Civil Defense Perspectives – Page 3 – Physicians for Civil Defense

“Hacking the Software of Life”

Civil Defense Perspectives vol. 36 #3

The novel genetically engineered biologic agents called COVID-19 “vaccines” are not really new or untested, the manufacturers say. The technology has been researched for more than 20 years. Of course, protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been studied if the virus didn’t yet exist or was unknown. But the genomics and bioengineering that have allowed their “warp speed” development are far advanced and go far beyond protection against emerging viral diseases.

While we are assured that the mRNA products do not affect the human genome, ModeRNA’s chief medical officer, Tal Zaks, stated in a TED talk that “we are actually hacking the software of life” (https://tinyurl.com/42wzfjss). ModeRNA describes our genes and their transcription into proteins as “our operating system” and its vaccine as a “computer operating system.”

Genetic engineering, along with robotics, molecular nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, is seen as a tool for transforming humanity into a post-human species.

“The Covid-19 pandemic is providing gene-based vaccines a chance to break through into the global health market,” writes foreign policy analyst Christina Lin in The Times of Israel (tinyurl.com/cnfjmzr4). “Instead of injecting a piece of virus into a person to stimulate the immune system, the synthesized genes would be shot into the body whereby the genes are edited, deleted, added, to re-engineer human DNA to resist the disease [emphasis added].”

Bill Gates says that mRNA products turn your body into a vaccine factory that makes the antigen—viral spike protein, and your immune system learns to make antibodies (CDP September 2020;35(5)). Then “the cell breaks down the instructions and gets rid of them,” states the CDC (https://tinyurl.com/3c8jxm6r).

How Is the Body Controlled?

Gates also alluded to building the computer system (https://tinyurl.com/y3nb4y8k)—which requires hardware. Software is information, which sets electronic switches to “off” or “on” to perform the function programmed by the operator. This requires conductors, connectors, and electrical current. What is the equivalent biological hardware?

We do not understand the function of most of the human genome, or of the mechanisms that turn the expression of various genes “on” or “off.” Nor do we know how specific behavior is activated in spontaneously acting organisms, nor how the cells in the entire body are coordinated to support a function.

We are familiar with chemical messengers called hormones, with electrical impulses carried by nerves, and with chemical neurotransmitters at synapses. But there are other signaling methods, including light, and intense research on how to use them.

From a 2019 review of “Light-mediated control of Gene expression in mammalian cells” (tinyurl.com/2jy6zhrb), we learn the following: “Taking advantage of the recent development of genetically-defined photo-activatable actuator molecules, cellular functions, including gene expression, can be controlled by exposure to light.” Authors state the need for “tools to manipulate gene expression at fine spatial and temporal resolution.” They also discuss artificial light control of cellular function using genetically encoded light-sensitive actuator molecules and a light-sensitive ion channel, Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2). The “gene encoding ChR2 can be delivered or expressed in defined sets of neurons by virus vectors or transgenic strategies.” This can be used for “inducing temporally-precise activation/inhibition of targeted neurons.” Authors anticipate that gene expression systems “will be applied to broad fields of neuroscience to understand various brain functions…, including learning and memory.”

Optogenetic signaling has been used to change memory engrams in mice and reverse the fear/reward conditioned responses associated with them (https://tinyurl.com/8e6jd7ew). It is possible to implant false memories and generate a behavioral fear response (Science 7/26/13).

The specific type of gene expression control system also regulates the degradation rate of mRNA.

How does one deliver light to the tissues? In vivo experiments have implanted optical fibers, but these tether animals to limited places and restrict their behaviors. Small implantable light-emitting diodes (LED) have been used in cable-free optogenetic experimental setups (ibid.). Light-emitting proteins (luciferases) in the body are other possibilities. SM-102, listed as an ingredient in ModeRNA “vaccine” is an amino lipid nanoparticle commonly used to transfer luciferase mRNA, which circulates through the whole body for bioluminescent expression. Note that lipid nanoparticles penetrate the blood-brain barrier.

Synthetic, light-receptive molecules—or photoswitches—can be used to tap into native signaling, as at GABA, glutamate, and acetylcholine receptors, according to a 2017 review from the University of California at Berkeley (tinyurl.com/9c33r4a6).

