Settling the virus debate challenge from Dr. Sam Bailey

They have a new challenge out. But they won't debate any of us, they won't tell me what I caught if it wasn't COVID, and they won't fund a qualified scientist who accepted their challenge. Stunning.

Here’s their challenge:

Many people have heard about Christine Massey, Sam Bailey, Mark Bailey, Tom Cowen, Andrew Kaufman, Stefan Lanka, and Tim Truth and their claims that the COVID virus doesn’t exist according to their definition of a virus, with the emphasis on the word their. That is the crux of the problem.

Their latest antics are to challenge the scientific community to spend their money to do exactly what they specify in order to prove to them that they are wrong.

But the trick from reading the challenge is that it is designed so the challenge cannot be met. The challenge was designed by them, without collaboration from those on the other side, and then presented as if it is fair test that is mutually acceptable to all parties. It isn’t.

Here are the details:

1. I requested a debate with Christine’s team, but Christine wrote she was too busy to reply at the time. Now she wrote to me that she won’t debate me.

2. Richard Fleming requested a debate with them as well and they wouldn’t debate him either.

3. I asked Christine, “OK, so if it isn’t a virus, explain to me what my wife caught from her golfing friend who had COVID, and what I caught from my wife. If it wasn’t the COVID virus, then what the heck was it? The COVID tests were positive for all of us after we got symptoms.” Every email, Christine avoided answering my question. So I had to ask several times! Finally, she wrote the following: “Steve, I sent you the challenge and now you insist on diverting the conversation to your wife and asking what covid is and what people (who I have zero direct knowledge of) allegedly caught.  We all know what covid is claimed to be and what people think they "caught".” So she was being evasive and her answer to my simple question is evasive once again! This is important. They cannot answer this simple question. It is their Achilles heel. They like to claim that the virus doesn’t exist, but they cannot explain what COVID is if it isn’t a virus, nor do they have a set of tests to PROVE that THEIR theory of what it actually is is correct. Watch this video at 1:47:19. Why aren’t THEY spending the money to prove THEIR theory? Gotta wonder about that one. The point is this: If they cannot PROVE their alternative hypothesis then why should the demand proof of the current hypothesis? I’ve emailed Tom Cowan directly and he said he didn’t know what I had. I got “it” from my wife for sure.

4. It’s not cheap to do the tests they are requesting and they won’t pay the costs. They claim they have some pledges available of $500K, but pledges are not the same as cash on hand (I’m an expert on that one). They basically insist that rich people like me should spend our money to prove their hypothesis.

5. If they have an alternate hypothesis on what is causing people to all come down with a respiratory infection that is so severe they have to go to a hospital, I’m all ears. But they have none. I suspect their purpose is to distract us from the main vaccine narrative. If they want to fund the research they want, we are happy to do it.

6. This is not my field of expertise at all. I rely on other people around me who I trust. These people are all red-pilled with respect to the vaccine. It is possible that they are blue pilled with respect to the virus, but generally red-pilled people are red-pilled in many areas. None of them found the hypothesis compelling.

7. There is a video of Purnima Wagh (full video, highlights) who says she had $1.5M to do the isolation work and they found nothing. They said in the video that the CDC wouldn’t send them a sample. This is very interesting. But you can buy SARS-CoV-2 samples commercially from a number of commercial suppliers including ATCC. Sin Lee bought his reference from Boca Biolistics Reference Laboratory, Pompano Beach, FL. The samples cost under $2K. Why didn’t they do that? My colleagues (such as Sabine Hazan’s lab) have bought these samples and they matched the gene sequences from their infected patients. If the virus doesn’t exist, how do they explain that? And how can you explain Sin Lee’s papers (see below)? If the virus doesn’t exist, then how do you explain his results? We’d be DELIGHTED to debate Purnima Wagh. I’ve emailed her (at cchmc.org) and have not heard back.

