The Unfounded Science Behind the Covid-19 Pandemic

 

The Unfounded Science Behind the Covid-19
Pandemic

Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD
Progressive Radio Network, October 1, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has tossed our society into a quandary. The public is baffled over who to trust. Should we believe that the only accurate and honest scientific data about the virus and policy measures to lessen its spread is the proprietary information produced by Anthony Fauci, the NIAID and CDC and the institutions these federal agencies fund and cooperate with? Or are we to believe the mob of officials aligned with Trump or wealthy moguls such as Bill Gates who believe they possess all the answers money can buy and are on a destined mission to cure the planet? Are any of these ministries of truth being sincere and forthright in their pronouncements?

Barely a day passes without a news update about one of the three-hundred plus coronavirus vaccines currently in development. Unfortunately, the vaccine makers share very little of the actual data from their clinical trials that is sufficient for independent review. So far it has been a completely non-transparent effort and only cherry-picked information trickles to the medical media. Worse, several of these vaccines are being fast tracked through governments’ regulatory agencies based upon an unsound belief that they will curtail the virus’ spread. Yet haven’t we heard this before? It is repeated annually at the start of every flu season. And massive vaccination campaigns, at exorbitant taxpayer costs, have done absolutely nothing to curb influenza rates from one year to the next. But that is fine. There are still enormous profits at stake. It is good for the economy and terrible for health. Therefore, the launch of a coronavirus vaccine will be a golden trophy for the winning drug maker, a bonanza of windfall profits. And the mainstream media fully supports this scheme without making any effort to seek outside the federal health regime second professional medical opinions.

Until we can all be injected we are in the game of follow the leader. Should it be the US, with the most dismal record in the developed world for diagnosing and treating patient infections, who dictates to the international community? Or, should the world be following the lead of South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan or Vietnam who seemingly have been the most successful in keeping deaths per capita of infection at the lowest levels while also keeping their economies and societies functioning? Understandably, during the first months of the pandemic there was a great deal of confusion. Scientists were still frantically trying to discover the unique properties of the virus, which was also mutating in the course of their research. The World Health Organization kept changing its story. It was a scramble largely conducted in the dark.

The US policies of draconian lockdowns, widespread school and store closures, mandatory mass and social distancing are now showing all of the signs of being a horrible miscalculation and failure. We have witnessed the highest deaths among the elderly confined to quarantine in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and hospice care. Investigative reports have identified a scandal of deaths due to other medical conditions being ruled as Covid-19 mortalities. Unlike East Asian countries, the US didn’t begin to act diligently until long after the virus started to spread on our shores. Nor was the US prepared for any pandemic, whereas Taiwan, Japan and South Korea’s health ministries started preparing for a potential pandemic after the first SARS outbreak almost two decades ago. The US on the other hand has habitually refused to invest in prevention.

As the vaccine race is underway, the only uncertainty being the timeline for launch, we are faced with another critical issue that miraculously does not enter the public narrative. None of the diagnostic tests for Covid-19 accurately qualify as a gold standard. The polymerase chain reaction test or PCR is currently the standard test however it is unable to precisely determine whether a person is infectious with Covid-19. Nor can it accurately measure viral load. This is the test now being relied upon to calculate the country’s infectious rates.

We only need to read an FDA diagnostic document, “The CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus Diagnostic Panel” to realize the quandary federal health officials have forced upon us:

“The 2019-nCoV RNA is generally detectable in upper and lower respiratory specimens during infection. Positive results are indicative of active infection with 2019-nCoV but do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of the disease… Negative results do not preclude 2019-nCoV infection and should not be used as the sole basis for treatment or other patient management decisions.”

In an article in the journal Science commemorating the invention of PCR, the authors state the fundamental drawback of the technology as a diagnostic tool

“PCR is exquisitely sensitive and specific for detecting nucleic acid sequences, but simply knowing that a particular DNA or RNA sequence is present doesn’t prove it’s associated with a live organism.”

The authors further go on to explain that that is reason why in the food industry PCR is not used for assuring food safety and instead it relies upon culture assays which are more accurate and definitive.

