A recent study published in Nature Biotechnology on April 29, 2026, titled “mRNA vaccine immunity is enhanced by hepatocyte detargeting and not dependent on dendritic cell expression,” has been celebrated as groundbreaking. According to Mount Sinai,

• “New Research Challenges Understanding of mRNA Vaccines and Establishes Innovative Way to Make Them More Effective.”

• “Preclinical study shows non-immune cells shape mRNA vaccine responses and offers a path to more effective cancer vaccines.”

The research challenges the long-standing assumption that mRNA must be delivered to dendritic cells—professional antigen-presenting cells (pAPCs)—to initiate strong T-cell immunity. Instead, it reveals that non-immune cells, particularly muscle cells (myocytes) and liver cells (hepatocytes), play a critical and previously underappreciated role in shaping the immune response.

The study was published in the April 29, 2026, online issue of Nature Biotechnology [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-026-03099-z].

Contrary to prior belief, the study found that mRNA expression in dendritic cells is dispensable for priming antigen-specific T cells. Using synthetic microRNA target sites (miRTs) to selectively silence mRNA expression in specific cell types, the team discovered that strong T-cell responses, including against SARS-CoV-2 antigens, could be generated even when dendritic cells did not express the mRNA-encoded antigen.

This suggests that cross-presentation—where non-immune cells produce the antigen and dendritic cells acquire and present it—is a key mechanism for mRNA vaccine efficacy.

It is depicted as surprising:

“This was unexpected,” said Brian D. Brown, PhD, senior author and Director of the Icahn Genomics Institute. “It tells us that other cells are producing the vaccine antigen and handing it off to the immune system.”

“This study fundamentally changes how we think mRNA vaccines work,” says Brian D. Brown, PhD, senior author of the study and Director of the Icahn Genomics Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

I was thrilled to see this. After all, my MDPI article “Cross-Priming and Cross-Tolerance After Intramuscular mRNA Vaccination“ was all about these same processes:

• I emphasized that muscle cells (non-APCs) are the primary site of antigen expression after intramuscular injection and that these cells cannot directly prime CD8+ T cells. Instead, I argued that cross-presentation—where professional APCs like dendritic cells acquire antigenic material from transfected non-APCs—is a key alternative pathway for activating CD8+ T cells.

• The Mount Sinai study aligns directly with my prediction. The study confirms that dendritic cells do not need to be directly transfected—antigen production in non-immune cells (muscle, liver) followed by cross-presentation is sufficient and effective.

We both agree that non-immune cells actively shape immune responses via cross-presentation, something that I found particularly relevant after intramuscular injection:

• In my MDPI article, based on analyses of prior vaccines, including SAM mRNA platforms, from a purely logical perspective, I saw no other alternative than that cross-presentation would be a CRUCIAL pathway following intramuscular mRNA vaccination. (I looked at it from numerous angles, describing plausible mechanisms and evidence from mRNA vaccine studies.) I maintained that this fundamental process was LARGELY underappreciated.

• Likewise, the Mount Sinai study found that “direct expression of RNA-LNPs in muscle fibers contributes to the magnitude of the antigen-specific T cell response... Notably, silencing mRNA in muscle fibers decreased antigen-specific T cell expansion to a similar or greater degree compared to silencing in pAPCs. This was surprising because muscle fibers are not major APCs... A possible explanation is that myocyte expression serves as a source of exogenous antigen for cross-presentation by DCs and this is a more potent mechanism of CD8 T cell activation than direct presentation by transfected DCs...”

I have since gotten articles rejected as I based follow-up arguments on cross-presentation, something which, until recently, did not seem to have been accepted as a viable option. This is one of the reasons I am so thrilled to see my prediction confirmed. The new study also gives me new material to think about (not that I am bored, lol). In contrast, mRNA expression in hepatocytes suppressed the antigen-specific T cell response, partly through PD1/PDL1 (something I have considered important for a while already, as it has shown up in numerous other mRNA vaccine studies, but, as I argue, still remains unappreciated... more on this, sometime later).

The field is now excited. “mRNA technology is transformative for medicine,” Brown said. “Our work provides a new set of design rules for mRNA vaccines and therapeutics.

However, I would like to caution. The more I learn about mRNA vaccines, the more I find out how little we actually know. A year ago, when I was writing the MDPI article, I was confused. For the longest time, I thought it could not be true that I had discovered this foundational gap. Reviewers pushed back, compelling me to scrutinize things deeply. A detailed literature search revealed that, truly, then, this alternative process had been largely ignored in mRNA vaccine studies, despite playing a key role in other platforms, including earlier mRNA self-amplifying technologies.

It is something that keeps unfolding daily — why I have not written much on Substack. From a purely scientific perspective, mRNA vaccines are a gold mine. For many years now, I have not gone a single day without learning something new that was “unexpected.” Accordingly, prior narratives continually get updated as the field seeks to “correct” outdated views.

With these technologies, I seriously doubt that anyone on Earth has a complete grasp of their highly complex mode of operation, which arguably should have been admitted in 2021, before the mass vaccine rollout.

Sadly, some of the aspects I described in my MDPI article also have potential for serious downsides and risks. So far, these have remained widely unexplored....

The gold rush continues. As a scientist, I am thrilled about the progress. I hope all of this will also benefit those who matter the most: individuals!

My recent MDPI article has not been fully published ONLINE.

Website: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/16/2/199

PDF Version: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/16/2/199/pdf

Here is the Graphical Abstract, which only appears in the online version.

As indicated in my first Substack post on this article, I fear that if what I am envisioning is true, it could have far-reaching implications.

In this post, I would like to give a very brief summary of some of my concerns. Some others may take these ideas and extend them to the viral origin question - something, lacking additional information, I do not have the capacity to do.

Part of my work was motivated by the ground-breaking study by Ambati and colleagues, who identified a sequence match of the famous FCS in SARS-CoV-2 to the reverse of a Moderna-patented sequence. In prior work, I had identified specific laboratory scenarios that could have led, or in the same way could lead to the very mysterious FCS integration into SARS-CoV-2. The most recent MDPI article substantially extends my prior work on this.

Although the FCS has drawn lots of attention related to its capacity as a furin cleavage site, astonishingly, it overlaps with at least two other functions of biological relevance. I found strong evidence of reasonable biological mechanisms linking cancer research, oncogenic drugs, human DNA repair pathways, and CoV evolution.

In this article, I did not speculate what this could mean in relation to the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Indeed, I only discuss this extremely mysterious 19-nucleotide portion encompassing the FCS, and not the viral backbone and other origin-relevant questions.

Since my first doctoral degree is in mathematics, I have seen astounding relationships via abstract patterns (mathematicians love to identify relationships and patterns). In biology, I have been blown away by the complexity of life that, IMHO, surpasses everything we could ever imagine.

The many seemingly unrelated aspects that converge in the FCS insert, as seen in SARS-CoV-2, are the most mysterious and fascinating I have ever seen.

I finished my second PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2014. Then, we were taught notions that still inform current biosecurity and biosafety principles, such as the lock-and-key paradigm and genes as simple building blocks of life. What I have uncovered in this article is the exact opposite. I discuss several overlapping functional elements, all camouflaged behind the viral nucleotide sequence that has mainly attracted attention as an FCS.

In my article, I provide numerous reasons why such a novel sequence in CoVs could have evolved via some recombination events with synthetic RNAs and profoundly shape the pathogen-host interplay. I envision that some of the gained biological functions could, on the one hand, endow the virus with profound survival benefits whilst impairing the most essential host functions. The tragedy is that such new inserts could emerge during several very legitimate research contexts. As such, the things I uncover raise ongoing unresolved biorisk concerns.

Overall, I provide strong evidence that large classes of viruses may recombine with synthetic RNAs during specific cell culture experiments, making them much more dangerous, analogous to how bacteria acquire antibiotic genes from their environment. However, here, it may unfold in the context of numerous research settings that fall outside of current biorisk regulation and oversight.

I am not aware that the underlying processes have been described before. All this could have far-reaching implications, potentially impacting notions of past events, but, tragically, even more so, future ones.

Therefore, please read and share if you think it’s appropriate.

A huge shoutout to MDPI Life for their excellence and professionalism! The article had previously been under review with another journal. I’ll spare you the details. The reason I am mentioning this is to explain why the article got so long. Briefly, after I clearly addressed reviewer feedback and had expected acceptance with another journal, I unexpectedly had to start all over again. (I wonder, could it have anything to do with the content of the article, or is it related to that other journal itself; this may be another story).

Therefore, I already sent a rather long manuscript to MDPI. There, the process was extremely fair and high quality. I received some astounding reviewer feedback. Furthermore, it was clear that some of the reviewers really took their task seriously and perfectly understood what the article was all about. They asked further questions. No details were given or expected. Just some questions. I guess they did not intend for me to completely resolve them. It was just questions that made sense. Indeed, I had only been asked to make minor additions to address them. Nonetheless, these profound questions led me to dig deeper and deeper. I began to see even more connections that I had not envisioned before. I asked the journal if I could add what I had found. So, I made numerous additions to the manuscript that perfectly complemented what I previously had. At the end, the article is 49 pages long..... May I say, it covers a lot.

No way that I can summarize it all here. In the end, I am surprised by how many seemingly independent lines of thought, covering different disciplines, all converged.

For a brief overview, here is the abstract:

A 19 nt fragment that spans the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site (FCS) is identical to the reverse complement of a proprietary human DNA repair gene sequence. Rather than interpreting this overlap as evidence of a laboratory event, this article uses it as a theoretical springboard to explore underappreciated biorisk concerns, specifically in the context of cancer research. Although they are RNA viruses, coronaviruses are capable of hijacking host DNA damage response (DDR) pathways, exploiting nuclear functions to enhance replication and evade innate immunity. Under selective pressures (antivirals, DDR antagonists, or large-scale siRNA libraries designed to silence critical host genes), escape mutants may arise with fitness advantages. Parallel observations involving in vivo RNA interference via chimeric viruses lend plausibility to some of the key aspects underlying unappreciated biorisks. The mechanistic insights that incorporate DNA repair mechanisms, CoVs in the nucleus, specifics of viruses in cancer research, anticancer drugs, automated gene silencing experiments, and gene sequence overlaps identify gaps in biorisk policies, even those unaccounted for by the potent “Sequences of Concern” paradigm. Key concerning attributes, including genome multifunctionality, such as NLS/FCS in SARS-CoV-2, antisense sequences, and their combination, are further described in more general terms. The article concludes with recommendations pairing modern technical safeguards with enduring ethical principles.

After many months and weeks of essentially working day and night, I am so grateful that the publication of this article was made possible by an anonymous sponsor who supported the APCs on short notice, when it turned out that my university did not have the funds.

Whereas some may think that my work points to a laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2, I am even more concerned about certain types of laboratory experiments yet to unfold. Given the complexity of the furin-cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2, which encompasses several functions simultaneously (see the figure below for a very brief summary), these aspects are not known. As a result, they evade biorisk (biosafety and biosecurity) regulation and oversight.

Figure 8. Here, the acquisition of a sequence surrounding the SARS-CoV-2 FCS and that of analogous recombination events is analyzed for their feasibility and ensuing biorisks. The analysis rests on plausible laboratory conditions that could facilitate recombination with a short synthetic RNA sequence. Rather than scrutinizing the viral origin, which is distinct from the FCS per se, it investigates unappreciated mechanisms that may emerge in the context of cancer research. Key orientations and types of research experiments conducive to this integration are depicted in the red/blue/green-shaded rectangles. The colors are intended to match the key drivers of these processes, as shown in the center, involving genetic multifunctionalities, where a single gene is involved in multiple cellular processes or biological functions. Whereas the FCS has garnered substantial attention, the overlapping NLS is well confirmed but has received comparatively little attention. Beyond this, the sequence homology with the reverse complement (RC) of MSH3 may enable yet another function via the expression of small-interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that target key host DNA repair processes. The outer parts of the figure highlight the evolutionary pressure or survival benefits created by some of the experiments, which could support the covert development of escape mutants with improved evolutionary advantages, supporting the survival of some recombinant mutants. That these scenarios are not entirely speculative is evidenced by known RNA virus traits and analogous in vivo gene-silencing experiments via engineered viruses. Specifically, in laboratory experiments with chimeric influenza viruses, an integrated sequence complementary to MSH6 was processed into siRNAs, which silenced essential host pathways. Facilitated by RNA virus recombination traits, this suggests that analogous recombinant mutants equipped with the overlapping three functional elements could acquire related evolutionary benefits. Such extensive gene knockdown experiments could explain why a potential CoV recombination event could comprise a very short synthetic RNA sequence and achieve unintended biological functions, which has received little scrutiny from a biorisk perspective.

The article is freely available here, so please take a look and share. The pdf can be found here. If what I am envisioning is true, it could have far-reaching implications.

JUST PUBLISHED!

It was a ton of work. But a big shoutout to MDPI. Even though, after initial submission, some of the reviewers requested quite a large number of modifications and additions, overall, the process was very fair. The editors and everyone involved were fair and supportive.

Sorry, I cannot go into detail about it, as I am currently revising TWO other manuscripts that I have under review (deadlines!).

I seem to have stumbled onto something that could have far-reaching implications.

Briefly, the article reviews, for the first time, what can be gleaned about antigen cross-presentation in general, and how this impacts mRNA vaccine immunity. A rigorous literature review provides evidence, albeit often indirect, of its involvement as a natural process of T cell activation. Critical aspects necessary during protein/subunit vaccine design cannot be applied to pro-drugs, such as mRNA vaccines. The differences in antigen cross-presentation between mRNA- and more traditional vaccine platforms, and how these support antigen-specific T cell responses, indicate the potential for specific as well as off-target and heterologous immune activation or tolerance development after mRNA vaccination. In all, the article provides the first characterization of the inherent benefits of this natural process, as well as unrecognized challenging aspects of antigen cross-presentation in the context of intramuscular mRNA vaccines.

Here is the abstract. First, in words:

The induction of robust CD8 T cell immunity after intramuscular (i.m.) mRNA vaccination has remained a challenge. Due to the limited presence of professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in muscle tissue, this route of administration tends to result in the transfection of muscle cells at the injection site with insufficient T cell activation capacity. The attraction of migratory APCs and related processes that lead to the acquisition of antigenic material from transfected non-APCs arises as a potential alternative to facilitate activation of CD8 T cells in the draining lymph nodes. This indirect pathway, known as antigen cross-presentation, has remained underappreciated for mRNA vaccines. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of this process. Due to the paucity of information available in this context, it also extrapolates from insights for antigen cross-presentation more generally and for traditional vaccines. Arguments are provided as to why this natural process in the context of pro-drugs, such as mRNA vaccines, may engender both specific and nonspecific responses and, in certain situations, evoke cross-tolerance rather than immunity. This widely unaccounted T cell activation process may, therefore, explain several key mysteries surrounding i.m. RNA vaccination, including its impact on heterologous infections. But it also raises numerous open questions that are clearly described.

And as a Graphical Abstract:

Source: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/15/10/1575. Created in BioRender. Mueller, S. (2025) https://BioRender.com/v52b520 (accessed on 22 September 2025).

Thanks for reading and sharing!

However, a very recent study, published in Communications Medicine, deserves attention. Congratulations to the authors for this important work and to the journal for publishing it!

The findings are devastating, and the text is astonishingly clear!

The authors of “Association of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination status with risk of influenza-like illness and loss of workdays in healthcare workers”, based on a study of 1745 healthcare workers in Switzerland, write:

“The study found that those who recently received a COVID-19 booster were more likely to report symptoms and take sick leave. In contrast, people who received the seasonal flu vaccine were less likely to report symptoms or miss work. These findings suggest that COVID-19 boosters may not offer clear short-term benefits in a post-pandemic setting, and may even increase short-term illness risk.”

“In both analyses, we show that more SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations are associated with a higher risk of influenza-like respiratory illness and workdays lost.”

“Based on our data, we conclude that SARS-CoV-2 booster vaccination did not contribute to a measurable protection of the HCW workforce studied and may even temporarily increase the likelihood of symptomatic infection and workday loss.”

Interestingly, Fig. 2 shows that:

• The percentage for at least 2 ILI episodes slightly increases with the number of doses received!

• This does not necessarily mean SARS-CoV-2 infection alone. If it had been COVID-19 alone, the authors would have made this explicit. This indicates possible tolerance - possibly even an increase in tolerance - to any influenza-like respiratory illness (ILI), along with the number of shots.

• I.e., it is possible that the deleterious tolerance effect may not be limited to the targeted disease!

• Ironically, this is what I have been predicting as cross-tolerance: the more shots, the greater the concern for unintended tolerogenic responses towards an increasing number of non-targeted pathogens (unaccounted bystander effect): https://osf.io/preprints/osf/fjnav_v1, https://www.authorea.com/users/933419/articles/1304117-evidence-for-non-specificity-of-immune-responses-via-the-inherent-adjuvanticity-of-the-mrna-injections

What I find absolutely terrifying is that this is in a cohort (health-care workers) with ample prior exposure to respiratory pathogens! They would have had immunity.

