"Viruses": Tiny Invisible Airborne Killer-Dots. (Really?)

[Joe Hillshoist]

Note the same technique deployed in the two UK govt/NHS posters I posted above, along with the use of green costumes for all three disease-spreaders.

There are only two disease spreaders in those posters. One in each poster. Only one person in each image has the toxic monster vortex of death coming from their mouths.


Its a bit of a metaphor that is.

[Harvey]

I saw this movie early in the pandemic. Maybe cos of this place recommending it.

Have you seen it? Its pretty tripped out, like electronic cthulu meets ted bullpit. Way beyond peoples considerations of this pandemic.

Yes, I saw it in 2018 and I also recommended it here. You probably don't realise but it only seems 'way beyond' because you watched it early on. If you see it again from the perspective of two years in, it is the entire shit-show in miniature, all of it.

[PufPuf93]

There are literally tens of millions of virus particles in a teaspoon of soil.

So many different viruses in biologically active soil that they are impossible to categorize and most do not have known function.

What are viruses?

Extremely small particles that technically are not alive but that can infect living organisms such that the living organism reproduces more viruses.

The function of viruses is to break down living organisms for recycling into new living organisms.

This is a very simple explanation (and about my capability at present).

I find this thread kind of perversely fun but the germ theory of infection is basic and Nature is complex.

[Iamwhomiam]

The argument in a nutshell: The objects known as "viruses" and detected by means of electron microscopy are in fact debris from dead or dying cells -- not attackers from outside, but by-products of the body's own cleaning-up process. Or else they are endogenous exosomes, which actually do the cleaning-up, and thus play an important role in maintaining and restoring the body's health.

You will usually find firefighters (and debris) at the scene of a fire. This does not prove that the firefighters (or the debris) caused the fire. Nor does it make it likely that they did. Correlation does not imply causation.

"A Pandemic of Not Thinking": Dr Tom Cowan interviewed by Dr Sam Bailey (49m 27s):

https://odysee.com/@drsambailey:c/Dr-To ... Thinking:d

Cowan & Morell: The Contagion Myth: Why Viruses (including "Coronavirus") Are Not The Cause Of Disease.:



I think it's essential reading right now. Someone has put up a free pdf, but do pay the authors if you can. The book is banned from Amazon.

I haven't read the whole thing, but I skimmed through to get a sense of what they were arguing, and one part in particular jumped out at me in the chapter on pandemics:

The current explanation for the correlation of comets and disease is that
of “panspermia.” We now know that outer space is populated by clouds of
microorganisms, and the theory holds that comets are watery bodies—dirty
snowballs—that rain new microscopic forms on the earth, to which humans
and animals have no immunity.7
However, recent evidence indicates little if any water on comets. Rather,
they are asteroids that have an elliptical orbit and become charged
electrically as they approach the sun, an exchange that creates the comet’s
bright coma and tail. Their surfaces exhibit the kind of features that happen
with intense electrical arcing, like craters and cliffs; bright or shiny spots on
otherwise barren rocky surfaces indicate areas that are electrically charged.

"We now know that outer space is populated by clouds of microorganisms" is just flat out wrong. We don't. We've found some of the building blocks of life, emphasis on "some" and "building blocks". No microorganisms whatsoever have been found beyond what we brought to space ourselves. Panspermia is one of many hypotheses, and it has no supporting evidence beyond those few bulding blocks we detected. It could be true, or it could not be true. We simply don't know.

Then "However, recent evidence indicates little if any water on comets", which is also wrong. They then go off on Electric Universe theory, which I guess is what they think of as their evidence, because it requires entirely different mechanisms than out-gassing of vapors to explain what we observe with comets approaching the sun. So not only is the entire field of virology wrong, so is the entire field of cosmology.

If they can get something as simple as the existence of microorganisms in space wrong (we found aliens and no one noticed?), what else did they get wrong?

DrEvil, lots! Go to Link For original formatting.
https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege-and-jon-mcalice/some-comments-on-the-contagion-myth

Some Comments on The Contagion Myth
Craig Holdrege & Jon McAlice

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we regularly receive emails from people forwarding links to videos and articles that question the mainstream narrative about the pandemic. It would be a full-time job for more than one person to take in, analyze, and contextualize the great variety of perspectives. We have not made this our full-time job. But we have concerned ourselves with some of the alternative narratives, and continue to concern ourselves with the mainstream narrative. We have no problem admitting that, overall, much remains opaque. More than anything else, there are countless riddles and questions. It is very hard, within the thicket of opinions, to gain a sense that there is a common ground of phenomena that people can agree upon. This is especially true with research on viruses, which is extremely technical, highly mediated by sophisticated technology (electron microscopes, sequencing machines, PCR tests, etc.), and embedded within many assumptions, for example, about causality. You can hardly avoid relying on authorities, but which authorities? How is it possible to discern the truthfulness of what the different authorities are saying?

One person whose views have received a good deal of attention is Thomas Cowan. A video in which he speaks of 5G — and not viruses — as a causal agent in what people call the pandemic went viral. Many refer to him as an authority countering the mainstream narrative, while others state they have debunked his views. Cowan and Sally Fallon Morell published a book in 2020, The Contagion Myth. We decided to spend some time with the book in an attempt to understand their perspective. We have not spent the months we would need to investigate every claim they make by reviewing the literature they cite in the book. We have spent many hours investigating a few central claims and the way they craft their argument. We will not discuss here the causal factors they propose, such as 5G or environmental toxins. We are primarily concerned with their critique of the widespread scientific view that infectious diseases are caused by viruses (and bacteria).

Misrepresenting Research Studies — Three Examples

To begin with, we consider two examples from The Contagion Myth that are indicative of the way in which Cowan and Fallon Morell report on mainstream research concerning infectious diseases. The first example refers to bacterial infection and the work of Robert Koch (1843-1910), one of the founders of the germ theory of disease. They briefly consider Koch’s research on tuberculosis (TB):

In 1905, Dr. Koch received the Nobel Prize for proving that TB was an infectious disease.

Except he didn’t.

In fact, he could find an organism in infected tissue only by using special staining methods after the tissue was heated and dehydrated with alcohol. The stain was a toxic dye, methylene blue, and the solution he used contained another toxin — potassium hydroxide (lye). When he injected the organism stained with these poisons into animals, they got sick. But what caused the illness, the bacillus or the poisons? (p. 33)

Cowan and Fallon Morell deny that Koch proved that TB is an infectious disease because they claims that Koch injected animals with bacteria and poisons (stains used in microscopy). Since there were, according to them, two components in the injected solution, Koch could not know whether the bacteria or the toxins were making the animals sick. This makes sense. But did Koch do this? The source for their brief description of what Koch did is the English translation of excerpts from Koch’s famous 1882 paper on the “Etiology of Tuberculosis” (Koch 1982). We read the excerpts and then also read the original and much longer German article (Koch 1882).

Koch describes in detail his procedures to examine the tissues that he had taken from the organs of animals that had been “altered by tuberculosis” (p. 1270). As Cowan and Fallon Morell relate, methylene blue and potassium hydroxide were used in the staining procedure. Staining allows the bacteria to stand out under the microscope and makes it easier to distinguish different bacterial species from one another. Koch writes, “in all locations where the tuberculosis process has recently developed and is progressing most rapidly, these bacilli can be found in large numbers” (p. 1271). He concludes, “on the basis of my extensive observations, I consider it proven that in all tuberculous conditions of man and animals there exists a characteristic bacterium which I have designated as the tubercle bacillus, which has specific properties which allow it to be distinguished from all other microorganisms.”

