1 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:06,720 Speaker 1: Probably more than any other field that poses an existential risk. 2 00:00:07,160 --> 00:00:10,440 Speaker 1: The dangers of the biotech field are the easiest to understand. 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:16,160 Speaker 1: The field deals with bugs, viruses, bacteria, pathogens that can 4 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:19,400 Speaker 1: kill us if we're infected by them. And every one 5 00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:24,000 Speaker 1: of us has experienced infectious disease firsthand, like the preschooler 6 00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:26,320 Speaker 1: catching the flu and bringing it home and making the 7 00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:29,960 Speaker 1: whole family sick, or having to cancel your vacation because 8 00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:32,120 Speaker 1: the place you were going has become a zeke a 9 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:37,159 Speaker 1: hot spot. It's pretty basic stuff, and it's relatable to us. 10 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:41,519 Speaker 1: But when you dig deeper into the biotech field, it 11 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:45,080 Speaker 1: becomes clear that the risks it poses are maybe the 12 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:49,800 Speaker 1: most immediate of all the existential risks. The pathogens the 13 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:52,800 Speaker 1: field studies in the hopes of creating vaccines that can 14 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:56,240 Speaker 1: save lives pose a pretty severe threat as they are 15 00:00:57,360 --> 00:01:00,440 Speaker 1: not too long ago. Wild viruses like small pox and 16 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:04,440 Speaker 1: influenza killed a lot of people, as we'll see in 17 00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:07,920 Speaker 1: this episode, and bugs like that can still kill a 18 00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:12,800 Speaker 1: lot of people, and that's threat enough. But the existential 19 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:16,360 Speaker 1: threat from biotech comes from the type of research that 20 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:20,480 Speaker 1: began to proliferate in the early twenty one century. When 21 00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:24,240 Speaker 1: high containment labs begin to mushroom around the world, and 22 00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:27,360 Speaker 1: a type of research called gain of function really took off. 23 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:32,520 Speaker 1: No longer were researchers dealing with wild viruses and bacteria. 24 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:36,600 Speaker 1: They were forcing evolution in them by speeding up mutations 25 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:42,360 Speaker 1: and altering them genetically to be deadlier and more contagious. 26 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:46,480 Speaker 1: This kind of research is extremely dangerous. If a genetically 27 00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:49,440 Speaker 1: altered bug escapes from a lab, it could kill a 28 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:54,240 Speaker 1: potentially staggering amount of people before it is contained. If 29 00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:58,000 Speaker 1: it is contained, but if done right, the risks from 30 00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: these experiments can be minimized. The trouble is they're frequently 31 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:06,200 Speaker 1: not done right. As you'll see, the biotech field has 32 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:09,480 Speaker 1: a shocking track record of accidents and a willingness to 33 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:14,880 Speaker 1: take huge, possibly unnecessary risks. And what's most unsettling is 34 00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:18,360 Speaker 1: that there is precious little oversight on the risky experiments 35 00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:23,119 Speaker 1: being carried out around the world. Even seemingly innocuous experiments 36 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:27,079 Speaker 1: have the potential to produce catastrophic results. And I can 37 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:29,840 Speaker 1: show you now if you'll follow me to Canberra, the 38 00:02:29,919 --> 00:02:33,560 Speaker 1: capital of Australia. We're back in two thousand. A pair 39 00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:37,720 Speaker 1: of researchers named Ron Jackson and Ian Ramshaw are unpleasantly 40 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:41,080 Speaker 1: surprised with the results of an experiment they've just conducted. 41 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:48,120 Speaker 1: Australia has a significant mouse problem. Mice were probably introduced 42 00:02:48,160 --> 00:02:51,320 Speaker 1: to the country as stowaways among the ships of the 43 00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:55,040 Speaker 1: British settlers in the eighteenth century, and when they arrived, 44 00:02:55,160 --> 00:02:59,560 Speaker 1: they began to spread and grow to unusually large numbers. 45 00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:03,000 Speaker 1: Especial slee in the southeast, where Australia grows its grain. 46 00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:08,280 Speaker 1: During what the country calls its mouse plagues, farms are 47 00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:12,720 Speaker 1: overrun with mice that streamed from seemingly everywhere. The ground 48 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:16,639 Speaker 1: ripples with them. The mice are so abundant and aggressive 49 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:19,720 Speaker 1: that they can chew through the tires of farm equipment, 50 00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:25,480 Speaker 1: and they attack pigs and poultry. On mouse plague caused 51 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:28,880 Speaker 1: nearly one hundred million dollars worth of damage to crops 52 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:33,240 Speaker 1: and farms. What Ramshaw and Jackson were looking for was 53 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:36,480 Speaker 1: a way to sterilize female mice by training their immune 54 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:40,320 Speaker 1: systems to attack their own eggs. To do that, the 55 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:44,440 Speaker 1: two biologists created a vaccine that contained a gene which 56 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:47,440 Speaker 1: codes for the production of something called inter luken four, 57 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:52,200 Speaker 1: which is a naturally occurring protein i L four stimulates 58 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:56,360 Speaker 1: mammals to produce antibodies to deliver the genes to the 59 00:03:56,440 --> 00:04:01,680 Speaker 1: mice's DNA. The researchers used a virus because of a 60 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:06,320 Speaker 1: virus's unique ability to insert its own genetic information into 61 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:10,600 Speaker 1: a cell's DNA and hijack a cells normal processes. They 62 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:14,320 Speaker 1: make ideal vehicles to deliver the main ingredient in a vaccine. 63 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:18,320 Speaker 1: The virus adds it into the cells genetic code along 64 00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:22,400 Speaker 1: with its own genetic material. The cell produces whatever it 65 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:24,960 Speaker 1: finds in its genetic code, whether it was added there 66 00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,560 Speaker 1: by a virus or by a human. It's pretty impressive 67 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:34,120 Speaker 1: researchers hijack a virus's ability to hijack a cell. Jackson 68 00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:38,480 Speaker 1: and Ramshaw chose the virus that causes mousepox ectromelia as 69 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:42,800 Speaker 1: the vehicle for their vaccine. Normally, mousepox would kill a 70 00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:44,760 Speaker 1: lot of the mice that were exposed to it in 71 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:47,880 Speaker 1: the study, but the researchers were using mice that had 72 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:52,560 Speaker 1: been previously vaccinated against mousepox, along with other mice that 73 00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:57,320 Speaker 1: had been genetically altered to be totally immune to the disease. Few, 74 00:04:57,400 --> 00:04:59,800 Speaker 1: if any, of the mice used in the study works 75 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:04,679 Speaker 1: to die from exposure to the mousepox, but within nine 76 00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:08,880 Speaker 1: days of receiving the vaccine, every single mouse in the 77 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,360 Speaker 1: study was dead. The mousepox had a one hundred percent 78 00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:17,599 Speaker 1: mortality rate. It killed every mouse that had been exposed 79 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:21,240 Speaker 1: to it. The researchers found that the i L for 80 00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:25,480 Speaker 1: gene had indeed increased anybody production in the mice as intended, 81 00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:30,919 Speaker 1: but the increased inner lucan had another unanticipated effect. It 82 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:35,200 Speaker 1: also suppressed the mice's cell mediated response, a function of 83 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:40,160 Speaker 1: the immune system which wards off infections by viruses. By 84 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:43,520 Speaker 1: adding the i L four gene to the mouse pox virus, 85 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:46,320 Speaker 1: the surge of inter luken told the mice's immune system 86 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:49,039 Speaker 1: to lay down its arms, which paved the way for 87 00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:54,000 Speaker 1: total annihilation by the mousepox virus, even among mice that 88 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:56,880 Speaker 1: had been genetically designed to be immune to the disease. 89 00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:02,279 Speaker 1: Jackson and Ramshaw had x dently created a perfect killer 90 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:08,359 Speaker 1: of mice. Mousepox bears a resemblance to smallpox and humans. 91 00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:11,880 Speaker 1: The two viruses are distantly related, and it was not 92 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:14,920 Speaker 1: lost on Ramshaw and Jackson what would happen if their 93 00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:19,560 Speaker 1: technique was used with smallpox instead of mousepox. Jackson told 94 00:06:19,600 --> 00:06:22,480 Speaker 1: new scientists, it would be safe to assume that if 95 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:26,320 Speaker 1: some idiot did put human ill four into human smallpox, 96 00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:31,760 Speaker 1: they'd increase the lethality quite dramatically. Something like that would 97 00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:37,680 Speaker 1: be monumentally bad. Smallpox is caused by the very ola virus. 98 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,600 Speaker 1: It's an ancient virus that has plagued humans for possibly 99 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:43,800 Speaker 1: as long as ten thousand years, and it's believed to 100 00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:47,280 Speaker 1: have made the jump from either camels or gerbils, or 101 00:06:47,400 --> 00:06:50,520 Speaker 1: possibly some extinct animal we don't know about, over to 102 00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:54,119 Speaker 1: humans and spread along trade routes that crossed the Middle 103 00:06:54,120 --> 00:06:57,960 Speaker 1: East to Asia and then eventually west over to Europe. 