The vaccine mandates and vaccines for kids are inexcusable. Vinay, I applaud you! I have been following you from the very beginning because you were a true scientist and willing to discuss!!! But you must use stronger language for the vaccine mandates and vaccines for children. I still go crazy thinking about that awful time. As aPhD scientist (immunology) I was trying everything they I could to protect my college age healthy kids from an untested new technology vaccine. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
No complaints on today’s missive, one comment. The lab leak theory to me seems plausible and always has. However, I only care about why there was potential for a “lab leak” in the first place. I’ve yet to hear an argument I find persuasive as to why there is “need” to modify or create viruses which can cause human disease if they are let loose among the populace. All such research should be identified, debated, and justified in a public forum.
My sense is the justification is that we'd learn enough to do some kind of intervention, like a vaccine that arrived faster than ever in history for example. This notion is crazy at a basic level...christ, Jurassic Park had this right with "Nature finds a way." Just tinkering for discover in this context makes no sense. Making a bioweapon with a POSSIBLE vaccine in the can kinda makes sense, but only if one is a monster. Which might be why the Obama admin banned GOF research and even DARPA passed on it as "too dangerous."
Not sure that the technique you speak of had anything to do with gain of function. The technique—mRNA—was known for some time. IIRC mRNA techniques have been used in cancer treatment with poor results prior. It awaited a DNA mapping to select that part of the Covid virus for replication. That part of the Covid virus selected proved to be perhaps the vaccine’s undoing, but I digress and speculate. In any event, why select Covid for GOF? Are there not other non-human, or benign viruses to experiment GOF with or test mRNA vaccine technique? Hard to believe GOF research—if banned by Obama—begin anew under Trump. I suspect it simply kept going in secret—via China, and perhaps Ukraine—until it blew up.
Vagueness and Costs of the Pause on Gain-of-Function (GOF) Experiments on Pathogens with Pandemic Potential, Including Influenza Virus
"...In October 2014, the White House announced that the U.S. Government (USG) was implementing a “pause” of new funding for research involving GOF experiments with three respiratory viruses, influenza virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, if that research could be “reasonably anticipated” to result in enhanced pathogenicity or increased transmissibility.."
I don’t think all were to be mistrusted. But I feel this exactly as you do. The thing that still gets my goat is how this “vaccine” was forced upon our USA. And those who forced it should pay an extremely high price, but we all know better. George Carlin said it best. We aren’t “in the club”
Sometime, I so wish you’d read attorney Aaron Siri’s book, Vaccines, Amen! Then read Turtles All the Way Down. Just be sure with Turtles, that you read the one with a forward by Mary Holland. Big pHARM-us has created a book with an identical title and a nearly identical cover. Because nothing says you are flying directly over enemy territory and making great headway, like taking on that kind of FLAK.
Let's assume it's beneficial for the sake of argument. Surely it should be conducted in the middle of the Mojave desert with quarantine periods for scientists exiting the facility instead of downtown Wuhan or Boston.
Methinks scientists would be less eager to conduct this research if that was the case.
There was a recent case of a researcher, albeit I believe a PhD candidate, in a U.S. (University?) lab who traveled to the Congo (IIRC) and brought back dozens of vials of Monkey Pox. Totally illegal. CBP caught him at airport customs during random search. Point here is that perhaps such viruses and precautions are not taken seriously enough—or can be taken seriously enough, to safely allow such research to be conducted? We seem in this country, and many other Western countries to have taken the “precautionary principle” to the extreme with nuclear power plants. Why not gain of function research?
Compsci, I’m on the same page. I’ve yet to hear a justification for GOF labs. We’ve never heard that GOF science has saved us from the brink of extinction, saved us from the flu or other diseases, so what is the purpose? The work is secretive, immune from questions. Here in Canada, the RCMP escorted Qiu Xiangguo, her husband and research team out of the BSL4 lab in Winnipeg in 2019. Journalists and the opposition party were all over this wanting answers. It was next to impossible to find answers. Eventually I found an answer online and discovered that Qiu and her team were shipping Ebola viruses and another virus that starts with H, to China.
Vijay, I disagree with you. We all change our thinking through life. He may have had inklings prior to his disclosure but no evidence to go out on a limb and swim upstream with his thoughts.
