Focusing primarily on an extremely ominous development, these programs set forth a new “War on Cancer,” launched by the Biden administration. The primary rationale for the development of a new federal agency, this new organization appears to be a medical/scientific iteration of DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Ominously, it may well be the successor to Richard Nixon’s “War on Cancer,” which did not defeat cancer, but did serve as the apparent platform for the development of biological warfare weapons, AIDS in particular.
The Third Reich’s biological warfare program was masked as a cancer research facility.
Modeled after DARPA, headed by a DARPA alumna whose CV intersects with that Agency’s apparent involvement with the development of Covid-19 and with an acting director who is also a former employee of that benighted organization, this new “health agency–ARPA‑H”, this agency will employ new, synthetic biology technology.
Although that development is represented as humanitarian, the structure of the agency and the national security backgrounds of its leading personnel suggest strongly that this agency, too, will serve as a clandestine platform for the next generation of biological weaponry.
The second program begins with a signature point of information—a brief Twitter video of Professor Jeffrey Sachs opining that SARS Cov‑2 originated from a U.S. biological laboratory. His frankly obligatory qualification that it was a “blunder” is best understood as “business as usual” for a relatively high-profile public figure.
Were he to say otherwise, he would be subject to retribution, possibly deadly.
As it is now, he will simply be ignored.
Points of Discussion and Analysis Include: An update on Philip Zelikow’s overlapping roles in the 9/11 “investigation,” the realization of PNAC’s defense recommendations, as well as the “inquiry” into Covid-19; Review of Peter Thiel’s and Trump’s apparently successful attempt at kneecapping the FDA; The numerous CIA and reactionary links to the development of Moderna’s mRNA Omicron booster; A jellyfish whose genome may very well yield information for a synthetic biology/life extension eugenic manifestation of interest to “Team Thiel;” The career of Anthony Fauci and its “bookends”–AIDS and Covid-19.
It’s not a secret plot to purge the federal government of its career staffers and replace them with partisan hacks. It was a secret when then-President Trump set the plot in motion 13 days before the 2020 election with an executive order. The “Schedule F” executive order plot — centered around a bureaucratic loophole discovered in January of 2019 by an obscure Trump administration official — opened the floodgates. And while the mass firings never actually took place in the final months of the Trump administration, those floodgates remain open along with the plot. That’s the explosive revelation described in a pair of articles put out by Axios back in July: The Schedule F plot continues. The Trump administration isn’t wasting any time next time. A mass purge of the federal government will be one of the first moves of a second Trump administration. And now that Donald Trump has thrown his hat in the ring one more time the prospect of seeing this plot put into effect is very real. But as we’re going to see, that ongoing plot is real whether or not Trump gets the nomination and ‘wins’ the race. Because the ongoing Schedule F effort isn’t just a MAGA-land plot. The powerful Council for National Policy (CNP) is deeply invested in it, with the CNP’s Conservative Policy Institute (CPI) playing a leading and growing role. Schedule F is the plan. Or at least the start of the plan. As we’re also going to see, there’s a larger plot being developed for what to do after the Schedule F purge and all the obstacles are out of the way. A larger plot for that appears to be inspired by none other than Curtis “Mencius Moldbug” Yarvin, whose ideas for a post-democratic America are only growing in elite conservative circles. That’s the plot we’re going to be covering in this post. The plans for Schedule F and beyond. Plans and tens of millions of dollars and army of CNP-activists working to make them a reality.
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. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory’s entire life’s work is available on a 32GB flash drive, available for a contribution […]
Exemplifying the disinformation surrounding Ukraine, Russia et al is the remarkable charge that Putin/Russia influenced the outcome of the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton got almost three million more votes than Donald Trump. Putin/Russia did not create the electoral college. Facebook posts from Russia were 40,000 out of 3 trillion posts–a few hundreds of one percent of the posts in that period. THAT influenced the election?!! Cambridge Analytica, Peter Thiel, Facebook, Palantir helped keep potential Clinton voters at home, targeting potential Sanders voters. Ukrainian television anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann verbatim in this video from UKRAINE 24. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.
