Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
And the Hydroxychloroquine study published in Lancet is now retracted:Originally Posted by Ludicus
Retraction: "Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis"
https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/art...40673620313246
Comes Limitis
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
I know.
But HCQ doesn't protect us against Covid-19. Patients with lupus can develop disease, even if on stable hydroxychloroquine therapy. #1647
Apart from that, see #223 , even in a low daily dosage retinal toxicity can eventually occur, and it's irreversible. From quinine to cloroquine, we have a long experience of these drugs in our former colonies.
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There is limited evidence of vitamin supplements in preventing chronic diseases in healthy people. Hypervitaminosis can occur from excessive intake of fat-soluble vitamins ( A,D,E,K), stored in the body for long periods. Water-soluble vitamins are excreted by the kidneys. For example, vitamin C in excess is excreted from the body by the kidney as oxalate. High amounts of vitamin C lead to oxalate nephropathy. Excess of vit. C can give you gastro-intestinal symptoms and headaches.
Last edited by Ludicus; June 04, 2020 at 05:36 PM.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
Primicerius
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
This tends to support what you're saying:
https://www.jpost.com/health-science...ese-lab-630346
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
the greatest threat to our security
Oh my god, you're in on this.
Thank you for illuminating my ignorance, of course there is no cure for all cancers. Hopefully these therapies can improve the outcomes for a lot more cancer sufferers. In my country skin cancer is the most common as you'd expect with all the sunshine (a lot of them not melanoma thankfully), then the usual suspects (bowel prostate breast and lung).
Jatte lambastes Calico Rat
𐤇𐤂𐤁
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Each of those represents the codon that codes for a specific amino acid. For example, P is proline. A codon contains three specific nucleotides in a specific order. There are four different types of nucleotides, each with a different base, either adenine, guanine, cytosine or uracil. Generally speaking, change the specific sequence or any of the specific nucleotides, and you have a different amino acid (there are exceptions, some possible non-functional changes). This matters because random mutations happen at the level of the single nucleotide, and the insertion that makes SARS-CoV-2 so infectious in humans consists of twelve specific nucleotides in a specific order. If it were at all common for such a genetic structure to evolve naturally, then we would constantly be in the midst of a global pandemic.
Because organisms have multiple lines of defense, viruses tend to be highly adapted to infecting a specific species or group of closely related species. This specialization makes them unlikely to be able to infect other species. For this reason, it is very rare for a virus to be able to jump from an animal to humans. When it does happen, it's usually highly virulent but doesn't spread easily. HIV, MERS, and Ebola all fit this pattern. So the mystery with SARS-CoV-2 is how it suddenly appeared pre-adapted to humans, and highly so. It makes no sense evolutionarily. In order to account for this, it has been suggested that it has been circulating in humans for decades without being detected. I don't consider this as likely as an accidental escape from a lab.
One of the methods used in gain of function research is injecting large inoculums of a virus into a culture of human cells until you manage to get some that are successful at infecting the human cells. Then you allow those that were successful to replicate, and use only the successful ones to repeat the process over and over again. By this method, evolution is drastically sped up. Through artificial selection the virus is quickly adapted to infecting human cells. The reason for doing this is to attempt to create the virus of the future, in order to study what might evolve later. By this method, a virus that is highly adapted to infecting humans can be created despite the virus never having actually infected a living person before. Although you can imagine what might happen if such a virus ever escaped the lab.
If gene editing was actually done, I think they would have had to use a different related strain than RaTG13. If that's the case, the purpose of publishing RaTG13 in late January would have been to throw international researchers off the trail. But without having read the paper referenced in this jpost article, I find the passaging method I just detailed to be the more likely origin. Based on their record, I think the Chinese researchers at WIV were acting in good faith as much as is possible under the limitations put on them. I think if anything was meant to throw international researchers off the trail, it was the pangolin data and accompanying story.
All that said, I'm still quite open to a natural origin. I'm just waiting for someone to come up with a hypothesis that actually makes sense.
EDIT: Okay, I read their paper. They were focusing on the same insert I was looking at, but they point out others as well. Some that look identical to Bat SL-CoV ZC45.
Last edited by sumskilz; June 05, 2020 at 05:25 AM.
Praeses
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
You said that you lean towards it being manufactured in a lab, rather than evolving naturally. Yet, so many scientists and the intelligence community have concluded that there is no evidence it came from a lab. You've painted a picture where it's not just possible, but likely. Why do you think their opinion is so different from what you can observe?
