According to new research, the chance of SARS-CoV-2 having a natural origin is less than 1 in 100 million.1,2 The paper3 was posted on the preprint server BioRxiv October 20, 2022.
One of its authors, mathematical biologist Alex Washburn, also summarizes the work in a Substack article,4
posted that same day. The other two authors are Valentin Bruttel, a
molecular immunologist, and Antonius VanDongen, a pharmacologist. There
are two key take-homes from this paper:
- SARS-CoV-2 has a telltale signature of genetic engineering, not previously identified
- That genetic fingerprint also suggests the work of Ralph Baric,
Ph.D., was used in the creation of the virus. There’s a direct match
between Baric’s published research — in which he describes how to hide
telltale signs of genetic engineering — and the genetics found in
SARS-CoV-2
Seamless Ligation Conceals Genetic Tampering
In 2002, Baric and three other researchers published a paper5
in the Journal of Virology titled “Systematic Assembly of a Full-Length
Infectious cDNA of Mouse Hepatitis Virus Strain A59.” In it, they
describe a technique called “seamless ligation,” which conceals all
evidence of genetic engineering in lab-created pathogens. Baric’s
nickname for this technique is the “no-see’m method.”
The research was funded by two National Institutes of Health grants6 — AI 23946, for studies into the mechanism of MHV (mouse hepatitis virus) replication and SARS reverse genetics,7 and GM 63228, for reverse genetics with a coronavirus infectious cDNA construct.8
Seamless Litigation Leaves Signature of Its Own
However, while seamless ligation
conceals human tampering in lab-created pathogens, it turns out the
method leaves a signature of its own in the amino acid code, and that’s
the signature Washburn and his coauthors discovered in SARS-CoV-2.
In summary, the telltale signature left behind by the no-see’m method
are unique and odd “spellings” in the “genetic vocabulary” that you
normally do not find in the genome of a natural virus. The lay summary
in the paper describes it like this:9
“To construct synthetic variants of natural coronaviruses in the lab, researchers often use a method called in vitro genome
assembly. This method utilizes special enzymes called restriction
enzymes to generate DNA building blocks that then can be ‘stitched’
together in the correct order of the viral genome.
To make a virus in the lab, researchers usually
engineer the viral genome to add and remove stitching sites, called
restriction sites. The ways researchers modify these sites can serve as
fingerprints of in vitro genome assembly.”
In an October 21, 2022, Defender article, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jay
Couey, Ph.D., and Charles Rixey clarified the findings as follows:10
“The magic of Baric’s ‘no-see’m’ technique is to
invisibly weave these telltale ‘spelling’ changes into the viral
sequence between relevant genes without altering the viral protein. This
is like changing the ‘spelling’ of the word without changing its
meaning; the casual listener will never notice the difference.
The research team used forensic tools to drill down
on minute ‘spelling differences’ in the SARS-CoV2 genome that betray
laboratory tampering using the ‘no-see’m’ technique.
Consider how a Brit would spell ‘colour,’ ‘manoeuvre’
or ‘paediatric.’ The choice to spell a word in a certain way can reveal
your nation of origin. Similarly, these nearly imperceptible changes in
the viral sequence give away the laboratory origins of this virus.”
Regularly Spaced Cutting Sites Reveal Manipulation
They were able to identify the signature left behind by seamless
ligation by plotting the distribution of cutting sites on the SARS-CoV-2
virus and then comparing it to the distribution of cutting sites on
wild-type SARS viruses and other lab-created SARS viruses.
Wild-type SARS viruses had cutting sites that were randomly
distributed. Lab-created SARS viruses, on the other hand — and
SARS-CoV-2 — had regularly spaced cutting sites. According to the
authors, that’s a clear indication that SARS-CoV-2 was manipulated in
the lab using Baric’s no-see’m technique.
Another telltale sign of human manipulation is the length between the
cutting sites. The longest segments found in wild-type viruses were
found to be far longer than those found in lab-made viruses, including
SARS-CoV-2.
