Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

The existence of biolabs is completely genuine. You can read more (from a .gov site) here [1]. They seem to have removed the fact-sheets from the site, but you can still access them on archive.org, like here [2]. The fact sheets don't have anything especially seedy on them but do confirm that the labs were funded by the US Department of Defense, and do work with pathogens.

Point being you don't need the quotes. There are definitely DoD built biolabs, and a surprisingly large amount of them.

[1] - https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defen...

[2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20170211022339/https://photos.st...

View on HN

How do your links [1][2] support the claim that Ukraine is developing “biomilitary activities” (as claimed in the title of the Global Times article)?

They seem to point to medical research to fight against diseases, rather than “biomilitary activities”.

> They seem to point to medical research to fight against diseases, rather than “biomilitary activities”.

They are dual use research. Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons. Research for rockets is the same for icbms. It's why we are so keen on preventing iran from developing their nuclear energy program. It's why we are worried about north korea's "space" program. The same thing with cybersecurity. By learning to prevent cyberattacks, you are also learning how to carry out cyberattacks. And vice versa. You can't research against diseases/viruses/etc without procuring, creating and developing them.

Researching viruses in general is not a dual-use activity. Most viruses spread everywhere when they get out. Pathogens like anthrax can't spread from human to human, making them plausible weapons and proportionally decreasing the urgency of researching them. (The labs may have been researching anthrax but the odds are fair that none of their research involved anything that could be a weapon.)

Edited to replace virus with "pathogen".

Anthrax is a disease caused by a bacterium, not a virus.

Production of Bacillus anthracis spores for weapons use in the Soviet Union was in progress when an accident resulted in a release of spores that killed at least 66 people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

> proportionally decreasing the urgency of researching them

Unless your primary concern is defensive against biowarfare rather than natural outbreaks...which is indeed a priority for military research h.

That's true, but it remains that bioweapon research is distinct from virus research.

I disagree, there is plenty of overlap.

No, no bioweapon is a virus. You have toxin based or bacteria based bioweapons, but not any virus bioweapon yet. It's a bad idea, and an extremely difficult and costly operation to engineer a virus.

Do you think nobody is carrying out research just because it's costly, difficult, and hasn't been demonstrated yet?

No, the point is that viral research is inherently dual-use regardless of intent: "You can't research against diseases/viruses/etc without procuring, creating and developing them."

Research about polio is not dual-use because there's no way to restart a polio epidemic in the enemy's country without it spreading to yours.

I'm not even sure that's true. Knowing anything about viruses means you're better placed to try and use them as a weapon versus someone who does no research on them.

You can try and find specific counter examples, but I think the idea that most virus research, and scientific research in general, could likely be repurposed for bad or good, is probably pretty accurate in general.

Policing "bad" science while allowing "good" science is probably an impossible task.

>Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons.

This is not entirely accurate. It's possible to run nuclear reactors without the capability for nuclear weapons - which, up until the collapse of Iran's deal with Western powers, was exactly what they were (meant to be) doing. You have to deliberately enrich uranium well past the point where it's useful for reactors before you start getting into weapon-making territory.

Nobody would characterise a nuclear energy plant in a Western country as a "nuclear weapons research facility", not least because the uranium involved is nowhere near weapons-grade.

> Nobody would characterise a nuclear energy plant in a Western country as a "nuclear weapons research facility"

By nobody you mean everybody, especially everybody outside of the west? It's funny how blinded we are by our false sense of moral superiority.

> not least because the uranium involved is nowhere near weapons-grade.

Last I checked, doesn't take that much technical effort or time going from "civilian" to militar/weapons grade. There are an entire class of nations classified as nuclear latent powers - about 20 or so nations who could piggy back off their "civilian" nuclear industry to nuclears weapons in weeks/months. Surprisingly, the list is made up primarily of western nations ( which nobody would characterize as having nuclear weapons research facilities ) and japan/south korea/etc.

Nuclear is a bad example because of enrichement differences.