One of my concerns (see my preprints) has been that the shots would even undermine existing natural immunity. It seems possible they may perturb prior immune learning (“imprinting”).

In this study, possibly indicative of this, the percentage for anti-N positivity goes down with the number of doses received (Table 1).

I.e., as seen from Table 1 in https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-025-01046-8:

• These health-care workers all had natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (97% of the unvaccinated were anti-N positive).

• With an increased number of doses, natural immunity (as commonly measured in terms of anti-N Abs) goes down significantly (from 97% to 84.9% after 4 doses).

• The table shows a diminished normal immune response towards other viral epitopes, here N (which are critical for natural immunity).

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-025-01046-8

At the same time, as seen from the last row in the table, the anti-S antibodies following the injections run off the chart (it is possible that some of these may be IgG4 and thereby contribute to tolerance).

While I have some theories as to when/why the shots would increase (cross)-tolerance effects, the opposite is also possible. As I discuss in my preprints, this could, depending on the situation, also lead to unintended immune activation towards unintended antigens. The concern here is that of excessive immune responses and autoimmunity.

In all, you may have cross-tolerance and/or cross-priming, albeit not in a good way.

• This was first based on antigen processing and presentation mechanisms known for the DNA vaccines but widely ignored for mRNA vaccines.

• Yet, a Nature Communication article by Kim et al. demonstrated that these exist.

• At the same time, this study by Kim and collaborators demonstrated the under-appreciated role of inherent adjuvants driving the immune responses of mRNA injections.

• I also argued that these considerations could explain some of the “paradoxes” surrounding the mRNA injections, including their effects on heterologous infections, excessive immune reactions, and tolerance development.

• The main concern is that the immune response would be mounted not (only) to the targeted antigen(s) but potentially to others.

  “Siguna’s Substack” is a reader supported publication. Please consider subscribing to support my work.

Well, considering alternative pathways/processes combined with under-appreciated adjuvants seems to have opened up a whole can of worms...

Unexpectedly, another recent Nature Communication article gave strong evidence for my concerns. Ironically, the authors start out “proving” the expected fate of the mRNA components, notably their cellular localization responsible for immune activation. When I looked into it further, it did not seem as clear as they say!

Rather, I argue that their findings support my previous concerns.

Manuscript Rejected from 2 Preprint Platforms

What I had not expected is that my new manuscript, where I summarized and exposed these issues, based on the second Nature Communications article and my prior work, was rejected even as a preprint! Perhaps I had said too much already in the title!

“Evidence for non-specificity of immune responses via the inherent adjuvanticity of the mRNA injections.”

I first submitted the manuscript to OSF Preprints on June 8. Ironically, my earlier preprint on this, where I had developed the main hypothesis (the long preprint published last week), had immediately been accepted at OSF Preprints. However, when I submitted the follow-up work, it was rejected within 2 days!

The explanation for the rejection was the following:

Granted, my first (last week’s) preprint at OSF Preprints on this same topic, ``Paradoxes of cellular immune responses evoked by mRNA injections - fostered by cross-priming and cross-tolerance but at a high price,’ did not have a telling title. As just noted, it was accepted, as with all my other preprints, without any issue:

“OSF uses pre-moderation. This preprint has been accepted by a moderator and is publicly available and searchable.”

According to their own policy, “Our mission is to increase the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research and scholarly communication by creating and operating an open source infrastructure (referred to as "OSF") to support the entire research lifecycle from planning, collaborating, conducting, reporting, publishing, archiving and discovery.”

They are a preprint server and not supposed to be engaged in censorship!!!

As “recommended” by the “moderator,” I then sent the manuscript to BIORXIV. Truly, they should have known better. BIORXIV does not accept hypothetical analyses. Here is their rejection letter:

Manuscript accepted as a preprint at AUTHOREA

In all my writing, I try to be fair and professional. I think, I still write in the same way as I did as a professional mathematician. It’s been almost 30 years that I have been doing research and publishing my work. I have never been accused of foul or impolite language, false claims, etc. In all these years, I have just aimed to do my work as a devout academic, the best I can.

When I submitted the manuscript to Authorea, it was finally accepted. The pdf is freely available here.

Loaded content?

What is it that the “moderator” did not like that should remain hidden? In the new preprint, I extend my prior work:

• Non-Specific and Unpredictable Immune Responses: I argue that mRNA vaccines may evoke absent, non-specific, or unpredictable immune responses, including cross-immunity or cross-tolerance towards unintended targets, such as lingering antigens from prior vaccinations, infections, or self-antigens. ​

• Challenges to Specificity: The inherent adjuvanticity of mRNA vaccines, combined with underappreciated antigen processing pathways, challenges the specificity of mRNA-based immune responses. ​

• Potential for Off-Target Effects: The adjuvanticity of mRNA vaccines may target off-target (self) antigens, leading to unintended immune activation or tolerance. ​

• Inconsistencies in Immune Responses: Variability in immune responses, antigen expression, and cellular localization suggests that mRNA vaccines do not uniformly engender immunity to the targeted antigen. ​

• To date, all the studies that purport to demonstrate the “appropriate” cellular localization and fate of the jab-encoded protein/peptide, have problems. We do not have solid proof of the full extent of the pathways triggered and we do not know the fate of these products. (I began to highlight this issue in my February 2025 prior OSF preprint on exosomes).

• Biological Activity of Vaccine-Derived Proteins: Vaccine-derived proteins, such as the spike protein or other jab-produced proteins/peptides, rather than acting as “antigens” may exert unaccounted biological activities, potentially impacting human cells and microbiota. ​

These conclusions highlight significant concerns about the reliability, specificity, and safety of mRNA vaccine technologies. They add to the many others that undermine their most foundational nature as vaccines.

In sum, the most recent Nature Communication article by Blizard et al. gave strong evidence for the opposite of what is expected and reported. Their findings support the potential for major issues related to the platform as I had envisioned in my last week’s preprint. My new preprint concludes with the following:

Figure 2: This article discusses the complexities and challenges of mRNA vaccines, particularly focusing on their immune responses and the implications of recent findings that have remained underexplored. Some key insights about the antigen-processing and presentation pathways (“PATHWAYS” - right circle) have previously been envisioned. The recent study by Blizard and colleagues [6] (“BLIZARD et al. STUDY” - left circle), while on the one hand, raising substantial concerns about their methods and interpretation, on the other hand, provided experimental validation of these previous considerations, apparently without the authors being aware of it. Combined with the poorly known and appreciated adjuvanticity of the mRNA platforms (“ADJUVANTICITY” - lower circle), these factors underscore significant concerns regarding the unpredictability and unintended effects of immune responses to mRNA vaccines.

Source: doi: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.174965573.30001463/v1

These troubling concerns undermine the very basis of these products acting as vaccines and may be responsible for many of the adverse events associated with these injections. The overall ignorance of these foundational and grave issues mandates rigorous investigations, in a laboratory context, congruent with the termination of mRNA vaccination efforts.

Why did the a preprint servers - not a journal - reject it? Did I hit a nerve?

I was even more surprised when I studied a 2024 publication in Nature Communications. One of their results, represented as a figure, clearly showed some unexpected antigen processing and presentation pathways. In the text portion of this article, it came across as if it was the canonical pathway they found. Yet, the details provided in the figure were unequivocal. Did the authors merely cling to the prevailing narrative and not notice? I don’t know.

This has kept me busy for quite some time. I am now happy that the first part of my work has been published as a preprint. A follow-up should be ready soon. I also have a long write-up of how and why I ended up thinking along these lines, and why I argue these findings may be rather important. But I don’t know if I will send it all to a preprint server (deep down, I think I may end up writing another book – I already have quite some material).

Preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/fjnav_v1

Admittedly, some of these writings are rather long. I tried to clearly lay out how I was dancing around some issues I regard as critical. The way it is written is so it first makes sense to me. Much of what I have come up with radically undermines key beliefs about mRNA technologies. If this proves correct, it will have far-reaching consequences.

Here is the abstract:

A complete understanding of the immunological mechanisms of the mRNA vaccines has remained elusive. This article focuses on key questions that demonstrate the limits of our comprehension of Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes (CTL) activation and details paradoxical observations related to the immune response evoked. In August 2024, a study published in Nature Communications provided vital insights into innate immune processes triggered by the mRNA COVID-19 injections, and how they are linked to spike-specific cellular immune responses. Some of their findings have remained overlooked. While they offer a general framework of early immune activation, their enrichment of mRNA vaccine transcripts in injection-site fibroblasts indicates a pivotal role of Class I MHC processing and presentation of exogenous antigens. For mRNA vaccines, the potential of cross-presentation is largely under-appreciated. Their mechanism of CTL activation widely presumes the canonical MHC-I pathway, following generation of the endogenous vaccine antigen and their processing and presentation by professional antigen-presenting cells (APC), and facilitated by appropriate co-stimulation, despite the stymied 1-methylpseudouridine modification to reduce innate responses. Here, several arguments are provided that make mRNA vaccines particularly prone to the alternative pathway, whereby certain APCs, via uptake of vaccine or self-antigens, or those of other infections, can effectively evoke CTL response induction. These mechanisms underlying cross-presentation of exogenous antigens disprove the notion that the T cell response is specific to the vaccine antigen alone, in line with the published effects seen of the mRNA COVID-19 injections to heterologous infections where they appear to either enhance or dampen immune responses. Reasons are provided why injection-induced cross-tolerance may play a substantial role in inducing peripheral tolerance both to SARS-CoV-2 and heterologous infections. In all, cross-priming or cross-tolerance evoked by the mRNA injections may offer explanations to some of the main open questions related to this platform but also raise substantial concerns of clinical and environmental ramifications.

The preprint is long. It first describes “paradoxical” findings of the mRNA “vaccine” responses, with a special orientation towards the unaccounted pathway. Ironically, for DNA “vaccines,” this possibility is well-established. But for the mRNA injections, it seems to have disappeared. The second part of the preprint describes some consequences. In short, this potential effectively disproves these products acting as vaccines, in several ways. For those who do not have the time to read the entire manuscript (fair enough), please see the 2 figures and a final table where I tried to summarize it all.

It would be important to get it published as a journal article. If anyone has any suggestions of where I could send it (or parts of it), please do let me know.

Again, this is theoretical work only. A follow-up manuscript will demonstrate my hypothesis is in line with some experimental findings made by some other group, very recently published in Nature Communications as well. While I tried to explain some issues, I am the first to admit that, in reality, the underlying pathways and processes are likely even more complex. I hope that what I described will at least lay some basis – and provide another strong reason that challenges the safety and applicability of these platforms.

Thanks for reading.

In October 2024, there was an important “Conference on Post-Pandemic Health Issues” in Sarajevo that has not received the attention it deserves. The purpose and aim of the conference were as follows.

An introductory Conference aims to determine where we currently stand, what is being done, directions to the most potential diagnostic approach, and the potential of various treatments for the increasing number of health issues that have arisen post-pandemic.

The conference aims to inform and unite individuals working in healthcare and managing new serious, emerging health conditions afflicting many, particularly our younger generations.

We aim to bring together international experts from key fields of medicine to help us understand the multifaceted symptoms of post-COVID-19 syndrome and especially to share solutions to their treatment that include the truth in medicine approach.

Many thanks to Dr Ivana Pavic for her incredible work organizing the conference and pulling it through! She faced enormous technical issues in making the video recordings available – and she succeeded after months of hard battle! Please find the recordings available here.

From what I have watched so far, they definitely met their important and great aims. A follow-up conference is also being planned, which, I was informed, will be held in the Netherlands. Congrats again to Dr Ivana Pavic for the successful conference and for getting the video recordings out there. The public has to hear what was shared and discussed!

I was honored to participate online. My talk can be found in “Session III: A summary talk about management of long-COVID and post-vaccination injury.” Since I tried to stick to my allotted time, I intended to postpone some details to the online QnA session I was supposed to be a part of. Unfortunately, technical issues kept this from happening. Thankfully, the most important technical issues were resolved. Please enjoy the conference recordings and share them with your network.

My second talk on the environmental issues of the mRNA vaccines I recently gave for The Canadian Citizens Care Alliance (CCCA, formerly Covid Care Alliance, see “Our History” Section) which, I am sure, needs no introduction! This group of courageous and skilled individuals has brought Light to Covid-19 matters, beginning during the darkest times like hardly anyone else did. They continue to work for and with those most badly affected, striving for the most foundational values that in recent years have come so greatly under attack (see e.g., the screenshot below for their invaluable Mission Statement). As they succeed, we all profit globally, from the truth they have revealed! Please keep it up and thanks for all your important work!

Source: https://www.cccalliance.ca/about-us/

I have a very soft spot for Canada as I did my first post-doc at the University of Calgary, AB (2002-2005). I love the people! They are open-minded, friendly, and kind. During the presentation, which was pre-recorded to accommodate the time difference to Austria (thank you!), it immediately felt like I was coming home.

My CCCA talk is substantially longer, followed by a QnA that was a great joy to participate in, as it always is when able to discuss things with those who are really great!

Please enjoy these online presentations and help get the word out about environmental issues of the mRNA vaccines that may impact the entire ecosystem.

I am happy to announce the completion of some major work in this regard which was just published as a preprint. Well, I should say, it’s merely the completion of the first step. What I have as a preprint is much too long for a journal publication (any suggestions of where to submit are welcome). I do not expect the establishment will appreciate me challenging the very basis of those “vaccines,” lol. Yet, my hypothesis is supported by tons of studies and paradoxical findings, which I approached with a rational multi-disciplinary view.

Here is the abstract (emphasis added):

The modus operandi of mRNA vaccines has been celebrated for its simplicity but not withstood scientific scrutiny. Here, a multi-disciplinary analysis of published literature identifies that even the most foundational pillars of the presumed mRNA vaccine immunity are unfounded and rely on unproven modeling. Several reports have also identified gaps in some of the traditional immunity frameworks the mRNA vaccines are thought to rely on and other unexpected immune mRNA vaccine responses that cannot be aligned with the believed modus operandi.

Independently, extracellular vesicles (EVs) such as exosomes have emerged not only as potent carrier molecules of biological activities but also as immune-instigating agents. Informed by some of the main inconsistencies and gaps and complemented by startling features of EVs, it is suggested here that those vesicles may play a substantial role in shaping the immune responses of the mRNA vaccine platforms. Whereas synthetic EVs are also pursued as “superior carriers” of novel mRNA vaccines, their natural counterparts, both from injected humans or animals, as well as their microbiota, create a complex network of cell-to-cell and inter-kingdom communication, allowing for the exchange of immune-instigating agents and activities that also may shuttle vaccine-derived material and products across traditionally impermeable barriers or into the cell nucleus. The cargo of these carriers includes the injected mRNAs, short RNA byproducts, and other contaminating genetic material, including DNAs, as well as (aberrant) protein products, lipids, and resulting antigens. Thereby, EVs can, for example, activate immune cells, themselves function akin to antigen-presenting cells and refine and modulate both innate and adaptive immune processes in numerous non-traditional ways. However, EV-engendered immune responses may be either a positive, negative, or complex combination of immune activation and down-regulation. Considering EVs as pivotal players of the immune reactions triggered or also maintained by mRNA vaccines can help explain some of the previous paradoxes that could not be resolved within the original or more recent models of their immune mechanisms. But it also raises serious concerns.

In all, this work gives strong evidence as to why we may be basing much of the entire framework of mRNA vaccines on an incomplete or even erroneous modus operandi. This has significant implications for academic vaccine analysis, safety assessment, and their clinical and environmental ramifications.

As for the first part, the foundational gaps related to the modus operandi of RNA vaccines, a short summary is given in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: As confirmed by ample real-world experience, the modus operandi of RNA vaccines, as widely taken for granted (the central highlighted part), is much too simplistic and raises an increasing number of open questions and concerns (depicted outside the central part that has received the main focus) (Source: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/5dz3f_v1).

Even though they cannot be assumed to provide a complete explanation for the existing gaps and unknowns, human and microbial EVs may to a substantial degree shape the actual immune mechanisms triggered by the injections (summarized in Figure 2).

