New research reveals that tinnitus, a common condition that causes the perception of noise in the ear and head, is being exacerbated by COVID-19. The study, which involved 3,103 participants from 48 countries, found that 40 percent of those displaying symptoms of COVID-19 simultaneously experience a worsening of their tinnitus.
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Researchers report a new method to extract tiny but extremely powerful SARS-CoV-2 antibody fragments from llamas, which could be fashioned into inhalable therapeutics with the potential to prevent and treat COVID-19.
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One of the novel coronavirus' most insidious tricks is that it can block the ability of cells to produce protective proteins without hindering its own ability to replicate. A new study reveals how it does it.
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An enzyme that helps COVID-19 (coronavirus) infect the body also plays a role in inflammation and patient outcomes in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a new study. The findings raise the possibility that anti-inflammatory drug therapies for IBD may aid recovery from coronavirus.
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Compared with adults, children produce a very different antibody response after infection with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, suggesting they clear the virus easily.
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If 2020 has you feeling anxious, you're certainly not alone. But this super quick, easy yoga sequence is perfect for those short on both time and nerves.
National Institutes of Health researchers have discovered a gene in mice that controls the craving for fatty and sugary foods and the desire to exercise. The gene, Prkar2a, is highly expressed in the habenula, a tiny brain region involved in responses to pain, stress, anxiety, sleep and reward. The findings could inform future research to prevent obesity and its accompanying risks for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
from Diet and Weight Loss News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/34ZuHhC
National Institutes of Health researchers have discovered a gene in mice that controls the craving for fatty and sugary foods and the desire to exercise. The gene, Prkar2a, is highly expressed in the habenula, a tiny brain region involved in responses to pain, stress, anxiety, sleep and reward. The findings could inform future research to prevent obesity and its accompanying risks for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
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Scientists have found that insulin has met an evolutionary cul-de-sac, limiting its ability to adapt to obesity and thereby rendering most people vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes.
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A research team discovers that by repurposing an antirheumatic gold drug, auranofin (AUR), 'last-resort' antibiotics can be resensitized for treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant superbugs including bloodstream infections, pneumonia and wound infections.
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Neuroscience experts have released research that breaks with the past fifty years of neuroscientific opinion, arguing that the way we store memories is key to making human intelligence superior to that of animals.
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Researchers analyzed patients' levels of inflammation, known to be associated with severity of illness, by looking at C-reactive protein (CRP) trends in 100 COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital. They found that a rapid rise in CRP levels during the first 48 to 72 hours of hospitalization was predictive of subsequent respiratory deterioration and intubation, while steadier CRP levels were observed in patients whose condition remained stable.
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Exposure to high temperatures in pregnancy is associated with an increase in adverse pregnancy outcomes, especially preterm birth and stillbirth, and among women in lower socioeconomic groups.
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Researchers have found that offline consolidation of a motor task was enhanced by praise delivered by robots, whether they were presented on a screen or were physically present. Further, simultaneous praise from two agents had a stronger effect than praise from just one, regardless of whether the agents were physically present or virtual. Such effects could be helpful for facilitating education and for general enhancement of human-robot interactions.
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Research shows that Japan's noncompulsory state of emergency generally succeeded in reducing human movement. A recent study used mobile phone location data for January-April 2020 to record and plot movement of people in metro Tokyo during the emergence and first wave of COVID-19. Researchers found a movement reduction of over 50 percent, which in turn limited social contact and slowed infection spread.
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A new study has found that exercise performance and blood and muscle oxygen levels are not affected for healthy individuals wearing a face mask during strenuous workouts.
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As global cases of COVID-19 fast approach 50 million, a team of Australian, Afghan, Iranian and Italian researchers examined more than 35,000 tweets and say social media analytics can capture the attitudes and perceptions of the public during a pandemic. They also suggest social media is now the best way to encourage people to follow measures and restrictions which have, in turn, triggered an increase in the use of digital technologies and platforms.
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Some claim that machine learning technology has the potential to transform healthcare systems, but a new study finds that machine learning models have similar performance to traditional statistical models and share similar uncertainty in making risk predictions for individual patients.
