WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
You can subscribe to e‑mail alerts from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to the comments made on programs and posts–an excellent source of information in, and of, itself, HERE.
Mr. Emory’s entire life’s work is available on a 32GB flash drive, available for a contribution of $65.00 or more (to KFJC). Click Here to obtain Dave’s 40+ years’ work.
Please consider supporting THE WORK DAVE EMORY DOES.
FTR #1129 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Updating our ongoing series of programs concerning the Covid-19 outbreak, we begin with several articles analyzing the political, economic and psycho-social ramifications of the phenomenon.
We have termed the Covid-19 outbreak and its multi-dimensional manifestations, a “bio-psy-op.” Amplifying what is meant by that term:
- An academic paper produced by a Federal Reserve economist posits the socio-political effects of the 1918 flu pandemic as a factor contributing to the rise of Nazism in Germany. Cited by numerous publications, including The New York Times, Bloomberg News and Politico, the study underscores some of our assertions concerning the fascist and extreme right-wing ramifications of the pandemic. ” . . . . The paper, published this month and authored by New York Fed economist Kristian Blickle, examined municipal spending levels and voter extremism in Germany from the time of the initial influenza outbreak until 1933, and shows that ‘areas which experienced a greater relative population decline’ due to the pandemic spent ‘less, per capita, on their inhabitants in the following decade.’. . . The paper’s findings are likely due to ‘changes in societal preferences’ following the 1918 outbreak, Blickle argues — suggesting the influenza pandemic . . . . may have ‘spurred resentment of foreigners among the survivors’ and driven voters to parties ‘whose platform matched such sentiments.’ The conclusions come amid fears that the current coronavirus pandemic will shake up international politics and spur extremism around the world, as officials and public health experts look to previous outbreaks for guidance on how to navigate the months and years to come. . . .”
-
The social dislocation caused by the Great Depression also drove German and world political sentiment to the right, providing additional momentum to global forces of fascism. Current U.S. economic data bring that to mind. “U.S. Unemployment Is Worst Since Depression;” by Nelson D. Schwartz and Ben Casselman; The New York Times; 5/9/2020; pp. A1-A13 [Western Edition.]
-
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warns that the pandemic has strengthened ethno-nationalism, populism, bigotry and authoritarian rule. Reactionary sentiment driven by the pandemic has also spurred eugenic rationale globally. ” . . . . UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing ‘a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering’ and appealed for ‘an all-out effort to end hate speech globally.’ Guterres said ‘anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred.’ The UN chief said migrants and refugees ‘have been vilified as a source of the virus – and then denied access to medical treatment.’ . . . ‘With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable,’ he said. ‘And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.’ . . . .”
-
An article in The Guardian–citing a source within the Trump administration–compared the Covid-19 political landscape in the U.S. with late Weimar Germany: ” . . . . Welcome to the US in the age of coronavirus. Faces and fists pounded the windows of Ohio’s capitol like a zombie apocalypse. In Michigan, an armed crowd stormed the state house. Then, history repeated itself. . . . A Trump administration insider conveyed that it was all a ‘bit’ reminiscent of the ‘late’ Weimar Republic. We know how that ended. . . .Society’s guardrails crashed, the volk demanded its pound of flesh and democracy made the frighteningly unimaginable possible. Hell became part of the here and now. . . .”
Critical observations by Wolfgang Schauble–the German/EU “Austerity Czar” who wrought so much suffering following the 2008 economic collapse–has clearly enunciated the functional and philosophical essence of “corporatist” and eugenic doctrine. After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he has redoubled his “Teutonic brutality” and his views have been embraced by the German establishment: ” . . . . Schäuble’s tactics [during the financial crisis] seemed to scare Europe with ‘traumatic effects’ and gave it a lesson in German economic ethics: Teutonic brutality and at all costs. ‘Terrifying,’ was the assessment the US Treasury Secretary made following his conversation with Schäuble. Paris and Madrid were also apprehensive; Athens called Schäuble an ‘arsonist,’ on a rampage through Europe. . . . Schäuble has elaborated in 2020 on what he had already made clear in 2012, during the international financial crisis: ‘If I hear that everything else must take a back seat to the preservation of life, I must say that this, in such unequivocalness, is not right.’ Protection of human life does not have an ‘absolute priority in our Basic Law.’ . . . Schäuble’s statements are exemplary and are of ‘national significance’ declared the German Ethics Council. . . .In fact, the government’s obligation to the constitution’s highest value — the protection of life — must be relativized, just as Schäuble is doing, confirm the majority of Germany’s government leaders. . . . a fellow Green municipal politician speaks in plain operational terms; ‘Let me tell you quite bluntly: We may be saving people in Germany, who, because of their age or serious previous medical conditions, may, be dead anyway in a half a year.’ . . . .”
In FTR #1128, we hypothesized about the possible role in the Covid-19 pandemic of a post-Apartheid, underground fascist milieu with links to elements of CIA and veterans of Project Coast. Those who reject such an hypothesis would do well to consider the musings of an FBI informant knowledgeable about “Die Organisasie.” That such a milieu might be willing to target the U.S. seems probable: ” . . . . South African trade attaché Gideon Bouwer raved about the ability to keep whites in power through biological warfare, and he hinted at being part of a separate agenda—some sort of extragovernmental conspiracy, like the one described in the Air Force report, that had plans to unleash biological agents worldwide on South Africa’s enemies if the need should ever arise. ‘Just be ready,’ Fitzpatrick remembers Bouwer warning him cryptically, then asking, ‘How fast could get your daughter out of the country if you had to?’ . . .”
The bulk of the discussion elaborates on discussion of the virus originating in a laboratory–in the U.S., NOT China.
As discussed in FTR #1124–among other programs–it is now possible to create ANY virus from scratch, using “mail-order” or “designer” genes. Sadly predictable journalistic bromides that the Covid-19 coronavirus could not have been/was not made in a laboratory fly in the face of bio-technology that has existed for 20 years. A BBC story from 1999 highlights the fears of experts that the advent of such technology could enable the development of ethno-specific biological weapons: ” . . . . Advances in genetic knowledge could be misused to develop powerful biological weapons that could be tailored to strike at specific ethnic groups, the British Medical Association has warned. A BMA report Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity says that concerted international action is necessary to block the development of new, biological weapons. It warns the window of opportunity to do so is very narrow as technology is developing rapidly and becoming ever more accessible. ‘. . . The BMA report warns that legitimate research into microbiological agents and genetically targeted therapeutic agents could be difficult to distinguish from research geared towards developing more effective weapons. . . . Dr Vivienne Nathanson, BMA Head of Health Policy Research said: ‘The history of humanity is a history of war. Scientific advances quickly lead to developments in weapons technology. . . .‘Biotechnology and genetic knowledge are equally open to this type of malign use. . . . ”
Of paramount importance is the fact that the statements being issued that the virus was not made in a laboratory is not just irrelevant, but absurd. ANY virus can be made in a laboratory, from scratch as is being done for the SARS-CoV‑2 (Covid-19) virus. The bromides being issued–all too predictably–that the virus could not have been/wasn’t made in a laboratory are the virological equivalent of the Magic Bullet Theory.
