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Pandemic Preparedness: Arsonists Run the Fire Department

By Clayton J. Baker, MD and Brian S. Hooker, PhD | Brownstone Institute | July 1, 2024

Imagine if you will, an exceptionally ambitious city Fire Department, located in a city with very few naturally occurring fires.

These ambitious firemen don’t have nearly enough work, prestige, or pay for their liking. Uninterested in simply polishing their trucks, lifting weights, and cooking chili, these firemen want more. A lot more.

They construct a plan. They will start a research program, funded by taxpayers, whereby they will develop an arsenal of the biggest, scariest, most flammable products on earth. They will justify this program under the pretense that these destructive creations are absolutely necessary for the development of bigger and better fire extinguishers. Incidentally, they will also develop, market, and sell these fire extinguishers themselves.

These proprietary fire extinguishers will net the ambitious firemen an incredible fortune – if they can just get every man, woman, and child in the city to buy one.

The Fire Department, working with the corporations that would manufacture their miracle extinguishers, actively publicizes the supposedly tremendous, ever-increasing risk of fires that they claim threaten the population. According to the ambitious firemen, risk factors for worsened fires are everywhere and are ever-increasing – global warming, population growth, take your pick – and the next “big one” is just around the corner.

Credulous, fearful citizens and heavily lobbied politicians fall for their story, pumping ever more tax dollars into the Fire Department’s research and development program.

The Fire Department develops and grows its stockpile of manufactured fire super-hazards, until one day…

OOPS!

Somehow, one of the flammable products is released, and a raging conflagration ensues. No one knows exactly how it started – in fact, the chief firemen gather together and publicly deny that any of their products could be responsible.

But by terrifying the public and confusing the politicians, the firemen coerce the population to shelter in place and follow their strict instructions, lest they perish in the holocaust. After all, the firemen are the experts.

They heavily promote their special fire extinguishers as the only solution, even managing to get water outlawed for firefighting purposes! (Water wouldn’t work on this kind of fire, they insist. Only the Fire Department’s special extinguishers will suffice.)

Using a huge injection of taxpayer funds, the Fire Department gets their fire extinguishers built in record time, and they hard-sell them to everyone they possibly can. In the meantime, large swaths of the city burn to the ground. And due to the fire extinguishers’ poor design and hasty construction, these devices turn out to be every bit as deadly as the fire, if not worse, for their damaging effects linger long after the fire has burned itself out.

But the firemen and their corporate cronies have secured their fortunes.

The bewildered, traumatized population can’t figure out what happened, any more than the feckless politicians. The Fire Department emerges as the most powerful entity in the city. They resume their “research,” fortified by their growing wealth and power.

After all, the next big conflagration is just around the corner.

Sound implausible? Think again. Because in the realm of “pandemic preparedness,” the arsonists are running the Fire Department.

The Pandemic Preparedness Sweepstakes

Under the cover of vaccine development, there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of biolabs around the world performing gain-of-function research on countless viruses and other infectious agents. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the most infamous, but a great many of these labs are located in the United States, with at least 5 US labs manipulating H5N1 avian flu alone. This vast, shady industry of manufactured pathogenicity has infiltrated our government agencies, our military, and our universities, and of course, the pharmaceutical industry is thoroughly entwined in the whole enterprise.

Such “research” involves a multi-step process:

• obtaining grant funding – which also provides legal, intellectual, and ethical cover – for gain-of-function research, by promoting it as essential for “pandemic preparedness” and vaccine development
• obtaining pathogens (usually viruses) from nature that do not currently transmit to and among humans, but could be made to do so
• altering those pathogens genetically in the lab by adding, manipulating, or removing genetic material, to make them more transmissible and/or more deadly in humans
• speeding the evolution of these viruses by passaging them through mammals with immunological features similar to humans, as well as to human cell cultures
• publishing one’s “achievements” of successfully enhancing the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens in the scientific literature, thereby securing continued grant support
• securing patents on key elements of the manufactured viruses to ensure royalties when and if a vaccine for the pathogen is developed
• waiting for (or perhaps causing) the escape of these pathogens into animal or human populations
• setting into motion the entire pandemic response/vaccine development juggernaut

This work violates the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975. But these labs persist in their work, under the false premise that their “research” is designed to protect the world’s population from “rapidly emerging infectious diseases” by promoting vaccine development.

