Ban all gain of function research within any department of the United States government or any of its advisories.
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I am writing because I want to fulfil a promise I made to my husband, who died of Covid on October 19, 2024, and I believe this forum might be able to in some way help me to keep that promise. I appreciate you taking time to listen to my story. We were married for 40 years, and I am not only devastated, lost and empty without the only man I ever loved, I am positively haunted every day that my tax dollars (and my husband’s for that matter) went to fund the research that created the very virus that took his life.
When the pandemic hit, my husband, David, and I discussed our options with our family physician, and decided we should get vaccinated (and did so). In 2023, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. We were blessed that it was caught early, and he underwent surgery and radiation treatments. In early 2024, there was no sign of cancer; however, his immune system was, not unexpectedly, compromised. We did all we could to keep from getting ill, went to the doctor when we weren’t feeling well, and neither of us contracted Covid until August of 2024. David was feeling somewhat poorly one morning, went to the doctor, and tested positive for Covid. Throughout the following week he did not get substantially worse or better, returned to the doctor twice, and had clear chest x-rays with no sign of pneumonia both times. 24 hours after the second clear chest x-ray, he was in the ER with a severe case of Covid pneumonia. He was admitted to the ICU, and the following day it was determined that he had bacterial pneumonia as well. His doctors were not only astounded by how quickly it had overtaken his lungs, they told me it was the worst case of Covid pneumonia they had seen since 2021. The look of fear and pain I saw on his face and in his eyes as he struggled to breathe is etched in my mind forever. He spent two months in an ICU and finally could not fight this horrific disease any longer. He started bleeding internally, and there was nothing more the doctors could do. He passed away approximately 6 hours later. After he died, as I sat in his hospital room with him, I promised him that I would make something good come of his suffering and death, even if I had no idea what that would be or how I would go about it. As I mentioned earlier, I am absolutely tormented by the fact that taxpayer dollars (including ours) funded the illness that took David’s life and shattered my world. I feel the U.S. government should not fund gain-of-function research, and I pray I will be able find a way to stop the flow of taxpayer money to organizations and countries that use it to create ever-increasingly contagious and lethal diseases - especially when that money is given to our greatest adversaries. I have written to many, including my Senators, Representatives, and Robert Kennedy Jr.'s team, and have only received a response from one of my Senators and Mr. Kennedy’s team. This platform was suggested as a place to post my story. I am asking not only on David’s behalf, but for the millions of families who have watched their loved ones die in such a terrifying way. Thank you in advance for your time.
You put forward an extreme position: “Ban All”
Gain of function research helps protect us from bioweapons and new diseases. If a new disease shows up, it is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better for it to happen in a laboratory.
Obviously, creating diseases has a huge downside too- they might not have existed if we didn’t make them.
The answer here is absolutely not to ban research into this. That will leave us more vulnerable to catastrophic disease and make America vulnerable to bioweapons.
However, we can increase safety funding, and work to ensure that authority structures don’t leave career politicians making decisions about whether to keep funding a GOF lab in a foreign country, and that Pharma companies aren’t successfully lobbying to have gain of function labs in convenient urban locations.