In that context, we review the fact that Ralph Baric–who did the gain-of-function modification on the Horseshoe Bat coronavirus–has been selected to engineer the Covid-19. ” . . . . Researchers are trying to create a copy of the virus. From scratch. Led by Ralph Baric, an expert in coronaviruses—which get their name from the crown-shaped spike they use to enter human cells—the North Carolina team expects to recreate the virus starting only from computer readouts of its genetic sequence posted online by Chinese labs last month. . . .”
Note what might be termed a “virologic Jurassic Park” manifestation: ” . . . . The technology immediately created bio-weapon worries. . . . Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) drove that point home in 2005 when they resurrected the influenza virus that killed tens of millions in 1918–1919. . . .”
We note in passing the VERY unusual aspects of Covid-19. ” . . . . ‘I’ve been studying viruses since 1978,’ Dr. James Hildreth, Meharry Medical College CEO and an infectious disease expert based out of Nashville, told Yahoo Finance’s On the Move this week (video above). ‘And I think it’s fair to say we’ve not encountered a virus quite like this, just because of the broad range of tissue types in our body it infects.’ . . .”
The program concludes with discussion of two articles refuting the “Warren Report” of Covid-19 genesis–a Nature Medicine article that is accepted as Gospel.
Like the Bible, it is open to serious scientific refutation: ” . . . . To put it simply, the authors are saying that SARS-CoV‑2 was not deliberately engineered because if it were, it would have been designed differently. However, the London-based molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou commented that this line of reasoning fails to take into account that there are a number of laboratory-based systems that can select for high affinity RBD variants that are able to take into account the complex environment of a living organism. This complex environment may impact the efficiency with which the SARS-CoV spike protein can find the ACE2 receptor and bind to it. An RBD selected via these more realistic real-world experimental systems would be just as ‘ideal’, or even more so, for human ACE2 binding than any RBD that a computer model could predict. And crucially, it would likely be different in amino acid sequence. So the fact that SARS-CoV‑2 doesn’t have the same RBD amino acid sequence as the one that the computer program predicted in no way rules out the possibility that it was genetically engineered. . . .”
Dr. Michael Antoniou notes that different genetic engineering processes than the one highlighted in the Nature Medicine paper can be used: ” . . . . There is another method by which an enhanced-infectivity virus can be engineered in the lab. A well-known alternative process that could have been used has the cumbersome name of “directed iterative evolutionary selection process”. In this case, it would involve using genetic engineering to generate a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which would then be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells. . . .”
The notion that the Nature Medicine authors had not heard of the above process is not credible: ” . . . . Such a directed iterative evolutionary selection process is a frequently used method in laboratory research. So there is little or no possibility that the Nature Medicine article authors haven’t heard of it – not least, as it is considered so scientifically important that its inventors were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. . . .”
Of more than passing significance is another article that finds serious fault with the Nature Medicine paper. ” . . . . Professor Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College, says that a key argument used to deny that it could be a genetically engineered strain that escaped from a laboratory actually points to the exact opposite. In other words, it indicates that SARS-CoV‑2 could well be genetically engineered and that it could have escaped from a lab. . . . As Adam Lauring, an associate professor of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School, has noted, Andersen’s paper argues that, ‘the SARS-CoV‑2 virus has some key differences in specific genes relative to previously identified coronaviruses – the ones a laboratory would be working with. This constellation of changes makes it unlikely that it is the result of a laboratory ‘escape’.‘But Professor Newman says that this is totally unconvincing because ‘The ‘key differences’ were in regions of the coronavirus spike protein that were the subject of genetic engineering experiments in labs around the world (mainly in the US and China) for two decades.’ . . .”
Professor Newman goes on to highlight other, serious flaws in the argument: ” . . . In an email interview with GMWatch, Newman, who is editor-in-chief of the journal Biological Theory and co-author (with Tina Stevens) of the book Biotech Juggernaut, amplified this speculation by noting, ‘The Nature Medicine paper points to variations in two sites of the spike protein of the new coronavirus that the authors claim must have arisen by natural selection in the wild. However, genetic engineering of one of these sites, the ACE2 receptor binding domain, has been proposed since 2005 in order to help generate vaccines against these viruses (see this paper). It is puzzling that the authors of the Nature Medicine commentary did not cite this paper, which appeared in the prominent journal Science.’ Moreover, Newman added, “The second site that Andersen et al. assert arose by natural means, a target of enzyme cleavage not usually found in this class of viruses, was in fact introduced by genetic engineering in a similar coronavirus in a paper they do cite. This was done to explore mechanisms of pathogenicity. . . . .”
Worth noting, again, is the British Medical Association’s warning discussed above: ” . . . .The BMA report warns that legitimate research into microbiological agents and genetically targeted therapeutic agents could be difficult to distinguish from research geared towards developing more effective weapons. . . .”
As the GMWatch authors conclude: ” . . . . Such ‘enhanced infectivity’ research is carried out on viruses all over the world (and not just in China) to investigate their behaviour and to develop vaccines and other therapies, as well as for ‘biodefence’ purposes. . . .”
1a. We have termed the Covid-19 outbreak and its multi-dimensional manifestations, a “bio-psy-op.” An academic paper produced by a Federal Reserve economist posits the socio-political effects of the 1918 flu pandemic as a factor contributing to the rise of Nazism in Germany.
(We have discussed the 1918 flu pandemic and the progression from military scientists recovering the virus’ DNA to full reconstruction of the organism in 2005. Some of the relevant programs: FTR #‘s 55, 1116, 1117, 1118, 1121, 1124.)
Cited by numerous publications, including The New York Times, Bloomberg News and Politico, the study underscores some of our assertions concerning the fascist and extreme right-wing ramifications of the pandemic.
This timely and very important study will be referenced in future discussion of the psychological, sociological and socio-economic aspects of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Kristian Blickle’s analysis underscores points we have made about the demographic, economic and psychological devastation the pandemic is having on the body politic.
“A new academic paper produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concludes that deaths caused by the 1918 influenza pandemic “profoundly shaped German society” in subsequent years and contributed to the strengthening of the Nazi Party.
“The paper, published this month and authored by New York Fed economist Kristian Blickle, examined municipal spending levels and voter extremism in Germany from the time of the initial influenza outbreak until 1933, and shows that ‘areas which experienced a greater relative population decline’ due to the pandemic spent ‘less, per capita, on their inhabitants in the following decade.’ . . .
