The Testing Pandemic

Note to Readers: Last night I read a portion of Drs. Mark and Samantha Bailey’s book, The Final Pandemic: An Antidote to Medical Tyranny. Specifically, I read pages 111 to 121. In so doing, I realized that I was now closer to understanding the concept of “virus isolation” as done by virologists as I have ever been. I have listened to Andrew Kaufman and Tom Cowan talk at length about this subject, along with others. They try, but the lecture format, which barely works in classrooms at any level, comes with the reminder given me by John Cleese, that “a lecture is a form of communication by which the notes on a teacher’s lectern magically become notes on a student’s tablet – without passing through the brain of either.”  I listened to both Cowan and Kaufman even as I distrusted them, and came away with very little etched on my brain.

Perhaps the closest I came to grasping it was the work of David Crowe, who died mysteriously of a sudden-onset cancer. His work thereafter didn’t disappear, but was compacted and most of the good parts removed.

The Bailey’s note that in 2003 with the first SARS-CoV virus, there was no pandemic. The reason, as they assert in the following paragraphs, was that in 2003 the PCR test was rarely used, and the rapid antigen test did not exist. At that point I am going to pick up their writing as I transcribed it this morning, hoping that you can enjoy as I did the experience of reading two people who really understand their subject matter, and have reduced it down to something we can all grasp without much in the way of Herculean effort. It all happens beneath the fold. It is 3,200 words or so. If you come upon typos, please let me know in the comment section so I can fix them.  Audio transcription is an imperfect technique.

” Fast forward to 2020 and PCR tests were deployed in the hundreds of millions. People were encouraged to get tested and rather than a diagnosis of exclusion as SARS had been, COVID-19 was the anticipated diagnosis. If you had the sniffles or felt in the least bit unwell then you were instructed to present for a test promptly. The messaging was drilled into the public on a daily basis by governments and their sponsored medical institutions: “test, test, test”. Cold and flu cases disappeared and were reclassified as Covid-19 cases through a testing pandemic, as explained by Dr. Köenlein. [A co-author of Virus Mania. mt]

It cannot be emphasized enough that the PCR is a manufacturing tool for molecular amplification that has actually become a tool for the amplification of social control. It is a way of amplifying a particular genetic sequence that is selected by the design of primers … . It does not test for anything, apart from whether a particular genetic sequence is present no matter how minuscule  an amount. A few molecules present in the sample are generally of no relevance to a large organism such as a human and yet the PCR can produce a “positive” result, such is its power of amplification. It is outrageous to claim that any positive result represents a “viral infection”– otherwise it would also have to be concluded that pieces of fruit, the soil, and sewers also have such “infections” as testing them with the same PCR can produce the same result. Even with microbes that have been shown to exist, such as bacteria, it would be similarly irrational to claim that the detection of some other genetic sequence by a PCR would mean that the individual has a bacterial infection. In and on the human body there are trillions of bacteria, in fact, with bacterial cells expected to outnumber the human cells.

By 2021, lateral flow tests, also known as rapid antigen test (RAT) started replacing the PCR as a purported SARS-CoV-2 detection tool. As explained by Dr. Mark Bailey, these tests had no more capability than the PCR to detect an imagined virus or diagnose a clinical condition.

Unlike the PCR, which amplifies selected genetic fragments, RAT purports to detect a protein, currently the “SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid” or ’N’ protein. There are no published papers proving the existence and biochemical properties of the pathogen termed SARS-CoV-2, so the protein cannot be claimed to have any specificity to a “virus” – it is simply a protein class found in some humans in mammalian tissue culture experiments. The typical test kit contains a membrane onto which a few drops of nasal-derived fluid are placed. The fluid is drawn along the membrane and mixes with a fixed “anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody” (read: something that will react with the non-specific N-protein conjugated with gold. If this reaction occurs a visible bar is produced on the strip. But what does that actually mean?

However, one major difference from the PCR was that the RATs were made even more widely available to the public and they could be used as home kits. In countries like New Zealand, the cases from these home kits surged with the subsequent testing frenzy. Nothing even like this testing hysteria took place during the SARS-1 era.

