A New Controversy
A new controversy about SARS-CoV-2 is rocking the social media world. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day! According to some people – including the extraordinarily talented professor Luc Montagnier, recipient of the Nobel prize in medicine in 2008 for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) – the SARS-CoV-2 would have been engineered and contains some genes of HIV-1.
On the French CNews channel, the researcher declared that
“we came to the conclusion that there was manipulation around this virus. […] To a part but I do not say the total […] of the coronavirus of the bat, someone added sequences, in particular of HIV, the virus of AIDS. […] It is not natural. It’s the work of professionals, of molecular biologists. […] A very meticulous work.”
Countless of people commented on this news on Friday, April 17th, 2020 (here and there).
Normally, Brandolini’s law – a.k.a. the falsehood asymmetry principle – imposes that a conspiracy like this takes hard work to debunk.
But, in our case, it does not. It is extremely simple to debunk.
Hypothesis
Let’s start with the hypothesis that some nucleotide sequences of HIV-1 can be found in the complete genome of SARS-CoV-2.
Analysis
Let’s look at the complete genome of SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan), known as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) reference sequence NC_045512.2. Its genetic code starts like so:
attaaaggtt tataccttcc caggtaacaa accaaccaac tttcgatctc . . .
The HIV is a retrovirus. It is a type of RNA virus that inserts a copy of its genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell. It is transmitted as a single-stranded, positive-sense, enveloped RNA virus, packed into a glycoprotein envelope. So, while the HIV has a DNA expression of itself, which is used for replication, it also has an RNA code (which is what gets transmitted between hosts.)
Let’s thus consider the complete genome of the RNA version of the HIV-1, known as the NCBI reference sequence NC_001802.1. Its genetic code starts as follows:
ggtctctctg gttagaccag atctgagcct gggagctctc tggctaacta gggaacccac . . .
If we cannot find fragments of the latter sequence inside the former sequence, we can conclude that no part of HIV exists in SARS-CoV-2.
Looking for similarities could be somewhat complicated: we would have to look at sequences that actually encode for proteins. We cannot start blindly along the sequences. In fact, HIV-1 has 39 open reading frames (ORF), which begin with a start codon and end at a stop codon.
We would have to look for those ORFs and try to find the following codons inside of SARS-CoV-2. We would also have to measure the “distance” (similarity) between the sequences, somehow.
Luckily, all this work has been done for us by the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST). Developed by NIH, it finds regions of similarity between biological sequences. The program compares nucleotide or protein sequences to sequence databases and calculates the statistical significance of said similarities. For each similarity, it even documents which protein it encodes.
Using the MegaBLAST subprogram from the National Institute of Health (NIH), we can immediately conclude that no sequence of HIV-1 is present in SARS-CoV-2.
Per BLAST, “no significant similarity was found”. In plain English, SARS-CoV-2 is not made of the bat coronavirus and small bits of the HIV virus.
I strongly invite the reader not to accept my word and to verify this on his or her own: from the complete genome of SARS-CoV-2, click “Run BLAST”. On the next page, add HIV-1 (or any other HIV strain) in the Organism text box and then click “BLAST”.
Vague similarities?
Now, are there any sequences of HIV-1 that would be “vaguely” similar to some other sequences of SARS-CoV-2 if we changed the criterion?
The answer is obviously yes as both viruses have a glycoprotein envelope. Even though if they belong to two completely different families – HIV is a lentivirus while SARS is a coronavirus – the two viruses are bound to have “something” in common.
In fact, this is what we can prove using BLAST:
As we can see, yes, the part of the HIV-1 genome and the part of the SARS-CoV-2 genome that encode the two (different) glycoprotein envelopes are circa 90% similar. See for instance the differences between the SARS-CoV-2 and the HIV-1 isolate XJ16-6 glycoprotein envelope:
The Common Cold
So professor Montagnier is right? While no proteinic sequence of HIV-1 is present in SARS-CoV-2, a tiny bit of the SARS-CoV-2 genome is in fact about 85% similar to a bit of the HIV-1 genome?
Does this not prove his point?
No.
In fact, the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 that encodes its lipidic envelope, while it looks a bit like that of HIV-1, is also part of many other viruses.
In particular, it is also present in the Human Coronavirus 229E (which gives the common cold) or in the Human Coronavirus OC43 (also a variant of the common cold).
This is interesting because both viruses were discovered well before the HIV. A molecular clock analysis using spike and nucleocapsid genes dates the most recent common ancestor of all genotypes of these viruses to the 1950s.
There is no way someone in a Wuhan laboratory in 2019 could have affected the RNA code of a virus of the mid-1950s!
We can use BLAST again to analyze similarities of the 229E and the OC43 genomes to HIV-1: as we can see, their glycoprotein envelopes are coded with a similar – but by no means identical – RNA sequence:
The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2
This conclusion should not be surprising as the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 is well known.
As the number of conspiracy theories surrounding this origin was mounting, the journal Nature recently issued a correspondence about the important genomic features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and its differences with other known coronaviruses.
In fact, the SARS-CoV-2 genome’s most notable difference with other viruses is the receptor-binding domain (RBD) in the spike protein, which it uses to bind to the ACE2 receptor of human cells. Not only is this part the most variable of the coronaviruses genomes, but it also explains its potency in humans, ferrets, cats and other species with a high ACE2 homology.
As the authors of the Nature article note, “it is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus. As noted above, the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution different from those previously predicted. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used. However, the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously-used virus backbone.”
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.
82 Responses
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“No, SARS-CoV-2 does not contain HIV genetic code!”
Philippe Lacoude, Ph.D, you are a mathematician. Why are you click-baiting? Why are you presenting so provocative a claim of knowledge as this when your area of expertise is so far removed from this field of study?
“If we cannot find fragments of the latter sequence inside the former sequence, we can conclude that no part of HIV exists in SARS-CoV-2.”
Phil, that is fallacious. Because of redundancy, Nucleic acid base pair substitutions are possible without nullifying the function of the translational protein product. Also, certain 3rd and 4th dimensional folds and conformational changes from minor alterations at the genetic level may not interfere with the final protein function.
This is a very complicated area of study. There is a forensic task here that YOU are not in a position to comment on. Stay in your lane. Also, reveal your funding sources. Today we demand this of those who conduct Medical research.
-Sincerely,
Bryn Duffy MD
Not only is Bryn Duffy’s objection an extreme example of an ad hominem fallacy, but he has it the wrong way around: this is far more in the lane of a mathematician than of an internist.
As for his attempt at a substantive argument, it’s completely off the mark … the issue isn’t whether the two viruses have functions in common–of course they do, as the author acknowledges. But the claim is that SARS-CoV-2 contains HIV sequences … it doesn’t.