“. . . . The paper’s findings are likely due to ‘changes in societal preferences’ following the 1918 outbreak, Blickle argues — suggesting the influenza pandemic’s disproportionate toll on young people may have ‘spurred resentment of foreigners among the survivors’ and driven voters to parties ‘whose platform matched such sentiments.’ The conclusions come amid fears that the current coronavirus pandemic will shake up international politics and spur extremism around the world, as officials and public health experts look to previous outbreaks for guidance on how to navigate the months and years to come. . . .”
“Fed Study Ties 1918 Flu Pandemic to Nazi Party Gains” by Quint Forgey; Politico; 5/05/2020.
A new academic paper produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concludes that deaths caused by the 1918 influenza pandemic “profoundly shaped German society” in subsequent years and contributed to the strengthening of the Nazi Party.
The paper, published this month and authored by New York Fed economist Kristian Blickle, examined municipal spending levels and voter extremism in Germany from the time of the initial influenza outbreak until 1933, and shows that “areas which experienced a greater relative population decline” due to the pandemic spent “less, per capita, on their inhabitants in the following decade.”
The paper also shows that “influenza deaths of 1918 are correlated with an increase in the share of votes won by right-wing extremists, such as the National Socialist Workers Party” in Germany’s 1932 and 1933 elections.
Together, the lower spending and flu-related deaths “had a strong effect on the share of votes won by extremists, specifically the extremist national socialist party” — the Nazis — the paper posits. “This result is stronger for right-wing extremists, and largely non-existent for left-wing extremists.”
Despite becoming popularly known as the Spanish flu, the influenza pandemic likely originated in the United States at a Kansas military base, eventually infecting about one-third of the global population and killing at least 50 million people worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Germany experienced roughly 287,000 influenza deaths between 1918 and 1920, Blickle writes.
The paper’s findings are likely due to “changes in societal preferences” following the 1918 outbreak, Blickle argues — suggesting the influenza pandemic’s disproportionate toll on young people may have “spurred resentment of foreigners among the survivors” and driven voters to parties “whose platform matched such sentiments.”
The conclusions come amid fears that the current coronavirus pandemic will shake up international politics and spur extremism around the world, as officials and public health experts look to previous outbreaks for guidance on how to navigate the months and years to come.
Germany experienced roughly 287,000 influenza deaths between 1918 and 1920, Blickle writes.
The paper’s findings are likely due to “changes in societal preferences” following the 1918 outbreak, Blickle argues — suggesting the influenza pandemic’s disproportionate toll on young people may have “spurred resentment of foreigners among the survivors” and driven voters to parties “whose platform matched such sentiments.”
The conclusions come amid fears that the current coronavirus pandemic will shake up international politics and spur extremism around the world, as officials and public health experts look to previous outbreaks for guidance on how to navigate the months and years to come.
1b. The social dislocation caused by the Great Depression also drove German and world political sentiment to the right, providing additional momentum to global forces of fascism. Current U.S. economic data bring that to mind.
“U.S. Unemployment Is Worst Since Depression;” by Nelson D. Schwartz and Ben Casselman; The New York Times; 5/9/2020; pp. A1-A13 [Western Edition.]
1c. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warns that the pandemic has strengthened ethno-nationalism, populism, bigotry and authoritarian rule. Reactionary sentiment driven by the pandemic has also spurred eugenic rationale globally. ” . . . . UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing ‘a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering’ and appealed for ‘an all-out effort to end hate speech globally.’ Guterres said ‘anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred.’ The UN chief said migrants and refugees ‘have been vilified as a source of the virus – and then denied access to medical treatment.’ . . . ‘With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable,’ he said. ‘And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.’ . . . .”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing ‘a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering’ and appealed for ‘an all-out effort to end hate speech globally.’
Guterres said ‘anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred.’
The UN chief said migrants and refugees ‘have been vilified as a source of the virus – and then denied access to medical treatment.’
Antonio Guterres@antonioaguterres
#COVID19 does not care who we are, where we live, or what we believe.Yet the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.
That’s why I’m appealing for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally.
‘With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable,’ he said. ‘And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.’ . . . .
1d. This article compares the activities under the Trump Administration with that of the Weimar Republic prior to when the Nazis seized power. The article reference the President’s support for right wing extremists–“the volk”–in the face of economic collapse. ” . . . . A Trump administration insider conveyed that it was all a ‘bit’ reminiscent of the ‘late’ Weimar Republic. We know how that ended. . . .Society’s guardrails crashed, the volk demanded its pound of flesh and democracy made the frighteningly unimaginable possible. Hell became part of the here and now. . . .”
Welcome to the US in the age of coronavirus. Faces and fists pounded the windows of Ohio’s capitol like a zombie apocalypse. In Michigan, an armed crowd stormed the state house. Then, history repeated itself.
Taking a page from his Charlottesville playbook, Donald Trump called the protesters “good people” and urged Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, to “make a deal” over the shutdown. The president tweeted that Whitmer should “give a little, and put out the fire”. In other words, negotiate over the barrel of a gun. After all, his base was “angry”.
One state over, in Illinois, an anti-shutdown protester waived a poster aimed at the state’s Jewish governor, JB Pritzker: “Arbeit macht frei, JB.” The words that hung over the gates of Auschwitz.
A Trump administration insider conveyed that it was all a “bit” reminiscent of the “late” Weimar Republic. We know how that ended.
Society’s guardrails crashed, the volk demanded its pound of flesh and democracy made the frighteningly unimaginable possible. Hell became part of the here and now. . . .
. . . . Coronavirus has unleashed more than death. Social fissures once buried have metastasized into jagged volcanic chasms. The past is always with us, much as we try to jettison it. Weimar was less than a century ago. Democracy is more fragile than we may care to acknowledge.
Life and death are on the line and the president and his minions appear reluctant to grasp the reality.
2. In FTR #1128, we hypothesized about the possible role in the Covid-19 pandemic of a post-Apartheid, underground fascist milieu with links to elements of CIA and veterans of Project Coast. Those who reject such an hypothesis would do well to consider the musings of an FBI informant knowledgeable about “Die Organisasie.” That such a milieu might be willing to target the U.S. seems probable: ” . . . . South African trade attaché Gideon Bouwer raved about the ability to keep whites in power through biological warfare, and he hinted at being part of a separate agenda—some sort of extragovernmental conspiracy, like the one described in the Air Force report, that had plans to unleash biological agents worldwide on South Africa’s enemies if the need should ever arise. ‘Just be ready,’ Fitzpatrick remembers Bouwer warning him cryptically, then asking, ‘How fast could get your daughter out of the country if you had to?’ . . .”
“The Medicine Man” by Edward Humes; Los Angeles Magazine; July, 2001.
. . . . They say he [South African trade attaché Gideon Bouwer] raved about the ability to keep whites in power through biological warfare, and he hinted at being part of a separate agenda—some sort of extragovernmental conspiracy, like the one described in the Air Force report, that had plans to unleash biological agents worldwide on South Africa’s enemies if the need should ever arise. ‘Just be ready,’ Fitzpatrick remembers Bouwer warning him cryptically, then asking, ‘How fast could get your daughter out of the country if you had to?’ ‘I have to be honest,’ Fitzpatrick says. ‘Gideon could be a great guy. But there was something dangerous about him. And when he started talking about that master plan, about what a great service Ford had done for his country, and about getting out of the country, it gave me chills.’ . . .