Now we have entered a brave new world and validated test strips “diagnosed” the cases without sound science or common sense. It is easy to see on this fact alone while the number of Covid-19 cases were always going to be far greater than SARS. Indeed, when Healthline stated that, “SARS-CoV-2 appears to be transmitted more easily than SARS-CoV, the key word is “appears”. PCR and RATs are rolled out into the community, no virus is required to create the appearance of transmission.

How to Create “Virus Genomes”

One of the most confusing aspects for the public is the illusion that viruses can be grown in a laboratory. By definition, a virus is supposed to be an obligate intracellular parasite, meaning that it cannot reproduce outside of a host cell. So to grow postulated viruses, the process needs to be done either in a living organism (in vivo) or in an artificial proxy environment (in vitro) such as a cell culture in a test tube. This is an important difference from growing known to exist micro-organisms such as bacteria. Bacteria do not require host cells to be cultured and can be grown in media containing basic building blocks and energy sources such as water, protein components, salts, and carbohydrates. This allows us to be much more confident that we are dealing with a truly isolated species in the petri dish with regard to both the appearances under the microscope and the biochemical characteristics of the bacterium, including his genetic makeup. However, there can be no such confidence when examining the methodology of “growing” alleged viruses.

With regard to “viral” cultures, we will use the CDC’s flagship paper “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus to and from Patient with Coronavirus Disease, United States,” published in June 2020, to illustrate the typical process and highlight the problems as well as the circular thinking. First, they state that they collected, “clinical specimens from a case-patient who had acquired Covid-19 during travel to China and who was identified in Washington, USA.” This introduces the first problem: how do we know that the specimen contains the elected pathogenic virus? The purported COVID-causing pathogen ‘SARS-CoV-2’ was not seen as physically isolated from the patient’s specimens.

There has been no step leading up to this point that demonstrated: (A) the existence of the particle SARS-CoV-2, and that (B) that if it does exist, it is causing the disease “Covid-19”. Instead, we are informed that, “the CDC confirmed that the patient’s nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs tested positive for 2019-nCoV [later named SARS-CoV-2] by real-time reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain-reaction (rRT-PCR) assay. In other words, they are saying that by detecting some pre-decided target genetic fragments with the PCR, the existence of the “virus” is already confirmed, and the patient is known to have it even before they look for it!

They then proceeded to culture the “virus” in the laboratory and conclude that said virus is present if they observe cytopathic effects (CPEs). We know from earlier chapters that CPEs are nothing more than the abnormal appearances of stressed cells under the microscope that indicate they are breaking down and dying. In this case, their “culture” was performed with a mix including Vero cells, fetal bovine serum, antibiotics, and antimycotic (antifungal) agents.

It is worth exploring these various components to understand the subsequent claims made through this methodology:

1. Vero cells are derived from the kidney of an African green monkey and have been in use since 1962. The cell line is aneuploid, meaning that they have an abnormal number of chromosomes, and continuous, meaning the cells can be replicated indefinitely. They are favored by virologists as they grow quickly (thus demonstrating lots of cellular “effects”). However, even some virologists question the use of cells unrelated to the type that the virus is actually supposed to infect. The European Collection of Authenticated Cell Cultures Laboratory Handbook also warns that, “transformed cell lines present the advantage of almost limitless availability, but the disadvantage of having retained very little of the original in vivo [in living organism] characteristics. In summary, they are using highly abnormal monkey kidney cells in a test tube to “demonstrate” the imagined effects of the alleged virus in the airway cells of living humans.
2. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is obtained from fetuses taken from pregnant cows during slaughter. It is commonly harvested using a cardiac puncture without any form of anesthesia, so fetuses are possibly exposed to pain. The RSPCA has called for an end to this practice and suggested alternative products. FBS is comprised of serum albumin (protein), amino acids, sugars, lipids, and hormones. All of the serum should be devoid of cells, but it is likely to contain variable freely circulating bovine DNA and RNA contaminating the culture.
3. Antibiotics are used in viral cell cultures to kill potential bacterial contaminants that came with the patient specimen. In fact, all throat and respiratory swabs would be expected to contain various bacterial species. Even if the antibiotics kill bacteria, components such as genetic traces may remain in the mixture. Antibiotics are also potentially nephrotoxic, meaning that they can be toxic to the Vero monkey kidney cells, particularly if the cells are stressed in other ways. Thus, there does not need to be any virus to cause the breakdown of the cells.
4. Antimycotic agents are antifungals and are used similarly to antibiotics, killing any potential fungi that came with the patient specimen. Killing the fungi still leaves components such as their genetic fragments in the mixture. Antimycotic’s such as amphoterein are also toxic to kidney cells, which can again contribute to the observed CPEs.