As for “There is a forensic task here”–this puts the cart before the horse. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The burden of proof for Luc Montagnier’s extreme claims has not been met.
Ad Hominem and Appeal to Authority.
Well said Bryn Duffy!!
I agree with Bryn Duffy. Also, where is the creature that carried the naturally evolving SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, why can’t we find it? There should be plentiful specimens to collect from the zoological creature that has the identical virus genome of SARS-CoV-2. I’ve heard scientists say it may have been a one off mutation, but I find it hard to believe there are no other infected creatures of its kind. Until we find the zoological creature that shed the pathogen on mankind, it is foolish to believe that humanity is incapable of a lab mistake or not be devilish enough to hide the genome traces of a custom engineered bio-pathogen.
Scientists took 15 years to find a probable wild SARS virus strain in bats, so the hunt is far from straightforward: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9
hmmm. maybe you should read this study. Let scientists and actual doctors handle this, please.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf
The Chinese are the ones who told us, indirectly, loud and clear, that they knew the virus did not originated from their wet markets. They would not have reopened them so fast.
“The HIV is a retrovirus. It is a type of RNA virus that inserts a copy of its genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades,” Nope, HIV’s RNA needs to be converted to DNA via reverse transcriptase only then it can be “inserted”.
Can you help me with the question I posted at the bottom of the comments?
As a previous massage therapist of 24 years who is suffering from post covid syndrome…..I was appalled at this article. Luc did not get a Nobel award because he was a slacker…..I find it quite obvious that he is trying to be discredited. Prior to getting covid in March 2020, I was a super healthy female living in the mountains of Vail, Colorado. I have had graves disease and I know what chronic illness feels like. It never slowed me down even though it wasn’t a picnic.
I haven’t been able to work for a year, lost 15 pounds, suffer from mouth sores, inflamed gums, CFS on and on…. I was just diagnosed with pneumonia this past weekend and ground glass opacity in my lungs. The acute phase DID not even present in my lungs. My lung CT was compared to one I had in November and I did not have pneumonia then. I would like to know what the hell is going on inside my body. When the acute phase happened, I kept saying….I can’t explain this but I feel like I have AIDS. I believe eventually when enough research emerges….there will be some type of correlation. When one is uncertain, it is more sane to write an article after intense research has made a conclusion. I applaud you on your math skills but maybe stay in your lane.
Extraordinarily unconvincing argument. But I understand the attempt to try.
Thank you for this work and a thorough, verifiable write-up. This is orders of magnitude more technical evidence than what has been provided to the contrary.
The second argument laid out by Bryn Duffy above is unrelated to the technical claim laid in this article. It is true that base pair substitutions are possible without altering the function of course. However, for forensic purposes, one must prove that the coronavirus genome contains precise parts of the HIV genome, not just proteins that are common amongst many different viruses.
The fact that the envelope proteins are so common across a wide range of viruses, makes the claim that the coronavirus envelope protein originated from an HIV vaccine extremely difficult to prove. That level of proof and evidence has not been provided to substantiate the claim that the coronavirus proteins are of HIV origin.
Important data to add to the discussion. However, the author adds paradoxically to the validity of the over reaching conclusions of professor Montagnier, when he over reaches himself, with his conclusion, which are consistent with your data, but hardly does it support an…” inescapable conclusion that the SARS-CoV-2 is likely a product of nature, born out of Darwinian selection”.
Indeed the conclusion, as it is worded is somewhat oxymoronic and in need of a “Grammarly” check. We should not think an inescapebable conclusion, would warrant the modifier of “likely” in front of its concluding supposition. Such inconsistencies I suspect are why others posting are asking if you have a conflict of interest on the subject.
It is still nice data to bring to the discussion.
Luc Montagnier has a Nobel prize. Does the author of the article? Anyone commenting here have a Nobel? How about just co-discovery of a new virus? Oh yea, Luc Montagnier did that to…Don’t be so quick to dismiss a historically accomplished scientist…
Luc Montagnier has a Nobel prize indeed, although this doesn’t mean that he can spread a hypothesis based on no or false evidence.
“Examples of Nobelists venturing into silly science or even quackery are not that rare. […], Luc Montagnier discovered the “memory of water”, commonly known as homeopathy, to which Montagnier soon added anti-vax conspiracies.”
https://forbetterscience.com/2018/08/27/fake-data-and-real-pomegranate-juice-in-nobelist-lois-ignarros-papers/
Jacques Benveniste discovered the Memory of Water, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9moire_de_l%27eau, https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2010/12/07/le-professeur-montagnier-et-la-memoire-de-l-eau_5980367_1650684.html
Professor Montagnier was one of the discoverers of the HIV virus. He picked up the research on the Memory of Water after Jacques Benveniste died and defended Jacques Benvenistes’ theory. The article you posted is fallacious. Homeopathy has been practiced long before Jacques Benveniste began his research on the Memory of Water and is considered not considered quackery science in Europe since there exist homeopathy doctors and even normal medical doctors who prescribe homeopathic medications. https://homeopathyeurope.org/homeopathy-in-practice/history-of-homeopathy/ I’m not for or against homeopathy but you should do a little more research before posting an article that got everything it stated wrong.
Homeopathy is not considered quackery because it is not considered science at all; just because it is tolerated. It is considered palliative – aka allowed to support medicine – as it does not do harm nor adverts to replace or challenge other scientific methods (since it is not a science). It was specificly designed to be that way, if you read it’s history.
In fact, lately debates came up to remove them from drug stores in many european countries, as the homeopathy industry uses the fact it is sold there as some sort of legitimacy.
The point he made was that just because someone made a great achievement on one sector (like discovering a virus in a lab as part of a team in a time where everyone was searching for it…), does not make him infallable nor the sole expert, and he is right with that.
Here is an interesting video on some of the research Professor Luc Montognier did with regard to the “Memory of Water.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8VyUsVOic0
Like Covid-19 this area of research treads on political toes. Truly understanding the debate requires much more than scientific knowledge. Understanding the financial implications for the corporate world certainly helps. The psychological techniques for muddying the waters and outright censorship are other factors to consider.
With the passing of time and the sad passing of Professor Luc Montongnier some of that mud has been filtered. It’s enlightening to revisit these comments with the above factors in mind:-)
Anyone can spread and may argument for any hypothesis as long as it is clear it is a hypothesis not a truth. Preferably a possible truth. He has to argue to augment the apparent degree of possibility.
Spot on good man
Having a Nobel Prize or any other legitimate form of recognition by the scientific community earns a person the benefit of the doubt that they are not simply making stuff up, but absolutely does not mean their arguments are irrefutable. This article doesn’t “dismiss”; it offers a counterargument. Focus on the merits, and stop with the ridiculous appeal to authority.
