The last three and a half years, during which the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, have been highly educational to me. As much as I thought I knew in early 2020, as news stories about an outbreak of a mysterious infectious pneumonia in China that was found to be due to a novel coronavirus, watching in real time what happened. Although by 2020 I had given up my rather naïve belief from many years ago that mass death from a pandemic of a deadly virus for which a vaccine was developed would fatally erode antivax beliefs among most people and thereby weaken the antivaccine movement, even I never anticipated how massively the pandemic and public health responses to it did exactly the opposite: Strengthen the antivaccine movement beyond anything it had ever achieved before and normalize antivaccine beliefs in our political discourse. By 2020, I had also come to understand how a combination of antivaccine messaging equating “resistance” to vaccine mandates (e.g., “do not comply,” which I will get to in a moment) had shifted the political center of gravity of the antivaccine movement sharply right over the preceding decade, but the pandemic taught me that the situation could get so much worse, with an increasing affinity between antivax beliefs and outright fascism. Perhaps most disturbing, I discovered that the pathway from having contrarian beliefs about public health to becoming a full-on pandemic conspiracy theorist antivaxxer was much shorter and easier than I had ever suspected, as I observed in my year-end post for 2020, later speculating why so many physicians are attracted to “contrarian” beliefs and then so easily slide from these beliefs deeper and deeper into conspiracy theory and science denial prodded by audience capture.
Enter Dr. Vinay Prasad. Again.
Earlier this month, I saw a post by Dr. Vinay Prasad, Orac’s favorite formerly respected rising star in academic medical oncology turned antivax-adjacent, if not fully antivax, COVID-19 “contrarian” entitled Do not report COVID cases to schools & do not test yourself if you feel ill. with a tagline, “Only non-violent resistance can halt irrational public health actors.” It reminded me so much of the “do not comply” messaging that had become such a centerpiece of antivaccine rhetoric before the pandemic and then even more so once COVID-19 vaccines arrived in late 2020 that I had to take a look. True, Dr. Prasad never actually uses the exact phrase “do not comply,” but he uses one so close to it that it might as well be “do not comply.” Indeed, his entire post is a call to resist all public health mandates with respect to COVID-19. Also remember this. Dr. Prasad has an MPH, a Master of Public Health degree. He has studied public health, which makes this post all the more disturbing, coming as it does from someone who should very much know better but no longer does.
Dr. Prasad begins by asking a rhetorical question:
I saw this post today. A school in MoCo, MD (DC beltway) has reimplemented n95 masking for kids. As a side note: there is no n95 mask for kids— as these masks have not been validated in children. In response, one commenter suggests the only solution is to no long report COVID cases to school. Is this a sensible strategy?
Oooh, scary! “They’re coming with masks for your kids” again! I would also point out that most of these antivax parents don’t keep their kids home when they have a cold, because, after all, it’s “just a cold” and “kids get colds.” Just for yucks, I perused the X feeds of @daniela127 and Clay Travis. She turns out to be the founder of a group called Keep NYC Schools Open and her feed is full of antimask and anti-“lockdown” rhetoric that makes me think she’s partying like it’s 2020 again. (Hint: There hasn’t been anything resembling a true “lockdown” in the US and by mid-2021 most states had given up on the COVID-19 mitigation measures that had been implemented.
Predictably, given that Dr. Prasad’s question is a rhetorical question and not a “Betteridge’s Law of Headlines“-sort of question, his answer is yes, no matter how much he has to twist evidence and deny reality:
It turns out the answer is yes. Consider the facts. There is no evidence to suggest community mask mandates slow the spread of COVID in adults. There is no evidence to show they slow the spread of COVID in kids, and the best regression discontinuity studies (Spain) show no effect. Finally, there is no *logic* to slow spread in 2023, given that COVID has already engulfed 90%++ of kids (per CDC’s own Ab screens), and will keep spreading throughout humanity for 10,000 years or until we destroy ourselves. We should no longer aspire to slow spread. No one has shown that improves any outcome.
What about long COVID in kids? There is nearly no evidence to show that this entity warrants concern, and no evidence that any of these measures improve kids quality of life.
“Nearly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here with respect to “no evidence.” While it is true that existing evidence is not as clear as we like, it is not true that there is “nearly” no evidence. For example, this meta-analysis (the very highest form of evidence, according to evidence-based medicine fundamentalists like Dr. Prasad) from May 2023 concludes:
Nearly one quarter of pediatric survivors suffered multisystem long COVID, even at 1 year after infection. Ongoing monitoring, comprehensive prevention and intervention is warranted for pediatric survivors, especially for individuals with high risk factors.
This meta-analysis was based on 40 studies covering 12,424 individuals and noted that the prevalence of any persistent symptoms at one year was 26%, and that persistent symptoms at one year included “generalized symptoms,” as well as respiratory, neurologic, and psychiatric symptoms, with dyspnea (shortness of breath), and headache being the most widely reported specific symptoms. Now maybe the ever eminent, EBM fundamentalist Dr. Prasad doesn’t think that it’s a big deal that one-quarter of children who catch and recover from COVID-19 report persistent and sometimes debilitating symptoms, dismissing the evidence from studies finding these results as “nearly no evidence” but most pediatricians who actually have to deal with suffering children are not so dismissive. Also, note that I picked only one study, a meta-analysis, because it’s recent and synthesizes existing evidence. There are a number of others out there that Dr. Prasad dismisses as “nearly no evidence” that long COVID in children “warrants concern.” Basically, for Dr. Prasad’s message to resonate, it has to be coupled with a message that COVID-19 is no big deal to kids, that it’s basically harmless, and that kids should just naturally catch it. Does that message sound familiar too? It should. It’s the same false message that antivaxxers have been repeating about measles and other childhood vaccine-preventable diseases since time immemorial.
Again, remember that Dr. Prasad has an MPH. He should know better. Instead, he uses his degrees to persuade his audience that COVID-19 is no big deal. I also note that, even if 90% of children have had COVID-19, thanks to the evolution of the virus to evade postinfection immunity acquired from prior variants, disease due to the new variants can spread. One can argue about what is reasonable, science-based, and effective in terms of infection mitigation, but Dr. Prasad’s nihilistic “let everyone catch COVID-19 again and again and again” approach is none of these. Consistent with this is his dismissing any evidence that is not from a randomized controlled clinical trial in order to claim that there is “no evidence” that masks prevent community spread of COVID-19. There actually is evidence. We can argue about how strong the evidence for and against masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is, how to interpret evidence from conflicting studies, and when or if it’s enough to justify mask mandates, but it is simply dismissively incorrect to claim that there is “no evidence.” That is Dr. Prasad’s methodolatry talking, in which any evidence that does not come from a perfectly conducted randomized controlled clinical trial doesn’t count and is therefore dismissed as “no evidence.” One is tempted to say that Dr. Prasad is every bit as “deranged” in his methodolatry as he accuses the parents of Montgomery County, MD of being in terms of their supposedly unthinking allegiance to Anthony Fauci and masks.
Then, Dr. Prasad, being Dr. Prasad, does exactly what he complains about on social media. He goes negative and portrays parents who are still concerned about COVID-19 as deranged and in the thrall of religion-like views. In other words, he portrays them as fanatics in order to dismiss them:
Given these facts, the policy of the Rosemary Hill Elementary school is not just unjustified— it is harmful. Requiring children to wear a useless mask to prevent the unpreventable— is deranged thinking. Given the voting patterns of MoCo, it likely reflects the persistent derangement among liberal democrats that the mask was given to us by Moses when he descended the mountain.
