{"id":202305,"date":"2024-12-24T09:10:01","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T15:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/why-scientists-say-we-are-fighting-h5n1-bird-flu-with-one-hand-tied-behind-our-backs"},"modified":"2024-12-24T09:10:01","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T15:10:01","slug":"why-scientists-say-we-are-fighting-h5n1-bird-flu-with-one-hand-tied-behind-our-backs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/why-scientists-say-we-are-fighting-h5n1-bird-flu-with-one-hand-tied-behind-our-backs","title":{"rendered":"Why scientists say we are fighting H5N1 bird flu with one hand tied behind our backs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/why-scientists-say-we-are-fighting-h5n1-bird-flu-with-one-hand-tied-behind-our-backs.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But when, where and how that could come to pass is hard to predict \u2014 in part, some researchers say, because of guardrails the federal government has placed around gain-of-function research.<\/p>\n<p>The term describes experiments that seek to understand a virus\u2019 potential to adapt to new hosts, spread more easily, survive longer in the environment and cause those infected to become sicker. Though many scientists view the approach as a critical tool for conducting biological research, other experts have long complained that it\u2019s unacceptably risky \u2014 a reputation exacerbated by <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2024-08-15\/column-the-covid-lab-leak-claim-isnt-just-an-attack-on-science-but-a-threat-to-public-health\">persistent speculation<\/a> that the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic was created in gain-of-function experiments in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But when, where and how that could come to pass is hard to predict \u2014 in part, some researchers say, because of guardrails the federal government has placed around gain-of-function research. The term describes experiments that seek to understand a virus\u2019 potential to adapt to new hosts, spread more easily, survive longer in the environment [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,1490],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-biotech-medical","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202305","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=202305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}