Was Covid-19 Modified by Humans? - A Basis for Scientific Discussion

Editor's note: The author was former Editor of BioEngineering News and a frequent contributor to publications on the subjects of biotechnology, technology, economics, politics, and the Middle Eastern situation.

Tragically, Mr. Mysiewicz passed away recently from congestive heart failure when he was denied the operation he needed in order to live because of the COVID panic. He died on April 16, 2020 in the hospital at Bandon, Oregon. This article deals with the modification of the virus, a description of the virus and its functioning, the aim of the design of the virus, its purpose, and some info on bioweapon facilities. Mr. Mysiewicz was not able to complete the article, and some footnotes are therefore incomplete (they are noted in the text and the footnotes by 'xxx'), but the article is still valuable for its insights from a well-informed expert.

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The Covid-19 pandemic has yet to produce an authentic “case zero” and not for want of searching.  One candidate, for instance, had no connection with the alleged source of the infection, the Wuhan wet market.   Further, Chinese sources have failed to demonstrate conclusively that the virus originated with  the market or even the Wuhan BSL-4 high-containment facility (1) and some are now expressing doubts the outbreak even originated in China.  I’m inclined to agree.  And, for a variety of reasons, I doubt the lethal L strain of SARS-CoV-2 found in China, Italy, parts of the EU and in Iran is a natural product, and I have my suspicions about the more-prevalent S or “ancestral” strain that seems to be far less lethal.(2)  There are also 4 and possibly 5 known variants of these.

I’m of the opinion that the virus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic (SARS-CoV-2) has been modified by human intervention, and either inadvertently or deliberately introduced into humans.   Whether this modification was a result of alterations made to study the mutation rate of a naturally occurring virus (in order to develop vaccines, treatments or tests) or whether the virus was deliberately weaponized remains to be determined. 

SARS-CoV-2 is a very large RNA virus—an excellent platform for loading additional RNA onto.  And this virus can vary in antigens by ribosomal shifting in transcription of the viral RNA, meaning it can make the ribosomes start transcription at different starting points of the viral RNA to produce different proteins.   And this shifting can be stimulated by drugs, vaccines or even simply due to the structure of nucleic-acid triplets, meaning a change to structure can change the operation of the virus without necessarily changing the sequences.  Since the nucleic acid sequences are what a researcher would typically look at to determine the origin of a virus, a structurally altered nucleic acid sequence would likely escape detection.  Also, selective pressure and mutagens can also be applied to viruses in cell culture and, later, in living animals to select viral strains with desired traits without direct molecular intervention.   This is done in vaccine development—but it could also be done by bad players.

Several papers have been published purporting to debunk the widespread suspicion that SARS-CoV-2 was a product of “slicing and dicing.”  As someone who spent many years covering such topics and reading thousands of scientific papers, these do not convince me.  Part of the problem may be the sequencing of the S (ancestral) strain rather than the more lethal L strain.  One paper even concludes with the possibility of engineering as being “unlikely.” (XXX)  This is not good science in my view as that weak conclusion shows the paper did not, in fact, disprove the theory.  We are no longer in days past.  Science and scientists do wittingly or unwittingly become tools of propaganda.(3)

On the other hand, papers that might support my suspicions are ruthlessly censored, such as a very good paper from India showing HIV-like inclusions in the virus—a gain-of-function mutation that is extremely rare.  Simply because they used the phrase “similar to sequences found in HIV” their pre-publication was subjected to ruthless attacks and had to be withdrawn. (4)  The researchers did NOT state these were the exact sequences from HIV but the existence of these sequences in SARS-CoV-2 is curious as I will discuss later. 

Despite this censorship, HIV, which I wrote about extensively in the 1980s, is in the same category (positive-sense single-strand RNA virus) as SARS-CoV-2 exhibiting ribosomal-shifting operation.  So it’s no surprise that anti-retroviral drugs developed for AIDS are being used to treat Covid-19 patients with some success in Japan and elsewhere.  (Because of this ability to change the start site of transcription of the virus in the ribosomes of an infected cell, I predicted a vaccine would never be developed for HIV—and I was called a “public health menace” at the time for stating this.  For the same reason, I doubt a safe and effective conventional vaccine could be produced for SARS-CoV-2.  More on this later)

