Some patients with Lyme disease and bartonella infection have symptoms similar to those seen in a bladder infection. These symptoms include
urge to urinate,
bladder pain and pain on urination,
bladder cramping, and
increased frequency of urination.
When these symptoms occur, a bladder infection should be ruled out by a healthcare provider. When it is ruled out, these symptoms are often the result of a condition called Interstitial Cystitis. Depending on a person’s age and other risk factors, a urologist may need to evaluate the bladder with a fiberoptic scope to assure that cancer is not present and to confirm a diagnosis of Interstitial Cystitis.
In this article I review the ways to support Interstitial Cystitis with natural medicines in a Lyme disease treatment. (See link for article and video)
New Wave of Frankenfoods, Coming to a Store Near You
By ANH-USAOn
The government is making decisions about genome-edited food that prevent consumers from identifying it, exposing us to potential risks. Action Alert!
Did you know that meat from a genome-edited (GE) cow could soon be in grocery stores, and it wouldn’t be distinguishable from other meat? That’s because it will likely not need to be labeled as being GE (or “bioengineered” to use the USDA’s term). Worse, the FDA has cleared this product with only cursory oversight because it believes the GE cows to be “low-risk.”
This is a betrayal of consumers’ right to know about the contents and origins of their food and a failure to adequately protect public health. If you’re like us, you’d want an abundance of evidence showing that the safety profile of GE and non-GE meat were equivalent before they were freely sold to the public without any labeling to separate them. We’d also want plenty of studies verifying long-term safety. Unfortunately this is not the approach taken by the federal government.
The only thing that we know can stop the FDA continuing on its mistaken path which assumes bioequivalence of GE and non-GE food is “us.”The great us: the American public. We have to fight back and call for more stringent oversight of GE food.
Speeding up approvals for industry’s sake
Last year, the FDA cleared meat from GE cattle to enter the marketplace. It was the fourth approval of a GE animal in the past three years, a significant uptick compared to three approvals in the prior 11 years.
This accelerated pace looks, to us, like a clear signal that the FDA wants to serve the interests of Big Ag and Big Biotech, not the public. Last year, these special interests complained in a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack that the FDA was taking too long to approve GE animals, arguing for the USDA to take over their regulation. You can see why: the USDA approved dozens of GE plants for cultivation since the mid-1990s; in 2020, the agency even released a rule that exempted many GE crops from review.
Race to the bottom
The FDA apparently doesn’t want to be outdone by the USDA in its willingness to kowtow to industry. By categorizing GE cattle as “low-risk,” the agency has made it easier for food and other products from those cattle to come to market.
The FDA views intentional changes to an animal’s DNA as an animal drug falling under the FDA’s jurisdiction. As such, companies producing GE animals are generally subject to premarket requirements like an approved new animal drug application (NADA). Except, as explained in an FDA guidance document, if the agency decides to skip these requirements because it believes the GE animal in question to be “low-risk.”
The first approved NADA for a food-producing animal was in 2015 with the AquaAdvantage Salmon. In 2020, the agency approveda GE pig both as a food and a drug (the pigs are GE so they do not produce alpha-gal sugars which is responsible for a rare allergy). Before then, GE goats, chickens, and rabbits had also been approved, but not for food; these animals are engineered to produce drugs. For example, the GE goats produce a protein in their milk intended to be used for anticlotting treatment in humans.
In 2022, the FDA cleared cattle that are modified to have short, slick hair coats so they can better withstand hot weather. This was the first time the FDA decided to exempt a GE animal from premarket requirements because it was deemed “low-risk.” Why? Because, the agency explains, the genetic change is “equivalent to naturally occurring mutations that have arisen in several breeds of cattle as an adaptation” to tropical weather. In its press release, the agency boasts that the decision:
…demonstrates our ability to identify low-risk [genetic alterations] that don’t raise concerns about safety, when used for food production. We expect that our decision will encourage other developers to bring animal biotechnology products forward for the FDA’s risk determination in this rapidly developing field, paving the way for animals containing low-risk [genetic alterations] to more efficiently reach the marketplace [emphasis added].
That’s right: the FDA is bragging to industry about its lax enforcement of GE animals so these products can more quickly reach a store near you. It’s a signal to industry to prepare to bring more GE food animals before the FDA so they can be rubber-stamped through the process.
