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FTR #1155 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Continuing coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic–almost certainly a biological warfare project crafted by the U.S. national security establishment–the broadcast centers on the dual function of “epidemic prevention” and “epidemic causation” and supplementing a Charles Blow op-ed piece in The New York Times.
Building on the concept (discussed many times in the past) that the difference between “offensive” and “defensive” biological warfare research is academic, we note that credentialed observers have cited Pentagon “vaccine” research as a cover for offensive BW research. In addition, we observe that numerous, overlapping programs ostensibly aimed at “preventing” epidemics may well mask efforts at generating them.
One of the most notorious and advanced biological warfare programs in history was Japan’s Unit 731, melded into the U.S. biological warfare program at the end of World War II. The program was officially labeled: “the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army.”
Revisiting the consummately important Whitney Webb article about Pentagon research into bat-borne coronaviruses, we note:
- The DARPA research is ostensibly aimed at preventing pandemics but–very possibly–masking preparations for offensive biological warfare projects.
- The Pentagon is researching “gene-driving”–a biotechnological development that can permanently alter the genetic makeup of entire population groups and lead to the extinction of other groups.
- The Pentagon research is heavily networked with companies using DNA and mRNA vaccines for Covid-19.
The fundamental point of analysis and discussion in this program, and the next, concerns the use of “Epidemic Prevention” to mask exterminationist offensive biological warfare programs to entrench, expand or introduce a white-supremacist/First World Domination dynamic in the U.S. and abroad.
Is this the legacy of Unit 731, nominally an “Epidemic Prevention” program?!
A column by Charles Blow correctly notes that the right-wing is working to “lock-in” power. Blow’s observation is far more important when the context is expanded to include the full-court press against China and the effects of Covid-19 in the U.S.
Not a superpower at this point in time, China has made rapid, remarkable progress:
- In 1981, 88% of the Chinese population lived in poverty. That was down to 0.7% in 2015.
- The Chinese middle class was 4% of their population in 2002. By 2018, that was up to 31% of their population.
- In 2000, just 2% of the Chinese population had access to the internet. That was up to 29% by 2009.
With the stunning progress made by China, in combination with their enormous population, the nation will be a major power in the future.
Because they are not white and because their system of state capitalism is at loggerheads with the neo-liberal dogma to which the West is enthrall, that country will be brought to heel. The anti-China push by the West is fundamentally white supremacist in nature.
Pursuant to discussion of the Charles Blow column, Mr. Emory reads the headlines and bylines from a number of New York Times articles underscoring how the pandemic is working against two trends that Blow cites as inimical to continued GOP control.
The pandemic is badly damaging the fortunes of urban centers and education, both at the public school and university levels. In that regard, the pandemic is accomplishing what the Charles Blow column enunciates.
Some interesting points raised by Dr. Daniel R. Lucey are particularly important in light of the information we have developed in the past about gain of function experiments.
Lucey’s points of inquiry–although not discussed in this article–are particularly important when considered in conjunction with the joint U.S./Chinese program to investigate bat-borne coronaviruses, a program whose American funding apparatus involved USAID, a frequent front for CIA operations.
The gain of function experiments we discussed in FTR #‘s 1116, 1117 and 1121 involving adapting the H5N1 avian flu virus to ferrets is worth contemplating in the context of information indicating that the SARS Cov‑2 virus is particularly infective for ferrets.
Was part of the modified H5N1 flu virus adapted to SARS Cov‑2?
Another subject worth contemplating concerns Gilead Sciences, Tamiflu and the prognostications concerning a “twindemic” this fall, with influenza and Covid-19 combining to overwhelm the health system.
Might we see an enhanced H5N1 avian influenza this fall, providing enormous profits to Gilead Sciences, which, as we saw in FTR #1138, made an enormous amount of money (for itself and former Chairman of the Board Donald Rumsfeld) developing Tamiflu to negate the possibility of an H5N1 pandemic?
A key factor spurring our suspicion concerning genetic-engineering of one or more variant of the Covid-19 virus concerns a 2015 Gain-of-Function experiment performed by Ralph Baric, employed in a joint U.S./Chinese experiment partly financed by USAID (a front for CIA activity in the past) and NIH (used by both CIA and the Pentagon in the past). In that project, Baric: ” . . . . published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice. . . . The results demonstrate the ability of the SHC014 surface protein to bind and infect human cells, validating concerns that this virus—or other coronaviruses found in bat species—may be capable of making the leap to people without first evolving in an intermediate host . . .”
Of more than passing interest is the disclosure that the project on bat-borne coronaviruses conducted in the Wuhan laboratory was a joint U.S./Chinese project, and that Ralph Baric was a key American partner in the project.
This is the undertaking about which we have reported and discussed extensively in the past! ” . . . . One of Dr Shi’s co-authors on that paper, Professor Ralph Baric from North Carolina University, said in an interview with ‘Science Daily’ at the time: ‘This virus is highly pathogenic and treatments developed against the original SARS virus in 2002 and the ZMapp drugs used to fight ebola fail to neutralise and control this particular virus.’ . . . .”
