How can millions of people, all exhibiting signs of COVID have whole genome sequences that match the SARS-CoV-2 reference genome if viruses don't exist?

Do you know? They were sequenced from scratch. The machines computed the sequences solely based on the samples under test using random primers.

Here was the discussion.

Executive summary

It’s important to resolve the question whether viruses exist.

This article lays out a set of questions that need to be answered in order to fairly evaluate the claim that viruses don’t exist.

I’ve invited Dr. Kaufman to write a document answering each of the questions. I will publish a link to that document here as soon as I get it.

In addition, if anyone submits credible answers to four or more of the issues posed here, I will also link to those documents. I created a special pinned comment in the comments. Simply post your link which answers four or more questions there.

Jointly designed experiment(s) to settle the question

We now have plenty of funding to do an experiment to settle the question. We just need qualified scientists who believe viruses don’t exist to jointly design the experiment(s. See this post:

If the virus doesn’t exist, why is it we can SEE the SARS-CoV-2 under electron microscopes with its telltale “spikes”?

From the New York Times in Oct 2020: The Coronavirus Unveiled. This article shows virions inside the cell as well as outside the cell.

All of the images in the Times article are fully explained by virology and are inexplicable if the virus doesn’t exist. We can see it and it has the telltale “spikes” just like they said it does.

Dr. Kaufman needs to explain all the images. And he needs to explain how cells can go from normal, then we see the virions inside the cell, and we can also see the “escape chute” the virions use to exit the cell, and we can see a sea of virions surrounding the cell after infection. EVERYTHING is consistent with virology.

If the virus doesn’t exist, why can we image all parts of the viral replication process?

We can image everything predicted by virology happening within a cell as shown in this paper which, like the NY Times article, shows a virus in all stages. So we can see virions outside a cell, virions entering a cell, the same class of virions replicated inside the cell, and virions exiting the cell.

We can literally “catch the virus in the act.” There is no doubt about what is happening. No guess work. We can directly see all of it under EM.

What are we seeing if it isn’t a virus? Everything in this paper can be explained by virology.

To claim that viruses don’t exist is only acceptable if you can better explain the data than virology can.

Simply explain all the photos and explain what photo is inconsistent with virology.

Basically, this is like having a video camera in a bank. We can see the robber walk in, open the safe, and exit the bank with lots of cash.

The virus deniers look at the video tape and claim that there was no bank robbery. It’s baffling how they can be so blind.

They will never explain what was on the video tape because it would mean they would have to admit they were wrong. Instead, they want us to believe that the cash just magically disappeared from the safe and that we should ignore the videos of the robbery happening.

If they want to overturn virology, the burden is on them to provide the correct explanation of the EM photos. If they can’t do that, they lose. And they can’t do that.

They’ve already validated that EM photos are legit because they used it in Alec’s proof that virology doesn’t exist. And the spike protein on SARS is easy to see under EM so it’s easy to see the virus. So we can see every step and know it is the same virus. It’s undeniable. We say a virus exists because we can see it, and we can see it go through each phase of reproduction.

Their argument is there is no bank robbery if you can’t locate and arrest the bank robber and put him in solitary confinement.

Over 130 years of data; no inconsistencies!

Genomics expert Kevin McKernan posted a long thread of evidence on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. He started the post in December 2020 and most recently updated it July 16, 2023.

All of the data he posted is consistent with how virology works. No surprises.

A key paper in the thread is the Butler paper from the Mason lab: Shotgun Transcriptome and Isothermal Profiling of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Reveals Unique Host Responses, Viral Diversification, and Drug Interactions. In this paper, they use multiple method to validate what is happening with the virus including spatial transcriptomics. The “no virus” crowd stays clear of this paper.

But there is also over 100 years of evidence that as well. No surprises. No confounders.

Today, nobody has ever produced any scientific study that has produced results that are inconsistent with virology and that would cause any serious scientist with expertise in genomics and/or virology to rethink whether viruses exist or not.

That’s the problem with the virus deniers: they haven’t pointed out ANY inconsistencies that would cause any serious scientist to discard the belief that viruses exist and switch to a new hypothesis. If there are inconsistencies, please list them.

There simply isn’t a more compelling hypothesis that has ever been offered. It would have to explain the last 100 year of data at least as well as the existing model.

Any thoughts on the experiment done by Alec Zeck and Jamie Andrews

Do you think the experiment that Jamie led is well done science? Do you think it shows CPE and the creation of SARS-CoV-2?

In general, do you endorse this as an example of good science?

“No virus has ever been isolated!”

