Alex_Krycek

@swansont My intent is to investigate the serious side effects related to the covid vaccines and the emerging research which attempts to identify and explain them. Perhaps the title of the thread should be amended to reflect this. @CharonY I discovered a very interesting hypothesis which claims to explain the clotting issue. Is this essentially what you were indicating above? Rolf Marschalek, a professor at Goethe university in Frankfurt who has been leading studies into the rare condition since March, said his research showed the problem sat with the adenovirus vectors that both vaccines use to deliver the genetic instructions for the spike protein of the Sars-Cov-2 virus into the body. The delivery mechanism means the vaccines send the DNA gene sequences of the spike protein into the cell nucleus rather than the cytosol fluid found inside the cell where the virus normally produces proteins, Prof Marschalek and other scientists said in a preprint paper released on Wednesday. He says the problem can be fixed: But Prof Marschalek believes there is a straight forward “way out” if the vaccine developers can modify the gene sequence that codes for the spike protein to prevent it splitting apart. J&J had already contacted Prof Marschalek’s lab to ask for guidance and was looking at ways to adapt its vaccine to prevent splicing, he said. Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/german-scientists-claim-to-have-solved-covid-vaccine-blood-clot-puzzle-1.4576752 Here is his preliminary research (which has not yet been peer reviewed) PDF attached below. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-558954/v1 ABSTRACT: During the last months many countries have started the immunization of millions of people by using vector-based vaccines. Unfortunately, severe side effects became overt during these vaccination campaigns: cerebral venous sinus thromboses (CVST), absolutely rare under normal life conditions, were found as a severe side effect that occured 4-14 days after first vaccinations. Besides CVST, Splanchnic Vein Thrombosis (SVT) was also observed. This type of adverse event has not been observed in the clinical studies of AstraZeneca, and therefore led immediately to a halt in vaccinations in several european countries. These events were mostly associated with thrombocytopenia, and thus, similar to the well-known Heparin-induced thrombo­cytopenia (HIT). Meanwhile, scientists have proposed a mechanism to explain this vaccine-induced thrombocytopenia. However, they do not provide a satisfactory explanation for the late thromboembolic events. Here, we present data that may explain these severe side effects which have been attributed to adenoviral vaccines. According to our results, transcription of wildtype and codon-optimized Spike open reading frames enables alternative splice events that lead to C-terminal truncated, soluble Spike protein variants. These soluble Spike variants may initiate severe side effects when binding to ACE2-expressing endothelial cells in blood vessels. In analogy to the thromboembolic events caused by Spike protein encoded by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, we termed the underlying disease mechanism the “Vaccine-Induced Covid-19 Mimicry” syndrome (VIC19M syndrome). PDF version.pdf

According to this article the first FDA approved RNA drug utilizing lipid nanoparticles was Onpattro in 2018. "In 2018, the biotech Alnylam turned Nobel Prize-winning RNA interference research into the first siRNA drug — Onpattro, for patients with an inherited neurological disorder — by packaging the small interfering RNA in lipid nanoparticles. Now, similar formulations are paving the way for messenger RNA vaccines. STAT Reports: Nanotechnology in Medicine “In my mind, one of the heroes in this story is the RNA nanoparticle,” said Daniel Anderson, professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, because “siRNA led to mRNA vaccines.” The FDA’s approval of the first RNAi-based drug was “proof these nanoparticles were not just tools we use in the lab to manipulate genes,” Anderson said in a new STAT Report on nanomedicine, “but proof they can be translated into approved medicines.” https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/01/how-nanotechnology-helps-mrna-covid19-vaccines-work/ https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2018/210922s000lbl.pdf Here are the links to the updated health advisories as issued by the UK and Australian governments. https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-statement-on-revised-recommendations-on-the-use-of-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-17-june-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mhra-issues-new-advice-concluding-a-possible-link-between-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-and-extremely-rare-unlikely-to-occur-blood-clots https://extra.ie/2021/04/07/news/world-news/ema-reaches-conclusion-astrazeneca https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/oxford-astrazeneca-under-30s-uk-covid-vaccine_uk_606c21cfc5b66c4ab6b6ae80