Have you never heard of optogenetics—“biological technique that involves the use of light to control neurons that have been genetically modified to express light-sensitive ion channels”? Type it into Google and get 3.8 million hits.

Other signaling methods are also advanced. Charles Lieber of Harvard figured out how to get virus-size transistors into cells by coating them with a lipid layer (tinyurl.com/3yru4z6e).

In 2017, it was suggested that magnetogenetics could become the new optogenetics (https://tinyurl.com/sy72vhyr), activating neurons deep in the brain, as magnetic fields pass through organic tissues. Polyethyleneglycol-coated synthetic magnetite nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄) delivered to the brain in mice produced neuron activation with a radiofrequency stimulus. It may be possible to co-opt ferritins from species, such as chitons, known to generate magnetite.

Sonogenetics uses ultrasound to control cells that have been genetically modified with ultrasound-sensitive ion channels, to investigate intact brain circuits, and to modulate mammalian brain activity (https://tinyurl.com/saups8s7).

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to “identify the conductor of [the] brain’s neural orchestra and begin to decode the score” (tinyurl.com/p2vz5r9t). It also wants to “jolt the nervous system with electricity, lasers, sound waves, and magnets” (tinyurl.com/3k69rz59). Just to control prostheses and cure disease? Or to replace the conductor?

Does this give a new meaning to the Gates population control agenda? Do these “vaccines” install hardware and software?

Genetic Scissors and Gene Drive

Genetic editing involves inducing double-stranded breaks in DNA and replacing the excised portion with a desired sequence. A gene drive can change inheritance patterns so that all offspring get the altered gene that previously might have been inherited as an autosomal recessive. The stated purpose is to control invasive species or eradicate disease vectors such as mosquitoes. One danger is escape to non-targeted populations. Progress has been greatly accelerated through CRISPR/Cas9 technology.

CRISPR is an acronym for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.” Cas9 is a special CRISPR-associated nuclease (Cas9) that chops off a piece of DNA. The nuclease is directed to its target sequence by a short RNA fragment known as a guide RNA (gRNA). Once scientists learned how the CRISPR system worked in bacteria infected by viruses, they figured out how to reprogram it to allow efficient editing in any species (https://tinyurl.com/6t9rtc34).

Could this be used for “customizing the human race”? In December 2015, an international group of scientists called for a moratorium on making inheritable changes to the human genome (https://tinyurl.com/ytrda3mv). However, in February 2016, British regulators approved a gene-editing experiment on human embryos (https://tinyurl.com/2nadndk2). The 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, now at the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, and Jennifer Doudna, at UC Berkeley, for developing the CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing tools that researchers hope to use to alter human genes to eliminate diseases (tinyurl.com/ysrc49up).

In Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the technique is being used to develop novel population control strategies. Mosquitoes harboring the transgenes were readily identified by red fluorescent expression in their abdomen (https://tinyurl.com/tf56uyxz).

In 2011, two London geneticists got an inserted gene to reach 85% of a mosquito population. But “hijacking evolution” raises key questions. “Gene drives have the potential to alter…entire ecosystems” (Science 7/11/19).

In May 2021, genetically engineered mosquitoes have been released in Florida (https://tinyurl.com/342f79z6).

Transfection

The delivery of nucleic acids into cells is called transfection. The programmable guide RNA (gRNA) and Cas9 can be introduced as either DNA, RNA, or pre-complexed RNA and protein called ribonucleoproteins (RNPs). It can be accomplished by physical, chemical, or viral-mediated methods.

“Because the genes are integrated into the cellular genome, they will be passed down to future generations of cells after cell division. The expression of Cas9 and/or guide RNA genes can be either inducible (e.g., by a trigger, such as a drug) or constitutive (occurring at all times)” (https://tinyurl.com/h98nrx7u).

A two-stage process might be used. An inactive fragment might be delivered in an injection. A second fragment transfected by a virus might then combine with it and perform a gene incision when activated by light.

Adenovirus is the most common vector, used by J&J and AstraZeneca. Polyethyleneglycol (PEG) attached to lipid nanoparticles [used by Pfizer and ModeRNA] protects the RNA against degradation and can facilitate nuclear entry (https://tinyurl.com/2y9vudvb).

