(LifeSiteNews) – In September of 2021, Emanuel Goldman published an article of concern in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[1] Briefly, Mr. Goldman claimed that the unwillingness of certain individuals to accept the experimental COVID-19 vaccine would result in almost certain doom for individuals within the population, including those already vaccinated. His support for this claim? Darwinian evolution.
According to the article, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is “evolving,” and the next step in viral evolution may destroy all of “progress we have made in overcoming the pandemic.” An interesting hypothetical postulate, but how much basis does this fear have in reality?
Evolution has sometimes been characterized as a change in allele frequency in a population. If this is all that one means by evolution, we grant that this is reasonable and currently occurring with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (However, we would call it variation within a kind rather than evolution, which is an important distinction.[2] Though both processes are said to be driven by natural selection, which is observable, variation within a kind is all that has ever been empirically demonstrated. Evolution of new kinds of organisms repeatedly fails to pass the test of rigorous scientific standards.[3]
Can genetic change over time result in a super-virus that poses a threat to mankind? We would argue, based on historical precedents, that this is highly unlikely.
- Viruses tend to attenuate as they pass from one species to another. This was observed in the original method of vaccinating humans against smallpox using cowpox. It was also the method employed to culture the mumps vaccine virus, which was serially passed through chicken eggs and then cultured chicken cells.[4] If SARS-CoV-2 truly jumped from bats into humans, particularly if this occurred through an intermediate host, we should expect to see a similar steep curve of natural attenuation (i.e. the virus will quickly get weaker as it passes through the human population).
- Viruses also weaken as they are passed through human cells, not just when they are transferred from animals to humans. This very method was employed to produce the unethical rubella vaccine, which was passaged in aborted fetal cell cultures until it was deemed sufficiently attenuated for vaccine production.[5]
- Attenuation is not just observed in the lab. In vivo observation of myxoma virus in wild rabbit populations clearly demonstrates that there are multiple paths to natural attenuation of viruses, and also that attenuated viruses can revert to their original virulence.[6] This suggests that viral mutation results in oscillation around a mean and strongly points to phenotypic stability over time. If this is accurate, we would expect such oscillations to occur until herd immunity is naturally reached, and the virus no longer presents a pathological problem to the population.
- The same phenomenon is observed in human populations. Research on the 1917-1918 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus indicates natural attenuation over time which leads to viral extinction events.[7] The authors of that study conclude that the genetic degeneration they observed in the pandemic flu virus is analogous to other flu strains, all of which overwhelmingly demonstrate declining mortality rates over time.
- Finally, as mutations accumulate in a population over time (including in a particular variant of a virus), the result is genetic entropy. This is the technical term for the decay of genomes towards error catastrophe. It is quite possibly the most compelling evidence against evolutionary biology, as, in the words of the theory’s developer, “We cannot rationally speak of genome-building when there is a net loss of information every generation!”[8]
As early as February of 2021, a majority of scientists were predicting that SARS-CoV-2 would become an endemic virus.[9] That is, they were predicting that the virus would become less virulent, but more transmissible, as it passed through the human population. This is in complete accord with all of the historical examples we have just cited, and is the most likely outcome – regardless of the vaccination status of populations.
With the FDA's decision to officially approve the Pfizer COVID jab, calls to vaccinate schoolchildren and more university students will become louder and more insistent.
But, America's children and young people must be protected from unknown future side-effects of these drugs, and parents' rights must be respected!
Please SIGN this urgent petition which demands that COVID vaccine mandates for schools and universities be prohibited in every U.S. state.
This petition will be sent to the leaders of every state legislature and to every governor in the United States, urging them to pass emergency legislation banning vaccine mandates for primary, secondary and university students.
Students simply have the right to be educated without being forced to violate deeply held principles and their own bodily integrity!
But, unfortunately, some private schools, like the Jesuit-run Brophy College Prep School in Phoenix, Arizona, have already mandated the COVID vaccine for their students, in spite of massive parental opposition. If parents or students reject the vaccine, students face intrusive weekly testing and exclusion from extra-curricular activities.
Also, more and more universities have actually started to disenroll unvaccinated students. But, even where that is not happening, not taking the vaccine often subjects students to masking, extra testing and additional administrative obstacles.
And now, with the Pfizer jab approval, Joe Biden's Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, is threatening more mandates.
While it is true that the FDA approval for the Pfizer jab only pertains to those over 16 years of age, the pharmaceutical industry and some state actors have been pushing to get approval for pre-teens!
So, it stands to reason that the Federal government will try to impose vaccines on schools, for those 16 and over, as well as on all university students. But, eventually, such mandates could even apply to younger and younger schoolchildren.
That's why state legislatures and governors must fight back against any attempt to coerce school students to take a COVID vaccine against their will!