The reason for this is because lab-made viruses are stitched together
from smaller pieces, so the genetic segments tend to be short. In
nature, however, the lengths of the segments are completely random and
include both very short, medium and very long segments.
The types of mutations in SARS-CoV-2 also didn’t conform to what you
see in wild-type, naturally evolved viruses. So, SARS-CoV-2 looks like a
lab creation in more ways than one. As noted in their lay summary:11
“We found that SARS-CoV has the restriction site
fingerprint that is typical for synthetic viruses. The synthetic
fingerprint of SARS-CoV-2 is anomalous in wild coronaviruses, and common
in lab-assembled viruses.
The type of mutations (synonymous or silent
mutations) that differentiate the restriction sites in SARS-CoV-2 are
characteristic of engineering, and the concentration of these silent
mutations in the restriction sites is extremely unlikely to have arisen
by random evolution.
Both the restriction site fingerprint and the pattern
of mutations generating them are extremely unlikely in wild
coronaviruses and nearly universal in synthetic viruses. Our findings
strongly suggest a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2.”
Genetic Fingerprints Point Directly at Baric, Fauci and the WIV
According to Washburn and his coauthors, this artifact in the amino
acid code of SARS-CoV-2 could only have emerged through the use of
Baric’s seamless ligation (no see’m) method.
That’s bad news for Baric, who created the method, and Dr. Anthony
Fauci, who funded the development of the technique through the National
Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). It also
incriminates Shi Zhengli, aka “the Bat Lady” at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology. As reported by Kennedy:12
“Baric taught his ‘no-see’m’ method to ... Shi
Zhengli in 2016. In return, Baric received Chinese coronaviruses
collected by Shi from bats in Yunnan province. (Scientists have linked
the COVID-19 genome’s pedigree to closely related bats.)
Shi and her colleagues at the Wuhan Institute
subsequently demonstrated their mastery of Baric’s high-risk technique
in a series of published — and highly controversial — gain-of-function
experiments13,14 at the Wuhan lab ...
Experts say that the implications of this new study
could be far-reaching. By pointing the finger at Baric, the study raises
the possibility of potentially devastating liability for the NIAID and
the University of North Carolina and other parties ...
The closest known coronavirus relative — a coronavirus from the Wuhan lab — is 96.2% identical15
to SARS-CoV-2. The peculiar spike accounts almost completely for the
entire 3.8% difference. Oddly, there are multiple novel mutations in the
spike and almost none in the rest of the genome.
Natural evolution would be expected to leave
mutations distributed evenly across the genome. The fact that virtually
all the mutations occur on the spike led these scientists to suspect
that that particular Wuhan lab coronavirus collected by Shi Zhengli is
the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 and that its new spike was implanted
through engineering.
However, the unmistakable fingerprints of lab
engineering were absent — leaving many experts wondering whether Baric’s
technique was used to assemble a novel coronavirus with the engineered
spike while removing the evidence of lab generation.
This new study16
connects the biological breadcrumbs that link federally funded research
to a global pandemic. That trail leads directly to UNC and NIAID ... In
an interview last spring, Baric himself confessed, that at the time the
pandemic began, only two or three labs in the world were using his
protocol — including his UNC lab and the WIV.”
A Big, Risky Research Agenda
Jeffrey Sachs, chair of The Lancet COVID-19 Commission, whose
taskforce tried, unsuccessfully, to investigate the origins of COVID-19,
commented on these latest findings:17
“Baric’s technique has long been controversial. ‘It’s
the artist that doesn’t sign his name to the painting; the virologist
that doesn’t put his signature into the virus to let us know whether or
not it is emerging naturally or whether it is produced in a laboratory.
All of it says ... there was really a big, very risky research agenda
underway.’”