1a. Noteworthy in that general context is the observation by Jonathan King (professor of molecular biology at MIT), that Pentagon research into the application of genetic engineering to biological warfare could be masked as vaccine research, which sounds “defensive.”
In FTR #1130, we noted the role of four-star general Gustave Perna in Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed,” instituted by General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Whether the program serves as cover for military research seems a reasonable question to ask, under the circumstances.
. . . . King, who has chaired the microbial physiology study section for the NIH, believes that without intensive independent scrutiny, the Pentagon is free to obscure its true goals.
“The Defense Department appears to be pursuing many narrow, applied goals that are by nature offensive, such as the genetic ‘improvement’ of BW agents,” King says. “But to achieve political acceptability, they mask these intentions under forms of research, such as vaccine development, which sound defensive. . . .
1b. In past programs, we have briefly noted that military and [ostensibly] civilian programs officially involved with “epidemic prevention” might conceal clandestine biological warfare applications designed to create epidemics.
The official distinction between “offensive” and “defensive” biological warfare research is academic.
In that context, one should note that the official title of Unit 731, the notorious Japanese biological warfare unit was “the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army.”
Unit 731 (Japanese: 731部隊, Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai), also referred to as Detachment 731, the 731 Regiment, Manshu Detachment 731, The Kamo Detachment,[3]:198 Ishii Unit,[5] Ishii Detachment[5] or the Ishii Company, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) of World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Imperial Japan. Unit 731 was based at the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest gas chamber in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China), and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia.
It was officially known as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army (関東軍防疫給水部本部, Kantōgun Bōeki Kyūsuibu Honbu). . . .
3. Selected excerpts of a Whitney Webb article provide insight into the possible offensive nature of programs ostensibly aimed at preventing epidemics. Like Unit 731 (see above), “Epidemic Prevention” may well be masking “epidemic creation.”
In connection with that possibility, the DARPA focus on gene-driving technology is frightening and fraught with devastating possibilities.
Whether or not gene-driving impacts DARPA assisted Covid-19 vaccine development by Moderna and Inovio, the Pentagon underwriting of these firms is of concern.
- ” . . . . the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), began spending millions on such research in 2018 and some of those Pentagon-funded studies were conducted at known U.S. military bioweapons labs bordering China and resulted in the discovery of dozens of new coronavirus strains as recently as last April. Furthermore, the ties of the Pentagon’s main biodefense lab to a virology institute in Wuhan, China — where the current outbreak is believed to have begun — have been unreported in English language media thus far. . . . For instance, DARPA spent $10 million on one project in 2018 ‘to unravel the complex causes of bat-borne viruses that have recently made the jump to humans, causing concern among global health officials.” Another research project backed by both DARPA and NIH saw researchers at Colorado State University examine the coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in bats and camels ‘to understand the role of these hosts in transmitting disease to humans.’ . . . For instance, one study conducted in Southern China in 2018 resulted in the discovery of 89 new ‘novel bat coronavirus’ strains that use the same receptor as the coronavirus known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). That study was jointly funded by the Chinese government’s Ministry of Science and Technology, USAID — an organization long alleged to be a front for U.S. intelligence, and the U.S. National Institute of Health — which has collaborated with both the CIA and the Pentagon on infectious disease and bioweapons research.. . . .”
- The DARPA research is ostensibly aimed at preventing pandemics but–very possibly–masking preparations for offensive biological warfare projects. ” . . . . Many of these recent research projects are related to DARPA’s Preventing Emerging Pathogenic Threats, or PREEMPT program, which was officially announced in April 2018. PREEMPT focuses specifically on animal reservoirs of disease, specifically bats, and DARPA even noted in its press release in the program that it ‘is aware of biosafety and biosecurity sensitivities that could arise’ due to the nature of the research. . . . In addition, while both DARPA’s PREEMPT program and the Pentagon’s open interest in bats as bioweapons were announced in 2018, the U.S. military — specifically the Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program — began funding research involving bats and deadly pathogens, including the coronaviruses MERS and SARS, a year prior in 2017. . . .”
- The Pentagon is researching “gene-driving”–a biotechnological development that can permanently alter the genetic makeup of entire population groups and lead to the extinction of other groups. ” . . . . Concerns about Pentagon experiments with biological weapons have garnered renewed media attention, particularly after it was revealed in 2017 that DARPA was the top funder of the controversial ‘gene drive’ technology, which has the power to permanently alter the genetics of entire populations while targeting others for extinction. At least two of DARPA’s studies using this controversial technology were classified and ‘focused on the potential military application of gene drive technology and use of gene drives in agriculture,’ according to media reports. The revelation came after an organization called the ETC Group obtained over 1,000 emails on the military’s interest in the technology as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Co-director of the ETC Group Jim Thomas said that this technology may be used as a biological weapon: ‘Gene drives are a powerful and dangerous new technology and potential biological weapons could have disastrous impacts on peace, food security and the environment, especially if misused, The fact that gene drive development is now being primarily funded and structured by the US military raises alarming questions about this entire field.’ . . . .”