Patron: The Mighty Katsumoto
Sukiyama's Blog
Simple explanations of Austrian Economics POV on a number of issues.
Simplified Western Philosophy
Best of Thooorin, CS:GO Analyst and Historian.
𐤇𐤂𐤁
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
They are saying there is no evidence of gene editing. I'm not talking about gene editing. The fact that they're focusing on gene editing is a sign of obfuscation in my opinion, and it isn't so many, it's a small group of individuals making the rounds. It's a strawman addressed to people in the press that don't have the background knowledge to understand the issues. As I said before, that argument is akin to saying that there is no evidence of gene editing in domestic dogs, therefore humans had no part in creating them. In post #1707, I explained the motivating conflict of interest and pointed out some examples.
Although, the paper I just read suggests gene editing.
Comes Limitis
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Indeed.Sadly, in Europe melanoma is a "forgotten" problem. If you are interested, an excellent article-Epidemiology of Melanoma
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In fact there is no evidence of gene editing. Obvioulsly, CRISP has the potential to disable the virus, and made him harmless. On a side note, editing people's genes to to protect them from diseases has legal and ethical issues. (in Europe, see Convention of Oviedo). A few months ago, FDA approved a CRISP treatment for Leber amaurosis, and that's great
--
Edit,
According to Montagnier, the virus was engineeried and artificially laced with parts of the HIV virus.
In French. Coronavirus et VIH : pourquoi la théorie du Pr Luc Montagnier est invraisemblable (whis is his theory unbelievable)
In fact, I also find I find it hard to believe. What happened to Montaignier? Montaignier is now a notorius antivaxxer and endorsed homeopathic medicine.
Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize Winner, Takes Homeopathy seriouosly
Nobel laureate joins anti-vaccination crowd at Autism One
Last edited by Ludicus; June 05, 2020 at 11:21 AM.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
𐤇𐤂𐤁
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
The authors of that paper supposedly think so, but I don't know why other than the fact that it looks chimeric, which could happen without gene editing anyway.
He's talking about this withdrawn paper: Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag
The problem is that HIV-1 mutates constantly, and there are so many versions of it recorded. So the odds are pretty good that any short RNA sequence will match some HIV-1 sequence recorded somewhere, just by chance. It would only be remarkable if the inserts were functionally similar.
Last edited by sumskilz; June 05, 2020 at 12:57 PM.
Praeses
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
I read through that post earlier, before I asked. Fauci also denies that coronavirus being man-made, or simply escaping from a lab that was studying it, is a likely explanation. Admittedly Fauci is probably more of a public official than a scientist (in a sense that he's not directly involved in research), but he is the head of a major institute in the NIH. Now as you've mentioned, the press and the majority of people here do not have the necessary knowledge to understand the issue. If you are saying that simply disproving gen-editing is unlikely, then what do you think is the likely explanation?
Moreover, you've criticized Andersen's research and conclusion, but is his conclusion really that unreasonable? Nearly every source and authority, not really talking about the media, but scientific and national authorities, have pretty much agreed that Coronavirus is unlikely to be man-made. From what you can see, do you think they're all basing it on Andersen's research? If they are, why haven't they raised the same concerns you have? Or perhaps they did and it simply hasn't made it into the media cycle? Dissent is always present of course, but are there any credible critical voices that you think are worth a listen?
Patron: The Mighty Katsumoto
Sukiyama's Blog
Simple explanations of Austrian Economics POV on a number of issues.
Simplified Western Philosophy
Best of Thooorin, CS:GO Analyst and Historian.
Comes Limitis
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Indeed, the indian study was withdrawn.
In English,
Coronavirus and HIV: why the theory of Professor Luc ...
The study in question was also withdrawn by the authors themselves after “the comments received from the research community on their technical approach and their interpretation of the results”, can we read on the BioRxiv website, host of the publication.
Regarding the mathematical study provided by Jean-Claude Pérez, Étienne Decroly, CNRS researcher at the Architecture laboratory develops an analogy: “The sequence of a virus corresponds to 30 pages of a book. We scientists have tools to try to determine if a paragraph from this book has ever existed in another book. We have the sequences of all known viruses available.
As for similarities with HIV, it is as if the word four times appears hat in two different books. We can, by chance, have sequences that look alike without demonstrating intentional modifications ”....not the coronavirus.We are talking about the coronavirus. Obviously, viruses mutate, COV-2 isn't an exception. But, as far we know, CoV-2 genomes are relatively stable.