I agree with John Keene, this is an enlightening analysis and useful data sources mated to some curiously biased logic and oddly unequivocal conclusions. It would be nice to know why You think Montagnier would come to the opposite conclusion, if it is that obvious. I am troubled by the fact that the Wuhan Lab was focussed on systematically playing Darwin’s game, yet so many scientists think they are not good enough to have stumbled across Covid 19 which must be naturally occurring? Paradoxical is a good adjective.
Phew.
I’m glad we can all read this, and now we don’t have to ask a Nobel-prize laureate for further elaboration of his flawed opinion!
Hum.. So.. I was looking for the comment section to reply to this.
Which I never ever bother doing.
But this time it looks highly warranted. And none of the four replies so far actually bring up the most obvious issue with this article. (Disclaimer: 42 Mathematician & UCLA Immunology Microbiologist here ^^)
So, I watched the Montagnier interview and I was like ‘this can’t be, let’s google it’ and lo and behold I find your article. And it does seem to make sense at first.
But then I went to check out the original article:
-It focuses on the SPIKE Protein, NOT the ENVELOPE Protein. Therefore ANY argument about similarity of that common portion is misleading to a public that won’t bother investigating the claim and shows the author either didn’t fully read the original article or purposefully chose to ignore it.
-Their analysis focuses mostly of the INSERTS in the SPIKE protein sequence that are NOT FOUND in other Coronaviruses Spike Proteins, so looking for general matches isn’t really relevant.
-Using blast instead of blastP misses the mark again here, as we’re looking for functionality similarities and that would depend on PROTEIN sequence, NOT on any specific DNA/RNA associated sequences as they can mutate and vary quite a lot for a given protein sequence.
-The original paper explicitly states that they looked for the INSERTS’ sequences in the databases of ALL viruses, not specifically HIV, and they add several times they were surprised by the finding: 4 Inserts of 6 amino acids to the power of 21 possibilities == really low mismatch. So I would love for someone to bother doing the actual statistics on this part of the problem!
I’ve been having this conversation since Covid emerged and have been the first one to debunk the conspiracy theorists out there about it being created in the lab. Why? Because the COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY required to do that is NOT yet AVAILABLE. It might be for the Next round by 2030 tho. A mistake or careless animal poaching is MORE LIKELY and EASIER. But I’m starting to doubt that now..
PLEASE, rebut any or all of my arguments, in detail and with logic!
But until then, this REMAINS an OPEN ENDED question and THIS article DOES NOT, I REPEAT DOES NOT, DEBUNK any of the findings in the original Indian Paper!
De rien.
(Désolé Philippe, demande à Maxime KONTSEVICH 😉
Yukel
The indian work you’re referring has not been accepted. It is in fact a pre-print and i suggest you an accurate reading. If you follow the link[1] to the draft, you can clearly read in the “Abstract” field that: “This paper has been withdrawn by its authors. They intend to revise it in response to comments received from the research community on their technical approach and their interpretation of the results (…)”. In the meantime, another accurate work, less flawed and more consistent, has been published [2]. Here the authors clearly show how those 4 “Uncanny similarities” quickly loose their “uncanniness” as soon as we align those spike sequences to a larger scale data set, showing results similar to the ones shown in this blog post.
I hope this may help you to find some answers.
[1]https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v2
[2]https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jproteome.0c00129#
Let me try to logically rebut at least one of your/the Indian paper’s statement. It’s very simple. The following finding is not correct:
“-Their analysis focuses mostly of the INSERTS in the SPIKE protein sequence that are NOT FOUND in other Coronaviruses Spike Proteins, so looking for general matches isn’t really relevant.”
Insertion at the same locations can be found in other coronaviruses, and a strain RaTG13 (MN996532.1) isolated in 2013 shows particularly high identity to SARS-CoV-2. “Surprisingly”, the deletion in the insert3 is already there. OK, now, don’t you think it’s more natural to assume that SARS-CoV-2 is derived from RaTG13 or a related strain to it? Maybe the Indian group wants to claim that then RaTG13 was artificially made from HIV, though.
As a molecular biologist, I also want to say that if I designed putting such short insertions from HIV into coronavirus, I would not use different HIV strains for each insertion site 😉
That was the first thing that jumped to my eye when trying to understand the author’s point of view.
I would also point out that the insertions are placed in a delicate part of the spike. Probably the most specific sequence to allow the interaction with the host. It is not surprising that in all the human viruses they are very similar: the host cell creates the environmental pressure that selects that trait. To use an analogy: we can make keys with different materials and shapes, but the cuts had to be the same if we want it to open the door.
I would think that it is an evolutionary convergence rather than a designed modification.
Hi Yukel,
My name is Júlia, im a med student here in Brazil.
Could you please tell me if you have any e-mail or social media that I can get in contact? I would like to know more about your work. I really like your comment.
Thank you for your attention
Totally agree with You.
Can you help me with the question I have at the end of the comments section?
As a faculty member in the Environmental Engineering domain, I am in no way qualified to comment on the scientific details of the discussion. Yet, I felt obliged to thank the author on stimulating a valuable discussion. This article familiarized me with BLAST which I am thankful for. Also, I would like to thank the other commenters for their input.
Yes no problem ..it is all just spontaneously event development… 🙂 no discusion.. inform the nobel guy how to use modern software for analysis… :))
Show your conclusion to your children…they deserve no better!
Wow the shills come quick. This whole site is bs, and predatory journalism.
As a layman, my humble request to the author of this article is to clear the doubts raised in the comments section by many of his peers (?)
The “Nature” paper’s claim that the RBD domain of COV-2 is heavily optimized for ACE2 binding and that optimization can ONLY BE a result of Darwanian selection does not make sense.
The very fact that this was fine tuned for the human ACE2 receptor makes it look like it was engineered
“As noted above, the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution different from those previously predicted. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used. However, the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously-used virus backbone.”
Can you help me with my question at the bottom of the comments section?
I think a lot of common people, including me do not have the necessary knowledge to decide whether the explanation on this page is true or not. But you yourself said that the professor is “extraordinarily talented”. And it seems that his speciality is virus. You say you are a Ph.D. in mathematics. While you must be very smart, the professor is probably at least as smart as you, and his speciality is virus. And he said “We have concluded”, meaning not just he, but the people whom he is working with, probably also virus specialists, have agreed in that virus is probably man-made.
And you say “this is extremely easy to debunk”. If you are right, then there is only two possibilities.
(1) The professor and his colleagues are actually morons who cannot see that “extremely easy to debunk” fallacy. OR,
(2) The professor has some ulterior motives and is consciously lying.
By your own admission that the professor is “extraordinarily talented”, (1) is not possible. Then, basically you are saying it is (2). Give us some convincing argument for that that even commoners could understand, otherwise, commoners is more likely to believe the Nobel-laureate biology professor than a mathematician regarding an analysis on a virus.