So at this point, it is apparent that the culture contains genetic material from the human subject (from their throat and nasal cells), the monkey cells, the FBS, as well as potentially other genetic fragments from any other microorganisms came along for the ride. Importance of this will become apparent when we look at the process of sequencing a “genome” they attribute to SARS-CoV-2.

Often at this point, there is failure to see any CPEs in the test tube, which seems strange as a suspected virus is supposed to be very aggressive and has been given all of the nutrients and host cells of its wildest dreams. Then “passage 1” is performed where some of the culture mixture is removed and placed in more monkey kidney cells with the reduced nutrients and extra doses of antibiotics and antifungals. The culture is then observed over several days again to see if CPEs will now appear. This “passaging” is another questionable technique used by the virologists because it is a process that further stresses the cells – a stress that may well cause CPEs in and of itself. Incredibly, even the manufacturers of laboratory products admit that there is no standardized parameter surrounding how passaging should be done:

A straightforward method for determining the passage number of the cell line does not exist. A review of the literature on passage -related effects in cell lines demonstrates that the effects are complex and heavily dependent on a host of factors such as the type of cell line, the tissue in species of origin, and culture conditions in the application for which the cells are used.

Apparent CPEs are not the only problem with passaging because the process can also alter the genetic expression of the cells in the test tube. A study in 2010 revealed that when certain human cells were passaged, their RNA had changed by up to 10% following five passages. So the technique itself can result in different genetic sequences being detected, which is again something that commercial laboratory suppliers such as the American Type Culture Collection have issued warnings about:

“There is agreement that the number of passages should be minimized to reduce the possibility of phenotypic variations, genetic drift, and contamination as much as possible, but standards organizations differ as to how many passages are acceptable.”

This certainly confirms the  earlier research of geneticist Barbara McClintock, who showed that “shocks” to cells can form new genetic sequences that were not previously detectable. Clearly these sequences arise from the cells themselves and cannot be viruses. She gave an explanation for this observation in her 1983 Nobel Prize speech: “Our present knowledge would suggest that these reorganizations originated from some “shock” that forced the genome to restructure itself in order to overcome a threat to its survival.” In other words, the detection of an apparently novel sequence does not equate to a “novel virus”.

Back to the CDC’s flagship paper “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus  2 from Patient with Coronavirus Disease, United States,” published in June 2020. In this study, once the desired CPEs have been observed, the “viral lysate” (broken up cells in the mixture), was used “for total nucleic acid extraction,” to start sequencing the coronavirus “genome”. But here there exists a major problem. At no stage was a virus actually demonstrated or isolated. Instead a soup of broken up cells and contaminants with all sorts of genetic fragments was used. So you can see that the following statement, “we extracted nucleic acid from the isolates,” is misleading in that the “isolates” are simply referring to their soup of culture brew – they have in no way established that the RNA being detected comes from a virus or that it causes a disease referred to as Covid-19.

And how did they know which genetic sequences they should be looking for in the first place? The paper stated that they “designed 37 pairs of nested PCR’s spanning the genome on the basis of the coronavirus reference sequence (GenBank accession no. NC045512). GenBank is in open access database that contains the genetic sequences of thousands of organisms, including many purported virus sequences. So they went to GenBank to find out in amplify with the PCR. How was it established that GenBank accession no. NC045512 is the SARS-CoV-2 genome?

Now we get into the circular reasoning loop of modern virology…

This particular sequence was published by the Chinese team of Fan Wu on 3 February, 2020, and a paper titled “a new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China.” The researchers purportedly obtained a specimen from a 41-year-old man who was admitted to the Central Hospital of Wuhan on 26 December, 2019, with bilateral pneumonia and, despite no new or definitive clinical features, a condition later called “Covid-19.” The specimen was crude bronchoalvolar lavage fluid (washings from the lungs), so it contained a mixture of human cells and potentially all sorts of other microorganisms and genetic fragments.

