Re: COVID-19 / CORONA / 5G / BIOWEAPON FLU - A Research Thread

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[zone]

Good work Doc.
Thank you

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World Health Organisation division tackling coronavirus underfunded and facing internal corruption allegations, audits reveal

Exclusive by Europe correspondent Linton Besser
Updated 16 Feb 2020, 10:13pm

There has also been a surge in internal corruption allegations across the whole of the organisation, with the detection of multiple schemes aimed at defrauding large sums of money from the international body.

An external committee has warned the WHO it is facing "decreasing internal control compliance".

LINK - ABC NEWS

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WHO swine flu experts 'linked' with drug companies
4 June 2010

Key scientists behind World Health Organization advice on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with companies which stood to profit, an investigation has found.

The advice prompted many countries around the world into buying up large stocks of Tamiflu, made by Roche, and Relenza manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.

A year after the swine flu pandemic was declared, stocks are left unused in warehouses and governments are attempting to unpick contracts.

LINK - BBC

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Stockpiles of Roche Tamiflu drug are waste of money, review finds
APRIL 10, 2014

LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers who have fought for years to get full data on Roche’s flu medicine Tamiflu said on Thursday that governments who stockpile it are wasting billions of dollars on a drug whose effectiveness is in doubt.

“There is no credible way these drugs could prevent a pandemic,” said Carl Heneghan, one of the lead investigators of the review and a professor of evidence-based medicine at Britain’s Oxford University.

The review’s main findings were that the medicines had few if any beneficial effects, but did have adverse side effects that were previously dismissed or overlooked.

LINK - REUTERS

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The Biological Effects of Weak Electromagnetic Fields

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Health Implications of Electromagnetic Fields, Mechanisms of Action, and Research Needs

Sarika Singh1 and Neeru Kapoor 1

Occupational Health Division, Defence Institute of Physiology & Allied Sciences, DRDO, Lucknow Road, Timarpur, Delhi 110054, India

The terrestrial electromagnetic environment has been and is being rapidly altered by humans as a result of technological advancements. This was well recognised very early in the seventies by Dr. Robert O. Becker (twice nominated for Nobel Prize) who said “I have no doubt in my mind that, at the present time, the greatest polluting element in the earth’s environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields (EMFs).” On one hand, these electromagnetic waves (EMW) provide immeasurable benefits; on the other hand, they may also create potential hazards through uncontrolled and excessive radiation emissions.

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Call to ban mobiles and WiFi from schools

Monday 16 May 2011

The resolution drafted for the Parliamentary Assembly includes a variety of recommendations for the member states of the Council of Europe.

Recommendations regarding the protection of children:

Ban all mobile phones, digital cordless phones, WiFi or WLAN systems from classrooms and schools, as advocated by some regional authorities, medical associations and civil society organisations.

LINK - NHS

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The potential dangers of electromagnetic fields and their effect on the environment
Report | Doc. 12608 | 06 May 2011
Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs

...other non-ionising frequencies, whether from extremely low frequencies, power lines or certain high frequency waves used in the fields of radar, telecommunications and mobile telephony, appear to have more or less potentially harmful, non-thermal, biological effects on plants, insects and animals as well as the human body, even when exposed to levels that are below the official threshold values.

The Assembly regrets that, despite calls for the respect of the precautionary principle and despite all the recommendations, declarations and a number of statutory and legislative advances, there is still a lack of reaction to known or emerging environmental and health risks and virtually systematic delays in adopting and implementing effective preventive measures. Waiting for high levels of scientific and clinical proof before taking action to prevent well-known risks can lead to very high health and economic costs, as was the case with asbestos, leaded petrol and tobacco.

...for children in general, and particularly in schools and classrooms, give preference to wired Internet connections, and strictly regulate the use of mobile phones by schoolchildren on school premises;

reconsider the scientific basis for the present standards on exposure to electromagnetic fields set by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection, which have serious limitations, and apply ALARA principles, covering both thermal effects and the athermic or biological effects of electromagnetic emissions or radiation;

LINK - COUNCIL OF EUROPE

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Effects of 5G wireless communication on human health

EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service
Author: Miroslava Karaboytcheva
Members' Research Service
PE 646.172 – March 2020

The recent academic literature illustrates that continuous wireless radiation seems to have biological effects especially considering the particular characteristics of 5G: the combination of millimetre waves, a higher frequency, the quantity of transmitters and the quantity of connections. Various studies suggest that 5G would affect the health of humans, plants, animals, insects, and microbes – and as 5G is an untested technology, a cautious approach would be prudent. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Helsinki Accords and other international treaties recognise that informed consent prior to interventions that might affect human health is an essential, fundamental human right, which becomes even more controversial when considering children's and young people's exposure.