104 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:02,120 Speaker 1: Our earliest defend native evidence of smallpox dates back at 105 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:05,599 Speaker 1: least three thousand years, found on mummies of people who 106 00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:09,920 Speaker 1: lived millennia ago, including the Egyptian pharaoh Ramsey's the fifth 107 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:13,760 Speaker 1: Ramsey's appears to bear the sign of the virus, the 108 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,760 Speaker 1: pox marks that are left behind when the pustules that 109 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:21,920 Speaker 1: cover the body scab and fall off. Those pustules come 110 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:26,160 Speaker 1: at the final stage of a very difficult disease. Within 111 00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:28,880 Speaker 1: a couple of days of being exposed to smallpox for 112 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:31,840 Speaker 1: the first time, you will be leveled by a fever 113 00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:37,080 Speaker 1: and flu like symptoms that incapacitate you for days. Sores 114 00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:40,720 Speaker 1: develop in your mouth and they fill with fluid, and 115 00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:43,680 Speaker 1: just as you overcome the fever and begin to feel better, 116 00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:48,200 Speaker 1: the mouth sores erupt, which releases the virus filled fluid 117 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:51,800 Speaker 1: into the rest of your body, where it reappears as 118 00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:55,720 Speaker 1: those pustules masses of tiny bumps that cover the skin 119 00:07:56,160 --> 00:08:01,800 Speaker 1: and concentrate around your extremities. The uestull scab over and 120 00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:04,880 Speaker 1: eventually they fall off, and when the last one falls, 121 00:08:05,280 --> 00:08:09,640 Speaker 1: you are no longer contagious. If you survived the disease 122 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:14,040 Speaker 1: that is, smallpox kills by overwhelming your immune system with 123 00:08:14,080 --> 00:08:18,360 Speaker 1: the protein that counteracts anybodies that would normally prevent infected 124 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:23,280 Speaker 1: cells from replicating the virus. To catch smallpox, it takes 125 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:26,600 Speaker 1: close contact with a person who is actively suffering from it, 126 00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:29,520 Speaker 1: which meant that people who cared for the ill were 127 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:33,040 Speaker 1: usually the ones who came down with it. Once a 128 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:36,520 Speaker 1: person comes down with smallpox and survives, they are conferred 129 00:08:36,559 --> 00:08:39,800 Speaker 1: a lifelong immunity to the disease, and even though they 130 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:42,640 Speaker 1: may still carry the virus, they aren't contagious to others. 131 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:47,920 Speaker 1: Even people who have never had smallpox before. By the 132 00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:52,520 Speaker 1: Middle Ages, smallpox had settled into Europe, becoming endemic, which 133 00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:55,600 Speaker 1: means it settled into the human population kind of made 134 00:08:55,640 --> 00:08:59,600 Speaker 1: itself comfortable. It went into hiding and made the rounds 135 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:01,679 Speaker 1: when new comers who had never been exposed to the 136 00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:05,000 Speaker 1: virus entered the towns of people who are already immune 137 00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:08,800 Speaker 1: to it. So in Europe smallpox became mostly a disease 138 00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:13,520 Speaker 1: of children and immigrants. The local adults had all either 139 00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:17,960 Speaker 1: died from it or survived it and become immune. Once 140 00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:21,600 Speaker 1: it became endemic, the mortality rate for smallpox hovered around 141 00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:25,199 Speaker 1: It killed about three out of every ten people who 142 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:28,840 Speaker 1: came in contact with it. But in the fifteenth century, 143 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:32,520 Speaker 1: Europe began to spill over its banks, and it brought 144 00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:35,520 Speaker 1: the disease to places that had never encountered it before. 145 00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:41,240 Speaker 1: West Africa was first visited by slave traders from Portugal 146 00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:45,120 Speaker 1: and Spain, who brought pandemics with them. Many of the 147 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:48,439 Speaker 1: villages that were rated had never been exposed to the disease, 148 00:09:48,720 --> 00:09:52,320 Speaker 1: and so it spread quickly. The people suffering those outbreaks 149 00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:54,839 Speaker 1: were stolen from their homes and they were taken to 150 00:09:54,920 --> 00:09:58,480 Speaker 1: holding camps along the coast, where the disease spread even 151 00:09:58,520 --> 00:10:02,400 Speaker 1: more quickly. Those people were forced onto ships while they 152 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:06,360 Speaker 1: were actively ill, making the horrific experience of being enslaved 153 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:10,679 Speaker 1: even more brutal. Each time a ship set sail from 154 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:14,880 Speaker 1: Africa to the America's over stuffed with people ill from smallpox, 155 00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:18,800 Speaker 1: it was like tossing a lit match onto a powder cake. 156 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:22,040 Speaker 1: At first, the ships were too slow to make it 157 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:24,760 Speaker 1: to the New World before the smallpox burned itself out. 158 00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:28,800 Speaker 1: The human cargo aboard were either no longer contagious what 159 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:31,319 Speaker 1: We're dead from it by the time they made land. 160 00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:36,480 Speaker 1: But as ocean going technology improved, those ships got faster, 161 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:40,360 Speaker 1: and eventually one of those matches stayed lit and it 162 00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:46,120 Speaker 1: set off the powder keg of the America's It is 163 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:49,959 Speaker 1: difficult to overstate the effect that European disease had on 164 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:54,240 Speaker 1: North and South America. Not just smallpox, but a number 165 00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:58,760 Speaker 1: of contagious disease began to rage at once, forming overlapping 166 00:10:58,840 --> 00:11:04,320 Speaker 1: epidemics called sindemics. The Native Americans had never been exposed 167 00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:07,120 Speaker 1: to these kinds of pathogens, and so they had no 168 00:11:07,320 --> 00:11:11,199 Speaker 1: natural defenses against them, which allowed the diseases to spread 169 00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:22,280 Speaker 1: at unimaginable rates. And kill untold numbers of people. It 170 00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:25,880 Speaker 1: appears to have all started in what is now Mexico City. 171 00:11:26,559 --> 00:11:29,560 Speaker 1: The Aztecs suffered losses of up to half of their 172 00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:34,200 Speaker 1: population when the Spanish brought smallpox. A short An African 173 00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:37,360 Speaker 1: slave whose name is lost to history, was suffering from 174 00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:40,400 Speaker 1: smallpox when he landed with an expedition led by the 175 00:11:40,440 --> 00:11:46,680 Speaker 1: conquistador Panfello de Navarrees. In writing five years after the 176 00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:50,800 Speaker 1: outbreak began, a Spanish fire who traveled to Mexico wrote 177 00:11:50,800 --> 00:11:55,880 Speaker 1: of the devastation the diet inhapes like bed box. Many 178 00:11:55,960 --> 00:11:58,800 Speaker 1: all theirs died of a starvation, because I said, we're 179 00:11:58,840 --> 00:12:01,480 Speaker 1: all taken secret of more. And they could not care 180 00:12:01,559 --> 00:12:04,439 Speaker 1: for each other, nor was there anyone to give them 181 00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:08,400 Speaker 1: bread or anything else. In many places it happened that 182 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:11,800 Speaker 1: everyone in the house died, and as it was impossible 183 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:14,719 Speaker 1: to vary the great number of dead, they pulled down 184 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:17,440 Speaker 1: their houses over them in order to check the stinch 185 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:20,440 Speaker 1: that rushed from the dead bodies, so that their homes 186 00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:27,600 Speaker 1: became their tombs. The disease spread like wildfire into the 187 00:12:27,679 --> 00:12:32,480 Speaker 1: interior of the American continent. In the America's smallpox found 188 00:12:32,520 --> 00:12:36,640 Speaker 1: what's called Virgin Territory a population that had no immunity, 189 00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:39,640 Speaker 1: so everyone who came in contact with it fell ill. 190 00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:43,079 Speaker 1: This left no one to care for people suffering from 191 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:47,560 Speaker 1: the disease, which increased the mortality right even further. As 192 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:50,360 Speaker 1: the sick fled their dead villages to look for helping 193 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:54,320 Speaker 1: others nearby, they brought the infection with them, and the 194 00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:58,680 Speaker 1: cycle of disease began again and again. This happened over 195 00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:02,439 Speaker 1: and over for centuries, leaving the Great Native American cultures 196 00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:07,160 Speaker 1: in rubble. Explorers who came in later waves found destroyed, 197 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:22,000 Speaker 1: abandoned settlements filled with the dead. In places the virus appeared, 198 00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:27,160 Speaker 1: the population fell by half two thirds. In some places, 199 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:31,200 Speaker 1: nine out of every ten members of the Native American 200 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:35,560 Speaker 1: groups in contact with the Massachusetts Bay settlers died from 201 00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:40,160 Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen to sixteen nineteen. The English Puritans, who arrived 202 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:42,959 Speaker 1: the following year took it that God had cleared the 203 00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:47,360 Speaker 1: land for them. During the sixteen thirties, half of the 204 00:13:47,440 --> 00:13:51,200 Speaker 1: Iroquois Confederation and the Huron around the Great Lakes died 205 00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:56,360 Speaker 1: half in a decade. A single seventeen thirty eight outbreak 206 00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:59,640 Speaker 1: killed half of the Cherokee tribe in the Carolinas and 207 00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:04,000 Speaker 1: george Ja. In real numbers, these epidemics killed hundreds of 208 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:08,120 Speaker 1: thousands to millions of people at a time. Imagine a 209 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:11,839 Speaker 1: disease that can kill off of the people in your town. 210 00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:17,200 Speaker 1: It's no wonder, then, that smallpox is considered one of 211 00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:21,800 Speaker 1: the deadliest viruses in the history of humanity. It is 212 00:14:21,800 --> 00:14:24,920 Speaker 1: credited with killing half a billion people in the twentieth 213 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:28,880 Speaker 1: century alone, the first eight tenths of the twentieth century, 214 00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:32,960 Speaker 1: I should say. Back in nineteen sixty six, the World 215 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:36,560 Speaker 1: Health Organization of the u N led a global vaccination 216 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:42,440 Speaker 1: campaign and by it declared smallpox eradicated from planet Earth. 