Connections

· Charles Lieber (see p 1) was indicted in 2020 (https://tinyurl.com/29vbbnf3) for failing to disclose payments from the Chinese Communist Party to build a nanotechnology laboratory in Wuhan. Trial is pending (https://tinyurl.com/8f9wy95m).

· Robert Langer of MIT, co-founder of ModeRNA whose holdings in the company now top $1 billion, (tinyurl.com/6vh74wt6) worked with Lieber on a number of patents.

· Funding sources for the COVID “vaccine”- related technology and genetic engineering include DARPA, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the late Jeffrey Epstein.

· Boris Nikolic, named by Epstein as backup executor, who tried to set up a biotech investment fund with Gates, Epstein, and JPMorgan (https://tinyurl.com/b2h2b96v), now works with Langer to build a medical record embedding vaccination information in the skin.

· China reportedly has the world’s largest database of genetic material—80 million profiles (https://tinyurl.com/539cfxvf). It is collecting more, with coronavirus test kits supplied by a firm financed by Bill Gates (https://tinyurl.com/n7t8z6hb).

#MagnetChallenge

A search on “#MagnetChallenge” turns up sites debunking the viral videos showing magnets sticking to COVID jab sites. Fact-checkers assure us that the jabs do not contain metals, chips are not magnetic, and it’s a conspiracy theory to discourage vaccination. But did magnets really stick to some 40% of vaccinees in Laguna Beach (tinyurl.com/cf9uahyw)? Are all these people lying (tinyurl.com/cfeuw25v)? Check the fact-checkers yourself. If true, the phenomenon demands an explanation.

The Funvax Proposal

In 2004, geneticist Gene Hamer wrote The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. In 2005, Bill Gates presented his Funvax proposal to the Pentagon (tinyurl.com/2t3hjw2r). He stated that religious fundamentalism was correlated with expressions of the VMAT2 gene and suggested that vaccinating against that gene, as with a respiratory virus, could prevent terrorism.

“Eliminate the Soul with Medicine”

“In the future, we will eliminate the soul with medicine. Under the pretext of a ‘healthy point of view’, there will be a vaccine by which the human body will be treated as soon as possible directly at birth, so that the human being cannot develop the thought of the existence of soul and Spirit.

“To materialistic doctors, will be entrusted with the task of removing the soul of humanity. As today, people are vaccinated against this disease or disease, so in the future, children will be vaccinated with a substance that can be produced precisely in such a way that people, thanks to this vaccination, will be immune to being subjected to the ‘madness’ of spiritual life. He would be extremely smart, but he would not develop a conscience, and that is the true goal of some materialistic circles.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), tinyurl.com/z9hjft9d

[An Austrian philosopher, spiritualist, and literary critic, Steiner founded the Waldorf School movement.]

Insurrection?

Civil Defense Perspectives vol. 36 #1

The incursion into the Capitol building on Jan 6 is frequently called an “insurrection” by the media. A very strange one indeed. There were zero guns confiscated. There was only one violent death: an unarmed woman, Ashli Babbitt, was shot by the Capitol police. There was no attempt to remove and replace the sitting government, but rather a demand to investigate allegations of election fraud before certifying the results. There were no hostages, no bombs, no incendiaries—a stark contrast with the attacks by Islamic terrorists, Antifa, or the Weather Underground in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Following the (Fake) Science

Civil Defense Perspectives, vol. 35 #4

If we speak of “science” today, we are speaking mostly of government-funded science. Since 1940, the U.S. population has expanded less than 3-fold, while the federal government has exploded 28-fold (Richard Maybury, Early Warning Report, December 2020) and dominates most enterprises. Academic centers are dependent on federal funding for their research, even if they also have a private endowment, and faculty dare not take a politically incorrect position. “Science in the public square” has led to Lysenkoism in “climate science” (tinyurl.com/yyhn95mn). What about medicine? During the COVID-19 pandemic, attempts to post information on social media, even “nextdoor” neighborhood news, may be blocked or require a link to official sites.

While patients have been dying since January or even earlier, a report on autopsy results appeared only in May. A startling 58% of 12 patients examined in Hamburg had undiagnosed deep vein thrombosis, and the direct cause of death in four was massive pulmonary embolism (https://tinyurl.com/y8xenf4x). Of course, mechanical ventilation cannot oxygenate the blood if the blood can’t get to the lung.