Figure 2: The assumed modus operandi of existing and emerging RNA vaccines (inside the central box) cannot be explained by traditional models of immune activation and maintenance. During the last few years, startling gaps and omissions have emerged. Existing (and new) mRNA platforms involve EVs, both implicitly and deliberately (depicted outside the central part that has received the main focus). Yet, how they shape immunity largely transcends the presumed model. The potential of EVs as immune-instigating agents and biological carriers both related to the injected organisms, their close contacts, offspring, and environment is largely unknown in the context of the mRNA platforms. (Source: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/5dz3f_v1)

I conclude with the following (emphasis added):

The involvement of EV-mediated immune reactions triggered by the mRNA-LNP platforms has previously not been adequately anticipated. Recent focus on EVs in the context of mRNA vaccines has been on their potential as endogenous or synthetically modified carriers. However, their capacity to induce immunity in the injected humans, animals, or exposed organisms may substantially overturn not only the vaccine-engendered immune response model but also the methods of how these platforms have been evaluated. As EVs can trigger or impact immune responses directly and beyond the traditional immune response framework, existing analyses that have been limited to the traditional setting could substantially miss some of the most significant players and contributors. If, as suggested here, the vaccine-instigated immune response is to a significant proportion evoked by the EVs, then numerous analyses related to mRNA vaccines would require substantial revision. From a modeling, analysis, clinical, and environmental perspective, the prevailing efforts may be seen as barking up the wrong tree. Moreover, given that EV-immune activity can be disseminated without being easily attributable, this raises serious questions about clinical ramifications, their proper diagnosis and treatment, their misuse potential as well as unforeseen, and potentially irrevocable consequences across the biosphere.

It almost sounds like a replay of what we went through with SARS-CoV-2: “A new Chinese virus looms,” we are told. Ostensibly, this time, it concerns the Human Metapneumovirus (hMPV), which is a mysterious virus blamed on the sudden rise of respiratory diseases. It is said to cause symptoms akin to influenza and COVID-19.

We are still being assured that while the virus may cause severe disease for some, i.e. those with compromised immune systems, the elderly, or very young children, for most, it causes symptoms akin to the common cold.

Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWuy0a5Cxzs

Yet, there are two reasons why the fear response is being stoked: (1) the cases in China have been rising dramatically, and (2), there is no vaccine for this mysterious virus.

Neighboring countries are watching the situation closely, fearing the virus could reach them as well.

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I am reminded of what unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic, of the sudden disappearance of the flu virus during the times whilst SARS-CoV-2 numbers exploded. Later, the WHO even admitted that better PCR routines are needed, urging the development of tests that would be able to differentiate between the influenza and the “novel virus” (for more details on this debacle, please see e.g. my book).

While I do not want to imply that SARS-CoV-2 is not real – because it is – the actual disaster was not caused by the virus. The pandemic debacle relied on misattribution (suddenly everything was the novel virus), inflated case numbers, and the debunking of helpful treatments. The danger of the virus was exceedingly overestimated and built on fabricated media reporting.

We don’t even need AI to be fooled via deepfakes depicting new threats. How on earth can we validate the purported case numbers and death rates that we are told? I don’t care if it is from China or elsewhere. As soon as you have everything based on fear, the rest is by definition falsehood and fraud. Just tell everyone there is a problem, that you know what the problem is, that you have a solution, and that everyone who opposes that solution is YOUR enemy and threatening YOUR survival. It’s the same shameless tactic that was widely employed during the Hitler regime.

Unfortunately, it’s not over and so many are still traumatized from the last debacle.

Who are what will be blamed this time?

The GRAVITAS reporter does not fall for the fear campaign. “While it awfully sounds like a [COVID-19] Deja Vu, nobody wants it to play out in real life.” She hopes China will be more transparent this time. Will it reveal facts in a more open and timely manner?

I won’t hold my breath for that.

Regarding hMPV, an interesting question is to what extent are we dealing with a novel virus? Ironically, here, this is not the case as hMPV was first discovered in 2001. If this virus has been around for so long, then why does it seem there is such a rapid surge in cases?

Does it matter whether or not it is a new virus?

The Year 2025

Remember that not too long ago, Peter Hotez promised a number of viral releases the day after Trump’s inauguration. His arrogant stance of knowing the type of viruses and exact dates of their emergence leaves no doubt he is not talking about natural spillovers.

It’s not only him alone. It cannot be denied there is a race going on, propelled by the same forces and activities that brought us into this situation in the first place.

Very often, the argument is made that humans are not skilled enough to manipulate viruses in the lab. Surely, they would not be able to create a novel virus that could survive and persist outside the lab environment, let alone be a threat, some argue.

While I agree that researchers know very little about viruses and pathogens, lab work does not require them to know all the details. One of the oldest tricks in lab manipulation has always been to rely on the propensity of all life forms (incl. viruses) to survive and adapt to challenges. When put under lab-imposed “selective pressure,” viral evolution can be sped up by many orders of magnitude in an extremely short time.

How will they evolve under such artificially imposed pressure?

That’s exactly the point. In most cases, it’s hard to predict. Nonetheless, this does not show that research is not advanced enough to create a real hazard. Indeed, if you do lab experiments at scale, you can be sure that some viruses will pick up new traits – different from those had they been left alone.

Then researchers can go and select specific ones and combine them with “more advanced” lab techniques to build a huge “library” of manipulated viruses and try to understand which changes lead to which phenotype.

This is not little kids playing in a sandbox. Some have long pointed out that this type of work is an existential threat to humanity.

I am just puzzled it is still going on.

If it was all done very selectively, in a demonstratively secured lab environment, well documented, and with clear oversight and attribution, it would be dangerous enough. But that’s not reality. Not even 5 years after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

I guess to some select elites, the expected promises are too high. Some may argue all this dangerous work is done in clandestine to advance biological weapons. Others see it from a business perspective. It could be both. And if something did go wrong, and one of those pathogens did escape the lab, you have a new opportunity, according to “do not ever let a crisis go to waste.” It’s a perfect setup. You create the problem, deliberately, knowingly, or by chance, and then, you enforce the solution on the entire globe!

I am not convinced the “mysterious virus from China,” or other lab-manipulated pathogens will quietly be swept under the carpet.

The following puts it into another more recent context.

Why hundreds of vials of deadly viruses can “just go missing”

On December 16, 2024, Newsweek reported:

“Hundreds of Vials of Deadly Viruses Missing After Lab Breach”

Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced recently that 323 samples of live viruses—including Hendra virus, Lyssavirus and Hantavirus—went missing in 2021 in a "serious breach of biosecurity protocols.

The public was only informed 3 years later.

The lab has not been able to conclude if the viruses were destroyed or removed from secure storage, but they do not appear to have been stolen.

I am curious why they try to dispel the very possibility of theft. We all know that some powerful and meanwhile infamous agencies have had a great interest in deadly pathogens. What if we replace the word “stolen” with “withdrawn and redirected?”

…we don't have any evidence that Hendra virus has been weaponized in any way in any research laboratory.

I am also curious where and how evidence of illicit biological weapons development would be publicized. Would it make mainstream news?! Would the media jump all on it and enforce the shutdown of such type of research and hold the drivers of such work criminally accountable?

Of course, all this kind of research is taken in secret, but we are not aware that this has been weaponized in any way. The process of weaponizing a virus is very sophisticated, and is not something an amateur does.

That’s raising a sobering question about the identity of those who may have been involved, possibly deliberately. What if bioterrorists are not rogue nations, as traditionally feared….

The samples appear to have gone unaccounted for after a freezer they were being stored in at Queensland's Public Health Virology Laboratory broke down. … They were transferred to a functioning freezer without the appropriate paperwork being completed. The materials may have been removed from that secure storage and lost, or otherwise unaccounted-for.

Unfortunately, such an incident would not be neither the first time nor the last, of such type of lab accident. Researchers transferring the samples may truly not know how deadly some of the viruses are. This is the perfect scenario for a lab accident and escape. But why work with deadly pathogens, to begin with? Why dig them out from nature, haul them into a lab, “work” with them, and then store them in freezers?

According to the Biological Weapons Convention, biological weapons must not be stockpiled, and if discovered anywhere, must be destroyed.

The so-called BWC “clause” that has allowed some to find a loophole to this convention, is based on a scientific lie. No knowledge can be obtained from this type of research that is benign and helpful.

To be clear. This research has never been used for the development of any vaccine or therapeutic and has not had any other benefit whatsoever. Dr Richard Ebright, a leading authority on Gain of Function (GoF) or Dual-use research, has warned about the insanity of such experiments for decades. In a recent interview, he clearly lays out all the lies, cover-ups, and manipulations, how, at least in the U.S., research that traditionally had been helpful and benign was diverted to research involving biological weapons, with priorities for funding, despite the known serious dangers and outcries of numerous experts against it.

So, why play with fire? Newsweek continues.

According to a statement from the Queensland government, there is "no evidence of risk to the community from the breach," as the viruses would have degraded very quickly and subsequently become harmless to humans.

If this is what viruses always do, then why are the WHO, the UN, and the elites so concerned about future spillover events and pandemics?

It's important to note that virus samples would degrade very rapidly outside a low temperature freezer and become non-infectious.

That excuse doesn’t fly. When researchers resurrected the 1918 pandemic influenza virus they did just that. Whilst that virus had become extinct – and people currently living no longer have immunity to this pathogen - researchers extracted the virus from permafrost corpses who had fallen victim to the virus and still carried the virus around. In turn, they were able to reconstruct the virus from its sequence information alone.

Importantly, no Hendra or Lyssavirus cases have been detected among humans in Queensland over the past five years, and there have been no reports of Hantavirus infections in humans ever in Australia," Gerrard explained.

This is good news for those in Australia but no guarantee that the viruses could not have ended up in some laboratories elsewhere on the globe.

An investigation into the breach has been initiated....Queensland Health has taken proactive measures since discovering the breaches including retraining staff to ensure ongoing compliance with required regulations and an audit of all relevant permits to ensure accountability and correct storage of materials.

And what is the justification for working with dangerous pathogens to begin with?

A sobering analysis by one of the leading authorities and outspoken opponents of gain-of-function research

In the interview mentioned above, Ebright makes many important points. The entire interview is definitely worth watching. It’s shocking. First, he gives sobering insights into how this dangerous research emerged:

• A funding switch: In the U.S., non-bioweapons agents research which had focused on sensible public health efforts was switched to bioweapons agents research. Only the latter was funded.

• Decades of grave concerns articulated by numerous scientists were ignored.

• Central to all this was Dr Anthony Fauci who, for decades, was almost single-handily responsible for the new policy.

• His response to pushback and calls for revision was a doubling down of his policy. This he did despite obvious knowledge of their risks and numerous confirmed lab accidents

• Researchers and institutions were essentially forced to go along. It all was about receiving funding - for select agents’ research.

• With this funding, specifically dangerous pathogens were recreated, manipulated, and made much more pathogenic to humans.

Ebright also gives numerous insights about the mechanics, purported benefits, and risks of this research.

• The synthetic tools to (re)create dangerous pathogens from their genetic sequence information have advanced substantially over the decades.

• The technology is relatively simple and can now be done in hundreds of labs worldwide.

• Potentials for misuse – of the information as well as the actual agents – have long been known.

• Serious lab accidents are well documented.

• This type of research has created an existential risk.

• This type of research has never had any practical benefits.

• Specific research projects involved the recreation of the 1918 flu virus which had been extinct, manipulation of the bird flu virus to make it transmissible in mammals, and various coronaviruses.

• The ostensible benefits of doing this type of work: to help predict and prevent pandemics.

• In reality, this research has never been used for this or been utilized for vaccine development.

• In nature, there is an infinite number of routes for how pathogens can evolve whereas in the lab, only a few can get pursued.

• This can never help predict the routes pathogens will take in real life.

• Fauci kept saying it would have been a mistake to not have done this research. The risk needed to be taken (even if it was to create a pandemic).

• Research on the prioritized pathogens for anticipated biological weapon agents was (a) easy to do, (b) easy to get funded, and (c) easy to get published.

• These biological weapons agents programs often approached, reached, and crossed red lines by the Biological Weapons Convention.

The public is not told about the risks. Specifically, Ebright details some stats about a small subset of pathogens, the select agents including the smallpox virus, the 1918 influenza virus, the avian influenza virus H5N1, the SARS virus, the anthrax bacterium, and the plague bacterium, as follows

...only for that subset of pathogens, there is a requirement to file with the federal government a theft loss release document, a TLR, for any instance of theft, loss, or release of the pathogen.

And the United States government releases summary reporting information on those filings biannually. So every two years, a summary is released of the number of reports received. And over the entire period in which the TLR filings have been received and monitored, there has been an average of between two and four filings each week.

Tragically, the same hair-raising frequency of laboratory-acquired infections and laboratory releases is known for related work on such select agents. Canada and the UK have a similarly shockingly high rate of TLR incidents, of about one to two per week.

In the US, there are no enforceable laws for biosafety. These things are happening in our backyard. Accidents are a norm, inherent to this type of research.

Even though some review policies exist for select agents, in practice, these are commonly not adhered to. There is no oversight, simply because funding agencies have decided not to forward proposals for review. For example, the project in Wuhan, which likely gave rise to the pandemic, was funded without any review. Ebright gives some sobering stats:

NIH was informed that the researchers in Wuhan as of 2018 had engineered SARS viruses to have a 10,000 times increase in viral growth in the lung, a 1 million times increase in viral growth in the brain, and a three times increase in lethality when tested in mice that were engineered to possess human receptors for SARS viruses, so-called humanized mice. The NIH was informed of that twice in 2018, and that information should immediately have triggered a suspension of funding, followed by risk-benefit review before the resumption of funding.

And again, in context:

Fauci, chose not to flag the research, not to suspend funding, and not to forward the proposal for review. That is the research project that by all indications caused COVID-19, killing 20 million and costing 25 trillion. That project could have been prevented had at any point from 2002 To 2019, Anthony Fauci listened to concerns that were expressed by the public, scientists, science policy specialists, and the public's representatives in Congress, and hesitated, or introduced risk-benefit review, or even complied with the minimal terms of the policies that were in effect. But he chose at each time to double down to violate the policies knowingly and willfully violate the policies, those violations it appears are responsible for 20 million deaths and $25 trillion in losses.

Conclusion

In my book, I predicted a few things that some may find difficult to comprehend. There is a saying that indicates the timing and course of a pandemic: in the first year, it arrives, in the second, it’s here, and in the third, it leaves. There are several reasons why I argued that with SARS-CoV-2, this won’t happen. This includes its lab origin and toxic aspects (e.g., of its spike, or how it can mess with the immune system), its ability to seemingly not only infect/impair human cells, and the fact that COVID-19 vaccines have created a perfect scenario for the virus to survive and escape non-sterilizing mass-vaccinations.

The COVID-19 jabs have never eradicated the virus and instead only created a large number of other problems. As many just want to leave the pandemic behind, it may be tempting to blame a novel virus to distract from the continued presence of the virus, the increased susceptibility to existing or emerging pathogens (including those from a lab), and the persistence of vaccine injuries and deaths.

Tragically, the shots are known to damage not only immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 but also those to other pathogens, making people potentially much more susceptible to all sorts of infections. These may include viruses that previously were overall harmless (does hMPV fall into this category?). But it also applies to the viruses that are manipulated in a lab! While previously, lab workers would have been both young and rather healthy, in the context of the widespread immune impairment thanks to the pandemic response measures, this is no longer the case. Many of those who are first exposed to a lab accident or deliberate release may have been forced or enticed to get vaccinated. Their immune response may be severely disrupted.

Sadly, with this, the loop closes.

Because of the COVID-19 vaccines (and possibly others), we are facing the troubling reality of many people more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 and various other viruses that previously they may have easily brushed off. Yet, rather than admitting this, the solution is still widely seen in vaccines.

Vaccines for lab workers, health care professionals, and the general public! If previous vaccines have failed, new and updated ones are needed. If people’s immune systems and natural immunity have been destroyed by interventions such as the mRNA jabs and they are getting sicker than before, it’s blamed on viral mutations or a novel virus altogether (of course, from nature), and BigPharma rushes to produce new vaccines.

Whereas prior attempts to create anti-HMPV vaccines proved to be insufficiently immunogenic, it was only a few months ago, that an “efficacious vaccine against hMPV respiratory infections” was proposed. It’s based on AI-guided engineering. Will this be the new marketing slogan to convince the public?

Whatever disaster prior vaccination may already have caused, the answer is always more or new injections. To cover up for previous vaccine-caused disasters, you need vaccines. To justify illegal biological weapon’s research, you say it’s for vaccine development.

In Dr Fauci’s view, dangerous gain-of-function work is critically important, especially for public health and prevention of pandemics.

Cynics may say he is right. Yet, it’s not to inform how to develop new vaccines to get ahead of a potentially new outbreak or how to improve people’s health. Rather, this type of very perilous research is seminal for the justification of the development and roll-out of vaccines – at scale. It is a perfect business model and as long as that is in place, it will be difficult to avoid lab leaks and pandemics, or rather, plandemics.

This simple truth must drive all discussions and polity on biosafety and biosecurity. We must stop barking at the wrong tree and the immensity of the financial underpinnings of the entire pandemic- public “health” network must be fully disclosed.

The study was conducted from Sept 1,2022 to April 30, 2023 in the United States in a prospective manner. Examined were children aged 6 months to 4 years who received various types and doses of the gene-therapy products. Median follow-up time was 154 days, during which they were compared to the unvaccinated peers in terms of either contracting (1) SARS-CoV-2 infection or (2) symptomatic COVID-19. The role of prior infection was also examined.