Actually, we are debating the cause of a novel situation relating to lipid nanoparticles, mRNA, and immune thrombocytopenia about which there isn't much literature. Pretty important, if you ask me, if we're to ensure the utmost safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccine moving forward. Perhaps you might offer some meaningful information pertaining to this issue at some point. Correction: Lipid nano particles were only approved in 2018. Interesting, thanks. So as to this point: Blood clots do not seem to be different between unvaccinated and Pfizer/Moderna vaccinated folks, but seem elevated in certain population subsets in AstraZeneca vaccines, which is likely to related to the adenovirus used (there have been reports in the past for issues with certain adenovirus-based vaccines, but I am not sure what they were in detail and in any case, they are not related to mRNA-based vaccines such as Pfizer/BioNTech. In your view, what about this adenovirus might be causing the blood clot issue in the AZ vaccine? Also, I noted that Australia and now the UK have advised young people against getting the AZ vaccine. (I believe under 30s in the UK and under 50s in Australia have been advised against AZ, according to the latest news. Is that cautionary measure justified, in your opinion?

Studying, perhaps, but mRNA vaccines were only approved by the FDA in 2018, and the long term effects have yet to be documented. However, I am interested to know if you can confirm the veracity of what I posted above with respect to immune thrombocytopenia. This seems to be the most plausible explanation for the rare and often fatal blood clot events that have stricken a small minority of vaccine recipients. But if you have a better explanation I'm all ears.

That's incredibly vague. Can you cite a precedent, any research, or specific argument why the dispersion of mRNA or lipid nanoparticles into the human body would not be problematic? This appears to be a novel situation with little precedent to determine either safety or risk.

I'd choose another plane of existence as my first option. If multiverse theory is correct, and there are an infinite amount of parallel universes, it might be possible for some species to eventually cross over into different dimensions at will. Second, I'd choose "from another planetary system". Conservative estimates state that there is at least one planet for every solar system in the galaxy. With billions of solar systems in the galaxy, there are billions of potentially habitable planets. I highly doubt that human beings are the most intelligent organisms in the universe. There is probably a spectrum of intelligent life out there - organisms that are less intelligent than human beings and those that are significantly more intelligent. Depending on how long they have been evolving, and the nature of their evolution, a species could already have developed technology capable of efficiently traversing vast regions of space and time. That leaves the question: why would they want to come here? Well, why not? A key attribute of intelligence is curiosity and an interest in exploration. I don't think these attributes would be confined to the species on Earth, but would extend to all life in the universe.

This particular study was on mice, rats, monkeys, and human cells. There were different studies with different delivery methods (In vivo, in vitro, and intramuscular injection.) The graph above came from a study on Rats (Wistar Han) and the method of administration was intramuscular injection. ----- There has been some concern over this bio distribution recently, potentially as the cause for the fatal blood clots that have, in rare instances, caused the death of recent vaccine recipients. Scientists are still investigating why these blood clots are happening, but one theory is that the mRNA crosses the blood brain barrier. "The surgeon then mentioned cases of immune thrombocytopenia — a life-threatening blood clot or platelet disorder — occurring shortly after mRNA vaccination. While no causative link has been confirmed, he considered that maybe the LNPs had carried the mRNA vaccine into the megakaryocytes (platelet-producing cells) in the bone marrow. The megakaryocytes then express the spike protein, only to be marked for destruction by cytotoxic T-cells. Platelets then become deficient, causing thrombocytopenia. Of course, he emphasized that these are just speculations." Source: https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/concerns-of-lipid-nanoparticle-carrying-mrna-vaccine-into-the-brain-what-to-make-of-it-42b1a98dae27 The issue was also raised in the British Medical Journal: "In a rapid response posted on bmj.com, JW Ulm, a gene therapy specialist who has published on tissue targeting of therapeutic vectors,13 raised concerns about the biodistribution of LNPs: “At present, relatively little has been reported on the tissue localisation of the LNPs used to encase the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-encoding messenger RNA, and it is vital to have more specific information on precisely where the liposomal nanoparticles are going after injection.”14 It is an unknown that Ulm worries could have implications for vaccine safety. Ulm told The BMJ: “Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna did a remarkable job of rapidly scaling up manufacturing of such a novel system in swift fashion, which is genuinely a landmark technological achievement. However, pharmacokinetic studies, with independent laboratory confirmation, are essential to ascertain potential cytotoxicity and macroscopic toxicity, especially given the likelihood of booster injections over months or years, since the tissue trafficking patterns of the mRNA vaccine payload will determine which cells and tissues are killed by cytotoxic T-cells in each round.” Given the variation in LNP formulations, it is unclear how relevant previous animal experiments are to answering this question. Regulators and manufacturers contacted by The BMJ for this article did not wish to address any of the questions raised by Ulm’s rapid response." Source: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n627 ----- This seems to be an area that requires further inquiry to ensure the safety and efficacy of MRNA vaccines moving forward.