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Exposure to high temperatures in pregnancy is associated with an increase in adverse pregnancy outcomes, especially preterm birth and stillbirth, and among women in lower socioeconomic groups.
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People whose treatment for cancer is delayed by even one month have in many cases a 6 to 13% higher risk of dying - a risk that keeps rising the longer their treatment does not begin.
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The majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 appear to actively shed infectious virus for about 8 days, but there is a wide range of variability from person to person. Researchers report an unusual case of one woman with leukemia and a low antibody count who was infected with the coronavirus for at least 105 days, and infectious for at least 70, while remaining asymptomatic the entire time.
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Musculoskeletal disorders -- which affect muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and joints -- can severely affect individuals' physical and mental health, and they're especially prevalent among aging adults. Although many researchers are studying these conditions and their rates in different regions of the world, no study to date has provided an overview of the burden of all musculoskeletal disorders.
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Scientists have used gene therapy to regenerate damaged nerve fibers in the eye, in a discovery that could aid the development of new treatments for glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide.
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Your overall health is tied to your oral health, so tending to your teeth and gums should be an integral part of your day. While the key to a healthy mouth lies in a healthy diet based on whole foods — and minimal refined sugars — techniques such as oil pulling can also be used to support oral health.
While in the U.S. tooth brushing and flossing are the predominant tools used to mechanically remove debris from the teeth, tongue and gums, oil pulling has been used as a traditional Ayurvedic remedy in India since ancient times. According to Ayurvedic tradition, oil pulling may improve more than 30 systemic diseases while offering a range of benefits for the mouth, including:1
Reduced inflammation and bleeding
Reduced bad breath
Improved oral hygiene and whiter teeth
Relief from dry mouth/throat and chapped lips
Stronger muscles and jaws in the oral cavity
Part of what makes oil pulling so attractive as an adjunct for oral health is its simplicity. Organic oils commonly used for oil pulling include sunflower oil, sesame oil and coconut oil, although cold-pressed virgin coconut oil is my top choice, for reasons I’ll explain below.
Take a small amount of the oil and swish it around your mouth, “pulling” it between your teeth and ensuring it moves around your entire mouth. After about 20 minutes, spit the oil out into the garbage. You can use oil pulling daily along with regular brushing and flossing.
Oil Pulling May Improve Oral Health
U.K. researchers conducted a systematic review to look into the effect of oil pulling with coconut oil on oral health, noting that, “As coconut oil is a readily accessible and cheap material for most, research into the effectiveness and efficacy of its use in the oil pulling procedure is of clinical merit.”2 They found coconut oil significantly lowered plaque index scores compared to a control group, while also reducing bacterial colony counts in saliva.
Notably, they also found that coconut oil pulling worked as well as chlorhexidine mouthwash for plaque score, gingival index score and bleeding-on-probing. Chlorhexidine has been used in dental practice since 1970 and has broad-spectrum antibacterial activity.3
The antiseptic has been found to reduce bacteria associated with periodontal disease and dental caries, as well as reducing bad breath,4 but it has adverse effects, not only indiscriminately killing beneficial bacteria in your mouth, thereby disturbing your oral microbiome, but also leading to taste disturbances, hypersensitivities and mucosal soreness and irritation.5 According to the study:6
“Supporters of coconut oil pulling may see these adverse effects of using chlorhexidine mouthwash as another reason to promote the use of coconut oil; unfortunately none of these effects were demonstrated in the included studies, most likely due to the short study durations.”
Overall, however, they concluded that coconut oil pulling appears to be useful to improve oral health and dental hygiene, although further studies are needed.
Oil Pulling Works as Well as or Better Than Regular Mouthwash
If you’ve been using commercial mouthwash to keep your mouth fresh, switching to oil pulling may give you similar results with less risk. Researchers with Saveetha University in India also compared the effectiveness of oil pulling and mouthwash.7 In this case, the oil pulling was done using gingelly oil, which comes from the same seed as sesame oil but is processed slightly differently.8
The oil pulling and mouthwash were nearly equal in terms of effectiveness, with the oil pulling having an effectiveness score of 49% compared to 51% for mouthwash. When it came to safety, however, oil pulling was superior, with a score of 61% compared to 39% for mouthwash.