The authors conclude that, based on their data,

COVID-19 vaccines are recommended to reduce severe illness; the overall risk of infection may not differ substantially between vaccinated and unvaccinated naïve children <5 years.

While the study was circulated and discussed on various social media platforms, I realized that there is likely much more to it. It began to increasingly look like serious scientific fraud. Aiming to investigate if there is something to it, I recently published a preprint on this (NB: the paper by Feldstein et al. is Ref [4] in the preprint).

My preprint begins with the following Abstract (emphasis added):

In the United States, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were first authorized in June 2022 for children aged 6 months - 4 years with the aim of preventing severe outcomes from COVID-19. However, data on the actual safety and efficacy to prevent infection or severe disease, also in the context of prior exposure to the virus and the emergence of new viral variants, are scarce. To address this extremely urgent issue, Feldstein et al. [4] recently published merged data from 3 prospective cohort studies in children <5 years of age. The information provides valuable insights into the real-world performance of the injections in this age group. In contrast to the author’s highlights of their potential to reduce severe disease, here, an independent analysis that examines the totality of data identifies important insights missed before. The critique done here is exclusively based on the information provided in [4] and identifies the radically opposing narrative given by Feldstein et al., in sharp contradiction to their own findings. This investigation concludes with potential underlying mechanisms to explain some of the underappreciated data by Feldstein and collaborators.

I then also contacted the journal editorial office and the editor-in-chief. Much to my surprise, when I pointed out the actual data, as taken directly from the paper by Feldstein et al., I was told they took issue with these data, the statistics, and the logic I used. My letter to the editor was therefore rejected, even though it used the very same data that were buried in the article.

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The main concerns of the article

In my preprint, I highlight the following major concern with the article.

Even though the authors conclude that, based on their data, “COVID-19 vaccines are recommended to reduce severe illness; the overall risk of infection may not differ substantially between vaccinated and unvaccinated na¨ıve children <5 years,” it is found this conclusion is not supported by the information provided in the article.

The more I looked into it, the more I am convinced they must have known their recommendation is not at all aligned with their own findings. In fact, it’s rather the opposite.

Source: https://blog.fdik.org/2024-12/piae121.pdf (pdf of the accepted manuscript)

Based on my analysis, I conclude with the following estimation, contrasting the fabricated statements (see above for a sample from their article) made by the authors with what their study actually showed.

The analysis done above belies the main conclusions made by the authors:

• “There was no difference in incidence by vaccination status.” This assertion does not align with the study data which clearly demonstrates the opposite.

• “While COVID-19 vaccines reduce severe disease, they may not reduce overall SARS-CoV-2 infections in young children.” Even though the latter part somewhat resembles their actual findings, it is a huge understatement. The data in the paper highlight the antagonistic effects of the injections, displaying negative immune protection.

• Likewise, the assertion about severe disease prevention is contradicted by the data provided as the study even showed a further increase in the risk of contracting symptomatic COVID-19 than merely indicating a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. The impact on “severe” disease was not even studied in the paper as “symptomatic” COVID-19 was merely defined as “a positive RT-PCR test and ≥2 COVID-like illness symptoms reported within seven days before or after the specimen collection date). Moreover, as explicitly stated in the paper, “Importantly, the outcomes of infection and symptomatic COVID-19 as defined in these cohorts represent predominantly non-severe disease,” meaning that the authors repudiate their own conclusion.

Details

My preprint lists various stunning details of the scientific misrepresentation by the authors of their own findings. In the article by Feldstein et al.,

The outcome of various study interventions was first determined in terms of incidence of infection/symptomatic COVID-19 per 1000. To further highlight the impact of vaccination, these data are then converted into their respective hazard ratios (HR). These measures delineate the relative risk of an event occurring in one, compared to another, group, such as a control group and a treatment group. (For example, an HR of 3 means that three times the number of events are seen in the treatment group, whereas an HR of 0.333 indicates that the hazard rate in the treatment group is one-third of that in the control group.)

What did I find?

In the study, while some of the HR values were smaller than 1, the majority, including those with greatest relevance, were substantially greater than 1, demonstrating the significantly elevated risk that the vaccinated kids experienced relative to their unvaccinated peers.

As noted, I tried to make the editorial office aware of these concerns, first by sending them my preprint and offering to discuss what I found with the authors. After I had alerted the editor-in-chief about the potential issues, I was told to shorten my preprint and provide a 500-word summary.

I emphasized that my critique solely and exclusively relies on the data provided in Table 2 in the article by Feldstein et al. (NB: in the shortened version, this is Reference [2]).

The core of the short summary, sent as a letter to the editor, is as follows:

Below, only those study results are highlighted where the estimates rely on reasonably justified baselines (Fig. 1(a)). The underlying hazard ratios (HR), which indicate the relative risk of an event occurring in one compared to another group, are taken from Table 2 in [2].

• Natural immunity was strong even after 1 year and seems crucial. However, there was no differentiation according to vaccination status.

• Vaccination either led to a minimally positive or substantially negative protection (Figure 1(b)).

• Compared to Moderna, the Pfizer-BioNTech injection showed an even more negative outcome to get a (symptomatic) COVID-19 infection (Figure 1(b),(c)). For Moderna, kids without prior infection seemed to experience a slightly positive protective effect for symptomatic COVID-19. Yet, as the Adjusted HR (95% CI) was 0.67 (0.16, 2.83), the very large CIs indicate negative protection for some. Notably, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech required a disparate number of doses for the primary series (at least 2 vs. least 3), but the drastically disparate outcome between the manufacturers was not explained.

• For those without prior infection, the impact of vaccination was essentially always negative (Figure 1(d)).

• Ongoing vaccination and rollout of the bivalent boosters 2 months after the study begin obfuscate the durability of vaccine-immunity.

• Bivalent boosters did not help against severe disease either: Any protective effect of bivalent boosters was only seen for SARS-CoV-2 infection, but not even for symptomatic COVID-19 (Figure 1(d)).

• With time, the protective effect against COVID-19 decreased and their propensity for negative protection increased (Figure 1(b),(d)).

• Gigantic Confidence Intervals reaching upper limits of 5, 6, 7, or even over 11, demonstrating extraordinarily elevated risk for some vaccinated kids.

• The negative effect may be worse for “prevention of symptomatic COVID-19” than that of SARSCoV-2 infection alone (Figure 1(b)).

The figure mentioned above, which just summarizes the main data by Feldstein et al. is the following:

(For a more in-depth analysis, please see my preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/ek4yv)

For clarity, as also sent in the letter to the editor, a figure legend was added:

Figure 1: Summary of the main findings by Feldstein et al. [2]. For details, including the corresponding CIs, see Table 2 in [2]. (a) Baselines used by Feldstein and colleagues [2]. In the study, not all relevant comparisons are given (missing ones are in red) while some use an inappropriate reference population (indicated in violet). (b) Hazard ratios (HR) by manufacturer and time since last injection: The HRs explicitly show how “vaccination” decreased or increased the risk of getting (symptomatic) COVID-19 when contrasted with the unvaccinated (baseline indicated in red). (c) Analogous to (b), with no participants having any prior immunity (“na¨ıve”). The HRs explicitly show how “vaccination” of kids without prior infection decreased or increased the risk of getting (symptomatic) COVID-19 when contrasted with the unvaccinated without prior infection (baseline indicated in red). (d) Analogous to Figure (c), involving immune “na¨ıve” participants, by the timing of receipt/utilization of bivalent boosters.

Conclusion

I cannot believe Feldstein et al. had not understood about the damning reality of their own findings. The data in their publication are crystal clear. Altogether, they have 2 detailed tables. Perhaps they count on the fact that people no longer have time to read details, let alone scrutinize what can be found in those tables — which the authors purport to summarize and explain in their article!

It’s impossible to believe they did not know their data revealed the exact opposite of what they wrote in the text.

That they knowingly covered up and skewed their findings is even more likely considering who funded the study. Indeed, it is worth noting the long list of authors and funders. Stunningly, there is also one full page filled with names that are acknowledged for support. I have never seen such a long Acknowledgment section! No way that there was not at least one person who realized the radical misrepresentation of their data.

I am also pretty sure that the editorial office of the journal must have received some push-back after the paper was published. Ironically, after it first appeared, the paper was still freely accessible, including the tables. The article was soon withdrawn from free access. Yet, the abstract of their article is still openly accessible. And sure enough, it concludes with

“There was no difference in risk by vaccination status. While vaccines reduce severe disease, they may not reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections in naïve young children.”

This is a grave understatement as their data clearly demonstrated the opposite. No need to say that something may or may not happen if the study findings were extremely clear. The first claim is a lie altogether.

In all, the actual data by Feldstein et al. unambiguously reveals:

(1) Overall, a negative effect of the injections when it comes to protection against SARS-CoV-2,

(2) which is even further pronounced in the case of protection against symptomatic COVID-19.

(3) The inability of bivalent boosters to make a positive difference.

(4) A marked difference between Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech.

In my preprint, I suggested several mechanisms that may help explain some of the above. When shorted and summarized some in the letter, the EiC took offense, among others, as I relied on a preprint as a literature source.

When presented with the very same data as in the published paper, my letter was rejected, essentially on the grounds that it lacked clear statistics and baseline determinations, etc. Did they really not believe I had taken the data exclusively from the Table in the paper?!

I wrote a rebuttal to the EiC. Will he read it and respond?????

What I find truly astonishing is that the very same data – clear numbers – can be interpreted in such a radically opposing way, and the elite seems to believe that nobody will notice.

(Sample table entries copied from from https://blog.fdik.org/2024-12/piae121.pdf)

For those interested, the accepted manuscript by Feldstein et al. can be found here.

In sum: the study by Feldstein et al. revealed what they did not like. Instead of telling the truth, they falsify these unwanted facts. When exposed, the journal rejected the facts that expose the very same data, possibly believing I made these up.

All these are very strong indicators of scientific fraud and collusion between the authors, funders, and others. If you agree, please share and help expose this apparent deception.

Today, ResearchGate made me aware of a recent publication that cited my book. This triggered my curiosity. The article, written by Banji et al., is titled “mRNA-based vaccines for rapid response to emerging infectious disease outbreaks,” and was published as a Review article in the International Journal of Frontiers in Medicine and Surgery Research, “An International, Peer reviewed, Open access Journal” on 17 November 2024.

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The authors claim no conflict of interest. Yet, reading their article raises serious issues. It is not merely about maintaining a narrative alone. What equally concerns me is ethical considerations. It doesn’t just seem to be a mere continuation of the “success of the mRNA vaccine” story.

The authors did reference critical literature but portrayed all these published findings in the exact opposite way.

It’s somewhat impressive that numerous counterarguments and compelling evidence can be portrayed as if they are saying the reverse, as done here. Does this indicate intentionality, scientific misconduct, and fraud? Is it all a genuine misunderstanding, or just a predatory journal publication?

Serious scientific gaps and flaws

In the article, one of the summaries of the mRNA injections is the following:

“The success of these vaccines, which demonstrated high efficacy in preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death, was largely due to the adaptability of mRNA technology. Once the virus’s genetic code was mapped, scientists could design a vaccine by synthesizing a strand of mRNA that coded for the virus’s spike protein, which the immune system could then recognize and attack in future infections (Anand & Stahel, 2021).”

Note the single reference to these key points. Meanwhile, 3 years have passed, and each and every counterargument to them is ignored.

The praise continues:

“The future potential of mRNA vaccines lies in their flexibility to address a broad spectrum of infectious diseases and their versatility for diverse applications within public health and personalized medicine.”

Ironically, the authors do not seem to be bothered by their own admission that you cannot draw the line between these products acting as “vaccines” or as medicinal products. Indeed, they highlight their great potential against cancers (boldface throughout mine).

“Recent advancements in mRNA technology have opened up possibilities for developing vaccines that go beyond broad population immunization. One of the most promising areas is the creation of personalized mRNA vaccines, particularly in cancer treatment. In cancer, mRNA vaccines can be tailored to individual patients by incorporating genetic information specific to their tumor cells, which could stimulate an immune response targeted directly at their cancer. This personalized approach is particularly useful for cancers that exhibit unique genetic markers in each patient. Clinical trials are underway to assess the efficacy of these personalized cancer vaccines, which, if successful, could mark a significant leap forward in both cancer treatment and personalized medicine more broadly (Kelvin-Agwu, Adelodun, Igwama, & Anyanwu, 2024a; Usuemerai et al., 2024).”

Why do they not straight out say these technologies are gene therapies? Rather, their next paragraph paints a rosy picture of these products being adapted to simultaneously target multiple different pathogens (i.e., emphasizing the antigen route).

“In addition to personalized vaccines, there is ongoing research into multivalent mRNA vaccines—those that can simultaneously protect against multiple strains or types of a pathogen. Traditional multivalent vaccines, such as those used for influenza, are formulated to target several virus strains expected to circulate in a given season. However, these formulations are limited by the need to grow each virus strain individually, a time-consuming process. In contrast, mRNA multivalent vaccines can potentially include mRNA sequences for multiple antigens in a single shot, protecting against multiple strains or even different viruses altogether. This approach could streamline vaccine administration, improve immunity coverage, and reduce the frequency of booster doses required.”

I am curious. Why did they not mention that the very first attempts to do this failed? After a lot of hype earlier this year, we finally learned that the Pfizer/BioNTech combined mRNA influenza and Covid vaccine generated a disappointing immune response.

Also, thanks to the modifications done to the RNA, we already have an entire mess of protein products generated from these technologies. It’s horrifying to imagine the scaling and multiplicative adverse events that would result from combining them to target several different pathogens at once. That is purely from a safety perspective alone. But safety is not being discussed in the article.

The article does appear to discuss both positive and negative aspects. The positive ones are first summarized in the section “Mechanism and Advantages of mRNA Vaccines,” where the authors conclude that

“In conclusion, mRNA vaccines represent a groundbreaking approach in immunization, with significant advantages over traditional vaccine platforms. Their unique mechanism of action enables the body’s own cells to produce antigens, thereby generating an immune response. This approach eliminates the need to cultivate viral particles, enabling rapid vaccine development. Additionally, the adaptability and ease of manufacturing make mRNA vaccines ideal for responding to emerging infectious diseases, allowing for quick modifications in response to mutations”

Wow. And this is published in 2024. No mention that neither of these old narrative points has proven true.

Similarly, the section section on their future potential ignores any existing problems that are now widely known. For example,

“In the context of emerging infectious diseases, the speed and flexibility of mRNA vaccine technology are significant advantages. Once the genetic sequence of a pathogen is identified, scientists can quickly synthesize an mRNA sequence encoding one or more of the pathogen’s key antigens. [...] This “plug-and-play” adaptability means that, in theory, mRNA vaccines could be developed for a wide variety of viral families and even potentially for bacterial and parasitic pathogens, expanding the scope of disease prevention and control (Kowalzik et al., 2021).”

No mention that the “plug-and-play” notion does not apply to a gene-therapy drug.

And what are the challenges that are discussed? According to the authors, these are:

• Technical, Logistical, and Regulatory Challenges in mRNA Vaccine Development

• Issues Related to Storage, Distribution, and Cold Chain Requirements

• Public Trust, Misinformation, and Acceptance

As summarized by the authors,

“Despite their success, mRNA vaccines face challenges in development and distribution, particularly around storage, transportation, and public acceptance. One of the primary logistical barriers is the need for ultra-cold storage, which limits accessibility, particularly in resource-poor regions.”

Attacking misinformation while spreading misinformation

The authors are adamant about several things. For example,

“... addressing public trust is essential to improving mRNA vaccine uptake. The rapid pace of mRNA vaccine deployment has led to some public hesitancy, fueled by misinformation and skepticism. Governments and public health organizations should invest in clear, evidence-based communication strategies to educate the public on mRNA vaccine safety, efficacy, and benefits. Transparent communication about vaccine development processes and addressing concerns directly can build confidence and enhance acceptance. Initiatives to train local healthcare workers in vaccine handling, administration, and outreach could also foster trust and encourage communities to engage with mRNA vaccination programs.”

And what are the authors doing? Sure, they are demonstrating what is meant by clear, evidence-based, and transparent communication, don’t they? How about the misinformation they are concerned about?

Truly, when reading how they cite existing work that raises serious issues with the injections, does not instill trust.

Ironically, the paper includes some published work that demonstrates critical concerns, notably the following citations:

• [27] Malhotra, A. (2022). Curing the Pandemic of Misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Through Real Evidence-Based Medicine. Journal of Insulin.

• [29] Mueller, S. (2023). Challenges and opportunities of mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi, 10, 978-973.

• [39] Seneff, S., & Nigh, G. (2021). Worse than the disease? Reviewing some possible unintended consequences of the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, 2(1), 38-79.

