We should rework Rand Paul’s the bill while the Republicans have euphoria over the election.  Withdraw the current weak one and replace it with something with teeth.

Specifically, it needs the following additions:-

1. Explicit acknowledgement of the lab origin of Covid-19 in the preamble. Important that the risk is not hypothetical.
2. Cover all research, including private and state funded. The current proposal only covers federally funded work.
3. New body to have enforcement officers.  Like the EPA.
4. New body to include board members with risk management background outside of life sciences. (Life scientists have demonstrably lied about the risks and about the origin of covid.)
5. *All* US located or funded life science labs to be registered and provide quarterly reports and self-assessment.  This could be done via a simple on-line form.
6. Mandatory reporting of all leaks to the body.
7. Mandatory billion dollar pandemic insurance for all medium to high risk labs.  (Insurers will assess risks very carefully. Premiums will be low if the risk is low.)
8. Substantial explicit penalties for both institutions and individuals for non-compliance. Without penalties, there is no enforcement.
9. Strong incentives for whistleblowers to report violations.
10. Make public statistical data and basic details of all high risk labs and all high risk leaks.  All data public after 10 years. Imagine three mile island being kept secret.
11. Strictly regulate access to synthetic DNA and other critical resources. It should not be easy for anybody to mail order dangerous viral DNA to perform back yard virology.
12. Ensure access to viral material is carefully controlled so that no one individual could cause a deliberate release, such as the anthrax attacks of 2001.
13. Allow and encourage international labs to register.  Encourage the formation of an international body.
14. Maybe an explicit law against bystander deaths.  (Is manslaughter already a crime in the USA?)

This window of opportunity will close.  I am sure lobbyists are already working hard to close it.

atuntable@gmail.com

Background

• Covid-19 was almost certainly the result of a laboratory leak.
  [summary-of-evidence]
• A future pandemic with a more virulent virus could kill billions of people. [Redfield24].
• Virologists have not effectively self regulated.
• Therefore strict external regulation is required.

Discussion

These conditions are onerous, but are justified given that virology has created the first pandemic in 100 years and killed over 20 million people.

It is essential that any regulatory authority be strictly separated from those funding or performing research. An example of this problem is a 2022 NIH meeting of biosafety experts which failed to mention Covid-19 at all. https://originofcovid.org/durc-2022/

Insurance premiums will be very affordable for laboratories that can demonstrate their risk of creating a pandemic is extremely low. But insurance companies will assess that risk very carefully given they are potentially liable. This avoids arguments about what “Gain of Functions” really means.

Most of the reporting can be automated. Timestamped public key encryption technology can be used to ensure reports are kept confidential until they are due for disclosure.

Start by regulating the USA, but other countries also need regulation. This needs to be done initially by peer-to-peer discussions, often led by the USA. It must not be performed by the World Health Organization which has proven to be compromised.