{"id":190639,"date":"2024-06-05T04:25:19","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T09:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/tb-studies-illustrate-the-importance-of-properly-assessing-the-risks-of-pathogen-research"},"modified":"2024-06-05T04:25:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T09:25:19","slug":"tb-studies-illustrate-the-importance-of-properly-assessing-the-risks-of-pathogen-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/tb-studies-illustrate-the-importance-of-properly-assessing-the-risks-of-pathogen-research","title":{"rendered":"TB studies illustrate the importance of properly assessing the risks of pathogen research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/tb-studies-illustrate-the-importance-of-properly-assessing-the-risks-of-pathogen-research2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of a collection of expert commentaries. You can read the rest of the series here.<\/p>\n<p>It is true that the next pandemic is a matter of \u201cwhen,\u201d not \u201cif.\u201d The statistical certainty of a future pandemic has led to increasing research into potential pandemic pathogens so that we may create lifesaving countermeasures. Such research, unfortunately, also carries a risk of bringing about exactly what it seeks to prevent. Human error or even deliberate action is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2019\/3\/20\/18260669\/deadly-pathogens-escape-lab-smallpox-bird-flu\">as likely<\/a> to be the cause of the next pandemic as natural origin. Such concerns have intensified after the COVID-19 pandemic, which a significant percentage of the US population, at least, believes began with a research accident, one of the two main pandemic origin theories, with the other being the jump of a virus from animals to people. The question then for governments and the research community is how to build confidence in the valuable work that scientists do through appropriate regulation.<\/p>\n<p>While research with favorable risk-benefit profiles must be facilitated, high-risk research of either limited benefits or benefits for only a limited few must be seen through a different regulatory lens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of a collection of expert commentaries. You can read the rest of the series here. It is true that the next pandemic is a matter of \u201cwhen,\u201d not \u201cif.\u201d The statistical certainty of a future pandemic has led to increasing research into potential pandemic pathogens so that we may [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}