Continuing my "greatest COVID hits" articles. To read my introduction to this ongoing series, go here. To support my work and get value for value, order my Matrix collections here and subscribe to my substack here.
February 4, 2020
In
my research on so-called epidemics and viruses over the last 30 years,
I’ve examined a point very few people want to think about.
Does the virus being promoted actually exist?
It
might seem absurd to ask that. “Well, of course it exists. Why else
would experts be saying it’s causing disease and death? Why else are
they developing a vaccine?”
I don’t buy that reply at face value. Never have, never will.
Let
me illustrate with a short tale. ---Word goes out to an elite
intelligence agency that a stranger on a train is a spy, and he is
dangerous. He must be captured. The Agency sends a few people to board
the train.
Who
is the spy? What does he look like? Unknown. The agents move from car
to car looking at passengers. From “past experience” in profiling
suspects, they decide their target is probably a man in sleeping car
100. They knock on his door. He opens it. They place him under arrest.
The
next thing the Agency knows, a week later, the ops director says,
“Boys, he was the one, we have our man. He was planning to blow up
bridges. Great work.”
Evidence
of guilt? Proof? Was the initial story about a spy on a train even
true? Answers unknown. But who cares? The job is done.
With
a purported new epidemic disease, how do researchers find the man on
the train? What method do they use to isolate a unique virus that is
present in the bodies of people who are sick?
Various
experts will offer various answers. In a moment, I’ll present an
interview with a researcher who proposes a method. To sum up this method
in simplistic terms: you remove a tissue sample from a person suspected
of carrying a virus. Taking a tiny piece of that sample, you place it
into a sugar solution and spin it in a centrifuge at high speed. The
solution settles out, according to layers of density and weight. You
presumably know, from past experience, which layer will contain
particles of virus (if they are there). From that layer, you remove a
small sample. You look at it under an electron microscope. You
photograph what you see. If you’ve found a virus, you should be able to
observe many copies of it in the photo. From analyzing these copies, you
should be able to tell what kind of virus you’ve found. This is a very
rough description of the process.
To
announce to the world that you’ve found a virus that’s causing a
rapidly spreading and dangerous epidemic, you should be sure of your
work. You
should have performed the above process on MANY, MANY supposed human
carriers of the virus, and you should have obtained the same result in
the overwhelming percentage of cases. And independent researchers should
be able to replicate your work.
In
the Chinese epidemic, and in other past epidemics, I’ve seen no
evidence that this process of isolation was employed on many, many
patients with the same result---much less the independent confirmation.
Therefore,
the whole inquiry and research are in doubt. Simply announcing to the
world that “the virus has been found” means nothing.
All
right. Here are excerpts from an interview. It gets somewhat
technical. It was conducted by a brilliant independent journalist,
Christine Johnson. The interviewee is Dr. Eleni Papadopulos, “a
biophysicist and leader of a group of HIV/AIDS scientists from Perth in
Western Australia. Over the past decade and more she and her colleagues
have published many scientific papers questioning the HIV/AIDS
hypothesis...”
CJ: Does HIV cause AIDS?
EP: There is no proof that HIV causes AIDS.
CJ: Why not?
EP: For many reasons, but most importantly, because there is no proof that HIV exists.
[...]
CJ: Didn't Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo [purportedly the co-discoverers of HIV] isolate HIV back in the early eighties?
EP: No. In the papers published in Science
by those two research groups, there is no proof of the isolation of a
retrovirus from AIDS patients. [HIV is said to be a retrovirus.]
CJ: They say they did isolate a virus.
EP:
Our interpretation of the data differs. To prove the existence of a
virus you need to do three things. First, culture cells and find a
particle you think might be a virus. Obviously, at the very least, that
particle should look like a virus. Second, you have to devise a method
to get that particle on its own so you can take it to pieces and analyze
precisely what makes it up. Then you need to prove the particle can
make faithful copies of itself. In other words, that it can replicate.
CJ: Can't you just look down a microscope and say there's a virus in the cultures?
EP: No, you can't. Not all particles that look like viruses are viruses.
[...]
CJ:
My understanding is that high-speed centrifugation is used to produce
samples consisting exclusively of objects having the same density, a
so-called "density-purified sample." Electron microscopy is used to see
if these density-purified samples consist of objects which all have the
same appearance --- in which case the sample is an isolate --- and if
this appearance matches that of a retrovirus, in terms of size, shape,
and so forth. If all this is true, then you are three steps into the
procedure for obtaining a retroviral isolate. (1) You have an isolate,
and the isolate consists of objects with the same (2) density and (3)
appearance of a retrovirus. Then you have to examine this isolate
further, to see if the objects in it contain reverse transcriptase [an
enzyme] and will replicate when placed in new cultures. Only then can
you rightfully declare that you have obtained a retroviral isolate.
