30th April 2020 - Colonel Tom and Virus Theories

Thought for the day :"Well I wanted to make a joke about social distancing but this is as close as I could get"

LINK JOHNS HOPKINS
Office of National Statistics 

As the conspiracy theories start to permeate - I shall record this one for posterity - pulished on 27th April and purporting to be from Professor Montagnier, the man who discvered HIV and received the Nobel Prize in 2008...  I leave the links in ...  Snopes seem to support it as a legitimate article.

In a highly significant development, Professor Luc Montagnier, the French scientist who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), has added his voice to those who believe the new coronavirus was created in a laboratory. Interviewed on the CNews channel in France, Montagnier asserted that the virus had been designed by molecular biologists. Stating that it contains genetic elements of HIV, he insisted its characteristics could not have arisen naturally.

Asked by the CNews interviewer what the goal of these molecular biologists was, Montagnier said it wasn’t clear. “My job,” he said, “is to expose the facts.” While stressing that he didn’t know who had done it, or why, Montagnier suggested that possibly the goal had been to make an AIDS vaccine. Labeling the virus as “a professional job…a very meticulous job,” he described its genome as being a “clockwork of sequences.”

“There’s a part which is obviously the classic virus, and there’s another mainly coming from the bat, but that part has added sequences, particularly from HIV – the AIDS virus,” he said.

Growing evidence that the virus was ‘designed’

Montagnier also pointed out that he wasn’t the first scientist to assert that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory. Previously, on 31 January 2020, a research group from India had published a paper suggesting that aspects of the virus bore an “uncanny similarity” to HIV. Taken together, the researchers said their findings suggested the virus had an “unconventional evolution” and that further investigation was warranted. While the researchers subsequently retracted their paper, Montagnier said they had been “forced” to do so.

In February 2020, a separate research paper published by scientists from South China University of Technology suggested the virus “probably” came from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where it was first identified. Significantly, one of the research facilities cited in this paper, the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, is said to be the only lab in China that is designated for the study of highly dangerous pathogens such as Ebola and SARS. Prior to the opening of this laboratory in 2018, biosafety experts and scientists from the United States had expressed concerns that a virus could escape from it. As with the paper published by the Indian researchers, however, the Chinese scientists’ paper has similarly been withdrawn.

Involvement of the pharma industry

Professor Montagnier has long demonstrated that he is not afraid to challenge the prevailing views of the scientific establishment. Previously, in an interview recorded for the 2009 AIDS documentary ‘House of Numbers’, he had spoken out in favor of nutrition and antioxidants in the fight against HIV/AIDS. As the co-discoverer of HIV and a Nobel prize winner, Montagnier’s statements in this interview gave valuable support to Dr. Rath and other scientists who, for years beforehand, had been warning the world about the pharmaceutical business with the AIDS epidemic.

In a similar way, his assertion today that the coronavirus was designed by molecular biologists raises serious questions about the possible involvement of the pharmaceutical industry. As Montagnier infers, a manmade virus whose genome consists of a “clockwork of sequences” and includes elements of HIV could not have been assembled by amateurs. With estimates of the total global economic cost of the coronavirus varying from $4.1 trillion to $20 trillion or more, the ongoing questions about its origins are unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

In fairness - Wikipedia is up to the minute with references on Montagnier and a dispute by French Authorities..

Montagnier argued that the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic was man-made in a laboratory and that might be the result of an attempt to create a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. His allegation came after the United States had launched a probe into whether the virus came from a laboratory. According to Montagnier, the "presence of elements of HIV and germ of malaria in the genome of coronavirus is highly suspect and the characteristics of the virus could not have arisen naturally."^[44]
However this was described as "a conspiracy vision that does not relate to the real science" by Jean-Francois Delfraissy, an immunologist and head of the scientific council that advises the French government on the COVID-19 pandemic.^[45]

We shall see..
(again I have left the references in place )

Apparently an antibody test has been certified and is ready to go into production - we shall see...

In other news - it is Captain Tom's 100th Birthday today having raised over £30 million for the NHS Charities - he received an Honorary Colonel rank from the Queen, and a fly by Spitfire and Hurricane...

Sad that we have to fund the NHS by charity...

Weather has gone into a cold snap - the heating came on last night!

Have been a little remiss the last couple of days and not gone into the Studio. Have to change that today.
I don't have any more ready to go.....

Also need to do some Birthday Cards - think I need to snap out of this Ground dog day scenario ...

Would have been heading to CP 1  - Curious Pastimes Event 1 - so here is are a few LARP Charactersfrom Switzerland - Equinox...

Cheers !