Tag: biomedical research

The Last–And Only–Foreign Scientist in the Wuhan Lab Speaks Out + The US is concealing its research on deadly viruses — while criticizing China’s secrecy over the Wuhan lab

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Last–And Only–Foreign Scientist in the Wuhan Lab Speaks Out

Related:

The US is concealing its research on deadly viruses — while criticizing China’s secrecy over the Wuhan lab

But the relentless focus on China-based research, and what may have gone wrong there, misses a deeper and more disturbing truth. The vast majority of virology — including the Wuhan study and other gain-of-function research conducted outside the US — is supported by American funding. The training, ethical guidelines, and standards for bioscience adhered to by top researchers worldwide are dominated by US institutions. If it becomes demonstrably true that a cutting-edge laboratory caused a pandemic, either now or in the future, America would deserve the blame, regardless of which country happens to be hosting those experiments.

The U.S. is funding dangerous experiments it doesn’t want you to know about

Near Misses at UNC Chapel Hill’s High-Security Lab Illustrate Risk of Accidents With Coronaviruses

I Tested Positive for Covid-19. What Does That Really Mean?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

I Tested Positive for Covid-19. What Does That Really Mean?

Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard, believes there should be more focus on the so-called cycle threshold, the number of PCR amplification cycles required to produce a positive result. A high number of cycles suggests a low viral load. This may indicate that someone is at the beginning of an infection—or the end of one. If a person tests positive but is symptom-free, and a subsequent test shows a lower viral load, then they might not need to quarantine for as long. Public health experts increasingly are debating this idea. Some believe that a more nuanced picture could help control the spread of the disease by pinpointing the most infectious people and reducing the burden of quarantine for those who are not infectious. Others warn that the cycle threshold may not be a sufficiently reliable gauge of viral load, since it is influenced by the equipment, the chemistry, and the quality of the sample in each test.