ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
Shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, Organic Consumers Association (OCA) set out to provide the best health-related information and resources, and the best available reporting on the origins of the virus.
On health, OCA’s coverage focuses on how best to minimize the risk of becoming infected with the virus—and for those already infected, how to minimize the severity of the symptoms. We emphasize the link between improving overall health, especially through good nutrition, including by boosting Vitamin D levels.
As the pandemic has unfolded, doctors and scientists have reported that those in the high-risk category include people who suffer underlying health conditions, including diet-related illnesses such as obesity, Type 2 Diabetes and hypertension.
We continue to provide updated information as it relates to food, nutrition, health and the prevention of COVID-19.
Where did it come from?
On the origins of COVID-19, we believe it’s of critical importance that the origin of this virus becomes known, in order that the necessary steps can be taken to reduce the risk of future pandemics.
Some scientists posit that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that jumped from a bat to humans, possibly via another animal such as a pangolin, and subsequently infected someone at a wet market in Wuhan, China.
Zoonotic diseases are responsible for past pandemics, some of which originated in the wild, others in industrial factory farms. Industrial agriculture, which is responsible for widespread wildlife habitat destruction and factory farms that create the perfect conditions for zoonotic diseases, has been at the root of several pandemics, including the H1N1 Swine Flu.
Though not directly implicated in the COVID-19 pandemic, industrial agriculture should be viewed as a potential source of future pandemics.
Other scientists argue that COVID-19 is the product of gain-of-function research conducted by humans in a lab, likely in Wuhan, using genetic engineering and animal experimentation. Scientists in this camp reject that the virus could have evolved naturally, in part because of the fact that COVID-19 is by leaps and bounds far more infectious and transmissible than any of the naturally evolved coronaviruses studied in the past.
Gain-of-function research, alternately referred to as “biomedical,” "biodefense” or "biowarfare" research, is highly controversial. In 2014, more than 300 scientists called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research. The scientists, known as the Cambridge Working Group, argued that the benefits of these experiments in no way justifies the potential risks.
Getting to the truth, politics aside
No definitive proof exists for either the zoonotic or lab-created theory. Unfortunately however, the debate has taken on political overtones that threaten to preclude or derail any honest and thorough investigation into the origins of the pandemic.
OCA believes the lab-created theory is far more plausible, based on the evidence uncovered to date. We also believe that, as with any story or investigation involving large sums of money, government involvement, big egos, big industries and huge stakes, it will require relentless investigation and bold reporting to uncover the whole truth. We are committed to both.
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We are entering the Post-COVID world. And the role of liberals and progressives (as well as libertarians and champions of constitutional rights) is far more significant now than we realize.
COVID-19 has brought on many changes in society. As COVID numbers diminish, there is a renewed euphoria in progressive circles in the wake of the pandemic concomitant with a Democrat presidential victory and an unprecedented awareness of gender and racial inequalities. While there is much to be excited about for progressives, warning flags have appeared that raise questions about whether our future direction is genuinely one of greater equality.
The COVID pandemic has shown all of us the power of government public health institutions in mobilizing and transforming society to deal with a pandemic threat. Yet, at the same time, public health policy, supported by the overwhelming majority of progressives, has become a paternalist force that has used its authority to control, manipulate, and divide the body politic, marginalizing or censoring public voices—investigative, scientific, and medical—that deviate from the “official story” of COVID-19.
Read MoreIn this installment of the Gain-of-Function Hall of Shame, we add fellow anthrax alumnus David R. Franz, now an adviser to EcoHealth Alliance, the coronavirus-hunting funder of the Wuhan Institute of Virology that we covered in our profile of Peter Daszak.
Franz is a retired army colonel who served at USAMRIID beginning in 1987. He was Chief of the Cardiorespiratory Toxicology Department (1987-1989), Chief of the Toxicology Division (1989-1992), Deputy Commander (1993-1995), and Commander (1995-1998).
His years as commander overlap with those of the covert biological weapons programs described in Judith Miller’s book Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, and he was a source for much of the information about them in the book. These included Projects Jefferson (the genetic engineering of vaccine-resistant anthrax, something the U.S. military had been doing since the 1980s), Clear Vision (the production of “biobomblets” that could be used to disperse anthrax), and Bite Size and Bacchus, or BACUS, Biotechnology Activity Characterization by Unconventional Signatures (the production of anthrax simulant outside the lab, as a terrorist cell might).
Read MoreThank God it’s over.
The 2020 U.S. presidential election provided a perfect example of contemporary political degeneration. Two highly unpopular politicians, Joe Biden and Donald Trump―both backed by wealthy corporations and billionaire donors including Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry, Big Pharma, the military industrial complex and corporate agribusiness―squared off against one another in a multi-billion billion-dollar mudslinging contest for the White House.
As the candidates traded blows on the campaign trail, the climate emergency, food and farming, institutional racism, deteriorating public health, environmental destruction, 1.6 trillion dollars in student debt, a crumbling infrastructure and how to get 30 million unemployed people back to work were barely discussed except in rhetorical soundbites depicting the other as “dangerous communist” or “Nazi-like demagogue.”
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