Koch then states “from this correlation between the presence of tuberculous conditions and bacilli, it does not necessarily follow that these phenomena are causally related” (p. 1271). His next step was to isolate bacteria from the body and propagate them in pure cultures in the lab until they were freed from parts of the host organism that might still have adhered to the bacteria. For this he developed a solid nutrient medium on which to culture bacteria. He describes in detail all the steps he took to cultivate the bacteria until he had pure cultures. The whole point of the many procedures was to obtain pure, uncontaminated cultures. These pure cultures were never stained. He only stained bacteria in order to identify them under the microscope. He did not inoculate experimental animals with stained bacteria and “poisons” as Cowan and Fallon Morell claim.

In his paper, Koch goes on to describe how he inoculated experimental animals — mainly guinea pigs — with the pure bacterial cultures and states that in all cases but one the animals developed the symptoms of tuberculosis. For him this was a proof that the bacteria cause the disease and are not just correlated with it.

It is not possible for us to understand how anyone could read Koch’s article and come away with the conclusion that he inoculated animals with a mixture of bacteria and toxic stains. We cannot judge what led Cowan and Fallon Morell to misrepresent Koch’s procedure, but they did not read Koch’s article with the intent to present Koch’s work as accurately as possible. The way they misrepresent Koch allows them to erroneously discredit Koch as a serious researcher, implying that Koch was not smart enough to know that injecting bacteria and toxic stains into animal would provide no proof of the bacteria as disease-causing agents. As his tuberculosis article and his many other articles show, Koch was a remarkably thorough, critical, and careful researcher.

The second example concerns an article published in 2020 describing animal experimentation with SARS-CoV-2, the virus implicated by mainstream science and medicine in the current pandemic (Chan et al. 2020). Here is what Cowan and Fallon Morell write about what the researchers did:

They took unpurified, lung-cancer-grown, centrifuged snot and (again, without any controls) squirted it down the throats and into the lungs of hamsters. (Where is PETA when you need them?) Some, but not all, of the hamsters got pneumonia, and some died. We have no idea what would have happened if they had squirted plain lung cancer cells into the lungs of these hamsters, but probably not anything good. And even more perplexing, some of the hamsters didn’t even get sick at all, which certainly doesn’t square with the deadly, contagious virus theory. (p. 52)

In contrast to what they report, if you read the article you will find that, while the researchers did experiment with hamsters,

they did not mix “unpurified, lung-cancer-grown, centrifuged snot”;

they did not squirt such a mixture down the throats and lungs of the hamsters;

what they squirted into the nasal passages of anesthetized hamsters they describe as diluted “virus stocks” that were obtained from “plaque purified viral isolate” that had been amplified by culturing in VeroE6 cells (which are derived from monkey cells, not lung-cancer cells);

these animals became ill, and recovered;

they do not report that some of these animals “didn’t even get sick at all”;

none of the animals died;

the experiment did have controls; the controls had saline solution, without viral stock, squirted into their nasal passages; none of the controls became ill. (See Chan et al. 2020.)

Just about everything Cowan and Fallon Morell relate from the article is false. As in the case with Koch’s tuberculosis experiments, they grossly misrepresent what the researchers did and found in their experiments. If they would have taken care in studying the article, they could have justifiably criticized the lack of detailed reporting on the method of virus isolation and purification; they could have criticized the researchers for saying that Koch’s postulates had been fulfilled in this case, since those criteria don’t apply to viruses (see below). But Cowan and Fallon Morell did none of this; they simply reported on an experiment that never happened in the way they describe it.

Cowan and Fallon Morell are similarly cavalier with the work of those they cite to support their views. They introduce the intriguing work of Luc Montagnier concerning resonance phenomena in aqueous solutions as follows:

Here’s how the experiment goes: first, one puts DNA or RNA in water (beaker one). Then one puts a collection of nucleic acids (the chemicals that make up the DNA and RNA) in a separate water beaker (beaker two), in another part of the room. Then one introduces an energy source, such as UV or infrared light and shines that on beaker one, which contains the formed DNA or RNA. In time, the exact same sequence of DNA or RNA will form out of the raw materials in beaker two. (p. 76)

In the paper that Cowan and Fallon Morell cite (Montagnier et al. 2009), the researchers describe a series of experiments that lead them to posit the “capacity of some bacterial DNA sequences to induce electromagnetic waves at high aqueous dilutions.” The process of obtaining and diluting bacterial DNA and the apparatus needed to determine the presence of the electromagnetic signals are presented in some detail.

The only part of the paper that bears any resemblance to Cowan and Fallon Morell’s description deals with the “homologous ‘cross-talk’ between dilutions.” Discovering the resemblance demands an act of imagination on the part of the reader.

The researchers make high dilutions of bacterial DNA sequences (10-8 to 10-12). Only at the high dilutions could they detect specific electromagnetic signals that differed from the rest of the detectable ambient electromagnetic “noise.” These they call “loud” dilutions. Lower dilution bacterial DNA sequences (10-3) were “silent,” and did not emit those signals. In one experiment, they placed “loud” and “silent” dilutions in capped plastic tubes side-by-side in a mumetal box that shields the samples from ambient electromagnetism. They observed, after 24 hours, that the loud dilutions became silent. When a mumetal shield was placed between the two dilutions in the 24-hour experiment, the effect did not arise. They speak of a resonance phenomenon and cross-talk between the dilutions. Such results only occurred between dilutions of DNA of the same species.

As you can tell, there is hardly any similarity between what Cowan and Fallon Morell describe and what you can find in the article. There is nothing in the article stating that “the exact same sequence of DNA or RNA will form out of the raw materials in beaker two.” Montagnier and colleagues are detecting electromagnetic signal changes, not the resonant creation of specific DNA sequences from a collection of nucleotides.

In the discussion of their results, the researchers point out that the production of such electromagnetic signals has only been able to be repeated “with only certain bacterial sequences.” And they raise the question whether “they are restricted to some genes involved in diseases.”

Although Montagnier is not someone known for his reticence or hesitancy in voicing his views, in this paper he and his fellow authors are quite tentative in their conclusions. They do not claim that their experiments “prove” anything. The experiments “suggest” the presence of a phenomenon that they believe deserves further consideration.

Cowan and Fallon Morell are less tentative in their conclusions, building a theory of disease based on the possibility of resonance phenomena between people living in similarly toxic situations:

When one applies this discovery to viruses (or exosomes) said to cause measles, chicken pox, or herpes, it is possible that since these particles called viruses or exosomes are simply packages of DNA or RNA, they emit their own resonant frequencies. In a way not yet determined, each frequency creates an expression that we call a disease; however, the frequency will create what we call illness only if there is a purpose or reason for the illness. (p. 77)

For Cowan and Fallon Morell to use the tentative conclusions of a study as the basis for positing causal relationships in a context that is foreign to that of the original experimentation is highly problematic. You can wish that they would be as critical of their own methods as they are of those they choose to criticize.

These examples — and there are more in the book — show that when Cowan and Fallon Morell refer to research studies, you need to read the studies yourself to see if their depiction in any way conforms to what was done. Such misrepresentations provide plenty of reason not to trust what they say concerning the research others have carried out. Ironically, they repeatedly accuse mainstream researchers of making bogus and fraudulent claims.

Argumentation Strategy

Cowan and Fallon Morell are centrally interested in convincing their readers that bacteria and viruses do not cause disease; hence the title: The Contagion Myth.