Dr. Prasad has been promoting this message for quite a while now. Indeed, doing a quick search of this blog, I found that he was promoting exactly this message a year ago, when he portrayed ongoing concern about the harms of COVID-19 and a desire among many to avoid catching the disease if they possibly can as irrational anxiety and fear. At the time, I pointed out how this sort of portrayal of public health advocates as fearful and of catching an infectious disease as unavoidable—even inevitable (or, as Dr. Prasad puts it this time, “unpreventable”)—is exactly the same sort of narrative that antivaxxers have used for decades about measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
One wonders what Dr. Prasad thinks of antivaxxers who said exactly the same thing about measles back in the day, that it’s a “harmless childhood disease that is dangerous to only a very few, that it’s impossible to avoid getting it, that “natural immunity” is better. Dr. Prasad obstinately keeps claiming that he’s “not antivax,” but then goes and keeps repeating antivax messaging the twas old when the pandemic hit in 2020. Either he’s ignorant about this messaging (possible, but no longer likely given how often people have. tried to explain it to him), in denial that that is what he’s doing (possible), or doesn’t care (the most likely possibility).
Which brings us to Dr. Prasad’s embracing yet another in a long line of antivax messaging that he’s embraced.
Dr. Prasad embraces his inner antivaxxer by telling parents, “Do not comply.”
Predictably, after that lead, Dr. Prasad goes full anti-public health and antivax (because the two go together) by telling parents, “do not comply.” And, yikes! The things he tells them not to comply with:
The commenter suggests that the only option left for remaining sensible people is to not longer comply in the system that yields this outcome. Here are some practical suggestions:In my estimation— it is the only logical course left. The strategy makes sense. It’s time to go dark with all COVID data. If enough people don’t participate, the irrationality will stop. Eventually.
- If you child is sick— do not test that child for COVID.
- When they look good enough for school, send them in.
- If you are sick— do not test yourself for COVID. (after all, Paxlovid data almost surely doesn’t apply to you — new post coming).
- If anyone is sick, do not tell your employer or school.
- Stop reporting these illnesses, and encourage your colleagues to cease reporting.
- Decline any further COVID19 vaccination, unless RCTs show benefit in your age group
- Complain to your employer about any mandates or declination forms.
Again, remember that Dr. Prasad has an MPH. He has an advanced degree in public health! Yet, he’s telling his readers to stop complying with any request or mandate made by public health authorities, not only that, to go completely “dark” with respect to providing data to public health authorities that will help them deal with infectious diseases—or even track the prevalence of infectious diseases.
Moreover, I rather suspect that Dr. Prasad likes the reactions that his post engendered on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, such as:
And:
Seriously, this response seems rather appropriate:
So is this approving comment after Dr. Prasad’s post:
Vinay’s so red-pilled now it’s awesome. I mean the original meaning, ie not trusting authority.
That about describes Dr. Prasad these days, a term that is frequently used by the far right and conspiracy theorists to describe those who were once believers in the “conventional” narrative but have since “taken the red pill” à la The Matrix and now supposedly know reality as it truly is. Of course, the obvious subtext to such an attitude is obvious. If you don’t bother testing, reporting, or collecting data on incidence (and, of course, the prevalence of long COVID), then COVID-19 is no longer a problem, other than the pesky death that it still causes among the vulnerable, which, I’m sure, Dr. Prasad will find a way to deny soon enough. It’s all basically a convenient strategy to turn denial of epidemiology and public health science into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As for Clay Travis, although the vast majority of his feed is about sports, he also finds time to demonstrate how fully antimask he is::
He’s also unhappy about high school football games being canceled due to spiking COVID-19 cases:
He’s also approvingly amplifying Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s antivax lies:
No wonder Dr. Prasad finds these people’s views attractive, given that he, too, has started echoing some of RFK Jr.’s antivax tropes, such as the “no saline placebo” trope and the demand for new randomized controlled clinical trials of all new vaccines versus saline placeboes, even if doing such a trial would be unethical because it would require leaving the control group unprotected and treated according to less than the standard of care with respect to prevention of common infectious diseases. That is, of course, yet another longstanding antivax trope that Dr. Prasad has embraced, even as he labors under the delusion that he has not become at least antivax-adjacent, if not fully antivax.
“Do not comply”: Old antivax messaging embraced by Dr. Prasad and other COVID-19 contrarians
It turns out that there is no real mystery as to why this sort of messaging is being embraced by useful idiots for the antivax movement like Dr. Prasad. COVID-19 cases are increasing, leading, not unreasonably, to suggestions that maybe bringing back mask mandates (and vaccine mandates) is a good idea. I first saw it from Dr. Robert “inventor of mRNA vaccines” Malone, a physician who soon turned COVID-19 crank and antivaxxer but now writes things like—you guessed it!—Do not comply, in which he argues:
Furthermore, as the CDC again requires more testing in hospitals, schools and workplaces, cases counts will rise. Once that happens, we can expect more mask mandates on airplanes, trains and public spaces. These are hard to resist – we have to travel for work. We have vacations planned. We have places to go and we need to go into public buildings. How do we fight this?
You guessed it again! Do not comply! Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also been using this phrase with respect to COVID-19 public health mitigations.
I wondered if any of the doctors who claim not to be antivaccine are aware of how much antivaxxers have used “do not comply” and/or “I do not comply” as messaging. For example, this was a thing on Facebook in 2019 in response to California trying to close the loopholes in its school vaccine mandate:
Sound familiar? (I note that it’s become more and more difficult to find the “do not comply” narrative in searches of time periods before 2020 given how overwhelming the narrative has become since the pandemic.) How about this:
In fact, the “do not comply” narrative goes way back, for instance, at least to the 1880s
And, even if the words “I do not comply” aren’t there, the sentiment was expressed often by fans of Jenny McCarthy 15 years ago:
There are many variations of the “do not comply” narrative that portray the poor oppressed antivaxxer as a freedom fighter willing to kill, if necessary. I realize that Dr. Prasad said that “nonviolent” resistance is the way, but it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to ditching the “nonviolent” part and many of his fans are not so fastidious.
Here’s Del Bigtree, for example, in 2016:
If we do not fight now, then there will be nothing left to fight for. And I think that is where everyone in this room, I pray you realize how important you are in this historic moment. We will never be stronger than we are right now. We will never be healthier than we are right now. Our children are looking like this, a generation of children, as we’ve said on The Doctors television show this is the first generation of children that will not live to be as old as their parents. Are we going to stand…are we going to sit down and take it? Or are we going to stand up and say: This is a historic moment, that my forefathers, those from Jefferson all the way to Martin Luther King, the moments where people stood up and something inside of them said I’m going to stand for freedom and I’m going to stand for it now. That is in our DNA. It is pumping through me, and I pray that you feel it pumping through you, because we must look back. Our grandchildren will look back and thank us for having stood up one more time and been the generation that said, “We the People of the United States of America stood for freedom, stand for freedom. We will die for freedom today.
OK, this is definitely overwrought but not quite violent rhetoric yet. It skirts the edge of violence but maintains a bit of plausible deniability with respect to accusations of inciting violence. Similarly, Dr. Prasad’s rhetoric is seeking to channel comparisons to nonviolent resistance like that advocated by Martin Luther King, Jr., just as Del Bigtree did here. In other words, he’s equating not reporting cases of a potentially deadly respiratory virus—indeed, actively resisting public health efforts to slow the spread of that respiratory virus—to nonviolent resistance to Jim Crow and racist government policies of the sort used by the civil rights movement decades ago.
Amusingly, as I was finishing this post yesterday, an antivaxxer by the name of Rick Stanley, who for some reason has included me on his email list, sent me a post by the pseudonymous COVID-19 crank and antivaxxer The Vigilant Fox entitled Happy ‘Do Not Comply’ Day, with the tagline, “Thanks for resisting.” To get an idea where Fox, who is less than knowledgeable about science but apparently vigilant for any conspiracy theory that he or she encounters, is coming from, the post includes a figure with the ten stages of genocide:
After ranting about a speech that President Joseph Biden gave two years ago in which he chastised the unvaccinated for prolonging the pandemic, the supposedly vigilant one wrote:
I realized I was witnessing Germany 2.0 unfolding before my very eyes and knew it had to be stopped before things got worse. I decided then that I could no longer be a spectator and started taking steps toward creating the account you see today, Vigilant News.
