Tag: viruses

We have every reason to mistrust the “scientific community” but does that mean viruses don’t exist?

In the context of the covid-19 “pandemic,” many people have come to understand that political and scientific authorities have been systematically lying about the origin of the infectious agent, as well as the need for and the safety of mandatory countermeasures, including lock-downs, masks and vaccines. Some sceptics have gone further and begun to question the existence of the virus responsible for covid-19, or even of viruses and pathogenic germs altogether. Here, we put these questions in perspective.

Before we go into any specifics on germs and viruses, we should acknowledge that the public has ample reason to mistrust not only politicians, public officials and the media, but also the “scientific community.” Even before the covid-19 pandemic, several very senior members of that community had drawn attention to the deplorable state of scientific integrity in medical research. Particularly poignant is this quote by a former editor-in-chief of one of the world’s leading medical journals, Marcia Agnell [1]:

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Agnell’s assessment is echoed by The Lancet’s editor Richard Horton [1], leading epidemiologist John Ioannidis [2], and Bruce Charlton, former editor of Medical Hypotheses [3]. And, to be sure, this already precarious state declined even further in the covid-19 “pandemic.” Here are some of the lies regarding covid-19 that were told alike by politicians and their scientific court jesters the world over:

  • the SARS-CoV-2 virus is of natural origin and jumped spontaneously from bats or pangolins to humans;
  • PCR-testing of asymptomatic patients is an appropriate means for tracking the spread of covid-19;
  • the early covid-19 waves threatened to overload the healthcare system to such a degree that it became necessary to destroy the economy in order to “flatten the curve”;
  • general vaccination was necessary to overcome the pandemic;
  • even though the vaccines were “safe and effective,” vaccinated persons were still at risk of being infected by unvaccinated individuals (but not by other vaccinated ones).

These absurd and brazen lies have been dealt with elsewhere, for example by cardiologist Dr. Thomas Binder [4]. We only cite them here to make it clear that we sympathise in principle with the radically sceptical attitude of much of the public. Nevertheless, we think that in some cases this radical scepticism has been taken too far and that the proverbial baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. To support our case, we will survey some of the history of “germ theory” of infectious disease.

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‘Giant’ viruses that formed 1.5bn years ago are discovered in Yellowstone’s Hot Springs

Giant viruses dating back 1.5 billion years were found in Yellowstone’s geothermal springs, which scientists claim could reveal the conditions under which life formed on Earth.

The viruses are labeled as ‘giant’ because they have extremely large genomes compared to regular viruses and pose no risk to humans but could explain what the conditions on Earth were like when single-cell organisms formed. 

Researchers at Rutgers University found that the viruses consisted of bacteria while others belonged to archaea – a single-cell organism similar to bacteria – which requires extreme environments to reproduce and eukaryote, which is found in fungi.

Previous theories suggested the viruses were more recent because hot springs come and go over time, but the latest study revealed they have lived at least as long as cellular organisms.

At first, the researchers believed the giant viruses wouldn’t be very old because as the hot springs form and disappear, meaning the viruses would have to re-form under hotter temperatures in the newly developed hot spring. 

Hot springs reside on dormant volcanoes whose magma heats the groundwater causing the steam and less dense hot water to rise up through the fissures in the earth, creating geysers and hot springs.

Yellowstone’s hot springs formed at least 15,000 years ago after the last glaciers in the region melted, allowing the geysers to spring up – but the bacteria was thriving for more than one billion years before.

However, the findings showed that ‘the connections between the viruses and [the hot springs] are ancient,’ Bhattacharya told Science.

The viruses thrive in temperatures exceeding 200 degrees Fahrenheit, high pressures or excessive salt concentrations and researchers believe they reproduce by infecting red algae in the hot springs.

Researchers analyzed DNA in Lemonade Creek – an acidic hot spring in Yellowstone that reaches temperatures of about 111 degrees Fahrenheit.

They took samples from the thick green mat that coated the creek’s floor, called Rhodophyta or red algae, and from the nearby soil and the area between rocks lying near the creek bed.

The researchers found that the DNA contained sequences of archaea, algae (eukaryote) and bacteria that hosted 3,700 potential viruses – about two-thirds were giant viruses that aren’t known to infect humans.

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Scientists discover ancient HERPES in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones found in a Russian cave… and they want to bring virus back to life

The oldest human viruses, including herpes, have been uncovered in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones – and experts could soon recreate them. 

Researchers at Brazil‘s Federal University of São Paulo identified remnants of the herpesviruses, which causes cold sores, the sexually transmitted papillomavirus and adenovirus, also known as the common cold, in two male Neanderthals’ DNA found in a Russian cave.

Previous theories suggested that Neanderthals may have gone extinct because of viruses and the latest study may be the first to provide evidence for this idea.

Now, the team hopes to synthesize the viruses and infect human cells in a lab to see how they compare to their modern-day counterparts.

