“When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.”
Revelation 6:7-8
Dr. Tom Inglesby
You probably don’t know his name, but maybe you should. Dr. Tom Inglesby is an unassuming, thin, glasses-wearing American epidemiologist currently serving as director of the John Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The center is an interdisciplinary organization and purports to investigate new technologies, promote public health policy changes, and research public health emergencies like bioterrorism, epidemics, and natural disasters.1 Inglesby is an academic in part, publishing dozens of research papers, editing books like Bioterrorism: Guidelines for Medical and Public Health Management,2 and acting as editor-in-chief for the academic journal Health Security.3 He also teaches classes for the John Hopkins School of Medicine and for the John Hopkins Public Health Department of Environmental Health and Engineering.
In addition to being an ivory tower academician, Inglesby is a prolific — though occulted — public health figure having worked for the government and many of its affiliate organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS, presently working in the office of the Secretary), US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), US Department of Defense (DoD), and testifying in front of both houses of Congress on numerous occasions. Inglesby has also served on influential committees like the Defense Science Board and the National Academies of Sciences, and has worked as an advisor to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), among others.4
Prior to joining the Covid Collaborative5, Inglesby joined the CDC as chair of their Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response from 2010 to 2019.6 During his tenure, Inglesby oversaw the transfer of the National Health Security Preparedness Index from the CDC to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation7 where he also serves as chair on their National Advisory Council. Dr. Inglesby is, clearly, a widely sought after advisor on epidemiological and public health strategy. The academic institutions, the media, the White House, and the large-scale philanthropy and science communities all invite and compete for his council.
Why Dr. Inglesby is the particular academician being pursued by the state for his council is unclear to me despite dozens of hours in pursuit of an answer. He holds no more prestigious degrees or titles that make him stand out from the rest of the many epidemiologists that populate US academic and public health institutions. However, by taking a look at his work and public comments over the past decade, we can gain some understanding of the undue influence he has had over the state of public health policy today. As with Dr. Shah, Inglesby’s words echo through the mouth of the President and in the letter of the law.
Confusion and Calamity
In 2014, Inglesby eagerly voiced his agreement with that year’s moratorium on gain-of-function (GoF) research imposed by the NIH, which was preceded by a voluntary moratorium in 2012. With great reluctance,8 the scientific community was pressured to reckon with the tremendous risks and limited benefits of their “dual use research of concern”9 (DURC) experiments involving influenza and other viruses, of which GoF research is a part. The impetus for the moratorium was the 2011, NIH-funded creation of a novel H5N1 strain of influenza virus, colloquially named Bird Flu.
The new strain of H5N1 was engineered by scientists to transmit via aerosolized particles between ferrets. This capacity for transmission between ferrets, they claimed, indicated a natural potential of the virus to transmit between humans. Laboratory workers became infected with this virus, and these infections had an estimated 60% mortality rate but they did not transmit it widely enough to spark a pandemic. However, human infection with the H5N1 virus caused alarm and rapidly spread panic about the consequences of enhancing viral transmissibility. Furthermore, these unanticipated infections kindled concerns about insecure laboratory conditions that could lead to an accidental release and subsequent pandemic. Worries also arose that publishing the research by the two teams who created the virus could lead to bioterrorism on a grand scale.10
Public records and articles at the time indicate Inglesby was in favor of limiting the funding of, if not completely abolishing, this kind of research from the start. He testified in 2012 in front of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that, before ending the voluntary moratorium, the state and scientific communities should pursue any and all other viable ways of studying viral transmissibility that “do not require engineering mammalian transmissible strains,” acknowledging the unlikely, yet potentially catastrophic consequences of malevolence or human error.11 While research on pathogens of pandemic potential (PPPs) “represents a tiny portion of the experimental work done in infectious disease research,” Inglesby stated in an article for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, “it poses extraordinary potential risks to the public.”12 We can, he argues, devise techniques to learn more about viruses that do not include inventing a novel virus that has the potential to kill off a large part of humanity.
Inglesby went on to co-author an article for the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research in 2016 in which he and his colleague, Dr. Marc Lipsitch, write
PPPs raise the specter that accidental release or deliberate misuse could spark a widespread epidemic, perhaps global, transmission of a novel and highly lethal virus.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2016/03/commentary-six-policy-options-conducting-gain-function-research (my emphasis)
They make the case that a thorough risk/benefit analysis of GoF research, or research on PPPs more narrowly, had not yet been sufficiently performed. If the risks were fully understood, fewer GoF experiments would have been funded prior to the 2014 moratorium. More importantly, those funded experiments would have been performed under constant surveillance and with much heavier restrictions.
