Emergence of a Deadly Monkeypox

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Double Retired
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23 May 2022, 11:34 am

kraftiekortie wrote:

Monkeypox has nothing to do with China, or with Asia.

Brictoria has given us plausible reason for doubt. Or, at least for discussion.

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kraftiekortie
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23 May 2022, 12:02 pm

It's a study that has monkeypox virus as one of its components.

It certainly doesn't mean this present epidemic originated from materials which "seeped" from the lab where this study is being done.

I guess, "we shall see." But I would tend to doubt this "lab" was the origin.

Fnord
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23 May 2022, 2:23 pm

magz wrote:

Double Retired wrote:

. . . How long 'til the conspiracy theories start?

They already started but they haven't gained momentum or reached here yet.

Alex Jones seems to be the main source of the "Monkeypox-Gate" conspiracy theories.

I guess all those gay frogs do not freak him out as much as they used to.

Fnord
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23 May 2022, 2:24 pm

Double Retired wrote:

kraftiekortie wrote:

Monkeypox has nothing to do with China, or with Asia.

Brictoria has given us plausible reason for doubt. Or, at least for discussion.

The only plausible doubt I have in regards to this subject are on any claims Brictoria puts forward.

Double Retired
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23 May 2022, 2:55 pm

Brictoria wrote:

They certainly picked an unfortunate time to publish this study...

Quote:

Efficient assembly of a large fragment of monkeypox virus genome as a qPCR template using dual-selection based transformation-associated recombination

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1995820X22000414

I'm sure the timing was coincidental...

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In the post I linked to Brictoria didn't appear to make many claims, rather relied on a link to an item in ScienceDirect.

Though I do sort of agree it was "an unfortunate time to publish this study".

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SkinnedWolf
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23 May 2022, 7:10 pm

magz wrote:

Double Retired wrote:

^{Sounds like a good start for Conspiracy Theories} :chin:

^{But perhaps Hanlon's Razor should be applied} :hmph:

_{...and the lab investigated for incompetence?}

Given numerous examples of "safety standards" from Chinese construction sites circulating all over the internet, I find this possibility worth serious consideration.

News of accidents and blasts on the other side of the Earth usually don't even reach us but when it comes to contangious diseases, the whole world is concerned.

Hmm...that's exactly my major is related to.
Construction sites in China are even more...special. Similar problems exist in virtually every aspect of infrastructure construction. This cannot be extended to scientific research.
When you demand "China speed" in infrastructure, it is inevitable that some people will become "the price". And security incidents are just an extreme manifestation of the price.

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This is not to say that there are no laboratory safety incidents in China, but I am not sure that it must have reached an abnormal frequency.

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Cover your eyes, if you like. It will serve no purpose.

You might expect to be able to crush them in your hand, into wolf-bone fragments.

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Last edited by SkinnedWolf on 23 May 2022, 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Brictoria
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23 May 2022, 7:33 pm

SkinnedWolf wrote:

magz wrote:

Double Retired wrote:

^{Sounds like a good start for Conspiracy Theories} :chin:

^{But perhaps Hanlon's Razor should be applied} :hmph:

_{...and the lab investigated for incompetence?}

Hmm...that's exactly my major is related to.
Construction sites in China are even more...special. Similar problems exist in virtually every aspect of infrastructure construction. This cannot be extended to scientific research.

This is not to say that there are no laboratory safety incidents in China, but I am not sure that it must have reached an abnormal frequency.

Interestingly, the United States seems to have a far worse record than other countries with regards to Biosecurity issues in labs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents

Of course, this could be skewed by the fact that certain countries\regions (USSR, China, etc.) tend to be more "protective" of their "reputation" and may not have published\acknowledged incidents where only a small number of their citizens were affected and so the incidents didn't attract outside notice.

That's not to say that other, more open nations, such as the United States may not have also taken this approach as well.

Brictoria
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23 May 2022, 7:33 pm

Fnord wrote:

Double Retired wrote:

kraftiekortie wrote:

Monkeypox has nothing to do with China, or with Asia.

Brictoria has given us plausible reason for doubt. Or, at least for discussion.

The only plausible doubt I have in regards to this subject are on any claims Brictoria puts forward.

SkinnedWolf
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23 May 2022, 7:39 pm

Brictoria wrote:

Interestingly, the United States seems to have a far worse record than other countries with regards to Biosecurity issues in labs:

Using such general data does not reflect regularity.
A better practice would be a comparison of the number of incidents to the number/size of laboratories.

I'd be shocked if there wasn't the "US has more biology labs" factor here.

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Cover your eyes, if you like. It will serve no purpose.

You might expect to be able to crush them in your hand, into wolf-bone fragments.

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Brictoria
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23 May 2022, 7:56 pm

Double Retired wrote:

Brictoria wrote:

They certainly picked an unfortunate time to publish this study...

