Recently I joined a group of 20 doctors and scientists around the world who put their names to the “Settling the Virus Debate” statement. In this two-page document we suggested, “rather than engaging in wasteful verbal sparring, let us put this argument to rest by doing clear, precise, scientific experiments that will, without any doubt, show whether these claims are valid.” Some of the individuals who believe that the existence of pathogenic viruses is an established fact, proceeded to immediately disagree. One was Steve Kirsch, who attempted to distract from the central tenet of our statement, being that virology had failed to carry out scientific control experiments. In reality, it is clear that the virologists have not shown that their techniques of “viral” cultures, genomics, and clinical diagnostics are valid even on their own terms. Indeed, I have not seen Kirsch or anyone else provide evidence that the appropriately-controlled experiments we suggested in the statement have been performed.
Kirsch admitted, “this is not my field of expertise at all. I rely on other people around me who I trust.” I have written a previous article about why I think Kirsch should be careful about trusting other “experts.” However, he continues to favour this approach and one of his trusted parties includes the pathologist/virologist Dr Sin Lee. Lee wrote, “Tom Cowan claimed the virus has not been isolated. But the virus has been isolated by the CDC and marketed by ATCC as the control materials. I bought the virus as the control for my CLIA tests. Many others do.” We have covered the follies concerning these claims of “isolation” many times and the CDC certainly have no studies demonstrating the existence of a pathogenic particle termed ‘SARS-CoV-2’. The ATCC simply repeat the claim by the CDC that their listed product contains a “virus” – however as I outlined in my first “Warning Signs” article, following the trail back to the start does not lead to any evidence of a virus in the biological potions being passed around.
On 18 July 2022, Lee sent the following email to Dr Tom Cowan:
I have a Preprint manuscript currently under peer review as follows. ://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202206.0192/v1 There is irrefutable Sanger sequencing evidence that the virus exists and keeps mutating. If Dr. Tom Cowan disagrees, please write a critique to challenge my data and interpretation online in the open. I will respond. Other scientists can join in for the debate.
The preprint paper is titled, “Implementation of the eCDC/WHO Recommendation for Molecular Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Subvariants and Its Challenges.” To expose the problems of virology it is crucial to examine the methodology section of any publication and in this case it is no different. In the “material and methods” section Lee stated that, “five (5) selective nasopharyngeal swab specimens collected from non-hospitalized patients with respiratory infection, which were confirmed to be true-positive for SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant by Sanger sequencing.” Here we are straight into the deep end of virology’s circular reasoning: the “virus” has been confirmed to exist on the basis of detected sequences from some nasopharyngeal swabs. There is nowhere in the paper that any evidence is provided for the existence of an actual virus, that is, a tiny particle that acts as an obligate intracellular parasite and is capable of causing disease in a host.
The claim that the specimens were, “true-positive[s] for SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant,” simply means some sequences that were previously deposited on genetic databases, and fraudulently declared to be “viral,” were being detected again. It doesn’t make any difference which sequencing technique is used, in this case bidirectional Sanger sequencing because the crucial issue is the provenance and clinical relevance of these detected sequences. This is the foundational issue in the entire COVID-19 fraud: there is no virus, simply sequences falsely claimed to be evidence of an actual virus. The World Health Organisation helped orchestrate the deception when it declared that a confirmed ‘case’ of infection with the invented virus is simply the detection of some of these sequences. We have covered this absurd circular reasoning in much of our work including in Sam’s 2020 video “What Is A Covid-19 Case?” (And rapid antigen tests are covered here.)
Back to Lee’s paper and in the following paragraph of the “material and methods” section, he described the, “RNA Extraction from Nasopharyngeal Swab Specimens,” as follows:
As previously reported [25-27], the cellular pellet derived from about 1 mL of the nasopharyngeal swab rinse along with 0.2 mL supernatant after centrifugation was first digested in a buffered solution containing sodium dodecyl sulfate and proteinase K. The digestate was extracted with phenol. The nucleic acid was precipitated by ethanol and redissolved in 50 μL of DEPC-treated water.
In other words, there was no step to demonstrate: (a) there were any “viral” particles contained within the samples, or (b) that the RNA came from such imagined viral particles. A reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was then applied to these undifferentiated samples to generate amplicons ranging from 398 to 707 nucleotides in length. Most of these sequences spanned the so-called ‘Spike protein’ gene of the alleged SARS-CoV-2 genome, as that was the area of interest for the study. In the next step it was stated:
The crude nested PCR products showing an expected amplicon at agarose gel electrophoresis were subjected to automated Sanger sequencing without further purification.
In fact, at no stage was an attempt undertaken to purify any entity from the crude nasopharyngeal specimens. The entire basis of the study was built on the unestablished premise that the genetic sequences detected were already known to come from inside a pathogenic particle.
The “results” section then detailed the nucleotide sequences of the various amplicons that were generated from the crude samples. Some of the codons (three-nucleotide units that encode a particular amino acid or stop signal) were described as “mutated” on the basis of comparisons to other sequences previously deposited on the genetic databanks. The use of the word ‘mutation’ is problematic in itself, because it implies that a genome has been altered. A genome must belong to a discrete biological entity, so virology is once again misusing terminology to imply that a certain proof has been established. Lee’s study was simply looking at RNA sequences in uncontrolled experiments.