Consumers left in the dark
The approval of GE cattle also highlights how the GMO labeling law passed by Congress in 2016 completely sold out on consumers. It’s very likely that meat from the GE cattle will not have to be labeled. Among the many problems with the law that we laid out in our coverage was the very definition of a “bioengineered” food, which excludes many foods developed through genome-editing techniques like CRISPR. The government has taken the position that genome-editing largely produces results that could have been obtained through conventional breeding, so we need not worry about the process used to arrive at that genetic alteration. It’s the final product, rather than the process, that matters to the government.
For example, the USDA decided that a CRISPR-created non-browning mushroom did not have to be regulated nor, by extension, labeled as genetically modified. For the same reason, the GE cattle recently cleared by the FDA will likely not have to be labeled because the modification could in theory be obtained through conventional cattle breeding. As a result, such GE foods aren’t even considered to be GE foods for the purposes of the federal labeling law. Work that one out!
The point is that the government passed a labeling law that does not apply to a huge swath of GE foods. CRISPR and other biotech, nano-science techniques are widely regarded as the future for agriculture, medicine and science more generally, with some observers noting that “with new gene editing techniques, [GMOs] will no longer be necessary.” No wonder Big Biotech lobbyists didn’t work to successfully block the 2016 sham labeling bill – they knew exactly what was in the pipeline.
A broken system
All of this is illustrative of the larger problem that sits within the federal government’s approach to GE products. The entire federal framework for dealing with GE foods focuses on the final product rather than the process used to develop that product. This approach is fundamentally flawed because the processes themselves, like CRISPR gene editing, can produce unpredictable and unintended consequences. Natural genes can be deleted or permanently turned on or off, while hundreds of other genes may change their behavior because of the new insertions or deletions. Even the inserted gene can be damaged or rearranged, and may create proteins that can trigger allergies or promote disease. A recent study involving human embryos found that when CRISPR was used to repair a mutation that can cause hereditary blindness, it appeared to “wreak genetic havoc in about half the specimens that the researchers examined.”
Claiming that a specific intended gene alteration can be achieved through natural means as proof that a CRISPR technique targeting this same gene is scientific and legal nonsense. The government has largely absolved itself from looking closely at the potential disasters that are possible when developing and producing GE foods—benefitting the special interests behind GE foods, to the cost of consumers.
GE food dangers
We’ve articulated our oppositionto GE foods for many years. Manipulating one or two genes does not just produce one or two desired traits—a single change at the level of DNA has the potential to alter the entire DNA blueprint and numerous other characteristics of the genome-edited organism. This may happen in unexpected and undesirable ways, and these traits can be passed down through generations. Despite the lack of research funding, a substantial body of scientific work has already shown a variety of negative health outcomes from consuming GE foods, such as impaired liver and kidney function, infertility, impaired embryonic development, allergic reactions, damage to the gastrointestinal tract, and more. An increasing abundance of GE animals in the marketplace, indistinguishable from those from animals with unedited genes, opens the floodgates to even more unintended consequences and potential public health disasters.
The bottom line is that we need proper transparency and oversight over GE foods so we know they’re safe, but the FDA appears to be moving in the opposite direction to appease Big Food and Big Biotech. We must push back to register consumer outrage at this cronyism.
Action Alert! Write to the FDA and Congress, telling them that we need proper oversight over foods from GE animals. Please send your message immediately. (Go to top link to send a message to your reps.)
______________
**Comment**
This is a big deal and requires our participation to stop this madness. Never forget: food is medicine.
Because of the negative connotation of “Frankinfood,” the USDA has relabeled “GMO” to the more acceptable term of “bioengineered,” but do not be fooled: this technology is dangerous. Even the European Union has ruled that CRISPR plants are GMO’s and should be subjected to the same rules, which unfortunately is not the case in the US.
A recent study has revealed that a new gene editing technology called CRISPR is being used on chickens to enhance their resistance to the bird flu (avian influenza). Researchers are attempting the CRISPR technique to contain the virus genetically.
It must be mentioned here that the “deadly” H1N1 Swine Flu or avian flu was a scam yet declared a Level-6 ‘pandemic’ based on 20 cases(after the corrupt WHO changed the definition of pandemic it to make it fit). Then the CDC lied by stating there were 22 Million cases when they scandalously stopped counting! Similarly to COVID, the entire saga was used to push a dangerous vaccine which in this case has been linked to narcolepsy, cataplexy and brain damage. You see, this has all been done before.
CRISPR entails the use of a molecular tool that allows scientists to make targeted edits within DNA. After CRISPR was performed within the study, the scientists then gene edited chickens that were nasally infected with a drastically amplified flu dosage.
While samples taken from the infected chickens showed the gene-editing was successful, it also showed that the process quickly caused several mutations, which means that scientists still have to address the possibility that further evolution of the virus could still occur, and make a bird flu epidemic worse.
As reported by The New York Times, Wendy Barclay, a virologist at Imperial College London and an author of the study, commented on this at a news briefing, saying, “The research is ‘proof of concept that we can move toward making chickens resistant to the virus. But we’re not there yet.’”
It appears none of these researchers are looking into safety.
I am honored to connect with Dr. Bill Rawls today! He is a distinguished figure in the healthcare field, having departed from conventional allopathic medicine to illuminate the profound potential of herbs in revitalizing health through the principles of cellular healing and regeneration.
With a foundation in classical obstetrics and gynecology and backed by scientific research, Dr. Rawls joins me today to furnish us with his actionable recommendations for optimal health and well-being.
In our conversation, Dr. Rawls dives into his background and explains the inherent limitations of the traditional allopathic model that has guided modern medicine for generations. We explore questions surrounding the alarming state of health in our society and examine the factors contributing to disease. We navigate the landscape of cellular biology, shining a light on the role of mitochondria and the impact of diet, environmental toxins, stress, and microbial pressures on our well-being. Dr. Rawls also unveils the distinctions that set herbs apart from pharmaceutical agents, and we journey through the realm of phytochemicals, the spectrum of herbal safety, and the health concerns around perimenopause, menopause, bone health, and sleep.
Dr. Rawls is a source of profound wisdom in the world of health and wellness, and his invaluable insights promise to empower us on the path to a healthier and more vibrant existence!
“Inflammation is a process of illness. It is not a cause of illness, and unless you are addressing the underlying causes of the inflammation, you are not going to make somebody well.”
– Dr. Bill Rawls
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:
Why Dr. Rawls chose to go into obstetrics and gynecology
What prompted Dr. Rawls to redirect the focus of his work?
How Dr. Rawls has spent the past decade and a half figuring out what herbs were doing and what chronic illness is
The differences between acute medicine and functional medicine
How mitochondrial power and illness are intertwined
How stress factors impact cellular health
How does the safety and efficacy of a particular herb get determined?
What is an adaptogen?
The value of taking herbs for essential hypertension
New treatment options for chronic Lyme patientsNovel therapeutic protocols offer hope for complex cases.
By Dr. Steve Harris
Summer, 2023
Summary:
Dr. Mike Snyder’s group at Stanford is working on multiomics for chronic fatigue that track an individual patient’s data. This will help Lyme/MSIDS patients because treatments need to be individualized as each case is different.
Mitochondrial work is going to become bigger because illness and wellness is fundamentally all about energy. Detoxing and absorbing nutrients will help the body function effectively without much external intervention.
Unique modalities like growth hormone, DHEA, and metformin are being used to decrease the age of cells to help the very complicated group of patients who are not getting better on standard treatments.
Regenerative therapies including exosomes, PRP, and alpha 2-macroglobulin, among others are also helpful for tendon issues, osteoarthritis and orthopedics but exosomes have been used in parallel to stem cell therapies which is written about in a book by Amy Scher titled, This is How I Save My Life. She wrote about her journey through India, where she received human embryonic stem cells, and went from a very severe neurologic case of Lyme to being quite well now.
Jaw misalignment, spinal issues, and craniocervical instability (all related to body structure) needs to be addressed due to the severe inflammation Lyme/MSIDS patients have.
Trauma needs to be addressed but often requires a circuitous approach such as the Dynamic Neural Retraining SystemTM (DNRS), vagus nerve training, neurofeedback, neuro stimulation, and various other methods. A scientist in Wisconsin, Yuri Danilov, developed the PoNS device, which is a tongue neurostimulation device owned by a company called Helius Medical technologies. It is FDA approved for head trauma but it also works for PTSD. They’re trying to get FDA approval and they are making it available to physical therapists. It’s mentioned in Dr. Norman Doidge’s book The Brain’s Way of Healing. Some patients have had phenomenal results using it.
The onion parable is used to explain the importance of peeling back layer after layer of issues an individual has – and recognizing that being infected with Lyme and/or the various coinfections is only one layer in this complex puzzle. Typically these onslaughts alone are not the problem, but the cumulative effect of multiple onslaughts is what makes us sick.
