Fauci: “I doubt if I’ve ever met him [Ralph Baric].”

Dr. McCullough and I often marvel at how the mainstream media somehow fails to see and report facts of enormous importance—facts that are documented in academic papers, grant proposals, e-mail correspondence, and video footage.

All a journalist has to do is read the documents and report their content. And yet, somehow, most legacy media journalists are apparently unable to gain awareness of and report what is immediately at hand.

Take the 2015 paper published by UNC Chapel Hill Professor Ralph Baric et al. titled A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence. As the authors (including Zhengli-Li Shi at the Wuhan Institute of Virology) state in their abstract:

Here we examine the disease potential of a SARS-like virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations1. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV.

The purported purpose of this Gain-of-Function work—i.e., generating a chimeric virus (combining genetic material from two different viruses) capable of infecting human airway cells—was to lay the groundwork for vaccine development and testing in the event that a wild bat coronavirus were eventually to infect humans.

Under the paper’s section titled Biosafety and biosecurity, the authors wrote:

Reported studies were initiated after the University of North Carolina Institutional Biosafety Committee approved the experimental protocol (Project Title: Generating infectious clones of bat SARS-like CoVs; Lab Safety Plan ID: 20145741; Schedule G ID: 12279). These studies were initiated before the US Government Deliberative Process Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS and SARS Viruses (http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf). This paper has been reviewed by the funding agency, the NIH. Continuation of these studies was requested, and this has been approved by the NIH.

So there it is. Ralph Baric and his colleague at the Wuhan Institute of Virology plainly state that they engineered a bat coronavirus, using Gain-of-Function methods, that infected the respiratory tract of humanized mice, and the NIH approved their study because it was initiated before the US Government pause on Gain-of-Function Research.

UNC Professor Ralph Baric

Anyone familiar with Ralph Baric’s storied career as the world’s greatest authority on bat coronaviruses (both natural and chimeric) has, for the last three years, wondered: “Where is Professor Baric? Why isn’t he an official consultant on the nature of SARS-CoV-2? Why hasn’t he been a member of any pandemic response task force?”

Until late 2022, no one in Congress, the White House, or in any of the federal health agencies ever mentioned the name Ralph Baric in any official public discussions. This is probably the most glaring omission in the history of scientific investigations. It’s the equivalent of a Congressional investigation into the development of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan without questioning or even mentioning Robert Oppenheimer or Enrico Fermi.

Finally, on November 23, 2022, Dr. Fauci was deposed by a federal judge about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. As the Epoch Times reported on March 8, 2023, the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana told a federal court in a recent filing that parts of Dr. Fauci’s testimony are not credible.

Especially conspicuous and dubious were his statements about Ralph Baric. To quote the Epoch Times report:

“I know who he is. I doubt if I’ve ever met him,” Fauci said during the late 2022 deposition—the first time he answered questions under oath since the pandemic began.

Fauci acknowledged the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he headed until around the New Year, provided funding for Baric.

“But you don’t remember ever meeting him in person?” he was asked.

“I don’t recall. I could have met him. I run into several thousands of scientists that we refer to, but I don’t recall, certainly, having a relationship with him,” Fauci responded.

But Fauci’s official calendar lists a one-on-one meeting with Baric on Feb. 11, 2020. And a newly revealed message from a professor who recounted Baric’s account of the meeting showed they talked about man-made virus combinations.

“I talked to Ralph for a long time last night. He sounds beat,” Matt Frieman, a University of Maryland professor, wrote in a Feb. 18, 2020, message. “He said he sat in Fauci’s office talking about the outbreak and chimeras.”

Why did Dr. Fauci claim he had no memory of meeting Dr. Baric and conversing with him about man-made coronaviruses?

WOKE CULT INSANITY: Half-naked man performs bondage routine in front of babies and parents, stoking outrage

Image: WOKE CULT INSANITY: Half-naked man performs bondage routine in front of babies and parents, stoking outrage

(Natural News) A video has surfaced showing dancers dressed in bondage attire and thongs performing handstands in front of parents and babies at an event that has been labeled as “absolutely abhorrent.”