Those of us that dispute the virus narrative point out that no RNA (or DNA) sequences have ever been shown to come from inside any specific identifiable particle that fulfils the definition of a virus. Thus all RNAs can only be said to be expressed by a known organism, introduced artificially (e.g. synthetic mRNA injections) or be of unknown provenance. The “mutations” only exist within in silico models that have not been shown to be independent entities in nature. There are other reasons why RNA sequences can and do vary in dynamic biological systems and I can’t imagine that any virologist would disagree with this fact. Simply detecting RNAs is not enough to draw conclusions about their provenance. Other experiments are required to make this determination.
In our first COVID-19 Fraud essay we documented the original invention of SARS-CoV-2 by Fan Wu’s team who assembled an in silico “genome” from genetic fragments of unknown provenance, found in the crude lung washings of a single ‘case’ and documented in, “A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China.” Their in silico construct served as a reference for others to then “find” the same “virus” around the world, without evidence that such a particle actually existed.
In our soon to be published follow-up COVID-19 Fraud essay we will provide a more detailed explanation as to why detecting nucleic acid sequences per se in crude specimens or cell cultures does not provide the required evidence for “viruses.” In the essay we will also follow the trail back to the first ever declarations of “coronavirus genomes” in the 1980s and show that no viruses were demonstrated in any part of the trail. However, such sequence data is used to promulgate the illusion of “virus” family trees, or claimed “mutations” as discussed above.
Dr Lee’s paper does not even appear to be designed to demonstrate the existence of a postulated disease-causing particle. I sent him several questions including, “I have read the preprint and there does not appear to be a hypothesis presented – is that correct?”, “In your study there did not appear to be any controls (e.g. checking for selected sequences in other nasopharyngeal specimens from humans said not to have the alleged virus) – presumably that was by design?” and “What is your definition of a ‘virus’ in the paper?” Lee responded, “your questions are irrelevant to you [sic] intention to write a comment or critique on the manuscript involved,” and suggested I write something in the preprint website’s comment section.
Lee has provided a descriptive paper that omits a falsifiable hypothesis so it is unclear why he would present it as experimental evidence, let alone “irrefutable” evidence of the existence of SARS-CoV-2. His paper is inappropriately designed for this purpose and his claim engages in a circular reasoning fallacy: the genetic sequences are proffered as evidence of the virus, because it was presupposed that they come from the virus. We are asking, “where is the virus?”
It’s back to the drawing board for virology: it invented the theory of viruses, so whatever method it employs to prove their existence, it must satisfy that definition. In fact, do the virologists even have a theory? The definition of a scientific theory is:
an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that has been repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results.
Our “Settling the Virus Debate” statement proposes that the virologists need to employ the required scientific method as a starting point. It is not looking good for them because they have not even demonstrated any internal validity on their own terms. According to science they may not even have a theory. If they have a hypothesis, they need to specify an independent variable (in this case the postulated “virus”) and a dependent variable for analysis. Moreover, to even get started, the independent variable must first be shown to physically exist. I would implore Steve Kirsch to reconsider taking advice from these “experts” and to commence his own investigations into the house of virology. By scientific accounts, it is a house of cards.
Postscript
(Derived from: A. F. Chalmers, What is this thing called Science?, 2nd ed, 1982)
‘Observational statements are frequently presupposed by theory. Such statements are always made in the language of some theory and will be as precise as the theoretical or conceptual framework that they utilise is precise’. In this instance, a virus particle was not observed first and subsequently viral theory and pathology developed. Scientists of the mid and late nineteenth century were preoccupied with the identification of imagined contagious pathogenic entities.
‘The observations of the naïve inductionist did not identify a virus a priori, and then set about studying its properties and characteristics. The extant presupposition of the time was that a very small germ particle existed that may explain contagion. What came thereafter arose to fulfil the presuppositional premise’.
‘A popular view of scientific knowledge is that it is proven knowledge and scientific theories are derived in some righteous way from the facts of experience acquired by observation and experiment. Science is based upon what we can see, hear, measure and touch. Science is objective and explicit. Scientific knowledge is reliable knowledge because it is objectively proven knowledge’.
‘A realistic scientific theory will consist of a complex of universal statements rather than a single statement. Further a theory will need to be augmented by auxiliary assumptions, such as laws and theories governing the use of any instruments used, for instance’.
‘The premises from which the prediction is derived must also include the interconnected statements that constitute the theory under test, the initial conditions, and the auxiliary assumptions. Falsification of the theory also indicates the possibility of a failure of any number of the associated assumptions and conditions, and not necessarily of the theory itself’.
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr M. C. McGrath (New Zealand) for his constructive criticisms and inspiration for the postscript.
Dr. Mark Bailey
Mark Bailey, MB ChB PGDipMSM MHealSc is a microbiology, medical industry and health researcher who worked in medical practice, including clinical trials, for two decades.