What ensued after Biden’s speech was one of the most hate-filled propaganda campaigns in human history. Here’s a look back at what they did to the noncompliant in the name of “health.”
One of the most hate-filled propaganda campaigns in human history? More so than the Nazi campaign against the Jews? Worse or as bad as the propaganda campaign in Rwanda against the Tutsis that led to genocide? Or the propaganda campaigns in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution that led to the deaths of millions? Seriously? The Fox certainly lacks…a sense of proportion. Seriously, he/she/it seems to view the cherry picked examples of the “horrors” visited upon the unvaccinated as equivalent to a second Holocaust. However, I do thank the Fox, whoever he/she/it is, for providing me with an example even more extreme than Del Bigtree’s equating antivaxxers to the Founding Fathers willing to die for freedom.
This is the rhetoric that Dr. Prasad is invoking.
I doubt that Dr. Prasad will take me seriously if he reads this. In fact, I suspect that he’ll find a reason to deny that he is sounding anything like Del Bigtree, but he is. Given his embrace of antivax rhetoric, arguments, and messaging with respect to not just COVID-19 vaccines but also RCTs of older vaccines, concern about disease being “irrational anxiety,” and victimhood whenever he is properly called out for his misinformation and opposition to public health, I’m finding it increasingly difficult not to label him as just plain antivax. Actually, it’s impossible. For whatever reasons, Dr. Prasad has joined the antivax movement. He’s joined the fantasy that he’s a brave freedom fighter combatting the encroaching tyranny of government and public health, when in reality he’s just a misinformation pusher who’s been captured by his audience and now must push increasingly outlandish misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and vaccines in order to keep his Substack popular.
98 replies on “Dr. Vinay Prasad embraces antivax “do not comply” messaging”
Can his medical license be revoked, like Mr. Wakefield?
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
– Isaac Asimov
Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That elementary school is in my neighborhood and I wasn’t even aware of the controversy. Maybe because this is a heavily Democratic area filled with government employees, close to FDA, NIH and other federal agencies, and vaccination and masking are not controversial around here. Also I don’t watch Fox News or follow anti-mask politicians on social media. I used Google and found a news story saying the school increased security and kept recess indoors following a social media post by Ted Cruz criticizing the mask policy. Some Rosemary Hills parents were interviewed and they had no problems with the school’s policies.
Denial turns out to be a river without a shore. As if these intrepid freedom fighters don’t exhale aerosolized particles out of their do-not-comply mouths to repeatedly reinfect others with both the virus and the oppositional horseshit that keeps ths public health hazard in high-frequency circulation. The dumb has won as these morbidly inconsiderate contagion pimps lean into all things transmissible with homicidal indifference.
I suspect he had a relatively mild (probably vaccinated?) case and recovery from that included surgical excision of what was left of his empathy. I’ve seen a similar scenario with the anti-vaxxers in my life.
I mostly agree with Orac and mostly disagree with Mr. Prasad. Mr. Prasad nicely pivoted from being pro-vaccine to his current “do not test and do not comply” stuff. I am not sure why. I was always against Covid vaccines and am unvaxed, despite the pressure and vilification and humiliations of unvaccinated people in Chicago and elsewhere.
Covid is not “just a cold”, unfortunately, and I know people who had Long Covid, including my vaxed young relative who had heart problems for 5 months after his first Covid, but they are mostly gone now.
First of all, in my opinion it is not ethical to go out while contagious with anything viral. That’s unethical even if everyone else does it. I stay home when actively sick. We need to protect people from our infections, especially the more-vulnerable vaccinated people who are MORE likely to have Covid than the unvaccinated, at this point.
Secondly, I completely disagree about Prasad advocating not testing for Covid. Covid, a lab-made recombinant chimera of HIV and other pathogens, is dangerous and could have devastating consequences.
Waves of Covid are usually followed by waves of excess mortality in highly-vaccinated OECD countries.
It is important to know if one has Covid. Knowing whether I am sick with Covid helps me decide whether to use safe and effective anti-Covid medications, such as Ivermectin and assorted vitamins. I had my second Covid in June (the first one was 3 years ago). Thanks to Ivermectin which I had stashed and took right after the test, my fever lasted 3 hours and Covid was like half a cold for me. As I am not the healthiest person and am a middle aged man, I am very thankful to Ivermectin.
So, testing benefits the person being tested and those around them.
Regarding masks, I wish they worked, but they do not, so I do not use them generally.
I take Covid seriously. Many of my readers disagree with that and call me names, or even deny that viruses exist, but I still stick to truth in my messaging.
The Covid pandemic is just beginning.
Is Igor a sock puppet of the St. Petersburg Internet Research agency? No matter how many times his nonsense is pointed out to be fake news, the hoaxes continue to be regurgitated (such as Covid is supposedly made from HIV).
It was made with HIV genes even if you say 10,000 times that it was not – the genes do not care about what you think , they are simply there
🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
Seriously, you just plain have zero idea what you are talking about.
“It was made with HIV genes even if you say 10,000 times that it was not – the genes do not care about what you think , they are simply there”
Igor, it takes a lot of something for you, a person with zero training and the same understanding of this to tell people who do have training and understanding they are wrong. The only thing your comments show is how locked to your lies and conspiracies you really are
Reuters Fact Check 1-7-21
SARS CoV 2 not created from HIV genes
Fauci does not have patents for this
Jerome Corsi, a right wing commentator, spread CTs, April 2020
The patents are for a potential treatment for aids: Fauci was an inventor but they were owned by US Department of Health.
Refutations follow about why these CTs are BS
….
Alt med takes any vague possible connection/ words in common or invents new ones, purely to scare their followers:
hiv/ aids is a frightening illness because it has a long incubation period, was frequent amongst stigmatised people, devastates the immune system and had no treatment or cure.
Early in the pandemic, prevaricators took advantage of science’s early, incomplete understanding the virus/ illness to engage followers through fear. I notice that not one of these liars mentions the fact that hiv is a retrovirus and CoV 2 is not but some of their tales attribute retroviral qualities to CoVid.
It is not HIV genes. Short sequence similarity does not mean that entire genes are shared.
SARS CoV 2 sequence is published. Check it.
Quick! Someone compare a bunch of posts made by other people to Igor’s! I bet we can find enough commonly used words, similarities in sentence structure and length to prove, conclusively (to him at least, based on his whole thing about HIV ‘genes’ in covid) that he really isn’t himself, but one of the other people posting here.
That post was BS heavy even for you Igor: folks who are vaccinated being more at risk than those who aren’t, covid being a ” a lab-made recombinant chimera of HIV and other pathogens,”, “Ivermectin and assorted vitamins” being effective against covid, and masks not working: all of your big lies wrapped into one post. The only thing lacking was the miraculous recovery of some 2nd cousin after you show up bearing gold, incense, myrrh, and dietary supplements to save the person.
You don’t take covid seriously, you have neither the intellect nor the integrity to do it. You do take conning suckers out of subscription money seriously, and it shows.
You still have no evidence that SARS Cov 2 is lab made. Try to presen some.
DC-SIGN interaction is common among viruses:
https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/jvi.78.21.12090-12095.2004
This is called immunemodulation.
Btw, do you still think that Gates is The Man
About Harrison’s reply: He did know that point mutations exist. They certainly change RNA code.
Here’s something new for you.
CIA officers were offered “rewards” for changing their mind and voting for their agency’s conclusion to be favorable of natural origin. 6 out of 7 officers “changed their mind” after initially insisting on lab origin.
==> Testimony From CIA Whistleblower Alleges New Information on COVID-19 Origins
Think about this for a minute. Naive CIA officers decided to write a truthful intelligence conclusion.
Their management, who obviously knew much more than these officers, cared enough to offer them a “reward” (and no doubt there was a stick besides the carrot) so that they would support the false conclusion, because the management knew that it was politiclaly necessary.