217 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:46,560 Speaker 1: This is a pretty big deal. Along with a cattle 218 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:49,680 Speaker 1: disease called render pest that's related to the virus that 219 00:14:49,760 --> 00:14:54,320 Speaker 1: causes measles and humans, smallpox is the only contagious disease 220 00:14:54,640 --> 00:14:58,840 Speaker 1: humanity has ever managed to eradicate. Right now, there is 221 00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:02,000 Speaker 1: no living person earth who has a case of smallpox. 222 00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:05,120 Speaker 1: But that's not to say that the very ola virus 223 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:11,160 Speaker 1: isn't still alive and well after the eradication campaign, the 224 00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:14,560 Speaker 1: u N persuaded the global scientific community to give up 225 00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:18,920 Speaker 1: its stocks of smallpox, and they were almost entirely successful, 226 00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:22,000 Speaker 1: save for two nations which just happened to be the 227 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:25,560 Speaker 1: two most powerful on the planet, the nuclear superpowers the 228 00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:30,240 Speaker 1: Soviet Union in the United States. Those two nations decided 229 00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:32,560 Speaker 1: that it would be better for them to keep their 230 00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:37,880 Speaker 1: stocks rather than destroy them. Ostensibly this was for scientific research, 231 00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:41,840 Speaker 1: but both nations have been known to run illegal biological 232 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:45,720 Speaker 1: warfare programs, and the idea of them maintaining stocks of 233 00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:49,640 Speaker 1: smallpox made the rest of the world uneasy. But this 234 00:15:49,800 --> 00:15:52,560 Speaker 1: being the height of the Cold War, no other nation 235 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:55,760 Speaker 1: was in much of a position to argue, so all 236 00:15:55,800 --> 00:15:59,320 Speaker 1: smallpox samples on Earth would be stored under secure conditions 237 00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:03,360 Speaker 1: in two occasions. In Russia, they are stored at the 238 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:08,280 Speaker 1: State Center for Research on Virology and Biotechnology in Siberia. 239 00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:10,760 Speaker 1: In the US, they are held at the Centers for 240 00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:16,080 Speaker 1: Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Those two stockpiles still 241 00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:21,080 Speaker 1: exist today. On a number of occasions, the U n 242 00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:25,400 Speaker 1: again called for those stockpiles to be destroyed in two 243 00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:29,240 Speaker 1: thousand seven and most recently in two thousand eleven, and 244 00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:32,440 Speaker 1: it also tried to create a global agreement that once 245 00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:36,760 Speaker 1: those final stocks were destroyed, any nation caught with smallpox 246 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:41,160 Speaker 1: could be charged with the crime against humanity. Unfortunately, in 247 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:45,760 Speaker 1: all cases, the un failed and the smallpox stocks remained intact. 248 00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:51,280 Speaker 1: Contagious disease researchers are divided on the wisdom of keeping 249 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,120 Speaker 1: these stocks. The US and Russia continue to argue that 250 00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:58,360 Speaker 1: we need to study Bariola so we can understand how 251 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:03,160 Speaker 1: the virus coevolved with our immune system. Hopefully we can 252 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:07,119 Speaker 1: use that knowledge to cure and prevent other diseases. The 253 00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:11,360 Speaker 1: logic goes that if nature made smallpox from say, camel pox, 254 00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:16,280 Speaker 1: it could create another pox on humanity. Studying smallpox could 255 00:17:16,320 --> 00:17:20,480 Speaker 1: help us prepare for that. To plenty of other researchers, though, 256 00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:23,639 Speaker 1: eradicating the very ola virus from the wild only to 257 00:17:23,720 --> 00:17:27,800 Speaker 1: keep hundreds of samples of it in laboratories is madness. 258 00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:32,600 Speaker 1: But regardless of where contagious disease researchers fall on the matter, 259 00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:36,880 Speaker 1: most dismissed the idea of a small pox epidemic as 260 00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:40,640 Speaker 1: being a genuine threat to humanity. It could be utterly 261 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:44,359 Speaker 1: catastrophic for any community where the virus showed up, true, 262 00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:48,720 Speaker 1: and that is bad enough. But because smallpox requires close 263 00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:52,800 Speaker 1: contact for transmission, it would be relatively easy to contain 264 00:17:52,840 --> 00:17:55,760 Speaker 1: an outbreak and cut off the possibility of a pandemic. 265 00:17:56,520 --> 00:18:00,120 Speaker 1: It almost certainly does not pose an existential threat to humanity. 266 00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:04,480 Speaker 1: One that does, the one that keeps researchers awake at night, 267 00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:20,000 Speaker 1: is the flu. Influenza is a common virus among humans. 268 00:18:20,560 --> 00:18:27,160 Speaker 1: It also infects a lot of other animals too, like pigs, birds, seals, bats, horses, rodents, 269 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:31,520 Speaker 1: among others. The different types of flu are described and 270 00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:35,000 Speaker 1: classified based on the two types of proteins found on 271 00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:40,440 Speaker 1: the viruses outer envelope he magluten in and neuraminides. It's 272 00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:44,879 Speaker 1: called the h X n Y naming convention, so you 273 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,000 Speaker 1: end up with flu names like H five and two. 274 00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:52,119 Speaker 1: The flu typically has one of two traits when it 275 00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:56,920 Speaker 1: comes to infecting us. It's either extremely deadly or it's 276 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:01,680 Speaker 1: extremely contagious. But once in a while, those two traits 277 00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:05,640 Speaker 1: co evolved within a single virus, and the results can 278 00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:13,720 Speaker 1: be catastrophic. November eleventh, nineteen eighteen, was a chilly, drizzly 279 00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:17,200 Speaker 1: day in Compiegne, a town in the north of France, 280 00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:21,119 Speaker 1: where representatives of the Allied Nations met with the leaders 281 00:19:21,119 --> 00:19:24,119 Speaker 1: of Germany to sign the armistice that ended the First 282 00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:28,600 Speaker 1: World War from nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen, what was 283 00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:31,160 Speaker 1: then called the Great War, claimed the lives of more 284 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:37,080 Speaker 1: than eighteen million people, soldiers and civilians. But as the 285 00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:41,879 Speaker 1: armistice was being signed, another even deadlier killer than warfare 286 00:19:42,359 --> 00:19:45,160 Speaker 1: was making short work of human lives around the globe. 287 00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:50,600 Speaker 1: Type A H one and one influenza, the Spanish flu. 288 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:56,960 Speaker 1: In the span of just four months from September through 289 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:03,919 Speaker 1: December eighteen, fifty million people perhaps more died around the 290 00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:08,439 Speaker 1: world from this new and deadly strain of flu. It 291 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:12,160 Speaker 1: killed like a bird flu and spread like a seasonal flu, 292 00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:17,080 Speaker 1: and those two qualities combined made it an extraordinarily dangerous virus. 293 00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:21,280 Speaker 1: As much as one third of the entire population of 294 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:25,359 Speaker 1: the world was infected by it that season. It took 295 00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:29,160 Speaker 1: its heaviest toll on the young people under twenty five, 296 00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:32,159 Speaker 1: whose immune systems had never been exposed to an H 297 00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:35,920 Speaker 1: one and one strain before. Many young people who had 298 00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:40,080 Speaker 1: been the picture of health just days before died suffocating 299 00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:42,600 Speaker 1: on a bloody froth that they were too weak to 300 00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:47,000 Speaker 1: cough from their airways. In some cases, people died within 301 00:20:47,119 --> 00:20:52,200 Speaker 1: hours of their symptoms first appearing, then just as fast 302 00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:55,720 Speaker 1: as it began. The epidemic ended by the summer of 303 00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:59,640 Speaker 1: nineteen the flu had burned itself through the global population, 304 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:03,800 Speaker 1: and it disappeared. It almost certainly evolved into a new 305 00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:06,679 Speaker 1: strain of flu that was far less deadly, and for 306 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:10,119 Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, the Spanish flu that had been 307 00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:14,960 Speaker 1: such a killer of people went extinct. Where the Spanish 308 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:19,000 Speaker 1: flu came from remains a mystery. Initially, it was thought 309 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,360 Speaker 1: to have originated in Spain, hence the name. Other research 310 00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:27,960 Speaker 1: that came later implicated China. China and Southeast Asia are 311 00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:31,280 Speaker 1: commonly the source of bird flues the type that includes 312 00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:35,680 Speaker 1: the Spanish flu. But one theory traces the eighteen flu 313 00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:38,879 Speaker 1: back to Haskell County, Missouri, to one of the area's 314 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:44,360 Speaker 1: plentiful chicken farms, where it disappeared to is equally mysterious. 