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Reference List

Studies Reporting Disrupted Immune Function from Exposure to Low Intensity Radio frequency Radiation (Non-thermal)

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NO SAFE PLACE

shattered lives, healthcare set to crash − you can’t fix this fast enough

A letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson
by Olga Sheean

In 2003, when I worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, the Director General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland resigned because cell phone radiation was making her ill. Along with countless other doctors, researchers and scientists, Brundtland has stated that “research shows deleterious effects” from the use of cell phones and other devices emitting radiation. “This is not an innocent technology,”1 she says. It’s an inconvenient truth that we ignore because we’re so far down the rabbit hole of wireless living.

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[strangelove]

The following extract is from a speech to VOICE Annual Conference, by Philip Parkin, the General Secretary of VOICE Teachers’ Union, on Wednesday, 1 August 2007:

I have heard and read enough to make me concerned and I had been made aware of an accumulation of evidence which suggests that the non-thermal, pulsing effects of electromagnetic radiation could have a damaging effect upon the developing nervous systems of children. The frequently-quoted current safety limits in operation refer to the thermal effects of such radiation and not the non-thermal effects.

I pointed out to the Secretary of State that the issue was being taken more seriously in some other European countries than here. I expressed the view that the BECTA advice which states that “Given our current knowledge it is reasonable to assume that WLAN technology offers no appreciable risk to children or others in schools” should be revisited and that a full scientific enquiry be commissioned in order to better understand the issues. I also proposed that schools should be discouraged from installing further networks until the results of such an inquiry are known.

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Teachers voice fears of Wi-Fi health risk
By Gary Cleland12:01AM BST 23 Apr 2007

Teachers are leading the calls for more research into wireless communication networks, amid fears that radiation from "Wi-Fi" could become the "asbestos of the 21st century".

This week the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT), which has 35,000 members, will write to the Education Secretary Alan Johnson, demanding that further studies be carried out into the potential health effects of Wi-Fi.

Wi-fi networks allow computer users to access the internet without needing to be physically connected to a socket.

Across the UK, it is estimated that Wi-Fi connections have been installed in half of all primary schools and four fifths of secondary schools.

Whole towns have even embraced the wireless revolution, with Norwich already a Wi-Fi city and Brighton set to follow.

LINK - TELEGRAPH

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The inconvenient truth about cancer and mobile phones
Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie
Sat 14 Jul 2018 15.00 BST

On 28 March this year, the scientific peer review of a landmark United States government study concluded that there is “clear evidence” that radiation from mobile phones causes cancer, specifically, a heart tissue cancer in rats that is too rare to be explained as random occurrence.

Not one major news organisation in the US or Europe reported this scientific news. But then, news coverage of mobile phone safety has long reflected the outlook of the wireless industry. For a quarter of a century now, the industry has been orchestrating a global PR campaign aimed at misleading not only journalists, but also consumers and policymakers about the actual science concerning mobile phone radiation. Indeed, big wireless has borrowed the very same strategy and tactics big tobacco and big oil pioneered to deceive the public about the risks of smoking and climate change, respectively. And like their tobacco and oil counterparts, wireless industry CEOs lied to the public even after their own scientists privately warned that their products could be dangerous, especially to children.

LINK - THE GUARDIAN

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Letter To AT&T Chairman C. Michael Armstrong From WTR Chairman Dr. George L. Carlo
7 October 1999

The rate of death from brain cancer among handheld phone users was higher than the rate of brain cancer death among those who used non-handheld phones that were away from their head;

The risk of acoustic neuroma, a benign tumour of the auditory nerve that is well in range of the radiation coming from a phone's antenna system, was fifty percent higher in people who reported using cell phones for six years or more, moreover, that relationship between the amount of cell phone use and this tumour appeared to follow a dose-response curve;

The risk of rare neuro epithelial tumours on the outside of the brain was more than doubled, a statistically significant risk increase, in cell phone users as compared to people who did not use cell phones;

There appeared to be some correlation between brain tumours occurring on the right side of the head and the use of the phone on the right side of the head;

Laboratory studies looking at the ability of radiation from a phone's antenna system to cause functional genetic damage were definitively positive, and were following a dose-responsive relationship.

