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by Jon Rappoport
March 17, 2014
from
JonRappoport Website
At
Gilead Sciences, they're popping
champagne corks. They've got a blockbuster drug, a once in a
lifetime winner,
Sovaldi.
As FiercePharma
reports:
"With a revolutionary approach to
hepatitis C and a price tag of $84,000 per 12-week treatment
course, analysts expected big sales from Gilead's Sovaldi.
Some even forecast it would reach $9
billion or more by 2017, at which level it would surpass
Pfizer's Lipitor to take the crown for biggest-selling drug of
all time.
But none expected the exponential
growth the drug is posting right now…"
A drug for hepatitis C. What a drug,
what a price. $84,000 for 12 weeks of treatment...
So… what is hepatitis C?
Back in the day, there was one US mainstream reporter who wrote
unflinchingly about medical matters: the late Nick Regush, at
ABC News. He had serious questions about hepatitis C.
In his weekly column,
he wrote:
"Consider this a challenge in
progress. This scientific adventure raises the question of
whether the hepatitis C virus, blamed for a major silent
epidemic of liver disease and even cancer, actually exists.
That's right. You read this
correctly: I am raising a question that may disturb scientists
and hepatitis C patients alike. But I'm raising it anyway
because it is vital to do so in the interests of public health.
I'm issuing a challenge to the
scientific community to present me with the published,
peer-reviewed scientific evidence that such a virus actually
exists - namely that it has been properly isolated, according to
accepted, fundamental principles of virology."
Source
If the medical community decides a
particular disease exists, then they are also saying there is a
particular germ that causes it.
Regush was challenging the medical community to offer proof that the
hepatitis C virus exists.
Regush pulled no punches:
"Thus far, I should tell you, I'm
underwhelmed by the evidence for the existence of such a virus…
I've decided to offer those who believe the science supporting
the virus is adequate the opportunity to educate me on the
subject…
You can do this by providing me with
key references for proof that hepatitis C virus is real and not
some meaningless biotech concoction posing as a real virus.
I plan to ignore any speculative
theories, pole-vaults in reaching conclusions and the usual
harangues from the medical and scientific community about the
stupidity and irresponsibility of journalists."
Source
Regush provides background:
"In 1987, a scientific research team
went on the hunt for a virus to explain liver disease linked to
what was then called non-A non-B hepatitis. The team, including
scientists from the CDC, Chiron Corp. and others, claimed to
have detected HCV [hepatitis C virus]."
Then Regush applies the real daggers:
"But to this day, no one has ever
been able to isolate such a virus in an intact form, nor has
anyone been able to grow it in a culture. And no one has been
able to fish out such a virus, purify it (meaning separate it
from a cell), inject it into an animal and cause hepatitis. No
one has ever been able to document, according to basic long-held
standards of virology, that such a proposed virus is infectious.
No one.
"From the beginning, the researchers presumed too much in making
their claim. They began by injecting blood from hepatitis
patients into chimps. In half of the animals, they noted signs
of infection in the form of a biological marker of hepatitis
called
alanine aminotransferase.
The injected blood, however, did not
cause hepatitis [disease]. That should have been a big red flag.
The marker they detected may have had nothing to do with a
virus. In any case, the scientists began fishing in liver tissue
to find one.
"What they found, with the use of high-tech amplification tools,
was essentially a small piece of genetic information (encoded in
ribonucleic acid, or RNA). On the basis of tests to reconstruct
pieces of what they believed was a virus, they presumed that
this bit of RNA was foreign and viral - even though they had no
basic evidence that their 'catch' behaved like a virus. [And
they could take pictures of this unidentified material with an
electron microscope and publish them, calling them 'the
hepatitis C virus.']
"But never mind. Just clone the pieces of genetic information;
work out the genetic sequences; using indirect methods, generate
proteins presumably coming from a virus's genetic code; create
an antibody test against this genetic information; test many
patients who turn out to be positive against this genetic
information - and lo and behold, you have an epidemic."
Source
Regush challenged researchers to come
forward and debate him, publicly, on the question of whether the
hepatitis C virus actually exists. To my knowledge, no one did...
Instead, Regush received a flood of letters from hepatitis C
patients and groups. Many of these letters attacked him, and he even
received death threats.
But, no problem. Hepatitis C and its virus exist merely because
the medical cartel says 'they do', and they just keep
driving their steamroller over doubts and questions.
And Sovaldi, the latest and greatest
drug for treating hepatitis C, is a $$ blockbuster for the ages.
...and make billions...
Yes, there are millions of people with liver problems.
But that in itself is no proof that
the hepatitis C virus exists...!
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