Prof Stuart Newman believes genetic engineering may have been involved at some point in the virus’s history Another expert on biotechnology has attacked the evidence being used to quash suggestions that SARS-CoV-2, the virus strain that causes COVID-19, might have been genetically engineered. Professor Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York…

Great detailed pieces from Newsweek, which has been delving into the US government’s financial support for “gain of function” (which means increasing the virulence of a pathogen) research in Wuhan, China, which might have contributed to the formation of SARS-CoV-2. They were posted April 27, and 29.  From the latest story: The NIH research consisted…

Dr. Petrovsky, of Flinders University, Australia, was asked his opinion on the origin of SAR-2 and wrote the following:  “An extremely important but still unanswered question is what was the source of COVID-19 virus. While COVID-19 has close similarities to SARS and other bat viruses no natural virus matching to COVID-19 has been found in…

(Reuters Health) – Patients may continue to shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus for up to six weeks after symptoms emerge, a small study of recovered COVID-19 patients suggests.  One third tested positive 4 weeks after start of symptoms… so when can you go back to work after getting COVID? Dr. Zhang and colleagues summarized their experience…

Dr. Oz interviewed him here.

From FierceBiotech: “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to grant Gilead Sciences’ experimental COVID-19 drug remdesivir a special, speedy approval, despite it failing to show any definitive clinical signs that it works. The report, from Japanese news site Kyodo, could make Japan the first country in the world to approve the med, which was…

Excellent discussion of what we know, don’t know, and may be assuming incorrectly–by Marc Lipsitch, PhD, professor at Harvard School of Public Health. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/coronavirus-immunity.html

https://www.salon.com/2020/04/24/did-this-virus-come-from-a-lab-maybe-not–but-it-exposes-the-threat-of-a-biowarfare-arms-race/ Dangerous pathogens are captured in the wild and made deadlier in government biowarfare labs. Did that happen here? SAM HUSSEINI There has been no scientific finding that the novel coronavirus was bioengineered, but its origins are not entirely clear. Deadly pathogens discovered in the wild are sometimes studied in labs — and sometimes made more dangerous. That possibility,…

Mortality rates and spread We have had 5 weeks of quarantine.  I earlier pointed out that there is an average 4 week lag between exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and death (or recovery) for those with a significant Covid-19 illness.  So, if the quarantine was going to work as planned, we should now be able to see…

There are so many questions.  But so few answers.  So little to go on.  No workable Plan B in sight. When to reopen the economy?   When to send children back to school?   Will there be a second wave, or even a third wave, as occurred with the 1918 swine flu pandemic? Those questions demand answers,…

Dr. Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) does well.  According to the NY Times, “He is among the most highly paid federal employees, earning about $400,000 a year, more than the vice president or the chief justice of the United States.” Based on reporting by the Associated Press and British…

It turns out that hydroxychloroquine has been tested in a couple of hundred clinical trials–BEFORE Covid-19 appeared–for an extraordinarily wide range of medical conditions.  Just to give you a feel for the range of illnesses the drug was tried on (I stopped making a list when I got to 30), they include obesity, the prevention of…

I was interviewed by Dennis Bernstein along with independent journalist Sam Husseini tonight on KPFA (Pacifica)’s Flashpoints show.  I did my best to create some flashpoints over the failures of preparedness by the responsible federal agencies, and the enduring threat to the planet from biological “defense” research. https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=332258

I am going out on a limb here, since genetics has evolved quite a bit in the decades since I studied it.  I would appreciate readers to comment on arguments pro and con the natural evolution theory of SARS-CoV-2. While SARS-Cov-2 might have evolved naturally, from bats, pangolins and civets, I have trouble seeing that…

It is all too easy to find mistakes, misstatements and omissions made by public health officials around the Coronavirus pandemic.  Consider the fluent but facile Dr. Fauci.  Have you ever heard him say that the institute he directs has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on coronavirus research?  Has he tried to help Americans understand any…

SARS-CoV (the first SARS virus) and its cousin SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing our current pandemic) are classified by the US government as Select Agents, organisms that pose a significant threat to humans, and could be used for bioterrorism.  The current Select Agent program came into being after the 2001 anthrax letters event. The Department of Health…

In September 2018, the White House announced its improved National Biodefense Strategy, as required by Congress.  Below I have excerpted its Goals, Objectives and Conclusions, listed on pages 6-8 of the Strategy.  As you can see, despite the claimed quest for a biodefense capability, the US government has failed miserably in accomplishing any and all of…

1.  Coronavirus by the numbers Today, the United States has over half a million people who have tested positive for Coronavirus.   Today, the United States became the nation with the highest death toll in the world from the novel coronavirus.  Twenty thousand US deaths.  In the space of 6 weeks we have gone from zero…

(I was asked to post this–Meryl) Invited submission to the Committee on Government Reform for its November 14, 2001 Hearing: Comprehensive Medical Care for Bioterrorism Exposure Preparing a Medical Response to Bioterrorism  — A broad view of the problem — Seeking affordable protection — Identifying research needs — How much protection is obtainable? Preparing a…

Doctors in Wuhan have published the following: Conclusion Despite our small number of cases, the potential of HCQ in the treatment of COVID-19 has been partially confirmed. Considering that there is no better option at present, it is a promising practice to apply HCQ to COVID-19 under reasonable management. However, Large-scale clinical and basic research…

From  USA Today, August 17, 2014: More than 1,100 laboratory incidents involving bacteria, viruses and toxins that pose significant or bioterror risks to people and agriculture were reported to federal regulators during 2008 through 2012, government reports obtained by USA TODAY show. More than half these incidents were serious enough that lab workers received medical…

From Bloomberg’s article, “Hospitals Tell Doctors They’ll Be Fired If They Go To The Press,”  NYU Langone Health employees received a notice Friday from Kathy Lewis, executive vice president of communications, saying that anyone who talked to the media without authorization would be “subject to disciplinary action, including termination.” Jim Mandler, a spokesman for NYU…

1.  I know about biological warfare/biodefense.  I am the first person in the world (according to publicly available literature) to have analyzed an epidemic and demonstrated that the epidemic was due to biological warfare. (1992 study of the 1978-1980 Rhodesian anthrax outbreak, published in Medicine and Global Survival, aka Physicians for Social Responsibility Quarterly (name…

In Search Of The Anthrax Attacker – Following Valuable Clues   By Meryl Nass, MD February 3, 2002   “Senior Bush administration officials have privately said that little progress is being made in the anthrax investigation, which has involved hundreds of investigators, [who] are no closer to finding the culprit, they say.” So reported Todd…