From this mixed sample, they found tens of millions of different sequences (termed “reads”) and then put their computer software to work to see how they could fit all the reeds together. To do this “fitting,” the software search for “contigs” or areas where different fragments appear to have overlapping sequences. The software employs probability algorithms to “establish” these overlaps. Of the hundreds of thousands of hypothetical sequences generated in this fashion, they identified that the longest “continuous” sequence the computer could create was about 30,000 bases long, so they concluded that this must be the length of the “viral” genome.

But why would that be the case? They have a hypothetical model with no way to check that it exists in its full length outside of their simulation? And even if it did exist in nature, how did they jump to the conclusion that it must be viral and the cause of a disease? At best they have a hypothesis and that is as far as any elected virus genome has made it in the entire history of virology.

Fan Wu’s team reported that their uhypothetical sequence was 89.1% similar to “a bat SARS -like coronavirus” designated  ‘SL-CoVZC45’. Firstly, 89.1% isn’t actually that similar when comparing genetic sequences – for example, humans and chimpanzees share about 96% of their genome and we can agree they are remarkably different. Perhaps 89.1% sounds “similar” when the virologists permit their legend coronavirus genomes to vary by as much as 50%. But this is just a blatant case of allowing the purported “characteristics” of these “viruses”(extreme genetic variation, size, “infectivity,” “lethality,” clinical manifestations, and anything else one cares to include) to have a conceptual flexibility that may be the fitted to an invalid model. Secondly, how was the so-called bat coronavirus sequence originally obtained? It was another hypothetical computer sequence placed on GenBank in 2018 also generated using the same techniques just discussed. In summary, once he sequences are deposited on the database and called “viral,” other virologists go out and “find” similar ones. As the Rev. J. F. Berg once stated: “My opponents reasoning reminds me of the heathen, who being asked on what the world stood, replied, “On a tortoise.” But on what does the tortoise stand? “On another tortoise. …”

So, we’d open the door to the world of “virus genomes” and how they are created, without any proof that the genetic material comes from a virus. Hypothetical genomes are then used as a template for subsequent hypothetical genomes to follow. In any case, the CDC’s “genome”which was designed in advance based on a GenBank sequence, still adds nothing further to any proof of the existence of acclaimed contagious and disease causing particle termed SARS-CoV-2.

The CDC paper reported that CPEs work, “not observed in mock infected cells,” but as is typical, they failed to document the details of that experiment. (They also failed to disclose these details to the public on direct request.) For a valid control experiment in this setting, it should have been repeated with the same human-derived specimen but without the claimed viral particles. Only in that way with the alleged virus in independent variable; only in that way can a scientist implicate the virus and no other factor is the cause of the pneumonia. However this appears to be an impossibility for the virologists as they have never been able to physically isolate (thus remove) virus particles from these specimens in the first place. As we mentioned in the “Settling the Virus Debate Statement”

Perhaps the primary evidence that the pathogenic viral theory that no published scientific paper has ever shown that particles fulfilling the definition of viruses have been directly isolated and purified from any tissues or bodily fluids of any sick human or animal.

In the absence of being able to perform such a properly controlled experiment, the virologists could still test samples from both while individuals and those who are unwell with highly-comparable respiratory diseases that were deemed not to be Covid-19 or “viral” in cause. Every sample should be exposed to the same passaging and stressors as the case sample to test for CPEs. However, the virologists have a habit of conspicuously avoiding these experiments in this unscientific approach extends to the genome sequencing process as well.

As a final note, the CDC researchers attempted to various human cells with their so-called Covid-19 samples. After all, Covid-19 is supposed to be a human respiratory disease, not a monkey kidney disease. As is so frequently the case, the other cell lines failed to produce the cytopathic effects they were looking for, and they concluded, “the results indicate that SARS-CoV-2 maintains a similar profile to SARS-CoV in terms of susceptible cell lines. Indeed, kidney cells are designed to process mostly sterile blood, not deal with respiratory secretions and all kinds of inhaled particles. Perhaps they should consider the possibility that an alleged virus is not infecting any cells at all and they are going about things the wrong way by selecting abnormal cell types from other organs is simply a high propensity to “react” in test tubes.

Evidently, much of virology has departed from the earlier attempts to nail down direct evidence of viruses. Now that they are ensconced in their indirect methods, are virologists trapped deep inside Plato’s Cave just watching dancing shadows on the wall?