So, their higher-ups
1) Knew that they wanted to present a false conclusion (that Sars-Cov-2 is a natural virus)
2) New how important it was to deceive the public.
So,they already had a plan – it was not just an intelligence discovery process.
The true critical thinkers, such as myself, of course are now swayed by politically influenced “CIA conclusions”. I do not need the CIA to tell me how to think. I can think for myself and read news and science articles.
However, perhaps, you can be impressed by how people like yourself are being manipulated when you “trust CIA experts”.
The bigger question, of course, is “was it really a lab accident or was it intentional”
Not only did I spit out this morning’s coffee but the coffee from the entire previous month.
Yet you never do it well or with the knowledge needed to make reasonable conclusions.
Not as big as you think, with the majority of the evidence favoring neither of those possibilities.
Igor, one thing can be said about you: you are massively confident in your conspiracies and fact, unsupportable, conclusions. It’s too bad you don’t have that same confidence in reality and your ability to learn.
I wouldn’t call what you do thinking, but more fantasising.
If various CIA analysts changed their mind then there obviously wasn’t any factual evidence in the first place. They changed their opinion. I know, I know, you can’t tell the difference, it’s just one of those things adults have to live with.
While you’re on the subject of HIV in SC2, can you tell the difference between the words ‘cantankerous ‘, ‘cannula ‘, ‘serious’ and ‘tanker’? I’ll give you a clue, ‘can’ is not ‘cantankerous’ is not ‘tank’.
What a steaming pile you just dropped! Give me your address so I can send you a propeller hat.
I see Chudov has given up any pretense of being capable of analysis and spends all his efforts on self-congratulatory back-patting. Probably just as well, as I suspect science and statistics hurt Igor’s poor little brain, leaving bragging as the only form of “thinking” he’s capable of that provides him with any pleasure. He’s become a suitable replacement for Rebel Indie, who shared the same traits.
@Igor Chudov
a) DEFUSE proposal was not funded
b) do you really think that a criminal would advertise his crime before ? (pandemic prevention exercise)
c) There were Operation Warp Speed , (by Trump, btw) MRNA vaccines were selected because they were ready quickly,
d) So it was indeed Gates (no surprise here) Here is press release:
https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/biontech-announces-new-collaboration-develop-hiv-and
It was HIV and tuberculosis vaccinesss
e) You will notice China was involved No complaints by China that Gates killed Chinese and stopped the y.
stopped the economy.
Being critical thinker: Why would CIA cover China’s ass ? It does not make any sense. There is an investigation, however. Let us see the results.
That is a great question. It is key to understanding of the origin of this pandemic. It shows that it was not an accidental, unexpected pandemic.
Oh, so we’re getting back into the “plandemic” conspiracy mongering, are we? Seriously, an even bigger question than Aarno’s would be this: WTF would be the purpose of an intentional pandemic with a virus like SARS-CoV-2? No, seriously. Critical thinking demands that the actual purpose be known, and no one has ever been able to do that other than vague nonsense about “control,” etc.
And what was the plan Igor? What the hell is the plan?
You present so many questions, claiming that the answers to those questions will reveal everything and never even hint at any possible answers.
You can’t just keep pretending that the nonexistent answers to unanswerable questions show anything other than your ability to get about half of an idea and toss it out onto the internet.
If you’re so clever, so able to see through the deceit and pick up on things that the ignorant masses are unaware of and the puppet masters don’t want known, what do you think the plan is? Stop saying no one knows and give us a theory that makes sense and isn’t based around more impossible questions.
@Igor Chudov Original assessment was actually “low probability”, which is not same as certainty as you implied. I was leak, not starting plandemic. Reason why you did not give a link, I guess.
There is actually an invesgestigation going on. So one must wait results.
@Orac:
@Silex:
I do not know for sure what the plan was, sorry.
If I had a magic ability to read minds, and knew whose mind to read, maybe I could tell you. As of now, we are not totally sure what the plan was, although we can make guesses.
OK. I’ll bite. Make your best guesses.
@Igor Chudov People committing a crime have a motive. You think that there is a worldwide conspiracy without a purpose.
@Igor
Stop saying you don’t know. I’ve been asking you to at least give us a theory as to what the plan is and how that plan is supposed to work.
And, more importantly, explain how these plans are being carried out with no one working to stop them. if you know about the plans and other people know, then there has to be at least a handful of people in positions where they can stop them who know.
@Orac:
@Silex:
Okay.
The below are hypothetical thoughts and do not have enough evidence to substantiate them. You can call them fantasies if you want.
Anyway, there are several pieces of evidence that development of Sars-CoV-2 was intentional and conducted to create a worldwide pandemic agent.
Defuse proposal specifically trying to make viruses more contagious in humans – development of which cost millions and was intentional by all definitions.
In Oct 2019, a month or two before the pandemic began, a pandemic exercise called “Event 201” was conducted, modeling spread of a hypothetical worldwide coronavirus pandemic. Even the fictional site of the initial spread, in Argentina, was strangely exactly diametrically opposite to Wuhan, on the globe. Participants of the event were China CDC, the WEF, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Avril Haines representing the US intelligence community, and JHU.
In Sep 2019, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invested $55 million into BioNTech, an obscure German mRNA startup that never made any vaccines. Mysteriously, after the pandemic started, BioNTech was chosen to produce Pfizer’s mRNA Covid vaccine. BMGF made many times the amount of its initial investment and sold in 2021, just before ineffectiveness of Covid vaccines became public knowledge. This makes one ask, what did Bill know in Sep 2019.
Around July 2019, NIH worked on a “novel coronavirus vaccine”, which is shown in the NIH B-roll video, screenshots of which show dated vials of “Novel coronavirus vaccine” in the NIH freezer. The video shows Kizzmekia Corbett and other NIH scientists’ work environment – and screenshots reveal more than they intended. (I have links)
That’s an introduction to the possibility that Sars-Cov-2 was not entirely unexpected and some parties knew more than the general public.
None of the above answers the questions of Who, Where, and for What purpose.
To answer these questions, we need to think about a motive.
I can think of four:
Profiteering – create a pandemic to make money
Arsonist-firefighter – create a pandemic to then be a hero making “lifesaving vaccines”, to grab more power and make money
Terroristic – the above-mentioned “DESTROY THE WORLD” button
Messianic – reduce our population to save the planet
Which it was, I do not know and as soon as I find something out I will post about it. I do not want to make unsubstantiated claims.
People love spreading unfounded conspiracy theories, but it is not my line of business. I simply report facts, and when the facts do not yield firm conclusions, I simply state so.
Igor, spreading unfounded conspiracies is the only you do.
Are you really so massively unaware of your own behavior or are you just completely deluded?
“I do not want to make unsubstantiated claims.”
“People love spreading unfounded conspiracy theories, but it is not my line of business. I simply report facts, and when the facts do not yield firm conclusions, I simply state so.”
In my part of the country, the only answer to that would be a flabbergasted stare and the words “You lying git”.
It’s like stumbling on a dead body with a guy standing over it, blood all over his clothes, knife covered in blood in his hand and a hank of his hair in the victims hand. “Wasn’t me”, he says. “I just got here and found him like this”.
Just to put it clearly Igor, you DO make unsubstantiated claims, you report OPINIONS and you NEVER admit that your data doesn’t support firm conclusions.
You lying git.
@ Igor:
re hypothetical thoughts
Of course there were planning sessions about pandemics because
Corona viruses spread easily, can be a mild cold or dangerous like MERS, SARS, Covid 19. Why shouldn’t infectious disease experts/ vaccine makers prepare for them? There are many types of corona viruses and they affect people and animals which affects the economy globally. Viruses spread differently when people travel across continents/ oceans by plane or live in large cities.
Motives?
They sound like the plot of a thriller film thrown together from remnants of old films about dastardly deeds, hidden agendas and evil scientists and billionaires.
As you say, it’s a fantasy. You have no evidence.
