Does Trump’s Gain-of-Function Research ‘Ban’ Go Far Enough?

The headline is rhetorical.

Spoiler: the answer is: “not by a damn sight.”

Also, the GOF “ban” isn’t actually a full-throated ban.

But it’s better than nothing.

Gift-horses, mouths, etc.

Via USA Today (emphasis added):

“President Donald Trump signed an executive order on May 5 to halt federal funding for a type of biomedical research in China and Iran, aiming to prevent the development of another pandemic like COVID-19.

Trump and some federal agencies have long theorized that the pandemic began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the Chinese deny.

“It can leak out innocently, stupidly and incompetently, and half destroy the world," Trump told reporters at the White House.

His executive order targeted the elimination of what is called gain-of-function, which studies how viruses become more powerful*. The United States funded that sort of research at the Wuhan lab, in the city where the initial outbreak was reported.”

*Note the weasel-phrase. Researchers, according to USA Today, “study how viruses become more powerful,” rather than the reality of their occupation, which is: “gain-of-function researchers intentionally and proactively make viruses more powerful (more lethal and infectious) via artificial mutations that have almost zero possibility of developing organically in nature.”

As it is apparently contractually obligated to do, as all Brought to You By Pfizer™ corporate media is, USA Today drops a poison pill into the end of the above paragraph: “a competing theory is that a person somehow came into contact with an infected animal.”

USA Today doesn’t provide any evidence for its “competing theory” to the lab leak because it understands there isn’t any compelling evidence for the now-debunked natural origin. The goal is to sow doubt where there shouldn’t be any.

Related: WHO Accuses Anti-Vaxxers of 'Anti-Science Aggression,' Calls Them 'Killing Force'

In justifying its continued counterfactual insistence on promoting the natural origins theory in 2025, it cites the U.S. intelligence community and — this is a real knee-slapper — the CCP foreign ministry to back up its pseudoscientific insinuation that the virus emerged from a pangolin-on-Oriental-tortoise ritual wet market orgy or whatever.

Continuing:

“The U.S. intelligence community released an unclassified assessment that found the COVID-19 virus "probably emerged and infected humans" through a small exposure by November 2019, with the first cluster of cases in Wuhan, China. The agencies were divided over whether the exposure could have come from a lab or a natural exposure to an infected animal…

The intelligence community judged "the virus was not developed as a biological weapon" and that Chinese officials didn't know about the virus before the initial outbreak.

Mao Ning, spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, told reporters in January that experts from the WHO found it was “extremely unlikely” the pandemic was caused by a lab leak.

“The U.S. needs to stop politicizing and weaponizing origins-tracing at once, and stop scapegoating others,” Ning said.”

Of course, USA Today neglects to mention that even the CIA came around earlier this year — conveniently timed to coincide with the Trump 2.0 takeover in January — to acknowledging that the sky is blue.

Related: CIA Finally Cops to Likely COVID Lab Leak Reality: Report

Regarding the Trump executive order, rather than outright banning gain-of-function research, it merely a.) bans federal funding for it, and b.) provides theoretical oversight of private-sector gain-of-function research — a far cry from what is needed, which is a full-on, blanket ban of the practice and criminal prosecutions of the biomedical terrorists who conduct these experiments.

Via Whitehouse.gov (emphasis added):

“Dangerous gain-of-function research on biological agents and pathogens has the potential to significantly endanger the lives of American citizens. If left unrestricted, its effects can include widespread mortality, an impaired public health system, disrupted American livelihoods, and diminished economic and national security.

The Biden Administration allowed dangerous gain-of-function research within the United States with insufficient levels of oversight. It also actively approved, through the National Institutes of Health, Federal life-science research funding in China and other countries where there is limited United States oversight or reasonable expectation of biosafety enforcement.

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…

Sec. 3. Stop Dangerous Gain-of-Function Research. (a) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), and in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the heads of other relevant executive departments and agencies (agencies) identified by the Director of OSTP, shall establish guidance for the heads of relevant agencies, to the extent consistent with the terms and conditions of the funding, to immediately:

(i) end Federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function research conducted by foreign entities in countries of concern (e.g., China) pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 6627(c), or in other countries where there is not adequate oversight to ensure that the countries are compliant with United States oversight standards and policies; and…

Sec. 5. Manage Risks Associated with Non-federally Funded Research. Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Director of OSTP, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the APNSA, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and the heads of other relevant agencies, shall develop and implement a strategy to govern, limit, and track dangerous gain-of-function research across the United States that occurs without Federal funding and other life-science research that could cause significant societal consequences. This strategy shall include actions to achieve comprehensive, scalable, and verifiable nucleic acid synthesis screening in non-federally funded settings. Any gaps in authorities necessary to achieve the goals of this strategy shall be addressed in a legislative proposal to be sent to the President, through the Director of OSTP and the APNSA, within 180 days of the date of this order.”

Obviously, the likes of Pfizer would prefer to have the government bankroll the manufacturing of new viruses, thereby offsetting the costs it would otherwise incur, but, given the incentive structure, there is no reason why it wouldn’t just privately conduct the research itself when billions of dollars await for “vaccines” on the other side.

The only real deterrent to the future engineering of viral pandemics is brutal civil and criminal penalties enshrined into law that would categorize gain-of-function research as biomedical terrorism.

Anything short of that is public relations theater.

If the Trump administration can designate MS-13 a transnational terrorist organization, it can do the same with Moderna; it’s only a matter of political will.

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

Follow AP on X.

Subscribe (for free) to Armageddon Prose and its dystopian sister, Armageddon Safari.

Support AP’s independent journalism with a one-off, hassle-free "digital coffee" tip or GiveSendGo.

Bitcoin public address: bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhawv