SARS Virus

[Stu]

I would be interested in your thoughts on a revelation made to the European Parliament about the origins of the SARS and eventual COVID virus, its spread and the behaviour of vaccine manufacturers made to the European Parliament last week. This is shown on a very long You Tube video, but skip forward to 13 minutes and listen to the 15 minutes or so account from D Martin.

I found it astonishing and horrific and I would like to know what others make of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFLPWWCAHfQ&t=0s

[Myopic Bookworm]

There's a lot of classic rhetorical manipulation in what Martin says here. For example, talking of the early work on isolating and identifying coronaviruses in the 1960s, he makes ordinary Anglo-American scientific collaboration sound dramatic by calling it a "transatlantic experiment in human manipulation", even though at that date we hadn't much of a clue how to modify viruses, especially those of a type that had only just been identified. He makes a big thing of the fact that Pfizer patented a spike protein vaccine in 1990, but it's not a surprise to me; the spike protein was only a novelty in 2020 to people who had never heard of coronaviruses before (including those who suddenly became virology experts and made themselves famous as conspiracy theorists). He loudly states a couple of times that research showed "the vaccine doesn't work", but only once slips in the quiet rider "...against coronavirus" (by which time the anti-vaxxers have stopped listening), and the reason is mutability, which is familiar in influenza and means only that the vaccine has to be constantly updated, not that it is useless. He castigates the development of biological weapons, particularly by the US, as though this is news, but I'm sure people were generally aware that cold war military research included biological, chemical, and nuclear research in the US and elsewhere. He focuses on the coincidence of a (non-replicating) coronavirus weapon patent in 2002 (in the US) and the emergence of (replicating) SARS-CoV in 2003 (in SW China), but fails to link them plausibly, and throws in a totally misleading reference to the Wuhan wet market (in central China), which is the proposed source of SARS-CoV-2, not of the 2003 SARS virus. He leans on the use of the word "release" in the technical report on risk, though it is obvious that a technical report is going to use this word where a journalist might use the vague and informal word "leak". He implies that the pandemic was planned to produce funding, but his evidence only shows that there were plans to exploit the media hype surrounding any pandemic in order to keep medical research funded, not actually to initiate a pandemic.

So, my takeaway is that he is right to seek greater regulation of biological research in potentially dangerous areas, greater accountability among commercial organizations exploiting such research for profit, and serious engagement in legal compliance by the US. But the notion that the Covid-19 pandemic was in any way deliberate is simply not supported by the arguments, and the people who foam at the mouth about "genocide" in the comments are simply misguided (especially as many of them seem undecided as to whether the genocide was the release of the virus or the use of the vaccine!). Clearly the vaccine development for Covid-19 was hugely boosted by the existence of established bioweapons and biodefence research. There may be a need for biological warfare to receive the same public attention and protest as nuclear warfare: but history doesn't indicate that such protest has made a substantial difference to the actual posture of the nuclear powers.

Fact-check on some issues: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/fact ... 408658001/

[Stu]

Thanks for your input. What Dr Martin is alleging is shocking to say the least, but this is why I threw it open. I have no expertise on this and I wondered if someone who was more knowledgeable than me would offer some insights.

Stu

[Barleymower]

Stu

Myopic bookworm presents a clear rebuttal of Dr Martin statements.
I'm not in a position side with either party on the matter. I am neither qualified or informed sufficiently to comment.
However there remain a lot of unanswered questions regarding the pandemic. The universal response to the problem was strange to say the least and the ability to so rapidly deploy of the vaccine for example.
The use of the term conspiracy theory is itself suspect - what would a leader do when their activites are posted up on the net and discussed? One thing they can do is accuse anything which isnt their truth as conspiracy.
I'll leave it there.

[Myopic Bookworm]

However there remain a lot of unanswered questions regarding the pandemic. The universal response to the problem was strange to say the least and the ability to so rapidly deploy of the vaccine for example.

Not sure what was strange about the response, since the UN and other global organizations, as well as national health systems, have contingency plans in place for pandemic diseases. (The UK notably had such a plan, which involved keeping stocks of protective equipment, which the Conservative government let lapse, thinking it a waste of money, though not as much of a waste as the billions they threw at their dodgy friends in order to meet the urgent need!)

As for vaccines, one of the things that Martin mentions is that generic vaccines for coronavirus spike proteins were already known about. The other point about the speed is that much of the time and effort normally needed for vaccine development is spent in just trying to get funding: the global crisis sidestepped that obstacle. (And it's hardly a surprise that the companies that got vaccines together quickly were mainly those already researching the field.) In many countries, the infrastructure for mass vaccination was already in place for diseases such as influenza or cholera.

[Barleymower]

You seem to be well informed and I'm sure you would eloquently put down any feeble argument I tried to put forward.
So here is my bottom line. I look around me and observe the events of the last 50 years and I know my government or its govenment, the city do not have my interests at heart. This makes me susceptible to any conspiracy going around. This doesn't mean that they telling the truth.

[Grok]

I read The Hot Zone (1995) some years ago. This book focused on the study of ebola, with mention of Marburg. Study of ebola in a high tech lab, by researchers wearing what could be described as space suits.

The point being that there is a willingness to spend significant money on naturally occurring pathogens. No need to associate Covid with biological weapons or conspiracies.

BTW, Covid illustrates a problem with biological weapons-how do you control them?

[rode_kater]

However there remain a lot of unanswered questions regarding the pandemic. The universal response to the problem was strange to say the least and the ability to so rapidly deploy of the vaccine for example.

Actually, I find this one of the hopeful parts: proof that we as a species can actually get things done if we put our minds to it. China can build nuclear reactors in 6 years. Germany can build LNG terminals in six months if necessary. And we got off lightly as this was a fairly weak pandemic in the end, it could have been much much worse (this was no Spanish flu).

And simultaneously depressing because there are many other problem we could fix if we wanted to, but don't.

Though "universal response" to COVID is a stretch, in Europe and the US it kinda worked (with all the attendant bickering) but much of the rest of the world was patchy, especially in Africa. They got shipped lots of useless vaccines.