We have discussed Palantir and its depredations in numerous programs. The news that Palantir–the alpha predator of the electronic surveillance landscape and inextricably linked with the most critical parts of the intelligence community–has bought millions of dollars of gold bars and will accept payment in gold bullion as payment for future transactions raises interesting questions. (The company is named after the “seeing stones” in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.) This follows the company’s relocation to Denver from the Bay Area by roughly a year. Joe Biden’s Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines was a key member of Biden’s transition team, as well as a consultant to Palantir, the key player in which is Peter Thiel. Thiel is also a big part of “Team Trump”. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
In FTR#718, we noted the intelligence community and fascist underpinnings of the genesis of Facebook, including the central role of Peter Thiel in the firm’s beginning. In numerous programs since, we have chronicled the anti-democratic and fascist manifestations of Facebook, including the company’s decisive role in the Cambridge Analytica gambit, in which elements of Peter Thiel’s Palantir–the Alpha predator of the electronic surveillance landscape–helped to “game” the 2016 election in favor of Trump. With contemporary discussion of attempts to “rein-in” Big Tech, we are reminded of an element of discussion in FTR#1021, among other programs. Although she has left the company, former DARPA chief Regina Dugan was working on a Facebook project to operate the social media platform by utilizing brain-to-computer interface. This work was underway at Facebook’s “secretive” R & D Building 8, described as patterned after DARPA itself. This disturbing detail suggests that the firm’s significant national security connections may well embrace the advancing of military research per se. As we noted, this technology will permit the tapping and databasing of Facebook users’ thoughts!
In FTR#718, we noted the intelligence community and fascist underpinnings of the genesis of Facebook, including the central role of Peter Thiel in the firm’s beginning. In numerous programs since, we have chronicled the anti-democratic and fascist manifestations of Facebook, including the company’s decisive role in the Cambridge Analytica gambit, in which elements of Peter Thiel’s Palantir–the Alpha predator of the electronic surveillance landscape–helped to “game” the 2016 election in favor of Trump. Updating that coverage, we note that an enormous Facebook bot farm, deceptively noted as “Russian,” was assembled to swing the 2020 election to Donald Trump. ” . . . . According to Paul Bischoff of Comparitech, a British cybersecurity company, the network includes 13,775 unique Facebook accounts that each posted roughly 15 times per month, for an output of more than 50,000 posts a week. The accounts appear to have been used for ‘political manipulation,’ Bischoff says, with roughly half the posts being related to political topics and another 17 percent related to COVID-19. . . .” Facebook has also implemented a low-profile, high-dollar financial support program for major news outlets that have suffered because of Facebook’s incursion into the information business. ” . . . . Less well known, and potentially far more dangerous, is a secretive, multimillion-dollar-a-year payout scheme aimed at the most influential news outlets in America. Under the cover of launching a feature called Facebook News, Facebook has been funneling money to The “New York Times”, “The Washington Post”, “The Wall Street Journal’, ‘ABC News’, ‘Bloomberg’, and other select paid partners since late 2019. . .”
Peter Thiel–lynchpin of power in the Trump administration, the top dog in Palantir (the alpha predator of the electronic surveillance milieu), a key player in Facebook–has disseminated anti-Chinese vitriol about the “yellow peril” in Silicon Valley. He has been joined in that effort by Steve Bannon, a coordinator of anti-China activity in Washington D.C. Bannon’s statements and actions are particularly ironic in light of his cynical use of remnants of “the old China” in his “Gold Farming” business the first decade of this century. “. . . . From 2007 to 2012, he had been the CEO of a multimillion-dollar video-game gold-farming scheme. “Gold farming” was a term for letting third-world laborers to do; the same repetitive tasks in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MORPGs) to acquire in-game currency. . . . . The self-proclaimed anti-globalist Bannon ran the scheme by subcontracting Chinese labor. According to Wired writer Julian Dibbel, who visited one of the Chinese business partners who employed miners for Bannon’s company in 2009, the digital laborers “slept upstairs on plywood bunks, day-shift workers sat in the hot, dimly-lit workshop.” They earned about four dollars a day with eighty-four-hour workweeks. . . .”
As indicated by the title of the program, this broadcast updates various articles and book excerpts concerning Covid-19.
