Free Republic

Football fever has taken over the world, thanks to the 2022 FIFA World Cup that’s currently being held in Qatar. Despite being organised under the shadow of two public health emergencies — the COVID-19 pandemic and the monkeypox disease (recently renamed as ‘Mpox’) — millions of fans from around the world are expected to throng this global footballing event. Amid all this frenzy, the possibility of a deadlier viral outbreak at the FIFA World Cup has been flagged by WHO-backed health experts! The findings of a study, published in the journal New Microbes and New Infections, have warned that about...

Top American health officials who critics say misled Congress with claims regarding U.S.-funded virus research in China are pushing back after documents were released appearing to show that the United States did pay for gain-of-function research, contrary to the officials’ testimony. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sent the documents last week to lawmakers. They show that the NIH funded research that increased the function of coronaviruses and MERS, experts said. Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the NIH, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads one of the institutes, told Congress earlier this year that the agency did not fund...

Researchers have found evidence that a coronavirus epidemic swept East Asia some 20,000 years ago and was devastating enough to leave an evolutionary imprint on the DNA of people alive today. The new study suggests that an ancient coronavirus plagued the region for many years, researchers say. The finding could have dire implications for the Covid-19 pandemic if it’s not brought under control soon through vaccination. Four other coronaviruses can also infect people, but they usually cause only mild colds. Scientists did not directly observe these coronaviruses becoming human pathogens, so they have relied on indirect clues to estimate when...

The US moratorium on gain-of-function experiments has been rescinded, but scientists are split over the benefits—and risks—of such studies. Talha Burki reports. On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014. At the time, the NIH had stated that the moratorium “will be effective until a robust and broad deliberative process is completed that results in the adoption of a new US Government gain-of-function research policy”. This process...

Diana West, author of... Death of the Grown-up, American Betrayaland The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy...tweets the following brief timeline: 1/10/17 #Obama WH science office issues guidelines to permit research which "could produce a potential pandemic pathogen (an enhanced PPP)." 1/12/17 #Fauci declares 'there will be surprise outbreak" during Trump admin. https://gumc.georgetown.edu/gumc-stories/global-health-experts-advise-advance-planning-for-inevitable-pandemic/ Fauci's quote on 'surprise outbreak during Trump's administration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=197&v=DNXGAxGJgQI&feature=emb_logo direct link to Diana West's tweet

The COVID-19 outbreak has made a lot of things uncertain. Americans don't know the next time they'll see toilet paper in a grocery store, let alone whether or not they'll stay healthy or have a job in a week. But even amid the chaos, Americans don't have to worry about fueling their vehicles or powering their homes. The U.S. energy industry has what it takes to weather a crisis of this magnitude, and has already taken steps to secure the nation's energy supply during the pandemic. Unlike other major industries, the energy sector always prepares for disaster. It has no...

After President Donald Trump mentioned during a recent press conference the potential benefits of hydroxychloroquine for treating the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), Anthony Fauci from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) quickly piped in that the remedy supposedly isn’t proven, and that people shouldn’t think of it as a “knockout drug.” So why, then, did he praise this very same drug back in 2013 as a treatment for the MERS coronavirus, a relative of COVID-19? At the time, Barack Obama was occupying the White House, and an NAIAD study conducted by a guy named Darryl Falzarano found that...

Samples of the suspected SARS virus and influenza were found in Chinese scientists’ luggage arriving in the U.S., according to an unclassified FBI tactical intelligence report obtained by Yahoo News. Samples of the suspected SARS virus and influenza were found in Chinese scientists’ luggage arriving in the U.S., according to an unclassified FBI tactical intelligence report obtained by Yahoo News. In November 2018, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Detroit Metro Airport stopped a Chinese biologist who was carrying three vials labeled “Antibodies” in his luggage. The biologist said a colleague in China “had asked him to deliver the...

Bag Lady waxes about how well she dealt with SARS as Secretary of State ‘Now’s not a time to point fingers’…. but let me point my finger…. She should be in the Guinness book of World Records for the world’s biggest chafed ass. CNN VIDEO AT LINK...............

RUSH: We are happy to have with us today… You don’t know. The media has been trying to find you today. Vice President Mike Pence is here with us today. THE VICE PRESIDENT: (chuckling) RUSH: They have been out of their minds because they haven’t been able to find you. THE VICE PRESIDENT: (chuckling) RUSH: They say you’re not taking this seriously enough because they think you were at a fundraiser or some such thing. THE VICE PRESIDENT: (chuckling) RUSH: We are very honored to have you here, sir. It’s a thrill. You were in town and graciously gave us...