315 00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:49,199 Speaker 1: For decades, researchers pined for a sample of the eighteen 316 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,639 Speaker 1: strain to study in search of answers to questions about it. 317 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:56,119 Speaker 1: The Spanish flu was the one that got away, a 318 00:21:56,200 --> 00:22:00,840 Speaker 1: vicious killer that the epidemiological and medical communities were helpless 319 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,840 Speaker 1: to defend against, leaving no trace of itself aside from 320 00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:10,600 Speaker 1: the dead in its wake. And then in nine microbiologist 321 00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:14,560 Speaker 1: Johann Holton recovered a sample of the nineteen eighteen Spanish 322 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:18,320 Speaker 1: flu from where it was entombed in the Alaskan tundra. 323 00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:24,000 Speaker 1: The tiny town of Brevig Mission, Alaska, had just eighty 324 00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:27,240 Speaker 1: residents when the Spanish flu came to town in nineteen eighteen, 325 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:31,399 Speaker 1: mostly Native and up at Eskimos. In just a couple 326 00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:35,879 Speaker 1: of months, seventy two of the eighty died. A group 327 00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,800 Speaker 1: of gold miners were hired by the survivors to come 328 00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,720 Speaker 1: dig a mass grave for the bodies and enter them 329 00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:46,680 Speaker 1: in the perma frost. They lay undisturbed until nineteen fifty one. 330 00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:51,520 Speaker 1: That year, Johan Holton arrived and asked the tribe's permission 331 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,600 Speaker 1: to break the grave open. In their frozen tomb, the 332 00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:59,920 Speaker 1: victims were preserved mummified in a way, and Holton reasoned 333 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:02,400 Speaker 1: that the flu virus that killed them maybe as well. 334 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:06,600 Speaker 1: Through a slow process. In nineteen fifty one and then 335 00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:11,919 Speaker 1: again in Holton opened the grave twice. He built a 336 00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,560 Speaker 1: fire to thaw the permafrost below, Then he excavated the 337 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:19,320 Speaker 1: thawed soil. When he reached frozen ground again, he built 338 00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:24,920 Speaker 1: another fire. Finally, on his second attempt, in he managed 339 00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:28,320 Speaker 1: to call a living sample of the H one and 340 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:31,440 Speaker 1: one virus from the lung tissue of one of its 341 00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:36,679 Speaker 1: preserved victims. In a few years, researchers cobbled together the 342 00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,879 Speaker 1: genome of the virus. They synthesized it, and inserted the 343 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:46,600 Speaker 1: genetic material into a living cell. The Spanish flu lived 344 00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,840 Speaker 1: once more. That researcher thought that was a useful line 345 00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:56,199 Speaker 1: of inquiry, and there were other researchers who vehemently disagreed 346 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:02,280 Speaker 1: and thought it was a um an extraordinarily reckless thing 347 00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:06,600 Speaker 1: to do. That is Beth Willis. She founded an organization 348 00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:11,960 Speaker 1: that agitated for increased transparency from the government's biological labs 349 00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:17,040 Speaker 1: in Frederick, Maryland, her community. The biotech field is not 350 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:21,920 Speaker 1: like other fields that pose existential risks. Like other fields, 351 00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:24,760 Speaker 1: the research is dual use. It can be used to 352 00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:29,080 Speaker 1: help or harm humanity. But unlike research in other fields 353 00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:32,080 Speaker 1: like AI, which has yet to become clear to most 354 00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:36,080 Speaker 1: people that it poses an existential risk, working with deadly 355 00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:40,600 Speaker 1: pathogens is understood as dangerous work by people inside the 356 00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:46,439 Speaker 1: biotech field and out. There's no ambiguity. But despite the 357 00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:50,560 Speaker 1: inherent danger of working with deadly pathogens. The field has 358 00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:54,600 Speaker 1: shown that it's willing to take potentially catastrophic risks in 359 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,520 Speaker 1: the name of research, and it's frequently divided over what 360 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:03,359 Speaker 1: risks are acceptable and which are not. One area that 361 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:08,240 Speaker 1: divides the field is gain of function research. Wherever the 362 00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,920 Speaker 1: Spanish flu came from, it almost certainly evolved from an 363 00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:15,119 Speaker 1: avian variety of flu that mixed with one more common 364 00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:20,040 Speaker 1: to humans through a process called reassortment. That's the ability 365 00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,639 Speaker 1: of viruses to swap genetic material with other viruses that 366 00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:27,000 Speaker 1: are also living in the same host. What comes out 367 00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,760 Speaker 1: can be a virus that is a genetic failure, which 368 00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,240 Speaker 1: may be unable to survive or copy itself, or it 369 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,600 Speaker 1: could produce a deadly inefficient killer of humans. It's a 370 00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:40,840 Speaker 1: genetic crap shoot. When a virus mutates or adapts in 371 00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,200 Speaker 1: some way that makes it more efficient at infecting hosts, 372 00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:48,760 Speaker 1: it is said to have gained function. Studying these mutations, 373 00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:53,200 Speaker 1: how they take place, what mutations lead to which characteristics. 374 00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:57,880 Speaker 1: That's gain of function research. By studying how influenza evolves, 375 00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:02,879 Speaker 1: epidemiologists can get better at predicting what flu viruses have 376 00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:08,040 Speaker 1: pandemic potential before they reach that level of deadliness, and 377 00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:10,960 Speaker 1: there are two ways to do this. The most common 378 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:14,560 Speaker 1: method is to capture wild flu viruses in store them 379 00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:19,439 Speaker 1: in a state of suspended animation, which usually involves freezing them. 380 00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,360 Speaker 1: Later on, when new viruses are caught that have evolved 381 00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,280 Speaker 1: from that same genetic line, researchers can compare the genomes 382 00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,160 Speaker 1: of the older strain to the current strain and see 383 00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:33,400 Speaker 1: how the virus has mutated. This is slow and laborious 384 00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:37,200 Speaker 1: work and frustrating lee it relies on the rate of 385 00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:42,320 Speaker 1: nature for evolutionary changes to take place, so some researchers 386 00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:46,960 Speaker 1: are increasingly using another method where they hasten evolution and 387 00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,040 Speaker 1: they forced the mutation of new and novel flu strains 388 00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:55,040 Speaker 1: to study gain a function. Research itself is uh effort 389 00:26:55,080 --> 00:27:02,320 Speaker 1: by researchers to increase the virulence or the infectiousness of 390 00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:09,399 Speaker 1: a panthogen and potentially to decrease its ability to respond 391 00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:15,800 Speaker 1: to countermeasures to treatment. That second, riskier method has become 392 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:20,439 Speaker 1: a hot button issue in microbiology lately. In two thousand eleven, 393 00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:25,480 Speaker 1: two separate research groups working independently, one Dutch and one American, 394 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,480 Speaker 1: stunned the world when they announced that each had forced 395 00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,359 Speaker 1: the mutation of an extremely deadly strain of flu, the 396 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:38,080 Speaker 1: H five and one avian flu, and created an entirely 397 00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:42,199 Speaker 1: new version that is easily transmitted from mammal to mammal. 398 00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:47,600 Speaker 1: In nature, the H five N one virus mainly infects birds. 399 00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,320 Speaker 1: It has rarely made the jump to humans, and even 400 00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:53,439 Speaker 1: then only to those who have spent prolonged periods in 401 00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:58,000 Speaker 1: close contact with sick birds, like poultry workers when it 402 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,800 Speaker 1: has made the jump. Though the virus has been astoundingly lethal, 403 00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:05,760 Speaker 1: H five and one has a mortality rate among humans 404 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:10,840 Speaker 1: of between sixty eight. The only upside to H five 405 00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,000 Speaker 1: and one is that it doesn't easily spread among people. 