Science and logic should dictate public health policy. And both say that mandatory vaccination for children and university students is not only unnecessary, but very likely dangerous for the future health of America's youth.
The CDC reports that the rates of death, injury, and hospitalization are very, very low for children and adolescents and that COVID transmission in schools, both from student to staff and between students, is also very low.
And a European CDC study concluded that "no evidence has been found to suggest that children or educational settings are primary drivers of COVID transmission."
So, right now, we know that schoolchildren are at very low risk of becoming very ill as a result of COVID, or of even transmitting the virus.
But, we don't know how a hastily-prepared, unstudied vaccine will affect the health of millions of America's youth in the future.
Gambling with their future, and the future of our nation, should not even be entertained for one second!
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition urging state legislatures to ban COVID vaccine mandates for schools and universities - both public and private. Urge them to respect parents' rights, informed consent and bodily integrity.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Ivy League schools mandate COVID-19 vaccines for fall' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ivy-league-mandates-covid-19-vaccines-for-the-fall/
'FDA approval of Pfizer jab isn’t about our health, it’s about mandating the shots' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/fda-approval-of-pfizer-jab-isnt-about-our-health-its-about-mandating-the-shots
If anything, mass vaccination in the middle of the pandemic provides a unique kind of selective pressure to drive variations towards a vaccine-resistant strain. This has already been well-documented in the case of HPV vaccination against strains which tend to cause cervical cancer. Since the introduction of the vaccine, the strains included in the vaccine have plummeted; but cervical cancer rates have been unaffected, as new strains have arisen to take the place of the old strains as the leading causes of cancer.[10]
Even if a subtle genetic change occurred that introduced greater virulence into the virus, as occurs with antibiotic resistance in bacteria, this would likely be due to the loss of specificity in the virus rather than the introduction of a new element.[11] This loss of specificity could lead to immune escape[12], which would appear like an overall evolutionary benefit for the virus. But it is not a true example of evolution because there is no new information created in the virus – only the degradation of old information (in this case, a loss of specificity in the spike protein). An increase in virulence would also be bad news for the continuation of the virus – if it is more likely to kill its host, it will be less likely to be transmitted further to new hosts. Even evolutionary biology, with all of its errors, favors a scenario where the original virulence of the virus will decline drastically in favor of increased transmissibility.
In short, Mr. Goldman’s article is unfortunately just one more not-so-veiled threat against those who choose not to participate in experimental medicine by receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. And, like many other articles in the same vein, it has no foundation in empirical science.
Footnotes
[1] Goldman E. How the unvaccinated threaten the vaccinated for COVID-19: A Darwinian perspective. PNAS, 2021, 118:39. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2114279118.
[2] This phenomenon is well explained in Wynne J. A Catholic Assessment of Evolution Theory. Kansas City: Restoring Truth Ministries, 2013. p. 403-407.
[3] Though there are many good sources that document this, a brief but pithy overview is given in: Carter R, ed. Evolution’s Achilles Heels. Powder Springs, GA: Creation Book Publishers, 2015. p. 15-47.
[4] Robinson, H. Viral attenuation by design. Nat Biotechnol 26, 1000–1001 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0908-1000.
[5] Plotkin SA, Farquhar JD, Katz M, Buser F. Attenuation of RA 27/3 Rubella Virus in WI-38 Human Diploid Cells. Am J Dis Child. 1969;118(2):178–185. doi:10.1001/archpedi.1969.02100040180004
[6] Kerr PJ et al. Evolutionary History and Attenuation of Myxoma Virus on Two Continents. PLOS Path, 2012 Oct 4; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1002950
[7] Carter, R.W., Sanford, J.C. A new look at an old virus: patterns of mutation accumulation in the human H1N1 influenza virus since 1918. Theor Biol Med Model 9, 42 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4682-9-42
[8] Sanford, John. Genetic Entropy. Waterloo, NY: FMS Publications, 2014.
[9] Philips N. The coronavirus is here to stay – here’s what that means. Nature News, 2021 Feb 16; https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2.
[10] Fischer S, Bettstetter M, Becher A, et al. Shift in prevalence of HPV types in cervical cytology specimens in the era of HPV vaccination. Oncology Letters, 2016 Jul; 12(1). https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2016.4668
[11] This has been repeatedly documented, but some of the best-explained examples can be found in:
Carter R, ed. Evolution’s Achilles Heels. Powder Springs, GA: Creation Book Publishers, 2015. p. 15-47.
Spetner, L. Not by Chance! Brooklyn: The Judaica Press, 1998. p. 125-160.
[12] That is, to the virus changing shape in a manner such that the body’s original immune response to previous versions of the virus would no longer neutralize the new variant.