8. Their challenge to prove there is a virus was accepted by Dr. Kevin W. McCairn, who created a web page accepting the challenge and asking them to put up the money to pay for the tests they wanted. Now, for some odd reason, they do not accept the offer that they asked for.

9. When McCairn pointed out that the challenge was accepted and the originators then didn’t reply, Christine ostensibly threatened McCairn with legal action. You really can’t make this stuff up. Here’s the actual email exchange with McCairn’s acceptance and also a debate offer from Dr. Fleming.

10. Now of course, they will then tell their followers that McCairn, Fleming, and I are all bad people and they don’t want to waste their time with us.

From Sin Lee confirming the lack of accuracy of the PCR test

He wrote me:

The PCR tests for COVID-19 have at least 40% false positive rates and an unknown % of false negatives. The antigen tests may work when the viral loads are very high. But even the CDC has publicly advised that all antigen positive cases be retested by PCR. 

The PCR test kits at best have 42% false positive rates as I reported in this preprint manuscript: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202204.0091/v1

But two peer reviewers do not like the data, rejecting publication based on non-scientific arguments, finding no scientific flaws in the paper. One of the reviewers wanted me to perform gel electrophoresis to prove that the RT-qPCR negative samples did not contain PCR amplicons (This is technically impossible. The reviewer is either a crook or a person who has not done any benchwork). They don't like me comparing the SARS 2003 and the COVID-19 in the paper. 

Another manuscript is still under peer review, and its first version preprint is published here: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202206.0192/v1 

I am the only person doing routine Sanger sequencing for diagnosis. My test is CLIA-certified and granted a permit by the New York State DOH. I have not promoted the business

He wrote in his paper, “The author’s diagnostic laboratory has implemented the eCDC/WHO recommendation by sequencing a 398-base segment of the N gene for the definitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples, and sequencing a 445-base segment of the RBD and a 490-509-base segment of the NTD for variant determination.”

So if the virus doesn’t exist, how is he getting positive matches from infected samples?

I asked him directly, is the virus real? He wrote back:

Of course, the virus is real. 

Sanger sequencing electropherograms do not come out of thin air. It is the genetic fingerprint of the virus.

Sanger sequencing is the gold standard for confirming the presence of the virus.

Comments from another member of our team

They are asking for 5 labs to jump through their hoops.

What lab would do this?

They claim to have funding to support this but don’t specify its size or the strings attached. No lab will want to get involved in this radioactive study if not compensated for the expense. It’s not cheap. They want EM, whole genome sequencing and BL2/3 cell culture. Every lab knows they will be walking into a study with an endless tirade of sideline criticism.

No one will sign up for it and they will declare victory since everyone ignored them.

They also emphasized that all genomes should be identical from the same patient. This isn’t true and seems like a setup.

1. viral tropism has been documented. 

2. sequencing errors and cDNA synthesis errors will occur but at a low frequency.

When I press these folks on why any given study doesn’t meet their standards, I don’t get technical rebuttals. I get “Gates funded it” or “Fauci funded it” types of answers which dismiss most of the evidence we have unfortunately. [ i.e., they dismiss our evidence not for technical reasons, but based on who funded the research ]

They are also demanding the protein coat be detected. Seems like a setup given we know RNA is the infective unit and the protein coat distractionary.

I’ve already burned countless hours with Stafano Scoglio on this and he quickly resorts to ad hominem attacks when presented with papers that challenge his thesis. 

I would just tell them to call us when they find labs that agree to their proposals. 

Sin Lee’s challenge

Sin wrote:

Tom Cowan claimed the virus has not been isolated. But the virus has been isolated by the CDC and marketed by ATCC as the control materials. I bought the virus as the control for my CLIA tests. Many others do.

I know others that use the ATCC materials and they work as expected. If the virus doesn’t exist, then how is that possible? Also, ATCC wouldn’t be able to sell anything.

Sin also wrote the following challenge which I refer to below as the “Sin Lee challenge”:

I have a Preprint manuscript currently under peer review.

