On the menu today: It’s a mildly apocalyptic midweek, with runaway monkeys, Chinese breakthroughs in artificial intelligence getting applied to genetic engineering, and a particularly controversial Senate candidate declaring he wants to put you on a train. Some days it feels like the whole world is demented, but medically, apparently, it’s just one member of Congress. Read on.
Monkey Mayhem in Mississippi
Look, the odds that you will run into an escaped monkey described as “aggressive” while in Mississippi are not particularly high. Nonetheless, it would be more reassuring if the people who are in charge of laboratory primates could get their stories straight on whether or not those monkeys are infected with contagious diseases:
Lab monkeys from Tulane University have escaped an overturned truck north of the town of Heidelberg, Mississippi, marshalling a response from numerous law enforcement agencies. The site of the accident is around mile marker 117 on Interstate 59.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department asserted earlier this afternoon that the monkeys were infected with a variety of dangerous, human-communicable viruses, but that is false, says Mike Strecker, assistant vice president for news and media relations at Tulane University in New Orleans.
“Non-human primates at the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center are provided to other research organizations to advance scientific discovery. The primates in question belong to another entity and are not infectious,” Strecker said in a statement. “We are actively collaborating with local authorities and will send a team of animal care experts to assist as needed.”
See, the message from the local cops makes it sound like we’re in the first act of a sci-fi apocalyptic thriller: “The driver of the truck told local law enforcement that the monkeys were dangerous and posed a threat to humans. We took the appropriate actions after being given that information from the person transporting the monkeys. He also stated that you had wear PPE equipment to handle the monkeys.” Perhaps the driver or the police are being paranoid, but warnings like that make you wonder if one day we’ll look up and notice the memorial to the 16th president features Ape-braham Lincoln.
But the message from Tulane is that there’s nothing to worry about.
Eh, let’s hold off on petting any monkey you encounter in Jasper County, Miss. The monkeys in question are rhesus macaques, a species well known for being used in biomedical research.
(Pour one out for former Senator George Allen.)
The CDC warns that “the herpes B virus can spread from infected macaque monkeys to people. Macaque monkeys commonly have this virus, especially free-ranging monkeys. They usually do not have symptoms or have just mild disease.” The good news is that the herpes B virus is rare and almost never spreads from one human to another (just one documented case); the bad news is that there’s no vaccine for the herpes B virus and it can be fatal.
Now, as readers of Hunting Four Horsemen know, off the coast of Puerto Rico, there is a small island a mile off the eastern shore called Cayo Santiago, but nicknamed “Monkey Island,” because it’s home to 1,500 rhesus macaques. That island is not open to the public, but hosts a research station of the Caribbean Primate Research Center. One of the reasons the public isn’t allowed to visit Monkey Island is they don’t want monkey viruses getting into human beings.
Note that this isn’t the only case of escaped monkeys in the South in the past year:
All 43 monkeys that escaped from a research facility in South Carolina in November, prompting warnings for nearby residents to secure their doors and windows, have been captured safely, officials told CBS News on Jan. 24.
“Everyone is healthy and doing well,” Greg Westergaard, CEO of the research company Alpha Genesis, said in an email.
The primates broke loose from Alpha Genesis in Yemassee, Beaufort County, in South Carolina. The company confirmed that 43 rhesus macaque primates escaped from an enclosure at one of the company’s facilities.
When it comes to encountering primates in the wild, always remember that they’re animals and may not perceive you as friendly, even if you think you’re being friendly. Remember the lessons taught to us by renowned primate researchers like Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, and Charleton Heston.
Two Unnerving Forms of Chinese Research, Working Together
While I was on my reporting trip in India, one of my traveling companions was Bill Drexel, a fellow at the Hudson Institute and all-round brilliant and fascinating character. (Bill’s father-in-law, Ezra Jin, was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party on October 10 as part of a crackdown on churches. Bill and his wife Grace Jin Drexel had a chance to discuss this outrage on PBS a few days ago; on October 19, the Reverend Jin was able to send a letter.)
During our trip, Bill told me about his intriguing, unnerving, and perhaps downright disturbing deep-dive report that he wrote in the New Atlantis about how the Chinese government and its top companies — some might argue, a distinction without a difference — are combining artificial intelligence with their already copious research into genetic engineering.