Before they deal with Koch’s research on tuberculosis, they refer to the famous “Koch’s postulates.” These are drawn from Koch’s research and have historically provided a conceptual framework for assessing whether a specific bacterial species can be considered the cause of the disease. Koch’s postulates have been expressed in a variety of ways. Koch himself did not speak of postulates and presented his views on criteria for evidence of causation differently in different publications and at different times in his career (Carter 1985; Evans 1976 and 1993; Gillies 2016; Gradmann 2014). Cowan and Fallon Morell, however, choose to present one particular formulation:

Koch’s postulates are as follows:

The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease but not found in healthy organisms.

The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in a pure culture.

The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.

The microorganisms must be re-isolated from the now diseased experimental host which received the inoculation of the microorganisms and identified as identical to the original specific causative agent.

If all four conditions are met, you have proven the infectious cause for a specific set of symptoms. This is the only way to prove causation. (p. 3)

For their overall argument, it is important for Cowan and Fallon Morell to categorically state that the fulfillment of these four postulates is the only way to prove causation. Holding on to this claim as if it were a self-evident truth, they can go on to “show” that Koch and others have never proved that a disease is caused by bacteria or other microorganisms. This can be for a number of reasons, but especially postulate #1, in the way they formulate it, is rarely (or ever?) fulfilled. This is because bacteria that are implicated in a given disease can be found in some or even many healthy individuals. This was known to Koch, and it has been widely known since his time. We all harbor bacteria that, in other people, or at a different time or in different circumstances in us, can be implicated in a disease. One example is Helicobacter pylori, which can persist in the stomach of a person who is healthy, but can also be connected with gastric ulcers (for a number of examples, see: Monack et al. 2004; Fisher et al. 2017).

So Cowan and Fallon Morell have a neat solution to a complex issue: Because Koch’s postulates are never completely fulfilled, scientists have not proven that bacteria cause disease. The problem with this neat solution is that they set a fixed standard against which everything, for all times, needs to be assessed. They rail against scientists who state that Koch’s postulates are outdated (pp. 73ff.). As I said above, Koch himself never spoke of postulates and “his” postulates have been formulated in a variety of ways by different scientists. As Cowan and Fallon Morell themselves point out (p. 3), Koch knew that the criteria for causation he had articulated in his tuberculosis experiments could not all be fulfilled, for example, in cholera; experimental animals did not become ill when injected with cholera bacteria that had been cultured from ill humans. Nonetheless, Koch gave a variety of reasons why he thought bacteria are causal agents in cholera.

Cowan and Fallon Morell pick out one formulation of Koch’s postulates as their universal measuring stick. They even compare the postulates to Newton’s laws of gravity (p. 75). They don’t allow for an evolution of scientific thought in relation to the variety of phenomena scientists encounter. This is a convenient and pretty iron-clad way to make sure that no one can claim to have proven causation for a purported bacteria-related disease. Unfortunately, it also means not dealing with the complexities of biological realities, research, and the nature of understanding.

When Cowan and Fallon Morell address diseases that are purported to be related to viruses, they implement the same strategy. Koch’s postulates have to be modified for viruses because viruses only reproduce within living cells of another organism. They cannot be grown on nutrient media, but need to be grown in cell cultures. They then have to be separated from tissues (which is an involved process) before scientists speak of “viral isolates” that can then be used in inoculation experiments.

As they did with Koch’s postulates, Cowan and Fallon Morell take one set of criteria against which they judge all experiments relating to viral causation of disease. They enumerate “River’s postulates,” which are based on a 1937 article by bacteriologist and virologist Thomas Rivers (Rivers 1937). They present one formulation of Rivers’ postulates:

The virus can be isolated from diseased hosts.

The virus can be cultivated in host cells.

Proof of filterability — the virus can be filtered from a medium that also contains bacteria.

The filtered virus will produce a comparable disease when the cultivated virus is used to infect experimental animals.

The virus can be re-isolated from the infected experimental animal.

A specific immune response to the virus can be detected. (p. 4)

This list doesn’t come directly from Rivers, whose discussion of the task of establishing causality is remarkably nuanced. Writing about the necessity of moving beyond Koch’s postulates, both for some bacterial diseases and for viral diseases, Rivers remarks that “progress having left behind old rules requires new ones which some day without doubt will also be declared obsolete” (p. 4). He knew that his new criteria for establishing viruses as agents in infectious diseases were tentative and that changes “will in the future undoubtedly occur in the methods of establishing the specific relation of viruses to disease” (p. 11). A variety of methods have been developed and other criteria formulated in the 83 years since Rivers’ article (for example: Byrd and Segre 2016; Carter 1985; Evans 1976 and 1993; Fredericks & Relman 1996; Gillies 2016; Gradmann 2014). Science hasn’t stopped.

But for Cowan and Fallon Morell, Rivers’ postulates are the criteria to assess causation related to viruses. They refer to a number of studies related to SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19, and claim that none of them have fulfilled the postulates (pp. 50 ff.). This is for them proof that viruses don’t cause disease:

Again, this book’s central claim is that no disease attributed to bacteria or viruses has met all of Koch’s postulates or all of Rivers’ criteria. This is not because the postulates are incorrect or obsolete (in fact, they are entirely logical) but rather because bacteria and viruses don’t cause disease, at least not in any way that we currently understand. (p. 4)

Cowan and Fallon Morell continue in a similar vein when it comes to the question of the isolation of viruses. They present one “gold standard” technique from a thesis of a German virologist, Stefan Lanka (1989). The hundreds or probably thousands of virologists who claim to have isolated viruses are all wrong, according to Cowan and Fallon Morell, because they use other methods to isolate viruses than the one Lanka developed. Lanka’s technique is impressive, but it is not the only one. If you look in the literature, you find that there is no one “gold standard” for viral isolation (see, for example, Eisfeld et al. 2014; Hematian et al. 2016; Hsiung 1984; Leland & Ginnochio 2007). We are not virologists and cannot assess their respective strengths and weaknesses. But we see no reason to think that all these scientists are deluded or making fraudulent claims, which is what Cowan and Fallon Morell believe they have shown.

Cowan and Fallon Morell write that “the entire world of medicine, virology, and immunology” is mistaken in believing that “many of our common diseases are viral in origin” (p. 67). Is there reason to believe that people who say “a disease is caused by infectious agents” are oversimplifying a highly complex relationship between a virus, its host organism, and the environment? Absolutely. Is it justified to dismiss 150 years of research that focuses on one aspect of that relationship? We don’t think so.

We do not agree with the widespread, all-too uncritical use of the terms “cause” and “causation” that one finds in the scientific literature, or with the one-sided focus on infectious agents that often ignores the larger questions of health, resiliency, and dispositions for becoming ill. The problem is even worse in mainstream media and politics, where viruses become “the enemy.” We have presented a broader, ecological view of viruses elsewhere (Holdrege 2020). We are open to considering perspectives that challenge the monolithic mainstream narrative. But when this is done by grossly distorting scientific findings of others and crafting an argument that only appears to work, then more harm than good is done in the search for a balanced and nuanced understanding of infectious disease and the current pandemic.

References

Byrd, A. L. & Segre, J. A. (2016). Adapting Koch’s Postulates. Science vol. 351, pp. 224-6. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad6753

Carter, K. C. (1985). Koch’s Postulates in Relation to the Work of Jacob Henle and Edwin Klebs. Medical History vol. 29, pp. 353–74. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300044689

Chan, J. F-W. (2020). Simulation of the Clinical and Pathological Manifestations of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a Golden Syrian Hamster Model: Implications for Disease Pathogenesis and Transmissibility. Clinical Infectious Diseases vol. 71, pp. 2428–46, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa325

Cowan, T. S. & Morell, S. F. (2020). The Contagion Myth. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.