No idea how it was possible to come up with such a doi for ref 29 – the actual identifier is https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18903-6. More importantly, I am very familiar with these three references, having written one of them and having carefully studied the other two. Thus, reading how these references are used in the article is beyond me. Some may call this scientific fraud. Indeed:

Ref 27 is described in this context:

“Providing clear, accessible, and accurate information about how mRNA vaccines work and their safety profiles is essential to fostering public trust. Collaborating with trusted community leaders, healthcare providers, and public figures can help counteract misinformation and encourage vaccine uptake (Malhotra, 2022).”

No, Malhotra’s paper is not to help encourage vaccine uptake. Neither is it written to counter the “misinformation,” as utilized here in this very context:

“Misinformation, particularly on social media platforms, has further exacerbated public distrust of mRNA vaccines. Myths and misconceptions about the technology, such as unfounded claims that mRNA vaccines alter human DNA or cause long-term health issues, continue to spread despite being scientifically debunked (Orsini, Bianucci, Galassi, Lippi, & Martini, 2022).”

How my book is referenced is also beyond me:

“Public trust issues are also intertwined with concerns about the long-term effects of mRNA vaccines. Although short-term clinical trials and initial deployment have shown favorable safety profiles, some individuals remain concerned about potential adverse effects that might emerge over time. Ongoing long-term studies and transparent reporting of vaccine safety data are necessary to address these concerns. Continuous monitoring of vaccinated populations for potential side effects and regular updates on the findings will help reassure the public and strengthen confidence in the safety of mRNA vaccines (Mueller, 2023).”

Indeed, I spent essentially 2.5 years writing the book. It is well over 400 pages and, among others, gives a clear historical account of the many problems that were already known very early on, as well as many other troubles with the injections.

Ref 39 is equally depicted in a very distorted manner:

“mRNA technology holds promise for influenza vaccination because it allows for rapid updates to the vaccine formulation in response to the virus’s frequent mutations (Seneff & Nigh, 2021).”

What? These claims are utterly fabricated and flawed promises that are counteracted by every single word in the paper by Seneff & Nigh.

Who are the authors?

It’s incomprehensible to grasp the actual qualifications of the authors who are making such strong statements and misrepresenting published facts.

An internet search for Adeola Feyisitan Banji does not seem to provide any results about this person’s qualifications and education even though Semantic Scholar lists three publications , including the present one, under this name, that all appeared between November 21-30, 2024. Neither of those contains his contact or affiliation details. I was able to find Adeola Banji on Facebook where he describes himself as having studied at the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) in Nigeria. No idea if this is the same person, who, according to Linkedin, introduces himself as

“a software engineer with experience across various industries and with different organisations. I express my creativity and solution driven mind through my code. I have helped many startups build amazing products, and I look forward to joining organisations that would employ my services in driving innovations.”

Adeleke Damilola Adekola presents himself as follows:

“As a Full-Time MBA student at Syracuse University Whitman School of Management, I aim to enhance my skills and knowledge in product management, market analysis, analytics, digital marketing, global commercial operations, and strategy. My goal is to use data-driven insights to solve complex problems in strategic business environments and create value for customers and stakeholders.

I bring over six years of experience in the healthcare industry in emerging markets, where I worked as a Product Consultant at Boehringer Ingelheim and a Key Account/Market access Executive at Swiss Pharma Nigeria. I successfully launched and grew key products, managed and retained key accounts, and engaged with diverse stakeholders. I also demonstrated strong analytical, communication, and leadership skills, as well as a passion for community service and social impact. I hold a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from University of Jos.”

Unfortunately, he does not say what his experience in the healthcare industry is. Is it primarily marketing, communicating, and engaging with “various stakeholders?”

Likewise, I was unable to identify Samuel Ajibola Dada through an internet search. However, there exists a LinkedIn profile for Samuel Dada which only says

“MBA Candidate at Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University ||Business Analytics||Supply Chain Managements||Marketing.”

I cannot automatically conclude the article was ghostwritten by conflicted individuals. Yet, the article has no “Author Contribution” section. Even if these were the actual people who wrote the article, then what was their motivation for doing so? And what made them and the reviewers/editors think they possess the required expertise for writing a review article?

Conclusion

I doubt that any of us have previously heard about the Journal of Frontiers in Medicine and Surgery Research. Is it just a predatory journal – in the classical sense of an exploitative business where publishers are ready to publish any article for payment? A few indicators suggest not only that but there may be more to it.

• Given that neither of the declared authors has any scientific expertise in medicine, biology, or the life sciences, it is difficult to imagine how they compiled such a list of arguments about the injections. Their summary is not an overall mess of incoherent statements. Rather, by listing several key storylines, it carefully promotes only one narrative. Would non-specialists even have the vocabulary to write such a coherent story?

• Secondly, it is unclear if the names of the authors demonstrate those beings who actually wrote the article, or if their names were used without their knowledge. The observation that one of the authors only has three publications that very recently, within the time-frame of just over a week appeared almost simultaneously, raises suspicion.

• Third, my book has not been widely appreciated or circulated. I would be shocked if non-matter experts were able to dig out this work from among the many thousands of publications on the injections. Last year, several of us tried to make Pfizer and Moderna aware of my book. I find it rather plausible that they are familiar with it. However, rather than much of other profound and important work that has been withdrawn from major journals when it exposed the truth, a book is, and remains, out there. Since it is published by a reputable publisher (Springer), there are only two ways to limit its effect: hide it (which has been happening) or try to portray it as something else.

Either way, I find it difficult to believe that the authors just acted out of ignorance.

If they are indeed responsible for the content, do they want this to stay on record?

Unfortunately, they made it impossible to be contacted. In the article, the author to whom correspondence should be directed is Adeola Feyisitan Banji. However, other than the name and status as Independent Researcher, no contact information is provided. Otherwise, I would have been able to reach out to them. While I emailed the Editor-in-Chief, that person cannot be found on the Internet either, other than as a purported editor of several mysterious journals. I will let everyone know if I get a response.

Because of the serious flaws and misleading statements, I am calling on those who wrote the article to withdraw this work.

Four years into the Covid-19 debacle, we are finally seeing massive allegations of orchestrated crimes at the highest levels and open calls for transparency and accountability. Even the most high-ranked politicians, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's integrity, are now publicly challenged in an investigation into systemic corruption at the heart of European governance.

Likewise, the distortion and whitewashing of critical literature cannot remain hidden and obscured. And one day, it will be clear that it is influencers behind the Banji et al. article and related ones that are the greatest spreaders of misinformation.

Kirsch also emphasized that the authors did not mention these devastating findings in their abstract. This is true. Notwithstanding this, I would like to raise another issue. The authors actually contradict themselves in various key points.

Below, I will identify some of those statements made by the authors that belie their own results. In recent years, such practices become a sad and increasingly common phenomenon. It’s now common knowledge that papers are only accepted when authors present their findings in a certain light.  And, then, there are cases, as arguably done here, where authors radically contradict what their own data show. It is difficult to imagine they did not notice. It is less likely this was not picked up during the review and editorial process. I doubt it was due to language issues, either. At least one of the 40 (!) authors would have known better.

The data are out there, as can seen in this and other studies. Many of these publications are even freely accessible. Authors, reviewers, funders, and publishers must realize that the public is not illiterate. Some argue that many of the radical inconsistencies may be classified as fraud. I am calling on academia to acknowledge those grave issues and to end regulatory capture and the censorship of science.

Disparities in the paper by Gommerman and colleagues

As seen from the title, the authors are making strong claims about the “vaccines.” Their study purportedly revealed that “Systemic and mucosal IgA responses are variably induced in response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination and are associated with protection against subsequent infection.”

That’s quite a mouthful. Note the two “and” – both systemic and mucosal IgA responses evoked by the shots are triggered and are protective. How is this supported by their findings?

The Methods Used in the Study

This is in itself a critical issue. All the observations are based on an (in-house?) methodology that some of the authors used before. Studying the “Methods” section, in this case, leaves many open questions and fails to provide important details. By contrast, many of the key issues are delegated to their previous work. Based on that, the authors summarize their approach as follows (boldface added):

“We expressed the data as a percentage relative to a pooled sample of saliva from COVID-19 acute and convalescent patients—the same pooled sample was present in each plate. We previously found that this method provided excellent plate-to-plate consistency and produced similar results as what we found when we normalized to total IgG/IgA.”

The actual findings disprove the claims

The graphics below is Figure 1 from the article, with the colored emphasis mine. It does not show a rosy picture.

• The yellow highlights indicate the measurements where even 2 shots are less effective than natural immunity (“COVID-19”)

• Panels A and B are described in the article as follows: “levels of anti-Spike/RBD IgG were similar to or exceeded that of COVID-19 convalescent patients (Fig. 1A, B).” However, this is incorrect. If B is determined as higher (marked in blue), then A should, conversely, be recognized as “lower” rather than “similar.”

• The orange highlights demonstrate that the shots do not offer hardly any improvement compared to the baseline. The latter is defined in terms of the study participants: subjects were examined before vaccination (“baseline”) and then after receiving 1 or 2 doses and measured at the indicated times.

• The purple indicates where the shots have negative effects, as study participants were worse off than before they received the injections in terms of the immune response measured.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41385-022-00511-0#Sec9 (colored highlights are mine)

In terms of numbers and percentages, the above is specifically spelled out by Gommerman and coauthors:

“Focusing therefore on IgG and IgA responses, after two doses of mRNA vaccine 94% and 41% of participants were positive for anti-Spike IgG and IgA, and 93% and 20% of participants were positive for anti-RBD IgG and IgA Ab.”

Note that the IgA response is, via their own measurement, less than exciting. On the other hand, the initially (insanely) high IgG levels do not last, and, instead, radically diminish over time. The abstract puts it this way (emphasis added).

“Administration of a second dose of mRNA boosted the IgG but not the IgA response, with only 30% of participants remaining positive for IgA at this timepoint. At 6 months post-dose 2, these participants exhibited diminished anti-Spike/RBD IgG levels.”

Later in the text, the immune response evoked by the jabs is described as follows (emphasis mine):

“we observed robust IgG levels to Spike/RBD in the saliva of participants immunized with BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 that correlate with the systemic IgG response, and these IgG Ab are significantly diminished at 6 months post-dose 2.”

and

“Taken together, with the exception of Spike-specific SIgA, most Ab against SARS-CoV-2 in the saliva, as well as neutralizing capacity, significantly decline over a 6-month period.”

The extent of this significant decline is even more obvious when one considers Figure 3 in the article and the participants that were analyzed in this regard. Shockingly, the study did not even include all participants for this part. As noted by the authors (highlight added):

“We examined the level of salivary Ab only in those participants who had remained anti-Spike IgA positive at 2 weeks post-dose 2 (n = 32, ~30% of participants). Using a paired analysis, we observed a significant decline in antigen-specific IgG and IgA levels in the saliva at this time point compared to 2 weeks post-dose 2 (Fig. 3A–D).”

Figure 3 makes the above explicit, showing the overall decline that was acknowledged.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41385-022-00511-0#Sec9 (colored highlights are mine)

The only exception to the radical decline is seen in Fig. 3E, which involves the anti-Spike Ab associated with the secretory component. Interestingly, even though, as seen from Fig. 3E and F, the anti-RBD secretory component-associated antibodies were significantly reduced at 6 months post-dose 2, for both BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273, Fig 3E depicts a uniquely different picture. At first glance, it is the only thing that could be regarded as positive, as opposed to the overall negative findings of the article. The authors describe it this way:

“although the neutralization activity of saliva at 6 months post-dose 2 was greatly diminished, anti-Spike SIgA levels had not significantly decayed at this time-point.”

Theoretically, the latter could be important. Let’s backtrack.

The study discovered a potential relationship between breakthrough infections and jab-based immune response that is worth noting. It identified that participants with breakthroughs had lower levels of vaccination-induced serum anti-Spike/RBD IgA at 2 weeks post-dose 2. This could indicate a protective effect of this component.

Given the above negative findings, the authors place great emphasis on this observation.

“although the SIgA response to Spike is lower than what is observed with SARS-CoV-2 infection, it is more resilient to decay. This preserved SIgA response observed in a minority of vaccinated participants may be very important for preventing breakthrough infections. Indeed, vaccinated participants who subsequently experienced a SARS-CoV-2 infection had significantly lower levels of anti-Spike serum IgA at 2–4 weeks post-dose 2 compared to subjects who remain uninfected.”

Even though this looks promising, the details are important:

• The response is not only low. It is really low. Figure 2 shows that it is barely detectable even for anti-spike antibodies (it’s even lower for the anti-RBD Ab response). In this figure, the dotted black line (the highlight in green is mine) is the positive cutoff, calculated as 2 standard deviations above the mean of a pool of negative control samples.

• The response is much lower than for natural infection (which is acknowledged by the authors). 

• Above, the authors also admit that the “preserved SIgA response” can be seen “in a minority of vaccinated participants.” What they mean by this is that after dose 2, it was maintained in only 30% of participants.

Finally, the clinical relevance and reproducibility of the maintained, albeit very low, SIgA levels post-vax are unclear.

• The vaccine response was observed for salivary IgA.

• The potentially protective effect, relative to breakthroughs, was seen for serum IgA. In this context, serum anti-Spike/RBD IgA was postulated to serve as a proxy of the salivary IgA response. A follow-up study is meant to examine corresponding saliva samples of breakthrough cases.

• The study identified that 2-4 weeks post-dose 2, in participants who were subsequently infected with SARS-CoV-2, anti-Spike/RBD levels were lower for serum IgA but not IgG. This does not automatically prove the opposite, that higher salivary IgA levels are protective.

• (cont.) Indeed, the authors admit that “the neutralization activity of saliva at 6 months post-dose 2 was greatly diminished.”

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41385-022-00511-0#Sec9 (the green highlights are mine)

Conclusion

The paper by Gommerman and colleagues is a good example of the culture of academic publications in recent years and demonstrates the type of results that are published.

The above has identified several issues.

Methods and Reproducibility: it will likely be difficult to reproduce the results as claimed. This is because of how the study was done.

• The authors rely on their own method to compare differences in immune responses. Such a procedure is certainly not unique. Nonetheless, in cases where the entire analysis hinges on how differences between population groups and immune responses are measured, this could substantially impair the outcome.

• The study itself is rather small, with some of the cohorts only involving 5, 11, or 12 participants.

• Some of the most promising insights/observations regarding the saliva/serum IgAs as being protective are deferred to future studies.

• Adding up their own findings, the paper concludes with the suggestion that future vaccination regiments should be through parenteral intramuscular priming followed by an intranasal boost. The success of such an approach is a hypothesis and has not been validated in the paper.

The paper indicates a potentially very important insight and suggests that serum anti-Spike/RBD IgAs may be associated with protection against subsequent breakthrough infection. However, what their paper shows is not what is highlighted by the authors.

• The authors emphasize that, to facilitate protection, those levels need to be high. Yet, throughout, all their results show that related proxy levels, as induced by the vaccines, are extremely low.

• It is known to the authors that anti-Spike SIgA levels may not be a solid measure for protection. They admit that “the neutralization activity of saliva at 6 months post-dose 2 was greatly diminished.”

• At 6 months post shots, virtually no study has ever been able to demonstrate mRNA COVID-19 vaccine protection. Thus, the key discovery by Gommerman et al., that jab-induced “anti-Spike SIgA levels had not significantly decayed at this time-point,” does not validate the protective effect of the vaccines.

Overall, the key claims made by the authors are incorrect.

• The title itself is highly incorrect: “Systemic and mucosal IgA responses are variably induced in response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination and are associated with protection against subsequent infection.” Indeed, for the jabs, almost all results in the study are negative. As admitted by the authors, the only potential exception is the observed salivary IgA response – which, however, in their study only applied to only 30% of participants where the corresponding SIgA counts, albeit, stable over 6 months, were very low.

• In reality, the existing i.m. injections do not provide lasting immunity, even if the study revealed the jabs elicited a durable IgA response in the saliva.

• The summary, “These data suggest that COVID-19 vaccines that elicit a durable IgA response may have utility in preventing infection” is not supported by the paper. It does not show that the existing vaccines have this property, and neither is it established why others would be able to do so.

Altogether, rather than showing the purported positive effect, the study indicates major problems with the vax-induced immune response. Some of the measures even indicate that the shots will impair previous immunity and engender negative “protection”.

Some may suggest the above provides sufficient reasons for the retraction of the article by Gommerman et al. However, apparently, this type of incorrect presentation of study data is a common phenomenon. I am calling on academics and institutions to provide a platform where independent researchers are free to openly discuss what they experienced during the Covid era, or possibly before, in terms of intimidation, harassment, and others when trying to publish raw data and honest results.

Amid the global call to combat mis-, dis- and malinformation, the above may be just one example to indicate the much more gigantic plight of regulatory capture and the censorship of science. Vested interest in science and publications ought to be admitted and dealt with. Scientific facts and findings must be published as they are. It is no longer be possible to sweep undesirable results under the proverbial rug. There is just too much evidence out there – even in the words of captured scientists themselves, however obscure these may be.