‘These Jurassic Park-like viruses could then be studied for their reproductive and pathogenic traits and compared to present-day counterparts,’ Marcelo Briones, the study’s lead author told NewScientist.

‘I am skeptical that this could be achieved given the lack of full understanding of how the viruses’ DNA is damaged and how to reconstruct the recovered pieces into a full viral genome,’ he added. 

‘Also, the host-virus interaction, especially in a completely different environment, is something to consider.’ 

The team found the Neanderthals’ remains in Siberia’s Chagyrskaya cave in the Altai mountains, which they used to sequence genome data of the ancient beings. 

The results determined that the remnants of the viruses were not contracted from possible predators that fed on Neanderthals or from modern humans who might have handled the bones. 

Adenovirus causes cold symptoms in modern humans and can cause infections in the tonsils, adenoids and other mucosal tissues while they could develop genital warts and cancer from the sexually transmitted papillomavirus.

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Google has funded EcoHealth’s virus research for at least 14 years

The 2018 paper, titled ‘Serologic and behavioural risk survey of workers with wildlife contact in China’, reported on a study conducted in Guangdong Province, China, which aimed to identify risky populations, occupations and behaviours that contribute to the transmission of zoonotic pathogens with pandemic potential.

It was authored by researchers from Yale University, Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance, the Guangdong Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Washington Centre for One Health Research – one of them being Peter Daszak.

But, as Natural News wrote, check out the conflict of interest statement: “Metabiota Inc. is a commercial company that received funding from Google/Skoll.”

The Skoll Foundation was created in 1999 by Jeffrey Skoll, who made his fortune as eBay’s first full-time hire and president.

It turns out that Google.org, the charity arm of Google, has been funding studies carried out by EcoHealth Alliance researchers, including Peter Daszak, for at least 14 years.  A 2010 study on bat flaviviruses lists both Daszak and EcoHealth vice president Jonathan Epstein as authors – and like the 2018 study mentioned above, this 2010 study thanks Google for funding it.

Yet another paper on henipavirus spillover that was published in 2014 shows the same authors and funding from Google, demonstrating a lengthy relationship between these entities.

Natalie Winters – who first wrote about Google funding research conducted by Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance in 2021 – posted a Twitter thread about it earlier this month to remind us.  Her thread also lists another paper published in 2015, tying Google to Daszak and EcoHealth.

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Virologists Have ‘Resorted to Anti-Scientific Practices to Make Their Claims.’

The realisation that the ‘whole Covid situation’ was fraudulent in early 2020 led to a ‘deep dive’ and the realisation that the fraud surrounding virology had actually been occurring for more than a century for doctors Sam and Mark Bailey. The couple had both previously been trained in the conventional medical system, had conventional beliefs and thought they knew all about microbiology and germs. However, due to the fact that things did not ‘add up’ in the Covid era they began their own indepth research which resulted in their own books – such as The Final Pandemic – An antidote to medical tyranny, – and papers that Mark Bailey says expose why the virus model is ‘completely fraudulent’ and why viral pandemics are not ‘a thing.’

According to the doctors Bailey, they have spent the last four years with their allies dismantling every aspect of the virus model whether it concerns “isolation”, antibodies, genomics, PCR, proteomics, electron microscopy, or animal and human studies. Additionally, in recent webinars Dr Mark Bailey has discussed with Dr Tom Cowan, the concepts of independent variables and controlled experiments, among other areas. Mark says ‘Clearly the virologists have resorted to anti-scientific practices to make their various claims including the foundational claim of virus existence.‘

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Scientists Uncover Mechanism Viruses Use to Cause Cancer

Viral infections are thought to be a central cause of between 10 to 20 percent of cancers worldwide, representing a significant portion of the global cancer burden.

A recent discovery may further our understanding of how viruses cause cancer.

Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic uncovered one of the mechanisms that a type of virus called Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) uses to induce cancer.

The study, published last month in Nature Communications, found that the KSHV virus activated a specific pathway responsible for cell metabolism and the way cells grow and multiply. Using current U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved breast cancer drugs, they were able to reduce the replication of the virus, stop the progression of the lymphoma, and shrink existing tumors in preclinical models.

Jun Zhao, of the Cleveland Clinic Florida Research and Innovation Center, who holds a doctorate in genetic, molecular, and cellular biology is the study’s lead author.

“Our findings have significant implications: viruses cause between 10% to 20% of cancers worldwide, a number that is constantly increasing as new discoveries are made. Treating virus-induced cancers with standard cancer therapies can help shrink tumors that are already there, but it doesn’t fix the underlying problem of the virus,” Mr. Zhao explained in a news release. “Understanding how pathogens transform a healthy cell into a cancer cell uncovers exploitable vulnerabilities and allows us to make and repurpose existing drugs that can effectively treat virus-associated malignancies.”

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Ancient 15,000-Year-Old Viruses Seen in Melting Tibetan Glaciers

Ancient creatures are emerging from the cold storage of melting permafrost, almost like something out of a horror movie.

