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NIH-Funded Scientists Develop mRNA Bird Flu Vaccine ‘to Prevent Human Infections’

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 28, 2024

Federally funded researchers have developed an experimental mRNA H5N1 bird flu vaccine that they said is “highly effective” in preventing severe illness and death in infected lab animals.

According to a University of Pennsylvania press release, the vaccine “could potentially help manage the outbreak of the H5N1 virus currently circulating in birds and cattle in the United States, and prevent human infections with the virus.”

The news comes as the U.S. and European nations consider vaccinating workers deemed as at risk for contracting bird flu.

The researchers — who on May 23 published their results in Nature Communications — reported their mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccine elicited “strong” T cell and antibody responses in female mice infected with H5N1.

They also said their vaccine produced an immune response in male ferrets and prevented death.

U.S. News and World Report and other media outlets reported on the study, which was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Robert Malone — an early pioneer of mRNA vaccines technology and an outspoken critic of U.S. federal biomedical corruption during the COVID-19 pandemic — called the news coverage of the study “investor hype” and “fear porn.”

“There’s no evidence of human-to-human transmission of H5N1,” Malone told The Defender.

Malone said the researchers would need to show that there’s a “reasonable facsimile” between ferrets and humans to claim the vaccine can prevent severe illness and death in humans.

The likelihood of people getting H5N1 is very small, Malone said. “The thing is, it doesn’t readily infect humans.”

Only those who are immunocompromised or who slaughtered an infected waterfowl might be at risk of transmission, he said, so H5N1 is being “used to instill fear” in the public to generate federal funding for H5N1 vaccine research.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of evidence that the lead researchers have clear conflicts of interest, Malone said. “They absolutely stand to profit” from their experimental bird flu vaccine.

Scott Hensley, Ph.D. and Drew Weissman, M.D., Ph.D. at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania — who led the research — are listed as co-inventors on patents for mRNA vaccine technologies.

They’ll likely receive royalties payments, Malone said. “It’s similar to how [Dr. Anthony] Fauci gets money from his royalties.”

Malone said the Bayh-Dole Act, passed in 1980, incentivized U.S. universities and their faculty members to patent federally funded research — so it’s common for university researchers to develop something they believe to be patentable. “They disclose it [their discovery] to the university and the university files the patent.”

The patent’s terms and conditions typically say that the money from the license gets split between the university, the school or department chair and the researchers, according to Malone.

Hensley is a paid consultant for Pfizer, Merck, Lumen, Novavax and Sanofi.

Hensley did not immediately respond to The Defender’s questions about his research and consulting fees from pharmaceutical companies.

U Penn is a ‘pharma R & D’

The University of Pennsylvania is a $11.1 billion enterprise, according to its press release.

Malone referred to the school as a “pharma R & D” because of how much of its efforts focus on researching and developing pharmaceutical technologies.

Much of the school’s money comes from the pharmaceutical industry, which pays to use patents held by the university, he said. “Penn is sitting on royalty cash from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.”

Weissman, who has been at the university since 1997, was one of the two scientists awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discoveries that enabled the modified mRNA technology used in Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines.

The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania did not immediately respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

Fox News today reported that the U.S. is in talks with Pfizer and Moderna about developing an mRNA H5N1 bird flu vaccine to protect poultry and dairy workers from a potential pandemic threat.

Dawn O’Connell of the U.S. Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response told Fox News the government is “looking closely” at the possibility of vaccinating farm workers and others in close contact with the virus.

Earlier this month, O’Connell told NBC News that mRNA bird flu vaccine could be quicker to manufacture than a non-mRNA bird flu vaccine because “you can switch in and switch out the genetic sequencing very easily.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

May 29, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Joe Biden Fears for the Democratic World Order!

By Phil Butler – New Eastern Outlook – 04.03.2017

“The progressive democratic world order is at risk of collapse”, former Vice President Joe Biden spoke these words in his last speech to a waiting public. This is the same man whose son took up an executive role in Ukraine before the embers of revolution had stopped smoldering. In this same speech Biden also named Russia as the prime antagonist of this new global order. Here’s a look at one of the world’s top public enemies.

Joe Biden loves Bill and Hillary Clinton, he loves them so much he wants to be just like them. Why he’s already started his own money machine, The Biden Foundation, which looks like the spitting image of the Clinton Foundation. Like the Clinton Foundation, Biden’s new NGO is into all those things that people are most concerned about. It’s also into all those things people donate money for, like lobbying. The sparkling new Biden endeavor professes care for women’s issues, health, protecting little kids and equality too, just like Bill’s and Hillary’s altruism. The ex-Vice President’s new site drips with lovingkindness. It’s amazing, hopeful, and chock full of smiling faces to take your heart, breath, and money away. It’s even got “Pillars” like one of those ancient Greek temples of wisdom! And knowing what Joe Biden is really about, it makes my stomach churn.

Domestic Hypocrisy

The first thing Joe and Dr. Jill Biden did on launching their new foundation was to make a statement. It went something like this, with Joe quoting his father:

“My dad used to have an expression: “It’s a lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they’re about to do and thinks it still matters.” Jill and I have been very lucky these past decades.”