406 00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,119 Speaker 1: In the late nine nineties, the world held its breath 407 00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,320 Speaker 1: when several hundred cases of H five and one avian 408 00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:25,119 Speaker 1: flu broke out among poultry workers in Asia, but the 409 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,520 Speaker 1: global avian flu pandemic never came, and aside from the 410 00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,879 Speaker 1: obvious that the virus just simply lack the ability to 411 00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,640 Speaker 1: transmit from person to person, researchers couldn't exactly say why 412 00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:42,680 Speaker 1: the pandemic never happened, So microbiologists began to look for 413 00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:46,560 Speaker 1: answers by forcing a gain of function in H five 414 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,160 Speaker 1: and one. One of the two groups that did this 415 00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,520 Speaker 1: was from the University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. They 416 00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:58,880 Speaker 1: forced multiple mutations within the virus, speeding up its evolution, 417 00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,320 Speaker 1: and then inserted the mutated virus into the noses of ferrets. 418 00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,920 Speaker 1: Ferrets are commonly seen as one of the best animals 419 00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:11,320 Speaker 1: to model humans. Then they transferred nasal fluid from those 420 00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:16,040 Speaker 1: infected ferrets to the noses of other ferrets. That second 421 00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:20,520 Speaker 1: group of ferrets became sick as expected, but alarmingly, the 422 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,800 Speaker 1: second group passed the virus along to others without the 423 00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:29,120 Speaker 1: aid of researchers through sneezes and costs, just like humans would. 424 00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,640 Speaker 1: That really alarmed the virology community. I would say that 425 00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,080 Speaker 1: at least four to one people are against doing that 426 00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:39,360 Speaker 1: kind of research. This is Dr Lynn Clots. He's a 427 00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,960 Speaker 1: senior Science Fellow for Biosecurity at the Center for Arms 428 00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:47,280 Speaker 1: Control and Non Proliferation. Those two labs had brought to 429 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,600 Speaker 1: life a novel lab created strain of one of the 430 00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,400 Speaker 1: deadliest flus known on Earth and given it the entirely 431 00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:58,800 Speaker 1: new ability to pass easily from person to person, and 432 00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:05,960 Speaker 1: now it's sat in their freezers. When the labs announced 433 00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:11,640 Speaker 1: their experiments, outrage erupted. In reaction, the field of microbiology 434 00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:15,080 Speaker 1: issued a two year long ban on high risk experiments 435 00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,800 Speaker 1: with flu viruses, and the fault line developed between scientists 436 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,040 Speaker 1: who believed that force mutation gain of function research was 437 00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,800 Speaker 1: needed and necessary to stave off potential pandemics and those 438 00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:32,280 Speaker 1: who considered the research unjustifiably risky. The people who carried 439 00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:36,680 Speaker 1: out these experiments were cowboys, in the words of one microbiologist. 440 00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:41,720 Speaker 1: There was also the issue of censorship. Both of the 441 00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:45,560 Speaker 1: experiments were expected to be published, which would provide, in 442 00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,640 Speaker 1: the opinion of some researchers, essentially a how to guide 443 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,960 Speaker 1: to creating the experimental extraordinarily deadly virus. So there were 444 00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,960 Speaker 1: calls for the two major English language scientific journals, Science 445 00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,600 Speaker 1: and Nature not to publish the studies, and those calls 446 00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:07,760 Speaker 1: were heated for a time. But scientists tend to bristle 447 00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,920 Speaker 1: at the idea of science being censored, and understandably so, 448 00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,720 Speaker 1: findings are meant to be shared among everyone in order 449 00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:20,320 Speaker 1: to advance human understanding. That's how science works. The trouble is, 450 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:24,600 Speaker 1: once it's out there, the information can be accessed by anyone, 451 00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:28,000 Speaker 1: including people who would use it to inflict harm, and 452 00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,080 Speaker 1: in the case of the detailed description of exactly how 453 00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,520 Speaker 1: to transform H five and one virus into one that 454 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,440 Speaker 1: is easily transmitted among mammals, that harm could be profound. 455 00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,680 Speaker 1: The experiments were the very definition of dual use research. 456 00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:48,880 Speaker 1: But repressed knowledge has a way of getting out, regardless 457 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,560 Speaker 1: of our greatest efforts, a point that was proven shortly 458 00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:56,600 Speaker 1: after the moratorium ended when a team of microbiologists in 459 00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,680 Speaker 1: China announced they had successfully crossed the hive and one 460 00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:04,640 Speaker 1: virus with the less deadly but easily transmitted H one 461 00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:09,600 Speaker 1: and one virus, creating a genetically altered superbug of their own. 462 00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:13,400 Speaker 1: If any of the virus is created by the Chinese, 463 00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,760 Speaker 1: American or Dutch groups were introduced into the general population, 464 00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:22,960 Speaker 1: the effects would be monumentally bad, potentially on the order 465 00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:28,400 Speaker 1: of an extinction level event for humanity, and so with 466 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,880 Speaker 1: the aim of preventing just such a catastrophe, the field 467 00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,520 Speaker 1: of biosecurity has emerged to consider how something like that 468 00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:39,959 Speaker 1: could happen. There is the obvious, the ever looming specter 469 00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:44,080 Speaker 1: of terrorism. A radicalized lab employee or one who is 470 00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:48,600 Speaker 1: desperate for money, a disgruntled researcher or someone looking to 471 00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,320 Speaker 1: prove their abilities. Any of these people could make an 472 00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:55,480 Speaker 1: excellent candidate for the release of what are called potential 473 00:32:55,600 --> 00:33:00,440 Speaker 1: pandemic pathogens, which are exactly what they sound like. Some 474 00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,760 Speaker 1: biosecurity experts are also concerned that some of the smallpox 475 00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:10,840 Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union stockpiles was lost after the country dissolved. Really, though, 476 00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,640 Speaker 1: a bio terrorists doesn't need to have access to a 477 00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:18,200 Speaker 1: lab that stockpiles pathogens. The main concern over publishing that 478 00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,400 Speaker 1: H five and one how to Guide the journal Science 479 00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,960 Speaker 1: eventually published it in full, was that the information would 480 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,960 Speaker 1: fall into the hands of someone well versed in microbiology 481 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,960 Speaker 1: with enough resources and few enough scruples to create the 482 00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:37,040 Speaker 1: virus outside of any formal lab or oversight and then 483 00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:43,920 Speaker 1: release it. That idea is rather unsettling, but many microbiologists 484 00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,640 Speaker 1: considered it barely more than an urban legend, something the 485 00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,840 Speaker 1: media ran with to scare the public into watching the news. 486 00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,800 Speaker 1: That is until two thousand and sixteen, when scientists from 487 00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,240 Speaker 1: the University of Alberta announced that they had created the 488 00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:03,720 Speaker 1: virus that as his horse pox from scratch, using only 489 00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:08,600 Speaker 1: snippets of genetic material called oglio nucleotides that they ordered 490 00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:12,760 Speaker 1: retail over the internet. It costs the team a hundred 491 00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,120 Speaker 1: thousand dollars and took six months to create a living, 492 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:22,440 Speaker 1: infectious virus. The University of Alberta experiment showed that it 493 00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:25,719 Speaker 1: was now possible for a d I Y biologist to 494 00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:30,480 Speaker 1: create viruses in bacteria through the emerging field of synthetic biology. 495 00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:35,759 Speaker 1: Rather than attempting expensive and time consuming experiments to force 496 00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,880 Speaker 1: mutations in a virus over and over and hope that 497 00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:42,080 Speaker 1: it evolves in a way that you wanted to, synthetic 498 00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:46,000 Speaker 1: biology allows researchers to create exactly the kind of organism 499 00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:50,240 Speaker 1: they're looking for by designing and building it denovo, which 500 00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:55,759 Speaker 1: essentially means in Latin from scratch. Synthetic biology emerged from 501 00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,920 Speaker 1: genetic engineering, which revolutionized the world by creating the ability 502 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:05,560 Speaker 1: to cut and splice genes between organisms. Synthetic biology combines 503 00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:10,000 Speaker 1: genetic engineering with the goal of streamlining life into a 504 00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:14,280 Speaker 1: more predictable, reliable, efficient version of what's found in nature. 