There is irrefutable Sanger sequencing evidence that the virus exists and keeps mutating.

If anyone disagrees, please write a critique to challenge my data and interpretation online in the open. I will respond. Other scientists can join in for the debate. 

So if the virus doesn’t exist, you simply explain how it is possible he got the results in the paper. Simple.

Final email from Dr. Cowan

I told him we are interested in resolving the issue as well so we can put it to bed, and suggested we collaborate on defining the challenge. A challenge defined by parties on both sides is what you want if you want to convince the other side.

He wrote back:

Hi Steve, the challenge is clear, simple and doable, if any of these folks have specific requests or questions about the full protocol which is to come, please have them send them to us.   There is no need to proceed in the stepwise manner you suggest.   All the best, Tom

That didn’t sound like someone who is interested in collaborating with others to find out what the truth is.

So I wish him good luck with his challenge. If not properly done, it will “prove” nothing because he never got people with opposing views to agree on the parameters of the experiment. That is the very first thing you’d do: collaborate with the opposition on designing a fair test that both parties will accept. They didn’t do that. They created the challenge and then challenged us to accept. That’s disingenuous. I have better things to do with my time.

My email to Purnima Wagh

Sent July 20, 2022:

Subject: will you debate Sin Lee, Richard Fleming, and/or Kevin W. McCairn on whether the virus EXISTS?

Christine Massey, etc. don’t want to talk on camera about it and it is important to settle this question.

Note that They are NOT claiming it has been ISOLATED to YOUR definition of “isolation.”

We are claiming the virus exists which is different that has it been isolated based on YOUR definition of isolated. Different people have different definitions of what that term “isolation” means in virology, as I’m sure you must be aware of. To call this “scientific fraud” as you did in your video I think is a stretch as the term is ill defined. It’s like the term “vaccine”. Who gets to define it? The CDC? The definition changed. But there isn’t any agreement on who defines the term.

If the SARS-Cov-2 virus doesn't exist, then how do you explain this and please copy all of us on your response. It needn’t be detailed, just explain how he got it wrong. Is his equipment faulty? If you did the same experiment, did  you find the same thing?

I have a Preprint manuscript currently under peer review.

There is irrefutable Sanger sequencing evidence that the virus exists and keeps mutating.

If anyone disagrees, please write a critique to challenge my data and interpretation online in the open. I will respond. Other scientists can join in for the debate. 

Also, if there is no SARS virus, then why are people including me, experiencing SARS symptoms after catching it from a household member and getting positive results on a home antigen kit? The results go NEGATIVE about 1 week later.

Clearly something created a foreign antigen in my body. What is the more likely explanation of the observation if it wasn’t a virus that did that? Do you have a hypothesis? Our working hypothesis is the virus does exist and that’s what caused this. What is the more likely hypothesis?

And lastly, if the virus doesn’t exist, then what are ATCC and Boca all selling to labs all over the country and why is nobody complaining?

Thanks!

-steve

ATCC products

ATCC offers 29 different SARS-CoV-2 products.

Their products for SARS-CoV-2 are all limited to BSL 2 and below.

Overall, they offer 145 BSL 3 products and 0 BSL 4 products (it’s a limited market). They only offer purified viruses for a few viruses (not SARS-CoV-2).

Here’s one of their products for SARS-CoV-2. Note the world “isolated.” It is the RNA that is isolated, not “the virus.” This doesn’t mean that that the virus doesn’t exist. If the virus didn’t exist, they wouldn’t be able to sell the isolated RNA of the virus.

Quantitative Genomic RNA from Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 strain USA/GA-EHC-2811C/2021 (Omicron variant)VR-3347D

Genomic RNA isolated from a preparation of Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 isolate USA/GA-EHC-2811C/2021 (Omicron variant). This product can be used for assay development, verification, and validation as well as monitoring of day-to-day test variation and lot-to-lot performance of molecular-based assays. The quantitative format allows for the generation of a standard curve for quantitative PCR (qPCR) to determine viral load.