A Daily Mail Online [UK] article sets forth two bogus papers contending that the SARS CoV‑2 virus was genetically engineered by the Chinese as a bioweapon in a laboratory and that it “escaped.” Note the championing of one of the papers by a former head of MI6 and the authorship of the second by The Epoch Times, the paper of the Falun Gong cult. Linked to CIA, Steve Bannon’s anti-China milieu and the Trump administration, the organization is a fascist mind control cult discussed in numerous shows, including FTR #‘s 1089 and 1090.
1.–“A former MI6 chief was yesterday accused by Government officials of peddling ‘fanciful claims’ that coronavirus was accidentally created in a Chinese laboratory. British security agencies believe Covid-19 is not a man-made virus and is ‘highly likely’ to have occurred naturally and spread to humans through animals. And Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said there is ‘no evidence’ to back up the theory that it originated in a laboratory. But Sir Richard Dearlove, who was head of the MI6 from 1999 to 2004, cited a recent report claiming the disease was accidentally manufactured by Chinese scientists.
2.–“ ‘I do think that this started as an accident,’ Sir Richard told The Daily Telegraph’s ‘Planet Normal’ podcast. ‘It raises the issue: if China ever were to admit responsibility, does it pay reparations? I think it will make every country in the world rethink how it treats its relationship with China.’ He added: ‘Look at the stories... of attempts by the [Beijing] leadership to lock down any debate about the origins of the pandemic and the way people have been arrested or silenced.’ . . . . The paper – co-authored by Professor Angus Dalgleish, a renowned oncologist and vaccine researcher who works at St George’s Hospital, University of London, and Birger Sorensen, a Norwegian virologist – contains none of the stark allegations that originally stunned its reviewers.
3..–“The initial paper that triggered wild rumours failed stringent tests of verification and is understood to have been rejected in April by eminent international journals such as Nature and the Journal of Virology. Biomedical experts from the Francis Crick Institute and Imperial College London are said to have refuted its conclusions. Then one of the paper’s co-authors, Dr John Fredrik Moxnes, chief scientific adviser to the Norwegian military, asked for his name to be withdrawn. This week, after numerous rewrites, the paper was published by the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery. And those original world-shaking conclusions have now withered to innuendo. No accusation of Chinese manipulation appears. . . .”
4.–”. . . . Back in April, a slickly produced investigative documentary, Tracking Down The Origin Of The Wuhan Coronavirus, was released online. It claimed conclusive proof that the Covid-19 virus had been created as a biological ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in a Chinese lab. . . .”
5.–“At first sight, it seemed a shockingly convincing piece of journalism. On behalf of this newspaper, I cross-checked every claim: The experts it cited and the factual evidence unearthed. I also researched the backgrounds of its makers. I then approached some of the world’s best independent scientific authorities to ask their opinion. They all agreed – this enticingly spicy story just didn’t stand up.”
6.–“It had been produced by a US based anti-Chinese government media organisation called the Epoch Times. Its ‘experts’ were veteran hard-Rightists. Most damningly, its scientific ‘facts’ were twisted out of shape.So much, then, for the Chinese-manufactured coronavirus conspiracy . . .”
Steve Bannon is at the epicenter of the anti-China effort and–to no one’s surprise–never really left the Trump White House.
When assessing Bannon as a political animal, one should never forget that among the important ideological influences on him is Julius Evola, an Italian fascist who found Mussolini too moderate and ultimately took his cues from the Nazi SS, who were financing his work by the end of World War II.
” . . . . Donald Trump’s lightning-rod 2016 campaign boss and former White House chief strategist who was banished from the West Wing in 2017 has quietly crept back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., reestablishing ties to staffers, particularly with regard to his pet issues of China and immigration. . . . Another former administration official told The Post that Bannon never really left the White House after he was fired, maintaining contacts and keeping up regular channels of communications with officials there. . . .”
In addition, as discussed in FTR #‘s 1111 and 1112, Bannon is part of a network that includes J. Kyle Bass and Tommy Hicks, Jr. This nexus involves asymmetrical investing with regard to the Hong Kong and Chinese economies and the inter-agency governmental networks involved in both overt and covert anti-China policies implemented by Team Trump. As will be seen below, they also are networking with the mis-named “Scientists to Stop Covid-19.” In that regard, they are also helping steer policy that controls development of treatment and vaccines for Covid-19. The management of drug and vaccine development, in turn, doubles back to market-driving investment dynamics.
