If you read the previous parts of this research you’d probably noticed that all research dealing with “isolating” and studying SARS-COV-2 was done on green African monkey kidney cell lines (usually VERO-E6). But as far as we all know, COVID 19 is not a kidney disease nor is it a monkey disease. It is suppose to be a disease which attacks first and foremost the human respiratory epithelial cells. Why then, basic research is not being conducted on these type of cells?
While I conducted a literature review (that is - the scientific literature) on the isolation and purification of the virus, I went and looked for information on the American CDC website . Back in 2020 The CDC’s website had a section in it which briefly describes the important events at the beginning of the pandemic.
This section has for some reason been removed recently from the CDC’s website but the original content can be found via web.archive.org. - here.
In the section above there is a link to an article published on March 11, 2020 in the journal of the CDC (“Emerging infectious diseases”) in which they describe in detail the process of isolation and characterization of the virus from the first person in the united states which was claimed to have been infected while travelling to china. This is allegedly, the first isolation of the virus in the US. From the lab work conducted by these researchers an “isolate” of the virus was taken and deposited in the national depository of the US (see details in the previous chapter). So it seemed to be a good information source in order to try and elucidate what was done by the best scientific institute in the world, isn’t it?
Let's examine in depth what can be learned from that article.
The authors of the article report in some detail about the lab work done on the sample taken from “patient zero” in the US. In general, we can understand from this report that the procedure and the methods taken were similar to those reported in the Zhu et al. paper, explained in chapter 5.
There is however something else very interesting, reported in this paper. quoting the paper -
“Because research has been initiated to study and respond to SARS-CoV-2, information about cell lines and types susceptible to infection is needed. Therefore, we examined the capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to infect and replicate in several common primate and human cell lines, including human adenocarcinoma cells (A549), human liver cells (HUH7.0), and human embryonic kidney cells (HEK-293T), in addition to Vero E6 and Vero CCL81 cells. “
This is indeed a step (though a tiny baby step) in the right direction. The researchers wanted to find out if different cell lines other than Monkey kidney cells are a host for the virus, and importantly - human cells. Now, don’t get too excited, ‘cause they didn’t tested respiratory epithelial cells, which in my opinion should have been the first candidate as a host, nor did they actually isolated and purified the virus. Like Zhu et al. they only used the “soup” taken from the patient’s throat and called it “isolate”. Still, in the process we find out why they insist on “proving” their results of finding viruses only with VERO E6 cell lines, which are not the same as human epithelial cells. Below, is a quote that shows in my opinion, the reason for the choice of this experimental system.
“Each cell line was inoculated at high multiplicity of infection and examined 24 h post-infection No CPE was observed in any of the cell lines except in Vero cells….In addition, SARS-CoV-2 did not replicate in bat EFK3B cells…”
In plain words - SARS-COV-2 is not able to "infect" and reproduce in human cells (those which were tested), not even in human cancer cells, nor in other types of selected cells.
Does this answer the question - why don't they use human cells to prove their hypothesis?
Take a minute to think about all this. What does it mean in terms of COVID disease? We would expect that a contagious and deadly virus as we were told , which spreads like wildfire, would "enjoy" such an oppurtinity and thrive in this system. It is reasonable to claim that an infection under laboratory conditions and in vulnerable cells was supposed to be easier than in the real world on living creatures. Yet, it turns out that the scientists tried and failed to cultivate the virus on human cells and therefore switched to green African monkey kidney cells (let's remember again - there is no biological logic for such cells to serve as an alternative host for this pathogen) because only these gave them a cytopathic effect (- CPE), which is the indication from the point of view of virologists, for the presence of the virus. If the virus is not able to infect and reproduce in cells in a petri dish, cells that do not have an elaborate defense system in the form of our wonderful immune system and in fact serve as a "sitting duck" for pathogens, if even in these cells the infection and disease does not occur - what happens in the real world, in living and intact organisms with an immune system ?
Further more - why are they not following a stringent scientific procedure in which they would strive to fulfill all four Koch’s postulates? A stringent scientific approach would require that the research process would be taken with the natural host for the virus - that is human beings. One could claim that there is an ethical problem with that but even if we accept this claim we can still expect that the research would at least use human epithelial cells of the respiratory system. After all, The mainstream idea is that SARS-COV-2 "specializes" in attacking the epithelial cells of the respiratory system and by invading them and using them to reproduce, it is able to multiply and cause damage to the lungs which may lead to pneumonia - the major pathology associated with COVID-19. As you can see the scientists both in China and in the US (as well as the rest of the world) have chosen to skip altogether any kind of research and trials that should be designed to test their suggested hypothesis for the disease etiology. Does this make any sense from a scientific perspective, other than the fact that they simply unable to to prove it when working with cells which are suppose to be the “natural” host for the disease agent?
To summarize this chapter -virologists choose to work almost exclusively on non-human kidney cells, thereby completely disregard Koch’s postulates. The use of alternative host cells is in-consistent with the suggested mechanism of invasion of the infectious agent to the body which is through the respiratory tract and not through the kidneys. furthermore Covid is a human disease and not a monkey disease (there is no record of a new disease among monkeys or primates and not even among bats). So why use kidney cells and why use monkey? The only possible answer which is consistent to the CDC's findings - SARS-COV-2 is not able to "infect" and reproduce in human cells, even in human cancer cells.