Vaccines v. COVID

Civil Defense Perspectives, vol. 35 #5

It appears that President Trump bet everything on a vaccine to be achieved at “warp speed.” And many others have suspended normal life and hunkered down awaiting the arrival of the silver bullet that will defeat the virus.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), stated at a conference at Yale University that masks and social distancing would be needed, and people would not be able to go wherever they wanted, before the end of 2021—even if a vaccine was approved in December 2020.

CDC Director Robert Redfield, M.D., in testimony before a Senate appropriations committee, said, “I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70%…. And if I don’t get an immune response, the vaccine is not going to protect me. This face mask will” (https://tinyurl.com/y4xbopnh).

Monica Gandhi, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of California at San Francisco said that universal masking could become a form of “variolation” that would generate immunity (NEJM, 10/29/20, https://tinyurl.com/y4bf9c8l). In other words, the mask reduces the inoculum so that a person is more likely to develop natural immunity without getting very sick.

Awesome biotechnology is enabling rapid development of novel vaccine platforms, which, it is hoped, will enable containment of emerging epidemics as well as COVID-19 (see p 2).

Surviving Epidemics: a History

Pestilence has been a constant threat throughout human history. Sometimes, entire populations have been virtually wiped out, but spread was limited by geographic isolation. Isolating infected persons (leper colonies, tuberculosis sanatoria, quarantines), vector control (swamp drainage, DDT, other insecticides, rodent control), and sanitation have saved millions. Prophylactic antibiotics have protected exposed people from tb or meningitis.

Vaccinators have claimed that vaccines are the greatest public health development in history and have saved “untold millions.” Looking at a visual history of the great pandemics (https://tinyurl.com/r4xhshy), the only one that was arguably defeated by vaccination was smallpox. There was no vaccine against the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920, which killed as many as 50 million people. (The annual toll from smallpox was around 400,000.) Constant influenza vaccination campaigns have not eliminated annual outbreaks.

The elimination of smallpox involved aggressive worldwide efforts to identify every case. The disease was readily diagnosed by the rash and the odor. COVID-19, with many asymptomatic victims and manifestations often indistinguishable from a common cold or influenza-like illness, is far more challenging.

The modern smallpox vaccine emerged in the 19th century. The World Health Organization (WHO) eradication campaign lasted from 1958-1977. Smallpox is said to be the only human disease ever to be eradicated.

Will COVID-19 be the second? With factories in production even before approval and military resources to deliver vaccine and –80° freezers for mRNA vaccines, it shouldn’t take 20 years.

The COVID Vaccine Race

Bill Gates, whose foundation is the biggest funder of vaccines in the world, writes: “One of the questions I get asked the most these days is when the world will be able to go back to the way things were in December before the coronavirus pandemic. My answer is always the same: when we have an almost perfect drug to treat COVID-19, or when almost every person on the planet has been vaccinated against coronavirus.”

He observes that the fastest a vaccine has ever been made is 5 years, and the goal for COVID is 18 months. The technology is vastly different: “Rather than injecting a pathogen’s antigen into your body, you instead give the body the genetic code needed to produce that antigen itself. When the antigens appear on the outside of your cells, your immune system attacks them—and learns how to defeat future intruders in the process. You essentially turn your body into its own vaccine manufacturing unit.” He writes that the platform works and that it generates immunity. It is “a bit like building your computer system and your first piece of software at the same time” (tinyurl.com/ydyrrx6m).

The first vaccine approval will be followed by “chaos and confusion,” writes Carl Zimmer (NY Times 10/12/20, https://tinyurl.com/y6km7gan). It will certainly not be an “on-off” switch. For testing, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson (J&J, Janssen), and Moderna are using the government’s “harmonized approach” and the NIH network of clinical testing sites. Pfizer is running independent tests, and apparently expects an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) soon. Vaccinators able to administer a tray of 975 shots from Pfizer over a short period are being sought, according to a town hall presented by the Arizona Medical Association.

