Accusing the virology of conducting “dangerous” practices in his research, the American president adopted on Monday, May 5 on Monday, May a decree restricting the deliberate modification of pathogens. The primary objective being, for the Trump administration, to “prevent accidental leaks from occurring” as during the Cavid-19 pandemic.
President Donald Trump announced this series of measures on Monday, May 5, on Monday, May 5, a series of measures to restrict certain research in virology which he considers “dangerous” and that he accuses of being behind the covid-19 pandemic.
Surrounded by representatives of several Health agencies, Donald Trump has signed an executive decree intended to “improve the safety and security of biological research”. Among the measures announced is the end of American federal funding granted to certain research programs located abroad and including so -called “function gain” research.
“A nightmare”
These works consist of the deliberate modification of pathogens. In virology, they allow for example to study the evolution of viruses by making them artificially more virulent or transmitted, with the aim of preventing future pandemics and developing vaccines. But according to some specialists, the risks of accident is too large, for a low profit.
For the Trump administration, these practices are said to be behind the recent world pandemic which has killed more than a million people in the United States, and millions of others around the world.
“This nightmare is probably the result of some scientists who have manipulated mother nature in a laboratory with an exported technology in the United States,” said Marty Makary, new chief of theAmerican Medicines Agency (FDA).
A time qualified as “conspiratorial”, this laboratory flight theory has recently gained popularity in the United States and is now supported by American authorities to various degrees of certainty. But it is nonetheless largely debated by scientists.
Just like the qualification or not of “search for a function gain” attributed to the work funded by American funds in Wuhan, Chinese city cradle of the Pandemic of Covid-19. The measures announced on Monday explicitly mention China as a country in which this research can no longer be funded.
“There is no laboratory that is sheltered from leaks and this will prevent accidental leaks to happen in the future and endanger humanity,” insisted US Health Minister Robert Kennedy Jr. insisted on X
The decree also calls for the development of a strategy to “governing, limiting and monitoring” this type of research in the United States and the end of funding other types of research in countries deemed without sufficient supervision.
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It is part of broader decisions of the new American government to reshape American scientific and health policy, in particular through massive cuts in the budgets of research and massive dismissals of scientists in federal agencies.