Where is it written in science that Koch’s postulates apply to viruses? Koch’s postulates were designed for bacteria which are independent living organisms that are alive. Viruses are not alive according to the traditional tests. So to isolate them is non-sensical.

It would be one thing if all scientists agreed that Koch’s postulates should apply to virus. But that was never the case.

By their very definition, no virus can strictly satisfy Koch’s postulates. But that doesn’t mean that viruses don’t exist.

In fact, certain bacteria that we can easily observe don’t satisfy Koch’s postulates, but nobody would argue that those bacteria do not exist. For example, Rickettsia prowazekii and Treponema pallidum—the bacterial agents that cause typhus or syphilis, respectively—cannot be grown in pure culture, and therefore cannot meet the second, third and fourth postulate.

For an in-depth discussion, see this article, “Do viruses exist?”

Fire can’t be isolated.

Gravity can’t be isolated.

We never say that fire and gravity cannot exist because you cannot “isolate” them.

The Higgs Boson (God particle) was never observed for 40 years, but the fact we didn’t have the technology and methodology to isolate it earlier never meant that scientists had to concede that the god particle didn’t exist or was a hoax.

Let’s put this into context.

Koch’s postulates were first announced in 1882 which was 10 years before the invention of virology and were focused on (self-contained) bacteria which is why requirement #2 was adopted.

Here’s a relatively unbiased opinion, courtesy of Gemini, Google’s AI:

Q: Some people claim that no virus has ever been isolated according to Koch's postulates. Is that true?

A: No, that claim is not true. While Koch's postulates were a significant historical contribution to microbiology, they have limitations, and scientists have isolated and characterized many viruses that don't fulfill all of Koch's criteria. Here's a breakdown:

Koch's Postulates:

These four postulates were formulated by Robert Koch in the late 19th century to establish a link between a specific microorganism and a particular disease. They are:

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

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

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

4. The same organism must be re-isolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.

Limitations of Koch's Postulates:

• Focus on Bacteria: These postulates were primarily developed for studying bacterial diseases. Viruses, with their different characteristics and reliance on host cells for replication, can present challenges in fulfilling all the criteria.

• Asymptomatic Carriers: Some viruses can establish chronic infections with asymptomatic carriers who harbor the virus but don't show symptoms. This can complicate postulate #1.

• Difficult Cultivation: Not all viruses can be easily grown in pure culture outside a host cell. This can hinder fulfilling postulate #2.

• Ethical Considerations: Introducing a potentially harmful virus into a healthy organism (postulate #3) raises ethical concerns and wouldn't be done in humans. Alternative methods, like cell cultures or animal models with similar symptoms, are used.

Examples of Viruses Isolated:

Despite these limitations, scientists have successfully isolated and characterized many viruses using various techniques beyond Koch's postulates. Here are some examples:

• Measles virus: Isolated in 1954 using monkey kidney cells.

• HIV: Isolated in 1983 using cell cultures.

• Hepatitis B virus: Isolated in 1965 from the blood of an infected patient.

Modern Techniques:

Advances in technology like electron microscopy, viral culture techniques, and genetic sequencing have greatly improved our ability to study viruses even if they don't strictly adhere to all of Koch's postulates.

Conclusion:

While Koch's postulates provided a valuable framework, they are not absolute requirements for establishing a virus as the cause of a disease. Many well-characterized viruses don't fulfill all the criteria. Scientists use a combination of techniques and evidence to identify and understand viruses and their role in disease.

Even Wikipedia admits Koch’s postulates do not apply to viruses

Explain why we need isolation when we can image the virus and can use gene sequencing to make a POSITIVE identification. No guess work required:

It’s so easy to show that the virus is fake, yet NOBODY has done that. Why not?

Our claim is the virus causes the disease.

If the disease cause the virus, then we are wrong.

Simply show us solid evidence of people who developed the telltale COVID symptoms (like happy hypoxia) where the virus was not present at the time of symptoms and developed later.

If the disease causes the virus, these cases should be easy to find and it would be nearly impossible to find the reverse. Yet the opposite is true.

Replication of the viral genome in millions of people who were diagnosed with COVID

Millions of people with COVID symptoms were independently swabbed and sequenced using whole genome sequencing (WGS) technology. WGS uses random primers to extract genetic sequences from samples.

Each lab is given a sample from an infected person and asked to identify any novel pathogen that has not been seen before using only the data in the sample.

In over 100 countries, the genome sequences (which are nearly 30,000 nucleotides long) came back that were virtually identical.

This can’t happen by chance. AFAIK, there is only one way it can happen: the same base pathogen is infecting people all over the world.