The two best arguments against SARS-CoV-2 being an engineered virus are (1) it is a mutation in line with expectations of normal mutation/viral evolution (XXX) and (2) If it was engineered its death rate of 1% to 16% would be too low vs. the 60% some say is expected of a biowarfare agent. (XXX)

For purposes of developing vaccines, every year virologists “play around” with the nucleic acids of  influenza and other viruses, altering them and observing the results to determine the likely evolutionary pathway a given virus will take.  George Soros has sponsored such a lab in Wuhan, China (XXX) working with coronaviruses for some time.  So, while the current coronavirus may have been engineered, it’s possible but not likely the release was accidental.  How accurate are the predictions of virologists using these techniques in determining evolutionary pathways?  Probably on the level of weather forecasters.   Predictions of a virus’ likely evolutionary pathway, for example, led to a recent influenza vaccine being less than 3% effective against the actual strain vs. the one predicted by virologists! (XXX)

Regarding the second point about the needed lethality of an engineered virus, I beg to disagree.  While bacterial bio-warfare agents such as anthrax have high lethality, there are known countermeasures to treat “friendly” forces and populations that may become accidentally infected.  It would be far too dangerous for any sane nation to use a highly contagious weaponized virus with very high lethality and no known effective treatments!   From my reporting efforts in the 1980s, it seems a virus such as that causing Covid-19 would be a perfect covert-warfare agent if it were engineered to do exactly what it is doing now: cause financial panic, overtax medical resources, disrupt industry and transportation, and generally debilitate and immobilize large blocks of population.  Further, such an agent released during the normal flu season (as this one may have been) would go largely undetected until much of the population had been exposed and it was too late to control the disease by isolation.

Apparently, Chinese officials concluded the disease is caused by human-modified viruses and have appointed a biowarfare expert—Major General Chen Wei—to lead the campaign against the outbreak in Wuhan.  She takes leave from her position at the medical at the Academy of Military Sciences and as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.  Wei is assisted by specially-trained troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Hubei Garrison in the Central Theater Command.  (Source: PLA Daily and CCTV.)  The military style and ruthlessness of the eradication effort is what one would expect in the case of a bioattack.  Infected citizens are treated almost as enemy combatants in some cases, possibly because some—even if asymptomatic--may become permanent carriers of the disease and, like AIDS patients, need anti-retroviral drugs for life.  While supplies are supposed to be delivered to quarantined citizens by the PLA, calls from victims to alt media sources indicates some of these have not received even a grain of rice.

Unsurprisingly, finger-pointing has begun in various quarters naming the originator of the plague as the U.S., Japan, Saudi Arabia, Canada or even China itself.  In Iran, where I think the real “patient zero” probably died,  semi-official sources point the finger at a country they apparently fear to mention by name.(5)  Their suspicions are not unreasonable.  Iran has been the target of computer viruses (e.g., Stuxnet, a U.S.-Israeli virus targeted at infrastructure.)  This country has also had numerous scientists assassinated as well as a prominent general in Iraq who flew in on a commercial airline on a peace mission.  And it has been repeatedly threatened with destruction by President Trump and Israel.  Its suspicions may have been heightened by a preponderance of cases among the Iranian government bureaucracy and military-age men across the country.

As of this writing, three top government officials are reportedly dead  with 477 seriously ill.    Travel between cities is blocked and mass graves are under construction at numerous sites.  (Iran may suspect a release in 2019 during large public gatherings on November 11th, --the end of the mourning period for General Suleimani as well as the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.) 

In my opinion, the Iranian outbreak is too widespread to have been of post-China introduction and reports are that 23% of cases were fatal vs. a maximum 4.5% in Wuhan.  No tests available in Iran until recently, partly due to U.S. sanctions, although 100,000 tests are now reportedly being rushed to the country by the WHO.   So it’s impossible for early cases to have been confirmed.  China and Italy were involved in railway construction in Iran related to the BIR (Belt and Road Initiative) of China (6)  providing a plausible route the disease could have taken to those countries if it indeed originated in Iran.   Travel related to the BIR and new business due to the Iranian nuclear accord could easily have introduced the disease from Iran to Germany and France as well

With regard to the origin of  SARS-CoV-2, I doubt the Iranians will be reassured by U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo’s offer to help conveyed through Switzerland.  Sanctions were not loosened to allow Iran to purchase more humanitarian supplies, although these might not be available anyway.  And the U.S. has been severely rationing tests for its own population—it does not have any to spare.  If this is not some sort of farce, one wonders if the Iranians are being offered a cure in return for submission?(7)   This could potentially involve abandoning its ballistic missiles (the real target of Trump’s new sanctions by his own admission) and destroying any CBWs Iran might have, leaving the country exposed to other regional powers. 

