by Dr. Joseph Mercola
December 18, 202
from
Mercola Website
Real scientists and medical professionals around the world have
balked over PCR testing methods used to determine "cases" of
COVID-19.
Their scientific opinions are being totally suppressed and
marginalized to keep the Technocrat narrative alive.
What is that narrative? The destruction of the global economic
system that is based on Capitalism and Free Enterprise.
What is the
intended outcome?
The Great Reset as proposed by the World Economic
Forum and United Nations and backed by central banks, the BIS, the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, global corporations and
even Pope Francis.
The same people who drive
climate alarmism are driving the pandemic
hysteria.
They are using the same type of bastardized science to
convince the world that their alarm is real and that Sustainable
Development, aka
Technocracy, is the only answer.
Unfortunately, exposing the bad science behind
PCR testing will not
stop the practice any more than exposing the cracked science behind
global warming claims stopped climate alarmism.
They are not
interested in real science but are merely using it as a means to a
dystopian end.
Source
Story at-a-glance
-
Experts are now coming forward in growing numbers
denouncing mass PCR testing as foolhardy and nonsensical
if not outright criminal
-
PCR
tests cannot distinguish between "live" viruses and
inactive (noninfectious) viral particles and therefore
cannot be used as a diagnostic tool. They also cannot
confirm that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for
clinical symptoms as the test cannot rule out diseases
caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens
-
The
tests have exceptionally high false result rates. The
higher the cycle threshold (CT) - i.e., the number of
amplification cycles used to detect RNA particles - the
greater the chance of a false positive. Beyond 34
cycles, your chance of a positive PCR test being a true
positive shrinks to zero
-
Florida recently became the first state to require all
labs in the state to report the CT used for their PCR
tests
-
The
SARS-CoV-2 PCR test was developed based on a genetic
sequence published by Chinese scientists, not the viral
isolate. Missing genetic code was simply made up
COVID-19 Testing Scandal Deepens
Positive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)
tests have been used as the justification for keeping large portions
of the world locked down for the past nine months.
Not reliable
hospitalization or death rates; just positive PCR test numbers - a
large portion of which are from people who have no symptoms of
actual illness - are the triggers behind the shutdowns.
Experts are now coming forward in growing numbers denouncing mass
PCR testing as foolhardy and nonsensical if not outright criminal.
Why...?
Because we're now finding
that PCR tests rarely tell us anything truly useful, at least not
when they're used as they have been so far.
Why PCR Tests Are the
Wrong Tool to Assess Pandemic Threat
We now know that PCR tests:
-
Cannot
distinguish between "live" viruses and inactive
(noninfectious) viral particles and therefore cannot be used
as a diagnostic tool. For this reason, it is grossly
misleading to refer to a positive test as a "COVID-19
'case'."
As explained by Dr. Lee Merritt in her August 2020 Doctors
for Disaster Preparedness 1 lecture, featured in "How Medical
Technocracy Made the Plandemic Possible," media and public
health officials appear to have purposefully conflated
"cases" or positive tests with the actual illness.
Medically speaking, a "case" refers to a sick person. It
never ever referred to someone who had no symptoms of
illness.
Now all of a
sudden, this well-established medical term, "case," has been
arbitrarily redefined to mean someone who tested positive
for the presence of noninfectious viral RNA. As noted by
Merritt, "That is not epidemiology. That's fraud."
-
Cannot confirm
that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms
as the test cannot rule out diseases caused by other
bacterial or viral pathogens.
-
Have not been
established for monitoring the treatment of 2019-nCoV
infection.
-
Have
exceptionally high false result rates - The higher the cycle
threshold (CT) - i.e., the number of amplification cycles
used to detect RNA particles - the greater the chance of a
false positive.
While any CT over 35 is
deemed scientifically unjustifiable, 2,3,4 the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) recommend running PCR
tests at a CT of 40. 5
Drosten tests and tests recommended by the World Health Organization
are set to a CT of 45.
These excessively high
CTs guarantee the appearance of widespread (pandemic) infection when
infection rates are in fact low.