Eisfeld, A. et al. (2014). Influenza A Virus Isolation, Culture and Identification. Nature Protocols vol. 9, pp. 2663–81 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2014.180

Evans, A. S. (1976). Causation and disease: The Henle-Koch Postulates Revisited. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine vol. 49, pp. 175–95.

Evans, A. S. (1993). Causation and Disease: A Chronological Journey. New York: Plenum Medical Book Company.

Fisher, R. et al. (2017). Persistent Bacterial Infections and Persister Cells. Nature Reviews Microbiolology vol. 15, pp. 453–464. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2017.42

Fredericks, D. N. & Relman, D. A. (1996). Sequence-based Identification of Microbial Pathogens: A Reconsideration of Koch’s Postulates. Clinical Microbiology Reviews vol. 9, pp. 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1128/CMR.9.1.18

Gillies, D. A. (2016) Establishing Causality in Medicine and Koch’s Postulates. International Journal of History and Philosophy of Medicine vol. 6: 10603. http://dx.doi.org/10.18550/ijhpm.0603

Gradmann, C. (2014). A Spirit of Scientific Rigour: Koch’s Postulates in Twentieth-century Medicine. Microbes and Infection vol. 16, pp. 885–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micinf.2014.08.012

Hematian, A. et al. (2016). Traditional and Modern Cell Culture in Virus Diagnosis. Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives vol. 7, pp. 77–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phrp.2015.11.011

Holdrege, C. (2020). Viruses in the Dynamics of Life. The Nature Institute. https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege/viruses-in-the-dynamics-of-life

Hsiung G. D. (1984). Diagnostic Virology: From Animals to Automation. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine vol. 57, pp. 727–733.

Koch, R. (1982). The Etiology of Tuberculosis. Reviews of Infectious Diseases vol. 4(6), pp. 1270–74. https://doi.org/10.1093/clinids/4.6.1270

Koch, R. (1882). Die Ätiologie der Tuberkulose. Berliner klinischer Wochenschrift Nr. 15, pp. 428-45.

Lanka, S. (1989). Untersuchungen über Virus-Befall by marinen Braunalgen. Diplomarbeit, University of Konstanz.

Leland, D. S., & Ginocchio, C. C. (2007). Role of Cell Culture for Virus Detection in the Age of Technology. Clinical Microbiology Reviews vol. 20, 49. https://doi.org/10.1128/CMR.00002-06

Monack, D. et al. (2004). Persistent bacterial infections: the interface of the pathogen and the host immune system. Nature Reviews Microbiology vol. 2, pp. 747–65. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro955

Montagnier, L. et al. (2009). Electromagnetic Signals are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences. Interdiscip Sci Comput Life Sci vol. 1, pp. 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12539-009-0036-7

Rivers, T. M. (1937). Viruses and Koch’s Postulates. Journal of Bacteriology vol. 33(1), pp. 1-12.

Ross, L. N. & Woodward, J. F. (2016). Koch’s Postulates: An Interventionist Perspective. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences vol. 59, pp. 35–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2016.06.001

Copyright 2021 The Nature Institute

.pdf

[Joe Hillshoist]

The argument in a nutshell: The objects known as "viruses" and detected by means of electron microscopy are in fact debris from dead or dying cells -- not attackers from outside, but by-products of the body's own cleaning-up process. Or else they are endogenous exosomes, which actually do the cleaning-up, and thus play an important role in maintaining and restoring the body's health.

You will usually find firefighters (and debris) at the scene of a fire. This does not prove that the firefighters (or the debris) caused the fire. Nor does it make it likely that they did. Correlation does not imply causation.

"A Pandemic of Not Thinking": Dr Tom Cowan interviewed by Dr Sam Bailey (49m 27s):

https://odysee.com/@drsambailey:c/Dr-To ... Thinking:d

Cowan & Morell: The Contagion Myth: Why Viruses (including "Coronavirus") Are Not The Cause Of Disease.:



I think it's essential reading right now. Someone has put up a free pdf, but do pay the authors if you can. The book is banned from Amazon.

I haven't read the whole thing, but I skimmed through to get a sense of what they were arguing, and one part in particular jumped out at me in the chapter on pandemics:

The current explanation for the correlation of comets and disease is that
of “panspermia.” We now know that outer space is populated by clouds of
microorganisms, and the theory holds that comets are watery bodies—dirty
snowballs—that rain new microscopic forms on the earth, to which humans
and animals have no immunity.7
However, recent evidence indicates little if any water on comets. Rather,
they are asteroids that have an elliptical orbit and become charged
electrically as they approach the sun, an exchange that creates the comet’s
bright coma and tail. Their surfaces exhibit the kind of features that happen
with intense electrical arcing, like craters and cliffs; bright or shiny spots on
otherwise barren rocky surfaces indicate areas that are electrically charged.

"We now know that outer space is populated by clouds of microorganisms" is just flat out wrong. We don't. We've found some of the building blocks of life, emphasis on "some" and "building blocks". No microorganisms whatsoever have been found beyond what we brought to space ourselves. Panspermia is one of many hypotheses, and it has no supporting evidence beyond those few bulding blocks we detected. It could be true, or it could not be true. We simply don't know.

Then "However, recent evidence indicates little if any water on comets", which is also wrong. They then go off on Electric Universe theory, which I guess is what they think of as their evidence, because it requires entirely different mechanisms than out-gassing of vapors to explain what we observe with comets approaching the sun. So not only is the entire field of virology wrong, so is the entire field of cosmology.

If they can get something as simple as the existence of microorganisms in space wrong (we found aliens and no one noticed?), what else did they get wrong?

DrEvil, lots! Go to Link For original formatting.
https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege-and-jon-mcalice/some-comments-on-the-contagion-myth

Some Comments on The Contagion Myth
Craig Holdrege & Jon McAlice

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we regularly receive emails from people forwarding links to videos and articles that question the mainstream narrative about the pandemic. It would be a full-time job for more than one person to take in, analyze, and contextualize the great variety of perspectives. We have not made this our full-time job. But we have concerned ourselves with some of the alternative narratives, and continue to concern ourselves with the mainstream narrative. We have no problem admitting that, overall, much remains opaque. More than anything else, there are countless riddles and questions. It is very hard, within the thicket of opinions, to gain a sense that there is a common ground of phenomena that people can agree upon. This is especially true with research on viruses, which is extremely technical, highly mediated by sophisticated technology (electron microscopes, sequencing machines, PCR tests, etc.), and embedded within many assumptions, for example, about causality. You can hardly avoid relying on authorities, but which authorities? How is it possible to discern the truthfulness of what the different authorities are saying?

One person whose views have received a good deal of attention is Thomas Cowan. A video in which he speaks of 5G — and not viruses — as a causal agent in what people call the pandemic went viral. Many refer to him as an authority countering the mainstream narrative, while others state they have debunked his views. Cowan and Sally Fallon Morell published a book in 2020, The Contagion Myth. We decided to spend some time with the book in an attempt to understand their perspective. We have not spent the months we would need to investigate every claim they make by reviewing the literature they cite in the book. We have spent many hours investigating a few central claims and the way they craft their argument. We will not discuss here the causal factors they propose, such as 5G or environmental toxins. We are primarily concerned with their critique of the widespread scientific view that infectious diseases are caused by viruses (and bacteria).

