Legislation Banning a Certain Type of Research on Dangerous Pathogens Introduced at the Capitol

Friday, October 6th, 2023 -- 1:00 PM

(By Phoebe Petrovic | Wisconsin Watch) Legislation banning a certain type of research on dangerous pathogens is bringing together an unlikely alliance of public health scientists, community activists and Republicans who spurned COVID-19 safety protocols.

According to Phoebe Petrovic with Wisconsin Watch, for decades, the world’s leading scientists have debated the merits of experiments that make risky pathogens more dangerous, some of the most controversial are done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This year, Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers have weighed in, introducing state and federal bans on so-called "gain-of-function research on pandemic pathogens," citing devastation from the COVID-19 virus in their press releases.

Several link the COVID-19 outbreak to gain-of-function research conducted at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. A recently declassified report said U.S. intelligence agencies found no direct evidence the virus came from a lab, but could not rule out either laboratory or wild origins.

What exactly falls under this category is contested, but in general, the concern lies with experiments that make dangerous pathogens even more virulent or transmissible. It is an extremely small subset of the field, with extraordinarily large consequences.

The research has long raised debates involving philosophy, ethics and the acceptable limits of scientific inquiry. If an accident at a Wisconsin lab could decimate animal and human populations globally, what benefit should the public demand before accepting that risk?

"It’s not that we’re anti-science. It’s not that we’re anti-research," said Nina Goodale, an environmental activist with Biosafety Now, a nonprofit seeking to regulate dangerous pathogen research and increase the public’s role in oversight. "We’re about pro-transparency and pro-information and pro-public safety."

The group’s co-founders, professors in genetics, chemistry and quantitative biology, have shared their support for Wisconsin’s bill with legislative staff. Their endorsement was circulated with the co-sponsorship memo, which said it "would establish a role for the public in regulating risky research, would provide critical protections for the citizens of Wisconsin, and would advance environmental justice both in the state of Wisconsin and worldwide."

Some of the lawmakers sponsoring the state legislation have opposed mask and vaccine mandates, called concern over the deadly delta variant "hysteria," fought to keep churches open during health emergencies and sought to prohibit health care providers from withholding unproven COVID treatments.

Yet several of the nation’s leading scientists say the bill should not be dismissed as anti-science misinformation. It taps into reasonable debates that precede the coronavirus pandemic, transcend partisan politics and deserve public consideration.

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