The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) has obtained new documents through a Department of Defense (DoD) request for proposal revealing the U.S. military’s funding of a controversial self-spreading vaccine program known as DARPA INTERCEPT.
The documents reveal, say ICAN, that the animal trials were a success and that the next step of development is to inject terminally-ill humans next.
ICAN reports that Autonomous Therapeutics, a biotech company, has already published results showing successful tests of its self-spreading vaccines in monkeys. Their stated goal is to build “synthetic immune systems.”
FOIA Revelations on “Tiny Trojan Horses”
Last year, ICAN drew public attention to U.S. government studies on self-spreading vaccines. Now, ICAN attorneys have uncovered fresh details showing that DARPA’s INTERCEPT program funded the development of ‘therapeutic interfering particles’ (TIPs). These are engineered viruses designed to act as “tiny Trojan horses” that carry genetic material from person to person.
The FOIA records show that the INTERCEPT program planned not only to create these spreading particles, but also to build computer models to predict how TIPs could move from a single cell to an entire population.
The military’s role in this work has been reported for several years, such as in this 2020 Washington Post profile.
Contract Awarded to Autonomous Therapeutics
Documents reveal a 2016 DoD request for proposal calling for a “biological system for replicating ‘human-like conditions’” to study the evolutionary dynamics of mutating pathogens and diseases. This contract was awarded to Autonomous Therapeutics, co-founded by Ariel and Leor Weinberger.
Leor Weinberger has published research testing TIPs engineered for HIV on rhesus monkeys. He is now pursuing plans to inject TIPs into terminally ill HIV patients. ICAN warns that such genetic payloads could integrate permanently into patients’ DNA and could possibly spread beyond the intended clinical trial population.
Scientists have typically justified this research on the basis that it could be utilized to stop quick outbreaks of major viruses such as Ebola and quickly stop potential pandemics.
Hellbound and Down 