From John Leake:

“A massive leak of internal e-mails and memos from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (federal agency and research institute for controlling infectious disease) reveals that the institute's scientists understood that virtually every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic response was NOT guided by science, but by political machinations to spread fear, control the population, and promote the experimental vaccines. On November 2, 2024, Professor Stefan Homburg gave a presentation on the leaked documents in the German Parliament.”

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) leak includes a video, in German, with English subtitles. Given the importance of the revelation, I have summarized the main points in English:

Demonstration of political influence

• “05.05.2020: If the RKI does not comply with the political demand, there is a risk that political decision-makers develop indicators themselves and/or no longer involve the RKI in similar commissions.”

• “05.03.2020: It would be good to get the oral orders from the Federal Ministry of Health (oral instruction) ... in writing”

• “26.05.2020: How should RKI deal with content-related interventions by politics (e.g. BMI, BMAS, etc.)?”

To maintain the false impression of a pandemic:

• “2020-03-24: AGI-Sentinel ... Results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is not widely circulating”

• “2020-03-25: It is better not to formulate the trends for the time being, otherwise it will be difficult to justify further measures ...”

• “Number of free beds/occupied beds roughly the same ... the normal proportion of free beds <10%”

• “25.03.2020: daring to establish causality - We are generally at the end of the flu season”

• It was known there was no clinical emergency: In the year 2020, there were not many infectious diseases with fever (including COVID-19!). They all began to recede already in February 2020.

• The following graph reveals that by calendar week (“Kalenderwoche”) 13, the 2020 flu season had pretty much come to an end.

• “07.05.2020: “Test, test, test”” using PCR tests. They were ordered to test, not only those who were ill but also the healthy, something that had never been done before.

Political influence to postpone the approval & rollout of the vaccines, heralded as saviors of humanity, until after the 2020 US elections (fear the earlier rollout could benefit Trump)

“FDA approval [of COVID-19 vaccines] before the US Elections is not desired, also not by European authorities.”

Early politics and foreknowledge about the coming “vaccines” (Translated with

http://DeepL.com

(free version) plus some manual curating) :

• “2020-04-15: However, there is no experience to date

  with RNA and DNA vaccines ... EMA and Pfizer are considering whether to skip the Phase III trials if necessary”

• “2020-04-27: There will be several vaccines that have been developed and tested in a fast-track process.

  Relevant data will only be collected post-marketing”

(Comment: if that was not pre-planning, then I don’t know what is)

• “08.01.2021: Vaccine effect is not yet known. Duration of protection is also unknown”

(note the date!)

• “19.03.2021: It is not yet possible to know if the effect of the vaccination will result in fewer old people dying ... Are vaccinated people dying?”

(note: this was months after their first rollout)

What did the RKI know about the “vaccines” and lockdowns being protective for others (rather than self-protection)?

• “08.02.2021: It is to be expected that vaccination can prevent severe cases, but not the local multiplication of the viruses”

(Note: it was an expectation; it was never demonstrated)

• “27.08.2021: The actual effect of 2G is not greater protection from others, but rather greater self-protection.”

  (Note: compare the public message - the demonization of the unvaccinated, ostensibly the only ones responsible for spreading the virus)

• “12.10.2022: There is no evidence that vaccinations make any change for the excretions [shedding]. No evidence for any changes.”

What about “vaccine” safety?

• “2021-03-19: AstraZeneca: A lot of excitement in general ...

  Now 12 cases with sinus vein thrombosis ... PEI/Pharmacovigilance centers are not keeping up well”

• “2021-04-09: Sinus thrombosis ... also in men a twenty-fold increase in incidence”

• “07.05.2021: Side effect reports

  PEI had 45,000 in the last few weeks ... Myocarditis in young men, sinus vein thrombosis, etc.”

Dr BRIGITTE KELEEH-STANISLAWSKE (from the PEI), admitted in a hearing:

“There were people who only dealt with fatalities

and people who only dealt with myocarditis

we had much more work than ever before,

just because of this

vaccine.”

I don’t know when it all started. Perhaps when I first began to express support for Donald Trump. Or, earlier. What I am referring to are insane attacks by friends and acquaintances. Since the election, the entire earth has been commenting, it seems, either in a very aggressive or excited manner, demonstrating a drastic polarization of the whole world.

The U.S. people have spoken. They are a free nation. They cast their votes. It leaves me to wonder: why is there so much hostility from so many outside the U.S., from individuals who have never even traveled to this great country, let alone learned to appreciate the true heart of its people?

Tragically, something has been going on that indicates that so many of us have forgotten our true nature. Even those who may be tempted to join the call for retribution, spreading allegations of the horrible things the Trump administration will do, I believe, are doing this because they have forgotten the value of their own selves.

No person on earth will ever be able to overturn The Golden Rule - Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated.

As one part of humanity is rejoicing and another is frustrated, angry, and spreading less than ideal messages about President Trump, one interview stood out to me, as a fantastic exception.

In his video, “Congratulations Mr.Trump,” famous YouTuber and nurse Dr John Campbell takes a different route: he lays out the wonderful things he looks forward to, brought about by Trump and the new administration. What a fresh air of an exciting vision and expectation! Instead of blaming and insulting, Dr John is thrilled about the important things that, he expects, will change, the problems he envisions to be resolved, and the fantastic new developments Mr Trump will help facilitate.

Is this not what the wise people of old would have done? Hasn’t wisdom always been characterized by genuine support, by the more experienced lending their insights to those who are less experienced, or the younger ones, or those facing a new situation who would benefit from their input? Has this not always been the characteristics of all great men and women of history?

Isn’t this deeply inside of us? Don’t we truly wish those who are in power well, so they would skillfully rule their nations and make wise decisions?

Indeed, the Scriptures encourage us to pray for our leaders and to bless those who are in a place of authority. Specifically, Titus (1 Ti 2:2) tells us to pray

“for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.”

It’s simple and aligned with the Golden Rule. Their success as leaders is likewise the success of the nation.

Whether knowingly or not, this is what Dr John did when he articulated all the great things that he believes Trump and the new administration will be able to do.

He is painting a picture of the most fantastic amendments, revelations, breakthroughs, and the most glorious successes.

This is not wishful thinking or dreaming but spoken by a wise man who understands the Golden Rule.

I am sure many of us have experienced it when we started a new job, especially when we were in a position of authority or when we could achieve something great and new. Some of us have been blessed with bosses or mentors who would not shy away from talking about our future success - because they looked to the light. Now, I know that many of us have experienced the opposite, too, the venom of hostile words and defamation. Yet, I hope that at one point or another, whether through a boss, a loving parent, or a great parent, we all have had someone who would pronounce the great things they believed we were going to do. 

I believe this is what Baird T. Spalding, one of my most favorite spiritual teachers, meant when we wrote (Vol 4, p. 118)

“This IDEAL state IS the true estate of man.”

The preceding pages described what he meant by “this.” It is man created [in] the image of God (Genesis 1:27). That man is perfect and well, whole, and complete.

Everyone. No-one excluded.

Ironically, in this very context, Spalding wrote about people as leaders.

“It is always possible for man to improve his consciousness to the point where he becomes God-like. That was the first thought in the Divine Right of Kings. It was not for the king to put himself up as the only Divine Ruler. All mankind should be Divine Rulers and rule as Kings but always with that expression of Love which is Service. Man stands One with his own Divinity and he is then of Service always. He never exalts himself above another. If he is an egotist, he destroys himself. He cannot be an egotist for long. Man’s kingship arises from his sense of oneness with the whole and egotism arises from the sense that he is a separate ego within and of himself. Therefore, egotism is the greatest violation of the natural law of his being and produces the most disastrous results.”

This passage emphasizes both the rightful place of every human being and also how anyone acting as an egotist cannot do this for long. Regarding the latter, Proverbs says the same (Pro 16:18).

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. 

I think, deeply, we all know it. It should be a relief to those who think Trump will end all democracy.

What is the opposite of a haughty spirit? Perhaps some of us have grown up with the image of an old lady kneeling in church on a cold stone floor, begging for provision for her family. Or that of some housewife yielding to the family boss. We have outgrown those notions.

Too few dare to demonstrate the true spirit that lives in them. We have forgotten. The last few years, in particular, have deprived everyone of their true nature. We have been told to ignore our desires and dreams and sacrifice it all for “the common good.”

This foundationally contradicts the essence of humanity. So many well-founded texts agree on one thing: the divinity of man. Every man.

As Spalding wrote, ‘All mankind should be Divine Rulers and rule as Kings....”

As Trump prepares for and becomes the 47th President of the United States, my prayer is that he will demonstrate True Kingship – that he will be great and succeed in realizing the ideals he has been talking about.

Throughout his campaign, one of his ideals was to make America great again. Another was to make America healthy again.

I pray he realizes his ideals, and as he does this, that not only will it be a blessing to his nation, but also, by doing so, that he would become an example to all of us, an example we all may realize true Kingship – what, I believe, belongs to all. As Spalding wrote (Vol 4, p. 120)

“The King is the Master, the Genius. Expressing himself in his true nature, and therein is his Kingship. He rules himself, for he is in his own Kingdom. The Kingdom of heaven is within. This Kingship which he is is also his message to all men. Not that he is King but that every man is a King within his own kingdom, a master over himself and his own environment, for he lives in reality;”

It is in this sense that I pray that Trump may be the Master, the Genius, expressing the very ideal of his position, office, and environment, and, thereby, that which is for all.

I would like to thank Dr John for giving an example of seeing the light and good in Trump and his coming administration.

And I pray that all would see Trump “becoming God-like,” the same as we see every man “projecting God,” man in their true estate, “the very Ideal of all Perfection.”

Indeed, as Psalms 82:6 says:

I said, “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High.

This is congruent with another statement by Spalding (Vol 4, p. 122), which seems exceptionally pertinent in this context and which I hope we, as humanity, will embrace together:

“To see all men as the embodiment of the same potential character, to see all men as the Christ, is to instantly dissolve all differences for things equal to the same thing are always equal to each other. This is the secret of the new order of things where peace and goodwill will be established in the earth.”

Trump, and everyone else, are instruments through which to express God, all the same: E pluribus unum – or, to stress the One Presence and Power through each: Unum e pluribus!

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2001_United_States_Capitol_Visitor_Center_Dollar_Reverse.jpg

In line with that proven and eternal Principle, I pray:

May the Lord God Almighty, the King of all Kings, be supreme and guide the consciousness, mind, and actions of President Trump, his administration, the American people, and all of humanity with wisdom, love, compassion, skill, and great joy.

Let all the earth rejoice before God!

Titled, “Alison Van Eenennaam Edits Cattle Using CRISPR,” the video is about genome editing technologies in beef cattle production and the two “exciting projects” underway by Van Eenennaam, a geneticist at UC Davis.  The video comes with full transcripts and a summary given by Synthego – who “aim[s] to educate scientists and non-scientists about the latest CRISPR gene editing technology, CRISPR-based therapeutics, and CRISPR regulations.”

The video raises some foundational issues, even beyond the prospect of cattle gene manipulation.

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The Video

The video begins with

“Why do we need genetically modified cows created with CRISPR gene editing technology? Aren’t GMOs bad for you? The short answer is a resounding no - GMOs have many uses, including preventing the extinction of species of plants and animals, and helping them be more resilient to their environment.”

I can see why the video triggered Longo’s interest. Among many others, he has long unearthed numerous issues with gene editing, appropriately naming the underlying conception of biology the “genocentric” view. The “n” here is intentional and indicates the same significance as the description of the universe with the earth at the center. Other than the little “n,” there is not much difference between these two models. Genes as the blueprint of life are the predominant description taught at all schools and universities, from K2 to the grave.

This model has been taken at face value for decades, and, as before, has taken the boldness and wisdom of some outstanding heroes to challenge the narrative that has established itself as the gospel truth. Many of the members of ENSSER fall into this category. Longo’s work challenging Jennifer Anne Doudna – who received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her “pioneered work: in CRISPR gene editing - is a must-read in this regard. 

Yet, the video by Alison Van Eenennaam seems to have even shocked Longo. It’s just under 26 minutes, and I found it rather astonishing indeed. Astonishing also, because many of the things proclaimed in the video have meanwhile been found to have serious flaws. The video may be a few years old but seems like a forerunner of what has been unfolding more recently, not only in terms of cattle, but gene editing more generally, how the results are presented, and who, in Van Eenennaam’s view, is to blame for some of the largest global problems of today.

I find her video shocking as it parallels so many of the developments we have seen since the COVID-19 era, and long before most of us had ever heard about “mis-, dis-, and mal-information,” the deployment of fear as a weapon, and blaming truth-tellers.

Anyone watching the video will soon discover numerous parallels to the scientific disaster that has unfolded in recent years and likewise whitewashed since the pandemic. It raises the question. Is it all from the same playbook, orchestrated by the same puppet masters behind the scenes, or is it a reflection of the thinking of most modern scientists?

I am not going to answer this. Instead, I want to highlight some of the stunning claims made in the video and the rationale surrounding this very risky work. The parallels to more recent events will become plainly obvious. Interestingly, in this case of gene-editing of cattle, notable revelations have been made, so that many things that are celebrated in the video have meanwhile proven a dismal disaster.

Van Eenennaam’s gene-editing projects in cattle

CRISPR technologies have exploded and in recent years even reached cattle.

Source: (PDF) 50. Hornless cattle – is gene editing the best solution? Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352369279_50_Hornless_cattle_-_is_gene_editing_the_best_solution#fullTextFileContent.

The figure gives an overview of the implementation of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in cattle. The top route shows gene editing of in vitro fertilized embryos with subsequent selection of successfully edited embryos employing a cell biopsy, followed by transfer of such embryos to recipients. The bottom route shows the gene editing of cells, e.g. fibroblasts, the selection of successfully edited cells, the use of these cells for the production of embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer, and the subsequent transfer of the embryos to recipients.

Van Eenennaam’s 1st project: Hornless cattle 

This project is about “gene-editing” fathers of the next generation so they do not have horns. When the video was done, this had already been realized in one bull who "faithfully" passed on the gene to its offspring (6, at the time of the interview). She also envisions that if this is done to enough bulls, and if these are used for breeding, then in 20 years, there won't be any cattle left that have horns.

(Note the lofty goal: if done that way, it would essentially eradicate the natural gene pool and we would only have such gene-manipulated cattle left.) 

Why would we need to engage in such a far-reaching project?

Van Eenennaam describes it as an "animal welfare" thing - "the beneficiary is the cow," because they won't have to be de-horned. 

Van Eenennaam’s 2nd project: “All Boys”. This is even more insane, if at all possible. It involves gene editing to change an animal’s sex. The motivation is to reduce the "environmental footprint" of cows to reduce the chance of having female offspring - the justification is that females take longer than males until they produce more beef and bring a monetary return.

To achieve this, Van Eenennaam is using CRISPR to create a gene called SRY and then use artificial insemination. The argument is that the presence of SRY can make a female turn out to be essentially male. 

“The overall hypothesis is that there's a single gene, SRY, that determines maleness. Hypothetically, if we were to duplicate that gene and integrate it into the X chromosome of a male, then we will get X carrying SRY gene and Y males. The Y chromosome bearing semen from a bull like that would be normal, but the X chromosome semen would be carrying the SRY gene.”

And the risks and challenges? Van Eenennaam is indeed concerned about several —- in her view, it is achieving high enough efficiency of the process, to get these “knock-ins working efficiently” in eggs or embryos. 

“In cows, you have to get the eggs from somewhere too; we get ovaries from dead cows. We aspirate immature follicles out of those ovaries, put them in maturation media to make them receptive to fertilization, fertilize them, inject with our editing reagents, and then they have to go through seven days of culture after which we biopsy them. If they survive that, and if they have what we want, then we freeze them, defrost them, transfer them into synchronized cows, and that's only a 15% success rate, and that's just to test if what we think is true is actually true.”

It’s a huge process, and expensive, to get the knock-in cows pregnant, and then they have to carry them to term. In her opinion, if the gene-edited egg/embryo does not lead to a pregnancy, it's a huge waste of time and resources...

Ironically, she is never talking about the health risks of the gene-manipulated animals, those consuming them/their products, or risks to the ecosystem at large. (Some may think this could, in turn, benefit BigPharma; and why would that not create any environmental cost?!)

The Promises of Gene Editing

Van Eenennaam does not want to use the term genetic modification, because it is "just gene editing."

"Often, there is no difference between modifications being made using editing vs. conventional breeding."

Yet, she argues, the potentials of such processes are numerous and great. The two main ones are:

“Many ‘sustainability goals’ can be achieved this way.”

“Genetic engineering enables us to introduce useful variations into our breeding programs in a very targeted way that really accelerates ... genetic improvement...”

