In a Wuhan-esque study, Chinese scientists are experimenting with a mutant COVID-19 strain that is 100% lethal to “humanized” mice.
The deadly virus — known as GX_P2V — attacked the brains of mice that were engineered to reflect genetic makeup similar to people, according to a study shared last week out of Beijing.
“This underscores a spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans and provides a unique model for understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses,” the authors wrote.
The deadly virus is a mutated version of GX/2017, a coronavirus cousin that was reportedly discovered in Malaysian pangolins in 2017 — three years before the pandemic. Pangolins, also called scaly anteaters, are mammals found in warm areas of the planet.
All the mice that were infected with the virus died within just eight days, which researchers noted was a “surprisingly” rapid death rate.
GX_P2V had infected the lungs, bones, eyes, tracheas and brains of the dead mice, the last of which was severe enough to ultimately cause the death of the animals.
In the days before their deaths, the mice had quickly lost weight, exhibited a hunched posture, and moved extremely sluggishly.
Most eerie of all, their eyes turned completely white the day before they died. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Barcroft Media via Getty Images |
China’s virologists are at it again, shamelessly playing with a new coronavirus that’s 100% lethal in human-transgenic mice.
What will stop this madness?
Scientists at high-level labs in Beijing and Nanjing pumped mice (with their genes altered to resemble human ones) full of a lab-cultivated strain of GX/2017, a COVID cousin first discovered in pangolins three years before the pandemic.
Every mouse thus infected died an agonizing death.
Worse, experts around the world fear that the labs lack adequate biosafety measures — since the Chinese researchers’ initial report of their findings didn’t specify anything about safety measures.
Responsible science this isn’t: Says Francois Balloux, an epidemiology expert at University College London, “I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanized mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how much stuff might go wrong.”
Hand Balloux the Understatement of the Year Award. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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