Misrepresenting Research Studies — Three Examples

To begin with, we consider two examples from The Contagion Myth that are indicative of the way in which Cowan and Fallon Morell report on mainstream research concerning infectious diseases. The first example refers to bacterial infection and the work of Robert Koch (1843-1910), one of the founders of the germ theory of disease. They briefly consider Koch’s research on tuberculosis (TB):

In 1905, Dr. Koch received the Nobel Prize for proving that TB was an infectious disease.

Except he didn’t.

In fact, he could find an organism in infected tissue only by using special staining methods after the tissue was heated and dehydrated with alcohol. The stain was a toxic dye, methylene blue, and the solution he used contained another toxin — potassium hydroxide (lye). When he injected the organism stained with these poisons into animals, they got sick. But what caused the illness, the bacillus or the poisons? (p. 33)

Cowan and Fallon Morell deny that Koch proved that TB is an infectious disease because they claims that Koch injected animals with bacteria and poisons (stains used in microscopy). Since there were, according to them, two components in the injected solution, Koch could not know whether the bacteria or the toxins were making the animals sick. This makes sense. But did Koch do this? The source for their brief description of what Koch did is the English translation of excerpts from Koch’s famous 1882 paper on the “Etiology of Tuberculosis” (Koch 1982). We read the excerpts and then also read the original and much longer German article (Koch 1882).

Koch describes in detail his procedures to examine the tissues that he had taken from the organs of animals that had been “altered by tuberculosis” (p. 1270). As Cowan and Fallon Morell relate, methylene blue and potassium hydroxide were used in the staining procedure. Staining allows the bacteria to stand out under the microscope and makes it easier to distinguish different bacterial species from one another. Koch writes, “in all locations where the tuberculosis process has recently developed and is progressing most rapidly, these bacilli can be found in large numbers” (p. 1271). He concludes, “on the basis of my extensive observations, I consider it proven that in all tuberculous conditions of man and animals there exists a characteristic bacterium which I have designated as the tubercle bacillus, which has specific properties which allow it to be distinguished from all other microorganisms.”

Koch then states “from this correlation between the presence of tuberculous conditions and bacilli, it does not necessarily follow that these phenomena are causally related” (p. 1271). His next step was to isolate bacteria from the body and propagate them in pure cultures in the lab until they were freed from parts of the host organism that might still have adhered to the bacteria. For this he developed a solid nutrient medium on which to culture bacteria. He describes in detail all the steps he took to cultivate the bacteria until he had pure cultures. The whole point of the many procedures was to obtain pure, uncontaminated cultures. These pure cultures were never stained. He only stained bacteria in order to identify them under the microscope. He did not inoculate experimental animals with stained bacteria and “poisons” as Cowan and Fallon Morell claim.

In his paper, Koch goes on to describe how he inoculated experimental animals — mainly guinea pigs — with the pure bacterial cultures and states that in all cases but one the animals developed the symptoms of tuberculosis. For him this was a proof that the bacteria cause the disease and are not just correlated with it.

It is not possible for us to understand how anyone could read Koch’s article and come away with the conclusion that he inoculated animals with a mixture of bacteria and toxic stains. We cannot judge what led Cowan and Fallon Morell to misrepresent Koch’s procedure, but they did not read Koch’s article with the intent to present Koch’s work as accurately as possible. The way they misrepresent Koch allows them to erroneously discredit Koch as a serious researcher, implying that Koch was not smart enough to know that injecting bacteria and toxic stains into animal would provide no proof of the bacteria as disease-causing agents. As his tuberculosis article and his many other articles show, Koch was a remarkably thorough, critical, and careful researcher.

The second example concerns an article published in 2020 describing animal experimentation with SARS-CoV-2, the virus implicated by mainstream science and medicine in the current pandemic (Chan et al. 2020). Here is what Cowan and Fallon Morell write about what the researchers did:

They took unpurified, lung-cancer-grown, centrifuged snot and (again, without any controls) squirted it down the throats and into the lungs of hamsters. (Where is PETA when you need them?) Some, but not all, of the hamsters got pneumonia, and some died. We have no idea what would have happened if they had squirted plain lung cancer cells into the lungs of these hamsters, but probably not anything good. And even more perplexing, some of the hamsters didn’t even get sick at all, which certainly doesn’t square with the deadly, contagious virus theory. (p. 52)

In contrast to what they report, if you read the article you will find that, while the researchers did experiment with hamsters,

they did not mix “unpurified, lung-cancer-grown, centrifuged snot”;

they did not squirt such a mixture down the throats and lungs of the hamsters;

what they squirted into the nasal passages of anesthetized hamsters they describe as diluted “virus stocks” that were obtained from “plaque purified viral isolate” that had been amplified by culturing in VeroE6 cells (which are derived from monkey cells, not lung-cancer cells);

these animals became ill, and recovered;

they do not report that some of these animals “didn’t even get sick at all”;

none of the animals died;

the experiment did have controls; the controls had saline solution, without viral stock, squirted into their nasal passages; none of the controls became ill. (See Chan et al. 2020.)

Just about everything Cowan and Fallon Morell relate from the article is false. As in the case with Koch’s tuberculosis experiments, they grossly misrepresent what the researchers did and found in their experiments. If they would have taken care in studying the article, they could have justifiably criticized the lack of detailed reporting on the method of virus isolation and purification; they could have criticized the researchers for saying that Koch’s postulates had been fulfilled in this case, since those criteria don’t apply to viruses (see below). But Cowan and Fallon Morell did none of this; they simply reported on an experiment that never happened in the way they describe it.

Cowan and Fallon Morell are similarly cavalier with the work of those they cite to support their views. They introduce the intriguing work of Luc Montagnier concerning resonance phenomena in aqueous solutions as follows:

Here’s how the experiment goes: first, one puts DNA or RNA in water (beaker one). Then one puts a collection of nucleic acids (the chemicals that make up the DNA and RNA) in a separate water beaker (beaker two), in another part of the room. Then one introduces an energy source, such as UV or infrared light and shines that on beaker one, which contains the formed DNA or RNA. In time, the exact same sequence of DNA or RNA will form out of the raw materials in beaker two. (p. 76)

In the paper that Cowan and Fallon Morell cite (Montagnier et al. 2009), the researchers describe a series of experiments that lead them to posit the “capacity of some bacterial DNA sequences to induce electromagnetic waves at high aqueous dilutions.” The process of obtaining and diluting bacterial DNA and the apparatus needed to determine the presence of the electromagnetic signals are presented in some detail.

The only part of the paper that bears any resemblance to Cowan and Fallon Morell’s description deals with the “homologous ‘cross-talk’ between dilutions.” Discovering the resemblance demands an act of imagination on the part of the reader.

The researchers make high dilutions of bacterial DNA sequences (10-8 to 10-12). Only at the high dilutions could they detect specific electromagnetic signals that differed from the rest of the detectable ambient electromagnetic “noise.” These they call “loud” dilutions. Lower dilution bacterial DNA sequences (10-3) were “silent,” and did not emit those signals. In one experiment, they placed “loud” and “silent” dilutions in capped plastic tubes side-by-side in a mumetal box that shields the samples from ambient electromagnetism. They observed, after 24 hours, that the loud dilutions became silent. When a mumetal shield was placed between the two dilutions in the 24-hour experiment, the effect did not arise. They speak of a resonance phenomenon and cross-talk between the dilutions. Such results only occurred between dilutions of DNA of the same species.