Even moderately effective vaccines will be a huge help in reducing COVID-19, Zimmer writes—but only if enough people take them, and only if they realize they could still get sick. (The FDA’s goal of 50% has an error range of ±15%.) “We’ll have to continue to use a mask for some of these vaccines,” said Dr. Poland of the Mayo Clinic. “Vaccine hesitancy” could be a big problem, say Arizona public health officials. As few as 50% of U.S. adults are committed to receiving a COVID vaccine, states Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of the JAMA Network (JAMA 10/6/20).

One survey showed that only 44% would willingly get the vaccine, and if it only reduces disease incidence by 50%, it is “unlikely to achieve the herd immunity that many consider necessary to ‘reopen the country’” (JAMA 10/6/20).

Vaccine advocate Paul Offit, M.D., said that hesitancy was “somewhat understandable,” given the “frightening” language used to describe vaccine development. Terms such as “warp speed” may suggest that haste might trump safety considerations. He offered advice on how to reassure people about that, while saying that “fear [of the virus] works” to “convince people that vaccination is wise” (https://tinyurl.com/yx8mhwbu).

On Nov 9, Pfizer announced a success rate >90% “in the first 94 [of 44,000] subjects who were infected by the new coronavirus and developed at least one symptom (tinyurl.com/y4xbynb6). “Success” means reducing mild cold symptoms, not deaths or infections (https://tinyurl.com/y2nos9p9).

Federal Vaccine Allocations Top $9 Billion

Seven companies are each receiving $1–$2 billion to manufacture 100 million or more doses (https://tinyurl.com/yy7ff7dm). Sanofi Pasteur and GSK’s vaccine delivers the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein via a baculovirus that normally infects insect cells. Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine uses messenger RNA that codes for spike protein, packaged inside tiny balls of fat. Novavax uses moth cells to make spike proteins, which are attached to a synthetic particle and injected with a saponin adjuvant (tinyurl.com/y53xyomh). Janssen uses an uncommon human adenovirus to deliver antigen. AstraZeneca and Oxford use a chimpanzee virus. Not having seen it before, human immune systems have not developed antibodies to this virus. Moderna’s vaccine, like Pfizer’s, uses mRNA. The mRNA vaccines must be stored at –80°C (Pfizer) or –20°C (Moderna) and last only days in the refrigerator. Merck and its collaborator IAVI use a vesicular stomatitis virus, engineered to be harmless, to express spike proteins. This virus was used as part of the Ebola vaccine licensed in December 2019. Unlike others, the Merck vaccine is to be administered orally and is said to require only a single dose.

COVID-19 vaccines designed by Astra-Zeneca, Janssen, and and Novavax will be manufactured by Emergent BioSolutions, formerly Bioport, the sole supplier of anthrax vaccine. This vaccine allegedly caused many severe chronic illnesses in U.S. troops.

“The Pentagon is locked in a dependent relationship with BioPort Corp.,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) in 1999. Emergent now controls many biodefense products (it acquired smallpox vaccine in 2017) and supply lines. “It has strategically placed itself to be, let’s just say, the company that can’t fail” (https://tinyurl.com/y37t4fcz).

Threshold for Approval

These vaccine candidates are all based on new technologies. In the phase 3 trials, only about 150-160 people will have to fall ill with COVID-19 to be able calculate the effectiveness of the vaccine. The FDA has said it will approve any vaccine that is shown to be safe and to prevent infection or severe symptoms in at least half of those who are vaccinated (tinyurl.com/yy7ff7dm).

How safe does a vaccine need to be? One out of every three people had side effects from the smallpox vaccine bad enough to keep them home from school or work, according to Gates, and “a small—but not insignificant—number developed more serious reactions” (op. cit.). That was about 1 in 1,000 serious reactions and 1 in 1 million deaths in primary vaccinees in the 1960s (https://tinyurl.com/y4lmjafd).

Virtually all recipients of the second dose of Moderna’s mRNA 1273 vaccine had a systemic reaction, mostly mild or moderate (NEJM 7/14/20). With some 60,000 subjects enrolled in vaccine trials, half receiving placebo, a risk of much less than 1 in 10,000 might well escape detection.