What do you base that on?

Recently there was a freedom of information request for the Japanese government to release data on the Pfizer vaccine. That request yielded bio-distribution data on the lipid nanoparticles that carry the mRNA in the body. I will post a chart which summarizes the data from the FOIA request and also the report itself (Japanese and English). My question is, looking at this bio-distribution data which shows large concentrations of the lipid nanoparticles collecting in the bone marrow and ovaries post vaccination, what long term potential side effects might be anticipated in individuals who received the Pfizer vaccine? Summary of bio-distribution of lipid nanoparticles from Pfizer vaccine: Ovaries-get-the-mRNA-from-Pfizer-Shot-Graph-2048x1424.webp Pfizer-report_Japanese-government.pdf

Well, there we go. If Wikipedia says it's pseudo-science, case closed.

What text is this from? (source)

Promising news about a new breakthrough treatment from Australia: --------- Queensland researchers and a US team have developed an antiviral therapy that has killed off the COVID-19 viral load in infected mice by 99.9 per cent. Key points: Gene-silencing RNA technology is used to destroy the COVID-19 virus genome directly and stops the virus replicating The treatment could be available as early as 2023, depending on the next phase of clinical trials The research has been published in Molecular Therapy Lead researcher Professor Nigel McMillan, from Griffith University, called it a "seek and destroy mission" where the therapy genetically targeted the potentially deadly virus. The international team of scientists from the Menzies Health Institute Queensland and the US research institute City of Hope began their collaborative research last April. They used a "next-generation" viral approach using gene-silencing RNA technology to attack the virus genome directly, which stops the virus spreading. "It causes the genome to be destroyed and the virus can't grow anymore — so we inject the nanoparticles and they go and find the virus and destroy it just like a heat-seeking missile," Professor McMillan said. "This is the first time we have been able to package this up as a particle, send it through the blood stream to attack the virus. Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-17/queensland-coronavirus-antiviral-treatment-covid-19/100144370 https://www.cell.com/molecular-therapy-family/molecular-therapy/fulltext/S1525-0016(21)00256-2 Full Paper: https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1525-0016(21)00256-2