Indeed. But for the lowest income people in America the Obama-Biden White House brought nothing but more misery. Despite the juggled numbers this Administration and the “new order” cooked up, poverty in America is far worse. In the richest country on Earth there are 36% more people on food stamps than when these “saviors” took office. The Federal debt in America has more than doubled too, as pork barrel and military spending that helped only the banks prevailed. Corporate profits under Obama and Biden rose to 144% over previous wins, while home ownership and other key metrics for most Americans fell dramatically. The America Donald Trump inherited is a socio-economic piñata with deadly candies tucked away inside now, and he has said as much.

A look at the division in attitudes shows one divide, but the deeper scars of this nation may soon be weighed in catastrophe. Biden, the poster boy of hypocrites in the swamp of Washington, represents a more clear and present danger to Americans now, than he did as VP. Biden and his wife are lucky, when many Americans feel blessed to have a bed to get up out of, or even a roof over their heads. As is the case with any set of statistics, how one slices the numbers determines the reality. For Biden and the elites, this new Democratic order has been a boom. But for those who are not elites, the distribution of wealth shows a different truth. Put in a nutshell, Biden and his ilk feathered the beds of the upper-middle class and the ultimate elites, with the proceeds of a lower class fleeced once again. Don’t take my word, do you own research starting here. The “have nots” paid for Joe and Jill’s beautiful American Dream, and for Joe’s Dad’s deep, deep vision too. And as to copy-cat NGOs, Biden Foundation is already on the pharma scene for an upcoming medical conference. I am reminded of Bill and Hillary and how they started the speaking bonanza we heard so much about. This from MedCity:

“Now that Biden has decided to set up shop — at least part-time — at the University of Pennsylvania as head of the new Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, the Philadelphia health tech community sees him as a unique asset. Several health IT and digital health interests in Southeast Pennsylvania are trying to get the former VP down to HIMSS17 in Orlando, Florida.”

Foreign Policy Fun

It is interesting for me that the first category listed on the Biden Foundation website under “Our Pillars” is Foreign Policy. Cancer nor kids are not first in these people’s minds, the Freudian slip has hit them between their beady little eyes too. The ideas and endeavors of the Bidens is not thought out alphabetically even. If this were the case, then “Community Colleges and Military Families” would be first, even though I cannot figure out why those two are lumped together. So, it is foreign policy issues this spanking new NGO intends to address first! The dogma for Biden Foundation foreign policy is tough talking too! It goes something like this:

“The Biden Foundation will find new ways to build upon Joe Biden’s longstanding commitment to preserve the liberal international order.”

How does Joe Biden intend to accomplish his stated mission? One way will be through the longstanding strategy of integrating a man and a mission inside institutions worldwide. The first such institution the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, where Biden will lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. This new center in Washington D.C. will focus on “diplomacy, foreign policy, and national security.” Like the malignancy that former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski has been, Biden follows the entrenchment path to foreign policy fame. Unfortunately for Biden, he has nowhere near the evil genius of Carter’s policy adviser.

However feeble his strategic mind might be, Biden has tentacles in other academic halls like the University of Delaware, and connections with a vast network of hyper-liberals from California to Florida. The Bidens have even secured a famous talent agency to get their show on the road. The scary thing about Biden and his feet in foreign policy is the fact he handled the Ukraine portfolio for the same White House that made a war zone where none existed. Who can forget when Biden’s son joined the biggest natural gas company in Ukraine only weeks after the Euromaidan set the country alight? The fact Ukraine’s ruler/oligarch Petro Poroshenko and Joe Biden are personal friends only adds further dismay alongside any idea the Biden Foundation will do more than make matters worse. Only if the price (or donation) were right, could any kind of sane détente come from such an NGO.

No Shame In the NWO

Finally, news Joe and Jill Biden have officially given their blessing to a controversial relationship (affair) between the widow of their deceased son Beau, and their son Hunter, it punctuates the hypocrisy and circus lunacy of the Biden circle. Even the announcement of this “blessing” oozes Biden drama, as it frames Joe Biden as the “president who never was”, owing continually to his love and devotion to family. Watching these people and Washington the last 8 years has been a continual soap opera. Joe Biden appears to those with open eyes, as the laughing hyena among jackals with no shame. This is Trump’s “Washington Swamp” at the utter bottom.

An article entitled, “Behind the Putin Fantasies” makes the rest of my argument for keeping away from anything Joe Biden is involved in. As we know, several Trump campaign advisers had business ties to Russia, and there’s been no end to the upheaval over this in Washington. However, the visits of Joe Biden and his boss Barack Obama to Russia have gotten zero press these last few weeks. But Biden continuing to side with Poroshenko and Kiev muddles the mind. “The Donald Trump administration should be a strong supporter and partner of Ukraine”, Biden told Trump last month after a visit to see his pal Poroshenko. Strangely, the New York Times and CNN failed to accuse the former administration of regime change and under the table business deals on the suggested innuendo? This is the fantasy land that the Obama administration created! Or was it created by Bill and Hillary Clinton? I cannot say truthfully, for this New Democratic Order is an enigmatic and powerful beast – one we should all hope is in dire danger of collapsing!