The show, called CabaBabaRave, promotes itself as a “little slice of afternoon delight” that combines cabaret with “captivating baby sensory moments” before concluding with a rave. In the video, one of the performers, identified as Benloader Circus, is seen sporting bondage gear while executing acrobatic stunts from straps suspended from the ceiling as parents and their babies watch, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.

As part of the VAULT Festival, the video also shows dancers in bondage gear and thongs performing acrobatic sequences. The video goes on to show an actor performing a handstand on a chair while wearing nothing but stilettos and a thong at The Flair Ground, near Waterloo in south-east London. The show has been described as “absolutely abhorrent” and “sickening.”

Despite widespread criticism, the organizers of the CabaBabaRave show defended the event, stating that it was thoughtfully designed and that the babies in attendance would not comprehend the performance. They claimed that the show provided a “fun and inclusive environment for parents with young babies.”

Nevertheless, there is an effort underway now to get the show banned, the outlet reported:

Broadcaster Dominique Samuels, who shared the original footage on Twitter, urged people to contact the company with any concerns over safeguarding. CabaBabaRave has a sold out show on March 11, while further events are due to take place through to the end of May. The price for general admission is £25.50. 

Brighteon.TV

Sherlock actress Amanda Abbington even waded in on the debate, tweeting: “I lost quite a few followers for saying that a semi-naked man in thigh high boots dancing in a highly sexualised way shouldn’t be performing in front of babies and it tells me everything I need to know about where society is heading. How do you not agree with me on this????”

Another critic noted: “Absolutely sickening. What kind of parent would take their child to that?”

A third said: “Why would anyone think it appropriate to take their kids to one of these events?

One commentator said: “More concerned that the parents think that sort of thing is appropriate and took their babies there in the first place.”

Said another: “What parent (if we can call them that) in their right mind would subject ANY child to this. What damage is being done to these young minds; parents are there to protect children from this type of behaviour. Why is this being allowed to continue??”

An advertisement for the show at a local pub describes how the cabaret was created by two mothers who “were constantly looking to be entertained whilst holding a baby in one hand and a pint in the other.”

“We wanted to create the type of event we ourselves as Mums would want to go to. There’s only so many times you can listen to the f****** Wheels on the Bus! We wanted to give parents the experience of a ‘big London night out’..cabaret, drinks and dancing.. but one you can bring your baby to and still be home for bedtime,” said the show’s creators.

VAULT Festival released a statement on Twitter addressing comments made on social media regarding CABABABARAVE, which is part of the 2023 VAULT Festival program.

“The cabaret show is designed for parents, with sensory moments for babies, and is a fun and welcoming space for parents with young babies,” the festival organizers said. “VAULT Festival exists to support live performance and artistic talent and is proud to platform events that are welcoming and accessible for all, with audience safety always as a top priority.

“We stand against the inexcusable threats of violence and assault against our programmed artists, our staff, and directed at the LGBTQIA+ community, and are supporting the affected artists,” they added.

What they obviously don’t stand for is decency and the appropriateness of content for small children. Then again, there are the parents who bring their kids to such events.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

NaturalNews.com

Bank collapse contagion? Customers line up to take their money out of First Republic Bank

Image: Bank collapse contagion? Customers line up to take their money out of First Republic Bank

(Natural News) Customers of First Republic Bank in Southern California are lining up outside bank branches, eager to withdraw their funds in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

SVB’s collapse has raised fears that First Republic could suffer a similar bank run that could lead to its own demise. Analysts have even pointed out the similarities between SVB and First Republic’s estimated value of assets versus actual value. (Related: Silicon Valley Bank has now collapsed, and 95% of deposits were uninsured.)

This fear led to First Republic losing 33 percent of its value during the week SVB collapsed, and another 61.8 percent on Monday, March 13.

First Republic is the 14th largest bank in the United States, with more than $213 billion in reported assets. Like SVB, the bank heavily relies on customer deposits. In SVB’s case, it was technology startups and venture capital investors. In First Republic’s case, it is wealthy individuals, many of whom are now deciding to trust other banks with their savings and assets.