In the book “Natural Oral Care in Dental Therapy,” it’s further noted, “There is mounting evidence of oil pulling being as good as many other chemical‐containing ointments, toothpastes or mouthwashes in control of oral problems with no untoward side effects.”9
On the contrary, twice-daily use of mouthwash has been linked to an increased risk of prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes by affecting oral bacteria critical for the formation of nitric oxide, which predisposes individuals to metabolic disorders like diabetes.10
Researchers have also looked at the effects of oil pulling on Streptococcus mutans, bacteria responsible for cavities. Sixty Egyptian children between the ages of 5 and 10 were divided into two groups. One group rinsed with 10 milliliters (ml) of coconut oil three times a day for two weeks for one minute, while the other group rinsed with chlorhexidine mouthwash of the same dosage.
Streptococcus mutans were reduced significantly in both groups, but the reduction was greater in the oil pulling group. Writing in the Al-Azhar Dental Journal for Girls, the researchers concluded, “Use of coconut oil pulling therapy may be used as preventive therapy at home to maintain oral hygiene as it is natural, safe and has no side effects.”11
Coconut Oil Reduces Plaque and Gingivitis
Coconut oil is an ideal oil for oil pulling due to its antimicrobial effects.12 Coconut oil is antibacterial and antiviral and contains 92% saturated fats, 49% of which are the anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial medium chain saturated fat lauric acid.
“Medium chain saturates and their derived products (e.g., monoglycerides) are effective in destroying a wide range of bacteria (lipid coated bacteria) demolishing their lipidic membrane,” researchers explained in the European Journal of Dentistry. “They can be effective, for instance, against the bacteria causing gastric ulcer, sinusitis, food poisoning, urinary tract infections and caries.”13
The oil may also be effective against gingivitis, an inflammatory disease caused by an accumulation of plaque, or bacteria, on the teeth that often leads to bleeding gums. If left untreated, it can lead to periodontitis, which is a more serious infection that can lead to teeth loss. In a pilot study of 20 people with plaque-induced gingivitis, coconut oil was used as a mouthwash daily for 30 days.
A control group carried out normal daily oral health procedures but without coconut oil. Both plaque and bleeding decreased in the groups, but the coconut oil group had a more significant decline, showing promise for reducing plaque formation and gingivitis.14
Another study also added coconut oil pulling to the normal oral hygiene procedures of middle-aged adults with plaque-induced gingivitis. The group that used oil pulling in addition to regular brushing had a significantly greater decline in gingivitis and plaque after six weeks.15
What Makes Coconut Oil Pulling so Effective?
Coconut oil makes an important dietary staple in Sri Lanka and South Asian diets. In the U.S., it’s been vilified for its high content of saturated fat, despite the fact that it has a number of health benefits when added to the diet, including the following properties:16
Anticancer
Hypocholesterolemic
Antihepatosteatotic
Antidiabetic
Antioxidant
Anti‐inflammatory
Antimicrobial
Skin moisturizing
In terms of oil pulling, however, there are many theories about what makes it so effective for oral health. Bacteria are the root cause of both bad breath and cavity formation in your teeth. They have membranes that are fat soluble and break down with the mechanical action of swishing and pulling oil.
Research demonstrates that pulling oils improves the saponification, or breakdown of bacterial membranes.17 It’s also been suggested that it may kill microorganisms that are damaging cells, or reduce plaque and bacterial cohesion via the oily film that covers your teeth and gums.18
Oil pulling is also an effective mechanical method of cleansing your teeth and the smallest crevices along your molars that the bristles of your brush cannot reach. Your dentist may have recommended using sealants on your teeth to help prevent decay from forming in these tiny areas.
“Coconut oil also contains lauric acid that together with sodium hydroxide and bicarbonates creates a substance that reduces adhesion and plaque accumulation, having a cleaning action,” researchers explained in the European Journal of Dentistry. “Despite its ambiguous mechanism of action, some studies have clearly demonstrated an anti-inflammatory effect, together with the one against adhesion/aggregation of plaque.”19
Traditionally, oil pulling also has merit in Ayurveda as a method for purifying your entire body, as it exposes your tongue to the oil while swishing.