The entire essay is worth reading, but here’s a key section:
Still clearer are the indications from BGI, China’s leading genomic company, which claims to be one of the largest genomics organizations in the world and is buoyed by heavy state support. The company has run an initiative to discern the genetic basis for IQ. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were certain tweaks you could make in utero that would enhance the performance of our brain?” one of the project’s scientists told the New Yorker in 2014. A Reuters investigation in 2021 found that the company developed its prenatal test, used by millions of women worldwide, in collaboration with the Chinese army and used it in the service of improving the country’s “population quality.”
According to a publication of the state media company Shanghai United Media Group, the president and cofounder of BGI forbids his employees from having children with birth defects, which he says would be a “disgrace” to the company. Not one of the 1,400 children born to employees has had serious congenital diseases, he says. “In the United States and in the West, you have a certain way,” he told the New Yorker. “You feel you are advanced and you are the best. Blah, blah, blah. You follow all these rules and have all these protocols and laws and regulations. You need somebody to change it. To blow it up.” . . .
The novelty of emerging biotech capabilities landing first in the hands of Beijing will compound the complexities facing the West if it wants to guard against the temptation to use these technologies abusively. No doubt, if China finds itself with an unmitigated first-mover advantage in shaping the norms around new genetic capabilities, the impacts would be profound. It is an area with direct national security implications, given China’s interest in genetically enhanced soldiers and, perhaps, next-generation bioweapons.
“Next-generation bioweapons.”
Oh, good, let’s combine The Terminator AND The Stand. Because if there’s anything recent history has taught us, it’s that we can trust the high standards, diligence, and caution of Chinese research scientists and the honesty, quick action, and accountability of the Chinese government.
In other China news, President Trump is scheduled to meet with Xi Jinping in South Korea Thursday. According to the Wall Street Journal, the two leaders are expected to agree to a deal on certain issues:
The deal itself appears to be a transactional truce, potentially involving China resuming purchases of U.S. soybeans and delaying new controls on rare-earth minerals. On the table for the U.S. is shelving new tariffs, rolling back the 20 percent levy on China over its role in the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., and potentially refraining from taking new policy actions against China.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote, “Tomorrow, President Xi of China. It will be a great meeting for both!!!”
Of All the Forms of Transportation This Guy Could Love . . .
The campaign of Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner — you know, the SS Totenkopf guy — posted on X, “Build trains again.” Anybody with a tattoo like that, I’m not getting onto any of his trains.
Either his campaign is astonishingly tone-deaf, or this is a neo-Nazi dog whistle, or his campaign is astonishingly tone-deaf and chose to troll his critics by making a post that sounds like a neo-Nazi dog whistle.
What next, a foreign policy plan entitled, “Why we need to move our troops into Poland”?
A Social Security plan entitled, “Why safe retirements can be found in Argentina”?
An affordable housing program plan entitled, “Why the Volk Need Lebensraum”?
Is his favorite composer Wagner?
Mr. Platner, what did you think of the ending of The Blues Brothers?
Is your idea of feel-good, relaxing television The Man in the High Castle?
Would you like to rename Kristi Noem’s position the “Secretary of Fatherland Security”?
ADDENDUM: Over in the Washington Post, I inform readers that the District of Columbia’s 18-term nonvoting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton, recently got scammed by thieves posing as HVAC workers. Notably, in the section of the field commander’s report with information about the “complainant,” or the victim of the crime, it says Norton “suffers early stages of dementia.”
Now, members of Congress, voting or not, are supposed to be only metaphorically demented.
Norton’s office insisted: “The medical diagnosis included in the police report was based on an assumption the reporting officer was unqualified to make.” Okay then, let’s get someone who is qualified to make that medical diagnosis to check on the congresswoman, because the idea of an 88-year-old woman who doesn’t have her own power of attorney and who has trouble communicating having dementia is not exactly an unthinkable scenario.
Note that it’s not like Norton was, to use a famous phrase, “sharp as a tack” a year ago and yet she cruised through the Democratic primary and general election with about 80 percent of the vote. Is anybody in the district paying attention to their representative, or is the whole thing just on autopilot?
A lot of District residents think it’s an outrage that they don’t get a voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives, nor two senators. But if they care about who is in that job so little that they keep Norton in that role long after old age has taken its toll . . . why should anyone outside the District care?