Several branches already reporting bank runs following SVB crash

The bank, founded in San Francisco in 1985, has 80 branches in 11 states nationwide, with most branches concentrated on the West and East coasts. Several bank branches have already reported bank runs caused by dozens of customers lining up early in the morning to withdraw their assets or close their accounts entirely.

The bank runs began on Saturday, March 11, the morning after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was seized by federal authorities. At least four First Republic branches have reported bank runs, including two branches in Los Angeles – one on the outskirts of the city and another along San Vicente Boulevard – as well as a branch in San Francisco and in neighboring Brentwood.

Brighteon.TV

First Republic executives spent the entire weekend attempting to reassure their clients that their money is safe. The bank released a statement saying “the additional borrowing capacity from the Federal Reserve, continued access to funding through the Federal Home Loan Bank and ability to access additional financing through JPMorgan Chase and Company increases, diversified and further strengthened First Republic’s existing liquidity profile.”

“First Republic’s capital and liquidity positions are very strong, and its capital remains well above the regulatory threshold for well-capitalized banks,” said founder Jim Herbert and CEO Mike Roffler in a statement.

Other banks experiencing declines in shares following SVB collapse

In light of SVB’s collapse, several other banks have also reported declining bank shares. This includes PacWest Bancorp, whose shares dropped 45 percent, and Western Alliance Bancorp, which lost more than 47 percent of its share value.

They are followed by Zions Bancorporation and KeyCorp, whose shares fell 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively. Other financial firms reporting added pressures following SVB’s collapse include Bank of America, whose value slipped by nearly six percent, and Charles Schwab, which tumbled more than 11 percent.

These banks, along with First Republic, experienced several trading halts throughout the day as shares tumbled quickly. First Republic is currently down 67 percent, with a share costing $28.05. On Friday, March 10, a share was worth around $47.45.

“The real issue for the industry is that there is a crisis of confidence in the stickiness of deposits and when that becomes dislocated, things can move very quickly,” said Christopher McGratty, head of U.S. Bank Research at investment bank KBW.

Citi analyst Keith Horowitz noted that other banks with a high degree of uninsured deposits, like SVB, could be at risk of large withdrawals within the next few weeks.

“We believe regionals with less diversified and large uninsured deposit bases are at risk of deposit flight, but not at the speed of SVB and they should have time to tap wholesale funding markets … and raise cash levels,” wrote Horowitz in a note to clients. “In a fragile environment like we are in, we believe banks should be cautious about the potential negative signaling effect of raising deposit rates to keep deposits.”

Learn more about bank failures, especially Silicon Valley Bank’s sudden demise, at Risk.news.

Watch this clip from “Wake Up America” on Newsmax as host Carl Higbie and guest media strategist Dennis Kneale discuss how Silicon Valley Bank’s sudden collapse is a warning for the state of the American economy.

This is from the News Clips channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Silicon Valley Bank crisis: The liquidity crunch we predicted has now begun.

The non-bailout BAILOUT commences – total system collapse temporarily averted with emergency liquidity flood.

Silicon Valley Bank collapse biggest since Great Recession as FDIC promises to cover ALL deposits, not just first $250K (UPDATED).

“WOKE” MARGIN CALL: John Perez and Mike Adams detail the risk of MORE bank collapses after “WOKE” SVB bites the dust, prioritizing TRANS awareness over RISK awareness.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

CNBC.com

NBCBayArea.com

Reuters.com

Bloomberg.com

Brighteon.com

Silicon Valley Bank collapse sends investors scrambling toward bonds, gold

Image: Silicon Valley Bank collapse sends investors scrambling toward bonds, gold

(Natural News) The collapse of California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) sent investors scrambling toward bonds and gold to keep their assets safe.

SVB failed on March 10 after a bank run depleted its funds. The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation subsequently seized the bank and put it under the receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Three days later, on March 13, the FDIC-administered successor of the failed bank began operations.