“It holds that each section of the tongue is connected to a different organ such as to the kidneys, lungs, liver, heart, small intestines, stomach, colon and spine, similarly to reflexology and TCM (traditional Chinese medicine),” according to a review in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine.20
Oil Pulling for 20 Minutes a Day
In my interview with Dr. Gerry Curatola, founder of Rejuvenation Dentistry who has over 30 years' experience in biological dentistry, he discusses that achieving oral health is really about promoting balance among the bacteria in your mouth. So, it could be argued that even coconut oil, a natural antimicrobial, should be used with caution.
However, while coconut oil does have a natural detergent effect, it doesn't do the damage chemical detergents do. Coconut oil also contains a number of valuable nutrients helping to promote oral health. "If you don't have a good nutritional that promotes oral microbiome homeostasis, coconut oil pulling is great,” Curatola says.
Oil pulling only requires a small amount of oil — 1 tablespoon for adults and 1 teaspoon for a child — and should be done for at least 20 minutes daily for best results:21
“In the oil pulling procedure, the oil has to be kept in the mouth for the duration of 20 minutes, preferably in the morning before breakfast. The quantity for adults is equal to a tablespoon, for children to a teaspoon.
The oil, during the rinsing, has to be pulled and forced in between all the teeth and brought to contact to all the parts of the mouth. At the end of this procedure, if it has been performed properly, the aspect of the oil should be thin, viscous, and milky. Afterward, it has to be spat out and the mouth has to be rinsed with warm water.”
If you’ve never tried oil pulling before, you may need to work your way up to 20 minutes a day, but soon you’ll likely experience the benefits of improved oral health and hygiene using this age-old technique that’s making a modern comeback.
Does the origin of SARS-CoV-2 matter? Yes, it does. The reason it matters is because if the virus responsible for COVID-19 and the subsequent response to it came from a lab, then we need to reassess the future of so-called gain-of-function research that allows for the weaponization of viruses.
As you might expect, there’s big money involved in this kind of research, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that vested interests would try to cover up its origin, were it indeed a lab creation, simply to protect their funding and future careers.1 What’s surprising, however, is the finding that a top medical journal appears to have aided and abetted efforts to hide SARS-CoV-2’s origin.
Top Medical Journal Caught in Massive Cover-up
According to Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, SARS-CoV-2 has not evolved in the manner you’d expect had it jumped from an animal to a human.
It sprang into action fully evolved for human transmission, leading Chan to conclude that the missing intermediate phase of evolution from animal to human transmissibility must have taken place in a lab. Chan published her theory,2 “SARS-CoV-2 Is Well Adapted for Humans. What Does This Mean for Re-Emergence?” on the preprint server bioRxiv May 2, 2020.
But there’s more, much more, as it now appears the top medical journal Nature has allowed authors to secretly alter data sets in their papers without publishing notices of correction.
Chan Questions Scientific Sequence of Events
In an extensive October 25, 2020, Twitter thread,3,4 Chan lays out an intriguing timeline in which she details key publications related to the origin and genetic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2.
“Even today, I still hear people saying that SARS-CoV-2 came from pangolins and a Seafood market in Wuhan. I hope this analysis will help to clear things up. It will refresh us on significant early pandemic events and major publications discussing the origins of the virus,” Chan writes.5
In her Twitter thread, Chan goes through the sequence of scientific papers published relating to SARS-CoV-2, showing how a small group of researchers have been involved in writing key papers that describe the original data on either bat or pangolin coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2.
Below is a summary of that timeline. I've also included one of Chan’s many graphs at the end that visually illustrates these details. Of particular note is the cross-publication by certain authors.
If you find the whole thing confusing, you’re not alone. It is complex (and it almost feels like it’s meant to be so muddled that people won’t be able to figure out the truth), but if you really want to dig into the details, I recommend carefully going through Chan’s Twitter thread6 where you have both graphic illustrations and text walking you through each twist and turn.
The Timeline
October 24, 2019, the first key paper7 was published in the journal Viruses. The authors were Ping Liu, Wu Chen and Jin-Ping Chen. December 12, 2019, the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and January 12, 2020, the first SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence was published.
