Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Episode 228: My Eight-Legged Monkey Dance

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We brag about living in a "free" country. Private industry, however, has too often more freedom to suppress speech than we do to exercise it, at least on "their" platforms. I vaguely allude to this in today's Episode 228: My Eight-Legged Monkey Dance.

In this episode, I read from: John M. Barry's 2018 book, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. Again, it's a good read. Lots of gory details about what made that flu outbreak special. I also read from a Nature magazine article about President Obama curtailing research in the US. Just for fun, at the links I'll direct you to another article I didn't read on the show, but which I feel, monkey-dance-wise, gives you some perspective on …the current problem.

I play: a few bits of Professor Adrian Gibbs being interviewed in December of 2009 by one of The Naked Scientists at the BBC. I also play snippets of reporter Keren Landman and On The Media host Brooke Gladstone spewing forth opinion with which I strongly disagree. Musically, KMFDM backed then-Mayor Bernie Sanders observing a problem with media concentration; and I close today with Julie & Rolf and The Campfire Gang doing "Over The Rainbow".

Addendum: Once again, perspecatious observer L33tminion caught my error, caused by letting my emotions overwhelm the direction of the show. Check out his quite proper admonition in the comments.
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2 comments:

  1. L33tminionAugust 11, 2023 at 7:53 AM

    I went looking for more information on this, and one of the first things that I came across was the paper Gibbs published on the subject (https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-6-207). One thing that stood out to me in particular is that you seem to be _way_ more confident in this episode that the 2009 swine flu was a lab leak than Gibbs is in that paper. You're right to note that there are agricultural quarantine procedures that are supposed to prevent that sort of thing from happening, but (as Gibbs and his coauthors point out) those are also subject to imperfections and mistakes. And large numbers can bite you in terms of presenting opportunities to get really unlucky, there are just a lot of pigs / pig farming relative to virologists / infectious disease research. I thought his policy suggestions in that paper are also pretty interesting.

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    1. AnonymousAugust 12, 2023 at 11:55 AM

      L33t! Good to hear from you!

      "One thing that stood out to me in particular is that you seem to be _way_ more confident in this episode that the 2009 swine flu was a lab leak than Gibbs is in that paper."

      True. First reason: I didn't read his paper. I've hit more paywalls blocking access to academic research than I care to mention, so I didn't bother to find it online. That's not an excuse, since I was relying solely on the NS podcast for content; in that interview there were plenty of caveats from Gibbs himself to further suggest that he and his colleagues also failed to identify a definitive source.

      Second reason: I'm more concerned with the potential impact and threat of such lab leaks than being absolutely certain that one specific leak occurred. When speeding late at night on a winding, unfamiliar road, it's more important to slow down than considering ways to mitigate hazards that might be your last.

      My outrage at Keren Landman's bold assertion that GoF research should be started despite the potential risks, and Brooke Gladstone's gleeful mockery of, well, prudence, guided the episode's direction… and, yes, you are correct, also diluted Gibb's stated caveats. In more than one point in the recording, I had to go back and insert language that lessened my confidence in the lab leak hypothesis; such was my anger at Landman and Gladstone.

      In a nutshell, I think more people should be very, very concerned about potential lab leaks, despite what they may hear on On The Media.

      I did skim the abstract and conclusion to Gibb's paper, and I do like his overarching observation:

      "Public confidence in influenza research, and the agribusinesses that are based on influenza's many hosts, has been eroded by several recent events."

      Yup. Thanks again for keeping me honest.

      —Jim

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