I could write a script saying that Covid-19 was developed by women scientists/ politicians to get revenge on men for millennia of unfairness and abuse.
My evidence:
men do worse with Covid
there are women scientists and politicians worldwide who are very angry at men.
Deal with it.
@Denice:
First of all, sorry, forgot to mention another theory, the economic theory, which is that a pandemic can be used as a pretext to print enormous amounts of money and wreck economies to cause a long-term depression (not the short recession of 2020, on which I made plenty of money).
Keep in mind that an economic depression, similar to the Great Depression, that reduces production and consumption by 30%, would reduce CO2 emissions BY HALF (due to having only 60% of energy produced by fossil fuels). And it would save the planet from global warmming!
Anyway, these are theories without proof. Just food for thought – but also a possibility to consider that there could be an economic depression coming soon, and it would be “sudden” but not entirely “unexpected”.
True, alone, Event 201 is enough to raise eyebrows, but would not be dispositive.
But in combination with three other things I mentioned, it does raise eyebrows and makes us ask, how could they know so much?
There is a lot we do not know. Let’s be humble. To find out what happened, we need regime change, subpoena and declassify documents, etc.
Harrison thinks that because RNA sequence in ENaC and SAR CoV 2 are different lab manipulation indicated. Among other hings, he forget point mutations. Common sequence is quite sort.
Even a stopped clock can be right, but never for the correct reason.
“Do not comply.”
Yeah, because coughing and sneezing with an uncovered mouth is such an heroic act and in no way indicates a filthy knuckle-dragging cretin.
“I’m a public health expert and am recommending you ignore and undermine public health.” —Vinay Prasad – super genius
His latest flubstack concerns “anonymous” letters from medical students (“dozens”, lol) who feel coerced by their medical schools because they have to get covid tested, wear masks and get a vaccine. Translation: outside of 2 really stupid actual medical students he promoted on flubstack, he now has to make up stuff about medical students to keep his disinformational narrative alive and prop up what must be declining flubstack revenues.
He is so so close to falling of the top lip of the rabbit hole into anti-vax oblivion. I move up my prediction to VP going past the event horizon by Jan 1, 2024.
He’s already said that RFK Jr. has lots of reasonable ideas and endorsed calls for RCTs of childhood vaccines against saline. I’d say he’s already there.
But what if the clock is right all day? Is that still a coincidentally right clock?
Tell us again about your “critical reading” skills igor. What a clown.
Ooh! I can answer this one! If a stopped clock is right all day you’re either stuck in a micro time-loop or you just can’t tell time.
See, when you ask silly questions I can answer them, so why can’t you give answers to serious questions that you get asked?
I parked him down there some time ago. As far as I am concerned when you start promoting anti-vaccine messaging, you become an anti-vaxxer.
Oh and I did note then that this was the result of audience capture. However, once people start making these types of statements over and over again, they come to believe them.
@ Orac & Orac’s minions,
Fifteen years ago when MJD wrote about banning natural rubber latex products (e.g., balloons) in hospitals there was some respectful insolence. I was in a hospital yesterday and there are plaques on the walls banning such balloons. Understand, MJD is not anti-balloon but simply pro-immune safety. Thanks to Orac and his minions, in part, the issue was debated, acted upon, and resolved.
I see IggyChud is still so damned stupid or so tied to his agenda of spreading lies that he’s still promoting the absurd notion that SARS-CoV-2 has some element from HIV in it. Pathetic. But I suppose I shouldn’t belittle the learning disabled.
Are you aware of numerous studies that discussed HIV-coronavirus recombinant viruses?
==> Towards a Coronavirus-Based HIV Multigene Vaccine
Quote:
Note that Sars-Cov-2 encodes gp120 and gag (per Pradhan) and is, obviously, a coronavirus-based platform like the above article describes.
But yeah it comes from bats 😉 who live 1,000 km from wuhan 🙂
Again, you have no understanding of what you are talking about.🤦🏻♂️
…Igor, this is not quite the same, but let’s say I have a black and white rabbit with floppy ears and black and white a dog with floppy ears. Are my dog and rabbit related because they’re the same color and have floppy ears?
I suspect that they are because they both come when called and like to eat the ends of the carrots when I’m cooking.
Okay, I will bite. Let’s say that a certain city has a lab that studies genetically modified dogs and cats.
Suddenly a new breed of dogs mysteriously appears in the city. Those dogs have whiskers and meow.
Now all newspapers and self-appointed experts, in lockstep, are assuring you that whiskered, meowing dogs are definitely a natural phenomenon. Internet accounts of those who insist that the meowing dogs are lab made, are being canceled.The lab origin, they assure, is a right-wing conspiracy theory.
What would you conclude if you saw that happen?
That most people don’t know what the hell Shiba Inu and Basenji are? Could be saluki though. I had one of them meow at me when I was ignoring it. There are a lot of different kinds of dogs out there, more than most people think.
Vibrissae are pretty common in mammals though, not really a sign of anything suspect, kind of like what people here are trying to explain to you.
In Igor’s artificial example, he forgot that there is clear precedent for genetic cross transfer between cats and dogs. Combine that with the large stray population in confined areas…..
And you know what, I’ll bite again because you’ve stumbled into something I actually know – if people who are saying that these dogs are proof that cats do not need supplemental taurine in their diets or that giving your cat Redbull and AMP energy drinks instead of water will prevent them from going blind then I’d hope that the news and experts would be doing everything in their power to stop people from killing their cats through malnutrition or poisoning.
But then there’s you on your substack, telling people that their cats do not need taurine and that you once cured a blind that was on its deathbed, it’s ninth and last life slipping away cat, by anointing it with RockStar energy, and that if we just give our cats energy drinks rather than following conventional veterinary medicine our cats will never get sick again (because they’ll be dead, but eh, breaking eggs to make an omelette, right?).
But keep this coming, please, I will torture this metaphor until it begs for mercy.
Rather besides the ponnt. There is no HIV genes in SARS CoV 2
Just because you haven’t seen something before, doesn’t mean that it’s new…
And just because you see a pattern (that you want to see), doesn’t mean that it’s the only explanation.
Hate to tell you this, dearie, but dogs have whiskers. I’ve even known some that have made a purring sound.
“HCoV 229E replicon-based VLPs encoding several HIV antigens ”
You will notice that
a) this is another coronavirus, not SARS CoV
b) It would code three full HIV genes
c) SARS CoV 2 does not code GAG of HIV. Same acronym, different meaning. Even less gp120. Remember that similarity is short sequences, not entire proteins.
Not even close to SARS CoV 2
People can travel between Bat caves and Wuhan, and carry virus with them
Plus definition of VLP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus-like_particle
Virus-like particles (VLPs) are molecules that closely resemble viruses, but are non-infectious because they contain no viral genetic material. They can be naturally occurring or synthesized through the individual expression of viral structural proteins, which can then self assemble into the virus-like structure
@ Igor Chudov
First, Sars-Coronavirus-2, COVID, is an RNA virus. Sequencing of its genome in literally thousands of bats found numerous genomes only requiring a few additional mutations, and RNA viruses are unstable and experience numerous mutations, plus more than one Coronavirus was sometimes found in the same cell, which means they could exchange genetics. Second, the current COVID is certainly not a gain-of-function virus, otherwise the death rate would be exponentially higher. And, even the death rates per capita in US vary quite a bit with much higher rates in Republican states that don’t encourage vaccinations nor masks and physical distancing. And, despite what you choose to believe, numerous well-done studies have found that masks reduce the risk of infecting others and being infected. Reduce, not eliminate. However, you, in your continued ignorance, see things in extremes of black and white.
The world-wide-web has literally millions of websites. One can find flat Earth sites, antivax sites, and even a few “medical/science” sites that make claims NOT backed by the overwhelming evidence. With literally millions doctors, scientists, etc. one can always find a few who deviate from science. Historically, such deviation have only extremely rarely proved right. I prefer to go with current science. And I understand immunology, microbiology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, etc. You have made it absolutely clear you don’t. Given you don’t understand the basics, what you rely on is based on your own stupid, mentally disturbed, biases.