January 20, 2020, China confirmed human-to-human transmission. That same day, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers (Zhou et. al.) submitted a paper to the journal Nature detailing the genome of SARS-CoV-2, as well as the genome of a bat virus called RaTG13, which is 96% identical to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
RaTG13 is the most closely related virus to SARS-CoV-2, and was discovered by the WIV in 2013 after it was reported that six miners had contracted a mysterious viral infection that resulted in severe pneumonia. Three of the miners died.
January 22, 2020, Chinese officials said the virus likely spread from animals sold at a seafood market in Wuhan. That same day, Liu et. al. reuploaded the pangolin virus data into the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database that was originally published in the journal Viruses October 24, 2019. “Why? Are the two datasets identical?” Chan asks.
January 31, 2020, China admitted none of the animals at the Wuhan seafood market tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Then, during the week of February 7 through February 14, 2020, four separate papers are submitted to three journals:
Nature, Lam et. al.
Nature, Xiao et. al.
Current Biology, Zheng et. al.
PLOS Pathology, Liu et. al.
All four papers describe a pangolin coronavirus that shares a very similar spike receptor-binding domain with SARS-CoV-2. Liu is the co-author of two of these papers, one Nature paper and the PLOS Pathology paper.
What’s more, all four of these papers “relied heavily or solely on the Liu et al. Viruses paper,” Chan notes. Interestingly, Xiao et. al.’s Nature paper “renamed samples, failed to attribute them properly,” and “produced a profile that did not match any sample in their paper,” Chan writes.
Liu’s PLOS Pathogen paper was also missing data. All four manuscripts were posted on the preprint server bioRxiv between February 18 and 20, 2020, sending “the public into a frenzy, speculating that pangolins were the intermediate hosts who had given SARS2 to humans in a Wuhan wet market,” Chan writes.
March 17, 2020, Current Biology released a preprint of a paper describing a bat virus, RmYN02, that closely resembles SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine also published correspondence proposing SARS-CoV-2 is of natural origin. Both of these papers share an author with Lam et. al., which was submitted to Nature February 7, 2020.
Between January 29, 2020, and May 6, 2020, four different papers were accepted by scientific journals even though they did not share amplicon data, and some didn’t even report the raw data that scientists would need to independently assemble the published genomes.
May 19, 2020, Zhou et. al. deposited amplicon data for RaTG13, which most closely resembles SARS-CoV-2, onto the NCBI without explanation. Zhou et. al. had initially submitted their paper to Nature January 20, 2020.
This new data revealed that the sample had actually been sequenced in 2017 and 2018 — not post-COVID-19 as Zhou’s Nature paper suggested. What’s more, the new data also did not match the already published RaTG13 genome sequence, and no explanation for this discrepancy was given. So, “which private virus database had these sequences been stored in for years?” And are there “other SARS viruses we don’t know about?” Chan asks.
May 25, 2020, the director of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control announced the seafood market may not be the site of spillover (transmission from animal to human) as initially thought.
Studies Updated Without Notice of Correction
A month later, June 22, 2020, Liu et. al. posted a new paper describing a pangolin virus on the preprint server bioRxiv.
The paper shares authors with the Nature Medicine paper (touting a proximal origins theory), Current Biology (which proposed a natural insertion theory) and both of the Nature papers (which draw parallels to a pangolin coronavirus). And, since the two Nature papers were based on Liu’s Viruses paper, this new preprint paper also ties back to Liu’s original Virus paper.
The same day, a new pangolin sample was added to Xiao et. al’s already published Nature paper, even though this sample had not been described, in any way, in the original paper (submitted February 16, 2020). Instead, this new sample resembled that found in Liu’s June 22 preprint paper.
July 7, 2020, Chan preprinted her findings that the pangolin virus genomes shown in the four papers (two Nature papers, Current Biology and PLOS Pathology) were based on data and samples from the same batch of pangolins collected in March 2019 in Guangdong, and that key data points were inaccurately reported by Xiao in Nature and Liu in PLOS Pathogens. According to Chan, “Nature was notified about the potentially duplicated and unattributed pangolin sample.”