Ten people were tested for a battery of respiratory viruses and bacteria in hopes of ruling out serious pathogens that could present a public health threat. Two of them tested positive for an especially virulent type of influenza A virus, and one of the two, who was gravely ill with pneumonia, was co-infected with another respiratory virus, Cetron said. A third person tested positive for a cold virus. All three had taken part in the Haj, which this year drew 2 million people to Mecca, Cetron said. Seven crew members, who boarded the flight in Dubai and were not at...

Today, during a deposition of the designated representative of the Bank of New York as Trustee for a Countrywide CWMBS securitization, the representative (who is an attorney and employee of the servicer Shellpoint) admitted under oath that MERS is not the true beneficiary of a Deed of Trust (DOT) despite claiming to do so, as the Beneficiary is the lender and MERS is not and was never the lender. The representative also admitted that the Substitution of Trustee filed by a law Firm and signed by Shellpoint (as a dba of New Penn Financial) contained a false statement that the...

Deaths from the MERS coronavirus have surged in Saudi Arabia ahead of the hajj pilgrimage, with 19 fatalities recorded in a week, according to health ministry statistics. A total of 502 people died in the kingdom since the virus first appeared in 2012, according to updated figures posted on the ministry’s website, including 19, all Saudis, since last Thursday. The number of MERS infections has also surged to 1,171 cases, the website said. A surge in infections forced health authorities to shut the emergency ward at a main hospital in Riyadh last week, after at least 46 people, including medical...

Riyadh (AFP) - MERS coronavirus infections have soared in Saudi Arabia ahead of the hajj pilgrimage, killing three people and forcing a Riyadh hospital to close its emergency ward, officials and newspapers said Thursday. Its symptoms can include fever, coughing and shortness of breath. There are no approved vaccines against MERS, which is believed to originate in camels.

After failing to criminally prosecute any of the financial firms responsible for the market collapse in 2008, former Attorney General Eric Holder is returning to Covington & Burling, a corporate law firm known for serving Wall Street clients. The move completes one of the more troubling trips through the revolving door for a cabinet secretary. Holder worked at Covington from 2001 right up to being sworn in as attorney general in Feburary 2009. And Covington literally kept an office empty for him, awaiting his return. The Covington & Burling client list has included four of the largest banks, including Bank...

Six people have died, 87 have been infected, and some 1,800 schools and kindergartens have temporarily shut their doors amid an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in South Korea. It’s likely the most significant outbreak of the disease outside the Middle East, and over the weekend, the World Health Organization released details on new cases of the disease in South Korea. It also issued a surprising piece of advice for individuals seeking to avoid infection: Drink neither raw camel milk nor camel urine. That’s perhaps not as strange as it sounds. While the exact transmission mechanisms remain unclear, it...

SEOUL, - North Korea claimed it has developed a vaccine that cures the deadly diseases MERS, SARS and AIDS. The remedy contains "rare earth resources" and includes ginseng extract, cultivated in the North Korean city of Kaesong with the aid of fertilizer, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Friday. North Korea's independently developed "Kumdang No. 2 Vaccine" was touted as an extraordinary panacea. Pyongyang's state-controlled media KCNA said the immune system activator was capable of preventing MERS, SARS, AIDS and pneumonia, South Korean newspaper Hankook Ilbo reported. The claims remain dubious, if not absurd, according to South Korea media....

A German hospital says a 65-year-old man who survived the Middle East respiratory syndrome but was left weakened has died of a lung infection. Michael Schiffbaenker, a spokesman for the Niels-Stensen group of hospitals, said Tuesday the man died earlier this month in a facility in Lower Saxony. He said the hospital had agreed with the family not to release details of the fatal infection ... Authorities say the man appears to have caught MERS in February during a trip to Abu Dhabi.

In a bar in Seoul’s upmarket Gangnam district this week, music was blasting from the speakers and Harry Potter played on a giant flat-screen television; but the electronic darts board and kung fu video game stands were bereft of customers, and all but one of the tables were empty. The barman had a simple answer for the unusual lack of business: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers). South Korea on Friday reported three more deaths from Mers, in what has become the largest outbreak of the virus outside Saudi Arabia, with more than a dozen deaths in the past few weeks...

Authorities also reported six new cases of infection from the virus, raising the total to 25 since the first case was confirmed in May. That infection was of a 68-year-old South Korean man who had visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. South Korea is considering an overseas travel ban for almost 700 people isolated for possible infection from the virus. However, authorities said on Tuesday there is insufficient evidence to declare an epidemic. Of the six new cases reported Tuesday, two are people who didn’t come into contact with the original carrier, authorities said. Instead, they contracted...