From incredibly preserved extinct megafauna like the woolly rhino, to the 40,000-year-old remains of a giant wolf, and bacteria over 750,000 years old.

Not all of these things are dead.

Centuries-old moss was able to spring back to life in the warmth of the laboratory. So too, incredibly, were tiny 42,000-year-old roundworms.

These fascinating glimpses of organisms from Earth’s long distant past are revealing the history of ancient ecosystems, including details of the environments in which they existed.

But the melt has also created some concerns about ancient viruses coming back to haunt us.

“Melting will not only lead to the loss of those ancient, archived microbes and viruses, but also release them to the environments in the future,” researchers explained in a study in 2021, led by first author and microbiologist Zhi-Ping Zhong from Ohio State University.

Thanks to metagenomics techniques and new methods for keeping their ice core samples sterilized, the researchers are able to get a better understanding of what exactly lies within the cold.

In the study, the team was able to identify an archive of dozens of unique 15,000-years-old viruses from the Guliya ice cap of the Tibetan Plateau, and gain insights into their functions.

“These glaciers were formed gradually, and along with dust and gases, many, many viruses were also deposited in that ice,” said Zhong. These microbes potentially represent those in the atmosphere at the time of their deposit, the team explained in their paper.

Past studies have shown microbial communities correlate with changes in dust and ion concentrations in the atmosphere, and can also indicate climate and environmental conditions at the time.

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Controversial research group linked to Wuhan discovers never-before-seen virus in bats in Thailand with ‘almost’ as much potential as Covid to infect humans

A zoologist whose organisation funded controversial experiments in Wuhan which some fear started the pandemic has presented the discovery of a never-before-seen virus with ‘almost’ as much potential to infect humans as Covid.

Dr Peter Daszak, head of the New York based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, detailed his finding in bats at an event held by the World Health Organization (WHO) on future pandemic research preparedness.

EcoHealth had its funding pulled and projects to find viruses in China cancelled due to concerns about its ties to the Covid lab leak theory — but it has continued to operate in Thailand and other parts of Asia with millions of dollars in US government grants. 

Dr Daszak told attendees at the WHO conference about his team’s ongoing efforts to comb Southeast Asia for threatening animal viruses. 

Some scientists consider these virus-hunting experiments at risk of causing a future pandemic.

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Scientists have revived a ‘zombie’ virus that spent 48,500 years frozen in permafrost

Warmer temperatures in the Arctic are thawing the region’s permafrost — a frozen layer of soil beneath the ground — and potentially stirring viruses that, after lying dormant for tens of thousands of years, could endanger animal and human health.

While a pandemic unleashed by a disease from the distant past sounds like the plot of a sci-fi movie, scientists warn that the risks, though low, are underappreciated. Chemical and radioactive waste that dates back to the Cold War, which has the potential to harm wildlife and disrupt ecosystems, may also be released during thaws.

“There’s a lot going on with the permafrost that is of concern, and (it) really shows why it’s super important that we keep as much of the permafrost frozen as possible,” said Kimberley Miner, a climate scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

Permafrost covers a fifth of the Northern Hemisphere, having underpinned the Arctic tundra and boreal forests of Alaska, Canada and Russia for millennia. It serves as a kind of time capsule, preserving — in addition to ancient viruses — the mummified remains of a number of extinct animals that scientist have been able to unearth and study in recent years, including two cave lion cubs and a woolly rhino.

The reason permafrost is a good storage medium isn’t just because it’s cold; it’s an oxygen-free environment that light doesn’t penetrate. But current day Arctic temperatures are warming up to four times faster than the rest of the planet, weakening the top layer of permafrost in the region.

To better understand the risks posed by frozen viruses, Jean-Michel Claverie, an Emeritus professor of medicine and genomics at the Aix-Marseille University School of Medicine in Marseille, France, has tested earth samples taken from Siberian permafrost to see whether any viral particles contained therein are still infectious. He’s in search of what he describes as “zombie viruses” — and he has found some.

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‘Zombie’ Virus Reanimated After 50,000 Years In Siberian Permafrost

French researchers have reanimated over a dozen prehistoric viruses which have been trapped deep within the Siberian permafrost for nearly 50 million years, according to a pre-print study.

After obtaining seven ancient permafrost samples, scientists from the French National Centre for Scientific Research were able to document 13 never-before-seen viruses that had been lying dormant in the ice, Science Alert reports.

The same researchers found a 30,000-year-old virus in 2014 which was trapped in permafrost. Notably, it was still able to infect organisms. Now, they’ve beaten their own record with a find that’s 48,500 years old, which they named Pandoravirus yedoma, according to Science Alert.

The scientists, who called these “zombie viruses” a public health threat, pointed to global warming as an ongoing risk that could result in the release of deadly pathogens from long ago.

“Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect,” the authors wrote. “Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that remained dormant since prehistorical times.“

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