On the same day, investors flocked to U.S. Treasury securities and gold – two assets traditionally considered safe havens during periods of economic collapse. Bond yields incidentally fell, while gold prices spiked.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell nearly 20 basis points to 3.50 percent, the lowest level since Feb. 3. Meanwhile, the yield on the two-year Treasury fell by more than 40 basis points to 4.16 percent, also the lowest in more than five weeks.

Gold prices hit their highest mark since early February at $1,893.96. U.S. gold futures also saw a 1.2 percent climb to $1,889.

“Angst about what might be ‘the next shoe to fall’ spread through the markets like wildfire,” said Oppenheimer Asset Management Chief Investment Strategist John Stoltzfus. “We continue to believe that while we are not yet out of the woods.”

SVB’s collapse marked the second-largest U.S. banking failure of all time; the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual was the biggest.

Fed, Treasury Department bailing out SVB with “no bailouts”

The FDIC, Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury addressed SVB’s failure in a March 12 joint statement. They assured Americans that the deposits of everyone affected will be covered – not just those $250,000 and smaller. (Related: Silicon Valley Bank collapse biggest since Great Recession as FDIC promises to cover ALL deposits, not just first $250K (UPDATED).)

Brighteon.TV

“After receiving a recommendation for the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve and consulting with the president, [Treasury Secretary Janet] Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of [SVB] … in a manner that fully protects all depositors,” the statement said.

“Depositors will have access to all of their money starting March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of [SVB] will be borne by the taxpayer.”

The statement also mentioned that a similar scheme would apply to Signature Bank, which had been ordered closed by the New York State Department of Financial Services on March 12.

“All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of [SVB], no losses will be borne by the taxpayer,” the joint statement assured.

Health Ranger Mike Adams begged to differ, however. In a March 13 post on Natural News, he warned that FDIC’s move to insure everyone’s deposits will only bring the U.S. closer to economic collapse.

“Normally, the FDIC covers only $250,000 in deposits per person or institution. The problem is that [it] only had slightly over $100 billion in funds to carry this out, yet the total bank deposits held across America are approaching $10 trillion.”

In effect, Adams stated that the FDIC can only cover about one percent of bank deposits in America. To address this, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve would have to print more and more money to prop up the FDIC-controlled banks that insured people’s deposits.

“This is going to dilute the value of dollars and cause huge inflation increases across all the products you normally buy – such as groceries, housing, clothing, fuel and so on. All this printed money is created as debt on the shoulders of U.S. taxpayers,” remarked the Natural News and Brighteon.com founder.

Collapse.news has more stories about the failure of SVB.

Listen to the full March 13 edition of Health Ranger Mike Adams’ “Situation Update” where he touches on the “no-bailout” bailout for SVB below.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Silicon Valley Bank crisis: The liquidity crunch we predicted has now begun.

Latest bank to collapse is same one that closed Trump’s accounts after Jan 6th.

The Non-Bailout BAILOUT commences – total system collapse temporarily averted with emergency liquidity flood.

Sources include:

CNBC.com

FederalReserve.gov

NaturalNews.com

Brighteon.com

CLAIM: Signature Bank shut down and seized by feds to send warning message to crypto industry

Image: CLAIM: Signature Bank shut down and seized by feds to send warning message to crypto industry

(Natural News) Federal regulators on Sunday, March 12, announced that they were intervening to shut down Signature Bank. The bank’s director claims it was seized to send banks a message to stay away from cryptocurrencies.

This decision was made two days after Signature Bank customers, spooked by the overnight collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, withdrew more than $10 billion in deposits from the bank. The bank run quickly led to Signature Bank’s collapse, making it the third-largest bank in the United States to collapse. At the end of 2022, the New York-based bank had 40 branches, assets of $110.36 billion and deposits of $88.59 billion. (Related: Latest bank to collapse is same one that closed Trump’s accounts after Jan 6th.)

By comparison, Silicon Valley Bank had $209 billion in assets at the time of failure. The largest bank failure was Washington Mutual in 2008 with $307 billion in assets at the time of failure.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the closure decision was made in collaboration with federal partners and the state’s chartering authority to “stabilize the banking sector and protect the hard-earned money of New Yorkers whose livelihoods depend on impacted companies.”

