Infection of mammalian somatic cells with various viruses results in little accumulation of viRNA (Parameswaran et al, 2010; Girardi et al, 2013; Backes et al, 2014; Bogerd et al, 2014) and, where tested, virus replication is only modestly affected in Dicer‐defective cells (Wang et al, 2006b; Matskevich & Moelling, 2007; Bogerd et al, 2014). Here, DICER1 is linked to infection.