Re:Feds lift gain-of-function research pause, offer guidance...
by actually_a_dog on Friday December 30, 2022 @04:48PM
(#34190509)
No. That's not even remotely possible. In theory, the closest you could get is if you could design a virus that only really harmed people with some rare genetic variant, and that variant happened to be one that a person you wanted to target had. That's still pretty far out in terms of actual practice, but it's not so far out that it's crazy. Designer viruses that target one, single person is just crazy talk.
Re:Feds lift gain-of-function research pause, offer guidance...
by aeternum on Saturday December 31, 2022 @06:34PM
(#34201858)
This is heavily censored in the US, but is quite the popular theory in Russia: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/03/01/2-in-3-russians-be...
It does seem pretty far-fetched, but both countries have their propaganda machines in full force on this which at least makes it an interesting theory.
Even if it were possible to design a virus to target a specific person, wouldn't that virus just mutate eventually, and start infecting other people? Seems like a very risky, crude, and ultimately unwise way to plan an assassination. If you can get close enough to expose someone to the virus-assassin, why not just poison them? It doesn't make any sense to me.