“I’m grateful that the federal regulators have taken steps to do just that, and I hope that these actions will provide increased confidence in the stability of our banking system,” said Hochul. “Many depositors at these banks are small businesses, including those driving the innovation economy, and their success is key to New York’s robust economy.”

Brighteon.TV

Signature Bank has nearly $18 billion in crypto-related deposits

In December 2022, Signature Bank had around $17.79 billion in cryptocurrency-related deposits. At the time, bank executives announced that they would shrink this massive crypto investment by about $8 billion to reduce risk in “a challenging cryptocurrency environment.”

Signature Bank, founded in 2001 to be a more business-friendly alternative to big banks, opened itself up to the crypto industry in 2018. Since then, it has helped turbocharge deposit growth. The bank even created a 24/7 payments network for cryptocurrency clients.

Barney Frank, a member of Signature Bank’s board of directors and a Democrat from Massachusetts who served in the House of Representatives from 1981 to 2013, claims that state officials behind the action wanted to make an example out of Signature Bank to warn other banks and finance companies against participating in the crypto industry.

“I think part of what happened was that regulators wanted to send a very strong anti-crypto message,” said Frank. “We became the poster boy because there was no insolvency based on the fundamentals.”

“This was just a way to tell people, ‘We don’t want you dealing with crypto,’” added Frank. He noted how the bank’s former executives were given no recourse and no warning by state and federal authorities. But he does expect some vindication when Signature is finally sold.

“I believe they’re going to get a very good price,” said Frank. “Proof that it was not a bank problem.”

For her part, Hochul denied that Signature Bank’s involvement in crypto was a factor in its shuttering. She said the bank run was intensifying, making the shut down necessary.

New York Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne Harris went further by saying Signature wasn’t a crypto bank. “This is not about a particular sector in the case of Signature Bank, but we moved quickly to make sure depositors were protected.”

Learn more about the collapse of Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank at DebtBomb.news.

Watch this clip from “Reality Rants” with Jason Bermas as he discusses how the collapse of Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank is just the beginning, and America is sitting on top of a $620 billion ticking time bomb.

This video is from the Red Voice Media channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Silicon Valley Bank crisis: The liquidity crunch we predicted has now begun.

The non-bailout BAILOUT commences – total system collapse temporarily averted with emergency liquidity flood.

Silicon Valley Bank collapse biggest since Great Recession as FDIC promises to cover ALL deposits, not just first $250K (UPDATED).

“WOKE” MARGIN CALL: John Perez and Mike Adams detail the risk of MORE bank collapses after “WOKE” SVB bites the dust, prioritizing TRANS awareness over RISK awareness.

Silicon Valley Bank has now collapsed, and 95% of deposits were uninsured.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

APNews.com

CNBC.com

Brighteon.com

Lyme: The Government Has Been Making Bugs More Deadly

lyme government making bugs more deadly

  • In her book, “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons,” Kris Newby reviews the circumstantial evidence suggesting the organism that causes Lyme disease may originally have been developed as a biological weapon

  • An estimated 476,000 Americans are diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease each year, and prevalence is rising

  • Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks (and sometimes other biting insects) infected with the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. There are about two dozen species of B. burgdorferi with hundreds of strains worldwide, many of which are resistant to antibiotics

  • Ticks can also carry other pathogens, and coinfections are another reason why Lyme disease is so difficult to treat

  • A major challenge with Lyme disease is that its symptoms imitate so many other disorders, including multiple sclerosis (MS), arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and even Alzheimer’s disease, making proper identification difficult and time consuming

Visit Mercola Market

Advertisement

In a February 28, 2023, Substack article,

investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker interviewed award-winning author Kris Newby about the U.S. government’s history of manipulating pathogens to make them deadlier, and the secretive federal research that may be responsible for the epidemic of Lyme disease.

Newby, who educates health care providers on vector-borne diseases, is the author of “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons.” She also produced the 2008 Lyme disease documentary “Under Our Skin,”

which was nominated for an Academy Award the following year.

A follow-up film, “Under Our Skin 2: Emergence” came out in 2014.

