WHO treaty known as “zero draft.” In America, normally treaties are required to take the proper Constitutional steps of senate ratification. The Constitution purposely protects from giving up national sovereignty to unelected officials such as the WHO. But this seems to be skipping that process (with multiple countries). Furthermore, the WHO comes with some highly suspicious funding behind it. We believe it is wise to be skeptical of the motives here.

This also all comes on the heels of the report that James O’Keefe uncovered, where a higher-ranking Pfizer employee bragged about doing gain-of-function (type) research on viruses in order for Pfizer to profit off the outcome with new vaccines and therapeutics. Whether true or not, can you think of a more sinister reason to perform gain-of-function research?

One thing is for sure, if another pandemic happens there will be another whirlwind of profits made off of it. And if it is as deadly as the avian flu - which reports almost a 50% fatality rate thus far - the people in power will salivate over the ability to use the fear from it to usher in more tyrannical measures which of course could include lockdowns, mandates, digital IDs, social credit systems, and even Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

But maybe it’s not all doom and gloom. At The Rationalist Society of Problem Solvers we like to, well, try to solve problems. Especially if we can do so before they happen.

As Alex Berenson wrote about recently, the bird flu has some big challenges to overcome before it jumps into being able to spread between people. Usually the more deadly diseases tend not to be easily transmissible, because the virus will be working against itself in terms of evolutionary pressures. As Berenson points out, “researchers wrote in 2019, the specific “preference” that helps make the H5N1 strain so lethal “can also impair replication and aerosolization.””

What Berenson failed to note was that scientists have been doing experiments on the avian bird flu virus all the way back to 2012 when they put a moratorium on gain-of-function research in the USA because of precisely that reason: it was too dangerous. According to the Federation of American Scientists, “The H5N1 influenza virus (gain-of-function) research was temporarily ceased in January 2012 due to the risks involved with disseminating experimental results that could be used for nefarious purposes.” They continued, “All research on H5N1 transmission was halted after laboratories at the University of Wisconsin and the Dutch Eramus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands created mutant forms that could be transmitted directly among ferrets. This was concerning because viruses that are easily transmissible between ferrets are often also easily transmissible between humans.”

The one piece of good news from this study was that none of the recipient ferrets died from the airborne infection of the mutant A/H5N1 viruses they created. Maybe the gain-of-function in transmission resulted in a much less deadly strain? But keep in mind that was over a decade ago. As we all know, gain-of-function research has happily continued onward. Who knows what other functions could have been added by now.

Add to this now that some of the first mammal-to-mammal transmissions of the avian flu virus recorded in the wild (in October of 2022) were with a close relative of ferrets - minks. That doesn’t seem a little suspicious? The one difference was that in these cases, many of the minks died.

So all of this leads to the frightening notion that someone - somewhere - is likely sitting on a virus that could be released to start another pandemic. And without pointing fingers or exploring too many conspiracy rabbit holes, we all know that there are plenty of motives out there for this to be a desirable outcome to some.

This brings us back to problem-solving this dilemma (which of course would be a lot easier to do if we had a movement of people to work with like we described here, so get on it).

Point being, why can’t these same “gain-of-function” experiments be used to actually make viruses less lethal? With tools like CRISPR and AI coming into our spheres, this should be strongly considered.

Now we fully admit that gene editing isn’t our specialty here at The Rationalist, and we are “punching up” as we wade into the deeper waters on this topic. But this general scenario seems like it should be a possibility.

Remember when the Omicron variant of Covid first came out of nowhere in South Africa? There were all kinds of speculation of where it came from. There was even some theories that a lab purposely edited the virus. One such theory hypothesized that it was made by big pharma in order to profit off of more variants to the vaccines.

But other theories sparked an intrigue of hope.

What if someone in a lab purposely edited the virus to help end the pandemic? By making it less deadly - but more contagious - Omicron acted like a natural “vaccine” of sorts as it ripped quickly - but much more safely - through the world population than the previous strains of Alpha or Delta did. Even Bill Gates commented on this, saying that “Omicron will create a lot of immunity.”

So why can’t this be done with the next pandemic? Teams of scientists working quickly on “reduction-of-function” if the virus should have a high mortality rate? For example if it is a deadly avian strain of flu, why couldn’t someone edit it to be much less deadly? Then if we as humans got infected with it we could build immunity to all of the variants - much like what happened with Omicron and Covid.

Of course big pharma, the vaccine pushers, and fans of tyrannical control wouldn’t want to hear any of this. But what is to stop a small group of people with a lab and CRISPR technology from doing it anyway?

Food for thought.

Until then it might be wise to stock up on Ivermectin (available many places online that ship worldwide). We know, we know, we can go down this rabbit hole on a later date with our tin foil hats strapped on. But it doesn’t excuse one fact - which to us is one of the biggest crimes of the entire pandemic: There was a massive lie being colluded against Ivermectin by labeling it as “unsafe.”

That was a clear lie.

Before 2020 there isn’t a single record of a scientist or medical professional that we could find calling Ivermectin "unsafe.” In fact our research found quite the opposite, praising it for safety and calling it a wonder drug. Yet during the pandemic, a strong force motivated scientists and media and pundits and politicians to perpetuate this lie.

What was the motivation?

Wouldn’t it make more sense that during a pandemic all possible safe therapeutics showing any signs of hope be used almost like Aspirin or Vitamins, especially ones with safety records as stellar as Ivermectin’s was? We should have passed it out en masse (with responsible precautions, of course). The efficacy of Ivermectin in Vitro against single strand RNA viruses is virtually undisputed. Combine that with the safety of the drug and even if it helped only .005% of the patients, that would have been potentially thousands of lives saved.

Debate the effectiveness all you want specifically when it comes to Covid. As of September, there were over 90 peer—reviewed studies done with wildly mixed results (but keep in mind that many of the ones that failed have suspicious funding like we wrote about here). Covid aside, the results for efficacy of Ivermectin against flu and other single strand RNA are well documented otherwise. In this comprehensive systematic review -which came out before Ivermectin became political - the antiviral effects of ivermectin are summarized including in vitro and in vivo studies over the past 50 years. This includes for cancer, avian flu, Zika virus and more.

If a more deadly pandemic hits us, it will be hard to hide results from therapeutics this time. Hopefully, we will be wiser. As we wrote about here it isn’t the expensive peer-reviewed studies that are “real science.” Rather, it is the ability to independently replicate results. If the mortality rate is 50% for a new virus, lowering that should be fairly obvious and much harder to hide with repurposed drugs, or fraudulent studies like the one they attempted for hydroxychloroquine via The Lancet.

Either way, if we can stockpile potential promising therapeutics, and consider using reduction-of-function editing to actually help us (instead of gain-of-function), the next pandemic we might actually be prepared for. And we don’t need to wait for the centralized monoliths to lock us down first, or for their permission.

Thanks for reading!

---

As always the entire purpose of The Rationalist is to connect with other solutions-minded results-driven people like yourself!

For over 3 billion years on this planet there were only single-celled organisms. Then one day they somehow learned to work together and make complex multi-celled creatures . Right now we are like those single-celled organisms. Our next evolution is finding how to work together, better… (like we wrote about here).

#UnifyAgainstCorruption #ResultsMatterMost #DecentralizeEverything #DemandTransparency

COMMENTS ARE FOR EVERYONE AS A PLACE TO THINK-TANK SOLUTIONS. They will never be for paid-only subscribers and we will never charge a subscription.