July 24, 2020, the WIV confirmed RaTG13 was not a novel virus. Its genome had actually been published in 2016, at which time it was named btCoV-4991.
The original sample had been sequenced again in 2018, at which time the sample was used up, leaving nothing for independent verification once SARS-CoV-2 broke out. In other words, RaTG13 was actually btCoV-4991, and had been known since 2016. Chan writes:
“This raised questions about why RaTG13 had been inaccurately reported and attributed in Zhou et. al. in Nature, and even the recent review by Shi in Nature Reviews Microbiology. As well as its connections to mysterious SARS-like cases in 2012, Yunnan, investigated by top Chinese labs.”
In August 2020, Current Biology was notified about the missing data (both raw and amplicon) for RmYN02. The paper made the authors share the raw data, but the amplicon data remains missing, so the published genome for RmYn02 still cannot be independently assembled.
By September 2020, scientists were starting to point out that there was a mismatch between the RaTG13 genome and the raw data and the amplicon data. Then, October 13, 2020, Zhou et. al. (Nature) updated the RaTG13 genome data on NCBI for the second time, again without explanation for how the mismatch had occurred or how the sample had been processed.
“It's very frustrating that critical information on SARS2 origins is coming out almost on a need-to-know basis. And we have no idea what's going on behind the scenes among the journals, authors, peer reviewers.
Where are we today? The published GD pangolin CoV genome and RmYN02 genome still cannot be independently assembled because of data not shared with the pubic. Isn’t it important to get this data from the authors?
We still don’t understand how the original RaTG13 genome did not match the raw+amplication data. More importantly, why RaTG13 sample history was inaccurately reported by Zhou et. al. @Nature and why a correction to the paper hasn’t been issued despite public admission RaTG13 = 4991.”
Why Was Database Taken Offline?
In related news, an October 12, 2020, article9 by Annette Gartland in Changing Times, an independent journalism site, highlights yet another anomaly. She writes:
“Working behind the scenes, there is a team of scientists, journalists, and other independent researchers who refer to themselves collectively as DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating Covid-19). They investigate anomalies in the narratives about SARS-CoV-2, collect and present evidence, and put forward questions and hypotheses.
One of the issues raised by the DRASTIC team is the fact that a database containing unpublished information about the sequencing of samples collected by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) on trips to an abandoned copper mine in Yunnan has been taken offline.”
The samples she’s referring to are those from the bat cave in Yunnan, China, where six miners contracted a pneumonia-like illness in 2013. Three died. All exhibited symptoms now associated with COVID-19.
The virus identified in those samples was the btCoV-4991 bat virus initially published by WIV researchers in 2016 and later renamed RaTG13, which is 96% identical to SARS-CoV-2. Considering how important it is to correctly identify the source of SARS-CoV-2, why was the database containing unpublished data about btCoV-4991/ RaTG13 taken offline?
Many Scientists Argue for Manmade Origin
Gartland goes on to review some of the leading hypotheses brought forth by scientists who do not buy the natural evolution theory, including Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson’s theory, reviewed in my interview with Latham, featured in “Cover-Up of SARS-CoV-2 Origin?”
The work of researchers Birger Sorensen, Angus Dalgleish and Andres Susrud, who point out that 78.4% of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has human-like domains with matured transmission adaption. In other words, the virus is remarkably well-adapted for human infection.
Sorensen, Dalgleish and Susrud are particularly concerned about how the features of SARS-CoV-2 might impact vaccine safety, as its high similarity to humans “implies a high risk for the development of severe adverse events/toxicity and even Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) unless specific precautions are taken when using the spike protein in any vaccine candidate.”10
Aside from Latham/Wilson and Sorensen/Dalgleish/Susrud, many other experts in various fields have also presented arguments for a manmade or laboratory origin for SARS-CoV-2, including but not limited to:
Professor Giuseppe Tritto, an internationally recognized expert in bio and nanotechnology. He’s also the president of the World Academy of Biomedical Sciences and Technology, founded under UNESCO.