An interesting summation of characteristics of a “deliberate” epidemic are evaluated against the finding that New York City was the epicenter of the U.S. Covid-19 outbreak:
Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby; HarperCollins [HC]; Copyright 2019 by Kris Newby; ISBN 9780062896728; p. 185.
Potential epidemiological clues to a deliberate epidemic:
Clue no. 1–A highly unusual event with large numbers of casualties: Check!
Clue no. 2–Higher morbidity or mortality than is expected. Check!
Clue no. 3–Uncommon disease. Check!
Clue no. 4–Point-source outbreak. Check!
Clue no. 5–Multiple epidemics. Check! (Global pandemic)
–Z. F. Dembek, et al., “Discernment Between Deliberate and Natural Infectious Disease Outbreaks”
The prevailing view of the Covid-19 outbreak contends that the American outbreak spread outward from New York City. The strain of SARS CoV‑2 that appeared in New York came, in turn, from Europe.
This doesn’t make sense. There were confirmed cases of the virus on the West Coast that did not come from New York. A European strain of the virus transmitted to New York City would have come in via air. In such an event, there would have been a well-documented outbreak of Covid-19 among flight attendants, who operate in close contact with passengers in cramped circumstances, as well as experiencing jet lag, which compromises the immune system.
Next, we review an aspect of the 2001 anthrax attacks. We highlighted the 2001 anthrax attacks in connection with the Covid-19 outbreak in New York City in FTR #1128.
We note that the Anthrax attacks appear to have operated in overlapping contexts, including justification for the war in Iraq.
The 2001 anthrax attacks appear to have served as a provocation that justified a ten-fold increase in spending for biological warfare development. The number of BSL‑4 labs (having dual civilian and military use) increased from two in 2001, to a dozen in 2007.
This increase occurred while Donald Rumsfeld was George W. Bush’s secretary of defense. He went to that position from being Chairman of the Board of Directors for Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer of remdesivir.
We will delve into the politics of the anthrax attacks in the future.
In the context of the above article, note that the National Institutes of Health have also partnered with CIA and the Pentagon, as underscored by an article about a BSL‑4 lab at Boston University. Note that Europe and the U.S. have twelve BSL4 labs apiece. Taiwan has two. China has one:
1.–As the article notes, as of 2007, the U.S. had “more than a dozen” BSL4 labs–China commissioned its first as of 2017. a tenfold increase in funding for BSL4 labs occurred because of the anthrax attacks of 2001. Those attacks might be seen as something of a provocation, spurring a dramatic increase in “dual use” biowarfare research, under the cover of “legitimate” medical/scientific research. In FTR #1128, we hypothesized about the milieu of Stephen Hatfill and apartheid-linked interests as possible authors of a vectoring of New York City with Sars COV2: ” . . . . Before the anthrax mailings of 2001, the United States had just two BSL4 labs—both within the razor-wire confines of government-owned campuses. Now, thanks to a tenfold increase in funding—from $200 million in 2001 to $2 billion in 2006—more than a dozen such facilities can be found at universities and private companies across the country. . . .”
2.–The Boston University lab exemplifies the Pentagon and CIA presence in BSL‑4 facility “dual use”: ” . . . . But some scientists say that argument obscures the true purpose of the current biodefense boom: to study potential biological weapons. ‘The university portrays it as an emerging infectious disease lab,’ says David Ozonoff, a Boston University epidemiologist whose office is right across the street from the new BSL4 facility. ‘But they are talking about studying things like small pox and inhalation anthrax, which pose no public health threat other than as bioweapons.’ . . . The original NIH mandate for the lab indicated that many groups—including the CIA and Department of Defense—would be allowed to use the lab for their own research, the nature of which BU might have little control over. . . .”
Pivoting to discussion and review of the political, financial and corporate connections to the development of medicinal treatments for, and vaccines to prevent, Covid-19, we recap details relevant to the extraordinary timing of a 4/29 announcement of favorable results for a trial of remdesivir. That announcement drove equities markets higher and was beneficial to the stock of Gilead Sciences.