As you can tell, there is hardly any similarity between what Cowan and Fallon Morell describe and what you can find in the article. There is nothing in the article stating that “the exact same sequence of DNA or RNA will form out of the raw materials in beaker two.” Montagnier and colleagues are detecting electromagnetic signal changes, not the resonant creation of specific DNA sequences from a collection of nucleotides.

In the discussion of their results, the researchers point out that the production of such electromagnetic signals has only been able to be repeated “with only certain bacterial sequences.” And they raise the question whether “they are restricted to some genes involved in diseases.”

Although Montagnier is not someone known for his reticence or hesitancy in voicing his views, in this paper he and his fellow authors are quite tentative in their conclusions. They do not claim that their experiments “prove” anything. The experiments “suggest” the presence of a phenomenon that they believe deserves further consideration.

Cowan and Fallon Morell are less tentative in their conclusions, building a theory of disease based on the possibility of resonance phenomena between people living in similarly toxic situations:

When one applies this discovery to viruses (or exosomes) said to cause measles, chicken pox, or herpes, it is possible that since these particles called viruses or exosomes are simply packages of DNA or RNA, they emit their own resonant frequencies. In a way not yet determined, each frequency creates an expression that we call a disease; however, the frequency will create what we call illness only if there is a purpose or reason for the illness. (p. 77)

For Cowan and Fallon Morell to use the tentative conclusions of a study as the basis for positing causal relationships in a context that is foreign to that of the original experimentation is highly problematic. You can wish that they would be as critical of their own methods as they are of those they choose to criticize.

These examples — and there are more in the book — show that when Cowan and Fallon Morell refer to research studies, you need to read the studies yourself to see if their depiction in any way conforms to what was done. Such misrepresentations provide plenty of reason not to trust what they say concerning the research others have carried out. Ironically, they repeatedly accuse mainstream researchers of making bogus and fraudulent claims.

Argumentation Strategy

Cowan and Fallon Morell are centrally interested in convincing their readers that bacteria and viruses do not cause disease; hence the title: The Contagion Myth.

Before they deal with Koch’s research on tuberculosis, they refer to the famous “Koch’s postulates.” These are drawn from Koch’s research and have historically provided a conceptual framework for assessing whether a specific bacterial species can be considered the cause of the disease. Koch’s postulates have been expressed in a variety of ways. Koch himself did not speak of postulates and presented his views on criteria for evidence of causation differently in different publications and at different times in his career (Carter 1985; Evans 1976 and 1993; Gillies 2016; Gradmann 2014). Cowan and Fallon Morell, however, choose to present one particular formulation:

Koch’s postulates are as follows:

The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease but not found in healthy organisms.

The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in a pure culture.

The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.

The microorganisms must be re-isolated from the now diseased experimental host which received the inoculation of the microorganisms and identified as identical to the original specific causative agent.

If all four conditions are met, you have proven the infectious cause for a specific set of symptoms. This is the only way to prove causation. (p. 3)

For their overall argument, it is important for Cowan and Fallon Morell to categorically state that the fulfillment of these four postulates is the only way to prove causation. Holding on to this claim as if it were a self-evident truth, they can go on to “show” that Koch and others have never proved that a disease is caused by bacteria or other microorganisms. This can be for a number of reasons, but especially postulate #1, in the way they formulate it, is rarely (or ever?) fulfilled. This is because bacteria that are implicated in a given disease can be found in some or even many healthy individuals. This was known to Koch, and it has been widely known since his time. We all harbor bacteria that, in other people, or at a different time or in different circumstances in us, can be implicated in a disease. One example is Helicobacter pylori, which can persist in the stomach of a person who is healthy, but can also be connected with gastric ulcers (for a number of examples, see: Monack et al. 2004; Fisher et al. 2017).

So Cowan and Fallon Morell have a neat solution to a complex issue: Because Koch’s postulates are never completely fulfilled, scientists have not proven that bacteria cause disease. The problem with this neat solution is that they set a fixed standard against which everything, for all times, needs to be assessed. They rail against scientists who state that Koch’s postulates are outdated (pp. 73ff.). As I said above, Koch himself never spoke of postulates and “his” postulates have been formulated in a variety of ways by different scientists. As Cowan and Fallon Morell themselves point out (p. 3), Koch knew that the criteria for causation he had articulated in his tuberculosis experiments could not all be fulfilled, for example, in cholera; experimental animals did not become ill when injected with cholera bacteria that had been cultured from ill humans. Nonetheless, Koch gave a variety of reasons why he thought bacteria are causal agents in cholera.

Cowan and Fallon Morell pick out one formulation of Koch’s postulates as their universal measuring stick. They even compare the postulates to Newton’s laws of gravity (p. 75). They don’t allow for an evolution of scientific thought in relation to the variety of phenomena scientists encounter. This is a convenient and pretty iron-clad way to make sure that no one can claim to have proven causation for a purported bacteria-related disease. Unfortunately, it also means not dealing with the complexities of biological realities, research, and the nature of understanding.

When Cowan and Fallon Morell address diseases that are purported to be related to viruses, they implement the same strategy. Koch’s postulates have to be modified for viruses because viruses only reproduce within living cells of another organism. They cannot be grown on nutrient media, but need to be grown in cell cultures. They then have to be separated from tissues (which is an involved process) before scientists speak of “viral isolates” that can then be used in inoculation experiments.

As they did with Koch’s postulates, Cowan and Fallon Morell take one set of criteria against which they judge all experiments relating to viral causation of disease. They enumerate “River’s postulates,” which are based on a 1937 article by bacteriologist and virologist Thomas Rivers (Rivers 1937). They present one formulation of Rivers’ postulates:

The virus can be isolated from diseased hosts.

The virus can be cultivated in host cells.

Proof of filterability — the virus can be filtered from a medium that also contains bacteria.

The filtered virus will produce a comparable disease when the cultivated virus is used to infect experimental animals.

The virus can be re-isolated from the infected experimental animal.

A specific immune response to the virus can be detected. (p. 4)

This list doesn’t come directly from Rivers, whose discussion of the task of establishing causality is remarkably nuanced. Writing about the necessity of moving beyond Koch’s postulates, both for some bacterial diseases and for viral diseases, Rivers remarks that “progress having left behind old rules requires new ones which some day without doubt will also be declared obsolete” (p. 4). He knew that his new criteria for establishing viruses as agents in infectious diseases were tentative and that changes “will in the future undoubtedly occur in the methods of establishing the specific relation of viruses to disease” (p. 11). A variety of methods have been developed and other criteria formulated in the 83 years since Rivers’ article (for example: Byrd and Segre 2016; Carter 1985; Evans 1976 and 1993; Fredericks & Relman 1996; Gillies 2016; Gradmann 2014). Science hasn’t stopped.

But for Cowan and Fallon Morell, Rivers’ postulates are the criteria to assess causation related to viruses. They refer to a number of studies related to SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19, and claim that none of them have fulfilled the postulates (pp. 50 ff.). This is for them proof that viruses don’t cause disease:

Again, this book’s central claim is that no disease attributed to bacteria or viruses has met all of Koch’s postulates or all of Rivers’ criteria. This is not because the postulates are incorrect or obsolete (in fact, they are entirely logical) but rather because bacteria and viruses don’t cause disease, at least not in any way that we currently understand. (p. 4)

Cowan and Fallon Morell continue in a similar vein when it comes to the question of the isolation of viruses. They present one “gold standard” technique from a thesis of a German virologist, Stefan Lanka (1989). The hundreds or probably thousands of virologists who claim to have isolated viruses are all wrong, according to Cowan and Fallon Morell, because they use other methods to isolate viruses than the one Lanka developed. Lanka’s technique is impressive, but it is not the only one. If you look in the literature, you find that there is no one “gold standard” for viral isolation (see, for example, Eisfeld et al. 2014; Hematian et al. 2016; Hsiung 1984; Leland & Ginnochio 2007). We are not virologists and cannot assess their respective strengths and weaknesses. But we see no reason to think that all these scientists are deluded or making fraudulent claims, which is what Cowan and Fallon Morell believe they have shown.