“Using gene editing to minimize the loss of livestock ‘to diseases and other environmental factors:’”

“Our group specifically isn't working on this, but there are groups working to produce tuberculosis-resistant cattle, Avian Flu-resistant chickens, and African Swine Fever-resistant pigs.” 

(Note: she does not see any risks. Many of us are wondering now, a few years down the road, about the emergence of avian flu and other diseases that seem very mysterious indeed!)

The future that Van Eenennaam envisions? To optimize cattle genetics via gene-editing to minimize the carbon footprint, to make them resistant to infections, etc. She maintains it would be a "win-win" situation, because farmers would not lose all those animals to disease and, with the optimal genes, they would need fewer resources and time to grow and mature. 

(Note: again, this presumes that there is no biological cost or risk whatsoever to such gene-altered animals, something that is not justified). 

Van Eenennaam’s concerns

In Van Eenennaam’s view, the main challenges are regulations, and that you have “competing industries towards this technology.” To her, the main question will be

“whether they're going to monetize fear around this technology in the same way they have with the GMOs.”

Assured of the benefits, she further argues:

“Regulations make it difficult to get these products to market, mainly due to the GMO scare and the plethora of misinformation being put out into the common world that all GMOs are bad for you.”

Her next worries are even more bizarre.

In contrast to all the wonderful things that she argues she could do, if there were not these regulatory obstacles (which still prohibit her from doing this at scale) she sees two other difficulties (Side-note: contrary to what she is saying, there are risks!)

In her mind:

• People only talk about risks, and never about benefits.

• "Others have monetized fear around gene-editing to sell their own products."

• "The natural food industry sees there is a money-making opportunity to cast fear around gene editing."

To sum it all up: to her, the greatest problem is all this misinformation about gene editing and all the fear about it. 

Hornless cattle gene-editing errors only discovered years later

The gene-edited cattle have been widely celebrated, touted as a poster child of the success of “precision breeding.”

It was only years later that scientists at the Food and Drug Administration who investigated the genome sequence of one of the edited animals discovered what was regarded as impossible. Contrary to the terms “precision” and “editing,” the hornless cattle actually had foreign DNA.

In their publication in Nature Biotechnology, they explain why it had taken years until these unintended effects of the germline genome-edited cattle were discovered, highlighting a concern that has become even more prominent since the pandemic years:

“Each screening approach carries assumptions and biases that may allow alterations of unexpected types to go undetected.”

Even though gene editing is promoted as reliable and predictable, the process itself is much more error-prone and can lead to many unintended genetic alterations.  

The FDA scientists who had discovered that the hornless cattle contained in their genome a stretch of bacterial DNA even suspected that gene-editing errors are under-reported, overlooked, and a potential blind spot in standard genetic screening methods.

One of the main blind spots remains to this day, very similar to the DNA contamination of the mRNA vaccines, involving the integration of the repair template plasmid!

This DNA needed for the gene editor is usually introduced into the cells of plants and animals, often by using additional tools such as genes from bacteria. With the hornless cattle, it was precisely such bacterial DNA that was unintentionally being inserted into the genome of the cattle. Notably, the insertion even included a gene conferring antibiotic resistance. Luckily, these animals were never used for conventional breeding – remember, the genetic modifications and unexpected adulteration involved the germline! They also barely escaped being sold as meat animals, a practical option that Van Eenennaam had considered for financial reasons (it costs 60 cents a pound to incinerate experimental animals).

For another detailed description of the screwup involving the gene-edited cattle, see an MIT Technology Review article and the report by TestBiotech.

Yet, Alison Van Eenennaam’s current webpage still promotes the dismal failures as a huge success, writing that

“it is possible to splice the 'hornless' gene from Aberdeen Angus cattle into the widespread black-and-white Holstein dairy cows so that they are born without protrusions.”

Listed are also 5 awards she has been granted since 2019. The section “Fact Sheet” does not list anything recent, in contrast to her presentations, over 800 globally, as recent as 2024. Specifically, her February 27, 2024 presentation focused on “Animal health and food safety analyses of six offspring of a genome-edited hornless bull,” presented at a National Academy of Sciences workshop.

The dark side of gene editing

The integration of foreign DNA into gene-edited animals is just one of the known problems with gene-editing — which persists to date. There are numerous others. This post cannot do justice to the many misunderstandings, distorted ideas, unsubstantiated claims, and scientific untruths that have been made.

Rather than attempting to give a synopsis of the overall published results, I would like to point my readers to the in-depth work in this regard made by members of The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) alone. A succinct summary of the known risks of CRISPR/Cas gene editing can, for example, be found in an ENSSER position statement of 2023. More recently, and specifically related to new GM plants, serious problems are summarized, among others, here, here, here, and here.    

Most recently, on October 7, 2024, Michael Antoniou, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Toxicology Co-Director at King’s College London, and Claire Robinson, Co-Director at GMWatch, sent an open letter to U.K. Minister Daniel Zeichner where they exposed critical shortcomings of the government’s intention to proceed with secondary legislation to implement the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act. They conclude with the most recent summary of the state of the art of gene-editing technologies:

“There is now an extensive body of reviews and other articles by scientists independent of the agricultural GMO industry providing evidence that new genetic engineering techniques such as gene editing are neither precise nor predictable and that their products can pose risks to health and the environment that are different from those posed by traditional processes....”

As one of the reasons why previous concerns raised have been ignored, they make it clear that regulatory bodies such as DEFRA and the Food Standards Agency 

“are compromised in their independence by the dominant presence of people with conflicts of interest with the agricultural GMO industry...”

These claims are supported by a long list of references (depicted in the figure below).

Conclusion

Over the years, many have tried to expose various COIs as well as regulatory and agency capture by numerous 3-letter agencies and other (self-declared) global leaders. In addition to scientists being bribed, pressured, and intimidated, the above interview indicates another problem: the arrogance of the scientists themselves.

The more experienced researchers, and those with a huge media presence, seem to find it easy to impress young audiences, in particular. In the case of the interview, I find the comprehension given by the young interviewer just as troublesome as the presentation itself – see the figure below for a summary. She bought into everything Van Eenennaam had told her, through and through.

What a stark contrast to the actual findings reported by independent researchers mentioned above!

Will the the hornless cattle debacle trigger some rethinking?

The contrast between the promises and reality could not be more pronounced. Is there any reckoning?

In a different context, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield is concerned about the arrogance of scientists – which he regards as the most serious form of bioterrorism”

“I do think we can see isolated bioterrorism from radical groups that want to cause havoc. But I think it’s more likely we’ll see accidental consequences of scientific arrogance will cause us biological difficulty.”  

I don’t know when the arrogant mindset among scientists became so prevalent. To me, it is shocking and a warning – to all of us. Most importantly, may global politics catch the significance of this and once again encourage scrutiny and open debate! If not, the dark sides of scientific audacity and hubris may have no end. 

It’s about a new startup and another AI application, ostensibly to help scientific publishers and the scientific community.

The start-up called Scitility aims to help publishers spot potentially problematic papers and suspicious work.

Source: https://scitility.com/aboutus

Scitility’s tool ‘Argos’ purports to offer a solution to improve research integrity and combat academic misconduct.

Their catch headline, mission statement, and the new service offered is “Research Integrity Made Easy”

How do they want to do this? In their words, they are offering

“A comprehensive retraction service that empowers researchers, institutions, societies, funders, and publishers to uphold the highest standards of scientific integrity. With daily updates, personalized retraction alerts, and seamless integration into workflows via an API, Argos swiftly identifies retracted articles and flags areas of concern. Fostering a culture of accountability and trust.“

To me, this raises more than just simple questions:

• Argos argues they are a “self-funded company.” So, someone is funding them. But we are not told who they are.

• Above, it’s insulting to use the word “empower.” Science is an art of learning and exchange. It cannot be “empowered” by dictates from unaccountable covert elites who are funding this.

• It’s possible that the founders are doing this with some good intentions. Yet, how do we know that this large-scale operation does what they intend to do? We have no proof that AI is suitable for this at all.

• Which globalists will jump on this idea and widely push the implementation of such programs without us knowing?

• Trust hinges upon openness and free discussion, not on censorship.

• Accountability - to whom and about what?! Have the criteria for “accountability” been independently established by unbiased scientists?

• Research integrity is an issue of ethics but not AI censorship and intimidation!

As described by Nature (doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03427-w):

“The science-integrity website Argos, which was launched in September by Scitility, a technology firm headquartered in Sparks, Nevada, gives papers a risk score…. A paper categorized as ‘high risk’ might have multiple authors whose other studies have been retracted…”

Will this lead to a hopeless downward spiral - once you have a paper distracted, e.g. for unwanted content, then it will just escalate from then on?!

How could you content with AI, to justify yourself? It’s a mass operation. How can we ever expect that those affected will receive a fair analysis?

And what if you are in a situation where a previous retraction was not justified, even to the point that this is acknowledged? Seeing that it is technically extremely difficult to re-train AI, how can scientific progress and errors ever be updated?

IMO, Argos does not “support the scientific community,” as they claim, even though it is “organized as a Public Benefit Corporation.”

A lot of what I am posting is incomplete, and some readers of my notes have taken issues with this as well. Indeed, much of what we as scientists are doing is always evolving. Whenever I have financial support for funding, I can submit articles as well and do a more in-depth job. On the other hand, I see Substack as a means to share what I find important, curious, and interesting, even if it is incomplete, and as a platform to interact with the many experienced and wise souls that are out there.

As a result of the recent experiences, I have decided to also post shorter notes as a normal post, because this will allow me to limit who will be able to comment (at least, if I turn on “paid subscription”).

Having said this, I am indeed grateful to those who have previously commented on my posts. I appreciate my subscribers as sincere and honest fellow truth seekers who strive to reveal the light, learn from each other, and be inspired by each other.

Some of you may not have read the recent article by TSN titled “Smallpox, Monkeypox and Cow Pox as 'Potential' Side Effects of the COVID-19 Vaccine.”

They start with a disclaimer, which I would like everyone to embrace. To me, the issue raised by Vratesh Srivastava is an important one. At first, I could not believe it and I followed the descriptions given by the author:

“If you don’t believe me, you can check it out for yourself. Click on the link https://www.vigiaccess.org.

“Search for ‘BioNTech'. Then, in the search results that show up, click on ‘Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine’, then click ‘Ok’ in the Dialog Box that shows up. Under Reported Potential side effects, click on 'Infections and Infestations', then scroll down, keep clicking 'Load More' until you see the captions 'Smallpox (15)', ‘Monkeypox (6)’ and ‘Cow pox (5)’.”

Admittedly, I have not read the full article in TSN (a short explanation: without any funding, I am not able to afford paid subscriptions of pretty much anything. Thankfully, TSN offers a small number of free articles which I cherish). In this case, I definitely wanted to look at it myself (especially considering that unwanted information often gets deleted or manipulated).

Here are some screen-shots of how this looks like:

Sure enough, the three “potential side effects” of 'Smallpox (15)', ‘Monkeypox (6)’ and ‘Cow pox (5)’ are clearly listed.

And tragically, there are tons of others as well! It’s pages full of them! I understand that these do not automatically show “causation.” (For more on the question of whether an “adverse event following vaccination” (AEFI) is determined to be “caused” by the injections, please see my book where I wrote an entire chapter (Ch. 8) on the WHO-AEFI criteria and their problems in the context of the mRNA injections).

It’s well-known by now that doctors and healthcare professionals, for numerous reasons, have had “difficulties” reporting side effects. In recent years, we have also learned about serious issues, including fraud, about how the data are being handled internally and represented to the public.

Thus, the very fact that certain “potential side effects” actually get listed, is alarming. These reports likely merely represent the tip of the iceberg.

I find some of what is listed really concerning. Below, please see a compilation of several screen-shots:

Although more would need to be done to infer causation, there is a common pattern that indicates some relationship with the tragic events that mysteriously seemed to have emerged/escalated in recent years.

Many of the reported potential side effects of the injections suggest a common pattern:

• An overall impairment of the immune system (numerous infectious diseases).

• The shots are associated with several infectious diseases that we are told are urgent (re)emerging global health threats (Smallpox, Mbox, RSV, Malaria, Cholera,...).

• Severe manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection (e.g., sepsis, viral viremia).

• The shots negatively impact the human microbiome and support infections with, or increase of, pathogenic populations.

• Numerous adverse downstream effects of the microbiome disruption.

• Systemic dissemination of the adverse effects (inflammation, neurotoxicity, etc), including in the brain.

• Autoimmune-mediated adverse events.

• The shots are associated with Prion disease.

• The shots, by impairing the immune response and facilitating numerous co-infections, may foster the development of new pathogens and also enable novel zoonotic events (“zoonotic bacterial infections”).

I have not checked the other categories beyond “Infections and Infestations.” Yet, I do agree with Vratesh Srivastava who alerted us about the chilling side-effects “Smallpox, Monkeypox, and Cowpox.”

Some may say it’s a perfect business model – enforce a mass intervention that facilitates the declaration of “novel global health threats”, which, in turn, will evoke new mandates and more of the same mass injections and atrocities we have experienced during the last 4.5 years, or more. 

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Long under-appreciated: risks and threats throughout the bioscience fields facilitated by computerized technology, the Internet, and automation

I was among the first to warn that computers, online communication, and the digitization of biology could lead to a vast array of problems throughout the bioscience fields and also be deliberately misused.

It’s been over a decade that I have been researching under-appreciated risk potentials. A huge part of my 2nd PhD dissertation, completed in 2014, was devoted to it. My task had been to develop a method for the identification of genetically modified plants or other GMOs out in the open environment. I needed to come up with some means to identify “what” the crops or organisms were. Specifically, I was tasked to determine who owned these organisms, what they actually were, and if they were authentic. To determine this, you need some computerized equipment. I quickly found out that this computer overlap creates enormous problems that others did not seem to be aware of.

It was particularly challenging to capture open-air situations, such as cross-pollination, when seeds were unwittingly disseminated to neighboring fields or sold on the black market, or volunteer plants and hybrid formation. Could non-GMO and organic farmers refute GMO spillovers, proving they are not theirs, or would they have to pay a fee to BigAg Techs, even though they never wanted such contaminants? On the other hand, could Monsanto et al. prove that products secretly sold somewhere, or seeds that had been re-used, really belonged to them?

I spent years working on this. Along the line, I have learned lessons that, unfortunately, I STILL feel others have not embraced. (My solution, which I regard as incomplete, has been patented as a US Patent, “METHODS FOR DATA ENCODING IN DNA AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED  ORGANISM AUTHENTICATION” which was filed Sept 20, 2018, by the University of WYO - albeit without my involvement as I was no longer in Wyoming at the time. But that’s another story).

In general, there are three issues I regard as particularly concerning in this context of merging computers and biology. This, of course, is much more complex in reality, but the gist of the matter is the following.

• The underlying models and algorithms cannot do justice to what’s happening in real life. They are developed by specialists in one field. These are often computer programmers who have no training and knowledge in the bioscience field. Those from the applied side typically lack expertise in the ITC setting. This creates an enormous interdisciplinary struggle and lack of comprehensive expertise – which is easily susceptible to agency and regulatory capture.

• You need some form of computers, machines, AI technology, etc, to measure, manipulate, or modify some biomedical entity (which could be an engineered or lab-manipulated organism or any other biotech product/service). However, this tech-bio “interface” can never close the gap between one and the other. You are always dealing with two different entities/realities, even though they are treated as one. For example, you rely on a computer and technology to identify microorganisms. You only get information about a purported thing. Because of the “interface,” one could be swapped or replaced by another, and you may not ever know. Biological entities can also run off (i.,e., be alive!), and interact with other forces and processes in the open environment outside of a lab setting, and the temporary “identification” via a computer would be meaningless. You can use technology to come up with assertions about whichever, but this is never the same as the real (living) thing itself, or a product can evoke biological processes once released.

• People are mesmerized by computer/machine outputs. Absent of being able to verify a bioengineered entity with our natural senses, it seems that a flashing red signal must indicate, for sure, that something is present! Since the pandemic, we now have ample evidence of how this can be misused.

I have published some of these difficulties here and here. The above can be maliciously exploited in many ways. My first concern was manipulated or fake GMOs. As the last few years unfolded, I became horrified, seeing numerous ways that threat actors can learn from the Covid-19 pandemic, or implicitly, how these could have explicitly been exploited to facilitate numerous pandemic atrocities. This was published as an invited book chapter here. 

For years, I have been ridiculed by many for warning about the misuse potential of the digitization of biology and the reliance on computers, the Internet, and AI. When I first presented some results of my 2nd PhD dissertation, emphasizing the need to take these concerns seriously, I was told, “People are not that mean.” In turn, for years, when I unsuccessfully applied for grants, I was informed I was 20 years ahead of whatever could happen in real life.

With my first training (1st PhD) in Mathematics as well as in Cryptography and Data Security (“Habilitation”), sadly, I had seen how “mean” people can be. Clearly, not all attacks on the Internet are intended to create harm. There is a vast spectrum of reasons and motives why certain actors engage in specific behaviors, including malicious attacks.