...Professor Montagnier also evokes, with regard to Covid-19, “spectacular mutations”, because, he assures, nature would remove itself “foreign bodies from the genome of the coronavirus” – or here, the HIV sequence that would have been added – “as the virus passes from one patient to another”.
"This assertion makes virologist Anne Goffard jump. “We observe, contrary to what he says, that the virus has changed very little since its appearance, as expected,” explains the coronavirus specialist, who relies on the pooling of work researchers from many countries".
All of them have sequenced the form of genome that appeared in their respective countries (France, Italy, China, United States, etc.) and the results of these databases are final. “Covid-19 mutates much less than HIV can mutate, for example, because coronaviruses have the distinction of having an enzyme that corrects errors that can occur during replication,” says Anne Goffard.
“We can see that everything is going as expected for this type of virus. There are mutations that appear, but nothing leads us to demonstrate a particular selection of more virulent strains, ”specifies Étienne Decroly, CNRS researcher at the AFMB laboratory.
“Molecular engineering exists,” explains researcher Étienne Decroly. We are particularly interested in knowing why viruses are dangerous for a species. We can thus try to insert precise sequences to create virulence factors. But when we look at SARS-CoV-2, nothing proves the existence of intentionally added sequences, and we find traces of natural evolution throughout the genome.
...These are not, on the contrary, the first baseless, even tinged words of conspiracy, made by the Nobel Prize in medicine. Even before his consecration in 2008, Professor Montagnier, in bulk, supported the controversial theory of the “memory of water”, which would like water to keep the properties of substances with which it has been in contact , recommended to Pope John Paul II to cure speech problems with fermented papaya (with benefits never proven) or, more recently proposed to treat autism with antibiotics. In 2009, this globally recognized specialist in HIV had declared that certain good immune systems could “get rid of the virus in a few weeks” adding that “the not very balanced diet” of the African populations could explain their contamination. The content of his remarks had been invalidated by the researcher Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who had discovered the AIDS virus with him in 1983.
Another feat of arms of this close friend of Professor Henri Joyeux, sometimes presented as the spearhead of anti-vaccines: in 2017, Luc Montagnier estimated, without evidence, that there was with certain vaccines a risk of ” gradually poison the entire population. ” The indignation came this time from 106 academics of science and medicine. “We cannot accept that one of our colleagues uses his Nobel Prize to disseminate, outside the field of his competence, messages dangerous for health”, they wrote in a tribune. Nothing to make Luc Montagnier start, who claimed to the World in 2018: “The Nobel Prize gave me my freedom of thought, and I use it, but my theories are based on scientific facts.” A final statement to which the French scientists we interviewed do not seem to subscribe today.
Last edited by Ludicus; June 05, 2020 at 06:03 PM.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
𐤇𐤂𐤁
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Since this issue is complex, I made a thread in the academy. I think it addresses all your questions, but I'll make a few comments here. If it turns out that COVID-19 came from the Wuhan lab, Fauci will look partially responsible. That is a huge conflict of interest. Andersen just wrote a letter, it's not peer-reviewed research. In my opinion, it really only sufficiently addresses the crank theories, not the plausible hypotheses. Although, I'll quote a few parts I agree with:
Though had it been peer-reviewed, I suspect some other virologists who work with dangerous pathogens in a lab would share his preference for a conclusion that doesn't threaten the future of their careers.Basic research involving passage of bat SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses in cell culture and/or animal models has been ongoing for many years in biosafety level 2 laboratories across the world, and there are documented instances of laboratory escapes of SARS-CoV.
In theory, it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 acquired RBD mutations (Fig. 1a) during adaptation to passage in cell culture, as has been observed in studies of SARS-CoV.
More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another.
My point about the withdrawn study was that what they discovered was almost certainly just a coincidence. There may have been other issues as well.
And yes, coronaviruses are relatively stable, that's part of the mystery to me about SARS-CoV-2's seemingly rapid adaptation to extreme efficiency in infecting people.
Comes Limitis
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Just to conclude,
The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 | Nature Medicine
This study concluded the evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was not engineered. Two possible origins: natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer; or natural selection in humans following transfer. The source, a bat?, remains a mystery.