As is the case with many people who end up becoming experts at a particular disease, Newby and her husband contracted Lyme disease in 2002 during a vacation at Martha’s Vineyard. “We were desperately ill and undiagnosed for a year. I thought that was the end of my life as I knew it. It took us four or five years to fully recover,” she told Thacker.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 476,000 Americans are diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease each year.

While exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, what is known is that the prevalence is rising, and this is true across the world. Outbreaks are also steadily creeping into northern areas with less temperate climates.

Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks (and sometimes other biting insects) infected with the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. There are about two dozen species of B. burgdorferi with hundreds of strains worldwide,

many of which are resistant to antibiotics. Research

suggests one reason for this may be that B. burgdorferi form protective biofilms around themselves, which enhances antibiotic resistance.

Another feature that makes B. burgdorferi such a formidable foe is its ability to take on different forms in your body, depending on the conditions. This clever maneuvering helps it to hide and survive. Its corkscrew-shaped form also allows it to burrow into and hide in a variety of your body’s tissues, which is why it causes such wide-ranging multisystem involvement.

“Ticks can also carry other pathogens, and coinfections are another reason why Lyme disease is so difficult to treat.”

Ticks can also carry other pathogens, and coinfections are another reason why Lyme disease is so difficult to treat, as the symptomology can be all over the place. Coinfections in many cases also don’t respond to treatment for B. burgdorferi, so a multilayered approach is frequently required to get all of the infections under control.

A “typical” case usually starts out with an expanding rash, fever, fatigue, chills and headache. As the disease progresses, additional symptoms such as muscle spasms, loss of motor coordination, arthritic pain, debilitating fatigue, heart problems, psychiatric symptoms, cognitive difficulties, and problems with vision and hearing can emerge.

For more information on identifying a Lyme disease rash, see the American Lyme Disease Foundation’s (ALDF) website.

Newby describes her personal experience:

“It’s sort of like having multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue … joint pain, all at the same time. It’s primarily a neurological disease that creates hyper-inflammation in your body. And the symptoms commonly move around your body. You can be very debilitated, unable to perform the tasks of a normal adult …

There is a growing body of scientific evidence that shows that the Lyme disease bacterium is a trickster that is good at dodging your immune system.

It comes out of the tick in a very mobile spirochetal form and, when it senses an antibiotic or killer cells, it goes into a dormant cyst form, hiding out for months to years. And when your immune system is stressed, it can start causing disease again.”

A major challenge with Lyme disease is that its symptoms imitate so many other disorders, including multiple sclerosis (MS), arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and even Alzheimer’s disease, making proper identification difficult and time consuming.

What’s worse, many Lyme sufferers outwardly look quite healthy, and their blood work often raises no cause for concern, which is why Lyme disease has also been called “the invisible illness.”

In the past, Lyme sufferers were frequently told that their problem was psychiatric; in essence, the symptoms were “all in their head.” Today, Lyme is becoming more widely recognized as an actual disease, but sufferers are still often met with skepticism and resistance from the medical community and insurers.

Complicating matters further, there’s yet another tick-borne disease on the loose. Researchers have identified a tick-borne illness that is very similar to Lyme, caused by Borrelia miyamotoi.

The CDC

describes B. miyamotoi as a distant relative to B. burgdorferi, being more closely related to bacteria that cause tick-borne relapsing fever. This disease is characterized by recurring episodes of fever, headache, nausea and muscle or joint aches.

This bacterium was first identified in Japanese ticks in 1995. Since then, it’s been found in several rodent species (and the ticks that feed on them) in the U.S., as well as in ticks feeding on European red deer, domestic ruminants and white-tailed deer.

According to Newby, there’s good reason to suspect that Lyme disease might be a biological weapon. There’s no smoking gun; just circumstantial evidence. But when taken together, it forms a highly suspect picture.

She describes being at a party where a former CIA agent bragged about a Cold War operation that involved dropping infected ticks on Cuba. “At that point, I knew I wasn’t done with the story,” she told Thacker. Her book, “Bitten,” is the result of her investigation into the military’s use of infectious bioweapons.