This is a lie.

The gain-of-function type research done in these labs genetically alters these animal viruses, empowering them to do easily and readily what they rarely do in nature: jump from species to species, spread readily among humans, and kill humans in significant numbers.

In essence, these researchers take viruses naturally found in animals, and which possess minimal-to-limited risk to humans, and alter them to make them highly transmissible and deadly to humans.

Why?

There is no legitimate rationale for this research. It’s really this simple: if one truly wishes to protect the world’s population from Godzilla, one does not deliberately and systematically create Godzilla in the lab.

Such research makes no sense when it comes to vaccine development, either. If one is concerned about existing pathogens, one should develop treatments that conquer those existing pathogens themselves.

Naturally occurring pathogens already have numerous targets for interventions – whether those interventions involve repurposing existing medications or developing new medications (including vaccines). We already have an armamentarium of existing medicines that are known to be effective against viruses. Sensible, ethical, indeed sane research would focus on strategies of targeting the existing chinks in the potential pathogens’ armor, rather than creating new, lethal superbugs in the lab.

Unfortunately, there is much less money to be made and little power to be grabbed using the sane approach. Contrary to the alarmist claims, there simply aren’t many naturally-occurring pandemics. And the enormous payoffs that Big Pharma and the investigators seek only come from patented, new, proprietary products – especially of the kind that can be put on a subscription model, like annual vaccines.

The Covid Pandemic as Dress Rehearsal

Of course, we have already seen the entire arsonists-running-the-fire-department scenario during Covid. A lab-developed, leaked pathogen prompted lockdowns. Patients who tested positive were told to stay home without treatment. Existing, established generic drug treatments with excellent safety profiles, such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, were ruthlessly suppressed by the authorities – but only for use against the virus.

When patients became seriously ill, they were admitted to hospital and treated with proprietary medicines administered under directed protocols that later proved to be toxic to the patients, yet highly profitable to the drug manufacturers and patent holders. Meanwhile, the hospital systems were rewarded for their obedience with large bonuses for each Covid diagnosis made and each Covid death they presided over.

The proprietary “vaccines” were manufactured in record time (translation: far too quickly), and the most outrageous, coercive campaign to enforce medical treatment in history was unleashed, to compel the entire world to accept an experimental, rushed-to-market, misnamed “vaccine” based on the novel mRNA gene therapy platform. The results were devastating.

According to the CDC’s own Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), the Covid injections resulted in adverse events at a rate 117.6 times higher than the influenza vaccine.

As of May 30, 2024, more than 1.6 million adverse events have been reported to VAERS for the Covid-19 injections, as well as 38,559 deaths and 4,487 miscarriages. These numbers dwarf the VAERS reports for all other vaccines combined. By any measure, the Covid-19 mRNA injections were historically toxic and deadly interventions.

These data have accrued despite the fact that VAERS is a very laborious system in which to file a report and the fact that healthcare personnel who insisted on filing appropriate VAERS reports were harassed and sometimes even fired for doing so. Furthermore, the compilation and publication of these data has been suppressed by the authorities and has only been revealed to the public by independent investigators. Additionally, there is a well-established underreporting error related to VAERS of at least one and perhaps two orders of magnitude.

Today, multiple of the Covid injections that were repeatedly touted by the authorities as “safe and effective” have been pulled from the market, including the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca products. Ironically, the most dangerous ones remain.

Why? Because the survivors are mRNA products. The mRNA platform on which the “surviving” Covid injections are created presents a nearly unlimited potential for financial gain, as it provides an almost “plug and play” platform for gene therapies that can be marketed against future numerous infectious pathogens – as well as cancers and other diseases.

The Capture of Medicine and Academia

As mentioned above, hospital systems were drawn into this disreputable work by powerful financial incentives from both Big Pharma and captured government agencies. But hospitals are not the only formerly trusted institutions that have been drawn in.