3. Critical observations by Wolfgang Schauble–the German/EU “Austerity Czar” who wrought so much suffering following the 2008 economic collapse–has clearly enunciated the functional and philosophical essence of “corporatist” and eugenic doctrine. After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he has redoubled his “Teutonic brutality:”
Worth noting is the fact that the disparity between Germany and much of the Northern EU and its beset Southern compatriors, such as Italy, exacerbated by the ’08 financial crash, is deteriorating further, as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak.
“Germany Threatens” by Rudiger Minow; German Foreign Policy; 5/01/2020.
. . . . During the international financial crisis, when Schäuble was Germany’s Minister of Finance, his EU counterparts trembled: Schäuble wanted to force them to adapt harsh austerity measures. Because the foreseeable social consequences would cost lives, Schäuble’s tactics seemed to scare Europe with ‘traumatic effects’ and gave it a lesson in German economic ethics: Teutonic brutality and at all costs. ‘Terrifying,’ was the assessment the US Treasury Secretary made following his conversation with Schäuble. Paris and Madrid were also apprehensive; Athens called Schäuble an ‘arsonist,’ on a rampage through Europe. Schäuble has since climbed higher on the government ladder. Schäuble now ranks second, after the President, in the Federal Republic of Germany’s protocolary system. . . . .”
. . . . In the midst of the Corona crisis, Schäuble initiated an interview, considered to be an unofficial guideline for the German state’s life and death decisions. Its tenor deserves attention, even beyond Germany’s borders.
Should people have to die, because they are deprived of state resources, essential for the economic cycle, such as currently during the Corona crisis? Does the protection of human life have absolute priority in state policy? In the interview, Schäuble has elaborated in 2020 on what he had already made clear in 2012, during the international financial crisis: ‘If I hear that everything else must take a back seat to the preservation of life, I must say that this, in such unequivocalness, is not right.’ Protection of human life does not have an ‘absolute priority in our Basic Law.’ Death is coming sooner or later anyway. ‘We are all going to die.’ (April 26, 2020)
Schäuble’s statements are exemplary and are of ‘national significance’ declared the German Ethics Council. The council is government financed and prioritizes ‘economic rights.’ They should ‘not be unconditionally subordinated’ to the protection of human life. There is a sort of rivalry of values. If the value of life would have priority, ‘freedom’ would suffer, according to the unanimous judgment of the ethics department of the German Economic Institute (IW). From the standpoint of German constitutional law, according to a former judge on the constitutional court, ‘the state’s efficiency’ would encounter its limits, if life were given top priority, where ‘everything else must lag arbitrarily far behind.’
In fact, the government’s obligation to the constitution’s highest value — the protection of life — must be relativized, just as Schäuble is doing, confirm the majority of Germany’s government leaders. Prominent voices from the parliamentary opposition parties are also in agreement that the protection of human life, as the primary legitimized duty of the state is a ‘question of assessment.’ From this the FDP draws the conclusion: ‘therefore, please reopen the businesses.’ ‘Enable production.’ In harmony with Germany’s export economy lobbyists and the President of the Bundestag, the chair of the Greens is also one of the relativizers. He finds himself in an alleged ‘dilemma,’ when he thinks of the protection of life during the Corona crisis, while a fellow Green municipal politician speaks in plain operational terms; ‘Let me tell you quite bluntly: We may be saving people in Germany, who, because of their age or serious previous medical conditions, may, be dead anyway in a half a year.’ . . . .”
4a. As discussed in FTR #1124–among other programs–it is now possible to create ANY virus from scratch, using “mail-order” or “designer” genes. Sadly predictable journalistic bromides that the Covid-19 coronavirus could not have been/was not made in a laboratory fly in the face of bio-technology that has existed for 20 years.
In FTR #282–recorded in May of 2001–we noted the terrible significance of the development of such “Designer Gene” technology.
A BBC story from 1999 highlights the fears of experts that the advent of such technology could enable the development of ethno-specific biological weapons.
” . . . . Advances in genetic knowledge could be misused to develop powerful biological weapons that could be tailored to strike at specific ethnic groups, the British Medical Association has warned. A BMA report Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity says that concerted international action is necessary to block the development of new, biological weapons. It warns the window of opportunity to do so is very narrow as technology is developing rapidly and becoming ever more accessible. ‘Recipes’ for developing biological agents are freely available on the Internet, the report warns. . . . The BMA report warns that legitimate research into microbiological agents and genetically targeted therapeutic agents could be difficult to distinguish from research geared towards developing more effective weapons. . . . Dr Vivienne Nathanson, BMA Head of Health Policy Research said: ‘The history of humanity is a history of war. Scientific advances quickly lead to developments in weapons technology. . . .‘Biotechnology and genetic knowledge are equally open to this type of malign use. Doctors and other scientists have an important role in prevention. They have a duty to persuade politicians and international agencies such as the UN to take this threat seriously and to take action to prevent the production of such weapons.’ . . . ”
“Health: Genetic Weapons Alert”; BBC; 1/21/1999.
Advances in genetic knowledge could be misused to develop powerful biological weapons that could be tailored to strike at specific ethnic groups, the British Medical Association has warned.
A BMA report Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity says that concerted international action is necessary to block the development of new, biological weapons.
It warns the window of opportunity to do so is very narrow as technology is developing rapidly and becoming ever more accessible.
“Recipes” for developing biological agents are freely available on the Internet, the report warns.
As genetic manipulation becomes a standard laboratory technique, there is a risk that this new information will also become widely available.
Procedures to monitor against the misuse of this new knowledge are urgently needed, the BMA says.
Abuse of knowledge
The report identifies two principal ways in which advancing genetic knowledge could be misused for weapons development:
- Genetic information is already being used to “improve” elements of biological weapons, for example by increasing their antibiotic resistance. These developments raise the spectre of highly targeted biological weapons being used on the battlefield.
- Weapons could theoretically be developed which affect particular versions of genes clustered in specific ethnic or family groups.
Although genetic weapons which target a particular ethnic group are not currently a practical possibility, the report concludes it would be complacent to assume that they could never be developed in the future.
Humans from apparently widely divergent social groups actually have more similarities than differences in their genetic make up. But differences do exist and as the Human Genome Project advances, these differences can increasingly be identified.
The BMA report warns that legitimate research into microbiological agents and genetically targeted therapeutic agents could be difficult to distinguish from research geared towards developing more effective weapons.
The BMA says that urgent action is needed to strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
This has not been effective in prohibiting the development of biological weapons, the BMA says, because it does not have adequate verification provisions.
The BMA has called on doctors and medical organisations to campaign against the development of biological weapons.