As you know, 80% of those who contract COVID-19 have no symptoms. Those who do exhibit symptoms of a common cold. Only a very small percentage progresses to a severe stage. The staff could have been exposed numerous times with no outward sign of infection. It's possible they underestimated the nature of the pathogen they were working on, believing that the safety protocols they had in place were sufficient, and, seeing no overt consequences if someone did get infected, became complacent. ---- Let's compare the difference between BSL-4 conditions and BSL-2 conditions (which were the alleged conditions at the WIV). BSL-4 Conditions Biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) is the highest level of biosafety precautions, and is appropriate for work with agents that could easily be aerosol-transmitted within the laboratory and cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which there are no available vaccines or treatments. BSL-4 laboratories are generally set up to be either cabinet laboratories or protective-suit laboratories. In cabinet laboratories, all work must be done within a class III biosafety cabinet. Materials leaving the cabinet must be decontaminated by passing through an autoclave or a tank of disinfectant. The cabinets themselves are required to have seamless edges to allow for easy cleaning. Additionally the cabinet and all materials within must be free of sharp edges in order to reduce the risk of damage to the gloves. In a protective-suit laboratory, all work must be done in a class II biosafety cabinet by personnel wearing a positive pressure suit. In order to exit the BSL-4 laboratory, personnel must pass through a chemical shower for decontamination, then a room for removing the positive-pressure suit, followed by a personal shower. Entry into the BSL-4 laboratory is restricted to trained and authorized individuals, and all persons entering and exiting the laboratory must be recorded.[11] As with BSL-3 laboratories, BSL-4 laboratories must be separated from areas that receive unrestricted traffic. Additionally airflow is tightly controlled to ensure that air always flows from "clean" areas of the lab to areas where work with infectious agents is being performed. The entrance to the BSL-4 lab must also employ airlocks to minimize the possibility that aerosols from the lab could be removed from the lab. All laboratory waste, including filtered air, water, and trash must also be decontaminated before it can leave the facility.[11] Biosafety level 4 laboratories are used for diagnostic work and research on easily transmitted pathogens which can cause fatal disease. These include a number of viruses known to cause viral hemorrhagic fever such as Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Lassa virus, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. Other pathogens handled at BSL-4 include Hendra virus, Nipah virus, and some flaviviruses. Additionally, poorly characterized pathogens which appear closely related to dangerous pathogens are often handled at this level until sufficient data are obtained either to confirm continued work at this level, or to permit working with them at a lower level.[15] This level is also used for work with Variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox, though this work is only performed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, United States, and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Russia.[19] BSL-2 Conditions At this level, all precautions used at Biosafety Level 1 are followed, and some additional precautions are taken. BSL-2 differs from BSL-1 in that: Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic agents and are directed by scientists with advanced training. Access to the laboratory is limited when work is being conducted. Extreme precautions are taken with contaminated sharp items. Certain procedures in which infectious aerosols or splashes may be created are conducted in biological safety cabinets or other physical containment equipment.[11] Biosafety level 2 is suitable for work involving agents of moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment.[12] This includes various microbes that cause mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting.[14] Examples include Hepatitis A, B, and C viruses, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus, Salmonella, Plasmodium falciparum, and Toxoplasma gondii.[14][15] -------- If they were working on COVID-19 in BSL-2 conditions, it seems inevitable there would be a leak, given how easily transmissible it is and how long the virus survives on surfaces.

There is some evidence for this. It's referred to as "in group, out group" behavior. Experiments have been done indicating that there is some default bias at work.

Well, to start with, being open and transparent with any data they possessed, not suppressing the fact there was a novel coronavirus outbreak, acting swiftly in concert with the WHO. This was not the case, according to the WHO officials (example: Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead) who were attempting to communicate with China on the ground as the situation emerged. Audio is played from a conference call of WHO officials stating that "it's the same thing again and again, trying to request information and getting nowhere." Additionally, and this point is made in the FRONTLINE documentary I referenced: failing to disclose an outbreak of a dangerous pathogen to the international community is a direct breach of international regulations. LAWRENCE GOSTIN: "So let me tell you what international law requires. If the government knows about a novel infection that meets the criteria within the International Health Regulations, and a novel coronavirus by definition meets those criteria of a potential public health emergency of international concern, the government is obliged by law to report that to the World Health Organization within 24 hours. So it was reportable. The failure to report clearly was a violation of the International Health Regulations." If a country knows it has a dangerous outbreak - it must report it to the international community immediately. Full stop.

By "acting with equal sovereignty", I take it you mean blocking a transparent and impartial investigation into one of the most consequential events in recent human history? The WHO is an extension of the United Nations. Any UN member state should be subject to certain standards; this case is no exception. Watch the PBS FRONTLINE documentary I referenced. The WHO tried repeatedly to obtain crucial data early on and were stonewalled again and again. China already had the genome sequenced in early 2020 after the first cases were recorded, and still wouldn't release it to the international community. It took an act of disobedience to independently release the genome, at which point China officially followed suit. So I reject your accusation of partisan bias. The United States, had this pandemic begun on US soil, would have been obligated to fully participate in an independent investigation, as would any other country.

It could also indicate substandard safety protocols.

Slim to none, unfortunately. They have demonstrated a pattern of obfuscation since the beginning of this pandemic. There was an excellent FRONTLINE episode recently called "China's COVID Secrets", which investigated the initial suppression of information regarding the outbreak. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/chinas-covid-secrets/) The authorities there will probably never allow a fully transparent investigation that might implicate them further, so the world may never know what went exactly wrong or if corrective action has been taken to prevent further outbreaks. We're left with Peter Daszak's vague assurances that the WHO "asked tough questions", without ever having access to raw data. Deeply troubling.

What does it mean to be "white"? I have friends of various ethnicities. One friend told me he was chastised by his family for "speaking too white", and he "shouldn't forget where he came from". He said he found the comments confusing. Overall I think this kind of racial framing is counterproductive.