Decades before Covid, many universities became implicated in bioweapons research, with highly profitable gain-of-function labs appearing at numerous of these prestigious institutions. These labs are funded by multiple problematic sources: government agencies such as Anthony Fauci’s disgraced NIAID branch of the National Institutes of Health, Big Pharma, and private vaccine proponents/investors such as the ubiquitous Bill Gates.

Seminal work on the creation of SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid – took place not in Wuhan but at the Ralph Baric Lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s no stretch to say that since Covid-19, the world’s most famous Tar Heel is no longer Michael Jordan – it’s SARS-CoV-2.

At this writing, the same scenario is undergoing a terrifying reprise with the H5N1 influenza virus, commonly referred to as “avian influenza” or “Bird flu.” As mentioned before, at least 5 labs in the United States alone are manipulating this virus, as well as multiple other labs abroad.

If the Bird flu does get out of the lab and become a pandemic, here are 2 key scientists (and their associated labs) to hold accountable:

Yoshihiro Kawaoka, PhD, of the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, has been working on gain-of-function studies with avian influenza since 2006. He is funded by the Japanese government, as well as Daiichi Sankyo Pharmaceuticals, Fuji Corporation, and the Gates Foundation, among other sources. Kawaoka is cofounder of the vaccine company FluGen. He holds 57 US patents, many of which are on Bird flu genetic sequences to be used for human avian influenza vaccinations.

Shockingly, the Kawaoka lab has been responsible for two known prior leaks of avian influenza. In the first, occurring in November 2013, a lab worker was stuck with a contaminated needle. While that fortunately did not lead to an outbreak, protocols were not followed both prior to and after this accident, leading to an NIH investigation that should have shut down the research entirely.

In the second accident, a lab worker in training lost a connection to his breathing tube and was exposed to air infected with respiratory droplets from ferrets infected with altered avian flu. Although this did not lead to infection, protocols were not properly followed yet again, and NIH was not appropriately notified of the accident.

As alarming as it is that such an accident-prone and protocol-breaking lab is allowed to continue in any capacity, it is scandalous that Kawaoka’s lab is now working with the same subclade (2.3.4.4b) of the H5N1 virus that has infected cattle in 12 states as well as three dairy workers.

One can only wonder what University of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents know (and do not know) about the Kawaoka lab’s activities, and how they can justify sponsoring such potentially catastrophic “research” at the University they oversee.

Prof. R.A.M. (Ron) Fouchier, PhD, the Deputy Head of the Department of Viroscience at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, came to the forefront of avian influenza research in late 2011 when he successfully created a strain of the virus that could transmit in ferrets via aerosol respiratory droplets. This was a major step towards developing a virus that could transmit in humans, as the immune systems of ferrets and humans share considerable similarities.

This shockingly dangerous research earned Fouchier considerable criticism from even some of the most prominent pro-vaccine figures in medical research. The Foundation for Vaccine Research wrote a letter to the Obama White House in March 2013 condemning Fouchier’s work, calling it “morally and ethically wrong,” and stating the need to

consider the ethical issues raised by H5N1 gain-of-function research, especially experiments to increase the transmissibility of H5N1 viruses so they can be transmitted between humans as easily as the seasonal flu… [which could] cause a global pandemic of epic proportions that would dwarf the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed over 50 million people.

Notably, this letter was signed by multiple preeminent vaccine proponents such as the “Godfather of Vaccines” Dr. Stanley Plotkin, and famous vaccine advocate Dr. Paul Offit. Fouchier’s gain-of-function work was so alarming that even the most zealous vaccine advocates took unusually strong action to halt it.

A temporary halt on gain-of-function research ensued in the United States but did not last. Fouchier has not heeded their warning, and no one at Erasmus University or elsewhere has stopped him. Fouchier has continued his gain-of-function work with different strains of avian influenza and has amassed 20 US patents, many of which are focused on his gain-of-function experiments.

The Current State of Bird Flu in the United States

H5N1 influenza, specifically subclade 2.3.4.4b, genome B3.13, is currently infecting over 90 herds of cattle in 12 different states. The first report of the virus in cattle was in March 2024. Reverse Transcriptase-PCR testing has returned positive for virus RNA in nasal secretions and the milk of cows. However, the cattle appear to recover from the virus with supportive treatment and the mortality rate is near zero. Active infection has not been reported in beef cattle.