- That is heavily networked with the U.S. health and medical infrastructures. ” . . . . The second pharmaceutical company that was selected by CEPI to develop a vaccine for the new coronavirus is Moderna Inc., which will develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus of concern in collaboration with the U.S. NIH and which will be funded entirely by CEPI. The vaccine in question, as opposed to Inovio’s DNA vaccine, will be a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. Though different than a DNA vaccine, mRNA vaccines still use genetic material ‘to direct the body’s cells to produce intracellular, membrane or secreted proteins.’ Moderna’s mRNA treatments, including its mRNA vaccines, were largely developed using a $25 million grant from DARPA and it often touts is strategic alliance with DARPA in press releases. . . .”
- That is heavily networked with firms chosen to develop vaccines for the Covid-19. ” . . . . the very companies recently chosen to develop a vaccine to combat the coronavirus outbreak are themselves strategic allies of DARPA. . . . For instance, the top funders of Inovio Pharmaceuticals include both DARPA and the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the company has received millions in dollars in grants from DARPA, including a $45 million grant to develop a vaccine for Ebola. Inovio specializes in the creation of DNA immunotherapies and DNA vaccines, which contain genetically engineered DNA that causes the cells of the recipient to produce an antigen and can permanently alter a person’s DNA. Inovio previously developed a DNA vaccine for the Zika virus, but — to date — no DNA vaccine has been approved for use in humans in the United States. Inovio was also recently awarded over $8 million from the U.S. military to develop a small, portable intradermal device for delivering DNA vaccines jointly developed by Inovio and USAMRIID.
4a. Formerly in charge of product development for Moderna, “Operation Warp Speed” chief Moncef Slaoui has kept shares in a firm that will be manufacturing Moderna’s vaccine.
. . . . HHS previously said Slaoui “does not have any additional stock holdings in any other companies involved in vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic products developed to combat COVID-19.” But in addition to Slaoui’s retained GlaxoSmithKline shares, the records obtained by the House Democrats revealed he has a holding in another biotechnology company, Lonza Group, that wasn’t previously disclosed. The company has a contract with Moderna to manufacture its coronavirus vaccine. Slaoui resigned from Lonza’s board before joining Operation Warp Speed but kept his shares. The records released by the House committee do not show how much the stake was worth. . . .
4b. Inovio’s vaccine has been delayed due to side effects experienced by some of the trial subjects.
“Vaccine on ‘Partial Clinical Hold’ ” by James Barron; The New York Times; 09/29/2020; p. A4 [Western Edition].
Another vaccine trial was delayed. Inovio Pharmaceutical said on Monday that the Food and Drug Administration had put the mid-to-late-stage trials of its accineon a “partial clinical hold.”
Inovio, a Pennsylvania biotechnology company whose chief executive boasted to President Trump in March that it was the world’s leader in coronavirus vaccines, said the pause was related to side effects detected in the first phase of testing of its vaccine, developed from a computer algorithm that identifies the DNA sequence of the antigen. . . .
5a. A column by Charles Blow correctly notes that the right-wing is working to “lock-in” power. Blow’s observation is far more important when the context is expanded to include the full-court press against China and the effects of Covid-19 in the U.S.
Not a superpower at this point in time, China has made rapid, remarkable progress:
- In 1981, 88% of the Chinese population lived in poverty. That was down to 0.7% in 2015.
- The Chinese middle class was 4% of their population in 2002. By 2018, that was up to 31% of their population.
- In 2000, just 2% of the Chinese population had access to the internet. That was up to 29% by 2009.
With the stunning progress made by China, in combination with their enormous population, the nation will be a major power in the future.
Because they are not white and because their system of state capitalism is at loggerheads with the neo-liberal dogma to which the West is enthrall, that country will be brought to heel. The anti-China push by the West is fundamentally white supremacist in nature.
“Conservatives Try to Lock In Power” by Charles Blow; The New York Times; 9/21/2020.
. . . . This is all about power for a group of people who feel their grip on power slipping away.
They are trying to reshape the courts for a generation, if not longer, so that as their numerical advantage slips away, their power imbalance will have already been enshrined. As America becomes less religious and less white, more galvanized to fight climate change . . . . and more aware of systemic racism, the religious conservative spine of the Republican Party is desperate for a way to save a way of life that may soon be rendered a relic.
According to the Pew Research Center, 78 percent of white evangelical voters are Republicans or lean Republican. So are 62 percent of white men without a college degree, 60 percent of rural southerners and 57 percent of people who attend religious services weekly.
Many of those demographics are under threat. The United States will be majority-minority by 2045 and by 2060 there will be nearly as many Hispanic children in the country as white ones. . . .