Incidentally, Baric’s research was also the basis for Moderna’s mRNA shot for COVID,18 and he’s been involved in the development of COVID drugs as well. As reported by The News & Observer19
in December 2021, Baric’s team “conducted the preclinical development
for the only approved direct-acting antiviral drug, Remdesivir,” and
“studied Molnupiravir, which is the first antiviral pill shown to treat
COVID-19 ...”
Other Incriminating Evidence Involving Seamless Ligation
Incidentally, Baric’s seamless ligation method was also detailed in the now-infamous DEFUSE proposal20
submitted by the EcoHealth Alliance to the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2018. DARPA rejected the proposal, reportedly
because it had “several weaknesses.”21
The research EcoHealth Alliance proposed involved inserting
human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses — the
same puzzling cleavage sites found in SARS-CoV-2 that make it so
well-adapted to human lung cells. As the Daily Mail put it:22
“The $14.2 million (£10.5 million) grant bid was
rejected. But did another funder pick up the proposal? At the very
least, this proves the researchers were toying with precisely the sort
of risky science that could have cooked up a virus eerily similar to the
one behind the pandemic.”
Was There Nefarious Intent Behind Creation of SARS-CoV-2?
While Washburn, Bruttel and VanDongen are clear about SARS-CoV-2
being a lab creation, they don’t want people to assume there’s anything
nefarious about the virus. In his Substack article, Washburne writes:23
“... our use of the word ‘synthetic’ derives from
‘synthesis.’ There are methods to synthesize viruses in the lab, and we
study those methods. In talking with friends & family, I learned
that ‘synthetic’ can have a more nefarious connotation, so I want to
clarify that we find no evidence of anything nefarious.
We find no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 being a bioweapon
(on the contrary, this looks like an accident) or any gain of function
work. We find evidence suggesting SARS-CoV-2 may have been synthesized
in the lab with known methods, probably for normal pre-COVID research
purposes.”
While I can certainly understand their desire to avoid the conclusion
that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioweapon, I disagree with their assumption that
it wasn’t intended as such. Too many geopolitical agendas point toward
COVID being intentionally used for global wealth transfer and the
implementation of The Great Reset.
But even if there was no nefarious intent behind its creation, the
end results remain the same. The global economy is crashing, wealth has
been stolen from the lower and middle classes, fear of the virus has
been used to force us to not only surrender our rights and freedoms but
also to submit to medical experimentation under duress, and much more.
If there was no nefarious intent, governments’ reaction to the virus
would likely have been saner.
The Smoking Gun
What’s more, even if the virus was intended as a bioweapon or not,
and whether it got out by accident or intentional release, we need to
hold people accountable for its creation in the first place. Unless we
ban the creation of Frankenstein viruses, we’ll never be safe. Another
lab creation could slip through the doors of a lab on any given day. As
noted by Kennedy:24
“The world now has proof positive that SARS-CoV-2 is
an engineered laboratory creation generated with technology developed by
Ralph Baric with U.S. government funding.
Prosecutors and private attorneys representing
clients injured by the COVID-19 pandemic now have a smoking gun ...
Forensic scientists have now successfully lifted faint but precise
fingerprints from the lethal pistol’s grip and trigger. Those
fingerprints belong to the NIAID and the University of North Carolina
...
UNC’s role in enabling [Baric’s] questionable conduct
may have precipitated a global pandemic that could easily give rise to
liability for negligence.
UNC and NIAID’s liability is now clear. But do we
have positive proof that the Wuhan lab created the monstrosity that
caused COVID-19? The cumulative evidence strongly suggests that the
Wuhan lab used Baric’s methodologies to cobble together the chimeric
virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
But a few missing puzzle pieces still prevent us from
definitively proving that this dangerous construction project occurred
at the Wuhan lab. Stay tuned!”
Lastly, Twitter user Justin B. Kinney makes a very good point:25
“Bioweapons are more likely to be used post-COVID-19,
in part because bad actors now know that virologists and biosecurity
experts will cover for them by reflexively insisting the attack was a
zoonotic spillover.”