AFAIK, nothing in science (except gravity) has been more widely independently replicated all over the world than the SARS-CoV-2 viral sequence.

If viruses don’t exist, how would you explain this?

And, if it wasn’t a virus that was sequenced, then what exactly was sequenced?

And why has the SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequence never been publicly seen before in human history until 2019?

Universal agreement on the structure of SARS-CoV-2

Everyone agrees this is a single stranded, positive sense RNA virus with an envelope and around 29,000 nucleotides with a specific sequence.

The gene sequence is shown here:

Everyone agrees. There is no debate.

So if a virus doesn’t exist, how can there be such universal agreement among all researchers with no dissent whatsoever?

Quantitative PCR (qPCR)

Viruses replicate.

Does SARS-CoV-2 replicate? Yes.

How do we know that?

Because we can use qPCR and track viral load over time in someone who is infected. This viral load increases by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude in infected people, and then drops off after the virus is cleared.

If there is no virus, how do we explain the shape over time of the qPCR results in a given individual? And if we compare different individuals at different times, how do you explain the fact that the curves look the same?

You can lock these people in a room right after they are sick and the qPCR results will increase by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude. That means it is replicating.

And we can WGS sequence these people and confirm that the only foreign pathogen is SARS-CoV-2.

AFAIK, the rise and fall of the amount of genetic material can only explained by foreign (i.e., non-host) genetic material that is capable, either on its own or with the help of a host cell, of replication. A virus explanation fits the observation. And we know it isn’t a bacteria or parasite because we’d be able to see that easily.

So is there a new pathogen that replicates that nobody in human history has discovered yet? That seems very unlikely.

Happy hypoxia is novel to COVID

Paramedics never saw happy hypoxia until COVID arrived.

If viruses don’t exist, how can we explain how this symptom, that has never been seen before, is suddenly prevalent?

And how is it possible that EVERY person with happy hypoxia tested positive for SARS-CoV-2?

Burden of proof

If there is an existing theory that fits the evidence and a new hypothesis comes in, e.g., that disease is created by 5G, the burden of proof is on the new hypothesis to show it fits all the existing data as good as or better than the current theory.

5G isn’t a likely candidate because virology has been around for over 100 years, well before the invention of 5G.

So what is causing all these genetic sequences to replicate if not a virus?

Replication rate != host cell replication rate AND depends on the virus

If viruses don’t exist, why do they replicate at a different rates than the host cell?

The rate of replication of a virus depends on:

1. The type of host cell

2. The type of virus

Some host cells won’t work for some viruses. Host cells themselves replicate at a different rate than the virus.

So if the virus is NOT replicating with the aid of a host cell (which is consistent with the observation that rates depend on the virus AND the host cell used), then how do you explain this? What is replicating them? An external force? If it’s an external force, then it wouldn’t depend on the cell type. So the replication must be done by the cell which is exactly what virology teaches.

For example, SARS-CoV-2 virus in host cells replicate around 2X faster than the Vero cells they are placed in.

How do you explain that? What is doing the replication?

Antibodies

Antibodies are created when foreign antigens (such as foreign proteins) enter our bodies and replicate. Or when massive amount of foreign material is injected (a dead virus).

A live virus can cause antibodies to be created and we can measure that.

If it isn’t a live virus but is simply a reaction to external stress and breakdown products, then why are antibodies being created that are antibodies SPECIFIC to the SARS-CoV-2 sequence?

Viral similarity

The genomic sequence that all these labs discovered is most similar to a bat coronavirus.

If a bat coronavirus isn’t a virus either, then what is it?

And if this virus genomic sequence occurred randomly in nature all of a sudden, how do you explain the similarity?

What exactly were they working on in the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the past decade?

… and why wasn’t anyone let in to examine the records if they weren’t hiding anything?

Barnstable County: how did all these people have the same sequence that replicated inside of them?

See the study here. Basically, over 1,000 healthy people congregated, and 469 then developed COVID. They gene sequenced 133 patients, and 90% had the delta variant which was the popular variant at the time.

Virology explains this. It spread between people who were congregating in close quarters, exactly as we’d expect a virus to spread.

What’s the better explanation?

The Spread

If it is a toxin, how do we explain this diagram? Is there evidence that on a certain day that thousands of communities all conspired to release a toxin?

Other viruses: what are they and why do they match their associated diseases?

If viruses don’t exist, then how can the estimated tens of thousands of viruses which have been sequenced be so aligned with the symptomatic patients who have the associated disease?

I never found out the answer to any of these questions. Perhaps someone can explain this amazing coincidence in the comments?

What is it if it isn’t a virus?

Dr. Kaufman kept asking me how I know it’s a virus.