505 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,480 Speaker 1: What synthetic biology does actually is make literal use of 506 00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:25,040 Speaker 1: the building blocks of life. Eventually, synthetic biology aims to 507 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,919 Speaker 1: create a database of genomic codes that, when inserted into 508 00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:33,440 Speaker 1: an organism will produce a predictable trait. So this snippet 509 00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,000 Speaker 1: is a gene that codes for proteins that creates bioluminescence, 510 00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:39,759 Speaker 1: and when you insert it into E. Col I, it 511 00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,920 Speaker 1: will make the bacterium glow like a firefly, which is 512 00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:47,960 Speaker 1: pretty neat. The common analogy is lego bricks. The synthetic 513 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:52,880 Speaker 1: biology community calls their genetic snippets bio bricks, but instead 514 00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:58,239 Speaker 1: of plastic blocks, synthetic biologists use genes snapped together, as 515 00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:02,840 Speaker 1: it were, to radically alter existing species, or to even 516 00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:08,520 Speaker 1: create entirely new ones that have never existed before. Synthetic 517 00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:13,960 Speaker 1: biology will eventually democratize biotechnology, making it easier for people 518 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:18,040 Speaker 1: to enter the field, and this effort is already underway. 519 00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,560 Speaker 1: M I T maintains a database of bio bricks that 520 00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:25,040 Speaker 1: anyone can access. Find the gene that produces the trade 521 00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,480 Speaker 1: you're looking for, copy the genomic code of that gene, 522 00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,480 Speaker 1: and paste it into the order form of an online 523 00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:35,600 Speaker 1: genetic synthesis lab. They will produce those snippets of DNA 524 00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,840 Speaker 1: or glio nucleotides from simple sugars, which you can then 525 00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:43,920 Speaker 1: insert into a host organism, transforming it into a creation 526 00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:49,759 Speaker 1: utterly outside of nature. This ability to create organisms from 527 00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:55,080 Speaker 1: scratch at home basically could be very beneficial for humanity, 528 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,200 Speaker 1: but it also poses huge new risks that have yet 529 00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:03,840 Speaker 1: to be explored. Still, the idea of something like a 530 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:09,160 Speaker 1: rogue biologist creating a lethal virus DiNovo and releasing it 531 00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:14,080 Speaker 1: under the human population occupies a very small place among 532 00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,680 Speaker 1: the worries of people in the bio security field. An 533 00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:32,839 Speaker 1: accidental release, they say, is much more likely. Imagine that 534 00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,759 Speaker 1: you're working in a bio safety level for research lab 535 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:41,520 Speaker 1: that's the highest level containment facilitians, and you don't notice 536 00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,759 Speaker 1: that the space suit you're wearing in the lab has 537 00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:48,239 Speaker 1: a small terr in it. While you're working with a 538 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,799 Speaker 1: genetically altered virus. You don't notice that it comes in 539 00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:55,560 Speaker 1: contact with the bare skin of your hand. After leaving 540 00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,640 Speaker 1: the lab, you take off your suit and you scratch 541 00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,680 Speaker 1: an itch around your nostril with your infected hand, and 542 00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:06,600 Speaker 1: the virus makes its toy into your body. You are 543 00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:12,400 Speaker 1: now infected. This particular virus has been altered to have 544 00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:16,480 Speaker 1: a short incubation period, the time between when you're infected 545 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:21,120 Speaker 1: and when you can infect other people. Inside your lung tissue, 546 00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:25,080 Speaker 1: the virus has entered a respiratory cell and injected its 547 00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:29,800 Speaker 1: own genetic material. The cell begins to replicate the virus. 548 00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:32,960 Speaker 1: In the matter of a second, a million or more 549 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:36,800 Speaker 1: copies of the virus are produced. They rupture the hijack 550 00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:41,640 Speaker 1: cell and spread out, infecting other nearby respiratory cells, where 551 00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:47,760 Speaker 1: the process begins again. Now you're contagious. With each breath 552 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:52,680 Speaker 1: you expel respiratory aerosols water vapor laced with the virus 553 00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:57,000 Speaker 1: from your body into the air where others breathe. Your 554 00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:01,160 Speaker 1: saliva and your nasal fluid are both infectious, but with 555 00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,240 Speaker 1: this particular virus. The time between when you become infectious 556 00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:08,000 Speaker 1: and the padrome, the time when you first begin to 557 00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:12,000 Speaker 1: feel symptoms, is more than twenty four hours, And during 558 00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:15,760 Speaker 1: that time you live your life. You take the subway 559 00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,200 Speaker 1: to work and back. You hold onto poles in the 560 00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:23,600 Speaker 1: train cars. You chat and laugh with your coworkers. You 561 00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:27,120 Speaker 1: spend time with friends in a crowded bar. All the 562 00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:32,800 Speaker 1: while you shake hands, give hugs, touch door handles, breathe, laugh, 563 00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:38,200 Speaker 1: You spread the virus to other people. By the time 564 00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,560 Speaker 1: the first signs of illness appear, you have infected five 565 00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,719 Speaker 1: of the people you've come in contact with. Each of 566 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,719 Speaker 1: those people spread out and infect an average of three 567 00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:52,000 Speaker 1: more people, and so on and so on. Some of 568 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:58,200 Speaker 1: those infected people have business overseas in Europe, South America, Asia, 569 00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:02,680 Speaker 1: they leave the country, they cough in airplanes, they shake 570 00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:06,440 Speaker 1: hands too, they drink from cups that get cleared away. 571 00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:10,280 Speaker 1: They spread the virus to other people around the world. 572 00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,000 Speaker 1: Each of the infected people creates a new branch in 573 00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:19,840 Speaker 1: an ever expanding chain of infection that epidemiologists have a 574 00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:25,000 Speaker 1: very short time to contain. If that genetically altered virus 575 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:31,560 Speaker 1: is easily spread, the epidemiologists may fail a pandemic magnite, 576 00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:35,400 Speaker 1: and if that virus is also highly virulent with a 577 00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:40,160 Speaker 1: high mortality rate, the pandemic could be an existential threat. 578 00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,960 Speaker 1: What makes this worst case scenario so unnerving is the 579 00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:52,000 Speaker 1: biotech field's real life track record of accidental releases. In 580 00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:55,520 Speaker 1: addition to a willingness to take huge risks in its research, 581 00:40:55,960 --> 00:41:01,200 Speaker 1: the field is also dangerously accident prone. That very situation 582 00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,920 Speaker 1: I've just described happened in two thousand four when a 583 00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,520 Speaker 1: worker handling the coronavirus at a c DC lab in 584 00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:14,240 Speaker 1: Beijing became infective with Stars, a deadly and contagious respiratory illness. 585 00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,319 Speaker 1: Although the virus killed only one person, it managed to 586 00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:20,719 Speaker 1: make it all the way to Hong Kong and Canada 587 00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:25,280 Speaker 1: before it was contained. The two thousand four Stars outbreak 588 00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:32,680 Speaker 1: resulted from an incorrectly inactivated virus in a biosafety level 589 00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,080 Speaker 1: three or four lab. The suits that workers have to 590 00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:39,080 Speaker 1: wear and the safety equipment they have to use is 591 00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:43,920 Speaker 1: cumbersome to say the least, but those protocols are necessary 592 00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:48,000 Speaker 1: for handling the deadliest pathogens, both to prevent the people 593 00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,680 Speaker 1: working with those pathogens from getting infected and to prevent 594 00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:55,760 Speaker 1: the pathogens from escaping the lab. So to get around 595 00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,919 Speaker 1: those highest level safety protocols, labs sometimes kill the path 596 00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,520 Speaker 1: legions they're working with, say by exposing them to dry 597 00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:08,400 Speaker 1: heat or changing their pH but the virus or bacterium 598 00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:13,000 Speaker 1: itself remains intact, so since it's now dead, it can 599 00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:16,680 Speaker 1: be rendered non infectious and studied in a lower level 600 00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:21,480 Speaker 1: containment lab, where safety requirements are much less stringent, making 601 00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:26,800 Speaker 1: the pathogen easier to work with. The problem is inactivation 602 00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:32,360 Speaker 1: isn't always effective. Some viruses simply don't die, and the 603 00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:38,239 Speaker 1: process is prone to human error. Accidental releases of incorrectly 604 00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:44,239 Speaker 1: inactivated viruses is disturbingly common. In fact, labs that work 605 00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:49,360 Speaker 1: with potential pandemic pathogens have a breathtakingly bad record of 606 00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:54,319 Speaker 1: accidental releases of all kinds. Just to pick a few, 607 00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:59,879 Speaker 1: in the flu season featured a strain of H one 608 00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,240 Speaker 1: and one that was almost genetically identical to a strain 609 00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,920 Speaker 1: that had last made the rounds about three decades earlier. 