I realize you won’t check the following out; but below is a list of credible papers on origins of COVID. However, as opposed to you, I don’t see things in extremes of black and white. White the overwhelming scientific info says COVID of natural origin, which I accept, I don’t entirely rule out it might have been a lab escape; though highly unlikely; however, the deaths per capita in US more related to whether people are open-minded and believe in science or, like you, closed minded and reject science, basically Democratic vs Republican States with Republican states, starting with Florida and Texas, having the much higher per capita COVID deaths.
Keep making an absolute fool of yourself.
Origins COVID-19 Virus
Anderson KG et al. (2020 Apr). The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine; 26(4); 450-452.
Basavaraju SV Serologic testing of U.S. blood donations to identify SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies: December 2019-January 2020. Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Berekaa MM (2021 Jan 1). Insights into the COVID-19 pandemic: Origin, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and therapeutic interventions. Frontiers in Bioscience, Elite; 13: 117-139.
Butler D (2015 Nov 12). Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research: Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells. Nature News & Comment.
Calistri P et al. (2021 Feb 19). SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Not the First, Not the Last. Microorganisms; 9(2): 433.
Chen H et al. (2011 Dec 6). Animal reservoirs for SARS-like coronavirus in southern China. Hong Kong Medical Journal; 17(6 Supplement): 36-40.
Chen S (2020 Nov 16). Coronavirus hunters pick up another piece of the trail in Italy. South China Morning Post.
Chen YN et al (2019 Nov 22). Entry of Scotophilus Bat Coronavirus-512 and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus in Human and Multiple Animal Cells. Pathogens; 8(4): 259.
Cheng VCC (2007 Oct). Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Agent of Emerging and Reemerging Infection. Clinical Microbiology Reviews; 20(4); 660-694.
Damas J et al. (2020). Broad host range of SARS-CoV-2 predicted by comparative and structural analysis of ACE2 in vertebrates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; 117(36): 22311-22322.
Deslandes A et al. (2020 Jun). SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019. International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents; 55(6).
Doucleff M (2021 Mar 15). WHO Points To Wildlife Farms In Southern China As Likely Source Of Pandemic. NPR.
El Boujnouni et al. (2021). Informatics in Medicine Unlocked; 24.
Fan Y (2019 Mar 2). Bat Coronaviruses in China. Viruses; 11(3): 210.
Furmanski M (2014 Feb 17). Laboratory Escapes and “Self-fulfilling prophecy” Epidemics. Scientist’s Working Group on Chemical and Biologic Weapons: Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.
Ge XY (2013 Nov 28). Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor. Nature; 503 (7477): 535-8.
Geng R and Zhou P (2021 Apr 23). Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) related coronavirus in bats. Animal Diseases; 1:4.
Ghorbani A et al. (2021 Apr 22). Comparative phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein—possibility effect on virus spillover. Briefings in Bioinformatics.
Guo YR et al. (2020 Mar 13). The origin, transmission and clinical therapies on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak – an update on the status. Military Medical Research; 7(1): 11.
Hernandez JC & Gorman J (2021 Mar 30). Origins of coronavirus remain unclear in WHO-China inquiry: ‘Extremely unlikely’ virus emerged from lab, team reports. San Diego Union-Tribune.
Hu B et al. (2017 Nov 30). Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus. PLOS Pathogens; 13(11).
Hu D et al. (2018 Sep). Genomic characterization and infectivity of a novel SARS-like coronavirus in Chinese bats. Emerging Microbes & Infections; 7(1): 154.
Latinne A et al. (2020 Aug 2). Origin and cross-species transmission of bat coronaviruses in China. Nature Communications; 11(1): 4235.
Lin XD (2017 Jul). Extensive Diversity of Coronaviruses in Bats from China. Virology; 507: 1-10.
Liu SL (2020 Feb 26). No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Emerging Microbes & Infections; 9(1): 505-507.
Lytras S et al. (2021 Jan 22 bioRxiv). Exploring the natural origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Marquardt A et al. (2020 May 5). Intel shared among US allies indicates virus outbreak more likely came from market, not a Chinese lab. CNN.
McKenna M (2020 Mar 23). How ProMED Crowdsourced the Arrival of Covid-19 and SARS. http://www.wired.com
Menachery VD (2015 Dec). A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence. Nature Medicine; 21(12): 1508-13.
Morens DM (2020 Jul 22). The Origin of COVID-19 and Why It Matters. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene; 103(3): 955–959.
Morens DM & Breman JG (2020 Sep 9). Coming to terms with the real bioterrorist behind Covid-19: nature. STAT.
Nguyen TT et al. (2021 Feb 10). Genomic mutations and changes in protein secondary structure and solvent accessibility of SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID‑19 virus). Scientific Reports; 11(1): 3487.
Parry J (2020 Jan 20). China coronavirus: cases surge as official admits human to human transmission. BMJ.
Pompeo (2020 May 8). “The Discussion Is Basically Over”: Why Scientists Believe the Wuhan-Lab Coronavirus Origin Theory Is Highly Unlikely: Trump and Mike Pompeo’s favorite blame-China theory makes great propaganda—but dubious science. http://www.vanityfair.com
ProMED (2019 Dec 30). Undiagnosed Pneumonia – China (Hubei): Request for Information. International Society For Infectious Diseases.
Schmidt C (2020 Jun 13). Coronavirus Researchers Tried to Warn Us: Before the pandemic hit, they struggled to get funding that might have hastened treatments for COVID. The Atlantic.
Qiu J (2020 Mar 11). How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus. Scientific American.
Seyran et al. (2021 Mar). Questions concerning the proximal origin of SARS‐CoV‐2. Journal of Medical Virology; 93(3): 1204-1206.
Subbaraman N (2020 Aug 21). ‘Heinous!’: Coronavirus researcher shut down for Wuhan-lab link slams new funding restrictions: Peter Daszak, president of the research organization EcoHealth Alliance, describes how he has been caught in political cross-hairs over his partnership with a virology lab in China. http://www.nature.com
Tang XC et al. (2006 Aug). Prevalence and Genetic Diversity of Coronaviruses in Bats from China. Journal of Virology; 80(15): 7481-7490.
Wang B et al. (2017 Feb 22). Detection and genome characterization of four novel bat hepadnaviruses and a hepevirus in China; 14(1):40.
Wang N et al (2018). Serological Evidence of Bat SARS-Related Coronavirus Infection in Humans, China. Virologica Sinica; 33: 104-107.
WHO (2021 Mar 30). WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part: Joint WHO-China Study: 14 January-10 February 2021.
WHO (2021 Mar 30). WHO calls for further studies, data on origin of SARS-CoV-2 virus, reiterates that all hypotheses remain open.
Woodward A (2020 May 2). A US researcher who worked with a Wuhan virology lab gives 4 reasons why a coronavirus leak would be extremely unlikely. Business Insider.
Wu K (2020 May 11). This Pandemic Has Reignited a Passionate Debate Over Bats and Disease: “Don’t kill bats.” Mother Jones.
Zheng H et al. (2020 Nov 12). Virulence and pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in rhesus macaques: A nonhuman primate model of COVID-19 progression. Pathogens; 16(11).
Zhong R et al. (2020 Dec 19). Leaked Documents Show How China’s Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus. ProPublica.
Zhou P et al. (2020 Mar). A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature; 579(7798): 270-273.
Origins of COVID-19 Virus Part 2
Bats:
Hassanin et al. (2021 Preprint). The ecological niche of bat viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2, as inferred from phylogeographic analyses of Rhinolophus species. Research Square.
iNaturalist (accessed 2021 May 7). Intermediate Horseshoe Bat Rhinolophus affinis.
Kim SS (2019). Regional differences in winter activity of hibernating greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) from Korea. Journal of Ecology and Environment; 43: 2.