The CT Is the
Key to the Pandemic
Many if not most laboratories amplify the RNA collected far too many
times, which results in healthy people testing "positive" for
SARS-CoV-2 infection and being ordered to take off work and
self-isolate for two weeks.
To optimize accuracy and avoid imposing unnecessary hardship on
healthy people, PCR tests must be run at far fewer cycles than the
40 to 45 CTs currently recommended.
Beyond 34 cycles, your chance of a positive PCR test being a true
positive shrinks to zero.
An April 2020 study 6 in the European Journal of Clinical
Microbiology & Infectious Diseases showed that to get 100% confirmed
real positives, the PCR test must be run at 17 cycles.
Above 17
cycles, accuracy drops dramatically.
By the time you get to 33 cycles, the accuracy rate is a mere 20%,
meaning 80% are false positives.
Beyond 34 cycles, your chance of a
positive PCR test being a true positive shrinks to zero, as
illustrated in the following graph from that study. 7
By running PCR tests at 40 to 45 amplification cycles, you end up
with the false appearance of an outbreak, and this grossly flawed
testing scheme is what government leaders are basing their mask
mandates and lockdown orders on.
Percentage of positive viral culture of SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive
nasopharyngeal samples from Covid-19 patients, according to Ct value
(plain line).
The dashed curve
indicates the polynomial regression curve.
Scientific
Review Confirms PCR Flaws
More recently, a December 3, 2020, systematic review 8 published in
the journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases assessed the findings of
29 different studies - all of which were published in 2020 -
comparing evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection with the CTs used in
testing.
They also looked at the
timing of the test, and how symptom severity relates to PCR test
results.
As reported by the
authors:
"The data suggest a
relationship between the time from onset of symptom to the
timing of the specimen test, cycle threshold (CT) and symptom
severity.
Twelve studies
reported that CT values were significantly lower and log copies
higher in specimens producing live virus culture.
Two studies reported the odds of live virus culture reduced by
approximately 33% for every one unit increase in CT.
Six of eight studies
reported detectable RNA for longer than 14 days but infectious
potential declined after day 8 even among cases with ongoing
high viral loads..."
In other words, if you
have symptoms of COVID-19, by Day 8 from the onset of symptoms, the
chances of you spreading it to others starts to decline, and in the
days following, you are unlikely to be infectious even if you still
test positive.
This is particularly true
if the PCR test is using a higher than ideal CT.
As noted by the authors:
9
"Complete live
viruses are necessary for transmission, not the fragments
identified by PCR.
Prospective routine
testing of reference and culture specimens and their
relationship to symptoms, signs and patient co-factors should be
used to define the reliability of PCR for assessing infectious
potential.
Those with high cycle
threshold are unlikely to have infectious potential."
Live Virus
Unlikely in Tests Using CT Above 24
According to The New York Times, 10 researchers have been,
"unable to grow the
coronavirus out of samples from volunteers whose PCR tests had
CT values above 27",
...and if the virus
cannot replicate, you will not get ill and are not infectious, so
you cannot spread it to others.
The Clinical Infectious Diseases review 11 confirms this.
Under the heading "The
Relationship Between RT-PCR Results and Viral Culture of
SARS-CoV-2," 12 they point out that "significantly lower" CTs were
used in studies that correctly identified infectious patients.
Five of the studies included were unable to identify any live
viruses in cases where a positive PCR test had used a CT above 24.
What's more, in order to produce live virus culture, a patient whose
PCR test used a CT at or above 35 had to be symptomatic.
So, to clarify,
if you have symptoms of COVID-19 and test positive
using a PCR test that was run at 35 amplification cycles or higher,
then you are likely to be infected and infectious.
However, if you do not have symptoms, yet test positive using a PCR
test run at 35 CTs or higher, then it is likely a false positive and
you pose no risk to others as you're unlikely to carry any live
virus.
In fact, provided you're asymptomatic, you're unlikely to be
infectious even if you test positive with a test run at 24 CTs or
higher.
Timing of PCR
Test Also Matters
The Clinical Infectious Diseases review also confirmed that the
timing of the test matters.