610 00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:11,839 Speaker 1: In evolutionary terms for a virus, three decades is an 611 00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:16,520 Speaker 1: epoch to us, any strain related to one from NIF 612 00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,319 Speaker 1: should have mutated so many times that it was no 613 00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:24,319 Speaker 1: longer even remotely possible it could be genetically identical to 614 00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:29,960 Speaker 1: the previous one. For years, scientists puzzled over this surprise reappearance, 615 00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,319 Speaker 1: considering and discarding theories, until they finally came to an 616 00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:39,680 Speaker 1: unsettling conclusion. The only reasonable way such a thing could 617 00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,160 Speaker 1: have happened as if the virus had entered some form 618 00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:47,640 Speaker 1: of suspended animation and then made its way back into nature, 619 00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:52,480 Speaker 1: and the most reasonable explanation for that was that it 620 00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:56,360 Speaker 1: had been frozen and kept in a lab and then released. 621 00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:01,680 Speaker 1: Researchers eventually settled on the theory that the strain had 622 00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:06,320 Speaker 1: probably been released in a vaccine that wasn't inactivated properly. 623 00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:11,239 Speaker 1: The result created a pandemic. Fortunately it was not a 624 00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:15,920 Speaker 1: particularly deadly one. Exactly what lab the virus came from 625 00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:21,839 Speaker 1: has never been fully proven. The next year, a photographer 626 00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:24,799 Speaker 1: working at the University of Birmingham Medical School in the 627 00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:29,240 Speaker 1: UK caught smallpox and her mother, who cared for her, died. 628 00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,880 Speaker 1: She had contracted it from a lab one floor below. 629 00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,720 Speaker 1: The smallpox had traveled through the air duct into her office. 630 00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:42,880 Speaker 1: And in nine in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk, sixty 631 00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,760 Speaker 1: four people died of anthrax infections after an air filter 632 00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,960 Speaker 1: was removed and not immediately replaced in a lab that 633 00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:55,600 Speaker 1: was working on illegal weaponized anthrax bacteria, which was carried 634 00:44:55,760 --> 00:45:00,440 Speaker 1: into a village down wind. It was ex it's like 635 00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:04,200 Speaker 1: these that led to the creation of those high biosafety 636 00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,840 Speaker 1: level labs and the use of space suits when conducting 637 00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:13,600 Speaker 1: research with the deadliest pathogens, which makes sense in the 638 00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,560 Speaker 1: U s Department of Agriculture created a list of the 639 00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,720 Speaker 1: deadliest pathogens, which the U S d A calls biological 640 00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:24,560 Speaker 1: and select agents, and the Centers for Disease Control took 641 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:29,080 Speaker 1: responsibility for monitoring the labs that work with them. But 642 00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:32,520 Speaker 1: it wasn't until two thousand one that bs L three 643 00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:36,279 Speaker 1: and bs L four labs really began to spread. There 644 00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,279 Speaker 1: weren't very many of them until two thousand and one 645 00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:44,160 Speaker 1: and after the anthrax letters, which came from Frederick, where 646 00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,960 Speaker 1: I live, which is how I got engaged in this issue. 647 00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:52,360 Speaker 1: After that time we went from just a few labs 648 00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,840 Speaker 1: to a large number, a very large number of labs. 649 00:45:56,880 --> 00:46:03,520 Speaker 1: It mushroomed tremendously UM with the assumption that um, we 650 00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:05,440 Speaker 1: had to do a lot of research because of the 651 00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:09,879 Speaker 1: threat of bioterrorism. But of course the only incidents we've 652 00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,040 Speaker 1: ever experience came from one of our own labs. In 653 00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:18,160 Speaker 1: two thousand one, just a week after the September eleventh attacks, 654 00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:23,240 Speaker 1: members of Congress and the media began receiving strange letters 655 00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:28,120 Speaker 1: with a white powder. Inside the powder was spores of 656 00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:33,600 Speaker 1: Bacillus and thracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax. It had 657 00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:38,239 Speaker 1: been weaponized to make it more easily inhaled and therefore infectious. 658 00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,800 Speaker 1: Twenty two people were infected by the spores, and five 659 00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,880 Speaker 1: of them died. In in America already gripped by panic. 660 00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,680 Speaker 1: The anthrax letters had a profound impact on the country's psyche, 661 00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:55,319 Speaker 1: and it turns out that the source of the anthrax 662 00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:59,680 Speaker 1: was actually a a lab at for Dietrich a scientists 663 00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:03,560 Speaker 1: there who really was somewhat mentally unstable, and I think 664 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,759 Speaker 1: people should have known it. Uh, he was responsible for 665 00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,400 Speaker 1: spreading that anthrax. I think that just scared the hell 666 00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,680 Speaker 1: out of everybody. The problem is that even with the 667 00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:16,879 Speaker 1: creation of BSL three and four labs, with their astounding 668 00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:21,080 Speaker 1: array of precautionary equipment and procedures, the twenty one century 669 00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:24,759 Speaker 1: has still seen a lot of high profile accidents from 670 00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:30,000 Speaker 1: these labs. Between two thousand four and two, there were 671 00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:35,360 Speaker 1: six hundred and thirty nine reported accidental releases of pathogens 672 00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,359 Speaker 1: found on the U s d A's list of Biological 673 00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:43,760 Speaker 1: select agents and toxins. Bacteria and viruses like the Ebola 674 00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,640 Speaker 1: virus and the bacteria that causes the plague the virus 675 00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:51,640 Speaker 1: that causes stars are all on the list. Those six 676 00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:55,239 Speaker 1: hundred and thirty nine accidents represent just the ones that 677 00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:59,800 Speaker 1: were reported, and only then among those publicly funded labs 678 00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:04,480 Speaker 1: that are required to report such accidents. Labs that don't 679 00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:08,360 Speaker 1: receive public funding like those run by corporations or private groups, 680 00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:14,560 Speaker 1: don't have to report accidents like that at all. Back 681 00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:18,359 Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen, a National Institutes of Health lab 682 00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:23,840 Speaker 1: in Bethesda, Maryland, discovered six fials of live Bariola, the 683 00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:28,920 Speaker 1: smallpox virus, in an unsecured freezer. The vials were labeled 684 00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:32,680 Speaker 1: Bariola and have been stored in the nineteen fifties in 685 00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:36,160 Speaker 1: a lab that had gone unused since the nineteen seventies. 686 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,600 Speaker 1: The f d A, which had taken custody of the 687 00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:43,960 Speaker 1: lab from the NAH way back in, had lost track 688 00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:47,400 Speaker 1: of the stocks with smallpox and failed to destroy the 689 00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:50,759 Speaker 1: Bariola or submitted to the CDC as part of that 690 00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,680 Speaker 1: eradication campaign. It had just sat forgotten in the freezer. 691 00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:01,080 Speaker 1: Also in two thousand fourteen, a c DC workers ship 692 00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:05,319 Speaker 1: live strains of the bacteria that causes typhoid fever to 693 00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:09,040 Speaker 1: another lab in a reused box that wasn't marked for 694 00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:13,239 Speaker 1: hazardous material. Not to mention, the box was broken open 695 00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:17,160 Speaker 1: in the corner and it was sent using regular ups delivery. 696 00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:22,120 Speaker 1: Some specimens broke during shipping, although the Typhus vile remained 697 00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:28,120 Speaker 1: intact and sealed again. These are just a few randomly 698 00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:33,360 Speaker 1: selected examples, like those ships that carried smallpox between Africa 699 00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:38,719 Speaker 1: and the America's. Each accident involving potential pandemic pathogens is 700 00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:42,479 Speaker 1: like tossing a lit match on a powder keg. Each 701 00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:45,160 Speaker 1: one has a chance for an outbreak to take hold. 702 00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:50,040 Speaker 1: The problem is as more BSL three and four labs 703 00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:54,560 Speaker 1: come online, more of this risky research is being conducted. 