. . . This is why they happily cheer Trump’s attack on immigrants—both legal and undocumented. It is why they encourage efforts to disenfranchise voters. It is why Trump’s attacks on cities resonate, as does his MAGA mantra. . . .
Urbanization means that many of those rural southern areas are losing population. For instance, an Atlanta Journal Constitution analysis last year, reported by The Associated Press, found that:
“More than half of the small towns in Georgia — those with populations under 10,000 — have lost population since 2010. Meanwhile, only 1 in 6 towns with populations of 10,000 or above have lost residents.” . . . .
. . . . Lastly, the percentage of Americans with college degrees keeps rising, moving from 4.6% in 1940 to 36% in 2019.
5b. Pursuant to discussion of the Charles Blow column, Mr. Emory reads the headlines and bylines from a number of New York Times articles underscoring how the pandemic is working against two trends that Blow cites as inimical to continued GOP control.
The pandemic is badly damaging the fortunes of urban centers and education, both at the public school and university levels.
- “Economic Pain Looms in Cities And in States” by Jeanna Smialek, Alan Rappeport and Cmily Cochrane; The New York Times; 8/15/2020; pp. A1-A6 [Western Edition].
- “The Recession Will Slam Cities. And Not Just Blue-State Ones” by Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui; The New York Times; 8/19/2020; pp. B1-B5 [Western Edition].
- “Transit Forecast: Drastic Cuts Without Aid” by Christina Goldbaum; The New York Times; 8/27/2020; p. A‑4 [Western Edition].
- “If Workers Opt Out, Star Cities May Dim” by Eduardo Porter; The New York Times; 7/21/2020; pp. B1-B5 [Western Edition]. ” . . . . The pandemic threatens the assets that make America’s most successful cities so dynamic–not only their bars, museums and theaters, but also their dense networks of innovative businesses and highly skilled workers . . . . Compelled by the imperative of social distancing, the cutting-edge businesses that flocked to cities to exploit their bundles of talent have been experimenting with technologies to replicate their social interactions even if everybody is working from home . . . .”
- “National Chains Abandon Manhattan: ‘It’s Unsustainable’ ” by Matthew Haag and Patrick McGeehan; The New York Times; 8/12/2020; p. A8 [Western Edition].
- “Virus Pushing New York Into a Financial Abyss” by Dana Rubinstein; The New York Times; 9/29/2020; pp. A1-A9 [Western Edition].
- “Ghostly Offices Haunt New York As Rebound Lags” by Julie Creswell and Peter Eavis; The New York Times; 9/09/2020; pp. A1-A6 [Western Edition].
- “Some Schools (Private) Are Opening While Others (Public) Are Not” by Claire Cain Miller; The New York Times; 07/17/2020; p. A5 [Western Edition].
- “Virus Closures Leave Students Falling Behind Gaps of Race and Class Are Likely to Widen” by Dana Goldstein; The New York Times; 06/06/2020; pp. A1- A7 [Western Edition].
- “ ‘End of the Line’: Pandemic Leaves the Private School Bus Industry in Crisis” by Pranshu Verma; The New York Times; 08/29/2020; p. A9 [Western Edition].
- “Is This the End of College as We Knew It?” by Frank Bruni; The New York Times; 06/07/2020; p. 6 (Sunday Review) [Western Edition].
- “The Only Way to Save Higher Education Is to Make It Free” by Claire Bond Potter; The New York Times; 06/07/2020; p. 6 (Sunday Review) [Western Edition].
- “Rich Colleges Can Spend More” by Paul Campos; The New York Times; 06/07/2020; p. 7 (Sunday Review) [Western Edition].
- “Will Gifts to Colleges Keep on Giving? An annuity ensures income and leaves a donation. But the pandemic imperils some schools’ finances” by Paul Sullivan; The New York Times; 9/05/2020; p. B6 [Western Edition].
- “As States’ Revenue Disappears, So Might the ‘Public’ in Public Colleges” by Kevin Carey; The New York Times; 05/07/2020; p. A11 [Western Edition].
- “Scattered to the Winds, College Students Struggle” by Anemona Hartocollis; The New York Times; 05/28/2020; p. A11 [Western Edition].
- “Planning for Fall, C0lleges Face A Revolt Among Professors;” The New York Times; 07/03/2020; p. A10 [Western Edition].
- “How to Reopen America’s Schools” [editorial] ” . . . . Parental anxiety is strikingly evident in recent polls, including one released last month by USA Today/Ipsos. Elected officials should find it sobering that six in 10 parents say they are likely to continue home learning instead of sending their kids back to school this fall. One in five teachers say they are unlikely to return to their classrooms. And when parents and teachers are considered together, about four in 10 oppose returning to school at all until a coronavirus vaccine is available–in other words, possibly years from now. . . .”; The New York Times; 06/07/2020; p. 10 (Sunday Review) [Western Edition].