Any BSL4 lab can have multiple uses depending on the mission of the employees. They can easily be used as bioweapon labs, I haven't seen any good pushback on this idea.

I agree that you can run nuclear reactors without the capability for nuclear weapons. However, investment in nuclear reactors and in nuclear research reduces the cost of nuclear weapons, so they are indeed dual-use.

Of course, no one characterizes nuclear energy plants in Western countries as nuclear weapons research facilities, but it's perfectly reasonable to say they are dual-use. This isn't limited to nuclear energy, the term is also applicable to various things such as civilian aviation, image recognition technology, advanced metallurgy, camera technology etc...

So I don't think you really disagree with who you're replying to. Yes, the facilities aren't exactly what you need, but they're a big step towards that, and generally research in the domain has a fair degree of applicability.

> Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons.

This is absurdly untrue.

This is an error to the level of claiming that programming language research is the same as video game manual writing, and then trying to justify it as "but they both involve computers"

Genuine question: Why would the US Department of Defence fund "medical research to fight against diseases"?

The answer is simply the first paragraph of [1]:

> The U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (deliberate, accidental, or natural) of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases. The program accomplishes its bio-threat reduction mission through development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures. The Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats

Threat Reduction Program? Wow, that sounds familiar.

"Of the $41.91 million, $37.61 million was awarded to EcoHealth Alliance by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which describes its mission as “to protect the United States and its allies by enabling the DoD and international partners to detect, deter, and defeat WMD and threat networks.”"

https://nypost.com/2021/07/01/pentagon-gave-millions-to-ecoh...

I wonder why when the pandemic hit, there was literally zero useful info coming out of all these threat reduction programs?

The National Security Council's Pandemic Response Team, which would have integrated and coordinated warnings from such offices in the early days of the Coronavirus spread, was eviscerated in 2018. They tried to raise the alarm anyway, but were ignored: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-fired-pandemic...

The article you're linking to is partisan propaganda [1] and doesn't address the question I've raised.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/16/no-white-...

The article you're linking to is also partisan propaganda.

> The Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern

Where would these pathogens and toxins that need to be secured be coming from?

Given the phrase “deliberate, accidental, or natural”, basically anywhere.

The two hypotheses about the origins of COVID are natural (wet market) and accidental (lab leak). Back when “The War On Terror” was the political Zeitgeist-meme, there was at least one anthrax attack (deliberate), and I remember suggestions that terrorists might also try to trigger foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks or algal blooms (it may not surprise you to learn that the latter was suggested by someone looking for government funding for their existing research into algal blooms).

Everywhere else? The environment, geopolitical opponents.

Bioweapons defense is pretty fuzzy, as until recently you generally had to study a strain for a long amount of time to develop and test an effective vaccine. Which means you have to have a representative strain. Which means you either need to get one... or create your best guess.

All while the environment and/or your adversary are doing god knows what out of your sight.

Miracles like a vaccine-in-a-year don't just happen. They build on decades of research and preparedness.

Research on infectious disease & co. is a big part of military research because servicemen operate all across the world, including areas where they are exposed to diseases that are uncommon in the US, or that have been eradicated. That is, of course, on top of all the diseases that fall under "chemical warfare" and for which you have to be able to treat your people (both military and civilian), and afflictions associated with crowded areas in general (besieged cities and the like).

I obviously don't know what the labs mentioned by the parent poster were doing but the fact that the US DoD (or any country's department of defense) does medical research should be about as surprising as the fact that they do research on explosives.

The DoD funds a lot of medical research to improve combat readiness. When I was an academic researcher, we were working on a project that was partially DoD funded to develop a diagnostic device which was meant for personalizing medication for patients undergoing cardiac procedures, but the military was interested in using it for developing personalized versions of QuikClot for soldiers who experienced battlefield trauma.

I also worked for a company which had several novel therapeutics for agents commonly used in bioweapons in their pipeline and the DoD was funding parts of that as well.