It looks like people missed two points
1. as professor told, it was his assistant a mathematician who made a research and presented the data for a conclusion.
Thus, the author of this article is the same qualified as the Professor and his team
2. Professor should’ve presented an HIV segment which they found in SARS-CoV-2, this would bring clarity to his team conclusion. BUT HE DID NOT
Say it’s as stated. A Nobelist physician wouldn’t be able to perform the above analysis prior to make such statements?
I am not a geneticist or a virologist, but as a scientist (geologist) I like to engage in the development of multiple working hypotheses. I cannot argue the natural versus bio-engineered/modified origin of the virus based on my own knowledge of the subject. So, for me it comes down to who and what can I thrust. Follow the money is generally pretty reliable way to figure things out, but is not that easy to do. The other way around is to see who has the most to lose by stating the opposing views and yet stand by them, as well as the verifiable history of expertise (without conflicts of interest).
Nobel Prize winner in the scientific field in question vs. Media commentators reading the scripts prepared by equally unqualified people behind the scenes? When Prof. Luc Montagnier states that the virus is bioengineered, we should pay attention and engage in a dialogue. Get equally qualified scientists with opposing views in a public debate. Instead, what Media does is try to smear his reputation because of his connection to the topic of homeopathy. Really? What does that have to do with his knowledge of virology that won him a Nobel prize?
It is also an interesting “coincidence” that when you Google search his name and Covid 19, the “debunking” of his statement shows up first. What has happened to an honest “we do not know for sure yet”, if that indeed is the case, rather than petty “debunking” and character attacking.
Another qualified person who should be listened to is Prof. Francis Boyle. He drafted the “Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act” of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses in the U.S. He states that Wuhan Coronavirus is an offensive bio-weapon that was engineered in BSL-4 lab in Wuhan. I am certain that he has credible information on the topic that, as usual, the Media is not reporting.
And then, there is the recently arrested Prof. Charles Lieber, Harvard University Chemistry Department, and his connection to Wuhan University of Technology, and two Chinese Nationals implicated in bio-tech espionage!? These are conspiracy facts, not theories. All coincidences? We are to blindly, no pun intended, blame it all on the bats?
Wuhan wet market and Wuhan Biosefty level 4 lab (the only one of that level in the country) are twenty miles apart. Many of the “Zero” patients from Wuhan had no connection to the market according to the Chinese medical sources.
As scientists, or as laymen, in a democratic society, do we not have the obligation to look at all the viable alternatives? Do we not have the obligation to give credible experts right to voice their opinions, and furthermore support them in presenting their evidence? Without an honest and open dialogue, we are neither scientists, nor free people of a truly democratic society.
And frankly, I am really tired of the whole debunking, cheap propagandist narrative in general, by people more often than not, with no expertise on the topics in question.
Thank you
To Zorka. Bravo. Could not have said it better myself. The forces driving the world are just too complex for the scientist to understand. They live in a different world. A simple world where the truth is always amenable, to them at least. They use their titles to bludgeon everybody else because we, the great unwashed, simply don’t or cant understand. Just from the discussion on this blog, it is clear, there is no conclusive evidence that the virus was engineered or not. And no bloody scientist is going to tell me that, yes, it was definitively not engineered because there is nothing to prove that. So you are left with circumstantial evidence. You just have to look at the players and the politics of this situation. Look at the scientific papers published by Shi Zhenglii, look at the trade war, look at the stated goals of the CCP, look at the changing story from Beijing. misinformation. Look at China’s desire to be number one in everything including a possible cure for SARS . Unfortunate there probably will never be a smoking gun and the people responsible will never admit to such a crime. And, I suspect the politicians will never admit to the ultimate truth because the consequences would be grave. But mister scientist, unless you have definitive, conclusive, beyond the shadow of a doubt, to which everyone can agree proof, just say we cant really be sure:-because you do deal in truth and not spin-don’t you?
Enjoyed your critical thinking skills here.
I wish you were someone who could answer my question at the bottom of the comments section.
I would welcome the point of view of someone who thinks the way you do.
Do the Chinese pay you well?
This bad article is far far a way from being ‘Scientific.’
First of all, when you want to review or criticize a paper, you shouldn’t use the identities of the authors as part of your claim/proof. We don’t care who is the author. We don’t care if the author is a Nobel laureate or a mathematician or even an Uber driver. All what we care about is the ‘content’ of the paper, so please stop talking about Prof. Montagnier that way.
Second, when you want to review or citicize a paper, you need to start your argument with a step-by-step summary of the main points of the paper: from premises to hypothesis and from analysis to conclusions. You didn’t do any of that. You just claimed that the paper claims that there is kind of ‘similarity’ between the RNAs of the two viruses. Of course, the original paper never claimed that. If you summarized the paper by yourself, you would have already understood what the original claim was before writing this bad review.
Third, when you want to review or criticize a paper, you should also criticize your critique itself. You are presenting your argument here as if you have to be right and they have to be wrong. You keep claiming with no doubt that your argument ‘debunks’ the paper. I am not even a researcher or biologist, I am just a Computer Scientist, but it’s very very clear that the reviewed paper is talking about INSERTs, not statisically-significant general similarities! This actually means that most of your argument and most of the data you are presenting here have nothing to do with the paper in question.
Finally, when you want to review or criticize a paper, you should learn how to write up your argument in an unbiased/objective scientific way. The language that you are using and words like ‘debunks’ and ‘extraordinarily talented’ show us that you don’t even know how to write a professional paper review. You seem to be very biased, and you use misleading words like ‘conspiracy theory’ to let ordinary people be deluded that your argument is correct, while in fact it is not. We don’t care about conspiracy, we only care about the paper content, is it clear enough?
You use the fact that you are a mathematician to lead people into believing you because you have authority. Unfortunately, this actually turns the table on you… I am now wondering if you have ever peer-reviewed a paper? I am not a researcher myself, but your logic and your way of presentation show that you need to go back to math school.
thank you so much for your comment
It’s the bat soup hypothesis that is statistically improbable. Consider the following.
How many wet markets are in China? Let’s conservatively say 1000.
How may BSL-4 biolabs are in China? We know it’s 1.
Thus is the outbreak was market-related, there was 0.1% probability of it happening in Wuhan.
If the outbreak was lab-related, then the probability of it happening in Wuhan was, well, 1.
Also, the bat soup hypothesis ignores two fundamental facts.
First, bats hibernate in winter. So finding a live bat becomes less probable.
Second, SARS-like virus is deactivated after 30 minutes at 60C, a soup is cooked at 100C for 2-3 hours. So the hypothesis further requires a very undercooked soup, and such mistake is very unlikely, further reducing the probability (if anything, people tend to overcook/burn food).