Outside of Russia, the main bioweapons research facilities in the world are located Ft. Dietrick, Md., Porton Down in the UK, and Nes Ziona, Israel.  Based on the two biological weapons conventions XXX there are restrictions on development and use of bioweapons.  Most nations have either signed to these conventions or acceded to them at a later date.  Israel never signed the first convention and signed but did not ratify the second.  Thus, it is not subject to international laws related to such development.

In the mid-1980s I was researching U.S. biowarfare efforts and did an FOIA to the U.S. Department of Defense.  To my surprise, I received over 600 pages detailing hundreds of normally harmless organisms modified with the addition of gene sequences coding for deadly toxins.  These organisms were developed for defensive and peaceful use as prescribed by the law at that time, i.e.  The modified organisms were used to develop test kits and possible countermeasures. However, a bad player who obtained access to these organisms could, in theory, culture them and produce bioweapons.  The USSR during this period had a similar effort and the U.S. apparently produced duplicates of what their intel said the Soviets had.  

It has been alleged for some time that possibly illegal U.S. bioweapons efforts were farmed out to labs in foreign countries, such as the Ukraine.   There have been changes to U.S. law regarding bioweapons development (XXX).  President Bush established “Project Bioshield” to facilitate bioweapons research as a means to protect the homeland.  Other countries may or may not have such efforts as the Biological Weapons Convention most are signatories to does not have a rigorous verification process. 

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Notes:

(1)The Neocon-oriented  Washington Times first carried possible disinformation that the coronavirus escaped from a secret bioweapons program at Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.  This article cited a statement by  Israeli intel asset and bioweapons expert Dany Shoham. 

“Coronavirus may have originated in lab linked to China’s biowarfare program” by Bill Gertz, Washington Times, 26 January 2020   https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-china-biowarfare-program-possible/)

(2) It’s curious that the U.S. and other so-called developed countries (excepting South Korea and Taiwan) almost guaranteed the spread of the S strain of the disease by failing to deploy sufficient tests, failing to stockpile adequate masks and protective gear (even for medical personnel and first responders) and failing to restrict travel from infected areas and or even to promptly give their populations advice on disease avoidance.  In the U.S., for instance, people even have been told not to wear masks or to stockpile food and vital supplies for a future lockdown that is now almost inevitable.  Could it be that officials were aware of the origin of the viruses and intentionally allowed he spread of the “safer” version as a form of mass inoculation to create partial “herd immunity”?  Of course, they could never admit this due to the potential for mass casualties among the homeless, the sick and the elderly, groups some neoliberal economists consider a drag on the economy.

(3) As in the case of CO2-caused “global warming”--despite this being “established science” the planet is cooling due to the current grand solar minimum, global snow cover is at record levels, crop zones have shifted, locusts swarm into new crop areas, floods deluge fields in the U.S., droughts hit other areas while ancient lakes fill and deserts bloom, and if the trend continues there will be mass starvation in 1-2 years.  It’s the sun.  China has had back-to-back bad harvests due to this and the current dieback coupled with the massive drop in consumption might help it weather the crisis, hence the suspicion by some that “they did it to themselves.”  I’m leaning towards the belief that the CCP will simply use the existing crisis to try to stay in power much as the near-bankrupt Western financial interests are papering over massive fraud and bubble blowing, using the virus to account for a market crash and depression that would have happened anyway.  I can see why some would suspect the financiers as banks will benefit by the injection of trillions of dollars from desperate world governments.  An added plus: the disease-inspired depression, lockdowns and martial law will put an end to the burgeoning populist movements across the world.

(4) XXX-Cite Indian paper.

(5) In 2012 Iranian sources did blame Israel for a bioattack, alluding to a race-specific bioweapon as the proximate cause of an outbreak xxx ...

(6) XXX details of Chinese-Italian-Iranian construction.

(7) If there is a cure, it might already exist in the bowels of the IIRB (Israel Institute of Biological Research), Nes Ziona, Israel or one of its satellite startup companies that have been working with SARS for many years.  IIBR is alleged to be the nucleus of Israel’s offensive and defensive CBW effort.