Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops (RCBZ) of the Russian Armed Forces, at a briefing burst out with another batch of revelations about US laboratories in Ukraine, where they allegedly continue to produce biological weapons (from war birds to mosquitoes).
This time, Kirillov had new evidence :
“Thus, on November 10, at the request of a non-profit organization, a three hundred and forty-five page document was received regarding the financing of the Black and Vich company and its activities on the territory of Ukraine. Please note that dozens of pages have been edited in the reports provided by the Pentagon, information about contractors, as well as the results of research activities obtained on the territory of Ukraine, has been completely removed. The published documents once again confirm the cooperation between Kyiv and Washington, as well as attempts to establish control over pathogens in Ukrainian laboratories through the introduction of the PAKS system, elements of which were transferred to Ukraine under the label "property of the US government."
Screenshots of the presentation shown by Kirillov also state that the US is funding anthrax research at a Ukrainian biolab.
Black and Veatch is indeed quite officially operating in Ukraine on the order of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the US Department of Defense. It is engaged in the reduction of biological threats. The non-profit organization that received the Black and Veatch funding report is Judicial Watch, an American conservative activist group that is known for filing numerous lawsuits against Democratic politicians for almost 30 years, as well as producing various fakes (for example, about fraud in the U.S. elections) tweeted by former U.S. President Donald Trump. Most of all, the Clinton family “gets” from Judicial Watch, whom the organization has managed to accuse of numerous murders over the years without providing a single piece of evidence. The organization also fights against climate scientists, considering the science of climate change "the science of fraud." The Judicial Watch website was also named by researchers at Northeastern, Harvard, Northwestern and Rutgers Universities as one of the top 5 fake news domains that spread false information about the coronavirus.
However, even if the document supposedly received by Judicial Watch from the Pentagon is taken for granted, there is nothing criminal in it. Some of the information has indeed been removed from there – this is mainly the personal data of laboratory employees and things that may be the subject of state secrets. As for the "activities of the anthrax laboratory", then we are probably talking about the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of this disease. There are such laboratories in Russia – for example , in the Stavropol Research Anti-Plague Institute of Rospotrebnadzor.
Then Kirillov moves on to the activities of American scientists in the United States.
“So, in October this year. At Boston University, an artificial pathogen of coronavirus infection was created based on the Omicron strain and the original "Wuhan" variant. The modified virus obtained by the Americans caused the death of 80% of diseased model animals with the development of atypical neurological symptoms and severe lung damage. A test of the protective properties of antibodies showed an 11-fold decrease in their ability to neutralize a new pathogen and the ineffectiveness of existing vaccines. Although the US Department of Health has decided to conduct an investigation into the activities of the university leadership, the conduct of the "Boston experiment" suggests that the United States does not have a system of state oversight of R&D in the field of genetic engineering and synthetic biology.
Kirillov's presentation contains a link to the British tabloid Daily Mail, which became the source of this news. However, it turned out that the journalists of the “yellow press”, in pursuit of a sensation, took the description of the study from the Boston University website and completely distorted its essence of the study, as the scientists themselves stated . They noted that the experiment had been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) and the Boston Public Health Commission. Other infectious disease specialists, later interviewed by the American television channel CBS, confirmed that this was a standard study.
The goal of this 2022 study was to determine why the micromicron variant of COVID-19 appears to cause less severe illness than the original strain of the virus and to find out which component of the virus determines its severity. To do this, the researchers compared the original COVID, Omicron, and their version together: this is where the “new strain” misinformation originated.
But experts say it's common practice.
“I think it was blown out of proportion,” explained Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, director of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital. It is not associated with the Boston University study.
“The experiments that have been done are those that are essentially done every day with COVID, and there is nothing unusual about that.”
“If you were going to find vaccines or a test for things like COVID, this is the job you are doing,” added Dr. Arthur Kaplan, director of medical ethics at York University’s New York Grossman School of Medicine.
After researchers at the BU lab developed the combination strain of COVID-19, they injected large numbers of it into mice to determine how deadly each version of the virus was, and again, what part of the virus was causing that level of severity.
With the original strain of COVID-19, 100% of mice died. None of the mice died with Omicron. And with the combined strain, about 80% of the mice died.
It is thanks to this data that viral news received headlines about "80% of murders."
“It's not like they created this monstrous virus. This is a completely misinterpretation,” explained Dr. Kurickes. In addition, “what we see in animal models does not match what happens in humans,” he added.
In addition, there is no fear that the virus that is being tested in the laboratory may become public <…>. “There is no risk in doing these experiments in Boston because they are being conducted under the highest levels of containment to ensure that no material is released from the lab into the environment at all,” Dr. Kuritzkes explained.