Wikipedia. Intermediate horseshoe bat.
Wikipedia. Horseshoe bat.
Pangolin:
Frutos R et al. (2020 Aug 5). COVID-19: Time to exonerate the pangolin from the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans. Infection, Genetics and Evolution; 84
Turcios-Casco and Gatti RC (2020 Sep 19). Do not blame bats and pangolins! Global consequences for wildlife conservation after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Biodiversity and Conservation
Wacharapluesadee S et al. (2021). Evidence for SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses circulating in bats and pangolins in Southeast Asia. Nature Communications
Zhang S et al. (2021). Bat and pangolin coronavirus spike glycoprotein structures provide insights into SARS-CoV-2 evolution. Nature Communications.
Robert Redfield:
Berkowitz B (2020 May 18). The CDC’s Dr. Robert Redfield’s “Christianity” Vs. Science Leadership During Coronavirus Pandemic. Buzzflash.
Choma R (2020 Mar 7). Trump’s CDC Director Has a History of Controversial Opinions on Controlling Viruses: Robert Redfield has long allied himself with conservative politicians and their pet theories about disease. Mother Jones.
Holmes K et al. (2020 Jun 5). CDC woes bring Director Redfield’s troubled past as an AIDS researcher to light. CNN.
Merlin1963 (2020 Mar 7). Warning Signs About Trump Appointee Dr. Robert Redfield To CDC Starting To Be Proven True. Daily Kos.
Rogin J (2021 Apr 1). What if the former CDC director is right about the Wuhan labs? The Washington Post.
Wikipedia. Robert R. Redfield.
Wuhan – Coronavirus Oct, Nov 2019
AFP (2020 Jun 9). New coronavirus may have emerged in summer 2019: study. news.yahoo.com
BBC News (2020 Jun 9). Coronavirus: Satellite traffic images may suggest virus hit Wuhan earlier.
Dilanian K et al. (2020 May 8). Report says cellphone data suggests October shutdown at Wuhan lab, but experts are skeptical. http://www.nbcnews.com
Geraghty J (2020 June 8). What Spurred the Increase in Visits to Wuhan Hospitals in October 2019? National Review.
Varma KJM (2020 Jun 9). COVID-19 may have hit Wuhan in Aug 2019, claims study. rediff.com India News.
Wuhan Lab Origin?
Latham J and Wilson A (2020 Jun 2). The Case Is Building That COVID-19 Had a Lab Origin. independentsciencenews.org
Latham J and Wilson A (2020 Jul 17). A Proposed Origin for SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 Pandemic. CounterPunch.org
Rogin J (2021 Apr 1). What if the former CDC director is right about the Wuhan labs? The Washington Post.
Woodward A (2020 Sep 18). A Chinese virologist claimed the coronavirus was ‘intentionally’ released. Turns out, she works for a group led by Steve Bannon. http://www.businessinsider.com
Nicholas Wade:
Asher D (2021 Mar 12). Transcript: The Origins of COVID-19: Policy Implications and Lessons for the Future. Hudson Institute.
Phillips J (2014 May 28). Troublesome Sources: Nicholas Wade’s Embrace of Scientific Racism. Southern Poverty Law Center.
SourceWatch Hudson Institute. The Center for Media and Democracy.
Wade N (2021 May 3). Origin of Covid — Following the Clues: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? nicholaswade.medium.com
Wikipedia. Hudson Institute.
Wikipedia. Nicholas Wade.
Regarding Khristian Andersen. Are you aware that he did not even believe what he was writing in the proximal origins article and he just wrote it to please Fauci and Farrah. His stolen chats prove that.
Also big news, today the NIH debarred wiv for creating sars cov2.
https://x.com/thechiefnerd/status/1704646414997885092?s=61&t=DA3QAyCTn2t-j1lxebJDdw
Could you provide a direct link to that HHS letter?
I wouldn’t believe anything that Ron Johnson says about virology.
That’s the appropriate ending to your sentence.
Yes, here’s the full letter:
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Debartment.pdf
Have you got a link to the details of the grant that was the cause of the letter?
You again did not read your llink (suggest starting it)
“failed to send, or make arrangements to appear and present information and argument in opposition to the Notice of Suspension and Proposed Debarment within 30 days after the receipt of the Notice of Suspension and Proposed Debar”
Original as about possible violation of biosafery rules not creating SARS CoV 2.
I know Andersen, She changed her mind when she learn more about SARS CoV 2
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/science/covid-lab-leak-fauci-kristian-andersen.html
@Aarno,
I think this is the person.
https://www.scripps.edu/faculty/andersen/
@NumberWang: Have you got a link to the details of the grant that was the cause of the letter?
Yes.
https://govtribe.com/award/federal-grant-award/project-grant-r01ai110964
Federal Agency National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Awardee Ecohealth Alliance Inc. (TKS7NBB4JDN6)
UNDERSTANDING THE RISK OF BAT CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCE
@Igor Chudov You should really really read your links:
THIS PROJECT WILL EXAMINE THE RISK OF FUTURE CORONAVIRUS (COV) EMERGENCE FROM WILDLIFE USING IN-DEPTH FIELD INVESTIGATIONS ACROSS THE HUMAN-WILDLIFE INTERFACE IN CHINA, MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF NOVEL COVS AND HOST RECEPTOR BINDING DOMAIN GENES, MATHEMATICAL MODELS OF TRANSMISSION AND EVOLUTION, AND IN VITRO AND IN VIVO LABORATORY STUDIES OF HOST RANGE
You will notice
a) no gain of function
b) mathematical models of evolution
Aarno, you are now resisting the obvious. The NIH, despite every incentive to close its eyes, which is what it did for the past three years, now DEBARRED WIV for the specific EcoHealth grant, with the following language:
So, even the NIH now acknowledges that Sars-Cov-2 is lab made (referring to “lead to health issues or other unacceptable outcomes”).
Of course, the NIH trying to solely blame the WIV is quite ridiculous as the studies developing Sars-Cov-2 were financed by the NIH, virology research was done by Ralph Baric of UNC, etc.
However, NIH acknowledges that Sars-Cov-2 is lab made, which is what is important.
The funny thing is, totally in parallel with developing the deadly Sars-Cov-2 virus, the NIH also secretly worked on a vaccine for “novel coronavirus”, and that’s why “Covid vaccine was designed in two days” (hint, it was not)
The intelligent, critical thinkers realized this in 2020-2021 and refused to take the Covid vaccine. Nobody regrets not taking the vaccine, while lots of people regret taking it!
No, Igor, the NIH “acknowledged” nothing of the sort.🙄🤦🏻♂️
“lead to health issues or other unacceptable outcomes”
This not same thing than making SARS CoV 2. It says that lab safety is not high enough.
Studies by by Baric did not produce SARS Cov 2.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2787-6
It is mouse coronavirus with 80% sequence similarity with SARS CoV 2
NIH of course did not develop SARS Cov 2 vaccine before SARS CoV 2 (secret plots all the time)
MRNA vaccines had been researched long SARS CoV 2. Do Google Scholar search for mRNA vaccine (first hit was published 2012).
Next, Igor will be saying that it was attempts to make vaccines against the original SARS that produced SARS-CoV-2. Oh, wait. James Lyons-Weiler did that in February 2020, right after the complete sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was first published.😂
I don’t think Igor has the slightest clue about how proteins are coded.
He seems to think a sequence that codes for a very small number of AAs defines an entire protein of about 480 AAs. GP120 is coded by a length equal to about 8% of the genome of SARS-CoV-2. Virologists would have noticed if SARS-CoV-2 produced GP120, given its role in cell entry. If anyone has noticed, they’ve kept it awfully quiet.
Chudov is just like a flat Earther – profoundly ignorant of relevant matters and with extraordinary immunity to learning. He likes (needs?) to believe is is sooooo much smarter than actual qualified scientists.