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[strangelove]

Guidance

Radio waves: reducing exposure from mobile phones
Updated 4 February 2020

The international guidelines recommended by Public Health England (PHE) provide protection for the population as a whole; however, uncertainties in the science suggest some additional level of precaution is warranted, particularly for sources such as mobile phones where simple measures can be taken to reduce exposure.

Measures to reduce exposures from mobile phones have been recommended by the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones and PHE continues these recommendations which were accepted by government. The main advice is:

-excessive use of mobile phones by children should be discouraged
-adults should be able to make their own choices about reducing their exposure should they so wish, but be able to do this from an informed position

Measures that can be taken to reduce exposure include:

-moving the phone away from the body, as when texting, results in very much lower exposures than if a phone is held to the head
-using a hands-free kit, keeping calls short, making calls where the network signals are strong
-choosing a phone with a low specific energy absorption rate (SAR) value quoted by the manufacturer

Exposures from devices held further away from the body such as wireless-enabled laptop computers, and transmitter masts in the community are very much lower than those from mobile phones and PHE considers that community or individual measures to reduce such exposures are unnecessary.

LINK - GOV.UK

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...the wireless industry has “war-gamed” science, as a Motorola internal memo in 1994 phrased it.

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As more countries ban iPads and mobile phones from the classroom, could wifi be giving our children cancer?

Top cancer expert Prof Anthony Miller claims wifi beamed through classrooms could be as dangerous could be as dangerous as tobacco and asbestos
Prof Miller of Toronto University says Wifi should not be allowed in schools
Some nations have begun banning or restricting wifi, as well as mobile phones

By GEOFFREY LEAN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 23:04, 21 June 2018 | UPDATED: 01:41, 22 June 2018

Some concerned nations have already begun banning or restricting wifi, as well as mobile phones – another source of electrosmog – in schools.

But not Britain. Eighteen years after a landmark official inquiry, headed by a former Government Chief Scientist, recommended a raft of measures to reduce this kind of radiation, virtually nothing has been done.

In the meantime, we have effectively been conducting a massive medical experiment on ourselves, and our children – who some campaigners are now referring to as ‘Generation Zapped’. For the fact is that human beings have never been exposed to anything like this before.

LINK - DAILY MAIL

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Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 2017-2018 influenza season.
Vaccine. 2020 Jan 10;38(2):350-354. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.10.005. Epub 2019 Oct 10.
Wolff GG

"Vaccine derived virus interference was significantly associated with coronavirus and human metapneumovirus"

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Assessment of temporally-related acute respiratory illness following influenza vaccination
Vaccine
Volume 36, Issue 15, 5 April 2018, Pages 1958-1964

Conclusion

Among children there was an increase in the hazard of ARI (acute respiratory illness) caused by non-influenza respiratory pathogens post-influenza vaccination compared to unvaccinated children during the same period. Potential mechanisms for this association warrant further investigation.

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Annual Vaccination against Influenza Virus Hampers Development of Virus-Specific CD8+ T Cell Immunity in Children
Rogier Bodewes,1 Pieter L. A. Fraaij,1,2 Martina M. Geelhoed-Mieras,1 Carel A. van Baalen,3 Harm A. W. M. Tiddens,4 Annemarie M. C. van Rossum,5 Fiona R. van der Klis,6 Ron A. M. Fouchier,1 Albert D. M. E. Osterhaus,1,3 and Guus F. Rimmelzwaan1,3,*

..long-term annual vaccination using inactivated vaccines may hamper the induction of cross-reactive CD8+ T cell responses by natural infections and thus may affect the induction of heterosubtypic immunity. This may render young children who have not previously been infected with an influenza virus more susceptible to infection with a pandemic influenza virus of a novel subtype.

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Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus
Published online 2017 Nov 30

Ethics statement
All sampling procedures were performed by veterinarians with approval from Animal Ethics Committee of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIVH05210201). The study was conducted in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Wild Mammals in Research of the People’s Republic of China.