6. Some interesting points raised by Dr. Daniel R. Lucey are particularly important in light of the information we have developed in the past about gain of function experiments.
Lucey’s points of inquiry–although not discussed in this article–are particularly important when considered in conjunction with the joint U.S./Chinese program to investigate bat-borne coronaviruses, a program whose American funding apparatus involved USAID, a frequent front for CIA operations.
The gain of function experiments we discussed in FTR #‘s 1116, 1117 and 1121 involving adapting the H5N1 avian flu virus to ferrets is worth contemplating in the context of information indicating that the SARS Cov‑2 virus is particularly infective for ferrets.
Was part of the modified H5N1 flu virus adapted to SARS Cov‑2?
Another subject worth contemplating concerns Gilead Sciences, Tamiflu and the prognostications concerning a “twindemic” this fall, with influenza and Covid-19 combining to overwhelm the health system.
Might we see an enhanced H5N1 avian influenza this fall, providing enormous profits to Gilead Sciences, which, as we saw in FTR #1138, made an enormous amount of money (for itself and former Chairman of the Board Donald Rumsfeld) developing Tamiflu to negate the possibility of an H5N1 pandemic?
. . . . The sixth and seventh questions go to whether the deadly pathogen leapt to humans from a laboratory. Although some intelligence analysts and scientists have entertained that scenario, no direct evidence has come to light suggesting that the coronavirus escaped from one of Wuhan’s labs.
Even so, given the wet market’s downgrading in the investigation, “It is important to address questions about any potential laboratory source of the virus, whether in Wuhan or elsewhere,” Dr. [Daniel R.] Lucey wrote in his blog post.
To that end, he urges the W.H.O. investigators to look for any signs of “gain of function” research — the deliberate enhancement of pathogens to make them more dangerous. The technique is highly contentious. Critics question its merits and warn that it could lead to catastrophic lab leaks. Proponents see it as a legitimate way to learn how viruses and other infectious organisms might evolve to infect and kill people, and thus help in devising new protections and precautions.
Debate over its wisdom erupted in 2011 after researchers announced success in making the highly lethal H5N1 strain of avian flu easily transmissible through the air between ferrets, at least in the laboratory.
In his blog, Dr. Lucey asks “what, if any,” gain-of-function studies were done on coronaviruses in Wuhan, elsewhere in China, or in collaboration with foreign laboratories.
“If done well scientifically, then this investigation should allay persistent concerns about the origin of this virus,” he wrote. “It could also help set an improved standard for investigating and stopping the awful viruses, and other pathogens, in the decades ahead.”
Finally, Dr. Lucey asks the W.H.O. team to learn more about China’s main influenza research lab, a high-security facility in Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost province. In May, he notes, a Chinese paper in the journal Science reported that two virus samples from Wuhan were studied there in great detail early this year, including in a variety of animals. It reported that cats and ferrets were highly susceptible to the pathogen; dogs were only mildly susceptible; and pigs, chickens and ducks were not susceptible at all. . . .
7a. A key factor spurring our suspicion concerning genetic-engineering of one or more variant of the Covid-19 virus concerns a 2015 Gain-of-Function experiment:
“Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate” by Jef Akst; The Scientist; 11/16/2015
. . . . Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice. . . . The results demonstrate the ability of the SHC014 surface protein to bind and infect human cells, validating concerns that this virus—or other coronaviruses found in bat species—may be capable of making the leap to people without first evolving in an intermediate host, Nature reported. They also reignite a debate about whether that information justifies the risk of such work, known as gain-of-function research. ‘If the [new] virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,’ Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, told Nature. . . .
. . . . But Baric and others argued the study’s importance. “[The results] move this virus from a candidate emerging pathogen to a clear and present danger,” Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, which samples viruses from animals and people in emerging-diseases hotspots across the globe, told Nature. . . .
7b. Of more than passing interest is the disclosure that the project on bat-borne coronaviruses conducted in the Wuhan laboratory was a joint U.S./Chinese project, and that Ralph Baric was a key American partner in the project.
This is the undertaking about which we have reported and discussed extensively in the past! ” . . . . One of Dr Shi’s co-authors on that paper, Professor Ralph Baric from North Carolina University, said in an interview with ‘Science Daily’ at the time: ‘This virus is highly pathogenic and treatments developed against the original SARS virus in 2002 and the ZMapp drugs used to fight ebola fail to neutralise and control this particular virus.’ . . . .”
In FTR #1121, we noted that Baric was the selectee to reconstruct the SARS Cov2 virus from scratch. We also noted that: ” . . . . 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. . . .”
. . . . Their November 2015 study, done in conjunction with the University of North Carolina, concluded that the SARS-like virus could jump directly from bats to humans and there was no treatment that could help.
The study acknowledges the incredible danger of the work they were conducting.
“The potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens,” they wrote. . . .
