The Emperor's New Clothes - part 5
In this chapter we will analyze one of the seminal papers that allegedly discovered a new virus that causes COVID-19
In the previous chapter, we saw the lack of adequate evidence given by the MoH to my request - of a proper purification and isolation of the virus directly from a sick person and conducted on human cells. They chose to supply evidence which doesn’t meet this criteria. In their reply they referenced another paper which they consider to be the first scientific publication on the identification and characterization of the new virus.
Here is a translation from Hebrew to the above section -
“In the world, the virus was also identified by an electronic microscope in an article published at the beginning of the pandemic in the paper NEJM. This article identifies and characterizes the virus SARS-COV-2 with all methods, including images of the cultured isolated virus with electronic microscope, and includes full genomic sequencing of the virus as well as the pulmonary disease caused by the virus. Attached is the original article published in February 2020 and its title - A novel Corona virus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019 “
Again, the Ministry of Health claims that this article contains all the information I requested. Let's check what the article does contain and whether we can finally find concrete evidence for the isolation and purification of the virus.
In an in-depth examination of the research methods chapter, we find the description of the technical procedure and the process in which the identification and characterization of a new virus was carried out (the following is a summary of the description in the methods section):
First, the authors describe how they found a new pathogen:
Samples were taken from the respiratory tract of people with symptoms of pneumonia.
The genetic material (the nucleic acids - DNA/RNA) was extracted from the samples. it is important to emphasize that genetic material is found in every living organism and there is abundance of it in our respiratory tract, either from our human cells but also from bacteria, fungi, and other non-self organisms.
Using PCR-based kits, the nucleic acids were searched for sequences corresponding to known pathogens. In addition, they searched for "viral" sequences that correspond to previously characterized viral gene sequences.
Of all the segments that were sequenced, no familiar pathogen sequence was found and hence the presence of a new virus was supposedly discovered.
The authors state that they used a special PCR kit designed to locate a genomic segment that characterizes the group of corona viruses. This point is interesting in itself because where did the researchers had the knowledge to look for a corona virus?
In the next section - we find the description of the "isolation" of the virus:
The samples were placed in test tubes and subjected to a strong centrifugation in order to settle the heavy particles.
The upper liquid (supernatant) in the test tube was sucked out and transferred into petri dishes containing human airway epithelial cells.
Note that these human airway epithelial cells were taken from people during surgery to remove lung cancer! That is, these are cancer cells!
These cells were kept at 37 °C and in an environment rich in CO2 (5%) and were washed with saline every 48 hours.
Next - the cells were diluted and passaged (=transferred) 3 times to a new culture.
During this process, they looked for cytopathic effect - that is, the disintegration of the cell culture due to the death of some of them.
Keep in mind this procedure. We will analyze the actual results. But now let’s look at the sequencing procedure of the alleged new virus.
Below is the description of how they sequenced and genetically identified the virus:
The nucleic acids taken from the sample were used as a template in the process of sequencing the viral genome.
Many overlapping genomic segments were obtained and with the help of special computer software they arranged and constructed a new genome.
The authors specifically state that an additional procedure was needed to fill in the "gaps" where they had in-complete reads and they used a computer software to overcome these gaps.
In this process, new PCR primers were designed.
In the results section of the article, there is an additional description regarding the process of "isolating" the virus and sequencing the genome:
In the sequencing process, they received over 20,000 D.N.A “viral” fragments (The D.N.A was reverse-transcribed from the RNA they collected from the samples taken from the patients).
The authors claim that most of these 20,000 fragments were similar in composition to beta-coronavirus genome. (Again - from where was the premise to look for similarity to corona viruses? there are millions of viruses reported…)
The virus "isolation" process as described earlier in the methods chapter was performed on human (cancerous) epithelial cells, but in the results chapter, without a clear explanation why , the authors describe that they performed the isolation not only on cancerous human epithelial cells but also in monkey kidney cell cultures ( VERO-E6 ) and Additional human liver cancer cells ( Huh-7 ). Is it possible that the triple transition (Passaging) process described above involved the transition to the monkey cells? It is unclear but I will offer an explanation to this in the next chapter. In the meantime keep in mind that the results of the so called isolation are referring to the monkey kidney cells which are not the “natural” host for SARS-COV-2 and thus this does not fulfills Koch’s postulates.
A cytopathic effect - CPE - was obtained in the epithelial cells after 96 hours and in the other cells after 6 days.
It should be noted that it is difficult to understand from reading the article the exact processes that was carried out and in particular we do not find any reference as to whether a control procedure was carried out in the experiment at all and if one was carried out, how exactly was it done and what the results were. Thus, the reader is left without real ability to judge the scientific validity of the process and its conclusions.