There's been some additional dialogue over the past 2 weeks calling for a thorough investigation of the origins of COVID-19. First, there was a letter published in Science magazine on May 14th calling for a complete investigation. Excerpt from the Letter: "On 30 December 2019, the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases notified the world about a pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China (1). Since then, scientists have made remarkable progress in understanding the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), its transmission, pathogenesis, and mitigation by vaccines, therapeutics, and non-pharmaceutical interventions. Yet more investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks." They continue: “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.” Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1.full Signatories of the Letter: Jesse D. Bloom, Basic Sciences and Computational Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, USA. Yujia Alina Chan, Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. Ralph S. Baric, Department of Epidemiology and Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. Pamela J. Bjorkman, Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. Sarah Cobey, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Benjamin E. Deverman, Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. David N. Fisman, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada. Ravindra Gupta, Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease, Cambridge, UK. Akiko Iwasaki, Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519, USA. Marc Lipsitch, Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Ruslan Medzhitov, Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519, USA. Richard A. Neher, Biozentrum, University of Basel and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland. Rasmus Nielsen, Department of Integrative Biology and Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Nick Patterson, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Tim Stearns, Department of Biology and Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Erik van Nimwegen, Biozentrum, University of Basel and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland. Michael Worobey, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. David A. Relman, Department of Medicine and Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. ; Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. ------ There was also an article in Infection Control Today. Excerpt from the Article: Kevin Kavanagh, MD, a member of Infection Control Today®’s Editorial Advisory Board, says that “the assertion that the virus was purposefully released is probably not valid since the epicenter of the epidemic was in a highly populated portion of China and the country did not have a workable vaccine.” “There appears to be little doubt that, like the rest of the world, the Wuhan lab was experimenting on coronaviruses,” says Kavanagh. “On May 11 of this year Senator Rand Paul questioned the White House regarding 'gain of function' research, research which would be expected to make the viruses more dangerous and more transmissible. This research was also mentioned in a presidential Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from the Trump administration which apparently has not yet been refuted by the Biden administration.” Ghebreyesus’s ambivalence about this (the WHO's) conclusion seemed evident. “Although the team [of WHO investigators] has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy,” Ghebreyesus said in a statement on March 30. “There appears to be little doubt that, like the rest of the world, the Wuhan lab was experimenting on coronaviruses,” says Kavanagh. “On May 11 of this year Senator Rand Paul questioned the White House regarding 'gain of function' research, research which would be expected to make the viruses more dangerous and more transmissible. This research was also mentioned in a presidential Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from the Trump administration which apparently has not yet been refuted by the Biden administration.” When the WHO report came out, Saskia v. Popescu, PHD, MPH, MA, CIC, another ICT® EAB member, agreed that more study needs to be done on the origin of COVID-19. She added, however, that “the truth is that the source of the pandemic does not change the poor response from so many countries, including the United States.” The Science letter goes into a bit more detail as to why further research on the lab leak possibility needs to be examined. The letter notes that the two theories—lab leak and zoonotic spillover—“were not given balanced consideration. Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident.” Kavanagh says that “this subject of research in the Wuhan Lab has been almost taboo in the mainstream media. However, the construction of man-made (pseudo) virus is presently an exact science, with single amino acid substitutions possible. Similar to vaccine production, you just need to be able to input the genetic code you desire and a vaccine or pseudo-virus can be made.” Kavanagh refers to what he describes as a “chilling article” by authors affiliated with China's National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC) and WHO Collaborating Center for Standardization and Evaluation of Biologicals. “This article describes a plethora of single amino acid substitutions in the spike protein from 106 pseudo-virus which resulted in ‘ten mutations such as N234Q, L452R, A475V, and V483A was markedly resistant to some mAbs’ and that ‘the dominant D614G itself and combined with other mutations are more infectious.’” The D614G variant was the dominant variant in the United States in 2020. Source: https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/weekly-rounds-with-infection-control-today ----------- Finally, an article in Politico: “There are copious precedents of pathogens leaking from labs — the original 2003 SARS virus leaked up to six times from labs across three countries. Consider that the SARS research and animal infection experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, for more than 10 years, were all performed at relatively low biosafety levels. It is currently not possible to tell from the genetic evidence whether the virus ever passed through a laboratory or a lab personnel. “The question is: How did a virus, whose lineage is found only in southern China, make its way into humans in the metropolitan city of Wuhan, more than a thousand miles away? We know that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had possibly the greatest collection of SARS viruses from numerous trips across China. We know that they were working with a batch of viruses very closely related to SARS-CoV-2. Details of these viruses and the experiments performed with them have not been shared in a timely manner.” — Alina Chan, molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard “It is worthy of a careful, rigorous, unbiased, objective examination, based on relevant, verifiable data. There are a number of plausible scenarios embedded in this label, ‘lab leak,’ and importantly, they include an unrecognized infection of a well-intentioned lab worker attempting to recover or study new coronaviruses from bats. It does not imply malice or even necessarily awareness (of the accident). Lab accidents are much more common than any of us know, or would like to admit, and they occur worldwide and even in the most safe and secure labs. U.S. biosafety labs are by no means strangers to accidents; leaks of some of the most dangerous infectious agents have occurred at CDC and other U.S. government labs.” — David A. Relman, microbiologist at Stanford University “The outbreak occurred in Wuhan, on the doorstep of the laboratory that conducts the world’s largest research project on horseshoe bat viruses and worked with the world’s closest sequenced relative of the outbreak virus. The laboratory actively searched for new horseshoe-bat viruses in horseshoe-bat colonies in caves in remote rural areas in Yunnan province, brought those new horseshoe-bat viruses to Wuhan, and then mass-produced, manipulated, and studied those new horseshoe-bat viruses, year-round, inside Wuhan. “Documentary evidence establishes that the bat-SARS-related-coronavirus projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology used personal protective equipment (usually just gloves; sometimes not even gloves) and biosafety standards that would pose high risk of infection of field-collection, field-survey, or laboratory staff upon contact with a virus having the transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2.” — Richard Ebright, molecular biologist at Rutgers University Source: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2021/05/19/experts-weigh-in-on-the-wuhan-lab-leak-hypothesis-492915 ------------ Clearly many experts are seriously considering the lab leak theory as plausible. I think this is something the general public has a lot of questions about, and should be investigated as thoroughly as possible. As the world emerges from this pandemic, people are going to want answers.