. . . . One of Dr Shi’s co-authors on that paper, Professor Ralph Baric from North Carolina University, said in an interview with Science Daily at the time: “This virus is highly pathogenic and treatments developed against the original SARS virus in 2002 and the ZMapp drugs used to fight ebola fail to neutralise and control this particular virus.” . . . .
Looking Back from 1984
Here’s an interesting update on the global investigation into the origins of the SARS-CoV‑2 coronavirus: the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, which was established in July to “offer practical solutions” to the pandemic and make recommendations on how the next one can be avoided or better defended against, set up a new scientific team to investigate the origins of the virus. The team is tasked with examining all possibilities, including a lab-based origin. The broader Lancet COVID-19 Commission is headed by US economist Jeffrey Sachs and is going to be looking into the global response to the pandemic.
Guess who is leading the scientific team tasked with questions about the virus’s origin: Dr. Peter Daszak, president of the US-based EcoHealth Alliance. Daszak is an obvious choice to lead such a commission in the sense that he’s a global expert in zoonotic ‘spillover’ events where viruses jump species. But there’s one rather significant complicating factor in selecting him to lead this inquiry: Recall how the EcoHealth Alliance is an integral organization in establishing the international collaborations of virology studies that have involved all sorts of controversial studies like the 2015 ‘gain-of-function’ study where US and Chinese researchers — including China’s top coronavirus research Shi Zhengli — jointly created chimeric coronaviruses using the backbone of a coronavirus found in horseshoe bats in China spliced with the SARS virus. Daszak was a defender of the study at the time and has long been a champion of these kinds of studies. So the guy who is going to be leading the scientific inquiry into the question of whether or not the virus could have had a man-made origin is one of the leading advocates of the safety and necessity of precisely the kinds of experiments that are the top candidates for a man-made origin of this virus:
“He accepted conspiracy theorists would not welcome his appointment but said, as a scientist, he would “not be bound by preconceived ideas” and would investigate all avenues forensically and “with an open mind”.”
Yes, conspiracy theorists probably haven’t welcomed Dr. Daszak’s appointment to the Lancet Commission. Neither have people who can identify blatant conflicts of interest. And note that when Daszak warns that “We may be much more vulnerable to these pandemics than we think...We may be creating a perfect storm. And if that’s true, we need to know it. We need to get some data around it,” that warning is the exact same justification that’s been used to justify the ‘gain-of-function’ experiments that are the top candidates for a lab-based origin of this virus. Daszak’s vision for avoid future pandemics is for vigorous ‘gain-of-function’ experimentation on viruses found in nature in order to assess how close those naturally occuring viruses are to acquiring the properties they need for a human pandemic. That’s the whole purpose of the EcoHealth Alliance international collaboration. Getting the world working together on identifying novel viruses in the wild and then taking those novel viruses and running them through ‘gain-of-function’ experimental pipelines designed to assess their pandemic potential. Which, again, is why there are some blatant conflicts of interest here:
And note the news about the study in the Netherlands that found the SARS-CoV‑2 virus jumping back and forth between farmers and animals at mustelids where ferrets, mink, martens, civets and weasels are housed that raised the possibility that ferrets could have been the missing link animal that allowed the virus to jump from bats to humans. Recall that these are favored animals in “gain-of-function” experiments because of their similarity to human respiratory systems. So if ferrets farming ends up being top ‘zoonotic spillover’ suspect it’s going to be important to keep in mind that ‘gain-of-function’ experiments on ferrets also happen to be the top suspects for a lab-based origin of the virus:
It’s also important to keep in mind that the novel viruses created by many of these techniques don’t necessarily leave traces of a lab-based origin. It’s one of the fun facts about this type of inquiry that will pose an immediate test of the honesty of the commission: will the commission acknowledge that a lab-based virus won’t necessarily show any signs of being created in a lab? If not, it’s going to be hard to take it seriously. As Daszak warned, it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to say with “absolute certainty” how the virus emerged and we just have to look at where the preponderance of evidence points towards:
And that’s why it’s going to be crucial for the commission to be honest about the inherent limitations of the available evidence too. Limitations like the inability to distinguish whether or not a novel virus emerged in a lab or not just by looking at the viral sequence. We’ll see if these acknowledgments are part of the commissions eventual findings. But it’s a reminder that any meaningful inquiry into the origins of the virus is going to have to rely on ALL of the available evidence. Available technical evidence like viral sequences. But also the available contextual evidence like the creation of a global consortium dedicated to identify novel viruses and then creating new forms of the viruses using techniques that wouldn’t leave traces of a lab-made origin.
@Pterrafractyl–
Interestingly, the EcoHealth Alliance of Daszak & Company was one of the outfits getting funded by USAID, which has frequently fronted for CIA in the past.
Interesting, as well, is Jeffrey Sachs’s presence on the board.
What experience does he have with ANY of the relevant disciplines?
Of interest, as well, is the fact that he oversaw the economic devastation of Russia under Yeltsin.
The Russians say he was “an emissary either of Satan or the CIA.”