My sentiments exactly, HLG! A full mea culpa would be great as well, kind of something along the lines of Stephen A. Smith’s to Kyrie Irving. Covid Czar? Wasn’t Fauci running the show? He definitely was in his mind according to the Memoranda for Record( some call it a diary but a commenter suggested this term which is much more accurate). Dr.Jha was the COVID Czar?! I don’t remember that, probably because he was about as much the Covid Czar as Kamala Harris was the Border Czar!
Yes, Jeff Childers talks about this permission structure evolution of things that happens a lot with our government, especially during the Biden years, and the legacy media. First stage is something like it’s not happening and anyone who says so is spreading misinformation. Second phase is something like it’s happening or it happened but only a little bit and it’s not that big of an issue. Third phase is yes it’s happening, we knew that, we never said it wasn’t, and it’s actually a good thing…🙄 Once you learn this sequence it’s amazing how often you see it. Dana Bash did it yesterday in her interview with RFK, Jr, when he said she was part of the problem during COVID. He was of course, 100% correct.
I read it. You think people did not die due to the draconian shut downs and ridiculous mandates? The GBD made sense. The response to covid was one of the most egregious examples of medical mismanagement in the history of medicine.
I assure you I wholeheartedly agree that people died due to the draconian shut downs and ridiculous mandates. And likewise agree that the response to covid was one of the most egregious examples of medical mismanagement in the history of medicine.
But I disagree with Bhattacharya that there was any use at all in injecting the elderly. I believe they were taken from us, sacrificed for economic motives. Bhattacharya is a “health economist.”
I would prefer if lab leak vs zoonotic spread was based on summary of facts pointing in each direction rather than which party you vote for. Maybe a slow debate between you and Debunk the Funk or TWIV guys could work here?
Calmly presenting arguments, feedbacking on each others positions...just like we should have debated covid policy back then.
It took way too long for us to get here. But at least the major issues are breaking towards the skeptics. I just hope that it eventually gets to admitting the same about the lockdowns and other measures.
Yeah, he got that wrong. But at least he argued against boosters for all, and declared the pandemic over when people were still pursuing zero Covid before they would let up on masks etc. So he has shown a certain level of critical thinking free of politically motivated reasoning and I would expect him to keep an open mind about the origin of the virus and not declare it a settled question in the way I've heard him do.
This is fantastic AND I think it's worth mentioning: somewhere in all of that DARPA, Dassack, Ecohealth alliance stuff, it appears someone may have been (possibly still is) tinkering wit MERS and similar, which have a legit 70%+ CFR.
Thank you Vinay. I was crushed when that Federal judge dismantled ACIP just before a revelation of findings. Myself and my eldest son got injured from the covid shot. The secrecy that surrounds shot injuries is emotionally and mentally stressful. This covid era has been littered with lies, obfuscation and ad hominems, which screams loudly of a cover up.
Absolutely disgusting. The fact that some professionals in medicine “stand behind Fauci” shows how brainwashed many really are. I’d have a bit of respect for him if he woulda said “Ya, we majorly f’d up.” No, he doubled down. How does one justify standing behind that? I’m genuinely curious!
This is now one more brick taken out of the denial of truth. Good that folks like Prasad are writing. And that some on the denial side - Jha- are starting to change and admit. Needed because on X there is an avalanche of Denialism.
The vaccine mandates and vaccines for kids are inexcusable. Vinay, I applaud you! I have been following you from the very beginning because you were a true scientist and willing to discuss!!! But you must use stronger language for the vaccine mandates and vaccines for children. I still go crazy thinking about that awful time. As aPhD scientist (immunology) I was trying everything they I could to protect my college age healthy kids from an untested new technology vaccine. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Mandates for all vaccines must end.
one more:
restricting free speech = bad
No complaints on today’s missive, one comment. The lab leak theory to me seems plausible and always has. However, I only care about why there was potential for a “lab leak” in the first place. I’ve yet to hear an argument I find persuasive as to why there is “need” to modify or create viruses which can cause human disease if they are let loose among the populace. All such research should be identified, debated, and justified in a public forum.
