President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing an executive order that would end federal funding for virus studies due to the alleged risk of them becoming more contagious during genetic manipulation, The Wall Street Journal reported exclusively this Thursday.
The measure, which would seek to stop the sending of funds for these scientific research at least temporarily, would have no effect on pathogens such as H5N1 – bird flu -, according to sources familiar with the executive order in question.
The order would come after in recent years some voices within the Republican Party have blamed the spread of covid-19 on the research method that now wants to stop funding, since, they claim, the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan ( China).
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A US intelligence report published in 2021 states that the Covid-19 virus was probably the result of an accident within a laboratory and not the product of a deliberate genetic engineering operation.
Specifically, the scientific method now in question is what is known in jargon as ‘gain-of-function research’ (GoF), in which an organism is genetically altered in a way that can improve its biological capabilities and serve to predict How would you react to infectious diseases.
And, during the experiments, scientists modify, in a safe laboratory, a virus to know how it spreads and whether it would develop immunity against the impact of medications.
Many virologists have argued that studying viruses in controlled environments, with appropriate regulation, is necessary to prepare for future pandemics.
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This possible new executive order from the Trump administration is framed within a context in which the president is determined to modify the management of US health and science agencies, and, according to The New York Times, he has even ordered his officials to refrain from making public statements.
In addition, scientific committees of these workers have already been canceled and statistics such as those of the bird flu outbreaks in the US have been delayed.
With information from EFE
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