Already two years ago, in 2018 the Chinese study Origin and Evolution of Pathogenic Coronaviruses warned of the increasing dangers of spillovers of bat coronaviruses, "we also highlight the diversity and potential of spillover of bat-borne coronaviruses, as evidenced by the recent spillover of swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV) to pigs"
Montagnier says that elements of HIV-1 can be found in the genome of the Cov- 2. Montaign says,
"We were not the first since a group of Indian researchers tried to publish a study which shows that the complete genome of this coronavirus has sequences of another virus, which is HIV, the virus AIDS"
He was talking about the paper already mentioned that was retracted from the Biorxiv- because of serious errors.
The first article cited above published in Nature Medicine has concluded: "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV 2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus".
The so-called "HIV elements" by Montaign were nothing more, nothing less that short cis-acting elements already discovered in 2005 in the genoma of many coronavirus, necessary for viral replicatation in the family of coronavirus. In fact, we can't say that the whole family of coronavirus is lab-made.
Virologist Étienne Simon-Lorière of the Institut Pasteur in Paris says exactly the same:"That does not make sense. These are very small elements that we find in other viruses of the same family, other coronaviruses in nature. If we take a word from a book and it looks like another word, can we say that one has copied from the other? This is absurd. The alleged modifications of the virus - which would seek to get rid of foreign elements (1) (genetic pieces of HIV) -are undoubtedly false".
(1) see previous post, Anne Goffard.
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Good point. But we still don't know for sure. I guess you are talking about the deletions described in the Arizona paper, and those observed in the Los Alamos study, particularly the mutation spike D614G. Some say that those mutations are neutral, so let's wait and see...
Last edited by Ludicus; June 06, 2020 at 11:49 AM.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
𐤇𐤂𐤁
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
That's not a study. It's an opinion published as correspondence, which I've already addressed at length. Their arguments sufficiently counter some of the various nonsense claims that have been circulating, but not the most plausible explanation. In fact, they concede the possibility that the virus was created via passaging. They just find it less likely than the pangolin explanation, but the pangolin explanation now appears unlikely. When it comes to educated opinions, there are many. Zhan et al note that "the possibility that a non-genetically-engineered precursor could have adapted to humans while being studied in a laboratory should be considered" while Piplani et al write that it "cannot be excluded that SARS-CoV-2 was created by a recombination event that occurred inadvertently or consciously in a laboratory handling coronaviruses, with the new virus then accidentally released into the local human population".
I'll save getting deeper into the specifics for the other thread.
Primicerius
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
WHO issues another advisory. They may have finally got it right this time:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethba...again-n2570174
Comes Limitis
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
When its comes to conspiracy theories there are many.
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In the UK, the HCQ saga comes to an end. I'm not surprised.
No clinical benefit from use of hydroxychloroquine in ...
...We have therefore decided to stop enrolling participants to the hydroxychloroquine arm of the RECOVERY trial with immediate effect. We are now releasing the preliminary results as they have important implications for patient care and public health.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Can you, as a supposed professional in the field, who cites studies that have to be retracted, claim correspondence is a study, supports a point you make with an article that contradicts your point, and fraudulently edits quotes, explain why anything you claim should be taken at face value over what sumskilz says?
Comes Limitis
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
What are you talking about? I guess it's beyond your comprehension. Montaignier theory is completely debunked.
Anyway, go this thread.
It's an analytical paper.claim correspondence is a study,
The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.
Last edited by Ludicus; June 06, 2020 at 05:52 PM.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
I'm not talking Montaignier. I'm asking about you.
But I will take that as a 'no', you can't explain why you should be given any credibility...
Comes Limitis
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
As already stated, these alleged modifications are very small elements, little short short cis-acting elements that you find in other coronaviruses. If we take a word from a book and it looks like another word, can we say that one has copied from the other?- as clearly explained by Goffard and Étienne Simon-Lorière.
Montagnier also found particles of Plasmodium Falciparum ( malaria), and god knows what more.
Edit: read, for better clarification of the matter - No, SARS-CoV-2 does not contain HIV genetic code
Through two radically different kinds of reasoning, the authors of Nature’s article and the BLAST software lead us to the same inescapable conclusion that the SARS-CoV-2 is likely a product of nature, born out of Darwinian selection.
I dont give any credibility to Trump's acolytes, Sinophobes, and champions of conspiracy theories.should be given any credibility...
Go here.#6
Last edited by Ludicus; June 06, 2020 at 06:49 PM.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
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