On the other hand, from my experience, and that of others as well, people in the biomedical fields have long had a naive trust in the goodness of people and reliance on computers. Over the years, through the input of groups and organizations more powerful than me (a sole, independent researcher), global awareness of the risks of the cyber–physical nature of the entire bioscience field has finally been increasing. The merging of computers, the Internet, and biology in terms of biosafety and -security risks is now often called cyberbiosecurity.

Shocking! Practical forms of misuse at a new level

Over the years, I have witnessed a lot and have been trying to predict other things with unrecognized biorisk potential. Yet, I never imagined that bad actors would do something like the following…. I truly thought that technology-enabled misuse and attacks would have at least some limits, i.e., that those intending to harm would draw the line somewhere.

BBC just reported: 'Fake weight loss drug nearly killed me' 

“A mother of two who nearly died after taking a fraudulent weight loss injection is urging others to be careful about what they buy online.”

Somehow or another, I had hoped that bad actors would stay away from faking drugs or that there would be sufficient regulation to prevent things like those.

I guess I had hoped that common actors would feel some empathy, abstain from intentionally causing physical injuries, or even killing harmless citizens. (More could be said about the entire military-industrial complex and organized crime, but that is also a story in itself).

Recent decades have shown us that online attacks are numerous and that these do cause substantial financial harm. Additionally, attackers have expanded their scope via social engineering attacks and used the Internet to defame, discredit, and censor their victims. More recently, attacks have also turned into mass psy-war operations. 

Shockingly, the Internet has also been misused to deliberately cause physical harm, even via fake pharmaceuticals.

Counterfeit drugs and medical products can easily be disguised as the real thing. Tragically, the above story shows how easy it is to contain toxic or even deadly substances that could cause serious harm to the entire population.

The setup for bad actors seems perfect. This is how Michelle Sword fell into the trap.

"A lot of people are quite desperate to get these medications because they are quite difficult to access from the NHS," she said.

"So they go to other providers and some of these providers unfortunately do not provide medication that has gone through the right channels.”

It’s clear, this is pointing to an enormous potential for counterfeiting.

Urgent call for action

I can only re-iterate what Michelle Sword is urging others: Beware of counterfeit medical products sold online! And at the research level? These, and the related issues (see the figure below for examples), must be taken much more seriously – what I have been arguing for over a decade.... Internationally, many universities, groups, and organizations have picked up the topic of cyberbiosecurity.

Tragically, however, many of the new experts in cyberbiosecurity are funded by BigAg and BigTech, and many others lack any genuine multidisciplinary experience. However, just as it has been with internet security, it is a monumental task, requiring the input and collaboration of all – in an independent and unbiased manner! I am grateful to The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), who a few years ago, based on my input, began working on these issues. However, we need to do more, much more!

Examples of cyberbiorisks, in no particular order/arrangement. The central part of the figure taken from https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g4r4251p3o  

• A new study, published in Nature Human Behaviour and elaborated on in Nature, boasts about a novel method to get people to change their beliefs about a controversial topic.

• The intervention, portrayed as scientific consensus messaging, is really the famous Asch conformity experiment in disguise.

• The researchers find their intervention is also able to increase worry – which had been one of the study goals. 

• They seem disappointed their treatment did not result in people readily accepting certain public actions.

• To improve the efficacy and durability, they suggest an approach akin to religious proselytizing.

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On 06 September 2024, Nature ran an article titled, “How to change people’s minds about climate change: what the science says,” giving tribute to a recent publication in Nature Human Behaviour. The short summary reads as

“How to persuade a climate sceptic

“Scientists agree that human-caused climate change is real. A study across 27 countries suggests that giving that message of consensus to people makes them more likely to agree. And to really nudge people’s thinking, emerging research suggests asking them about their own experiences and connecting them to locally relevant climate information, says climate-communication researcher Matthew Goldberg.”

To be clear. We are currently experiencing the worst types of weather extremes. At the point of writing, areas in Austria are underwater and have been declared a state of emergency. It’s all so very much different than ever before. To me, the topic of climate change is a complex one. Critical questions need to be asked: What/Who is causing it? What are the data? Who publishes those data? What are the potential conflicts of interest of those who drive the man-made climate narrative? What is meant by “man-made?” Are there any whistle-blowers and what are they saying? Are there any abnormalities that are not being explained by the official narrative?

Lots of questions. In this post, I do not want to go into these. See my previous articles (here and here) on it, or others by TKP, CHD, and elsewhere, to get a feel for what’s at stake.

For now, let’s put the topic itself on the parking lot and only concentrate on the study itself. In the following, I will replace the targeted topic (man-made climate change or crisis, etc.) with “[xyz]” to depict what I am additionally concerned about. It’s not the specific topic per se, but the overall study design, and how it was being done and further promoted.

In this sense, the Nature article begins with  “How to change people’s minds about [xyz]: what the science says.” The short answer? “Telling people about the consensus among scientists can help, study finds.”

In the Name of Science

I find this rather appalling. Since when has it been the role of science to convince the public of “a truth” and to even “change their conviction?” Has science not traditionally been a combined search for truth, not unlike the four blind men trying to grasp the blind elephant? It used to be through joint efforts that progress was made.

It has only been in recent years that we have been bombarded with slogans like “scientific consensus.” Now, upon hearing something like this, it makes me run in the opposite direction as fast as I can. I think it was first Dr Ryan Cole who first nailed it when he said:

“All scientists agree when you censor those who don’t.”

If it’s an agreement, then it is not science. Never has been and never will be. That we already know. It’s HOW this fabricated consensus is used, this is the even bigger problem. Nature continues (emphasis throughout mine):

“Telling people that scientists almost unanimously agree that [xyz] can help to nudge their thinking in that direction.”

Here you have it. The goal is to “nudge” people to accept only one narrative. Previously, it used to be called brainwashing and propaganda. Now, this “nudging” is portrayed as the responsibility and untapped ability of science:

“The fact that some ... shifted their views is a ‘testament to the universal cultural authority of science’,”

Well, in reality, it has nothing to do with “the authority of science.” It’s all about well-known psychological manipulations.

“How you deliver [xyz] messaging matters, in terms of changing minds, researchers are finding.... Many studies have found that informing people of the scientific consensus on [xyz] change can shift their attitude.”

Disagree. It is not anything that researchers are finding now. When we look into how “the messaging” was done, we will recognize it as an old psychological trick.

The “intervention,” now described as “scientific consensus messaging,” is the Asch conformity experiment in disguise

Nature gives a short summary of the experimental study by Geiger and coauthors published in Nature Human Behaviour. 

“They shared an online survey through social media and e-mail newsletters, and then analyzed 10,527 responses from people across 27 countries. Respondents estimated the proportion of [xyz] scientists who they think agree that [xyz] exists. They then ranked how confident they were in their estimates and shared their own opinions. Afterward, the researchers showed the participants several facts, including that 97% of [xyz] scientists agree that [xyz] is real, and then re-polled them.”

The main points are:

• The researchers exploited the desire of people to fit in.

• They first got them to articulate their opinion/response to certain challenge questions.

• They made sure participants thought they could own and justify their views and opinions.

• But then, they were confronted with a shocking message — that the consensus among so-called experts was such and such.

• When participants were re-polled, they responded in a manner to conform. Many updated their previous opinions to align with the alleged “norm.”

Long before “consensus messaging,” the famous Asch conformity experiments did the very same. The goal of these groundbreaking studies had been to see “if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions.” These, and related experiments all demonstrated the same: “to shift the preferences of adult subjects towards majority or expert opinion.” The experiments and results have become the basis of modern psychology. A short summary is as follows:

Source: https://age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html

“In 1951 social psychologist Solomon Asch devised this experiment to examine the extent to which pressure from other people could affect one's perceptions. In total, about one third of the subjects who were placed in this situation went along with the clearly erroneous majority.

“Asch showed bars like those in the Figure to college students in groups of 8 to 10. He told them he was studying visual perception and that their task was to decide which of the bars on the right was the same length as the one on the left. As you can see, the task is simple, and the correct answer is obvious. Asch asked the students to give their answers aloud. He repeated the procedure with 18 sets of bars. Only one student in each group was a real subject. All the others were confederates who had been instructed to give two correct answers and then some incorrect answers on the remaining 'staged' trials. Asch arranged for the real subject to be the next-to-the-last person in each group to announce his answer so that he would hear most of the confederate’s incorrect responses before giving his own. Would he go along with the crowd? ....

“To Asch's surprise, 37 of the 50 subjects conformed themselves to the 'obviously erroneous' answers given by the other group members at least once, and 14 of them conformed on more than 6 of the 'staged' trials. When faced with a unanimous wrong answer by the other group members, the mean subject conformed on 4 of the 'staged' trials.

“Asch was disturbed by these results: "The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black. ...

“Why did most subjects conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar." A few of them said that they really did believe the group's answers were correct.”

The findings troubled Asch. Strangely, however, neither the paper by Geiger in Nature Human Behaviour nor its summary in Nature mentions the analogy of the intervention to the Asch experiment.

Now: Beyond Asch- the goal is to durably change people’s thinking, beliefs, emotions, and behavior

The willingness of people to follow along and not be an outsider has more practically been confirmed since the pandemic years. It seems a common human trait. Yet, the study by Geiger and colleagues now takes it to a different level.

They promote such “scientific consensus messaging” as a potent “intervention.” Indeed, in their paper, it is depicted as follows:

• The “gap between the actual and the perceived scientific consensus ... could be reduced with consensus messaging interventions.”

• The intervention is akin to a treatment – the goal is not merely to “communicate” a scientific topic (as depicted in their title), but actually to change people’s perceptions.

• The change is meant to not merely be at the abstract level (to change “misperceptions”). One of the key goals was to get people to change their beliefs. In addition, the authors had also hoped that the intervention would cause them to “worry” more about the topic under consideration. And finally, they had hoped the intervention would change people’s ideology, so that, for instance, they would support specific “public action.”

Contrary to the claim made, scientific consensus messaging is not “an effective, non-polarizing tool for changing misperceptions”

Geiger and colleagues, in their article, emphasize

“As people across the ideological and trust spectrums still update their estimates, consensus messaging represents a non-polarizing tool useful for reaching a social consensus on [xyz] across different audiences.”

This claim is unsupported and seems incorrect because of the following:

• The huge drop-out rate during the study: participants were recruited using snowballing, mailing lists, social media, and Prolific (only in Canada and Mexico). Yet, while initially, 21,462 individuals clicked on the link, only 11,702 participants completed the study, and, after further data exclusions (detailed in the paper), only 10,527 participants remained for the analysis. What happened to the rest? If this is such a non-polarizing tool, why such a big drop-out rate?

• The authors emphasize that most dropped out after seeing the informed consent but before learning that the study topic was climate change. However, in their materials section, in the context of describing the “informed consent” part, they also mention that “all participants saw a brief description of climate change as a news topic.” It is not clear if this happened before they were informed that the study was about this topic as well. If that was the case, it could explain that some sensed what was coming and did not want to be involved. If so, it would undermine the author’s conclusion that their “intervention” is non-polarizing.

• How can you call something non-polarizing if it ignores a significant proportion of subject matter experts? The “intervention” highlights the point that 97% of topic experts agree. What about the remaining 3%? Do you not want to know what their views are, and why?

• Note that one of the study aims, to increase public support for specific actions, was not realized by the “intervention.” If people feel strongly about the topic, would they not be more inclined to support actions that are aligned with their beliefs? But perhaps, their perceptions were not deeply altered, after all.

• Interestingly, the “scientific consensus messaging intervention” was effective in getting people worried about this topic. In other words, the “treatment” instilled negative emotions rather than a sense of agency or anything else that would be empowering. Can it, therefore, not be concluded that this intervention created some internal polarization or division, and if so, that such inner conflicts would then also spill over to the society at large?

What does scientific consensus messaging have to do with science?

The Nature article, summarizing the study, concludes that (as before, emphasis added)

“What’s clear from this study and others, however, is that [xyz]-communication strategies have become more sophisticated as researchers have learnt what works.”

The authors put it this way.

“Consensus information is a form of a descriptive norm, and norms have been shown to be more predictive of support for [xyz] policy in collectivistic cultures compared to individualistic ones....Further considering that scientific consensus messages are an expert norm”

By their admission, the intervention is to replace individualistic beliefs, or the fact of individualism altogether, with norms. Disturbingly, this is done in the name of science. Yet, what is such a consensus norm, or the norm established by experts? I have heard of scientific polling, red-teaming, and Delphi methods. These all try to find out what most scientists think about a certain topic. But nowhere have I previously heard the term “expert norm.”

The study particularly also found for whom scientific consensus messaging worked best.

“Crucially, scientific consensus messages are most effective among people who were less familiar with the message and had less accurate initial consensus perceptions, including those with lower trust in [xyz] scientists and right-leaning political ideologies.”

This is also in line with the original Asch experiment. These “outsiders” seem to have realized how different they were from the “norm.” The fact that this also included those who had lower trust in the experts or those labeled ‘right-leaning political ideologies’ once again strongly suggests that this is a common psychological phenomenon and has nothing to do with the content itself. Overall, people just want to belong!

The study also employed a second messaging intervention based on the “updated consensus” that “88% of climate scientists agree that climate change constitutes a crisis.” Interestingly, this “treatment” was found to be “equally effective” as the first one that only stated that “97% of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening,” but “provided no extra value.”

From the original Asch experiments, this is to be expected.  Then, researchers found that as soon as a few gave the correct answer, the spell was broken and trial participants were more likely to trust their own eyes and report the correct answer. Here, the authors find the same, emphasizing that

“given that even small perceived dissent among environmental scientists can undermine message effectiveness15,59,60, the tested scientific agreement (88%) might not be high enough, and consequently convincing enough, to further shift belief in climate change as a crisis, worry and support for public action.”

Note that they avoid mentioning the similarity to the Asch experiments also in this regard.

If the “consensus messaging” alone does not work, resort to evangelizing techniques (aka, personal storytelling)

To the researchers, the concern is that consensus messaging does not always lead to a lasting shift in perspective. But they have a suggestion of how to overcome this. As described by Nature,

“For an enduring shift .... the message needs to be personally relevant.”

At first, this seems difficult to understand. If you do not think that an issue such as climate change is real, then how do you use the fact that it is personally relevant? In this case, how could such an “intervention” change people’s minds?

The answer is shocking:

“one top strategy is to ‘get out of talking-point fact land’ by exchanging personal stories...The next step is to listen carefully and “connect the dots” between a person’s experience and local [xyz] information, Goldberg says. ... This strategy is based on a landmark study5 in which canvassers went door-to-door and had ten-minute conversations....”

This reminds me very much of some religious groups going door to door telling “personal stories” and trying to make converts. No judgment here on those groups! I am much more familiar with all this than my readers would care to know. Many, perhaps almost all of these religious zealots, do this from a deep state of conviction. But what does proselytizing have to do with convincing people of a purported scientific fact?

Apparently, to convince people of scientific findings, this no longer relies on science. Again, we see the utilization of another level that directly exploits emotions and psychology, rather than teaching clear unbiased science.

Conclusion

What we have seen in recent years is not merely a push for one narrative related to one topic alone. It is not about specific topics, even if some of those are portrayed as exceptional. The paper by Geiger and colleagues analyzes the issue of climate change. However, their paper makes it clear. The agenda is much bigger.

It is about psychological manipulations, using insights that have long been known from the Asch study but also those that have been driving religious fanaticism and wars. Underlying both is the desire of many to belong – to a group of individuals, a sect, or society at large.

Geiger and colleagues carefully hide the fact they exploit just that. Supported by many others, the goal is clear. It is not to instill only one view about a controversial topic. The aim is to capture people at a much deeper level to change their beliefs and emotions. In particular, a stated goal of their intervention is to increase worry. Another goal is to get people to change their behavior and support certain public interventions.

Image source: doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02777-9 and https://age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html

Whilst part of this is done in the name of using scientific “norms,” the actual treatment starts with an Asch experiment in disguise. If that is not enough, steps akin to religious evangelizing are recommended.

Innovation and scientific progress have only been possible because a few outsiders broke through the norm. As far back as I can remember, thinking outside the box was promoted as one of the highest attributes in academia. Everyone who has done so knows how humbling it is to step out into the unknown, daring something new. The search for truth and wisdom has propelled generations of inventors and true scientists, urging them into uncharted waters. Away from the crowds of people, in the solitude of their souls, the greatest have shown forth not only the light of genius in terms of discovery. Wisdom has often called in the desert, begging for sincerity, honesty, and bravery to follow the still small voice.

Amidst the global darkness to brainwash the masses and engage in psychological manipulation, all it takes is the light of one small candle. This is what gives me hope. Many of us know the silent voice. We know its power and strength. We cannot but hear it, follow it, and prevail.