Quote:

Efficient assembly of a large fragment of monkeypox virus genome as a qPCR template using dual-selection based transformation-associated recombination

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1995820X22000414

I'm sure the timing was coincidental...

Show Spoiler

The study appears to have been produced and submitted in August 2021, only being published in February this year (as noted on the page I linked to), so the likelihood of this outbreak being connected to the study are very low.

With an incubation time of 7-14 days (see https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/clinicians/clinical-recognition.html) there would have had to be many generations of victims between that time and the current outbreak, which would have been noticable some time earlier than the recent outbreak came to light.

It is amusing, though, how even mentioning coincidental studies such as this bring out the science deniers and their ad-Hominem attacks... Twitter was quite interesting in that regard.

Brictoria
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23 May 2022, 8:04 pm

SkinnedWolf wrote:

Brictoria wrote:

Interestingly, the United States seems to have a far worse record than other countries with regards to Biosecurity issues in labs:

There's also the problem of the severity of what "leaks" from the laboratory as well - A study on something like smallpox would be noticable\stand out, and so be more likely to be included in such a list, as opposed to one on a common strand of influenza (particularly if those affected at the lab are asymptomatic).

There's also the problem of "reverse leaks" (for want of a better term) where instead of something "getting out", the biosecurity breach causes the subject matter being studied to be affected\contaminated by some external matter. This would not be reported in the same way as a "leak", but would rely on the same\similar form of biosecurity breach to occur.

Persephone29
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23 May 2022, 8:08 pm

I've seen people try and pass it off as Shingles ( it's not ). Just watched a piece that said it's related to gay male sex...

It would be interesting to know the actual truth regarding animal to human transmission. I've read that some are the result of farmers sharing a habitation with the animals they raise.

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SkinnedWolf
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23 May 2022, 8:09 pm

Brictoria wrote:

SkinnedWolf wrote:

Brictoria wrote:

Interestingly, the United States seems to have a far worse record than other countries with regards to Biosecurity issues in labs:

The latter happens frequently in Chinese chemical laboratories in my impression. According to my observation of exchanges between graduate students in related industries.
But the main reason is the extreme scarcity and backwardness of the instruments, not the failure to comply with the safety provisions.
And, this may not be representative of the critical core lab situation.

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Cover your eyes, if you like. It will serve no purpose.

You might expect to be able to crush them in your hand, into wolf-bone fragments.

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Brictoria
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23 May 2022, 8:26 pm

Persephone29 wrote:

I've seen people try and pass it off as Shingles ( it's not ). Just watched a piece that said it's related to gay male sex...

According to AP, the recent outbreak may have been:

Quote:

A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that appears to have been caused by sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe.

Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’s emergencies department, told The Associated Press that the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission at raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.

[...]

Health officials say most of the known cases in Europe have been among men who have sex with men, but anyone can be infected through close contact with a sick person, their clothing or bedsheets. Scientists say it will be difficult to disentangle whether the spread is being driven by sex or merely close contact.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/health-world-organization-united-nations-animals-72a9efaaf5b55ace396398b839847505

Persephone29 wrote:

It would be interesting to know the actual truth regarding animal to human transmission. I've read that some are the result of farmers sharing a habitation with the animals they raise.

From the same article:

Quote:

That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates and outbreaks have not spilled across borders.

Much as with Covid, there isn't much known about how the disease crossed\crosses to humans. Unfortunately, with Covid, we had people take an active interest in blocking\interfering with legitimate investigation\research (whether for political or anti-science reasons) into how\where such a cross-species infection occurred - Hopefully that won't be the case with this (or any future) disease\outbreak.

kraftiekortie
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23 May 2022, 8:39 pm

How can monkeypox be "passed over" as shingles?

The rashes do not resemble each other whatsoever. Monkeypox rashes, unfortunately, resemble smallpox rashes.

Brictoria
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23 May 2022, 8:52 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:

How can monkeypox be "passed over" as shingles?

The rashes do not resemble each other whatsoever. Monkeypox rashes, unfortunately, resemble smallpox rashes.

For which there is a very good explanation:

Quote:

Monkeypox is caused by the monkeypox virus, which belongs to a subset of the Poxviridae family of viruses called Orthopoxvirus. This subset includes the smallpox, vaccinia and cowpox viruses. While an animal reservoir for monkeypox virus is unknown, African rodents are suspected to play a part in transmission. The monkeypox virus has only been isolated twice from an animal in nature. Diagnostic testing for monkeypox is currently only available at Laboratory Response Network labs in the U.S. and globally.

The name “monkeypox” comes from the first documented cases of the illness in animals in 1958, when two outbreaks occurred in monkeys kept for research. However, the virus did not jump from monkeys to humans, nor are monkeys major carriers of the disease.

Source: https://theconversation.com/what-is-monkeypox-a-microbiologist-explains-whats-known-about-this-smallpox-cousin-183499

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