In short, the bat soup hypothesis requires a chain of extremely improbable events. It’s a Rube Goldberg statistical machinery.
The alternate is a grad student making a stupid error in the lab. That happens all the time everywhere in the world.
Was there a paper/publication associated with professor Luc Montagnier claim. Could someone point to that?
If so are the relevant HIV sequences within Covid19 clearly identified? Are they an exact match or a fuzzy match?
Lastly, if the virus was engineered I would expect the above sequences to be present in the human strain but not in pre-existing samples of the animal strains. Is that the case?
Now biologists can start to plan for what the economy can become …. Be reassured Professor Matagné will restaure the article from the Indian team with sound response. I read the full article and yes, this is by combining sequences with 3D fold of proteins that we see they all are on the strategic glycoprotein that is key for interaction with host receptor and explains its increased capability to infect vs. previous coronaviruses who do not have those sequences. The probability that the 4 small insertions are on strategic points by chance is unlikely but I think this could be calculated by the author who likes this exercise? That would be a great number to have!!! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338957445_Uncanny_similarity_of_unique_inserts_in_the_2019-nCoV_spike_protein_to_HIV-1_gp120_and_Gag and here the same news from a chinese lab :https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-latestcoronavirus-research-reveals-that-the-virus-has-mutated-gene-similar-to-hiv-and-is-1,000-times-more-potent-
“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.”
SARS-CoV-2 is not only a product of nature, it is a strain of SARS-COV of 2003.
Further it is not Darwinian selection, but Blythian selection. Edward Blyth (1810–1873) was the man whose ideas probably influenced Darwin most. An English chemist and zoologist, Blyth wrote three major articles on natural selection that were published in The Magazine of Natural History from 1835 to 1837.7 Charles was well aware of these. Not only was this one of the leading zoological journals of that time, in which his friends Henslow, Jenyns and Lyell had all published articles, but also it seems that the University of Cambridge, England, has Darwin’s own copies of the issues containing the Blyth articles, with Charles’s handwritten notes in the margins!
Do some Darwin myth busting too.
Ref: https://creation.com/charles-darwins-illegitimate-brainchild
There is also a small problem that the envelope is identical to the bat virus, but the spike region isn’t. If the HIV-like sequence appeared due to random mutations, this should have changed both the spike and the envelope. Again, spike-only mutation is of course possible, but it just adds to Rube Goldbergesque chain of improbabilities.
https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1579941002855.png
Are you a Nobel laureate? If not, I’ll take Prof. Montagnier’s analysis.
I read the original paper. I’m not a microbiologist but I also am not stupid and a few comments seem reasonable enough to warrant a response.
I’d like the author also to respond, especially to Yukel’s comments without ad hominem. Or maybe republish per another commenter’s style recommendations.
More than anything I’d like to see research repeated by other Labs and they should publish their results for review.
Y’all stay scientific!
Changing the search criteria slightly on the BLAST ( hitlist) generates 2 100% matches between HIV-1 and COVID-19 in isolate K1243 and K1293
In the end, it’s the interpretation of these results that matter – i have no doubt that experience > avid curiosity.
First off the Nature Medicine article was an opinion piece as can be see by the opening sentence “To the Editor”. So for those that are taking this article, that is an opinion, as face value evidence that this virus was a product of nature are only speculating. Secondly the article is only focusing on one mutation, the spike protein. With such a myopic analysis of a genome anyone can infer that their point is valid. The paper only looked at a 12 nucleotide sequence at the tail end of GAG and failed to mention the other 4 large mutations that are present. They did not mention the mutations in the replicase nor did they mention if the backbone was sequenced yet. Additionally why is furin, a protease that cleaves and is normally found in the cytosol, being so highly expressed that it no longer remains in the cytosol and instead is on the surface of the cell making the virus 1000x more virulent. The paper also does not mention that the GAG insertion site of HIV is in the basic polycleavage site for furin. HIV glycoprotein 120 is the spike protein for HIV that binds to lysine via CD299 as does this corona virus. That should be further investigated as well.
If it was truly zoonotic in nature what is the probability that it just happened that HIV GAG homology would be at the furin cleavage point? If you only look at mutations on one side of the genome then you increase the probability of it being zoonotic. What is the probability of having 4 different insertions in the spike protein? That is an important question because 3 of the 4 mutations in the spike protein are homologous to glycoprotein 120 that attach to lysine. There may be parts of the spike protein that are evading the immune system and preventing presenting cells to activate T cells to allow for antibodies to be made. This rational doesnt explain why we are seeing WBC counts go down, but glycoprotein 120 does as this is similar pathophysiology to what we see in HIV. I admit that part is speculation and should be further investigated. In conclusion the Nature Medicine article had a very narrow focus to make one draw the conclusion that this virus was zoonotic in nature instead of looking at the bigger picture.
Hi Veronica
My name is Julia, im a med student in Brazil… i was wondering if you have an e-mail or any social media that you could give to me, i really like your comment
“No, SARS-CoV-2 does not contain HIV genetic code!”
I would simply like to point out that the genetic code is (almost) universal; thus, the genetic code of HIV is identical to that of SARS-CoV-2, to mine and yours.
That said, even a Noble prize laureate in his/her own small way can go wrong. However, I look forward to the scientific publication in which the Nobel Prize laureate would kindly provide convincing evidence of his belief. For the moment his interview seems a little ranting to me.
Thank you all for the comments. I would like to answer some of the points raised herein.
1. First, I generally agree with Dr Duffy that people should try to “stay in their lane”. However, these days, I am not fully convinced that some specialties in medicine are not actually farther from the problem at hand than data science. I would go as far as saying that twenty years from now, the field will be fully dominated by AI and thus ran by math or compsci Ph.Ds with the assistance of chemists. MDs will be important, for sure, but a minority.
2. In any case, while Dr Duffy is right to raise the fact that genetics is a very complex field, our present problem is relatively simple.
3. The pitfalls – like findings similarities outside of ORFs, or trivially finding that A-U-G appears x and y numbers of times in HIV-1 and in SARS-CoV-2, or that some proteins are coded by two non-contiguous sequences of nucleotides – are eliminated by the BLAST software.
4. This is the whole point of the article: BLAST removes some spurious similarities for us. And leaves us with one main similarity – the envelope’s code – which is present in other many other viruses (some known well before the publication of the HIV code by pr Montagnier in 1983) and can thus be explained away.
5. I am pained that some readers could imagine I do not respect pr Montagnier for his contribution to the discovery of AIDS. This is quite the contrary. I actually took the time to says so at the beginning of this short note.