“When we started the film, Lyme disease was already too controversial to go down the bioweapons rabbit hole, so we focused on the human toll and the corruption in the medical system that allowed this epidemic to get so out of control,” Newby told Thacker.

“This CIA guy was a little bit in his cups, but what he said rang true. I started doing some research, interviewed him several times, and found that it was a verifiable story.”

Newby also got tipped off by Willy Burgdorfer during the filming of “Under Our Skin.” Burgdorfer, a Swiss medical zoologist, is credited with discovering Lyme disease. He worked at Rocky Mountain Labs — a National Institutes of Health-run biosafety level 4 (BSL4) facility in Montana — his whole career, and had contracts with Fort Detrick, which oversees the U.S. chemical and biological weapons programs.

While he made some important admissions during that interview, at the very end, he broke into an “evil little smile” and said, “I didn’t tell you everything.” Was he hinting that Lyme disease was a bioweapon?

“He started hinting at the unnatural origin of the outbreak to several people,” Newby told Thacker. “When I interviewed him for the book, he said, ‘Yes, I was in the biological weapons program. I was tasked with trying to mass produce ticks and mosquitoes.’

That’s also when he told me that he was called to investigate the outbreak of what was called ‘Lyme disease,’ but which could’ve been caused by one or more organisms. In Army documents, they said they were conducting early gain-of-function experiments by mixing pathogens — bacteria and viruses — inside ticks to create more effective bioweapons.”

As described by Newby, the official story is that Burgdorfer was sent to investigate a novel disease outbreak in Lyme, Connecticut, and Long Island. In 1980, he discovered the bacterium that now bears his name, Borrelia burgdorferi, and determined that this was what caused the disease.

He subsequently published an article stating the organism was easily killed off with penicillin. The notion that Lyme disease is easy to diagnose and treat has stuck ever since, even though the reality is often the opposite.

Newby agrees that, if caught early, many cases can indeed be cured with an inexpensive course of doxycycline. Two other antibiotics, ceftriaxone and vancomycin, have also been shown to clear the B. burgdorferi infection in cases where doxycycline fails.

Unfortunately, Lyme disease patients often go undiagnosed for years, and by the time a diagnosis is made, the infection is well-established and very difficult to treat.

While researching for the book, Newby produced an animation of the original outbreak, which supposedly began at the mouth of the Connecticut River, near Long Island. This turned out to be rather revealing. She told Thacker:

“When I drew a 50-mile radius around that point, there were three new, highly virulent tick-borne diseases that showed up at that same time, in the late ’60s. This was 13 years before the Lyme bacterium was declared the cause of ‘Lyme disease’ in 1981.

I started looking through military records to see if the outbreak could be tied to any bioweapons accidents. And that’s when I discovered this massive bug-borne weapons program, as well as a program where germs were sprayed from airplanes over large areas, called Project 112.

Some of those germs were tick-borne diseases that they freeze-dried and aerosolized for spraying … Whatever happened in Lyme, Connecticut, we don’t have all the details. But I put together a solid circumstantial case, based on available evidence …

Burgdorfer … had worked with Q fever and ticks, experience that was needed at Rocky Mountain Labs for their bioweapons work. As soon as he got a security clearance, he started putting plague in fleas; deadly yellow fever in mosquitoes; and then mixing and matching viruses and bacteria in ticks to increase the virulence of these living weapons.

The Detrick weapons designers were looking for ticks that could be dropped on an enemy without arousing suspicion, filled with agents for which the target population wouldn’t have natural immunity … Ticks were the perfect stealth weapon, untraceable and long-acting …

I went as far as I could as a journalist to put together the circumstantial evidence that says Lyme disease is not the big problem — meaning the bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi.

It’s what Burgdorfer said that they’re covering up: 1) that a different bacteria, perhaps a rickettsia related to Rocky Mountain spotted fever, was developed as a bioweapon in the Cold War; 2) that it might be a combination of bugs inside the ticks that is making people sick.”

Since the late 1970s, the spread of Lyme disease has primarily been blamed on deer. However, more recent evidence suggests rodents like mice and rats are a far more serious threat.