Viruses, which are becoming more of a problem, are opportunistic and cause the body to decompensate. Again, treating them singularly usually isn’t the answer, but they are important to consider in the overall picture.
mTOR Agents and Autophagy: Dr. Steven Phillips uses mTOR agents, (mammalian target of Rapamycin) to increase one’s autophagy (cleans the body of debris). Honokiol (magnolia leaf), doxycycline, methylene blue, vitamin D, and other agents increase autophagy.
Toxic load, nutrient status, and environmental stressors: using different kinds of fats helps patients through membrane chemistry to flush out debris in the lipid bilayer on the surface of cells. Many things cause patients to be overreactive and dealing with it is very important.
“In conclusion, these are a few different ways to address this most complicated, most difficult group of patients. I truly believe that everybody can get better, and I think that sharing that hope with the patient is a way for them to be able to hold on during what is a marathon for many of them. Not everybody needs to take every step, but the steps are there, and it can be done.” — Dr. Steven Harris
The idea that pathogens will jump species and kill humans is a useful scare tactic, and it’s now being pushed like never before under One Health — a global agenda that will allow unelected bureaucrats at the World Health Organization to centralize power and make decisions relating to diet, agriculture and livestock farming, environmental pollution, movement of populations, health care and much more, for the entire world
A report from Harvard Law School and New York University predicts the next pandemic is likely to emerge from the U.S. meat supply — or the fur trade, or a petting zoo, or from pets. It reviews all the different areas of life and commerce that involve animal and human contact and the subsequent hypothetical zoonotic transmission chains. One Health documents are repeatedly referenced in this report
Incontrovertible evidence has emerged showing that the scientists who wrote “Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” intentionally misled the public. In “Proximal Origin,” the authors insisted natural evolution was the most likely scenario, but in private, they thought a lab leak was the most likely origin
Correspondence shows the conspiracy to misdirect the public was driven by obedience to higher-ups within the U.S. and UK governments, including, potentially, the intelligence community
Based on the evidence now in the public domain showing that the authors of “Proximal Origin” did not believe their published conclusions, Biosafety Now! has launched a petition calling on Nature Medicine to retract the paper
The same people who went out of their way to convince us that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through natural evolution in the wild were privately saying they were convinced it came from a lab.
Now, were SARS-CoV-2 to be publicly acknowledged to be a genetically engineered lab-escape, the obvious conclusion would be that we need to shut down much of the gain-of-function research that led to its creation. Needless to say, that would be a significant setback for the biosecurity agenda, which needs pandemics to justify the centralization of power and decision-making.
Zoonotic Transmission Is Not the Threat It’s Made Out To Be
The fact of the matter is, zoonotic transmission is extremely rare, and most if not all global pandemics with lethal outcomes can be traced back to lab experiments. As just one example, USA Today1 recently reiterated the debunked claim that the 2013 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was caused by infected bush meat. (Another widely circulated hypothesis is that it emerged from infected bats.)
However, as detailed in “Turns Out, Ebola Likely Leaked From a Lab as Well,” there’s compelling evidence linking that outbreak to a U.S.-run research laboratory in Kenema, Sierra Leone. And, curiously, many of the same individuals, companies and organizations involved in the Ebola epidemic have also been linked to the alleged creation of SARS-CoV-2.
The idea that pathogens will jump species and kill humans is a useful scare tactic, however, and it’s now being pushed like never before under One Health — a global agenda that will allow unelected bureaucrats at the World Health Organization to centralize power and make decisions relating to diet, agriculture and livestock farming, environmental pollution, movement of populations, health care and much more, for the entire world.
Report Predicts Next Pandemic May Come From Meat
To that end, a report2 from the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School and the Center for Environmental & Animal Protection at New York University now predicts that the next pandemic is likely to emerge from the U.S. meat supply — or the fur trade, or a petting zoo, or from pets.
It basically reviews all the different areas of life and commerce that involve animal and human contact, however brief or rare, and the subsequent hypothetical zoonotic transmission chains. Not surprisingly, One Health documents are repeatedly referenced in this report.
Overall, the One Health agenda calls for minimizing or eliminating certain animal-human contact, sterilizing areas where animals are kept or butchered, and/or increasing the use of antibiotics and vaccines in animals across the board. It also calls for massively increased biosurveillance and testing.
In contrast, the report in question primarily focuses on legislative and regulatory actions to curtail zoonotic disease, including the potential banning of certain animal practices that “present great risk but relatively little value, economic or otherwise.”