6. But while I admire his discovery, I can also question the assertion that SARS-CoV-2 is engineered with pieces of HIV. In my personal Pantheon, Francis Crick, James Watson and Kary Mullis have a prominent place but I do not believe, respectively, that panspermia is the origin of life on earth, that melanin causes libido, or that astrology is part of science. Great minds have to stray from common ideas to discover but sometimes some ventures are unfruitful.
7. Which brings a question to those who says that pr Montagnier should be believed because he has a Nobel prize in the field: Since pr Montagnier said that HIV causes AIDS and pr Mullis said that HIV does not cause AIDS, how do you resolve the conflict since both are Nobel winners and giants in the field of genetics? Presumably by examining the evidence yourself, no?
8. For those who asked me, Pr Montagnier did not publish a paper himself. He made a TV appearance in which he claimed SARS-CoV-2 is engineered with pieces of HIV. In this TV interview, he mentions a paper (that was withdrawn by its authors, DOI 10.1101/2020.01.30.927871). He also makes a reference to a paper written by a retired programmer, Jean-Claude Perez, who made similar claims (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3724003).
9. Again, since this is not his own research, this in no way impugns pr Montagnier’s credibility in general. Verba volant, scripta manent. 50 years from now, people will remember the discoverer of HIV and his 1983 papers. Not some long-forgotten TV interview. His verbal assertion is important now but I suspect/claim this will not last.
10. So there no problem here? Well, surprisingly, nobody raised three issues I would have addressed if I had wanted to write a peer-reviewed paper:
a. I used sequence NC_045512 from NCBI because it is the reference sequence but there are 1400+ RNA sequences of SARS-CoV-2 available in NCBI. Similarly, there are many strains of HIV and there are hundreds of sequences for some strains. The latter should be run in BLAST against the former in a FOR . . . LOOP fashion. I only showed that taxonomy ID 11676 of HIV-1 is not in SARS-CoV-2 sequence NC_045512. A complete work would/should show that no subsequence of all known HIV variants is in all the SARS-CoV-2 variants.
b. A similar work could look at proteins (instead of nucleotides). I did not bother mentioning this but it is a valid point of inquiry (which does not change the conclusion).
c. One could study the problem differently and analyze sequences outside of BLAST and, for all possible sequences, draw a chart showing {length of sequence, degree of similarity}. If SARS-CoV-2 does not contain HIV then highly similar sequences (3-letter sequences, for instance!) will be extremely short while longer sequences will be weakly similar: on a two-axis graph, all {length of sequence, degree of similarity} points will land next to the axis along an asymptotic curve. If a point falls in the middle, I am wrong.
11. Mr. Keefe is right in his assessment of the last paragraph of the article. In retrospect, I certainly made a mistake there. European Scientist offered to edit it but I feel it would be deceptive to do so. So, I will simply agree with Mr. Keefe that the use of the two words was (oxy-)moronic and will leave the original text intact.
12. I have no conflict of interest. This should be obvious but a. I did not get paid and b. I am not promoting anything (except a government data repository).
you say darwinian change.
you means it will be selected randomly.
it will emerge randomly in a long and long days anyway.There will be many attempts. Genome code or program will be best by itself randomly after many wrong codes without knowing anything about what is cell what is protein what is rna whats dna how they works..
but this virus emerged suddenly there was no time and as a best designed unique form, you say.
It has selected from amongst the infinite possibilities available; clothed in its specific, distinctive and appropriate form, from among the possibilities and probabilities that are as numerous as the forms that may be conceived;
Then certainly one has created this virus. Either man or Allah(God)
I recently stumbled up on a YouTube comment which I want to share with you guys. It is not my comment, but I think it will add to this scientific debate. You can find the original comment in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBBIfGaml0c&lc=UgyIvytLxiImHWgpQp14AaABAg.96JihacGVb796kmzrOiBMC
and the name of the account which wrote it is “Daoyu Zhang”
it says the following:
“The virus itself.
There is a large stretch of 440 amino acids within the non-host-determining non-conserved S2 proportion of the SARS-COV-2’s S protein that are identical with the other highly suspicious virus, RaTG13, despite the presence of a whopping 79 nucleotide differences within the part of RNA that codes for the same protein. An abnormally high level of silent mutations that have only 1 in 5346 chance to have been a product of natural evolution amongst all possible sequences that are equally capable of causing the Covid-19 outbreak.
BLAST tool:
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi
The following are the BLAST search results of a part of the Wuhan Spike Glycoprotein sequence in comparison to the closest related natural coronavirus to date.
This is the result of an amino acid BLAST comparision between the two different glycoprotein sequences.
QHD43416.1, 681 to 1120.
Query: surface glycoprotein [Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2] Query ID: QHD43416.1 Length: 440
>spike glycoprotein [Bat coronavirus RaTG13]
Sequence ID: QHR63300.2 Length: 1269
Range 1: 681 to 1120
Score:901 bits(2329), Expect:0.0,
Method:Compositional matrix adjust.,
Identities:440/440(100%), Positives:440/440(100%), Gaps:0/440(0%)
Notice that there were ZERO amino acid difference between these two protein sequences. that is, these two sequences were identical.
A BLAST search on the corresponding nucleotides gives this result.
Query: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 isolate Wuhan-Hu-1, complete genome Query ID: MN908947.3 Length: 1560
>Bat coronavirus RaTG13, complete genome
Sequence ID: MN996532.1 Length: 29855
Range 1: 23357 to 24904
Score:2366 bits(1281), Expect:0.0,
Identities:1469/1560(94%), Gaps:12/1560(0%), Strand: Plus/Plus
In comparision, this is the result of the same Wuhan coronavirus Spike glycoprotein sequence when compared to a natural bat coronavirus.
Query: surface glycoprotein [Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2] Query ID: QHD43416.1 Length: 440
>spike glycoprotein [Bat SARS coronavirus HKU3-8]
Sequence ID: ADE34766.1 Length: 1242
Range 1: 654 to 1093
Score:855 bits(2209), Expect:0.0,
Method:Compositional matrix adjust.,
Identities:406/440(92%), Positives:430/440(97%), Gaps:0/440(0%)
Noticed that there were 34 amino acid that are different between Covid-19 and HKU3-8 within this domain, differences of which represent the natual number of amino acids that are variable across different Coronavirus strains within this domain, variations that are known to not affect the function of the resulting protein. As this domain, which is located after the end of the RBD domain of the coronavirus S protein and is known to be cleaved off after the maturation of the individual virions, it plays no critical role in selecting the host for the virus, and are generally considered to be a domain that is not well-conserved or evolutionarily pressured across different strains of bat-borne Coronaviruses.