The answer is I don’t but virologists do. They look at the length of the sequence, the genes that are encoded (having a computer to identify the sequences), and they can tell you what you LIKELY have if they are skilled.

If you show your pet to a vet and ask the vet, “Is this a cat or a dog?” the vet, who has specialized training, is able to distinguish the animals.

Virology is more difficult, but it’s the same idea.

But let’s turn it around!

If all of these millions of gene sequences that have been identified as viruses are NOT viruses, then what exactly are they and how are they made and how do they replicate?

If viruses don’t exist, then how can we see them?

I’ve written about this before. See If viruses don't exist, then how can we see them?

It starts off with: “Two papers show viruses that are large enough to be seen with an optical microscope. A third paper shows all of Koch's postulates satisfied for SARS-CoV-2 published in Nature.”

To see the processes, you need to utilize some combination of electron microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, and biochemical techniques.

If SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t exist, how was Dr. Sabine Hazan able to sequence it in thousands of stool samples of people who were symptomatic with COVID?

Coincidence?

See this video where Dr. Hazan points out that there is no need for isolation to establish that a virus exists. You can use the Bradford-Hill criteria on the observation of symptoms and sequences.

The question is if viruses don’t exist, why was Dr. Hazan only seeing these sequences in patients with COVID symptoms? The symptoms and sequences were aligned. How can that happen if the sequences aren’t causing the symptoms? What is?

If the SARS-CoV-2 virus doesn’t exist, then how could it have been isolated? That isolated virus is available for purchase today from ATCC.

See this paper: Isolation and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 from the first US COVID-19 patient.

“We isolated virus from nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal specimens, and characterized the viral sequence, replication properties, and cell culture tropism. We found that the virus replicates to high titer in Vero-CCL81 cells and Vero E6 cells in the absence of trypsin. We also deposited the virus into two virus repositories, making it broadly available to the public health and research communities. We hope that open access to this important reagent will expedite development of medical countermeasures.”

How can you get to passage four without replication? If the virus isn’t replicating, how did they get to passage four?

“Viral RNA from SARS-CoV-2 passage four stock was sequenced and confirmed to have no nucleotide mutations compared with the original reference sequence (Genbank accession MN985325).”

See this paper: Isolation and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 from the first US COVID-19 patient.

Why didn’t the virus deniers simply fund the research to isolate the virus if it’s so important?

Kevin McCairn has previously said he would be happy to do the work and it will cost far less than the amount that Christine Massey had already admitted that they had pledged ($500K) for their challenge.

However, they have refused to fund this work.

The Washburne paper shows it is HIGHLY unlikely the virus is of natural origin. The genome is consistent with a man-made virus because it has certain genetic fingerprints that have never been found in nature before.

This is a very important paper: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2

Basically, there are telltale “fingerprints” that are part of the SARS-CoV-2 genome.

These “fingerprints” can get into the genome if it was manipulated in a lab.

Nobody can figure out how they got there otherwise.

So the evidence is clear: this virus was man-made. That’s what the data shows.

You have the burden of proof to show this is wrong. Explain how these fingerprints got into the virus.

The furin cleavage site (FCS) 19-nucleotide sequence matches the 2016 Moderna patent

The hypothesis that the virus was engineered in a lab fits the observation.

Consider for example, the very unusual 19-nucleotide “furin cleavage site” sequence sitting between the S1 and S2 proteins. AFAIK, this particular 19-nucleotide sequence is not found in nature nor can any of the experts I talked to explain how it could evolve naturally.

But this unusual sequence is found in a Moderna patent (US Patent No. 9587057) filed in 2016.

How does Moderna explain that? They said they’d check into it in 2021, but that was years ago and we never heard back. I guess they are still checking!

How did that sequence make its way into people everywhere in the world so quickly?

A virus could do that.

Is there another explanation that is more likely? Or even a possibility?

See this article for more details.

How can ATCC sell viruses if they don’t exist?

If viruses don’t exist, then what is ATCC selling?

Why hasn’t any scientist in the world sued them for fraud? Ever.

How is it that I can buy many different SARS-CoV-2 variants from ATCC, and find that their genome matches up with GenBank if the viruses don’t exist?

People have checked that the material they get from ATCC matches the sequences published on the ATCC website. Is there a counter example?

If SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t exist, how is it possible to buy samples that exhibit the reference sequences?

Were all of the sources lying when they said the source material came from sick patients?

GenBank never had sequences looking like SARS-CoV-2 before 2019

If this is a toxin, why didn’t it show up before 2019?