Nobody I know claimed that SC2 has a complete genetic code of gp120. It has pieces of it that come together when the spike protein is folded, to perform functions similar to gp120 (cell entry).
Virologists did notice it, for example on named Prashant Pradhan.
The other did not notice, because they wanted money handouts from Fauci and Farrar.
Your insults show weakness of your position.
Seriously, Igor. Stop. You’re making me cringe with your ignorance. It’s not as though I haven’t written about this particular piece of misinformation multiple times before. 🙄🤦🏻♂️
Okay. I will try my best not to write here about HIV in Sars-Cov-2 and will hold out for as long as I can. It is your forum and I respect that, and I appreciate being given an opportunity to speak my mind.
It has less to do with this being my blog than it does with everyone getting tired of seeing you demonstrate your gross ignorance of basic molecular biology.
Of course,other virologists did do an obvious thing: check how common sequence insertions claimed by Pradhan are:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7033698/
a) not all HIV sequences contain any of these insertions
b) other coronaviruses and other viruses contain them.
c) ditto eukaryotes.
If you believe this is done to get funding from Fauci, do your own BLAST query.
Speaking about Fauci: do you really think that he still controls funding in every country in the world ?
No. Absolutely not.
These sequences are common across a very wide number of genes in many species. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7033698/
Some of the sequences claimed by Pradhan et al. do not even properly match to HIV.
It is indeed telling that 3 and a half years after posting the preprint, the authors have been unable to get the work published.
Actually you yourself claimed that SARS CoV 2 has three HIV genes (attempt to create HIV vaccine). Everyone knows short sequence similarities.
Fauci is now retired, He did not decide who got funding:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/peer-revie
“I don’t think Igor has the slightest clue”
Stopping right there creates an accurate description of Igor
@ Igor Chudov
You write: “Regarding Khristian Andersen. Are you aware that he did not even believe what he was writing in the proximal origins article and he just wrote it to please Fauci and Farrah. His stolen chats prove that.”
First, you refer to one website that makes the above claim. How do you know what they write is valid? Or it says what you choose to believe. However, let’s, for sake of argument, say it is valid. Imagine a criminal trial with 20 eyewitnesses. The defendant is super rich and hires detectives to undermine the eyewitnesses. They only manage to “undermine” one of the 20 and even that is weak. For instance, someone told them the one eyewitness wasn’t wearing glasses that day. So, 19 good eyewitnesses. So, you claim one of the 20 articles not valid, so what? It is typical of you just as you ignore the overwhelming scientific data.
You write: “Nobody I know claimed that SC2 has a complete genetic code of gp120. It has pieces of it that come together when the spike protein is folded, to perform functions similar to gp120 (cell entry). Virologists did notice it, for example on named Prashant Pradhan. The other did not notice, because they wanted money handouts from Fauci and Farrar. Your insults show weakness of your position.”
And what do you base your trust in Prashant Pradhan on? Again, simply he says what you choose to believe. And you continue to display your ignorance of how viruses function. It would be a waste of time going into the details. And not all those who support the natural development of COVID receive money from Fauci or Farrar and you assume that those that do are dishonest. I guess you are projecting your own dishonesty, that is, you base much of your life on money.
As I wrote in previous comment, on the World Wide Web there are millions of websites and one can find those that confirm even the stupidest positions. You do have one expertise, that is, finding such sites.
You made it clear even in one of your own comments (see below) that you do not understand science; yet you continue to make comments that clearly prove this, continuing to make an utter fool of yourself. You are the perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, that is, TOO STUPID TO KNOW YOU ARE STUPID!
Igor Chudov
says:
April 19, 2023 at 6:45 pm
Just like Orac, I find it odd that Dr Bridle wants to debate Covid vaccines with Dr Caulfield, but for a different reason.Dr. Bridle is a viral immunologist, an expert in vaccinology and virology, and an author of dozens of related scientific studies.Dr. Caulfield is a professor of law, with zero education pertaining to virology or vaccinology. His level of expertise in vaccines, virology and vaccinology is on par with my own. In other words, he is an amateur to the field of vaccines and viruses
@ Everyone
Why does Orac allow Igor Chudov, John La Barge, and others like them to continue to post comments. Well, I don’t know Orac personally, nor am I a mindreader, so I’ll just hypothesize one possible reason. Both Respectful Insolence and its sister website Science-Based Medicine are science websites with articles that explain and support scientific medicine. I believe the vast majority of those who follow these websites are intelligent, open-minded, supporters of science. By allowing comments by Chudov and others, it allows those who trust in science to see what we are up against and why, for instance, the US has higher rates of COVID deaths than other advanced democracies, why US is major contributor to global warming. Politicians get elected by playing to the ignorant biases of too many Americans. Just one example. We were warned in 1970s that CO2, if it reached 400 parts per million would cause severe climate damage, so what did many Americans do? They elected Ronald Reagan who deregulated and encouraged Americans to purchase SUVs, etc. And now we are suffering and it will get progressively worse.
So, by allowing Chudov and others to continue to post, Orac allows us to see up close what we are up against. And to reinforce our understanding of the Dunning-Kruger Effect that Chudov and others are literally too stupid to know they are stupid.
There’s something to be said for allowing such posts, as they’re helpful in keeping us up to date on the latest asinine, brain-dead conspiracy theories and provide target practice, as well as a degree of entertainment value.
Would that be the preprint that was withdrawn almost immediately after it was released due widespread criticism noting the incompetence of the authors?
My insults are to show my contempt for the fact you are an unmitigated ignoramus who refuses to or cannot learn. Months ago I was repeatedly writing “Igor Chudov knows no biology.” Nothing has changed. Igor Chudov has learned nothing in the interval and repeats the same nonsense over and over and over.
@ doug:
Right.
Yet Igor and his cohorts on Substack, X, CHD, AoA et al write as if they are authorities whilst disparaging actual experts. Many of them attract significant audiences who then follow their advice.
And if readers do reject vaccines and then suffer consequences, no one can sue them or blame them because the reader is an adult ( usually) and freely made that choice. Sometimes they even have a Quack Miranda warning on their websites. And they can still brag about their thousands of followers.
The worst anti-vaxxers I hear/ read simultaneously attack factual information ( Wikipedia, Orac, SBM, Drs Fauci, Offit, Hotez) as being corrupt, paid off, uninformed and generally evil.
That paid off thing happens a lot, and the accusation is aimed not just at the entities and people you name but often at the doctors, nurses, scientists and other researchers as well. What I’ve never understood is what the kooks believe the source of the money might be. Given the sheer number of people accused, not just in the US but worldwide, the amount would need to be enormous. That never gets explained [of course, nothing they say is ever explained, it’s all vague hand waving, but still…]
A favorite tactic among antivaxers/denialists is to try to smear physicians and PhD researchers on the basis of funding sources for the universities and health care facilities they work for. It doesn’t matter if such funding is completely unrelated to their fields of endeavor, so long as these poisonous nitwits can point to universities getting a grant from the Gates Foundation at some point in their existence.
They are unwilling to “follow the money” when it leads to real conflicts of interest on the part of their heroes.
To continue…
When alties direct readers away from experts, I usually think the following:
And we should listen to YOU instead?
Most of them have no reality based background in life science- they sell supplements, push alt right CTs, have degrees in English, Business, Economics… I studied more bio/ life science than they did!
They usually include anti-university invective in their rants so that’s a dead give-away!
It’s interesting that most of the evolution deniers I know [I don’t know dozens, but several] are engineers of some sort, and I’ve seen many more anti-evolution folks on various websites who are engineers. Are they as represented in the anti-vaccine/ general alternative med universe?
@ ldw56old:
There are some engineers and techies also.
But these days, anyone can play. No degree of any sort required.
Dr. Prasad’s expertise is supposed to be cancer, right? Does he see patients with cancer? What does he tell them, and what does he do around them? I am concerned. At the very least, he’s likely creating a world that’s more risky to them.
And really, what is so bad about masking? What is actually bothering him there?
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