There have been three cases of cow-to-human transmission of the virus, where infected humans were working with dairy equipment. The first two cases (Texas and Michigan) resulted in conjunctivitis (pink-eye) which cleared on its own in three days. In those cases, viral RNA was detected in eye secretions but not in nasal swabs. The third case (Michigan) resulted in a cough without fever, and eye discomfort with a watery discharge. Strangely, the complete genomic sequence of H5N1 for this case has yet to be released, despite the fact that the case was reported weeks ago. The other two cases appear to be consistent with the strain infecting cattle.

Several scientists have proposed that the current strain of H5N1 (subclade 2.3.4.4b, genome B3.13) circulating through cattle and to three humans in the US could have leaked from the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) in Athens, Georgia. Hulscher et al. 2024 point out that the virus emerged in South Carolina extremely soon after identification in Newfoundland and Labrador. The timing doesn’t make sense for natural spread because both identifications occurred in December 2021, meaning that the virus must have somehow transported nearly 1,700 miles in the same month – unless it was somehow leaked from the SEPRL facility. There is no publicly available sequence information for the Newfoundland identifications, which is most unfortunate.

However, gain-of-function research projects involving H5N1 commenced at SEPRL in April 2021 and continued through December 2021. No sequence information has been publicly released from these projects and USDA officials claim that such information does not exist. Very soon after the South Carolina identification, the virus spread to a bottlenose dolphin found off the coast of Florida and moved precipitously through wild birds and poultry in the Southeast and Midwest. The first identifications of genome B3.13 in poultry in the US were in chickens in Indiana (January 2022) and the first identification in dairy cattle was in March 2024, although the transfer to cattle may have been as early as December 2023.

Very recently, H5N1 virus isolated from cattle in the US was sent to the UK for further testing. A lab leak in this instance could lead to catastrophe given the rapid spread of the strain seen in the US.

The overriding concern is the accidental or deliberate release of a lab-developed H5N1 clade that is designed to transmit human to human. At this point, the accounts of individuals like Fouchier explaining the current Bird flu situation don’t add up.

They propose that the virus crossed over from Europe to Newfoundland and infected an exhibition farm in December 2021. Then this supposedly spread – almost magically – to South Carolina (with two separate Genbank entries) in a wigeon and a blue winged teal on Dec. 30, 2021. There were no reports made between Newfoundland and South Carolina during this time which is at a minimum very curious.

The spread from South Carolina makes some sense from that point forward (i.e., to a bottlenose dolphin in Florida and later to poultry, starting in Indiana). The Athens, Georgia USDA lab SEPRL was doing work on H5N1 subclade 2.3.4.4b, genome B3.13 from April to December 2021 and this could have very well spread, via mallards or other wild birds, to the surrounding population.

The Return of “Fear Porn”

On Tuesday, June 4, 2024, Dr. Deborah Birx (the “Scarf Lady” of Covid-19 fame) stated to CNN that every cow in the US should be tested every week for Bird flu and that every worker should also be pool-tested. Birx made this absurdly impractical recommendation despite the facts that a) there is little to no mortality in cattle infected with Bird flu, b) the FDA has yet to change guidelines regarding consumption of raw or pasteurized milk, and c) such irresponsible use of the diagnostic tests would generate huge numbers of false positive results.

Even considering her performance during Covid, Birx must know that such willy-nilly testing will destroy the reliability of the PCR tests, the specificity of which is highly questionable to begin with. Making such impractical and counterproductive recommendations is quintessential “fear porn,” and calling for such irresponsible testing appears to be a deliberate attempt at stoking panic, and perhaps even generating false-positive cases.

Another example of the “fear porn” approach to “pandemic preparedness” was recent claims by the World Health Organization (WHO) that a patient in Mexico died in April 2024 due to H5N2 influenza. Even setting aside the issue of relevance, as H5N2 is an entirely different strain of influenza than H5N1, the claim was false. The Mexican Health Secretary refuted the WHO’s claim outright. The WHO later admitted their claim had been incorrect.