My sense is the justification is that we'd learn enough to do some kind of intervention, like a vaccine that arrived faster than ever in history for example. This notion is crazy at a basic level...christ, Jurassic Park had this right with "Nature finds a way." Just tinkering for discover in this context makes no sense. Making a bioweapon with a POSSIBLE vaccine in the can kinda makes sense, but only if one is a monster. Which might be why the Obama admin banned GOF research and even DARPA passed on it as "too dangerous."
Not sure that the technique you speak of had anything to do with gain of function. The technique—mRNA—was known for some time. IIRC mRNA techniques have been used in cancer treatment with poor results prior. It awaited a DNA mapping to select that part of the Covid virus for replication. That part of the Covid virus selected proved to be perhaps the vaccine’s undoing, but I digress and speculate. In any event, why select Covid for GOF? Are there not other non-human, or benign viruses to experiment GOF with or test mRNA vaccine technique? Hard to believe GOF research—if banned by Obama—begin anew under Trump. I suspect it simply kept going in secret—via China, and perhaps Ukraine—until it blew up.
Because it was never banned outright.
Vagueness and Costs of the Pause on Gain-of-Function (GOF) Experiments on Pathogens with Pandemic Potential, Including Influenza Virus
"...In October 2014, the White House announced that the U.S. Government (USG) was implementing a “pause” of new funding for research involving GOF experiments with three respiratory viruses, influenza virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, if that research could be “reasonably anticipated” to result in enhanced pathogenicity or increased transmissibility.."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25505121/
And there you go. We, as a public, slept through this process. We placed our faith it the government and their “experts” and paid a heavy price.
Because we trusted our own doctors who betrayed us in favor of their own greediness for covid compliance income.
I don’t think all were to be mistrusted. But I feel this exactly as you do. The thing that still gets my goat is how this “vaccine” was forced upon our USA. And those who forced it should pay an extremely high price, but we all know better. George Carlin said it best. We aren’t “in the club”
Love this, Doc! I too have been with you since the beginning and have loved your take on things.
Sometime, I so wish you’d read attorney Aaron Siri’s book, Vaccines, Amen! Then read Turtles All the Way Down. Just be sure with Turtles, that you read the one with a forward by Mary Holland. Big pHARM-us has created a book with an identical title and a nearly identical cover. Because nothing says you are flying directly over enemy territory and making great headway, like taking on that kind of FLAK.
Let's assume it's beneficial for the sake of argument. Surely it should be conducted in the middle of the Mojave desert with quarantine periods for scientists exiting the facility instead of downtown Wuhan or Boston.
Methinks scientists would be less eager to conduct this research if that was the case.
There was a recent case of a researcher, albeit I believe a PhD candidate, in a U.S. (University?) lab who traveled to the Congo (IIRC) and brought back dozens of vials of Monkey Pox. Totally illegal. CBP caught him at airport customs during random search. Point here is that perhaps such viruses and precautions are not taken seriously enough—or can be taken seriously enough, to safely allow such research to be conducted? We seem in this country, and many other Western countries to have taken the “precautionary principle” to the extreme with nuclear power plants. Why not gain of function research?
Compsci, I’m on the same page. I’ve yet to hear a justification for GOF labs. We’ve never heard that GOF science has saved us from the brink of extinction, saved us from the flu or other diseases, so what is the purpose? The work is secretive, immune from questions. Here in Canada, the RCMP escorted Qiu Xiangguo, her husband and research team out of the BSL4 lab in Winnipeg in 2019. Journalists and the opposition party were all over this wanting answers. It was next to impossible to find answers. Eventually I found an answer online and discovered that Qiu and her team were shipping Ebola viruses and another virus that starts with H, to China.
Dr. Jha, welcome to where anyone with half a brain was in March/April of 2020.
Dr. Jha is not a credible "expert."
There has been no significant NEW evidence in the last five years. It is all OLD evidence.
Jha just changed his tune because the political environment is now more conducive to his new "belief."
He was chosen to be "Covid Czar" simply because he was vocal on social media with support of the ridiculous policies the Biden admin kept pushing.
Despite Jha's perceived authority and obvious arrogance, he always came across as clownish and unprofessional.
But clearly he performed well enough to attain career advancement and no doubt greater wealth.
Vijay, I disagree with you. We all change our thinking through life. He may have had inklings prior to his disclosure but no evidence to go out on a limb and swim upstream with his thoughts.
Ya the politicians think they are so smooth that way.
