Gain of Dysfunction
The Center for Food Safety is the kind of organization that most progressive foodies can get behind: Its website features photos of graceful monarch butterflies and dairy cows with big, doleful eyes. Its recent campaigns have implored supporters to “tell EPA to stop this brain-damaging pesticide!” and “protect dolphins and birds from floating factory farms!” It advocates for farmworkers, humane treatment of animals, and protecting pollinators.
Oh, yes, and one more thing: The 24-person nonprofit, whose 2019 revenue was about $5 million, wants the US government to stop supporting certain kinds of high-level virology research. In April, the group sued the National Institutes of Health in an attempt to force the agency to reveal information about its funding of so-called gain-of-function research—a category of lab work aimed at understanding how viruses create pandemics. Sometimes, but not always, that means making viruses more virulent and