I have never seen anything concrete documenting any work for CIA, although, IF he is, that is not necessarily surprising.
He is also one of the top economic advisors to Bernie Sanders and AOC.
https://spitfirelist.com/news/sachsenhausen-bernie-sanders-neo-liberal-buddy-jeffrey-sachs/
Just what ARE his credentials for an exercise like this?!!
Be sure to listen to FTR #1156 when it is published. I talk about Daszak and Company at length.
Best,
Dave
Welp, Amy Coney Barrett is on the Supreme Court, ushering in an era of complete far right judicial domination. An era that would at least appear to include the overturning of all sorts of rights and rulings that many has long assumed were safe and established law, and since Justice Barrett happens to hail from an authoritarian misogynistic cult that effectively inspire The Handmaid’s Tale — the People of Praise — and has made her opposition to abortion rights abundantly clear, it’s very possible the right to an abortion in the US will be among the first of those rights to be stripped away.
And while the overturning of Roe v Wade raises all sorts of questions about how such a move could change a number of long-standing dynamics in US politics — young people would likely become much more interested in state politics once abortion rights are determined by states instead of the federal government — there’s another very ominous set of questions we should start asking ourselves in relation to the impact overturning Roe v Wade might have on the US political zeitgeist. Because as the following article describes, much of the contemporary right-wing fixation on banning abortion rights has little to do with any opposition to abortion itself and instead has been driven by deep anxieties in conservative white America over the demographic changes in contemporary America. Catholic immigration in the mid-1800s through 1900s and fears of demographic replacement was the impetus for white Anglo-Saxon Protestant America’s early opposition to abortion.
And yet, until non-white immigrants started arriving in the US in large numbers, many white Protestant largely didn’t care about abortion rights at all and, if anything, was inclined to support abortion rights simply in reactionary opposition to the Catholic Church’s long-standing abortion opposition. As late as 1976, the conservative evangelical Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) passed resolutions affirming abortion rights. It was the increased non-white immigration that effectively bridged the divide between white Catholics and white Protestants and helped create the more unified ‘pro-Life’ movement. In other words, while plenty of people opposed to abortion rights no doubt have taken that stand because they genuinely oppose ALL abortions, there’s not denying that the contemporary anti-abortion movement has a deep white nationalist psychological undercurrent. A white nationalist undercurrent that is primarily interested in stopping abortions for white women but would actually be very supportive of abortions on demands for non-whites. Because they are playing a sick numbers games.
And if that’s the underlying motivation for much of this decades-long push to overturn Roe v Wade and outlaw abortion wherever possible, it raises the an obvious and grim question: so what happens if abortion is banned and the result is an even great number of non-white babies that accelerate the demographic changes in America that the white nationalists so deeply dread?
Beyond that, what happens if we have a far right Supreme Court that becomes deeply unpopular due to the many unpopular rulings its poised to make, and the Republican Party itself finally that long-waited era where demographic changes reduce the ability of the party to obtain political power at the national level. What happens when extremists succeed and the vast majority don’t like it and reject the extremist even more? What happens? Do the extremists become less extreme or more extreme? Hmmmm...
It’s in this horrible context that gene-drive technology has to be considered. Because while the current focus of that technology is agriculture and pest control, it’s important to keep in mind that underlying idea behind the technology is like some sort of white supremacist dream technology. A technology that, crucially, could inflict its damage on a populace without that population realizing it until it’s too late to do anything about it.
Think about it: if the underlying idea behind eradicating, say, mosquitoes using gene-drive technology is to release a bunch of mosquitoes that create sterile offspring, what happens if that same basic idea is secretly applied to a target human population? How about a virus designed to target just the eggs in a woman’s ovaries that modifies a gene that doesn’t impact their offspring in any overtly and obviously negative way until they try to have their own kids decades later. There would be no sign of this attack on the population until the next generation at which point it’s too late to do anything about it. Again, that’s a white supremacist exterminationist dream scenario.
Yes, these are horrific scenarios to imagine. But imagining horrific scenarios and trying to make them reality is what the far right does. Over and over. Like the horrific scenario of enshrining far right judicial rule with the nomination of an authoritarian cult member on the Supreme Court. That horrific scenario has already come about. What’s next? We have to ask.
Ok, first, here’s an excerpt from an important piece in The Nation that makes clear, while some members of the ardent ‘pro-Life’ movement joined the movement out of a genuine opposition to any abortions, regardless of race, there’s a whole other swathe of the movement that really just cares about white abortions and would rather prefer every other race gets as many abortions as possible:
“But despite the movement’s careful curation of its public image, racism and xenophobia have been woven into it throughout its history. With large families, due to Roman Catholic Church prohibitions on contraception and abortion, Catholic immigration in the mid-1800s through 1900s sparked white Anglo-Saxon Protestant fears of being overtaken demographically that fueled opposition to abortion as a means of increasing birthrates among white Protestant women. At the time, Roman Catholic immigrants from countries like Ireland and Italy who would be considered white today were among the targets of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. As sociologists Nicola Beisel and Tamara Kay wrote with regards to the criminalization of abortion in the late 19th century, “While laws regulating abortion would ultimately affect all women, physicians argued that middle-class, Anglo-Saxon married women were those obtaining abortions, and that their use of abortion to curtail childbearing threatened the Anglo-Saxon race.””