My sentiments exactly, HLG! A full mea culpa would be great as well, kind of something along the lines of Stephen A. Smith’s to Kyrie Irving. Covid Czar? Wasn’t Fauci running the show? He definitely was in his mind according to the Memoranda for Record( some call it a diary but a commenter suggested this term which is much more accurate). Dr.Jha was the COVID Czar?! I don’t remember that, probably because he was about as much the Covid Czar as Kamala Harris was the Border Czar!
Yes, Jeff Childers talks about this permission structure evolution of things that happens a lot with our government, especially during the Biden years, and the legacy media. First stage is something like it’s not happening and anyone who says so is spreading misinformation. Second phase is something like it’s happening or it happened but only a little bit and it’s not that big of an issue. Third phase is yes it’s happening, we knew that, we never said it wasn’t, and it’s actually a good thing…🙄 Once you learn this sequence it’s amazing how often you see it. Dana Bash did it yesterday in her interview with RFK, Jr, when he said she was part of the problem during COVID. He was of course, 100% correct.
Saying "bad" is not good enough. You need to use words like horrible, unacceptable, and criminal.
Saying lab leak is "likely" is not good enough. You need to say it was 99.99% a lab leak (because it was, and you know it).
The Great Barrington Declaration was the way to go.
The GBD sacrificed the elderly on the mRNA altar.
???/
Nonsense.
Apparently you haven't read it.
I read it. You think people did not die due to the draconian shut downs and ridiculous mandates? The GBD made sense. The response to covid was one of the most egregious examples of medical mismanagement in the history of medicine.
I assure you I wholeheartedly agree that people died due to the draconian shut downs and ridiculous mandates. And likewise agree that the response to covid was one of the most egregious examples of medical mismanagement in the history of medicine.
But I disagree with Bhattacharya that there was any use at all in injecting the elderly. I believe they were taken from us, sacrificed for economic motives. Bhattacharya is a “health economist.”
I would prefer if lab leak vs zoonotic spread was based on summary of facts pointing in each direction rather than which party you vote for. Maybe a slow debate between you and Debunk the Funk or TWIV guys could work here?
Calmly presenting arguments, feedbacking on each others positions...just like we should have debated covid policy back then.
The "wet market" argument was absurd on the face of it. Still is.
Why?
That’s how the previuos SARS animal to human spread happened
It took way too long for us to get here. But at least the major issues are breaking towards the skeptics. I just hope that it eventually gets to admitting the same about the lockdowns and other measures.
I wonder if Paul Offit will change his mind, too...
Offit is a lost cause.
I really am puzzled why Offit, who was relatively reasonable on other Covid-related things, seems so dug in on the lab leak question.
Reasonable? Paul Offit, who insisted on injecting children with covid shots?
Yeah, he got that wrong. But at least he argued against boosters for all, and declared the pandemic over when people were still pursuing zero Covid before they would let up on masks etc. So he has shown a certain level of critical thinking free of politically motivated reasoning and I would expect him to keep an open mind about the origin of the virus and not declare it a settled question in the way I've heard him do.
You have a wonderful sense of humor, Kate.
This is fantastic AND I think it's worth mentioning: somewhere in all of that DARPA, Dassack, Ecohealth alliance stuff, it appears someone may have been (possibly still is) tinkering wit MERS and similar, which have a legit 70%+ CFR.
All vaccine mandates must end! People have the right to choose what they put in their bodies and their children’s bodies.
Thank you Vinay. I was crushed when that Federal judge dismantled ACIP just before a revelation of findings. Myself and my eldest son got injured from the covid shot. The secrecy that surrounds shot injuries is emotionally and mentally stressful. This covid era has been littered with lies, obfuscation and ad hominems, which screams loudly of a cover up.
Absolutely disgusting. The fact that some professionals in medicine “stand behind Fauci” shows how brainwashed many really are. I’d have a bit of respect for him if he woulda said “Ya, we majorly f’d up.” No, he doubled down. How does one justify standing behind that? I’m genuinely curious!
What if Dr Fauci had followed the Hippocratic Oath, "first do no harm".
This is now one more brick taken out of the denial of truth. Good that folks like Prasad are writing. And that some on the denial side - Jha- are starting to change and admit. Needed because on X there is an avalanche of Denialism.
Thank you for all your work and transparency!