Serious threat
Dr Vivienne Nathanson, BMA Head of Health Policy Research said: “The history of humanity is a history of war.
“Scientific advances quickly lead to developments in weapons technology.
“Biotechnology and genetic knowledge are equally open to this type of malign use.
“Doctors and other scientists have an important role in prevention. They have a duty to persuade politicians and international agencies such as the UN to take this threat seriously and to take action to prevent the production of such weapons.”
Dr Nathanson warned that getting rid of weapons once they are produced is difficult.
4b. Of paramount importance is the fact that the statements being issued that the virus was not made in a laboratory is not just irrelevant, but absurd. ANY virus can be made in a laboratory, from scratch as is being done for the SARS-CoV‑2 (Covid-19) virus.
The bromides being issued–all too predictably–that the virus could not have been/wasn’t made in a laboratory are the virological equivalent of the Magic Bullet Theory.
Ralph Baric–who did the gain-of-function modification on the Horseshoe Bat coronavirus, has been selected to engineer the Covid-19.
Note what might be termed a “virologic Jurassic Park” manifestation: ” . . . . The technology immediately created bio-weapon worries. . . . Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) drove that point home in 2005 when they resurrected the influenza virus that killed tens of millions in 1918–1919. . . .”
The world is watching with alarm as China struggles to contain a dangerous new virus, now being called SARS-CoV‑2. It has quarantined entire cities, and the US has put a blanket ban on travellers who’ve been there. Health officials are scrambling to understand how the virus is transmitted and how to treat patients.
But in one University of North Carolina lab, there’s a different race. Researchers are trying to create a copy of the virus. From scratch.
Led by Ralph Baric, an expert in coronaviruses—which get their name from the crown-shaped spike they use to enter human cells—the North Carolina team expects to recreate the virus starting only from computer readouts of its genetic sequence posted online by Chinese labs last month.
The remarkable ability to “boot up” viruses from genetic instructions is made possible by companies that manufacture custom DNA molecules, such as Integrated DNA Technology, Twist Bioscience, and Atum. By ordering the right genes, which cost a few thousand dollars, and then stitching them together to create a copy of the coronavirus genome, it’s possible to inject the genetic material into cells and jump-start the virus to life.
The ability to make a lethal virus from mail-order DNA was first demonstrated 20 years ago. It’s enough of a bioterrorism concern that companies carefully monitor who is ordering which genes. . . . The technology immediately created bio-weapon worries. . . . Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) drove that point home in 2005 when they resurrected the influenza virus that killed tens of millions in 1918–1919. . . .”
4c. The article below highlights the VERY unusual aspects of Covid-19. ” . . . . ‘I’ve been studying viruses since 1978,’ Dr. James Hildreth, Meharry Medical College CEO and an infectious disease expert based out of Nashville, told Yahoo Finance’s On the Move this week (video above). ‘And I think it’s fair to say we’ve not encountered a virus quite like this, just because of the broad range of tissue types in our body it infects.’ . . .”
The coronavirus pandemic has upended normal life across the world.
There are over 1 million cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., which is the global leader in case count. Worldwide, there are over 3 million cases. And for many doctors, the coronavirus and its impacts are like nothing they’ve ever seen before.
“I’ve been studying viruses since 1978,” Dr. James Hildreth, Meharry Medical College CEO and an infectious disease expert based out of Nashville, told Yahoo Finance’s On the Move this week (video above). “And I think it’s fair to say we’ve not encountered a virus quite like this, just because of the broad range of tissue types in our body it infects.”
The coronavirus creates the infection known as COVID-19. The virus spreads through viral droplets from a cough or sneeze, which can travel into someone else’s mouth, nose, or eyes. From there, according to WebMD, it travels through the nasal passage to the mucous membranes in your throat and latches on.
Within two to 14 days, a person can start showing symptoms, which include fever, cough, chills, fatigue, and shortness of breath. As the virus moves through the respiratory tract, it can inflame the lungs, causing breathing difficulties and leading to pneumonia.
“So anyone who has a compromised immune system, or their lungs are compromised in any way, they’re going to have really poor outcomes,” Hildreth explained.
The CDC has stated that those over the age of 65 and those with underlying health conditions are most at risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
The people with underlying health conditions at risk can be of any age. Those with asthma, chronic lung disease, heart conditions, obesity, diabetes, liver disease, kidney disease, and those who are otherwise immunocompromised are especially vulnerable.
“It shuts down kidneys,” Hildreth said. “As you’ve heard, it’s starting to cause blood clots in young people in their 30s and 40s who are dying of strokes. It causes really severe lung disease. And it also triggers something called a cytokine storm, in which the immune system gets over exuberant and begins to destroy not just the virus, but the tissues around the virus.”
Blood clotting is a newer complication that doctors have noticed in COVID-19 patients. A 41-year-old Broadway actor named Nick Cordero, who has been in a medically-induced coma for over a month because of the virus, had his leg amputated after developing a clot.
“We do need to find something that can slow the virus down until we have a vaccine,” Hildreth said. “But it’s fair to say that of all the viruses that I’m aware that I’ve studied or been involved with, this one is very different, just in terms of the huge range of things that it does to the body.”
“It really is an extraordinary challenge, and like none we’ve seen before,” he added. “But I’m really heartened by the fact that scientists all over the world have focused their attention on it. And so, I’m confident that we’re going to find some solutions in the coming months.”
5a. The program concludes with discussion of two articles refuting the “Warren Report” of Covid-19 genesis–a Nature Medicine article that is accepted as Gospel.
Like the Bible, it is open to serious scientific refutation: ” . . . . To put it simply, the authors are saying that SARS-CoV‑2 was not deliberately engineered because if it were, it would have been designed differently. However, the London-based molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou commented that this line of reasoning fails to take into account that there are a number of laboratory-based systems that can select for high affinity RBD variants that are able to take into account the complex environment of a living organism. This complex environment may impact the efficiency with which the SARS-CoV spike protein can find the ACE2 receptor and bind to it. An RBD selected via these more realistic real-world experimental systems would be just as ‘ideal’, or even more so, for human ACE2 binding than any RBD that a computer model could predict. And crucially, it would likely be different in amino acid sequence. So the fact that SARS-CoV‑2 doesn’t have the same RBD amino acid sequence as the one that the computer program predicted in no way rules out the possibility that it was genetically engineered. . . .”
Dr. Michael Antoniou notes that different genetic engineering processes than the one highlighted in the Nature Medicine paper can be used: ” . . . . There is another method by which an enhanced-infectivity virus can be engineered in the lab. A well-known alternative process that could have been used has the cumbersome name of “directed iterative evolutionary selection process”. In this case, it would involve using genetic engineering to generate a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which would then be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells. . . .”
The notion that the Nature Medicine authors had not heard of the above process is not credible: ” . . . . Such a directed iterative evolutionary selection process is a frequently used method in laboratory research. So there is little or no possibility that the Nature Medicine article authors haven’t heard of it – not least, as it is considered so scientifically important that its inventors were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. . . .”