We present a Stat News article on the internal deliberations behind the decisions to modify the NIAID study. Of particular significance is the DSMB deliberation. Note the timeline of the DSMB deliberation, combined with the announcement on 4/29 that drove the markets higher.
1.–The decision was made to cut it short before the question of remdesivir’s impact on mortality could be answered: ” . . . .The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has described to STAT in new detail how it made its fateful decision: to start giving remdesivir to patients who had been assigned to receive a placebo in the study, essentially limiting researchers’ ability to collect more data about whether the drug saves lives — something the study, called ACTT‑1, suggests but does not prove. In the trial, 8% of the participants given remdesivir died, compared with 11.6% of the placebo group, a difference that was not statistically significant. A top NIAID official said he had no regrets about the decision. ‘There certainly was unanimity within the institute that this was the right thing to do,’ said H. Clifford Lane, NIAID’s clinical director. . . .”
2.–In addition, patients scheduled to receive placebo received remdesivir, instead. ” . . . . Steven Nissen, a veteran trialist and cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, disagreed that giving placebo patients remdesivir was the right call. ‘I believe it is in society’s best interest to determine whether remdesivir can reduce mortality, and with the release of this information doing a placebo-controlled trial to determine if there is a mortality benefit will be very difficult,’ he said. ‘The question is: Was there a route, or is there a route, to determine if the drug can prevent death?’ The decision is ‘a lost opportunity,’ he said. . . .”
3.–Steven Nissen was not alone in his criticism of the NIAID’s decision. ” . . . .Peter Bach, the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, agreed with Nissen. ‘The core understanding of clinical research participation and clinical research conduct is we run the trial rigorously to provide the most accurate information about the right treatment,’ he said. And that answer, he argued, should ideally have determined whether remdesivir saves lives. The reason we have shut our whole society down, Bach said, is not to prevent Covid-19 patients from spending a few more days in the hospital. It is to prevent patients from dying. ‘Mortality is the right endpoint,’ he said. . . .”
4.–Not only was the administration of remdesivir instead of placebo prioritized, but the NIAID study itself was attenuated! ” . . . . But the change in the study’s main goal also changed the way the study would be analyzed. Now, the NIAID decided, the analysis would be calculated when 400 patients out of the 1,063 patients the study enrolled had recovered. If remdesivir turned out to be much more effective than expected, ‘interim’ analyses would be conducted at a third and two-thirds that number.The job of reviewing these analyses would fall to a committee of outside experts on what is known as an independent data and safety monitoring board, or DSMB. . . .”
5.–The performance of the DSMB for the remdesivir study is noteworthy: ” . . . . But the DSMB for the remdesivir study did not ever meet for an interim efficacy analysis, Lane said. All patients had been enrolled by April 20. The data for a DSMB meeting was cut off on April 22. The DSMB met and, on April 27, it made a recommendation to the NIAID. . . .”
The DSMB meeting on 4/27 determined the switch from placebo to remdesivir. Of paramount importance is the fact that this was JUST BEFORE the 4/29 announcement that drove the markets higher and the same day on which key Trump aide–and former Gilead Sciences lobbyist Joe Grogan resigned! ” . . . . . That decision, Lane said, led the NIAID to conclude that patients who had been given placebo should be offered remdesivir, something that started happening after April 28. . . .”
6.–Dr. Ethan Weiss gave an accurate evaluation of the NIAID study: ” . . . . ‘We’ve squandered an incredible opportunity to do good science,’ [Dr. Ethan] Weiss said. ‘If we could ever go back and do something all over, it would be the infrastructure to actually learn something. Because we’re not learning enough.’ . . . .”
The remarkable handling of the NIAID study, the timing of the announcement of the altogether limited success of the attenuated trial and the rise in equities as a result of the announcement may be best understood in the context of the role played in Trump pandemic decision-making by an elite group of billionaires and scientists–including convicted felon Michael Milken (the “junk bond king”).
1.–” . . . . Calling themselves ‘Scientists to Stop COVID-19,’ the collection of top researchers, billionaires and industry captains will act as an ‘ad hoc review board’ for the torrent of coronavirus research, ‘weeding out’ flawed data before it reaches policymakers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. They are also acting as a go-between for pharmaceutical companies seeking to build a communication channel with Trump administration officials. The group . . . . has advised Nick Ayers, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, as well as other agency heads, in the past month. Pence is heading up the White House coronavirus task force. . . .”
