Page 18 - Winter2020

PROOF OF PATHOGENIC VIRUSES? sible. In 1973, the Pasteur Institute published guidelines for doing this.
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A number of readers have sent us studies
“proving” the existence of pathogenic viruses. • First. the virologist takes mucus or secretions from a person
In fact, one virologist claimed that “thousands with the disease.
of papers” show that isolated bacteria or viruses • The secretions are diluted and then put into a kind of blender.
cause disease. (He also tried to convince us that • The resultant liquid is then passed through a very fine filter—fine
one could sterilize one’s hands, cover them, and enough to keep out bacteria and fungi but let the viruses through;
they would remain sterile “indefinitely.”) sometimes researchers do this separation with a centrifuge. The
One of these studies, published in 2003 in resulting liquid, called a supernatant, contains the virus but lots
the prestigious journal Nature, had the promis- of other stuff as well.
ing title “Koch’s Postulates Fulfilled for SARS • The supernatant must then be ultracentrifuged in such a way as
Virus.” We discuss this study in The Contagion to get bands of particles of the same size and weight. The scientist
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Myth. The researchers claimed that severe acute can determine which band is the virus using the known size and
respiratory syndrome (SARS) is caused by a weight of viruses.
coronavirus. The title itself is misleading, not • This band is removed from the supernatant with a pipette. This
to say fraudulent, because the researchers did is the properly isolated and purified virus.
not in fact satisfy Koch’s postulates—which • The virus is then transferred to some tissue to grow and multiply.
is the common-sense way of proving that a
microbe causes disease. They did not satisfy An important point is that when the virologist has finished the puri-
Rivers’ postulates either—Rivers’ postulates fication process of macerating, filtering and ultracentrifugation, he must
are for proving that a virus causes a disease (see then take an electron micrograph of the final, purified virus to show his
sidebar, page 18). These methods involve isolat- colleagues that he has in fact successfully purified and isolated the virus.
ing and purifying a specific microbial organism Virologists have done this many times and for many different viruses.
from a number of individuals suffering from a Without an electron micrograph picture showing purification, no reputable
specific disease and then injecting the isolated, journal should publish this work. The reason is simple: scientists are es-
purified bacteria or virus into healthy organisms sentially told not to believe each other just because someone says so. If you
(animal or human). If every sick person has the say you isolated a virus, you must show the picture to prove it—period.
organism and every test subject becomes ill, Absent the picture, it could be a total fabrication. In addition, after you have
then you know that the specific microbe causes isolated and photographed the virus, other scientists in other labs need to
the specific disease. follow the exact steps that you outlined in your paper and show pictures of
Let’s focus on the process of isolating and the same isolated virus. Once a number of labs have done this, you have
purifying a virus—it’s hard to do but not impos- real proof that the virus exists. That is the way science is supposed to work.

FIGURE 1. Unpurified “virus” structures inside and outside a cell 6

16 Wise Traditions WINTER 2020