One thing is clear - In this paper, as was the case in the previous one, discussed in chapter 4 - the CPE is the observation that satisfies the authors (and probably the reviewers of this article) for the virus isolation. However, if you think about it, this procedure involved adding more and more materials and “noise” to the system which is the exact opposite of the definition of isolation and purification (more on that - next chapter).
another thing which is obvious is that the whole procedure is done in-vitro and on non-host organism (actually - cell culture).
Is this sufficient to serve as proof of isolation?
Now, let’s refer to the issue of sequencing the virus. We will examine to common practice for sequencing new virus via my FOI.
The MoH was asked to provide evidence for the existence of “Omicron” - it’s full isolation and purification and the evidence for it’s sequencing and how the PCR test can distinguish between variants.
Translated - “Through specific PCR tests, positive samples can be detected with high suspicion of omicron. Verification of one or the other variant is performed using full virus nucleic acid sequencing using a specific laboratory device and decoding of the sequence using bioinformatic software. The same is true in all the advanced countries in the world with ability to sequence positive samples of the virus. It should be noted that not every sample is fully sequenced and in relation to the amount of genetic material of the virus in the individual sample”
Did we just got a proof that the whole issue of sequencing new "variants" is based on computer software and nothing else? Pay attention to the marked section (bold in translation) - they admit that the entire sequence process is based on computer work (bioinformatics). But where is the scientific-biological experiment that will confirm this? Does the existence of a genetic sequence in a computer software necessarily indicate its existence in the real world? And again - what control experiment is done here? In addition - the Ministry of Health explicitly states that some of the samples (how many? Who knows...) are not fully sequenced.
In fact, if we search the literature, we will find that no sample is completely sequenced, certainly not in one sweep and certainly not on a complete and functional virus. All these are not done, because it is technically impossible to do so . There is no such machine. The way a living creature's genetic sequence is decoded and sequenced is done solely with the help of computer programs that take the millions of pieces of the genetic "puzzle" (the segments found in the sample that are not complete and even if they are complete are intentionally cut because long sequences cannot be read) and the computer is the one that rebuilds this whole puzzle. There is no actual biological process here and of course there is no control of the process. If it was a living organism that could be 100% purified and was the only object in the sample - we could accept the sequencing as it is . But when it comes to a virus (a nanometric particle) that was not isolated and separated from all the other things around it (see above) then there is a serious flawed here. Those who wish to expand a little on the subject are welcome to read this excellent article.
let’s summarize and look at what we learned from the information received from the Ministry of Health and examine whether they actually provided evidence that meets the requirement as formulated in the freedom of information request -
Did we really receive clear evidence proving that the new virus was isolated and determined to be the cause of the disease called Covid-19?
Well, the answer in my opinion is - no!
Even if we accept the Ministry of Health's claim that they (that is, the virology laboratory or the researchers we referred to their article) were indeed successful and isolated a new virus, (and I will elaborate why this is not the case in the next chapter), they certainly have not proven a causal link between that new virus and the disease in Wuhan. In fact, the authors of the article themselves, acknowledge this several times in the body of the article, in the chapter discussing the results (see marking in the image below (and pay attention to the authors' choice of words (in such an article every word is well calculated) -
"the likely causative agent..."
"that is likely to have been the cause of severe pneumonia..."
"Although our study does not fulfill Koch's postulates ...provide evidence implicating ..."
In other words, the authors admit that Koch's postulates were not fulfilled , which as mentioned are the gold standard in this case and all they can claim is that they have data that suggest or indicate the likelihood that they found the pathogen. There is no unequivocal statement here, and further, the authors point out the necessity of further animal experiments to substantiate this hypothesis. Note that the authors understand the limitations of their working methods, which are all based on in-vitro research (that is, "in a test tube") and in-silico research (that is, in a computer program) - and the necessity to conduct in-vivo studies (in a whole living organism) because in-vitro research cannot be a scientific proof of an hypothesis for in-vivo biological phenomena.
Bottom line- in the request for information from the Ministry of Health (see in the beginning of chapter 4), we asked for information proving that in-vivo scientific work was done whereby the new virus was isolated and purified. We did not receive such information! We asked for proof of the fulfillment of Koch's or Rivers postulates - in vivo ( Rivers was a virologist who came after Koch and modified the list of criteria for establishing the proof of a viral pathogen) and we received a reference to an article that claims that it did not meet it. At most, it is possible to discuss whether Koch's postulate #2 has been fulfilled and even if so - certainly it was not in-vivo!
So, if that was the best that the MoH has to offer - what does it mean? Are they really that in-proficient? or are they assuming we are not that smart? Either way, this is not enough.
We will continue our quest for a proof of isolation and on route we will discover the full nudity of the emperor.