Criminal Stupidity

Insanely dangerous research continues here in the US

Yesterday, news of a new study from some Boston University researchers hit social media and (some) news outlets pretty hard, and rightfully. The research in question took the omicron S-protein, which is highly effective at attaching to and entering cells, making it incredibly infectious, as well as sufficiently different from the vaccine S-protein to make vaccine escape possible (likely, even), and spliced that onto the original Wuhan strain. They then infected some mice with their new chimeric strain and watched as 80% of the mice infected with their new frankenstrain died, vs zero dead mice which were infected with the original omicron strain. For comparison, the original Wuhan strain killed 100% of the mice, but isn’t very transmissible.

They created a horrifying new strain that combined they transmissibility of omicron with the virulence of the original Wuhan strain. A strain, which, if it escaped, would wreak havoc for a while before it eventually evolved to lower virulence.

So why in the world would they do this? There’s a ton of speculation on this out there, much trending towards the nefarious. But when I look at it, I see more criminal stupidity than maliciousness. Like so much of the disaster of the pandemic, it comes down to the supreme arrogance of the ‘experts’ and complete lack of common sense in the over-educated class, in my opinion.

First, I just took them at their word, by actually reading their pre-print paper. I suggest others do the same.

The scientific gist of the paper is to determine what makes omicron less virulent than the original Wuhan strain. A pretty benign and a reasonable question to ask. And they did get some answers to that question that were…pretty obvious with even a rudimentary understanding of infectiousness versus virulence and the evolutionarily driven balance between the two. What they determined was that the difference in virulence between omicron and the Wuhan strain was not entirely contained within the spike protein itself, which is, frankly, a ‘duh’ result.

Virulence is often driven by the speed of replication of a virus. The faster a virus replicates in the host cells, the more damage it can cause. While it is true that the spike protein on SARS-CoV-2 is incredibly damaging in its own right, the speed of replication is always going to affect virulence. So of course, their results were right in line with other studies that found the same thing.

So why this dangerous route? Who funded this madness? What ulterior motive did they have?

I believe the answer lies with the mundane, within the structure of academia itself. When looking at an academic paper like this, there is a sense to it all. Starting with the order of authors. Very simply, the last author is the one with the power and the money, directing the course of the research and approving its direction. And in this case, the one writing the manuscript as described in the ‘Author Contributions’ section below:

So then, MS, Mohsan Saeed, was the one who conceptualized, wrote and mostly funded this travesty. So who is he? A quick look at Boston University’s website tells so much about this Assistant Professor.

First, his background:

What this tells us is that he is a very very fresh professor. He was only hired in 2019 as an Assistant Professor — which is going to be tenure track, but far from tenure. He needs to prove himself enough to attain that coveted tenure. He studied other viruses under other established researchers, but this is the first position where he was the one truly in charge.

The next clue we have is in the acknowledgements section below:

The acknowledgements tell us where the money is coming from, and it sure is an interesting list. Specifically that first source, of Boston University startup funds to both Mohsan Saeed and to FD, Florian Douam, another young assistant professor at Boston University (who works mainly with humanized mice). This is money to help get new faculty on their feet. We also see that Florian Douam also had a Career Development Award that funded this in part.

There is an NIAID grant in this, which (logically) is setting off alarm bells in many people’s heads, but again, dig a little deeper, and I’m thinking the NIAID did not specifically want to be funding this particular research.

Below, find the excerpts from a press release on Boston University’s website about Mohsan Saeed:

Wow! That is pretty impressive to be awarded two very large, competitive grants as a very fresh faculty member. (Now here is where I admit I do wonder at how he managed to get those grants and if some very common academic favoritism and corruption is involved, but I can’t do more than wonder).

But what were those grants meant to fund? Were they meant to fund gain-of-function-like research like he conducted?

No. Not even close. The R01 grant he acknowledged in the paper was meant to do research into enteroviral proteases changing the host cell environment. Nothing at all to do with COVID.

Everything I see here looks to be criminal stupidity. Sloppiness. Lack of oversight. No one in Boston University questioning what was going on. None of the more seasoned co-authors who (supposedly) read and approved the manuscript speaking up and saying ‘Woah, this seems a bit risky’, but just adding this publication to their list to add to their prestige. None of the students or post-docs doing the work questioning the wisdom of such an experiment (though post-docs and students are trained not to question, only to follow orders).

None of this is to excuse the behavior. Quite the opposite. Heads should roll for this and quickly. The grants he won should be pulled back, at the least. Mohsan Saeed should be immediately fired, probably Florian Douam as well. Any of the seasoned co-authors should be questioned about their role and sanctioned for it, at the least, and anyone in Boston University administration that ever laid eyes on it or anyone in any of the granting agencies that caught wind of it should also be censured and/or fired depending on what they knew and what they didn’t do.

All of this fits into the criminal stupidity of the last years. The complete lack of common sense. The complete lack of the ability to see the bigger picture, or the real-world consequences of academics’ and public officials’ actions. There doesn’t always need to be a wider agenda. ‘Smart’ people can be the most dangerous and stupid out there and must always be able to be questioned.