Will the warnings in this report be used to justify the transition to fake meat? It certainly wouldn’t surprise me. The fake meat industry wants you to believe that their cell-based lab-concoctions are the answer to today’s environmental woes, and that includes the threat of zoonotic disease transmission, as lab-grown meat is grown in highly hygienic and sterile (supposedly) conditions.3
Basically, the One Health narrative is that the natural environment poses countless risks to human health and must therefore be controlled. Meanwhile, it’s mankind’s efforts to control and replace nature in the first place that is causing most of the problems.
The ‘Proximal Origin’ Scandal
While the One Health narrative is that pandemics are caused by animals, there’s little doubt that the next pandemic will come from a lab, just like most previous pandemics, including COVID-19. Over the past several months, more and more evidence has emerged showing that the scientists who wrote “Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”4 intentionally misled the public.
“Proximal Origin,” which became the most-cited paper (a Letter to the Editor mischaracterized everywhere as a serious scientific review), claimed SARS-CoV-2 emerged through natural evolution and spread via a wet market in Wuhan, China, and that there was no evidence to suggest genetic engineering or a lab origin.
Private communications, however, reveal they suspected the virus had leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and had been genetically engineered to infect humans.
Mounting evidence also suggests this act of misdirection (to put it diplomatically) was done at the behest of Dr. Anthony Fauci (then-director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID), Dr. Francis Collins (then-director of the National Institutes of Health, NIH) and Sir. Jeremy Farrar (then-head of the Wellcome Trust).
As noted in a July 20, 2023, Public Substack article by independent journalists Alex Gutentag, Leighton Woodhouse and Michael Shellenberger:5
“The documents … show [Kristian] Andersen and his co-authors, Andrew Rambaut, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert F. Garry, conspiring — by which we mean they made secret plans to engage in deceptive and unethical behavior and — to spread disinformation.
Their conspiracy included coordinating with their ‘higher-ups’ in the U.S. and UK governments to deceive journalists … We … today … release the full cache of Slack messages and emails covering the discussions between Andersen et al. as they wrote their influential ‘Proximal Origin’ paper, which Anthony Fauci and others in the U.S. government used to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis.”
While Fauci’s role in the creation of this paper has garnered the most attention, a more central culprit in this coverup may actually be Farrar — and he’s now the chief scientist for the WHO, a fact that hardly inspires confidence in the WHO’s future adherence to scientific truth and fact. The email exchange below between Andersen and Farrar (with other authors cc’d) suggests Farrar was a key decision-maker.
Proof of a Conspiracy
A 140-page PDF containing the “Proximal Origin” author’s Slack messages and a 163-page PDF of emails can be downloaded from the Public article,6 in which Gutentag, Woodhouse and Shellenberger go on to highlight some of the takeaways from this correspondence.
For starters, in “Proximal Origin,” the authors insisted natural evolution was the most likely scenario, but in private, they thought a lab leak was the most likely origin.
In “Proximal Origin” they claimed “the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus” and that “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.” Behind the scenes, however, Andersen wrote:
“I think the main thing still in my mind is that the lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario.”
Andersen also stated that “The main issue is that accidental escape is in fact highly likely — it’s not some fringe theory.” Farrar and the other authors expressed similar views:7
February 2, 2020, Dr. Robert Garry wrote, “I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario … I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature … Of course, in the lab it would be easy …”
February 2, 2020, Dr. Michael Farzan wrote he was “bothered by the furin site” and had “a hard time explain[ing] that as an event outside the lab … I am 70:30 or 60:40 [lab].”
February 2, 2020, Dr. Andrew Rambaut wrote, “From a (natural) evolutionary point of view the only thing here that strikes me as unusual is the furin cleavage site.”
February 4, 2020, Dr. Edward Holmes indicated that he was “60-40 lab,” and Farrar wrote, “I am 50-50 [lab].”
Holmes also commented: “No way selection could occur in the market. Too low a density of mammals: just small groups of 3-4 in cases,” and Garry wrote:8
“Transmitting a bat virus-like RatG13 in HeLa cells and then asking your graduate student to insert a furin site … would get you there. It’s not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the Gain of Function research we know is happening …
I’m thinking mostly about the PRRA to generate the furin site. Relatively easy to drop 12 bases in. The proline is the hang-up — why add that? Makes me think the cell culture passage scenario is possible/probably assuming this has in fact been observed before by Farzan and Fouchier.”