Can the problems with PCR for diagnosing Covid-19 therefore be any clearer? Dr. Beda Stadler, the former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern in Switzerland, further added to the flaws with PCR:

“So if we do a PCR corona test on an immune person, it is not a virus that is detected, but a small shattered part of the viral genome. The test comes back positive for as long as there are tiny shattered parts of the virus left. Even if the infectious virus are long dead, a corona test can come back positive, because the PCR method multiplies even a tiny fraction of the viral genetic material enough [to be detected].”

PCR is simply a technology used for manufacturing DNA. It is based upon a principle of running “cycles” that increasingly reproduce and magnify the specimen. But there is no standard for the number of cycles required to confirm a positive diagnosis. According to David Crowe, the late president of the think tank Rethinking AIDS, “if you cut off at 20 [cycles], everybody would be negative. If you cut off at 50 [cycles], you might have everybody positive.”

It is therefore easy to recognize how PCR is an ideal technology to advance propaganda. At present, most PCR testing in the US is running between 35-40 cycles. Hence the high rate of Covid-19 cases in the US compared to another country using PCR at 30 cycles and reporting less cases. The FDA does not provide any cycle specifications for confirming a positive sample. Dr. Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California at Riverside states, “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 [cycles] could represent a positive.” Dr Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s School of Public Health, recommends 30 cycles or less.

During an interview with medical journalist Celia Farber, Dr. David Rasnick, a biochemist and founder of a Viral Forensics laboratory and a former researcher at the University of California Berkeley’s retroviral lab, expressed his reservations for relying on PCR for viral diagnostics:

“You don’t start with testing; you start with listening to the lungs. I’m skeptical that a PCR test is ever true. It’s a great scientific research tool. It’s a horrible tool for clinical medicine. 30% of your infected cells have been killed before you show symptoms.” This means that your body’s innate immune system is already killing pathogens.

He further warns people to avoid being tested with PCR, “no healthy person should be tested. It means nothing but it can destroy your life, make you absolutely miserable.”

Finally, some are taking notice of our national failure in accurately monitor the spread of the virus and infections rates, which is far less and doesn’t warrant the drastic regulations being enacted. New York Times reported, “in three sets of testing data that include [PCR] cycle thresholds, compiled by Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus.” In other words, these individuals can not be primary spreaders.

Earlier this month Massachusetts Department of Public Health had to suspend further testing for Covid-19 at a Boston laboratory because of an unusually high rate of false positive tests being reported. Sadly, the lab served about 60 nursing homes, with residents in poor health and already in quarantine. We must ask now many of the state’s elderly died due to unnecessary invasive therapies and drugs for an infection they never had?

However, Anthony Fauci is determined to convince the nation and the medical community that PCR is the best route for monitoring the pandemic before opening up the economy. The media also is intentionally conflating two different and distinct statistics: the number of people testing positive — although they have no viral activity and therefore pose no threat to others nor themselves, versus those who test positive and are actual carriers and potential spreaders. These are two separate demographics. For example, if you test 1,000 senior citizens, 75 years and older with coexisting comorbidities, and they test positive, then in deed they are at greater risk of serious complications and possibly death through a combination of the virus and their existing illness. But the media has us believing that anyone who tests positive is equally subject to become ill and die. This is a flagrant abuse of medical knowledge. PCR was invented 37 years ago. Hence it has been in use for a long time. PCR’s flaws are well known, yet this technology, which was never designed for diagnosing any pathogen is theoretically controlling our lives.

With the presidential election upon us, both parties are making efforts to weaponize the pandemic for their advantage at the polls. It is feasible that before mandating a Covid-19 vaccine, PCR testing will first be mandated.

Can we pause for a moment before charging forward with further draconian policies and laws that will inflict more harm and cause more deaths? Sadly, we cannot stop. There is no power that can stop the mad rush for a vaccine and the litany of false promises that will surely be spewed across the mainstream media after its available. America is systemically greedy. Washington, the pharmaceutical industrial complex and Wall Street are not run by any ethical standard. Their neoliberal ideology, growth and profit alone, is intrinsically amoral. Greed is the one and only virus that we can be certain is woven into our national DNA.