During the smallpox era, the overall case fatality rate in unvaccinated individuals was around 30%. The overall symptomatic fatality rate for COVID-19 is estimated at around 1.3% (Health Affairs 5/5/20, tinyurl.com/y2zgvo3q), ranging from <1% in persons under age 50 to around 15% in persons over age 80% (tinyurl.com/y66gzcuw). Because so many cases are asymptomatic, the infection fatality rate (IFR) is far lower, around 0.14% according to WHO (tinyurl.com/yxmlzomt). Thus, the risk: benefit ratio was far more in favor of vaccine in the smallpox era.

Smallpox Gone Forever?

Historical research demonstrates that smallpox occurred in severe outbreaks that were followed by the periods of inactivity. The mechanism of this sinusoidal pattern remains unknown.

Smallpox lesions were identified in Egyptian mummies from the 3rd century B.C. but not in earlier or later mummies. It might have caused the Antonine Plague (165–180 A.D.) and the Plague of Cyprian (251–266 A.D.). It re-emerged in Europe in the 6th and 7th centuries A.D., mysteriously disappeared until the 11th century, was almost absent for about 300 years, re-emerged again in 15th century, waxed and waned but wreaked havoc in the 18th century. Practiced first in Asia and Africa, variolation spread to the Ottoman Empire around 1670 and then to the rest of Europe within a few decades (https://tinyurl.com/y8qgddrp).

While vaccination supposedly caused its final demise (except in biowarfare factories), what “eradicated” smallpox during all those times when it was not active? What if vaccination merely speeded up the natural cycle of this disease? Certainly, Egyptians were not familiar with vaccination. Maybe our belief in the effect of vaccines is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

George Bernard Shaw wrote: “During the last considerable epidemic at the turn of the century, I was a member of the Health Committee of London Borough Council, and I learned how the credit of vaccination is kept up statistically by diagnosing all the revaccinated cases (of smallpox) as pustular eczema, varioloid or what not—except smallpox.”

Monkeypox, a zoonosis caused by an orthopoxvirus with symptoms similar to but less severe than smallpox, is occurring with increasing frequency in Africa as smallpox vaccination ceased and immunity to poxviruses waned (tinyurl.com/yyt28uc6).

Notes on Transmission, Immunity and Vaccines

Natural immunity: According to a letter from health professionals to Belgian authorities (tinyurl.com/yxl2aje6), a strong immune system relies on normal daily exposure to microbes. Excessive hygiene can have a detrimental effect on our immunity.

Up to 60% of noninfected people have T-cells reactive to SARS-CoV-2, probably from past colds from related viruses (ibid.).

Transmission via objects (e.g. money, shopping carts) has not been proven (ibid.)

In 10 years, only three vaccines with >50% efficacy have been developed. Efficacy is very poor past age 75 (ibid.).

Immunopathology: Vaccines developed against SARS-CoV-1, including those using a spike (S) protein preparation, induced neutralizing antibodies and protection against infection, but challenge with the virus induced immunopathologic changes in the mouse lung. Caution is indicated with human vaccines (PLoS One 4/20/12, https://tinyurl.com/yx2wl8jr).

Safety: AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine trials were paused then restarted. One volunteer experienced transverse myelitis. A man in his 20s suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and transverse venous sinus thrombosis. The latter was attributed to a stroke unrelated to the vaccine (tinyurl.com/yx9wl75e). A 28-year-old AstraZeneca volunteer died; he had received the “placebo,” the established meningococcal vaccine (tinyurl.com/y3qabhvm).

Prevalence: About 13–14% of Americans have likely been infected with COVID-19. About 80% have probably been asymptomatic (https://tinyurl.com/y5dsukdb).

COVID-19 is Not Untreatable

Civil Defense Perspectives vol. 35 #2

The rationale for draconian, destructive measures to “slow the spread” of SARS-CoV-2, the dreaded “novel” coronavirus, is that the disease is untreatable. The Infectious Diseases Society of America, (IDSA, idsociety.org) provides no guidance for home treatment, and many if not most physicians send patients away, advising them to go to the emergency room if extremely ill and probably in need of hospitalization.

In a Jul 8 statement, unchanged as of Sep 8, IDSA implores the public to “take the only simple and effective steps we have to slow the spread of the coronavirus and save lives—key among them, wear a mask…. We are all in the fight against this pandemic together. As infectious diseases and HIV specialists responding to the continuing impacts of COVID-19, we call on all people to do their part to end this public health crisis.”