According to the
authors: 13
"...there appears to
be a time window during which RNA detection is at its highest
with low cycle threshold and higher possibility of culturing a
live virus, with viral load and probability of growing live
virus of SARS-CoV2...
We propose that further work should be done on this with the aim
of constructing an algorithm for integrating the results of PCR
with other variables, to increase the effectiveness of detecting
infectious patients."
Another scientific
review 14,15 that looked into how the timing of the test influences
results and your risk of being infectious was posted on the preprint
server medRxiv September 29, 2020.
Fourteen studies were
included in this review.
The data show that your chances of getting a true positive on the
first day of COVID-19 symptom onset is only about 40%.
Not until Day
3 from symptom onset do you have an 80% chance of getting an
accurate PCR result.
By Day 5 the accuracy shrinks considerably and by Day 8 the accuracy
is nil.
Now, these are symptomatic people.
When you're asymptomatic,
your odds of a positive PCR test being accurate is virtually
nonexistent.
The graph below, from one of the studies 16 included in the review
(Bullard et. al.), illustrates the probability of a patient being
infectious (having live virus) based on the CT used and the timing
of the test.
As explained by the
review authors: 17
"The figure... shows
how the probability of SARS-CoV-2 infectious virus is greater
(the red bars) when the cycle threshold is lower (the blue line)
and when symptoms to test time is shorter - beyond 8 days, no
live virus was detected."
Florida to
Require Disclosure of CT Data
Even though health authorities know that high CTs result in high
rates of false positives, they do not specify the CT used for the
PCR tests they're reporting.
Fortunately, that's about
to change in Florida, which just became the first state to require
all labs in the state to report the CT used for their PCR tests.
18
The Florida Health Department issued the order December 3,
2020, and labs must comply with the new mandatory reporting rule
within seven days. 19
This could prove quite interesting, especially if the state health
department decides to invalidate positive results obtained from
tests run above a certain amplification threshold.
Time will tell exactly
how this reporting requirement might influence pandemic response
measures such as
mask mandates and
lockdowns.
Portugal Rules
Quarantine Based on PCR Results Is Unlawful
In related news, an appeals court in Portugal recently ruled
20,21
that the PCR test is,
"not a reliable test
for SARS-CoV-2" and that "a single positive PCR test cannot be
used as an effective diagnosis of infection."
Therefore,
"any enforced
quarantine based on the results is unlawful." 22
The court also noted that
forcing healthy people to self-isolate could be a violation of their
fundamental right to liberty.
The case was brought by
four German tourists who had been forced to self-quarantine after
one of them tested positive.
Several scientific studies were brought forth as evidence in this
case, including a September 28, 2020, study 23 in Clinical Infectious
Diseases, which found that when you run a PCR test at a CT of 35 or
higher, the accuracy drops to 3%, resulting in a 97% false positive
rate.
The court ruled that,
based on the science presented,
any PCR test using a CT over 25 is
unreliable....
Fatal Errors
Found in Paper on Which PCR Testing Is Based
The Portuguese appeals court is not alone in its critique of the PCR
test being used as the sole criteria for quarantine.
November 30, 2020, the
scientific paper 24 describing the work flow of how to use the PCR
test to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 infection - which was quickly accepted
as the standard by
the WHO and applied across the world - was
challenged 25 by 22 international scientists who demand
that the paper be retracted due to "fatal errors." 26
The paper in question was written by Christian Drosten,
Ph.D., a German virologist, and Victor Corman, who heads a
German working group on virus diagnostics and clinical virology.
According to Reiner
Fuellmich, 27 founding member of the German Corona
Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (Außerparlamentarischer Corona
Untersuchungsausschuss, 28 or ACU), 29,30 Drosten is a key culprit in
the COVID-19 pandemic hoax.
One of the key "fatal errors" in the Corman-Drosten paper is that
they wrote it - and developed the PCR test - before there was any
viral isolate available.
All they used was the
genetic sequence published online by Chinese scientists in
January 2020.
Interestingly, the paper
was published a mere 24 hours after it was submitted, which suggests
it wasn't even peer-reviewed before being embraced by the whole
world.