The following graphic, created by @RAEMKA1 and reposted by KanekoaTheGreat on Twitter summarizes the scientific consensus among the “Proximal Origin” authors:
Truth Took Backseat to Self-Preservation
Indeed, Andersen called Fauci February 1, 2020, specifically because he was concerned that the virus showed signs of being engineered. Immediately after that phone call, Fauci contacted Farrar and raised the possibility of taking the concern to the FBI in the U.S. and MI5 in the UK.
Instead, Farrar organized a conference call that led to the creation of “Proximal Origin.”9 From the emails, we know that the genetic engineering aspect of SARS-CoV-2 was discussed. However, concerns about harm to science apparently weighed heavier. After the call, Ron Fouchier wrote:10
“An accusation that nCoV-2019 might have been engineered and released into the environment by humans (accidental or intentional) would need to be supported by strong data, beyond reasonable doubt.
It is good that this possibility was discussed in detail with a team of experts. However, further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”
In a February 9, 2020, email, Christian Drosten also confirmed that the group had been “convened to challenge a certain theory,” and if possible, “drop” or eliminate that theory (i.e., the lab leak theory) from the public and scientific conversation. As recently as the day before, February 8, Andersen had made a case for keeping the possibility of a lab leak open, stating:11
“Our main work over the last couple of weeks has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory, but we are at a crossroad where the scientific evidence isn’t conclusive enough to say that we have high confidence in any of the three main theories considered.”
Authors Never Believed in the Pangolin Theory
In “Proximal Origin,” the authors went on to blame pangolins as an intermediate host between bats and humans, but in private, they remained unconvinced. The conclusion in “Proximal Origin” reads:12
“The presence in pangolins of an RBD [receptor binding domain] very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2 means that we can infer this was also probably in the virus that jumped to humans.”
However, shortly before the “Proximal Origin” pre-print was published, Andersen wrote: “For all I know, people could have infected the pangolin, not the other way,” and the day after the pre-print, he commented: “Clearly none of these pangolin sequences was the source though.”
Authors Thought Lab Leak Was Likely Months After Publication
The authors also clearly thought a lab leak was possible months after publishing the “Proximal Origin” paper. In mid-April 2020, a month after the paper was officially published and two months after the preprint was posted, Andersen wrote to his coauthors:
“I’m still not fully convinced that no culture was involved … are we absolutely certain that no culture could have been involved? What concerns me here are some of the comments by Shi in the SciAm article (‘I had to check the lab’ etc) and the fact that the furin site is being messed with in vitro …
Finally, the paper that was shared with us showing a very similar phenomenon (exactly 12 bp insertion) in other CoV’s has me concerned … We also can’t fully rule out engineering (for basic research).”
In fact, the authors — like so many other independent scientists, researchers and journalists — suspected Shi Zhengli’s work at the WIV could have produced SARS-CoV-2. As reported by Public:13
“Andersen discussed some of her papers in early February and noted his concerns about gain-of-function experiments on MERS and SARS viruses. In mid-April he noted that Shi’s work was ‘the main reason I have been so concerned about the ‘culture’ scenario.’
Cell culturing is a method through which viruses can be passed multiple times through cells in order to render them more infectious and is exactly the kind of ‘laboratory-based scenario’ the authors ruled out in their paper.”
Conspiracy Driven by Obedience to Higher-Ups
Finally, the correspondence shows that the conspiracy to misdirect, if not outright deceive, the public was driven by obedience to higher-ups within the U.S. and UK governments, including Farrar, Fauci and Collins, but also, potentially, other unnamed individuals within various government agencies and/or the intelligence community.
While Andersen has publicly denied that Fauci had any involvement in the publication, in an email to the journal Nature, Andersen specified that the paper had been “prompted” by Fauci, Collins and Farrar.14 If you want to take a deeper dive into how the “Proximal Origin” paper was created, check out U.S. Right to Know’s timeline.15
Scientists Call for Retraction of ‘Proximal Origin’
Based on all the evidence now in the public domain showing that the authors of “Proximal Origin” did not believe their published conclusions, Biosafety Now! has launched a petition16 calling on Nature Medicine to retract the paper. As noted by Biosafety Now!:
“Email messages and direct messages via the messaging program Slack among authors of the paper obtained under FOIA or by the U.S. Congress and publicly released in full in July 2023 … show, incontrovertibly, that the authors did not believe the conclusions of the paper at the time the paper was written, at the time the paper was submitted for publication, and at the time the paper was published.
They thus show that the paper was, and is, the product of scientific fraud and scientific misconduct. It is imperative that this clearly fraudulent and clearly damaging paper be removed from the scientific literature.”
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 