It's also worth noting that science funding in the US government is decentralized. Each branch of the military as well as a half dozen "civilian" departments each have their own separate programs for funding basic science research. If I recall correctly, when I was an undergraduate research assistant working for a cognitive psychologist studying how humans solve the traveling salesman problem, that research was funded by the US Navy.

So the DOD funding research could mean it thought the research could mean it had potential as a weapon, or a defense against weapons, or was just a random thing being funded to promote basic science research.

You can't really draw a line from "This was funded by this department, so it had this intent" in US science funding.

To defend against biological weapons. The DoD is responsible for defending the US against all kinds of attacks -- conventional, nuclear, chemical, and biological -- even if it doesn't use all of those weapon types itself.

> even if it doesn't use all of those weapon types itself.

US has changed to a limited interpretation of what a biological weapon is, and considers non-deadly biological agents to not be bioweapons when it comes to treaties banning them.

https://web.archive.org/web/20121204112835/http://www.fas.or...

The US does research into chemical and bio-weapons they do not consider to be lethal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20121119043547/http://www.fas.or...

That makes sense. The only bioweapon we were routinely trained on is tear gas, so if they're building stuff on level with tear gas I wouldn't be surprised. The other type of bioweapon that your second link mentioned is microbes that eat through structural material. This looks like it's purposed for breaching, which makes sense given how dangerous breaching is today.

The US DoD funds a lot of peaceful science at labs around the world. This is often misinterpreted by laymen as "weapons labs" when they are just normal civilian labs. Not all research funded by the military is directly applicable to weapons. A lot of times its applicable to defense against said weapons. Which also has application in the civilian medical field.

As evidenced by covid 19, pandemics are a matter of national security. I like to think that the DoD is interested in developing novel ways to fight novel pathogens, rather than use them as weapons. That said, I am under no illusion that the DoD or any government institution should be simply taken at their word either.

The other comments already answer this question. But I'd like to add just how massive the DoD is. It's not like how one might imagine a typical military, where the government is basically funding an entity to pay soldiers' salaries, pay for their equipment, and basic necessities and not much else. The DoD on a macro level doesn't really skimp on anything, from research on how climate change will affect its mission to dealing with overwhelming quantities of rust.

Plus historically, there are plenty of wars where disease was more deadly than enemy combatants.

DARPA funds all kinds of stuff. The national defense angle I think should be obvious at this point post COVID.

Because medical research is useful?

You're asking this during Covid?

cause they were reducing threat of COVID in UA Armed Forces (first link)

The document linked above is from 2017. Was there a COVID-17 I never heard of?

That was for animal diseases and yes, DoD has a department for that as well: https://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Combat-Support....

There is no conspiracy here unless you just want to see it.

I don't suggest any conspiracy; I am just debating your claim on "reducing threat of COVID in UA Armed Forces" in 2017.

mRNA vaccine technology was funded out of a DARPA program (from memory, ADEPTS?) to rapidly develop and deploy vaccines to novel pathogens. Circa 2015 or earlier?

At the time, pandemic influenza was the best guess, but the point of the platform and the program was to rapidly address any pathogen.

Crucial question: does the DoD fund equivalent labs in other countries too, or is Ukraine an outlier?

If such activity is just business as usual for the DoD in every country, then it certainly weakens the case for anything nefarious happening specifically in relation to Ukraine.

It's not really a crucial question - the use or not in other countries doesn't change how stupid an idea it is. But, to answer you, it's mostly in former eastern block countries. It seems to be mostly funding (and technical assistance) for the Ukrainians to build their internal version of the CDC, although it seems to also act as monies to secure any leftover Soviet bioweapons.

Here's the international agreement establishing the relationship: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/05-829-Ukra....

Military veterans here would know that NBC (the DoD’s umbrella acronym for Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) threats and defensive postures against them are constantly ingrained into the individual soldier’s training regimen. It starts from boot camp. Every recruit becomes familiar with the lovely pepper spray gas chamber encounter. NBC is taken very seriously in the training doctrine. It probably stems from the horrible use of chlorine gas during WW1. Russia has a few NBC favorites that they’ve used—sarin gas, novichok, litvinenko tea to name a few.