According to Tritto, author of the newly released book, “China COVID-19: The Chimera That Changed the World,”11 SARS-CoV-2 was genetically engineered in WIV in a program supervised by the Chinese military. He believes the creation of SARS-CoV-2 began in the aftermath of the 2003 SARS epidemic, when Chinese researchers started working on a SARS vaccine. The scientist in charge of that Wuhan Institute of Virology program was Shi Zhengli, Ph.D.
Tritto claims Shi used reverse genetics to produce a SARS-like virus with increased pathogenicity with the help from the French Pasteur Institute, which showed her how to insert a segment of the HIV virus into a horseshoe bat coronavirus.12
Australian researcher Nickolai Petrovsky and his team has sought to identify a way by which these animals might have co-mingled to give rise to SARS-CoV-2. Their conclusion was that it could not be a naturally-occurring virus.
Petrovsky’s team points out you can alter a virus in a laboratory, without genetic engineering, by growing it in different kinds of animal cells. To adapt it to humans, you would then grow the virus in cells that have the human ACE2 receptor. Over time, the virus can thereby adapt and gain the ability to bind to that receptor.13,14
Dr. Michael Antoniou is a London-based molecular geneticist who has noted that enhanced-infectivity viruses can be engineered in the lab without using a previously used virus backbone.
Using a method called “directed iterative evolutionary selection process,” you can generate “a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor,” and then to select those protein receptors most effective at infecting human cells. If this technique was used, there would be no trace of the virus having been genetically engineered or manipulated.15
Dr. Richard Ebright is an infectious disease expert at Rutgers University who has pointed out that both U.S. and Chinese researchers have genetically engineered bat coronaviruses using methods that “leave no sign or signature of human manipulation.”16
Dr. Meryl Nass, who in 1992 published a paper17 in which she identified the 1978-1980 Zimbabwe anthrax outbreak as a case of biological warfare, also isn’t buying the all-natural argument. In an April 2, 2020, blog post, she detailed several different ways by which a virus can be altered to produce a new, more virulent version.18
Chris Martenson,19 who has a Ph.D. in pathology, in the video below details the science behind his assertion that SARS-CoV-2 must have undergone laboratory manipulation. I also did a write-up on this in “The Smoking Gun Proving SARS-CoV-2 Is an Engineered Virus.”
Canadian researchers Shing Hei Zhan, Benjamin E. Deverman and Yuji Alina Chan, from the Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Center at the University of British Columbia, published a study in May 2020, in which they note:20
“In a side-by-side comparison of evolutionary dynamics between the 2019/2020 SARS- CoV-2 and the 2003 SARS-CoV, we were surprised to find that SARS-CoV-2 resembles SARS- CoV in the late phase of the 2003 epidemic after SARS-CoV had developed several advantageous adaptations for human transmission.
Our observations suggest that by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV. However, no precursors or branches of evolution stemming from a less human-adapted SARS-CoV-2-like virus have been detected.
The sudden appearance of a highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 presents a major cause for concern that should motivate stronger international efforts to identify the source and prevent near future re- emergence. Any existing pools of SARS-CoV-2 progenitors would be particularly dangerous if similarly well adapted for human transmission …
Even the possibility that a non-genetically-engineered precursor could have adapted to humans while being studied in a laboratory should be considered, regardless of how likely or unlikely.”
Lancet COVID-19 Commission Is Compromised
In my opinion, the strongest pieces of evidence all point toward SARS-CoV-2 being a laboratory creation. How it got released, however, is anyone’s guess. Now, The Lancet has organized a COVID-19 Commission, charged with investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2 so that the matter can conclusively be put to rest.
Alas, this Commission is clearly compromised from the start, seeing how it’s being led by Dr. Peter Daszak,21 a scientist who has already concluded the virus is natural.
As the president of the EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak is also steeped in conflicts of interest, seeing how EcoHealth Alliance received grants from the National Institutes of Health for coronavirus research that was then subcontracted to the WIV. He has every reason to make sure SARS-CoV-2 ends up being declared natural, because if it turns out to be a lab-creation, his own livelihood is at stake.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, safeguarding the continuation of dangerous gain-of-function research is a powerful motivator to preserve the zoonotic origin narrative.