Undercover DC interviewed Kevin Corbett, Ph.D., one of
the 22 scientists who are now demanding the paper's retraction, who
stated: 31
"Every scientific
rationale for the development of that test has been totally
destroyed by this paper. It's like Hiroshima/Nagasaki to the
COVID test.
When Drosten developed the test, China hadn't given them a viral
isolate. They developed the test from a sequence in a gene bank.
Do you see? China
gave them a genetic sequence with no corresponding viral
isolate. They had a code, but no body for the code. No viral
morphology.
In the fish market, it's like giving you a few bones and saying
'that's your fish.' It could be any fish... Listen, the
Corman-Drosten paper, there's nothing from a patient in it. It's
all from gene banks.
And the bits of the
virus sequence that weren't there they made up.
They synthetically created them to fill in the blanks. That's
what genetics is; it's a code. So, its ABBBCCDDD and you're
missing some, what you think is EEE, so you put it in...
This is basically a
computer virus.
There are 10 fatal errors in this Drosten test paper... But here
is the bottom line: There was no viral isolate to validate what
they were doing. The PCR products of the amplification didn't
correspond to any viral isolate at that time.
I call it 'donut ring
science.' There is nothing at the center of it. It's all about
code, genetics, nothing to do with reality...
There have since been papers saying they've produced viral
isolates. But there are no controls for them. The CDC produced a
paper in July... where they said:
'Here's the viral
isolate.'
Do you know what they
did...?
They swabbed one person. One person, who'd been to China
and had cold symptoms. One person. And they assumed he had
[COVID-19] to begin with.
So, it's all full of
holes, the whole thing."
No Viable
Virus Found in Positive Cases
The critique against PCR testing is further strengthened by a
November 20, 2020, study 32 in Nature Communications, which found no
viable virus in PCR-positive cases.
The study evaluated data
from 9,865,404 residents of Wuhan, China, who had undergone PCR
testing between May 14 and June 1, 2020. A total of 300 tested
positive but had no symptoms.
Of the 34,424 people with a history of
COVID-19, 107 tested positive a second time.
Yet when they did virus
cultures on these 407 individuals who had tested positive (either
for the first or second time), no live virus was found...
Expose the Fraud, End
the Misery
A number of experts have now come forward, calling out the COVID-19
pandemic as a cruel hoax perpetuated by fatally flawed testing.
Aside from this testing
data, there's no evidence of a lethal pandemic at all. While there
is such a thing as COVID-19, and people have and do die from it,
there are no excess deaths due to it. 33,34,35
In other words,
the total mortality for 2020
is normal.
The pandemic
has not killed more people than would die in any given year - from
something, anything - anyway.
So, unless we think we
should shut down the world and stop living because people die from
heart disease, diabetes, cancer, the flu or anything else, then
there's no reason to shut down the world because some people happen
to die from COVID-19.
The good news is,
the hoax is starting to be
exposed, and will
continue to be exposed as more cases are brought before the courts
of the world...
Reiner
Fuellmich and his ACU
legal team are leading that charge.
As for what you can do in
the meantime, consider:
-
Turning off
mainstream media
news and turning to independent experts. Do the research.
Read through the science.
-
Continue to
counter the censorship by asking questions - The more
questions are asked, the more answers will come to light.
Arm yourself with mortality statistics and the facts on PCR
testing, so you can explain how and why this pandemic simply
isn't a pandemic anymore.
-
If you are
a medical professional, especially if you're a member of a
professional society, write an open letter to your
government, urging them to speak to and heed recommendations
from independent experts.
-
Sign
The Great Barrington
Declaration,
36
which calls for an end to lockdowns.
-
Join a
group so that you can have support. Examples of groups
formed to fight against government overreach include:
-
Us for Them, a
group campaigning for reopening schools and protecting
children's rights in the U.K.
-
The
COVID Recovery Group (CRG), founded by 50 conservative
British MPs to fight lockdown restrictions
37
-
The
Freedom to Breathe
Agency, a U.S. team of attorneys, doctors, business
owners and parents who are fighting to protect freedom
and liberty
Sources and References
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