The paper, called “SARS-CoV-2 S protein activates the HIV latent reservoir through the mTOR pathway,” was released on August 19 by eight Chinese researchers. It is a pre-print, meaning other scientists have not yet peer-reviewed it, and so far it has received little attention, with fewer than 1,000 views.
But the work appears rigorous. The scientists stimulated dormant groups of HIV-infected cells — called HIV reservoirs — with spike protein and found that they began to transcribe and replicate HIV and cause the release of HIV virions.
“This study, by constructing an HIV latent reservoir model expressing the S [spike] protein, has for the first time demonstrated that the SARS-CoV-2 S protein can significantly promote HIV proviral transcription and viral particle release,” the researchers wrote.
The Chinese finding is relevant to the mRNA Covid shots, because they cause people to make a version of the Covid spike protein, which the immune system then finds and attacks.
When they were introduced, the mRNA shots were supposed to degrade very quickly, but for reasons scientists do not fully understand, they appear to cause long-term production of spike protein in some people who receive them. Yale University researchers have found spike in people up to two years after they’d received the mRNAs.
Hellbound and Down 