The Australian Government has terminated the billion-dollar agreement with Australian biotech company CSL to supply 51 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine was being developed with the University of Queensland. The deal was terminated when several trial participants had false positives for HIV.
The way the mainstream narrative is pushing the vaccine, we are a little surprised that the problem was publicly admitted and the deal terminated. Apparently, Oxford University-Astrazeneca and Novavax are now supposed to take the place of CSL. It remains to be seen how well they do. By the way, there is the question of indemnity when problems occur.
Anyway, back to the latest hiccup regarding vaccine development. We’re not medical professionals and even we’re not surprised there is a problem. Let’s recap a little.
There has never been a successful vaccine for coronaviruses. As pointed out by the recent petition of Dr Michael Yeadon and Dr Wolfgang Wodarg to stay the vaccine trials in Europe, one of the reasons is that non-neutralizing antibodies attach itself to but not neutralize the virus and end up causing more problems.
Dr Peter Salama, WHO epidemiologist, died from a heart attack in Switzerland on 23 January 2020, aged 51. No known evidence of foul play so far, but the timing of his death is convenient.
On 27 January 2020, Greek researchers published “Full-genome evolutionary analysis of the novel corona virus (2019-nCoV) rejects the hypothesis of emergence as a result of a recent recombination event”. In other words, the virus did not develop naturally. And they are not the only ones to suspect this. Although a CDC document has admitted that “no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV were available for CDC use at the time the test was developed and this study conducted” (referring to before July), we are assuming these researchers are studying what they consider to be COVID-19.
On 31 January 2020, Indian researchers published “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag”. This paper was subsequently withdrawn with no meaningful explanation, but the work has merit.
Dr Frank Plummer, an expert in HIV and SARS, H1N1 flu, and Ebola epidemics, died suddenly in Kenya on 4 February 2020, aged 57. No known evidence of foul play so far, but the timing of his death is convenient.
Other companies have their problems. At least two people who participated in the Pfizer trials died. And Moderna’s preliminary report published in July was a joke. Maybe 3 out of 45 participants didn’t have problems but “no trial-limiting safety concerns were identified.” My 9th-grade science report was better written.
So, COVID-19’s spike proteins are difficult to deal with. And in order to do so, it seems Australian researchers resorted to using HIV protein fragments in their “molecular clamp” so the vaccine can in effect outsmart the virus. In abstract terms at least, there is a certain logic to it but even given the little we know, why was/is there so much optimism regarding this vaccine or any other vaccine?
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