Yep, opposition to abortion in American has always been about demographic anxiety. That obviously wasn’t the exclusive motivation for the movement but it was a big one. First it was anxiety over Catholics. And opposition to the Catholics was so intense that white Protestants often supported abortion because of Catholic opposition to abortion. But as more non-whites were allowed to immigrate into the country starting in the 1960s that demographic anxiety shifted from an anti-Catholic anxiety to an anti-white anxiety and the modern day ‘pro-Life’ movement of unified Catholic and Protestant opposition was starting to form by the late 1970s. The foundations of the modern ‘pro-Life’ movement was white anxiety:
And a movement driven by white demographic anxiety is obviously a movement that’s going to have a deep white nationalist undercurrent, whether its acknowledged or not. And while the mainstream ‘pro-Life’ movement is careful to never make those acknowledgements, the open white nationalist themselves are move than happy to proclaim their opposition to abortions. Specifically white abortions:
That’s all part of the horrible context of the this new post-Roe v Wade era America is poised to enter. What happens if overturning Roe v Wade not only fails to quell those white demographic anxieties but actually ends up exacerbating them? What will the white nationalists turn to at that point? Especially if they end up losing political power in part as a consequence of the deep unpopularity of eliminating abortion rights? What then?
Don’t forget that, for all of the very real problems with the ‘pro-Life’ movement in the US, at least it’s a movement that was trying to address these demographic anxieties through political means. What happens if America’s white nationalist begin to conclude that political solutions are long available to them? What sorts of alternative ‘solutions’ will they come up with? That’s why we have to grimly keep in mind that the idea behind emerging gene-drive technology — targeting individuals so they give birth sterile offspring — is exactly the kind of ‘non-political solution’ the most extreme wings of these extremist movements are going to be salivating over in coming years when this technology is available. Secretly sterilize a population in a manner that doesn’t become apparent until that sterile generation is ready to have kids. It’s potentially so diabolically effective it’s hard to imagine there aren’t already such plans in mind. All that’s required is the biotechnology capable of executing this sort of attack.
And that’s what the recent report by the ETC Group that revealed the extensive money and aggressive efforts by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to develop gene-drive technology and get regulatory approval for these technologies is unfortunately the kind of story that is part of this larger question of how white nationalist (or other racialist movements) might seek non-political means of achieving their exterminationist ends. Because as the ETC Group report describes, A LOT of money is going into this area of research. Yes, right now it’s research focused on insect and agriculture. But that’s just the starting point. As this kind of technology is developed and refined in insects and agriculture it’s inevitably going to start being applied in other forms of life, including mammals. Especially as climate change and the corresponding eco-collapse create greater and greater demand for biotechnology that can deal with growing levels of disease and pests. Imagine gene-drive technology for the rats. How many cities would be interested in that? And when that anti-rat technology is developed, what are the odds that white nationalist won’t immediately start thinking about how to use this technology to exterminate the groups of people they view as a human pestilence:
“In the case of the Anopheles gambiae project (that Gates bankrolls), a gene drive is designed to interfere with the fertility of the mosquito: essential genes for fertility would be removed, preventing the mosquitoes from having female offspring or from having offspring altogether. These modified mosquitoes would then pass on their genes to a high percentage of their offspring, spreading auto-extinction genes throughout the population. In time, the entire species would in effect be completely eliminated.”
It’s a simple idea: flood a population with individuals who can breed, but can only breed sterile offspring. A simple idea that is now technologically feasible thanks to years of intense research into this area not just by the BMGF but DARPA too. It’s the kind of technology with obvious military applications, as the JASON Group pointed out in its 2017 study that found gene-drive technology had biowarfare potential. And that means this is the kind of technology that’s going to have A LOT more resources invested in it in coming decades:
So what happens when this still-new technology becomes a mature, readily-available technology? What happens when we understand which genes to knock out or insert for the desired effects in mammals and also have the technology to deliver those genetic changes in reproductive tissues (e.g. targeting testis or ovaries via viruses, etc) to human populations? Isn’t this basically a biowarfare timebomb waiting to go off? A biowarfare timebomb manifesting as a series of secret targeted anti-demographic timebombs.
It’s all part of the very grim set of questions we now have to ask with Amy Coney Barrett’s ascension to the Supreme Court. Because when the extremist movement with extreme demographic anxieties she represents learns that outlawing abortion doesn’t get them the white future they desire it’s only reasonable to ask what this movement is going to do next. And only reasonable to assume it’s going to be even more extreme. As diabolically extreme as available technology will allow it to be.