“Was the COVID-19 virus genetically engineered?” by Claire Robinson; GMWatch; 04/22/2020.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic took off, speculation has been rife about its origins. The truth is that nobody knows for certain how the virus first took hold. But despite that uncertainty, suggestions that the virus may have been genetically engineered, or otherwise lab-generated, have been rejected as “conspiracy theories” incompatible with the evidence.
Yet the main evidence that is cited as ending all speculation about the role of genetic engineering and as proving the virus could only have been the product of natural evolution turns out to be surprisingly weak. Let’s take a look at it.
The authors of a recently published paper in the journal Nature Medicine argue that the SARS-CoV‑2 virus driving the pandemic arose through natural mutation and selection in animal (notably bats and pangolins) or human hosts, and not through laboratory manipulation and accidental release. And they say they have identified two key characteristics of the virus that prove this: the absence of a previously used virus backbone and the way in which the virus binds to human cells.
Not the “ideal” design for infectivity?
As you would expect of a virus that can cause a global pandemic, SARS-CoV‑2 is good at infecting human cells. It does this by binding with high affinity (that is, it binds strongly) to the cell surface membrane protein known as angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which enables it to enter human cells. But, basing their argument on a computer modelling system, the authors of the Nature Medicine paper argue that the interaction between the virus and the ACE2 receptor is “not ideal”.
They say that the receptor-binding domain (RBD) amino acid sequence of the SARS-CoV‑2 spike protein – the part of the spike protein that allows the virus to bind to the ACE2 protein on human cell surfaces – is different from those shown in the SARS-CoV family of viruses to be optimal for receptor binding.
They appear to argue, based on their and others‘ computer modelling data, that they have identified the “ideal” CoV spike protein RBD amino acid sequence for ACE2 receptor binding. They then seem to imply that if you were to genetically engineer SARS-CoV for optimal human ACE2 binding and infectivity, you would use the RBD amino acid sequence predicted by their computer modelling. But they point out that SARS-CoV‑2 does not have exactly the same computer program-predicted RBD amino acid sequence. Thus they conclude that it could not have been genetically engineered, stating: “This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV‑2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation.”
To put it simply, the authors are saying that SARS-CoV‑2 was not deliberately engineered because if it were, it would have been designed differently.
However, the London-based molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou commented that this line of reasoning fails to take into account that there are a number of laboratory-based systems that can select for high affinity RBD variants that are able to take into account the complex environment of a living organism. This complex environment may impact the efficiency with which the SARS-CoV spike protein can find the ACE2 receptor and bind to it. An RBD selected via these more realistic real-world experimental systems would be just as “ideal”, or even more so, for human ACE2 binding than any RBD that a computer model could predict. And crucially, it would likely be different in amino acid sequence. So the fact that SARS-CoV‑2 doesn’t have the same RBD amino acid sequence as the one that the computer program predicted in no way rules out the possibility that it was genetically engineered.
Limits to computer modelling
Dr Antoniou said that the authors’ reasoning is not conclusive because it is based largely on computer modelling, which, he says, is “not definitive but only predictive. It cannot tell us whether any given virus would be optimized for infectivity in a real world scenario, such as in the human body. That’s because the environment of the human body will influence how the virus interacts with the receptor. You can’t model that accurately with computer modelling as there are simply too many variables to factor into the equation.”
Dr Antoniou added, “People can put too much faith in computer programs, but they are only a beginning. You then have to prove whether the computer program’s prediction is correct or not by direct experimentation in a living organism. This has not been done in the case of this hypothesis, so it remains unproven.”
It is even possible that SARS-CoV‑2 was optimized using a living organism model, resulting in a virus that is better at infecting humans than any computer model could predict.
More than one way to engineer a virus
The authors of the Nature Medicine article seem to assume that the only way to genetically engineer a virus is to take an already known virus and then engineer it to have the new properties you want. On this premise, they looked for evidence of an already known virus that could have been used in the engineering of SARS-CoV‑2.
And they failed to find that evidence. They stated, “Genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV‑2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.”
But Dr Antoniou told us that while the authors did indeed show that SARS-CoV‑2 was unlikely to have been built by deliberate genetic engineering from a previously used virus backbone, that’s not the only way of constructing a virus. There is another method by which an enhanced-infectivity virus can be engineered in the lab.
A well-known alternative
A well-known alternative process that could have been used has the cumbersome name of “directed iterative evolutionary selection process”. In this case, it would involve using genetic engineering to generate a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which would then be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells.
This selection can be done either with purified proteins or, better still, with a mixture of whole coronavirus (CoV) preparations and human cells in tissue culture. Alternatively, the SARS-CoV spike protein variants can be genetically engineered within what is known as a “phage display library”. A phage is a virus that infects bacteria and can be genetically engineered to express on its exterior coat the CoV spike protein with a large number of variants of the RBD. This preparation of phage, displaying on its surface a “library” of CoV spike protein variants, is then added to human cells under laboratory culture conditions in order to select for those that bind to the ACE2 receptor.
This process is repeated under more and more stringent binding conditions until CoV spike protein variants with a high binding affinity are isolated.
Once any of the above selection procedures for high affinity interaction of SARS-CoV spike protein with ACE2 has been completed, then whole infectious CoV with these properties can be manufactured.
Such a directed iterative evolutionary selection process is a frequently used method in laboratory research. So there is little or no possibility that the Nature Medicine article authors haven’t heard of it – not least, as it is considered so scientifically important that its inventors were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018.
Yet the possibility that this is the way that SARS-CoV‑2 arose is not addressed by the Nature Medicine article authors and so its use has not been disproven.
No proof SARS-CoV‑2 was not genetically engineered
In sum, the Nature Medicine article authors offer no evidence that the SARS-CoV‑2 virus could not have been genetically engineered. That’s not to say that it was, of course. We can’t know one way or the other on the basis of currently available information.
Dr Antoniou wrote a short letter to Nature Medicine to point out these omissions in the authors’ case. Nature Medicine has no method of submitting a simple letter to the editor, so Dr Antoniou had to submit it as a Matters Arising commentary, which the journal defines as presenting “challenges or clarifications” to an original published work.
Dr Antoniou’s comments were titled, “SARS-CoV‑2 could have been created through laboratory manipulation”. However, Nature Medicine refused to publish them on the grounds that “we do not feel that they advance or clarify understanding” of the original article. The journal offered no scientific argument to rebut his points.
In our view, those points do offer clarification to the original article, and what’s more, there is a strong public interest case for making them public. That’s why we reproduce Dr Antoniou’s letter below this article, with his permission.