It’s a BSL 2 product and to order it you need a permit:

For every order of this item, you must provide a valid Permit to Import Infectious Biological Agents, Infectious Substances, and Vectors (CDC 0728) obtained from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We cannot ship this item until we receive this permit.

Note this in the comments:

Due to high demand, this product is limited to 20 vials per organization per 60 days.

This isolate is lineage BA.1 (Pango v.3.1.19 2022-01-20), Omicron (BA.1-like) (Scorpio), and GISIAD clade GRA using the Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak lineages (PANGO) tool.  Due to the dynamic nature of lineage determination using PANGO, discrepancies may exist between vial labels and the current lineage assignment.  Previous iterations of PANGO identified this isolate as lineage B.1.1.529.

The complete genome of the clinical isolate of SARS-CoV-2, USA/GA-EHC-2811C/2021 has been sequenced (GISAID: EPI_ISL_7171744). The following mutations are present in the clinical isolate: Spike A67V, Spike D614G, Spike D796Y, Spike E484A, Spike G142D, Spike G339D, Spike G446S, Spike G496S, Spike H69del, Spike H655Y, Spike ins214EPE, Spike K417N, Spike L212I, Spike L981F, Spike N211del, Spike N440K, Spike N501Y, Spike N679K, Spike N764K, Spike N856K, Spike N969K, Spike P681H, Spike Q493R, Spike Q498R, Spike Q954H, Spike S371L, Spike S373P, Spike S375F, Spike S477N, Spike T95I, Spike T478K, Spike T547K, Spike V70del, Spike V143del, Spike Y144del, Spike Y145del, Spike Y505H, E T9I, M A63T, M D3G, M Q19E, N E31del, N G204R, N P13L, N R32del, N R203K, N S33del, NSP3 A1892T, NSP3 K38R, NSP3 L1266I, NSP3 S1265del, NSP4 T492I, NSP5 P132H, NSP6 G107del, NSP6 I189V, NSP6 L105del, NSP6 S106del, NSP12 P323L, NSP14 I42V. It was labelled as variant of concern (VOC) Omicron by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Genomic RNA from SARS-CoV-2 must be handled at BSL-2 containment level.

Do any viruses exist?

That’s the other debate question.

A court of law determined the measles virus exists because it ruled Lanka lost the bet (LA Times story on MARCH 20, 2015).

However, the bet was overturned on appeal not because the virus was proven not to exist, but because Lanka cleverly specified the challenge as “a SINGLE paper.”

From wikipedia:

Lanka eventually challenged the judgment.[7] The case was re-evaluated at the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) Stuttgart on 16 February 2016, where the original judgment was reversed. Six publications were submitted that collectively demonstrated the existence of measles virus and its diameter; however they failed to meet the contest requirements as set by Lanka who had stipulated that both details be covered in a single publication, something that would be unlikely to occur given the narrow focus of individual publications.[1] Bardens commented on the case in an extensive interview on 5 May 2016 and announced his decision to appeal to Germany's Federal Court BGH. In December 2016, Bardens tried to get this ruling revised, but the court saw no reason to do so.[8]

Now if anyone has evidence that the higher court reversed the decision because the higher court believed the virus didn’t exist and not the “single paper” requirement, I’d love to see it. What it did say is this:

As a result, the appeal was successful, insofar as it is admissible, because the claimant's criterion of providing evidence of the existence of the measles virus through "a scientific publication" was not met by the plaintiff. Accordingly, the plaintiff is not entitled to any pre-trial attorney's fees.

In short, Bardens didn’t meet the single paper requirement so that’s why he lost.

Here is the Bardens video discussing the ruling.

Here is the original translated bet:

The prize money will be paid out if a scientific publication is presented in which not only asserts the existence of the measles virus, but also proves it and, among other things, determines its diameter. The prize money will not be paid if the determination of the diameter of the measles virus is only based on models or drawings.