704 00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:59,880 Speaker 1: More labs conducting more of this risky research compounds the 705 00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:04,279 Speaker 1: probability of an accidental release of a pathogen that can 706 00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:09,839 Speaker 1: cause a catastrophic pandemic. Even worse, BSL three and four 707 00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:14,040 Speaker 1: labs have mushroomed to a point where no one, not 708 00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,120 Speaker 1: the U. S. Government, not the Centers for Disease Control, 709 00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:21,520 Speaker 1: not the National Institutes of Health, not the World Health Organization, 710 00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:26,680 Speaker 1: no one can definitively say how many high containment labs 711 00:50:26,719 --> 00:50:30,640 Speaker 1: are operating around the world. In the US, even there's 712 00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:34,000 Speaker 1: no certainty about how many there are, it has become 713 00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:39,240 Speaker 1: something of a status symbol among nations, universities, and corporations 714 00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:44,360 Speaker 1: to operate high level containment labs. So some people in 715 00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:48,000 Speaker 1: the biotech and bio security fields have called for an 716 00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:52,400 Speaker 1: end to gain a function research of any kind. The 717 00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:57,760 Speaker 1: trouble is there's no regulatory framework overseeing high containment labs. 718 00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:01,759 Speaker 1: In the US. The National the Institutes for Health is 719 00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,680 Speaker 1: the agency that provides funding for this type of work, 720 00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:09,360 Speaker 1: and they have adopted guidelines for best practices and safety, 721 00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,920 Speaker 1: but there's no penalty for labs that don't follow those guidelines. 722 00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:18,920 Speaker 1: The most potent weapon the NIH has to curtail reckless 723 00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:23,480 Speaker 1: experiments is to deny funding for further research, and this 724 00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:28,400 Speaker 1: only applies to labs that receive public funding. Privately funded labs, 725 00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:33,440 Speaker 1: like again those found inside corporations, as well as labs overseas, 726 00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:38,920 Speaker 1: operate utterly outside of any jurisdiction. But even if American 727 00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:43,000 Speaker 1: labs had a flawless safety record, which they definitely do not, 728 00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:46,640 Speaker 1: other countries across the rest of the world operate with 729 00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:50,120 Speaker 1: a patchwork of regulations, if any at all. There is 730 00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:55,160 Speaker 1: no global oversight of research with deadly pathogens, and there's 731 00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:59,200 Speaker 1: really no one to say what constitutes a reckless experiment anyway, 732 00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,640 Speaker 1: Aside from the institution the researcher is affiliated with. There's 733 00:52:03,719 --> 00:52:08,040 Speaker 1: no one empowered to decide which experiments are simply too 734 00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:12,560 Speaker 1: risky to carry out, and in most cases, the institutions 735 00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,319 Speaker 1: that can make that decision air on the side of 736 00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,920 Speaker 1: their researchers, since highly visible work that gets lots of 737 00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:25,440 Speaker 1: press brings their institutions prestige. What's probably most disturbing is 738 00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:29,719 Speaker 1: the tendency to downplay or even totally fail to report 739 00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:35,400 Speaker 1: lab accidents. A culture of silence and opaqueness pervades the 740 00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:39,080 Speaker 1: bio labs in the US. For all of the existential 741 00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:43,080 Speaker 1: risk involved, there is almost no public scrutiny of the 742 00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:48,080 Speaker 1: field of biotechnology. If science is never to be censored, 743 00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:55,359 Speaker 1: doesn't that also require it to be fully transparent. There 744 00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:59,000 Speaker 1: are ways to make the system in place safer. Some 745 00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:02,560 Speaker 1: microbiology to argue that the same results can be found 746 00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:07,200 Speaker 1: by using non infectious proteins to study the functions of viruses, 747 00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:11,200 Speaker 1: that those live altered viruses that some labs are creating 748 00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:17,439 Speaker 1: are not only reckless but also totally unnecessary. Others say 749 00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:20,560 Speaker 1: that researchers could be required to add genetic traits to 750 00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:24,719 Speaker 1: their altered specimens that make them reliant on conditions in 751 00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,200 Speaker 1: the lab to survive, so that they cannot spread in nature, 752 00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:33,520 Speaker 1: kind of like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Perhaps they 753 00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:37,239 Speaker 1: could engineer a kill switch like a self destruct mechanism 754 00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,439 Speaker 1: that is triggered once the cell divides a prescribed number 755 00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:45,920 Speaker 1: of times. In other areas, labs that synthesize DNA and 756 00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:50,240 Speaker 1: RNA could be required to compare the sequences of orders 757 00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:54,440 Speaker 1: that come in against the database of known pathogens and 758 00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:58,080 Speaker 1: report any of those orders that set off alarms to authorities, 759 00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:03,400 Speaker 1: and propose souls. For research that has dual use imposes 760 00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:07,919 Speaker 1: a low probability, high consequence threat to the public could 761 00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:12,160 Speaker 1: undergo review and approval based on its relative benefit to 762 00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:17,440 Speaker 1: science as part of funding requests, and labs both public 763 00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:21,399 Speaker 1: and private in the US and abroad could be put 764 00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:27,120 Speaker 1: under an international regulatory body that both respects and understand science, 765 00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:33,440 Speaker 1: but also equally value safety for humankind. There are holes 766 00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:37,880 Speaker 1: in these safeguards, yes, but even this handful of ideas 767 00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:42,759 Speaker 1: are still vastly better than what's currently in place. When 768 00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:45,640 Speaker 1: you combine the increasing number of labs around the world 769 00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:50,840 Speaker 1: carrying out research on potential pandemic pathogens with the history 770 00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,720 Speaker 1: of accidental releases in human error in the biotech field, 771 00:54:55,320 --> 00:55:00,520 Speaker 1: it is extraordinarily difficult not to conclude that the potential 772 00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:03,799 Speaker 1: for an existential threat posed by the release of a 773 00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:08,200 Speaker 1: deadly pathogen is real. This is not a far off 774 00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:14,239 Speaker 1: field of existential risk. It surrounds us right now. Dr 775 00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:18,680 Speaker 1: Lynn Clots, who you met earlier, calculated the probability of 776 00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:22,560 Speaker 1: a lab acquired infection that followed that worst case scenario 777 00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:26,799 Speaker 1: I described based on the current track record of accidental 778 00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:31,040 Speaker 1: releases over the course of a ten year period. Considering 779 00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:36,040 Speaker 1: ten labs with an average safety record, Dr Clots calculated 780 00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:39,120 Speaker 1: that there is a twenty seven percent chance of an 781 00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:44,680 Speaker 1: undetected lab acquired infection creating a global pandemic in the 782 00:55:44,719 --> 00:55:49,400 Speaker 1: next decade. That's better than a one in four chance 783 00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:54,840 Speaker 1: of an existential catastrophe. And that's just considering ten labs. 784 00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:59,799 Speaker 1: No one knows how many labs there actually are. Risk 785 00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:03,440 Speaker 1: is product of two things, the likelihood of something happening 786 00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:07,719 Speaker 1: times consequence. The likelihood of something happening is small, very 787 00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,040 Speaker 1: small per lab per year, but you do things in 788 00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:13,440 Speaker 1: enough labs for enough years, it gets bigger. Uh. And 789 00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:18,480 Speaker 1: the consequences, potential consequences are huge in the worst case scenario, 790 00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:24,120 Speaker 1: perhaps killing a large percentage of the world's population. And 791 00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:27,200 Speaker 1: we just don't know. So I just don't think it's 792 00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:38,680 Speaker 1: worth taking the chance on the next episode of the 793 00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:42,880 Speaker 1: End of the World with Josh Clark. Particle physics works 794 00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:45,560 Speaker 1: at the leading edge of human knowledge, at the leading 795 00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:48,440 Speaker 1: edge of theory. That's the whole point of it. Particle 796 00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:51,800 Speaker 1: physics is where science touches the fabric of the universe, 797 00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:54,880 Speaker 1: and it puts us in a dilemma to know if 798 00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:58,240 Speaker 1: the experiments that we're running inside of particle colliders are safe. 799 00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:00,840 Speaker 1: We have to run the experiments in the first place, 800 00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,000 Speaker 1: but hoping for the best is not a good strategy 801 00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:07,480 Speaker 1: for an existential risk that could theoretically end the universe 802 00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:08,600 Speaker 1: as we know it. M