Not genetic engineering – but human intervention
There is, incidentally, another possible way that SARS-CoV‑2 could have been developed in a laboratory, but in this case without using genetic engineering. This was pointed out by Nikolai Petrovsky, a researcher at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in South Australia. Petrovsky says that coronaviruses can be cultured in lab dishes with cells that have the human ACE2 receptor. Over time, the virus will gain adaptations that let it efficiently bind to those receptors. Along the way, that virus would pick up random genetic mutations that pop up but don’t do anything noticeable.
“The result of these experiments is a virus that is highly virulent in humans but is sufficiently different that it no longer resembles the original bat virus,” Petrovsky said. “Because the mutations are acquired randomly by selection, there is no signature of a human gene jockey, but this is clearly a virus still created by human intervention.”
Dr Antoniou agrees that this method is possible – but he points out that waiting for nature to produce the desired mutations is a lot slower than using genetic engineering to generate a large number of random mutations that you can then select for the desired outcome by a directed iterative evolutionary procedure.
Because genetic engineering greatly speeds up the process, it is by far the most efficient way to generate novel pathogenic viruses in the lab. . . .
Conclusion
It is clear that there is no conclusive evidence either way at this point as to whether SARS-CoV‑2 arose by natural mutation and selection in animal and/or human hosts or was genetically engineered in a laboratory. And in this light, the question of where this virus came from should continue to be explored with an open mind.
*****
SARS-CoV‑2 could have been created through laboratory manipulation
Dr Michael Antoniou
Kristian Andersen and colleagues (“The proximal origin of SARS-CoV‑2”, Nature Medicine, 26: 450–452, 2020) argue that their amino acid sequence comparisons and computational modelling definitively proves that SARS-CoV‑2 has arisen through natural mutation and selection in animal or human hosts, and not through laboratory manipulation and accidental release. However, although the authors may indeed be correct in how they perceive SARS-CoV‑2 to have arisen, the data they present does not exclude the possibility that this new coronavirus variant could have been created through an in vitro, directed iterative evolutionary selection process (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_evolution). Using this method, a very large library of randomly mutagenized coronavirus spike proteins could be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells. The power of such directed evolution to select for optimal enzymatic and protein-protein interactions was acknowledged by the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018 (see https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2018/summary/).
5b. Of more than passing significance is another article that finds serious fault with the Nature Medicine paper. ” . . . . Professor Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College, says that a key argument used to deny that it could be a genetically engineered strain that escaped from a laboratory actually points to the exact opposite. In other words, it indicates that SARS-CoV‑2 could well be genetically engineered and that it could have escaped from a lab. . . . As Adam Lauring, an associate professor of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School, has noted, Andersen’s paper argues that, ‘the SARS-CoV‑2 virus has some key differences in specific genes relative to previously identified coronaviruses – the ones a laboratory would be working with. This constellation of changes makes it unlikely that it is the result of a laboratory ‘escape’.‘But Professor Newman says that this is totally unconvincing because ‘The ‘key differences’ were in regions of the coronavirus spike protein that were the subject of genetic engineering experiments in labs around the world (mainly in the US and China) for two decades.’ . . .”
Professor Newman goes on to highlight other, serious flaws in the argument: ” . . . In an email interview with GMWatch, Newman, who is editor-in-chief of the journal Biological Theory and co-author (with Tina Stevens) of the book Biotech Juggernaut, amplified this speculation by noting, ‘The Nature Medicine paper points to variations in two sites of the spike protein of the new coronavirus that the authors claim must have arisen by natural selection in the wild. However, genetic engineering of one of these sites, the ACE2 receptor binding domain, has been proposed since 2005 in order to help generate vaccines against these viruses (see this paper). It is puzzling that the authors of the Nature Medicine commentary did not cite this paper, which appeared in the prominent journal Science.’ Moreover, Newman added, “The second site that Andersen et al. assert arose by natural means, a target of enzyme cleavage not usually found in this class of viruses, was in fact introduced by genetic engineering in a similar coronavirus in a paper they do cite. This was done to explore mechanisms of pathogenicity. . . . .”
Worth noting, again, is the British Medical Association’s warning discussed above: ” . . . .The BMA report warns that legitimate research into microbiological agents and genetically targeted therapeutic agents could be difficult to distinguish from research geared towards developing more effective weapons. . . .”
As the GMWatch authors conclude: ” . . . . Such ‘enhanced infectivity’ research is carried out on viruses all over the world (and not just in China) to investigate their behaviour and to develop vaccines and other therapies, as well as for ‘biodefence’ purposes. . . .”
Another expert on biotechnology has attacked the evidence being used to quash suggestions that SARS-CoV‑2, the virus strain that causes COVID-19, might have been genetically engineered. Professor Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College, says that a key argument used to deny that it could be a genetically engineered strain that escaped from a laboratory actually points to the exact opposite. In other words, it indicates that SARS-CoV‑2 could well be genetically engineered and that it could have escaped from a lab.
The evidence that is being cited as proving that SARS-CoV‑2 is “not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus” is a paper published by the immunologist Kristian Andersen and colleagues in Nature Medicine. As Adam Lauring, an associate professor of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School, has noted, Andersen’s paper argues that, “the SARS-CoV‑2 virus has some key differences in specific genes relative to previously identified coronaviruses – the ones a laboratory would be working with. This constellation of changes makes it unlikely that it is the result of a laboratory ‘escape’.”
But Professor Newman says that this is totally unconvincing because “The ‘key differences’ were in regions of the coronavirus spike protein that were the subject of genetic engineering experiments in labs around the world (mainly in the US and China) for two decades.”
So not only does Newman think that the virus could have escaped from a lab, he also thinks that it could have originated in a virus stock that had undergone genetic engineering at some point.
In an email interview with GMWatch, Newman, who is editor-in-chief of the journal Biological Theory and co-author (with Tina Stevens) of the book Biotech Juggernaut, amplified this speculation by noting, “The Nature Medicine paper points to variations in two sites of the spike protein of the new coronavirus that the authors claim must have arisen by natural selection in the wild. However, genetic engineering of one of these sites, the ACE2 receptor binding domain, has been proposed since 2005 in order to help generate vaccines against these viruses (see this paper). It is puzzling that the authors of the Nature Medicine commentary did not cite this paper, which appeared in the prominent journal Science.”
Moreover, Newman added, “The second site that Andersen et al. assert arose by natural means, a target of enzyme cleavage not usually found in this class of viruses, was in fact introduced by genetic engineering in a similar coronavirus in a paper they do cite. This was done to explore mechanisms of pathogenicity.”
Newman said that he does not believe that these changes were deliberately introduced to increase the pathogenicity of any single strain, but that SARS-CoV‑2 may have had genetically engineered components in its history before being inadvertently introduced into the human population.
Newman is not the only scientist that has spoken out about the possibility of a genetically engineered element to the virus. We recently published an article in which the molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou also cast doubt on assertions that the virus was not genetically engineered. Dr Antoniou set out a method by which the virus could have been genetically manipulated and selected for increased infectivity in the laboratory.