>Nuclear, Biological, Chemical threats and defensive postures

The Department of Defense is a misleading name since it spent a large % of its historical budget on offense and invasion. The use of the words 'defensive and defense' are always misleading in the US context and should not be taken literally in my opinion. US history makes this clear.

They tried Department of Offense but the acronym didn’t go over well

I expect it was also too on the nose because it telegraphed future potential punches to the less observant % of the world population.

Can anyone say strawman?

Having labs is not equal to having bioweapons

The CGTN article doesn't claim bioweapons. It's Newsweek who said they did and build that strawman.

edit: removed snark

So why would they mention a "biolab" in Ukraine unless to imply that it somehow poses a threat to Russia? Or did they also mention that there are post offices in Ukraine?

If the US had USPS offices around ukraine delivering mail it would probably have been news worthy, yes.

This exact same website that is posted by OP (Axios) reported:

Ukraine warns Chernobyl nuclear plant is without power [1]

Now, most experts say there is nothing to worry about. Why did they report this unless to imply that it somehow poses a threat to the world? Or did they also mention that there are post offices in Ukraine without power?

Very similar, ain't it?

[1] https://www.axios.com/ukraine-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-power-...

HN discussion on that specific article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30614163

This "implication" of what the fake news propaganda articles are trying to say, is that there is some WMD superweapon being developered by Ukraine to genetically target Russians. Like that disease in the new James Bond movie.

That is the part that is clearly the fake propaganda. The US and Ukraine are not working together to design a disease meant to genetically target Russians, like from the movie James Bond.

Ignoring the James Bond qualifier makes this scenario completely plausable. It is not clear that the US would not weaponize bioagents as one of the leading bioweapon manufacturers in human history.

> Ignoring the James Bond qualifier makes this scenario completely plausable

No its not. It is not plausible at all. Just think about this for a second.

People in eastern europe are genetically similar to russians. Why would they make a super weapon, to kill off people with slavic DNA, when such a super weapon would target much of its own population as well?

The conspiracy doesn't make any sense even if you assume supervillian levels of evilness.

>Why would they make a super weapon, to kill off people with slavic DNA

You seem to have followed one unecessary qualifier with another one immediately.

I suspect this is somewhat intentional because it's absolutely not required where the vast majority of bioweapons are concerned.

> You seem to have followed one unecessary qualifier

Its not an unnecessary qualify because the "targeting russian DNA" is a common part of many of the conspiracies and what I was referring to.

A common conspiracy going around is that there were bio-weapons meant to target Russian DNA, which doesn't make any sense.

Edit: for Example, here is one english speaking, moderately sized influencer, repeating this conspiracy about the targeting of Russian DNA. https://clips.twitch.tv/SpicyClearFriesItsBoshyTime-9Ap6YN1H...

I don't keep track of every place that is spreading each specific conspiracy theory. But the point of this example, is to just give a one-off example describing this conspiracy in general.

You included a conspiracy theory that no one in this thread brought up for what purpose?

I can only see it as an attempt to deflect, undermine, distract from the core points of this exchange, which makes it a bad faith approach on your part, in my opinion.

The thread is about conspiracies being peddled by the russian government, state media, and other bad actors. And yes there absolutely are conspiracies, related to this idea of bio-superweapons that are being peddled by bad actors.

Instead, it is other people attempting to deflect from the very real issue of conspiracies being peddled by these bad actors.

So yes, the original point about all of this, is about fake propaganda being spread. And yes that is an issue, as demonstrated by the example that I gave.

You and others just have to admit that yes fake propaganda, being spread by bad actors, is a real issue, which is the core point.

The idea that these bad actors are speading a bunch of mis-info, and half truths, to justify an invasion should be pretty obvious, IMO.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com