If these sequences aren’t coming from sick people, what is the actual source of the material that was sequenced and how did the sequence propagate to over 100 countries?

And why, if it is a toxin, does it have a genetic sequence consistent with viruses?

The measles virus spread rate is much faster than other viruses

If the measles virus isn’t a virus, how do you explain the consistently high R0 rate in many studies?

And how can R0 vary based on the type of virus if viruses don’t exist?

The measles virus is one of the most infectious viruses known to man. An infected person can spread the virus to up to nine out of ten susceptible people who are close contacts.

So we know for a fact that the rate of infectivity depends on the genetic sequence of the virus.

If it isn’t a virus, then what causes measles to jump so quickly from an infected person to an uninfected person and why is the infectivity dependent on the genetic sequence?

And we can genomically sequence people before they get infected, and then after they get infected, showing the only difference is the presence of the virus.

Is there any evidence that something else was found to be causing this?

Measles parties

Several documented outbreaks of measles have been linked to measles parties. For instance, a 2019 outbreak in New York City traced back to gatherings where parents intentionally exposed their children to measles.

If the virus doesn’t exist, how can you explain how infected people could infect others with the same virus (which can be sequenced, just like they did at Barnstable County).

Science is about using all available evidence

There was an excellent article written by Norman Doidge in 2020 entitled “Medicine’s Fundamentalists.” It points out that scientists should be using “all available evidence” and not be limited to only that data collected in carefully controlled experiments using the “scientific method.” This is why I disagreed with Dr. Kaufman at the start of the conversation.

If you look at the definition of science, you find it is:

“The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”

There is no limitation as to what constitutes evidence that can be considered in a scientific hypothesis.

If your hypothesis is correct, all the data should be explainable. That’s what it is about.

Here’s a simple example.

Do vaccines cause autism? Most in the scientific community would argue no and point to carefully done studies that adhere to the scientific method. But you cannot prove the null hypothesis, i.e., you can’t prove they can’t. You can only show you failed to find an association. That doesn’t mean the association doesn’t exist; it just means your studies haven’t detected a link.

But suppose 400 independent medical practices admit to the world that in 100% of cases where kids turned autistic overnight happened within 24 hours of an MMR vaccine shot.

What does science say? Should we ignore the sworn affidavits of 400 independent medical practices on what they observed because it wasn’t done in the context of a carefully controlled scientific experiment that adhered to the “scientific method?”

Alec Zeck fails to offer ANY alternative hypothesis that fits even the most basic observations (such as the symptoms match sequences)

Here Alec explains what is causing disease in the slide above.

But Alec fails to explain why, when people get symptoms of measles, doing a WGS on that person matches the measles gene sequence which is not normally present in the human body. He doesn’t explain how, when millions of people all over the world get symptoms of COVID, we can, all of a sudden, find SARS-CoV-2 sequences in their bodies when no such sequences have been found before.

That’s very problematic.

If you want to have us reject the current theories (which we are open to doing), you must present us with a theory that can explain at least all observations as the old theory, but with greater fidelity.

They cannot meet that burden at all on even the most basic tests. Not even close.

How can “perpetual fear” (or anything else on his slide) cause hundreds of millions of people to suddenly produce a foreign pathogen with a ~29,903 nucleotide long genomic sequence that matches the sequences that have been deposited into GenBank with very low E values? I’m just missing the biological plausibility part.

I’ve asked Alec to explain it and provide evidence the sequences can happen without introducing a virus. I can’t wait to hear the answer.

All I need is one example where he starts with material that does not have the SARS-CoV-2 genome, and then manipulate, and then you have a sample that expresses any SARS-CoV-2 genome in GenBank. If you can do that, you’ve disproved virology. Why haven’t they done that? They claimed in their video it is easy to do by starving cells. But no gene sequencing to prove their point.

An apology

I apologize for getting frustrated during the interview. I am very passionate about this topic.

I created this document to summarize many of the key arguments as to why so many of us believe that viruses DO exist.

I invite Dr. Kaufman to post a rebuttal to each of the points in this article in the hope of moving the discussion forward to a conclusion.

If he does so, I will link to it here.

Is there an alternative hypothesis that matches all the observations above?

I’m not aware of any other explanation other than SARS-CoV-2 is a virus.

If there is a better explanation for over 100 years of data, please answer in the comments.

That’s the important thing to focus on here.

It is not who won or lost the debate.

It is: “What does the data indicate?”

Why there are so many comments

It would be fun to go down that rabbit hole, but I have higher priority things to do.

Igor Chudov covered it pretty well.

This explains why people who believe in the no-virus hypothesis are unable to answer any of my questions posed above.

What do you think?