(Parenthetically, IDSA not only declines to treat chronic Lyme disease, but denies its existence and tries to prevent others from treating it also.)

COVID-19 Diagnosis

Civil Defense Perspectives – January 2020 (vol. 35 #1) – posted June, 30, 2020

In January, there were many unknowns about the terrifying new demon that was raging in China, causing untold numbers of deaths. The official statistics were appalling enough, but there were rumors about crematoria working constantly, incinerating undiagnosed and uncounted corpses. Then horror stories started pouring in from Italy, which has a very large Chinese work force, especially in the fashion industry, with frequent travel to and from China. Ominous red dots on the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) website spread to engulf most of the world, especially the U.S. and Europe (tinyurl.com/uwns6z5).

In late June, when this is being written, unknowns remain. The disease offers an opportunity to learn a tremendous amount about viral diseases and their treatment—which may be squandered because of political opportunism and financial conflicts. Your editor has been sorting through a tsunami of information—see bit.ly/coronavirusarticles and jpands.org/jpands2502.htm.

A Totalitarian Virus

Civi Defense Perspectives May 2020 (vol. 35 #3)

A virus is not exactly alive itself. It is a bundle of chemicals so arranged that they attach to a living host’s cell membranes and are transported into the cell. The cell’s own metabolic machinery then begins to use the viral genetic blueprint to make more viruses. The raw materials, the chemical energy, the milieu that permits the synthesis of viral components to occur (such as pH and temperature) are all supplied by the host cell, bringing about its own destruction. The virus released into the environment can then repeat the cycle in other hosts, until there are no more receptive hosts because they are isolated, immune, or dead.

As viruses are replicated, many errors (mutations) occur, especially in RNA viruses, so that progeny may be more or less effective in causing infection.

All viral pandemics have come to an end, even those that have been far more devastating than the current COVID-19.

Extinction Rebellion

Civil Defense Perspectives 34(6): November 2019 (published December 2019)

Global street theater this year has featured the Extinction Rebellion movement (XR), which began last year in Britain and claims to have chapters in 50 countries and to have held protests in 60 cities in Turkey, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere. Its flag displays a stylized hourglass in a circle. Protests often feature demonstrators wearing white masks and red costumes, and copious amounts of fake blood.

XR is aligned with the school strike movement reportedly inspired by Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Thunberg, after attending a global climate change summit in Madrid, lamented that millions of students “striking” had “achieved nothing.” Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. “The current world leaders are betraying us and we will not let that happen anymore,” Thunberg said in a brief speech to a crowd of 15,000 protesters (https://tinyurl.com/rmj39jj).

Fire and Ice

Civil Defense Perspectives 34(5): September 2019 (published Decembrt 2019)

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost, 1920

According to one of his biographers, Robert Frost’s most famous poem, “Fire and Ice,” was inspired by Dante’s Inferno. The structure of the poem with two short last lines evokes the downward funnel of the rings of hell, with sins of passion at the top and the worst offenders, the traitors Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius, at the bottom submerged in ice up to their neck.

Saving the World from CO2 Starvation

Civil Defense Perspectives 34(4): July 2019 (published October 2019)

The carbon cycle on earth involves the atmosphere, the oceans, the biosphere, and the lithosphere. Today’s panicked schoolchildren crusade for the cause of keeping it (carbon-based “fossil” fuels) in the ground, or for sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and pumping it below ground, purportedly to keep it from frying the planet or acidifying the oceans.

In fact, there is a natural mechanism for sequestering CO₂: living organisms in the ocean. One hundred million billion tons of carbon have been taken up by coccolithophores (phytoplankton), shellfish, corals and foraminifera (zooplankton) over the past 160 million years, according to Patrick Moore, speaking at the 37th annual meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. These organisms incorporate carbon into calcium carbonate plates, scales, or shells. Over the long-term, these become a carbon sink as they fall to the bottom of the ocean and become part of the sediment. The level of atmospheric CO₂ has fallen steadily from about 2,500 ppmv to the current level of less than 400 ppmv over this period—perilously close to the 150 ppmv level that spells the death of plants.