Reaction to parts of “Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research”
Jessica Hockett, PhD
President Trump issued Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research, sending another signal that “The Show” about a pandemic must go on. The new order is effectively an “addendum” or action step following from the Lab Leak web page posted a few weeks back, which I wrote about here:
Gain of Function experiments are a waste of time and money for reasons I explained in response to Sunetra Gupta’s view (see article below). I am not in the camp that thinks scientists are able to make or adulterate things in a lab setting that escape or accidentally “get out” and wreak havoc on a population.
In this brief reaction to yesterday’s Executive Order, I limit myself to parts I consider closely-connected to the ongoing effort to preserve the story about a manmade coronavirus spreading in late 2019/early 2020 via human-to-human transmission or in the air.
- Why does the order not say SARS-CoV-2, virus, or coronavirus? Because viruses aren’t involved? Because viruses don’t exist or function as supposed?
- Why does the order fail to acknowledge that GoF research is inextricably tied to – if not largely motivated by – the development of vaccines intended to be mandated for one or more groups, either as universal seasonal injections for respiratory illness or as countermeasures against purported pathogenic threats? Because the administration wants that development to continue?
- Does the order emphasize dangerous Gain of Function (GoF) research because the Trump administration/Uniparty needs people to think that agents or pathogens can leak from labs and do widespread damage – despite evidence to the contrary?
- Why is the only mention of ‘pandemic’ in the naming of United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential?
- Why is COVID-19 used only once and in a cryptic manner? “This recklessness, if unaddressed, may lead to the proliferation of research on pathogens (and potential pathogens) in settings without adequate safeguards, even after COVID-19 revealed the risk of such practices.” What is COVID-19 and what period of time is being referenced? What “risk” did COVID-19 “reveal” regarding GoF research? What is a “potential pathogen”?
- Looking at the Purpose of the order as articulated in the first two sentences (image below), does the Trump administration believe that GoF research yielded something that created “widespread mortality” and an “impaired public health system”? How so? What, exactly, does the Trump administration think “disrupted American livelihoods” and “diminished economic and national security” in 2020?
- It’s clear from Section 2 that the Trump administration believes in biological threat preparedness and fully supports expansion of associated industries, as well as “biological countermeasures”. Such countermeasures include “vaccines”. After the COVID event and decades of lies and hidden failures of vaccines (including the flu shot), how can the Trump administration defend devoting time, money, and personnel to such endeavors?
8. The definition of “dangerous gain-of-function research” paints a scary portrait of possibilities that sounds more like science fiction than science. Phrases such as “potential to cause” and “could result in” ensure the order doesn’t commit to the desired outcomes of the research activities being realistic or having happened in the past but (on a positive note) does imply that seeking or trying to achieve certain outcomes is itself “dangerous,” irrespective of what can be done. Can the Trump administration provide examples of these things being done via GoF research – and in the manners envisioned? Also, to what extent are these things done in the development of shots or other direct mechanisms, even without gain or enhancement?
Eight things is enough for now. The message of the executive order appears to be this:
We need safe gain-of-function research in order to combat the dangerous gain-of-function research that gave the world a pandemic.
Since I believe there was no pandemic and that pandemics involving spreading ‘viruses’ – whether deadly or harmless – are impossible, the best “order” that could be issued is the one that stops all federal money and “science” from being funneled toward readying for fake phenomena that are designed to rob us of liberty, property, and sanity.
UPDATE: 31 July 2026
Commented posted to Jay Bhattacharya’s op-ed
Dear Jay,
The NIH, the Trump administration, & nearly every federal official continue to ignore the mountain of evidence contradicting the claim by the WHO and its member nations that a novel, rapidly spreading, SARS-related virus emerged from a point source in 2019/20 — whether through a zoonotic event or a lab-related incident, in Wuhan or anywhere else — and circumnavigated the globe through a demonstrable mechanism, causing illness and death.
You write about pandemic-potential pathogens. When asked by an X user on 17 Oct 2024 how you define a pandemic, you said, “The official definition is not so important as the fact that the start and end of a pandemic is a fundamentally political act,” and that “biology and epidemiology are a strict subset of inputs into a fundamentally political decision.”
Given what you argue in this op-ed, it seems very important for the NIH to state in no uncertain terms what constitutes a pandemic and the whether WHO was justified in effectively declaring one on 11 Mar 2020, including what the NIH considers strong evidence that the spread or transmission of a disease-causing agent was occurring.
Much GoF research, whether deemed “safe” or “dangerous,” is directed towards vaccine development. I implore you to examine the work of American paralegal Katherine Watt of Bailiwick News, who, through her study of US biologics law, has documented what she describes as the absence of substantive vaccine-design and manufacturing standards.
Regards,
Jessica Hockett
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