Cowan and Fallon Morell write that “the entire world of medicine, virology, and immunology” is mistaken in believing that “many of our common diseases are viral in origin” (p. 67). Is there reason to believe that people who say “a disease is caused by infectious agents” are oversimplifying a highly complex relationship between a virus, its host organism, and the environment? Absolutely. Is it justified to dismiss 150 years of research that focuses on one aspect of that relationship? We don’t think so.

We do not agree with the widespread, all-too uncritical use of the terms “cause” and “causation” that one finds in the scientific literature, or with the one-sided focus on infectious agents that often ignores the larger questions of health, resiliency, and dispositions for becoming ill. The problem is even worse in mainstream media and politics, where viruses become “the enemy.” We have presented a broader, ecological view of viruses elsewhere (Holdrege 2020). We are open to considering perspectives that challenge the monolithic mainstream narrative. But when this is done by grossly distorting scientific findings of others and crafting an argument that only appears to work, then more harm than good is done in the search for a balanced and nuanced understanding of infectious disease and the current pandemic.

References

Byrd, A. L. & Segre, J. A. (2016). Adapting Koch’s Postulates. Science vol. 351, pp. 224-6. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad6753

Carter, K. C. (1985). Koch’s Postulates in Relation to the Work of Jacob Henle and Edwin Klebs. Medical History vol. 29, pp. 353–74. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300044689

Chan, J. F-W. (2020). Simulation of the Clinical and Pathological Manifestations of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a Golden Syrian Hamster Model: Implications for Disease Pathogenesis and Transmissibility. Clinical Infectious Diseases vol. 71, pp. 2428–46, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa325

Cowan, T. S. & Morell, S. F. (2020). The Contagion Myth. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.

Eisfeld, A. et al. (2014). Influenza A Virus Isolation, Culture and Identification. Nature Protocols vol. 9, pp. 2663–81 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2014.180

Evans, A. S. (1976). Causation and disease: The Henle-Koch Postulates Revisited. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine vol. 49, pp. 175–95.

Evans, A. S. (1993). Causation and Disease: A Chronological Journey. New York: Plenum Medical Book Company.

Fisher, R. et al. (2017). Persistent Bacterial Infections and Persister Cells. Nature Reviews Microbiolology vol. 15, pp. 453–464. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2017.42

Fredericks, D. N. & Relman, D. A. (1996). Sequence-based Identification of Microbial Pathogens: A Reconsideration of Koch’s Postulates. Clinical Microbiology Reviews vol. 9, pp. 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1128/CMR.9.1.18

Gillies, D. A. (2016) Establishing Causality in Medicine and Koch’s Postulates. International Journal of History and Philosophy of Medicine vol. 6: 10603. http://dx.doi.org/10.18550/ijhpm.0603

Gradmann, C. (2014). A Spirit of Scientific Rigour: Koch’s Postulates in Twentieth-century Medicine. Microbes and Infection vol. 16, pp. 885–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micinf.2014.08.012

Hematian, A. et al. (2016). Traditional and Modern Cell Culture in Virus Diagnosis. Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives vol. 7, pp. 77–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phrp.2015.11.011

Holdrege, C. (2020). Viruses in the Dynamics of Life. The Nature Institute. https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege/viruses-in-the-dynamics-of-life

Hsiung G. D. (1984). Diagnostic Virology: From Animals to Automation. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine vol. 57, pp. 727–733.

Koch, R. (1982). The Etiology of Tuberculosis. Reviews of Infectious Diseases vol. 4(6), pp. 1270–74. https://doi.org/10.1093/clinids/4.6.1270

Koch, R. (1882). Die Ätiologie der Tuberkulose. Berliner klinischer Wochenschrift Nr. 15, pp. 428-45.

Lanka, S. (1989). Untersuchungen über Virus-Befall by marinen Braunalgen. Diplomarbeit, University of Konstanz.

Leland, D. S., & Ginocchio, C. C. (2007). Role of Cell Culture for Virus Detection in the Age of Technology. Clinical Microbiology Reviews vol. 20, 49. https://doi.org/10.1128/CMR.00002-06

Monack, D. et al. (2004). Persistent bacterial infections: the interface of the pathogen and the host immune system. Nature Reviews Microbiology vol. 2, pp. 747–65. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro955

Montagnier, L. et al. (2009). Electromagnetic Signals are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences. Interdiscip Sci Comput Life Sci vol. 1, pp. 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12539-009-0036-7

Rivers, T. M. (1937). Viruses and Koch’s Postulates. Journal of Bacteriology vol. 33(1), pp. 1-12.

Ross, L. N. & Woodward, J. F. (2016). Koch’s Postulates: An Interventionist Perspective. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences vol. 59, pp. 35–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2016.06.001

Copyright 2021 The Nature Institute

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That nature institute article is great. At one point I was gonna post it in this thread but I really don't think there was any point. Well done.

[MacCruiskeen]

Mr Creosote eats the OP, cannot digest it, and therefore lumbers resentfully round the net in search of a second lunch. Having stuffed his face with that, he then takes a truly enormous dump on the board -- it's his speciality -- before spewing out his very own thoughts, which I here quote in full and verbatim (with apologies for stretching the thread):

DrEvil, lots! Go to Link For original formatting.

Sic.

Spotting a free meal, JH dives on that tasty conglomerate, scoffs it whole, chunders it all straight back out again for our delectation, and adds the following belch:

That nature institute article is great. At one point I was gonna post it in this thread but I really don't think there was any point. Well done.

Well done indeed. This is a fascinating experiment. We can all learn a lot from watching TheScience™ at work.



(edit: link fixed)

[Joe Hillshoist]

This is why it isn'ty worth posting anything along the lines of a good faith discussion with you Mac. You're incapable of it.

Far more likely to be wearing a shit eating grin than me too.

[DrEvil]

Mr Creosote eats the OP, cannot digest it, and therefore lumbers resentfully round the net in search of a second lunch. Having stuffed his face with that, he then takes a truly enormous dump on the board -- it's his speciality -- before spewing out his very own thoughts, which I here quote in full and verbatim (with apologies for stretching the thread):

DrEvil, lots! Go to Link For original formatting.

Sic.

Spotting a free meal, JH dives on that tasty conglomerate, scoffs it whole, chunders it all straight back out again for our delectation, and adds the following belch:

That nature institute article is great. At one point I was gonna post it in this thread but I really don't think there was any point. Well done.

Well done indeed. This is a fascinating experiment. We can all learn a lot from watching TheScience™ at work.



(edit: link fixed)

Any chance of you addressing the contents of the article Iam posted? You speak german, so it should be easy for you to check their claims about what Koch really wrote and compare to what Cowan wrote. Also still waiting on your thoughts on Cowan's belief that we have found alien life.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Any chance of you addressing the contents of the article Iam posted? You speak german, so it should be easy for you to check their claims about what Koch really wrote and compare to what Cowan wrote. Also still waiting on your thoughts on Cowan's belief that we have found alien life.

No chance of that. He's got nothing and he knows it. Its why he's being a rude prick. He always resorts to insults when he's got nothing of substance.

