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Article published In:
Journal of Argumentation in Context
Vol. 12:3 (2023) ► pp.307–343

Covid-19 and public debate over gain-of-function research on potentially pandemic pathogens

| University of Pittsburgh
Controversial “gain-of-function” research (GoFR) aims to improve understanding of human health by studying behavior of genetically altered viruses in laboratory experiments. GoFR proponents tout its potential to support public health disease surveillance, drug development and vaccine innovation, while skeptics warn that unplanned laboratory release of genetically altered pathogens could harm millions in pandemics caused by science. Public interest in GoFR grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, as theories circulated that SARS-CoV-2 was the result of GoFR conducted at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. Analysis of a 2015 public debate on GoFR research, reconstructed according to pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, sheds light on the increasingly salient scientific controversy and contributes to the growing literature on argumentation and health.
Keywords: public debate, argumentation, genetics, Covid-19, health
Article outline
  • Argumentative context
    • Critical approach
  • Confrontation stage
    • Opening stage
  • Argumentation stage
    • Introductory student speeches and open cross-examination
    • Introductory expert speeches and open cross-examination
    • Student prebuttals
    • Expert rebuttals
    • Concluding stage
    • Conclusion
    • Topical implications
    • Practical implications
    • Conceptual implications
  • Notes
  • Works cited
Published online: 15 December 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00020.mit
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