There is only 0.2450783^(79*(34/(1124-685+1)))=0.00018706121, or 1 in 5346 chance that these 79 nucleotide mutations not changing a single amino acid within the 685-1124 sequence of the Covid-19 Spike protein when compared to RaTG13, the closese related natural coronavirus to date. 1 in 24339 if another related bat coronavirus, HKU 3.4 was considered, possessing 42 amino acid mutations within this region. That is, there is only at best 1 in 5346, at worst 1 in 24339 chance that the current Covid-19 virus strain could have arisen from natural mutations, as opposed to being a codon-and-secondary-structure-optimized gene construct that can have only one purpose: for use as a bioweapon of mass destruction.”
“that 1in 5346 is the chance that the identical S2 between RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 have arisen via natural mutations as opposed to being the result of an optimized construct. Which mean that, between RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2, one must be unnatural. As RaTG13 was confirmed earlier, SARS-CoV-2 itself must been a genetic construct derived from RaTG13 with codon optimized for protein expression, and have underwent in vivo tests prior to release.”
((Please don’t ask me questions, cause I don’t understand half of it!! I just wanted to share this.))
So many false and misleading and , i suspect, deliberate dis-info, in this article that I do not even know where to begin criticizing it. Who is this guy? If he were a true mathematician, he could deduce from textbook info that the probability this virus is natural is near 0. The inverse of which concludes that it is near certainty created in lab. Why is a “mathematician” working in dc anyway? Who is funding him? Montagiers work has been verified btw
It is good to be curious. What appears in the comments is that the traditional human mindset is also reflected here. Beliefs, ideologies and pre-admissions are decisive.
The result is based on: conspiracy theorists always have the last word.
Well, considering there was a funded gain of function (GOF) program for potential pandemic pathogens (PPP) at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and Dr. Shi was publishing on synthetic coronaviruses specifically the S protein to increase ACE-2 receptor binding, it doesn’t take to much imagination to think of possible poor outcomes. I agree that the BLASTP would be the better option to look at the amino acid sequences and I would go one step further and examine the 3D images that are also available. Compare the structures of the S gene parameters and the HIV pg41 protein structures would be the most intelligent approach. I would even propose analyzing TEM micrographs between SARS-CoV-2 & HIV with AI.
any discussion is useful. Can ES please ask Prof. Montagnier to tell us his evidence, so the scientific debate can progress? I just am annoyed that many interviews by Prof Montagnier have been deleted from some sites. To avoid any suspicion he should be asked to talk and show his evidence.
^^ Fin. The above is a perfect ending to this comments section. I humbly submit a suggestion to the author: the comments should now be closed. Before the ignorati overrun the place.
@Pleb: This perfectly documented my exact train of thought while reading the article. Thank you for articulating a sentiment I’m sure many laymen readers also thought quietly to themselves here.
Now. After reading both the original article as well as this one here, I have just one single comment as a layman who understood about half of it all, at best.
“I would go as far as saying that twenty years from now, the field will be fully dominated by AI and thus ran by math or compsci Ph.Ds with the assistance of chemists.”
This remark from the author replying in the comment section is the only thing I care about. I was on the fence, swung back and forth both ways as my understanding of the topic gradually changed while reading some excellent commentary from all view points expressed down here. I agreed, disagreed, and finally decided to leave things open-ended in my own mind until further conclusive evidence one way or another.
But after reading that quoted comment from the author of this article, I have to say that as a layman I’m throwing in with camp Nobel Prize fully. Anybody who thinks that AI will “fully dominate” anything whatsoever, let alone something as advanced and complex as microbiology, automatically loses any sense of credibility they had, in my book.
I love technology, and AI has made a lot of work much easier and even made some work possible where before it was not, but to think that AI will ever dominate any field is asinine. AI is a tool, just like any hammer or screwdriver. Without intelligent, directed, human intent driving it, it will just sit and collect dust like the inanimate object it is.
There’s nothing even remotely scientific about my remarks and I recognize that, but I hope this gives you all an additional insight into how the mind of a layman functions. To my mind, anybody who thinks that you can just plug data into an AI program and get irrefutable evidence that absolutely proves or disproves anything at all, is insane…there’s so much wrong with that I don’t even know where to start.
So I’ll end instead. Good luck and stay safe during this time. Us laymen…in agreement or otherwise…are counting on people like you all to figure this nonsense out, since we can’t.
Philippe Lacoude, as you being mathematician, I was wondering how did you get an idea to challenge findings of the Nobel prize winner? And how the hell you got a spot here on the web site to write something like this? Truly interesting. I have to say that I do not believe the word you wrote.
Some comments have been asking for Prof Montagnier’s write-up, you can find it here: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/d9e5g
Perez, j., & Montagnier, L. (2020, April 25). COVID-19, SARS and Bats Coronaviruses Genomes Unexpected Exogeneous RNA Sequences.
I found myself annoyed that the interviewers inserted themselves so much that Prof. Montagnier did now get to finish some of the issues he started out on.
That said, I also found myself wondering about the functions of the virus that have been compared to malaria.
This concerns, I believe, an area of the genome where ferrin is involved. Chris Martenson has a l long article on this part of the genome. My guess that this location is important is a guess, as I do not have the equipment to test something like this, but I hope someone beyond my pay grade does.
Professor Montagnier spoke about the part of the genome that he has interest in. Is that the full story of possible manipulation sites?
I doubt this will remain unknown. It is too juicy of a problem, to use a lay person’s term.
Wow, having read this thread , I think I may have just wasted an hour of my life. But certain my English has improved. Lol
Stay safe at least, God please help them all
I am not a microbiologist or a mathematician, my profession is geology and have often been in the position of taking important decisions. I have followed this lengthy discussions and am now as knowledgeable as before I started reading. Now I look at the effects, Vietnam, Malaysia, S-Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, (China?), etc…: E Asian countries. They dealt with the virus since the very begin, with, what in the eyes of the w-world, were very restrictive measures. the number of fatalities in these countries speak for the effective results of this approach. For the contrary in the w-countries efforts are expend in finding culprits, defending dubious personal freedoms and multiple controversies on scientific aspects of the pandemic. Whatever its origin is, will not help us to survive, while what we need is to learn to live with the virus. The amount of deaths in Spain, in France, in Italy, in the USA …….. etc… is enough. Should we not ask Prof. Luc Montagnier and colleagues to dedicate their efforts to recommend a proper behavior to their populations that could ensure similar results as we can see in the Eastern Asian countries? Certainly this would benefit their populations better, than dedicating their efforts in a futile search of finding a culprit – if it really exists!