2.–” . . . The brainy bunch is led by Thomas Cahill, a 33-year-old doctor who became a venture capitalist . . . . Cahill’s clout comes from building connections through his investment firm, Newpath Partners, with Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, and billionaire businessmen Jim Palotta and Michael Milken. . . .”
Note that Peter Thiel played a dominant role in bankrolling Newpath Partners, and the other financial angel who elevated Cahill–Brian Sheth–introduced him to Tommy Hicks, Jr., the co-chairman of the RNC. In FTR #‘s 1111 and 1112, we looked at Hicks’ networking with Steve Bannon associate J. Kyle Bass, as well as his role in the inter-agency networks driving the anti-China effort.
” . . . . At the helm of the effort: The 33-year-old and very-much-under-the-radar venture capitalist Tom Cahill, who leads life sciences-focused Newpath Partners. Cahill completed his M.D. and PhD at Duke University a mere two years ago before landing at blue-chip investment firm Raptor Group through a friend. He went on to found Newpath with some $125 million after impressing well-connected names like venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Vista Equity Partners co-founder Brian Sheth. . . . It was through Sheth, for example, that Scientists to Stop Covid-19 connected with the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, Thomas Hicks Jr. . . .”
The federal government’s extreme focus on remdesivir has been shaped, in large measure, by the influence of “Scientists to Stop COVID-19”:
1.–“Scientists to Stop Covid-19” is shepherding remdesivir: ” . . . . Scientists to Stop COVID-19 recommends that in this phase, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should work to coordinate with Gilead pharmaceuticals to focus on expediting the results of clinical trials of remdesivir, a drug identified as a potential treatment for COVID-19. The group also recommends administering doses of the drug to patients in an early stage of infection, and notes remdesivir will essentially be a placeholder until a more effective treatment is produced.
2.–The group is doing so by attenuating the regulatory process for coronavirus drugs: “Government entities and agencies appear to adhere to the recommendations outlined by the group, with the Journal reporting that the FDA and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have implemented some of the suggestions, namely relaxing drug manufacturer regulations and requirements for potential coronavirus treatment drugs. . . .”
We conclude discussion of the remdesivir machinations with a piece about the timing of the announcement of Grogan’s departure.
” . . . . Grogan has served as the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council since February 2019, overseeing a broad array of policy issues including health care and regulation. . . . Grogan was one of the original members of the White House coronavirus task force launched in late January. . . . Grogan worked as a lobbyist for drug company Gilead Sciences before joining the Trump administration. . . .”
The departure was announced in the Wall Street Journal on the morning of Wednesday, April 29, the same day we got our first public reports of the NIAID clinical trial of remdesivir that was positive enough to show it shortened the time to recovery and the same day the FDA granted remdesivir emergency use status.
Note, again, the timing of the DSMB’s actions, as well as the influence of “Scientists to Stop Covid-19.”
In FTR #1130, we noted that Moncef Slaoui–formerly in charge of product development for Moderna–was chosen to head Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed.” He will be working with Four-Star General Gustave Perna, chosen by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley.
Even after agreeing to sell his Moderna stock, Moncef Slaoui’s investments raise alarming questions–note that he is a “venture capitalist” and a longtime former executive at Glaxo-Smithkline:
The circumstances of his appointment will permit him to avoid scrutiny: ” . . . . In agreeing to accept the position, Dr. Slaoui did not come on board as a government employee. Instead, he is on a contract, receiving $1 for his service. That leaves him exempt from federal disclosure rules that would require him to list his outside positions, stock holdings and other potential conflicts. And the contract position is not subject to the same conflict-of-interest laws and regulations that executive branch employees must follow. . . .”
He will retain a great deal of Glaxo-Smithkline stock: ” . . . . He did not say how much his GSK shares were worth. When he left the company in 2017, he held about [500,000 in Western Print Edition] 240,000 shares and share equivalents, according to the drug company’s annual report and an analysis by the executive compensation firm Equilar. . . .”