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe.

March 4, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | 1 Comment

As anti-BDS attacks mount, students feel unsafe but U of Penn President maintains shameful silence

By Ali Abunimah – The Electronic Intifada –  02/02/2012

Yesterday I wrote to University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann, asking her to condemn a vile and inflammatory attack by Professor Ruben Gur on the University’s own students.

Gur likened those participating in this weekend’s conference on boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) (at which I will speak) to Nazis, and Omar Barghouti to Hitler.

The unchecked inflammatory rhetoric by opponents of the conference, especially Professor Gur, is making students and conference participants feel unsafe.

Most disturbingly, Gur singled out Jewish students and speakers, calling them “capos” at Nazi extermination camps. “Capo” or “kapo” is the term for a concentration or death camp inmate who collaborated with the Nazis.

It would seem that Gutmann has no problem with such anti-Semitic attacks as long as the Jews being singled out in this despicable manner are deemed to be supporters of equal rights for Palestinians.

And Gutmann has failed to speak out even as pro-Israel groups are bringing a violence and torture advocate to campus to counter the BDS conference.

Failing to stand up to violent rhetoric

While I’ve had no response to my letter – 24 hours after sending it and confirming it was received by telephone – Gutmann wrote a public letter in the campus newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian reiterating her opposition to BDS and adding this weak sauce:

Since its founding more than 270 years ago, Penn has stood for the free exchange of ideas. That concept is central to our mission, and is one that cannot be compromised if we are to uphold our standing as a great university.

Amid the passion that many feel around this weekend’s events, we urge you to focus on the one thing we cannot afford to lose: the great tradition and enduring gift of Penn’s founders – the chance to speak our minds freely.

These banalaties are an inadequate response to one of Penn’s faculty members denouncing Jewish students as “capos” and Nazis just because he disagrees with them.

Members of PennBDS, the campus group organizing the conference, responded to Gur’s hate speech in a letter of their own:

We read with some shock the opinion piece you published yesterday by Penn Professor Ruben Gur. With no evidence whatsoever, and in direct contradiction to everything we’ve ever said or written, Gur designates our student group “genocidal” and equates our upcoming conference with Nazi anti-Semitism. He labels our Jewish participants and organizers “Capos” and (in the same breath that he scolds us for describing Alan Dershowitz as an “Israel apologist”) compares Palestinian human-rights activist Omar Barghouti with Adolf Hitler.

Gutmann too should condemn Gur’s inciteful hate speech in clear terms. Instead, on that point, she has so far chosen silence.

Perhaps people should email or call President Gutmann (215-898-7221) to make sure she gets the message that she needs to stand up for her students against vile and discriminatory rhetoric from professors, and ensure the campus is safe for them to exercise their rights.

And yet President Gutmann and the University of Pennsylvania administration seem to take a surprisingly lax view.

A question that should perhaps be investigated is whether Gutmann’s failure to protect students – especially Jewish students – against the kind of intimidation and hate speech by Professor Gur amounts to a violation of their civil rights under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Singling out Jews

Professor Gur is not the only one attacking the BDS conference and singling out Jews for special opprobrium. In The Jewish Exponent, Bryan Schwartzman writes:

More than a third of the listed speakers are Jewish, including Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

This ominous sentence – where Schwartzman ‘counts the Jews’ – echoes Gur’s singling out of Jews as “capos.”

Bringing a violence advocate to campus

Not only is the University of Pennsylvania failing to stand up for its students rights, but increasing the heated atmosphere by bringing a notorious advocate of violence and torture onto campus to speak against the BDS conference. His name is Alan Dershowitz.

Max Blumenthal, a University of Pennsylvania alumnus wrote an op-ed in The Daily Pennsylvanian, abhoring Dershowitz’s incitement to violence. Here’s an excerpt:

To counter the Penn BDS event, local pro-Israel groups including Hillel and the Philadelphia Jewish Federation have summoned the famed trial lawyer and Harvard University professor of law Alan Dershowitz to campus to keynote a Feb. 2 event: “Why Israel Matters to You, Me, and Penn: A conversation with Alan Dershowitz.” Penn’s Political Science department – which has pointedly refused to co-sponsor the BDS conference – will co-host Dershowitz’s lecture, where the professor has vowed to explain why he considers BDS to be one of the most “immoral, illegal and despicable concepts around academia today.”

The support Dershowitz received from the university and from pro-Israel groups that claim to abhor violence is ironic in light of Dershowitz’s record. Indeed, Dershowitz is an open advocate of torture who has urged Israel to destroy entire Palestinian villages, attack civilians and bulldoze their homes.

It’s really past time for the University of Pennyslvania to show some responsibility, stop pandering to the political agendas of outside groups, and stand up for the safety and rights of its own students.

~

David Horowitz Spreading his hate on campus:

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February 2, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Video | , , , , , | 3 Comments