Sampling
Bat samplings were conducted ten times from April 2011 to October 2015 at different seasons in their natural habitat at a single location (cave) in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

Funding: This work was jointly funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81290341, 31621061) to ZLS, China Mega-Project for Infectious Disease (2014ZX10004001-003) to ZLS, Scientific and technological basis special project (2013FY113500) to YZZ and ZLS from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDPB0301) to ZLS, the National Institutes of Health (NIAID R01AI110964), the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT program to PD and ZLS, CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program to JC, NRF-CRP grant (NRF-CRP10-2012-05) to LFW and WIV “One-Three-Five” Strategic Program (WIV-135-TP1) to JC and ZLS. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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REVEALED: U.S. government gave $3.7million grant to Wuhan lab at center of coronavirus leak scrutiny that was performing experiments on bats from the caves where the disease is believed to have originated

The US National Institutes of Health, a government agency, awarded a $3.7million research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology
The lab is the center of several conspiracy theories that suggest it is the original source of the coronavirus outbreak
The institute experimented on bats from the source of the coronavirus  
They were captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan
Sequencing of the Covid-19 genome has traced it to bats to Yunnan's caves
The U.S. government funded research on coronavirus transmission in the lab over the past decade

LINK - DAILY MAIL

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Did coronavirus leak from a research lab in Wuhan? Startling new theory is 'no longer being discounted' amid claims staff 'got infected after being sprayed with blood'

The idea is 'no longer being discounted,' according to Government sources
A Cobra member said it did not rule out that the virus spread from a laboratory
But Downing Street said it 'did not recognise' the claims being made

LINK - MAIL ONLINE

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Officials punished for SARS virus leak

By Zhang Feng (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-02 01:06

Five top officials of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Thursday were punished to take blame for this year's outbreak of SARS.

These officials, including centre Director Li Liming,, should take responsibility for the outbreak which started with the infection of two laboratory researchers by the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus, Vice-Premier Wu Yi said Thursday at a working conference.

The small outbreak began in March and the World Health Organization declared it contained in May. One person died and nine were infected in the outbreak which was first reported on April 22. Most of the infections were reported in Beijing and two cases appeared in eastern Anhui province.

Two of those infected worked with the virus in the CDC's National Institute of Virology in Beijing.

Official investigation shows that it is an accident due to negligence.

LINK - CHINA DAILY

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A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.

Menachery VD1, Yount BL Jr1, Debbink K1,2, Agnihothram S3, Gralinski LE1, Plante JA1, Graham RL1, Scobey T1, Ge XY4, Donaldson EF1, Randell SH5,6, Lanzavecchia A7, Marasco WA8,9, Shi ZL4, Baric RS1,2.

Author information
1 Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
2 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
3 National Center for Toxicological Research, Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, Arkansas, USA.
4 Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
5 Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
6 Cystic Fibrosis Center, Marsico Lung Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
7 Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona Institute of Microbiology, Zurich, Switzerland.
8 Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
9 Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Abstract
The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV underscores the threat of cross-species transmission events leading to outbreaks in humans. Here we examine the disease potential of a SARS-like virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.

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Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate
Jef Akst
Nov 16, 2015

Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.

The results demonstrate the ability of the SHC014 surface protein to bind and infect human cells, validating concerns that this virus—or other coronaviruses found in bat species—may be capable of making the leap to people without first evolving in an intermediate host, Nature reported. They also reignite a debate about whether that information justifies the risk of such work, known as gain-of-function research. “If the [new] virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, told Nature.

LINK - THE SCIENTIST

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They also reignite a debate about whether that information justifies the risk of such work, known as gain-of-function research.

Gain-of-Function Research: Ethical Analysis

Abstract

Gain-of-function (GOF) research involves experimentation that aims or is expected to (and/or, perhaps, actually does) increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens. Such research, when conducted by responsible scientists, usually aims to improve understanding of disease causing agents, their interaction with human hosts, and/or their potential to cause pandemics. The ultimate objective of such research is to better inform public health and preparedness efforts and/or development of medical countermeasures. Despite these important potential benefits, GOF research (GOFR) can pose risks regarding biosecurity and biosafety.

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