https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fauci-argued-benefits-of-gain-of-function-research-outweighed-pandemic-risk-in-2012-paper/
“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic? Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario – however remote – should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision?
Scientists working in this field might say – as indeed I have said – that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky.
Within the research community, many have expressed concern that important research progress could come to a halt just because of the fear that someone, somewhere, might attempt to replicate these experiments sloppily. This is a valid concern.”
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Next, I agree with you, that Trump may have politicized the virus when he said it would be gone sooner than it would be...he said it was to keep panic down, but it also may have been to mitigate damage to his re-election chances...
But, to be fair, it was also Biden and Kamala who were the original vaccine hesitant people when they voiced skepticism about taking the “Trump vaccine” when it was the pharmaceutical companies making it, not Trump...so there was politicization on both sides...