Neither Dr Antoniou, nor Prof Newman, nor we ourselves make any suggestion that, in the event that genetic engineering was involved, the intention was to create a bioweapon. Such “enhanced infectivity” research is carried out on viruses all over the world (and not just in China) to investigate their behaviour and to develop vaccines and other therapies, as well as for “biodefence” purposes. . . .
Looking Back from 1984
Hopefully you can help wake people up, with your great work; reqarding a lousy topic.
Here’s another story about scientists calling BS on the claims that the SARS-CoV‑2 virus had to be natural in origin. In this case it sounds like they actually carried out some analysis that generated actual evidence suggesting a man-made origin: The researchers ran simulations comparing the ability of SARS-CoV‑2 bind to human ACE2 receptors vs other mammal ACE2 receptors like bats or pangolins. What did they find? That SARS-CoV‑2 appears to bind better to human ACE2 receptors than any of the animal versions, even the pangolins. If true it just the latest ‘oh wow, look at that!’ finding where this virus just happens to be seemingly near-optimized for human transmission.
Recall how in that now infamous Nature Medicine letter — where the authors claim to have conclusive found evidence that the virus couldn’t have been man-made — one of the arguments they made was that the SARS-CoV‑2 ACE2 receptor binding domain (RBD) wasn’t exactly the same as how they would have designed that RBD if they themselves used computer models to design the receptor for maximal binding to human cells. Now, there’s already a lot wrong with that argument, but it looks like we can add the fact that the SARS-CoV‑2 binds better to human cells than any tested animal cells despite being told that this recently jumped from animals to humans as another reason that wasn’t a very compelling argument.
Also note how it’s been speculated that the virus emerged from a recombination event in a pangolin where parts of a bat coronavirus and a pangolin coronavirus were combined based on the observation that part of the SARS-CoV‑2 virus’s spike protein is most closely related to a known bat coronavirus but the other half of the spike protein — the part with the Receptor Binding Domain — most closely matches a known pangolin coronavirus. That was the basis for the speculation that pangolins were an intermediary species between bats and humans. And yet the simulations in this study found the virus binds even better to human ACE2 receptors than the pangolin counterpart.
The professor who led the team that ran this study, Nikolai Petrovsky of Flinders University in Australia, also happens to be the founder of Vaxine Pty Ltd, a company that’s working on a COVID-19 vaccine with NIH funding. Recall how Petrovksy was one of the scientist who spoke with GM Watch about how there are established methods for speeding up evolution to come up with viruses that have the desired properties without engineering the virus in advance.
The article includes an interview with Professor Petrovsky, where he calls for an international investigation into the origins of the virus. Part of what’s sad about this story is that it’s in LifeSite, a right-wing anti-abortion outlet. It’s not the kind of outlet one would normally turn to for quality science-related reporting but this is where we are. LifeSite is one of the only outlets covering the story now that any stories questioning the natural origin of the virus are systematically left out of mainstream reporting where it’s become universally accepted that it’s somehow been proven that virus couldn’t have come from a lab. It’s pretty clear that the goal of the story is promote the idea that the virus came from the Virology Institute in Wuhan, a theory Professor Petrovsky brings up in the interview. It’s he status of reporting on the origins of the virus everywhere : either the reporting casually discounts the idea of a man-made virus out of hand or it’s right-wing outlets focused on proving it came out of that lab in Wuhan in keeping with the Trump administration’s aggressive promotion of that conclusion. But bit by bit, the more we learn about this virus the more the evidence builds that it was built in a lab somewhere:
“They tested the propensity of the COVID-19 virus’s spike protein, which it uses to enter cells, to bind to the human type of ACE2 as well as to many different animal versions of ACE2, and found that the novel coronavirus most powerfully binds with human ACE2, and with variously lesser degrees of effectiveness with animal versions of the receptor.”
It’s quite a finding: The virus just happens to bind to human cells better than any of the animals they tested including bats and pangolins. And if we can’t find a plausible intermediary animal that strongly points towards a man-made origin:
Professo Petrovsky goes on to directly rebut that Nature Medicine letter purporting to find “zero evidence” of a lab origin. As Petrovksy points out, the argument that we can rule out the use that techniques for developing novel viruses like “repeated passage” of coronaviruses in cell cultures because here hasn’t been any published research in that area ignores the simple and obvious possibility that such research may not have been published:
It’s these kinds of findings that Professor Petrovsky sees as evidence the virus could have been created in a lab. Unfortunately, he appears to be uniformly focusing his suspicions on the Wuhan Institute of Virology:
So it’s worth once again pointing out that if the virus could have been created in that lab in Wuhan it could have also been created in a lab anywhere this kind of research is taking place in the world. And if someone did want to intentionally release a virus like this — a virus that just looks incredibly engineered if we take our blinders off — than you can hardly come up with a better place to release it than nearby a rival virology institute that would be a plausible suspect.
In other words, the Wuhan Institue of Virology is an obvious suspect if we assume accidental release. Accidental release of a virus that appears to be engineered for human infection. But if we assume intentional release, the Wuhan Institute of Virology suddenly turns into an obvious patsy, at least for any intentionally released coronaviruses. Just ensure the epidemic starts somewhere nearby and that’s where all the blame will be directed when people eventually get around to realizing the virus wasn’t natural in origin. And if someone is planning on releasing a virus that just looks engineered like this one they would obviously be thinking ahead about what happens when people notice it looks engineered. Who will they blame? Well, targeting the release to be near a rival virology institute that’s known to carry out research on the class of viruses you’re planning on release is going to be an obvious option. Especially if generating international outrage against that rival is part of the agenda. So at this point we at least have people examining the possibility that the virus came from a lab. Unfortunately, they’re still only seeing the possibility that it was built in a Wuhan lab. It’s progress:
Finally, note the words of caution interesting prediction by Richard Ebright, another long-time critic of “gain-of-function” experiments: As Ebright notes, this study was based on computer simulations. That’s fine as an initial exploration of the issue but it’s by no means definitive. We need to have actual experiments comparing the binding of this virus to different animal cells using live cultures. And eventually animal tests. That’s how we can conclusively determine if this virus really does bind to human cells more effectively than the feasible intermediary hosts like bats or pangolins. Experiments that Professor Ebright suspects is probably underway in multiple locations around the world:
So it’s going to be very interesting to see the results of those studies that are probably underway around the world. Assuming we ever hear about those results. But if we do get those results and it confirms that, yes, this virus is better at binding to humans than any other known animal cells, keep in mind the question of whether or not the virus escaped from a lab or was intentionally released then becomes a question of “did this virus escape from a lab that wasn’t just studying natural coronaviruses but was intentionally producing human-optimized coronaviruses? Or was this virus intentionally released from a lab that was intentionally producing human-optimized coronaviruses?” Which raises the general question that we should have been asking all along: so where are all the places on the planet where they develop new super-viruses intentionally designed to infect people? Because if the virus came from a lab, and the virus is optimized for human infection, odds are it was one of those labs, whether they publish their super-virus research or not.