EP:
Exactly. It was discovered that retroviral particles have a physical
property which enables them to be separated from other material in cell
cultures. That property is their buoyancy, or density, and this was
utilized to purify the particles by a process called density gradient
centrifugation.
The
technology is complicated, but the concept is extremely simple. You
prepare a test tube containing a solution of sucrose, ordinary table
sugar, made so the solution is light at the top but gradually becomes
heavier, or more dense, towards the bottom. Meanwhile, you grow whatever
cells you think may contain your retrovirus. If you're right,
retroviral particles will be released from the cells and pass into the
culture fluids. When you think everything is ready, you decant a
specimen of culture fluids and gently place a drop on top of the sugar
solution. Then you spin the test tube at extremely high speeds. This
generates tremendous forces, and particles present in that drop of fluid
are forced through the sugar solution until they reach a point where
their buoyancy prevents them from penetrating any further. In other
words, they drift down the density gradient until they reach a spot
where their own density is the same as that region of the sugar
solution. When they get there they stop, all together. To use
virological jargon, that's where they band. Retroviruses band at a
characteristic point. In sucrose solutions they band at a point where
the density is 1.16 gm/ml.
That
band can then be selectively extracted and photographed with an
electron microscope. The picture is called an electron micrograph, or
EM. The electron microscope enables particles the size of retroviruses
to be seen, and to be characterized by their appearance.
CJ: So, examination with the electron microscope tells you what fish you've caught?
EP: Not only that. It's the only way to know if you've caught a fish. Or anything at all.
CJ: Did Montagnier and Gallo do this?
EP:
This is one of the many problems. Montagnier and Gallo did use density
gradient banding, but for some unknown reason they did not publish any
Ems [electron microscope photos] of the material at 1.16 gm/ml…this is
quite puzzling because in 1973 the Pasteur Institute hosted a meeting
attended by scientists, some of whom are now amongst the leading HIV
experts. At that meeting the method of retroviral isolation was
thoroughly discussed, and photographing the 1.16 band of the density
gradient was considered absolutely essential.
CJ: But Montagnier and Gallo did publish photographs of virus particles.
EP:
No. Montagnier and Gallo published electron micrographs [EMs] of
culture fluids that had not been centrifuged, or even separated from the
culture cells, for that matter. These EMs contained, in addition to
many other things, including the culture cells and other things that
clearly are not retroviruses, a few particles which Montagnier and Gallo
claimed are retroviruses, and which all belonged to the same retroviral
species, now called HIV. But photographs of unpurified particles don't
prove that those particles are viruses. The existence of HIV was not
established by Montagnier and Gallo --- or anyone since --- using the
method presented at the 1973 meeting.
CJ: And what was that method?
EP:
All the steps I have just told you. The only scientific method that
exists. Culture cells, find a particle, isolate the particle, take it to
pieces, find out what's inside, and then prove those particles are able
to make more of the same with the same constituents when they're added
to a culture of uninfected cells.
CJ:
So before AIDS came along there was a well-tried method for proving the
existence of a retrovirus, but Montagnier and Gallo did not follow this
method?
EP:
They used some of the techniques, but they did not undertake every step
including proving what particles, if any, are in the 1.16 gm/ml band of
the density gradient, the density that defines retroviral particles.
CJ: But what about their pictures?
EP: Montagnier's and Gallo's electron micrographs…are of entire cell cultures, or of unpurified fluids from cultures...
(end of interview excerpt)
If
you grasp the essentials of this discussion, you’ll see there is every
reason to question the existence of HIV, because the methods for proving
its existence were not followed.
Therefore,
more questions emerge. How many other viruses have been named as causes
of disease, when in fact those viruses have never been isolated or
proved to exist?
Of
course, conventional-consensus researchers and doctors will scoff at
any attempt to raise these issues. For them, “the science is
settled.” Meaning: they don’t want to think. They don’t want to stir the
waters.
I
want to be clear about what I’m asserting here. There are very serious
questions about whether a variety of viruses have ever been isolated,
proven to exist, and
proven to be causing disease. An OPEN, lengthy, ongoing, published
debate needs to be undertaken among researchers---including independent
researchers.
These vital issues should never be concealed behind closed elite doors.
~~~
(The link to this article posted on my blog is here -- with sources.)
(Follow me on Substack, Twitter, and Gab at @jonrappoport) |
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