Robbie Tulip Blog

In their new article, Might SARS?CoV?2 Have Arisen via Serial Passage through an Animal Host or Cell Culture?, published with free access in August, K&D Sirotkin explore the suggestion that the COVID 19 virus was accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan. The journal is BioEssays, published by Wiley online. The comments below are fully referenced in the article.

The article suggests the novel coronavirus could have come from dual?use gain?of?function research, as the process of viral serial passage mimics a natural zoonotic jump, and offers explanations for SARS?CoV?2’s distinctive features, raising ethical questions about the risks of this area of research.

Noting that this virus acts like no microbe humanity has ever seen, the authors contend that the natural origin hypothesis fails to account for its unique genomic characteristics, and ignores the long history of serial passage as a method to manipulate viral genomes by forcing zoonosis between species, with the same signature but shorter time frame compared to natural viral mutation.

The dual?use gain?of?function research tool of serial passage was first applied to an influenza virus in 1977. Then in 1979, a Soviet lab leaked weaponized anthrax through an improperly maintained exhaust filter, but Soviet authorities blamed the deaths on contaminated local meat. This cover-up, with the same reason provided as in Wuhan, withstood inquiries until 1992, when analysis of genetic distance proved the weapons lab was to blame.

In 2011, serial passage between ferrets created viruses that were transmissible by aerosol. One highly virulent strain was said to

Waltzing Matilda as Psychological Mask for Genocide
Robbie Tulip
(3000 words)

Australian history is founded on the elimination of indigenous people by the settler colony. The process of genocide, completely removing the original inhabitants from many of the most productive parts of the country through systematic murder, was enabled by the technological disparity between the local and invading cultures, and was carried out through a semi-secret pact of military conquest. Physical genocide was as much a factor as epidemics in the collapse of Aboriginal population, and was followed up by cultural genocide, banning and belittling the practice of indigenous identity. The overall destruction created profound inter-generational trauma which persists today in indigenous communities and serves to corrupt white culture as well.

The despising of indigenous people in colonial times was so intense that the frontier wars and massacres were presented as merely policing operations. The process of genocide was masked through a culture of silence that continues to cripple the Australian character, with the domestic conflicts excluded from any formal memorials of war. The arrogant superiority complex of the British obliterated ancient cultural and environmental heritage in ways that are deeply tragic and destructive. This immense damage should have been foreseen and avoided, in view of the scale of loss. Instead the process of conquest was paradoxically both celebrated and concealed.

Banjo Paterson