[MacCruiskeen]

Any chance of you addressing the contents of the article Iam posted? You speak german, so it should be easy for you to check their claims about what Koch really wrote and compare to what Cowan wrote. Also still waiting on your thoughts on Cowan's belief that we have found alien life.

No chance of that. He's got nothing and he knows it. Its why he's being a rude prick. He always resorts to insults when he's got nothing of substance.

Are you a satirist?

[MacCruiskeen]

Also still waiting on your thoughts on Cowan's belief that we have found alien life.

Whether it's his belief or not, I think it's a permissible and non-ridiculous belief, and I also know for a fact that it's wholly irrelevant to the argument and to the topic of this thread. I wouldn''t expect you to notice that, though. Your idea of science is Always Being Right About Everything. Your idea of reasoning is to say, "Butbutbut that fellow also said this..." You have obviously read very little history and learned even less logic.

Name some of the most prominent utter duffers who, unlike you in your godlike omniscience, have advanced science while a) being wrong about some things, and b) taking a strong interest in (just for instance) alchemy, astrology, theology, or altered states of consciousness.

I can. But I'll leave you leisured timewasting spectators to do some work for once, even if it's only Googling frantically in an effort to simulate knowledge.

Any chance of you addressing the contents of the article Iam posted? You speak german, so it should be easy for you to check their claims about what Koch really wrote and compare to what Cowan wrote.

Y'know, believe it or not, we second-class citizens in New Normal Germany have other priorities and more pressing responsibilities right now than replying to The Great I Am (Master of Copy and Paste) and his smirking hangers-on, none of whooooommm ever even address the essential questions actually raised in the OP:

1. Where is the proof that "viruses" originate outside the body?
2. Where is the proof that they cause disease?

Wo genau, Meister Faust?

Because, y'know, these VICIOUS INVISIBLE FLYING KILLER-DOTS -- the ones you and all the other virtuous links in The Human Centipede known as TheScience™ are so sure exist -- are (so we're told) the reason we're now forbidden to work, breathe freely, get on a bus or a train, enter a restaurant or a theatre, send our children to school unmuzzled, or even leave the fucking country. (Pardon my French, can't think what came over me.)

[PufPuf93]

Mac asks:

"1. Where is the proof that "viruses" originate outside the body?

2. Where is the proof that they cause disease?"

The viruses known to coexist with humans could be a grain of sand of the viruses that exist on Earth. If every human disappeared from Earth (or never existed), there would be viruses. Most are not catalogued and their functions unknown. Viruses are a basic piece of Nature's clean up and recycle process for life on the planet.

Disease is like saying "weeds", which is the subjective out of place plant. Viruses we think of as diseases or pathogens gain a foothold where a living, respiring organism replicates viruses at a cost to the living, respiring organism. Opportunities for infection mostly occur in senescing (life stage of biological decline) life. With humans this virus pandemic takes out the old, ill, etc. and in a sense prunes demographics and does some passive eugenics.

IMO human population is going to crash. The human species has overshot the mark and is seriously damaging the web of life that created and sustains humans. Not going to be pretty if one thinks the situation is not good now.

I basically agree with most of the dire things some humans are planning to do to dominate others. Looks to me like the anti-science current is fed to generate chaos and division, those enduring tools of evil humans, among the proposed victims this time unfortunately.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Any chance of you addressing the contents of the article Iam posted? You speak german, so it should be easy for you to check their claims about what Koch really wrote and compare to what Cowan wrote. Also still waiting on your thoughts on Cowan's belief that we have found alien life.

No chance of that. He's got nothing and he knows it. Its why he's being a rude prick. He always resorts to insults when he's got nothing of substance.

Are you a satirist?

I just give back what you dish out Mac. I've never made any bones about being rude and my posting history is full of me being a cunt.

But I don't resort to insults cos I have nothing of substance to say.

I don't usually put myself in a position to have nothing of substance to say. (My insults are usually found scattered among the facts and logical strong points I post repeatedly. )

You start from the position that everything is sus, unquestioningly accept anything that will support your confirmation bias and then pay out on people who point out your mistakes. Or even just point out what you have a possible interpration of events that may be correct but may not be cos of these other things. Or even just disagree cos their experience doesn't fit with your opinion.

You also have a shitload of faith in power's ability to not fuck up all the time, despite your dislike for its actions. But situations are chaotic and fucked up all the time and people on the ground don't always have the sort of information that you assume they do. Your take on Anders Breviek was classic in that regard.

anyway here's your challenge:

Back up what you've said with facts and actual data.

[Iamwhomiam]

Mr Creosote eats the OP, cannot digest it, and therefore lumbers resentfully round the net in search of a second lunch. Having stuffed his face with that, he then takes a truly enormous dump on the board -- it's his speciality -- before spewing out his very own thoughts, which I here quote in full and verbatim (with apologies for stretching the thread):

DrEvil, lots! Go to Link For original formatting.

Sic.

Spotting a free meal, JH dives on that tasty conglomerate, scoffs it whole, chunders it all straight back out again for our delectation, and adds the following belch:

That nature institute article is great. At one point I was gonna post it in this thread but I really don't think there was any point. Well done.

Well done indeed. This is a fascinating experiment. We can all learn a lot from watching TheScience™ at work.



(edit: link fixed)

Oh, Mc Duff, your onslaught wearies me, but you are no longer the noble one you once were.

A fitting response to choose poetry over going all Poe on yur ass:

Invincible

Long in tooth and soul
Longing for another win
Lurch into the fray
Weapon out and belly in

Warrior struggling to remain consequential

Bellow aloud
Bold and proud
Of where I've been
But here I am

Beating chest and drums
Beating tired bones again
Age-old battle, mine
Weapon out and belly in

Tales told of battles won
Of things we've done
Caligula would grin

Beating tired bones
Tripping through remember when
Once invincible
Now the armor's wearing thin
Heavy shield down

Warrior struggling to remain relevant
Warrior struggling to remain consequential

Cry aloud
Bold and proud
Of where I've been
But here I am
Where I end

Warrior struggling to remain relevant
Warrior struggling to remain consequential

Tears in my eyes
Chasing Ponce de Leon's phantoms
So filled with hope
I can taste mythical fountains
False hope, perhaps
But the truth never got in my way
Before now, feel the sting
Feeling time bearing down

False hope, perhaps
But the truth never got in my way
Before now, feel the sting
Feeling time bearing down
Bearing down

[conniption]

"Am I a spaceman? Do I belong to a new race on Earth, bred by men from outer space in embraces with Earth women? Are my children offspring of the first interplanetary race? Has the melting-pot of interplanetary society already been created on our planet, as the melting-pot of all Earth nations was established in the USA 190 years ago?

Or does this thought relate to things to come in the future? I request my right and privilege to have such thoughts and ask such questions without being threatened to be jailed by any administrative agency of society... In the face of a rigid, doctrinaire, self-appointed, ready-to-kill hierarchy of scientific censorship it appears foolish to publish such thoughts. Anyone malignant enough could do anything with them. Still the right to be wrong has to be maintained. We should not fear to enter a forest because there are wildcats around in the trees. We should not yield our right to well-controlled speculation. It is certain questions entailed in such speculation which the administrators of established knowledge fear... But in entering the cosmic age we should certainly insist on the right to ask new, even silly questions without being molested."

Wilhelm Reich
Contact With Space

_______

11.08.21
Patrick Timpone and Thomas Cowan on SoundCloud.
listen >>> https://soundcloud.com/oneradionetwork/ ... wan-thomas
(1:02:35 min.)