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s a duck. The author is no biologist or virologist. The paper clearly refers to sequences in the SPIKE protein not envelope protein. The paper shows the direct matches returned by Blast. The author in ‘response’ shows mismatching blast resluts from an entirely different region of the sequence (envelope) than the one specifically described in the paper (wtf?). The author laods his ‘certainty’ assurances with terms like ‘likely’ (again wtf?). And he engages in the predictable rhetoric that has been used against Montaigner for years. Which are also lies. Montaigmers’s blacklist is NOTbecause he somehow ‘supported homeopathy’ He didn’t. What he said is that DNA has an electrical signaling capability. Because newsflash, a double helix with charge carrying capacity is an antenna. A fact that any physicist can prove yet every biologist denies. And by that function, it potentially supports the basic function hypothesized by homeopathy. But the real reason they hate Montaigner is because, to correct a previous poster he also now doubts the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and was kicked out of an AIDS foundation that HE started. He also fought Fauci and Robert Gallo in court for 10 years after they tried to patent HIV and retroviruses as their own discovery after Montaigner sent them a newly isolated sample to verify in ’81. Which is why it took him 36 years to get his Nobel Prize. The guy is not a quack atall. Sadly, he is a perpetual victim of his own integrity. He says what the science tells him and the money making organizations who stand to lose revenue over his claims go full offensive on him. The same thing happens to Kary Mullis.
So let’s summarize: no expertise, check, misrepresentation of verifiable facts, check, highly qualified statements passed off as certainty, check, ad hominem attack on a far more qualified opposition, check. Folks stop treating this like it’s about science. The far bigger thing to be learned here is how to know when someone is lying to you. Because this guy is clearly lying to you. And if you read enough media you’ll see this same pattern in 100 or more articles today. And every day. You don’t need to become a genetecist to see the clear fact that the author is lying. Whatever HIV characteristics COViD does or doesn’t have, this article has ALL the clear hallmarks of a liar lying. Remember when HCQ was deemed unsafe for treating COViD 19 because no ‘gold standard double blind placebo study’ had proved claims of it’s efficacy. Then the Lancet produced a hastily done and corporate funded ‘observational study’ that said HCQ didn’t work at all. AND EVERY MAJOR MEDIA OUTLET REPORTED IT AS GOSPEL! So much for the gold standard huh? In that same vein this article is an obvious sham and fails to get even a single detail correct. Before hitting you with the ‘likely certainty’ that a mathematicians assistant is far more informed than the guy who discovered the very thing in question. I mean come on. How gullible are you willing to be?
Le history will prove that Prof. Luc Montagnier is in the right side, the true.
It is just a question of time.
Pity so many people have yet to die due to stupidity and ignorance.
This ocean of Knowledge that you provided through this article is awesome and now I am eagerly waiting for the next article. Thanks for this amazing post I really loved it especially the last part that you described so well.
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The use of “animal passage” as a process to manipulate the virus would explain a “natural origin” hypothesis.
Now with that being said, I have a question for the scientist here.
If animal passage was used to develop a new strain of the virus and during the animal passage research they used an animal that had been infected with HIV, would it be plausible that after several attempts that the two viruses could mutate together? Forming a corona virus that had some characteristics of HIV?
Just a lay person here doing my own research.
So this team of scientists is wrong also? They identified 3 different HIV strains and SIV in the genetic code of the “cov-2″and they identified 3 very different strains of sars-cov from wuhan which is ultimately confirmed by the cdc in their referencing of sars-cov in their covid testing instructions. Then there was the indian team who was pressured into retracting their paper which said the same thing. Hmmm, multiple teams of scientists vs a dollars to donuts agent of th CIA? Please, he lies for a living.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340100582_WUHAN_COVID-19_SYNTHETIC_ORIGINS_AND_EVOLUTION
To the author or anyone else who would like to refute the findings of this particular study, I ask you to please do so.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf
I can only speak to the logic of lab manipulation vs natural bat mutation in the wild. We are asked to believe the wet market in Wuhan was selling bats with a novel coronavirus which infected humans from there.
First there seems to be no evidence that any Chinese market sold horseshoe bats much less the market in Wuhan. Horseshoe bats also apparently don’t live natively within 900 km of Wuhan. If covid19 jumped from horseshoe bats to humans it would be extremely unlikely to do so at this location but rather in an area where the bats were endemic.
What we do know is the Wuhan lab was collecting native covid strains from bats and at the very least storing them in the lab. The US / NIAID and Fauci in particular also had given a grant to “upgrade” these viruses through genetic engineering for increased virulence. (The topic of such upgrades was controversial and Fauci was the biggest proponent). You can still find many media articles strongly supporting Fauci’s position when first Obama and later Trump stopped the programs. The article discussing the specific grant for upgrading these bat viruses is now harder to find but was in Newsweek so hasn’t been completely blocked as of yet.
So we’re asked to believe a horseshoe bat virus naturally mutated to an extreme form. Then it was carried 900 miles for sale as food in the one market out of thousands which happened to be in the same City as China’s only lab collecting bat viruses. Don’t forget there is no evidence this or any Chinese market market ever sold horseshoe bats. This same virus then failed to infect anyone in the areas where it would have originated and been far more common.
Seems vastly more likely the virus simply escaped the lab where it was being held. Now we have to consider was the virus natural or engineered. If natural then it would have been directly cataloged in Chinas database of the natural bat viruses they had collected at the Wuhan lab. They would also be able to pinpoint where they obtained that virus in the wild and dispel any hint of upgrading / weaponization. Of course if it was collected naturally then it would have been endemic to some region and probably would have infected humans directly years ago. Instead we are given an extremely implausible story to cover all the evidence to the contrary.
These discussions are very important because we all need to be aware of and protect against the reckless Faucis of this world. We should never again upgrade any disease.
Not aging well.
Wonder if the author of this paper would like to comment again on this subject in the light of new evidence being revealed.
Did you ever disclose your funding sources?
If and I’m saying if it is established that this virus does indeed contain HIV insertions, what implications does this have for the vaccines that have been developed for a coronavirus, does this not make them null and void.
Are the vaccines targeting what they are supposed to be targeting?
Given the fact there has been no HIV vaccine produced. I read in the comments section above a woman describing her symptomology to that akin to HIV, that’s pretty scary.
More importantly, did WHO, NIH and Bill Gates Foundation know about the research, providing funding, does this imply contracting services, or being complicit?
Were the pharmaceutical companies given a particular mandate too, looking at the efficacy and safety data it is appaulingly scant and in the fine print (Pfizer vaccine data), it states that it may only provides efficacy for 2 months.
and I quote ‘ As the interim and final analysis have a limited length of follow-up, it is not possible to assess sustained efficacy over a period longer than 2 months’.
Why on earth would a vaccine be given that only has at best efficacy for 2 months, if that.
More questions than answers, but I urge you, Mr LaCoude a year since writing this article, do you have any additional thoughts/updates?
Anthony Fauci (NIH), Ralph Baric (University of Carolina), Peter Daszak (Eco-Health Alliance) and Zhengli-Shi (Wuhan Institute of Virology) have serious charges to answer…. go get ’em, International Criminal Court!