The bet was disingenuous. If Lanka really wanted to answer the scientific question about measles, then why the single paper limitation? That’s not how science works. If the existence and size measurement is covered in six papers, why is that not sufficient? As far as I know, there is no “single paper” requirement of science to prove anything.

Another perspective on the challenge

See Thoughts on the Existence of Viruses and Evaluating Controversial Scientific Discussions for the thoughts from another respected Substack author (who is a doctor).

Here’s one of the key sentences to sum up his position:

At this point, I do not believe the virus denialism camp is arguing in good faith. Since I cannot read minds, I cannot say for certain why this behavior is occurring, but there are a few theories at this point in time.

Summary

The bottom line is this:

1. Kevin McCairn said he would do the experiments they wanted done, but they didn’t respond to his offer. Perhaps they have someone else better who will do it? If not, Kevin will do it. Why aren’t they accepting his offer?

2. We’ll debate them. But none of them will debate any of us.

3. Christine Massey has never been able to answer the simple question: “ok, so if COVID isn’t a virus, then what made me sick recently which was consistent with COVID and registered positive on multiple antigen tests?” That doesn’t disprove their theory, but it does show that they can’t design a test for the correct answer either. LOTS of people have been hospitalized for COVID and ended up dead. If you want to claim it isn’t a virus, why can’t you tell us what it is and how to prove it? I get that one doesn’t require the other one (I never said it did), but it’s troubling that the experts don’t have an alternate hypothesis.

4. Researchers I know like Sabine Hazan and Sin Lee find genetic sequence matches between patients who believe they are infected with the virus and the reference samples from commercial labs. How is this possible if the virus doesn’t exist?

5. Sin Lee is an expert on Sanger sequencing. He thinks there is no doubt that the virus exists. How do they explain his papers and the matches between the reference samples from the commercial lab (he used Boca Biolistics Reference Laboratory, Pompano Beach, FL)?

6. Why are they not doing the very simple experiment to show that the commercial samples from ATCC or Boca have a genetic match to infected people and then show that they still match after the person has cleared the infection. That would be cheap and simple and prove the point.

7. Christine Massey wanted me to fund the tests even though they claim to have money available. If they have the money available, why ask me to fund it? This suggests to me that they are lying about the funding.

8. The proposed experiment is flawed since the source material comes from them. So how are they trustable? The source material used by the five labs must be sent, before doing anything else, to multiple “certifying labs” who confirm that everyone got identical samples.

9. The source material they said would be confirmed by PCR or lateral flow assay which are two unreliable methods. Why wouldn’t they insist on Sanger sequencing against a sample reference from ATCC or Boca to confirm the validity of the SARS-CoV-2 samples in their challenge? This is just baffling to me.

The debate offer

The fastest way to settle this is a debate. Otherwise, we’ll be waiting about a year for the challenge to complete (assuming they can raise the $1M required to fund the challenge).

There are 1,500 comments right now, too many for me to personally respond to. The people issuing the challenge won’t debate us.

If you are qualified to discuss the topic (e.g., you have read and understand Sin Lee’s papers cited above and can explain to us how he goofed in your application since he thinks the virus exists), we’ll have the debate. Simply provide a scientifically plausible hypothesis explaining his observations. If it wasn’t a virus he sequenced, what was it? Or conversely, in your lab if you proved the samples from ATCC do not contain parts of the the SARS-CoV-2 genome as advertised, show us evidence of that.

Alternatively, simply show us your CDC 0728 permit and proof you work there (e.g., use your work email address).

If you can do that, then:

please register here to debate us

We’ll (McCairn, Fleming, Lee) debate anyone who knows the subject matter.

Everyone can see who is registered here and their response to the Sin Lee challenge.

As of July 18, there are two people and both have been requested to respond to Sin Lee’s challenge described above.