Further analysis of Slaoui’s position deepens concern about the integrity of the process: ” . . . . ‘This is basically absurd,’ said Virginia Canter, who is chief ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. ‘It allows for no public scrutiny of his conflicts of interest.’ Ms. Canter also said federal law barred government contractors from supervising government employees. . . . Ms. Canter, a former ethics lawyer in the Obama and Clinton administrations, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies, pointed out that GSK’s vaccine candidate with Sanofi could wind up competing with other manufacturers vying for government approval and support. ‘If he retains stock in companies that are investing in the development of a vaccine, and he’s involved in overseeing this process to select the safest vaccine to combat Covid-19, regardless of how wonderful a person he is, we can’t be confident of the integrity of any process in which he is involved,’ Ms. Canter said.In addition, his affiliation with Medicxi could complicate matters: Two of its investors are GSK and a division of Johnson & Johnson, which is also developing a potential vaccine. . . .”
Next, we turn to Moderna’s animal trial for the messenger RNA vaccine it is developing. There are several considerations to be weighed in connection with the Moderna vaccine.
1.–Again, the chairman of Trump’s “Warp Speed” vaccine development program–Moncef Slaoui–was in charge of Moderna’s product development operation.
2.–Moderna’s trial with mice was positive with regard to generating antibody levels high enough to prevent ADE.
3.–Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), is a phenomena where low levels of ineffective antibodies latch onto the virus and exacerbate an overactive immune response that leads to the deadliest symptoms likes cytokine-storms. This danger was seen with SARS and attempts to create a SARS vaccine so it’s a reasonable fear with SARS-CoV‑2.
4.–The Phase III (human) trial is going to be started in July, involving 30,000 people. Alarmingly, those 30,000 people will all be receiving the exact same dosage, 100 micrograms, and that means the phase III trial won’t be testing sub-optimal dosages. The big Phase III trial won’t be testing for ADE in humans.
5.–We may have a nightmare situation where political pressure gives undo weight to animal safety results, leapfrogging over the necessity of testing for side effects.
6.–The animal trials have been severely criticized: ” . . . . ‘This is the barest beginning of preliminary information,’ said Dr. Gregory Poland, an immunologist and vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic who has seen the paper, which has yet to undergo peer-review. Poland said the paper was incomplete, disorganized and the numbers of animals tested were small. . . . Poland, who was not involved with the research, said the paper leaves out ‘important parameters’ that could help scientists judge the work. . . .”
7.–We MIGHT create a vaccine that protects those who get a strong immune response while endangering those with sub-protective responses–a “eugenic” vaccine.
8.–The animal trials have been severely criticized: ” . . . . ‘This is the barest beginning of preliminary information,’ said Dr. Gregory Poland, an immunologist and vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic who has seen the paper, which has yet to undergo peer-review. Poland said the paper was incomplete, disorganized and the numbers of animals tested were small. . . . Poland, who was not involved with the research, said the paper leaves out ‘important parameters’ that could help scientists judge the work. . . .”
9.–The phase II clinical trials on humans are still underway and won’t be completed before November. Phase III is going to be getting underway in July. The Human clinical trials are already underway at the same time the animal safety trials have yet to be completed.
10.–Side effects can take a while to manifest.
We provided detailed critical comments on Moderna’s Phase I trial in FTR #1132.
We conclude with a New York Times article sets forth a “Vaccine October Surprise” scenario for this fall.
” . . . . In a desperate search for a boost, he could release a coronavirus vaccine that has not been shown to be safe and effective as an October surprise. Oct. 23, 2020, 9 a.m., with 10 days before the election, Fox New releases a poll showing President Trump trailing Joe Biden by eight percentage points. Oct. 23, 2020, 3 p.m., at a hastily convened news conference, President Trump announces that the Food and Drug Administration has just issued an Emergency Use Authorization for a coronavirus vaccine. Mr. Trump declares victory over Covid-19, demands that all businesses reopen immediately and predicts a rapid economic recovery. Given how this president has behaved, this incredibly dangerous scenario is not far-fetched. In a desperate search for a political boost, he could release a coronavirus vaccine before it had been thoroughly tested and shown to be safe and effective. . . .”
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