Good song. I remember this from the movie "Collateral" from back in the day.

No fan of Rand Paul, but his line of questioning was interesting. There was a very comprehensive article recently examining the two origin theories featured in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, by Nicholas Wade. Wade was the staff writer for the Science Times section of the NYT from 1982 to 2012. His article here: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

Discovered an interesting group called the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. Looks like they have a conference coming up. https://scu.regfox.com/2021-scu-aapc Here's their twitter feed: https://mobile.twitter.com/explorescu

One of the problems regarding capitalism is the pressure it puts on people to pursue material wealth. I see this primarily as a cultural problem. If you don't earn enough money in a capitalist system, you will become homeless and starve. Such pressure is counterproductive for several reasons. First: it locks people into jobs they don't want to do, jobs that are generally unnecessary for the advancement of society. Society becomes full of people selling useless junk to each other or doing services that in no way benefit mankind: an endless procession of scam artists. Second: it corrupts those disciplines that are truly beneficial for mankind, twisting them in the direction of self-interested profit. Third: money, and not true individual talent, become the end goal of all creative action. In my view this is the most regrettable consequence. Because of the aforementioned reasons: extreme pressure to earn a living and an incentive to work in a job that is superficial in nature, most people never really tap into their true creative ability, whatever that may be. Yes, there are a few who break the mold and actualize their creative potential, but in the vast majority this talent is suppressed, leading to a society where most people are not contributing their talents to the betterment of human civilization. For this, we all suffer. "Creative potential" is an aptitude in any discipline: engineering, mathematics, writing, - whatever discipline a person is naturally good at and interested in.

I see a correlation here with Eric Fromm's work, specifically his book: "To Have or To Be?". Seems the countries that are getting it right these days (happier citizens, more productive, more creative) are focused on creating the conditions for people to be intrinsically happy rather than to have something in order to be happy. Disagree. There are plenty of rich people who don't continuously want more and more material excesses as they accrue wealth. They get to a certain point where material luxuries are vacuous, preferring instead more meaningful aspects of life.