Ticks are not born with the Lyme spirochetes. They pick up the bacteria when feeding on an infected host.

Research indicates that white-footed mice infect 75% to 95% of larval ticks that feed on them, while deer only infect about 1%. According to a 1996 study,

rats are even more infectious than mice, noting that “the capacity of rats to serve as reservoir hosts for the Lyme disease spirochete, therefore, increases risk of infection among visitors to … urban parks.”

Another study

published the following year also found that Norway rats and black rats were exceptionally effective hosts, infecting nearly all ticks that fed on them.

The main predators of small rodents like mice and rats are foxes, birds of prey, skunks and snakes.

Agricultural and urban sprawl have decimated the habitats of these natural predators of mice and rats, allowing disease-carrying rodent populations to rise unabated.

A big problem facing Lyme patients and their treating doctors is the difficulty of reaching a proper diagnosis.

Conventional lab tests are unreliable, and one reason for this is because the spirochete can infect your white blood cells.

Lab tests rely on the normal function of white blood cells to produce the antibodies they measure. If your white cells are infected, they don’t respond to infection appropriately. So, for blood tests to be truly useful, you need to be treated first.

Once your immune system begins to respond normally, only then will the antibodies show up. This is called the “Lyme Paradox.” You have to be treated before a proper diagnosis can be made.

That said, I recommend the specialized lab called IGeneX

because they offer highly sensitive tests for more outer surface proteins (bands), and can often detect Lyme while standard blood tests cannot. IGeneX also tests for a few strains of coinfections such as Babesia and Ehrlichia.

As if the difficulties of getting a proper diagnosis and treatment were not enough, Lyme sufferers face additional hurdles when they don’t fully recuperate after the initial treatment. Whether “chronic” Lyme disease is possible or not has been the subject of controversy for many years.

The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), which publishes guidelines for a number of infectious diseases, including Lyme disease, has long opposed the idea chronic Lyme exists, and doesn’t include long-term treatment guidance for chronic Lyme in its clinical guidelines.

This is important, as insurance companies frequently restrict coverage for long-term treatment based on IDSA’s guidelines. Physicians’ treatment decisions are also guided by its recommendations. Opposing IDSA is the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), the members of which argue that many patients suffer long-term consequences and require far longer treatment than recommended by IDSA.

Considering the difficulty of diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, taking preventive measures should be at the top of your list:

  • Avoid tick-infested areas, such as leaf piles around trees. Walk in the middle of trails and avoid brushing against long grasses and path edgings. Don’t sit on logs or wooden stumps and take extra precautions if you’re in an area where rats have been sighted.

  • Wear light-colored long pants and long sleeves, to make it easier to see the ticks.

  • Tuck your pants into socks, and wear closed shoes and a hat, especially if venturing out into wooded areas. Also tuck your shirt into your pants.

  • Ticks are very tiny. You want to find and remove them before they bite, so do a thorough tick check upon returning inside, and keep checking for several days following exposure. Also check your bedding for several days following exposure.

As for using chemical repellents, I do not recommend using them directly on your skin as this will introduce toxins directly into your body. If you use them, spray them on the outside of your clothes and avoid inhaling the spray fumes. The Environmental Protection Agency has a list

indicating the hourly protection limits for various repellents.

If you find that a tick has latched onto you, it’s very important to remove it properly. For detailed instructions, please see lymedisease.org’s tick removal page.

Once removed, make sure you save the tick so that it can be tested for presence of pathogenic organisms.

In closing, the Lyme disease epidemic and COVID-19 both appear to be the result of bioweapons development, and the real-world ramifications clearly demonstrate the risks involved. They can’t guarantee containment of the created pathogens, and sometimes, they don’t even try to contain them. In the case of Lyme disease, it’s possible that live testing is what led to the epidemic.

And while we don’t know whether SARS-CoV-2 was intentionally released or simply escaped, the end result is the same. The virus spread worldwide. If the world doesn’t wise up and realize just how suicidal these biological weapons programs are, humanity may eventually be wiped out by one of our own creations.

>”,”action”:null,”class”:null}”>NEXT ARTICLE >>

Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.