The WHO’s initial, false claim was widely reported in the mainstream media. However, their retraction has been mostly buried, and the rare reports of the retraction that have been published have been deceptive. An ABC report by one Mary Kekatos acknowledging the retraction misleadingly claimed the WHO had stated the patient “died with the H5N2 strain of bird flu.” Just one week earlier, Kekatos herself had written an article about the WHO’s description of the case titled “1st fatal human case of bird flu subtype confirmed in Mexico: WHO.” Of note, the WHO’s initial report explicitly described “a confirmed fatal case of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N2) virus.”

Even on the rare occasion when the mainstream media reports data refuting pandemic “fear porn,” they appear unable or unwilling to do so with transparent honesty, and even such disingenuous admissions are buried in internet search results.

On a more rational note, Robert Redfield, MD, former director of the CDC during the first year of Covid-19, predicted in an interview with NewsNation that the next pandemic would be avian influenza. Redfield believes that this will be a lab-leaked version of Bird flu, stating that “the ‘recipe’ for making bird flu highly infectious to humans is already well established,” recalling that gain-of-function research on the avian influenza virus was carried out in 2012, against his recommendations. In other words, he believes the arsonists are at it again.

Conclusion and Recommendations

If, in fact, any labs were to release weaponized H5N1 into the population, this would be the outright act of biological arson at least the equivalent of SARS-CoV-2’s initial escape from the Wuhan lab, and given the precedent set by the Covid-19 disaster, even an accidental release would constitute an inexcusable act of mass murder.

The risk of this research is so great, the likelihood of leaks – be they accidental or deliberate – is so well-established and so high, and the stakes regarding human life are so potentially catastrophic, that gain-of-function research must be stopped altogether.

Dr. Jane Orient, MD, Executive Director of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, made the following common-sense recommendations in response to the continued H5N1 “fear porn” promoted by persons such as Deborah “Scarf Lady” Birx and the WHO, and the warnings of former CDC Director Robert Redfield:

We need to cancel the panic, monitor for, and isolate, sick animals. Same for humans. Research and use repurposed drugs for treatment. Disqualify the people responsible for the Covid debacle. Allow free discussion of opinions. Destroy the dangerous viral stocks and secure the labs, and be aware of who’s paying for the research.

Along those lines, here are our recommendations:

1. Citing the 1975 International Bioweapons Convention, immediately shut down ALL gain-of-function research in the US. As Dr. Orient states, this action must include securing the labs and destroying the viral stocks. Any resistance or interference with this should be subject to criminal punishment for Nuremberg Code violations.
2. Immediately call for the same to be done at all international labs (especially, but not limited to, Fouchier’s lab in the Netherlands and the Wuhan Institute of Virology). Again, announce that any resistance at any level will be regarded as Nuremberg Code violations.
3. Pass prompt legislation that any and all intellectual property associated with completed gain-of-function research resides entirely in the Public Domain. Any vaccines or therapeutics developed from such research will be generic and non-proprietary.
4. Cease all present funding and outlaw any future funding for genetic manipulation of pathogens.
5. Common-sense approaches to respiratory viruses must be re-established, focusing on good hygiene, isolation of the sick (not the healthy), intelligent and free use of existing therapies, a local-to-regional (not global) approach to public health, and the complete removal of those with a record of failure and/or dishonesty during the Covid-19 period from the entire process, including the WHO.

Now is the time for citizens to loudly voice their concerns on this issue to elected officials and to other persons of authority who are responsible. For example, residents of Wisconsin should let Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin, and their State Legislators know how they feel about the Kawaoka lab. Additionally, University of Wisconsin President Rothman and the Board of Regents should hear from any and all Badger alumni who do not want their alma mater to be the source of the next pandemic.

The State of Florida has outlawed gain-of-function research within its borders. Of course, the Federal Government should be pressured to act definitively to end such research at home and abroad, but other states should still follow Florida’s lead on this issue. Every political entity, large and small, that prohibits gain-of-function research makes an important step in the right direction.

The arsonists must be fired from the Fire Department. The whole fear-driven and deception-based operation that is “pandemic preparedness” must be stopped. If it isn’t, the Covid-19 experience will be converted from a once-in-a-lifetime trauma to a regularly recurring man-made disaster.

C.J. Baker, M.D. is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.

July 3, 2024 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, NIAID, United States | Leave a comment