Inglesby warned in 2012 that lax restrictions and ambiguous funding reviews had led to accidental viral infections in laboratory workers already14 (4 documented infections in a six year period indicating a 0.2% chance of a laboratory-acquired infection per BSL3 laboratory-year15) and that the chance that these accidental infections spread widely is between 10-20%.16 Assuming a widespread viral spread caused by an accidental laboratory infection would not be controlled rapidly since efforts to do so have never yet been successful, Inglesby calculates the risk of a global pandemic caused by PPP research in BSL3 laboratories to be between 0.01% to 0.1% per laboratory-year with a potential death toll of 2 million to 1.4 billion people worldwide. Although there is not a single federal system for tracking the number of BSL3 laboratories in the United States, we know there are at least 200 of these laboratories operating today.17 Some of these labs have gone unused in the past several years, leaving the dangerous pathogens housed there, like the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, unattended.18
With such enormous risks to global public health looming over this kind of research, one might expect the benefits of these experiments to be equally enormous. However, Inglesby claims that the benefits of PPP research approaches to health problems are minimal and uncertain at best, especially when considering that equally viable and less risky research alternatives exist.
The alleged benefit of PPP research is the potential to predict, and thus prevent, pandemics in the future, but this benefit has yet to be realized even once. “Prediction of pandemic risk for any given [viral] strain [is] more of an art than a science,” Inglesby and Lipsitch wrote in 2014,
Indeed, the very presumption that we will see human cases of an incipient pandemic before that pandemic occurs has never been met in practice: we have never observed zoonotic cases of any flu virus before it caused a pandemic.
19 Russell CA, Kasson PM, Donis RO, Riley S, Dunbar J, Rambaut A, Asher J, Burke S, Davis CT, Garten RJ, Gnanakaran S, Hay SI, Herfst S, Lewis NS, Lloyd-Smith JO, Macken CA, Maurer-Stroh S, Neuhaus E, Parrish CR, Pepin KM, Shepard SS, Smith DL, Suarez DL, Trock SC, Widdowson MA, George DB, Lipsitch M, and Bloom JD. 2014. Improving pandemic influenza risk assessment. eLife 3:e03883. (my emphasis)
With “no pandemic strain ever [having] been identified in advance,”20 PPP research certainly exposes the world’s human population to inordinate and intolerable risks while the benefits are, at this point, only manifested in promises and theories. If we assume, with the highest degree of charity possible, the virus was of natural origins, these incredibly well-funded and highly regarded scientists still failed to predict the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 seven years later.
Hurt Not the Oil and Wine
Although Dr. Inglesby publicly argued against the use of DURC and PPP research in the early 2010s, he became very enthusiastic about the development and use of universal vaccine gene therapy in 2017. A universal vaccine, in contrast to an attenuated virus vaccine, would prompt an immune response to a broader spectrum of viruses by isolating a genetic characteristic those disparate viruses share and training the immune system to respond to that shared characteristic.21 “If science could develop a universal flu vaccine that protects people from all flus, there would be no risk of pandemics anymore,” Inglesby zealously told a Smithsonian reporter, “right now, that’s still a concept.”22
To Inglesby, the success of a universal influenza vaccine may tip the risk/benefit analysis in favor of DURC/PPP experimentation stating, “if we had a universal flu vaccine, it would change the risk equation […] so I would just strongly support the efforts that are going on at NIH by the industry on that.”23 He seems to be saying that DURC/PPP experimentation is too risky unless a universal vaccine were to exist and have the capacity to be produced and distributed on a large scale. In that case, even if an accidental release were to occur, a vaccine could be quickly made and distributed to avert the consequent pandemic (by preventing viral transmission) or at least decrease the death toll (severity) of wide spread infection.
Jaws Open
In June of 2017, the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, led a workshop to devise a strategy for developing such a vaccine.24 The academics, businessmen, and government officials who attended the workshop developed the criteria for a universal vaccine25 and determined what they would need to research in order to develop one.26 On this subject, Dr. Fauci said “it’s easier said than done because there are a lot of rather significant scientific obstacles. It’s going to be an iterative process.”27 Whatever those scientific obstacles were at the time, finding the cash to fund this research was not among them.
In the following six months of 2017, the NIH proceeded to spend $64 million on universal vaccine research28 though it seems this wasn’t enough. In early 2018, a bill was introduced to Congress to appropriate a total investment of $1 billion over the years of 2019-2023 to the NIH to funnel towards universal influenza vaccine research. The Flu Vaccine Act was proposed by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Massachussetts) with co-sponsors including Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) among others.29 This Act failed to make it to a vote in February of that year, but by March another $100 million had been awarded to the NIH budget for fiscal year 2018 to be allocated towards the development of a universal flu vaccine.30
Coincidentally, or not, Dr. Inglesby testified in front of the U.S. Senate in January of 2018 to argue for more public health infrastructure funding and for the development of “new vaccines.”31 It is a matter of grave importance and a matter of national security, he argues, where the advances in biotechnology make bioterrorism and accidental or deliberate releases of engineered viruses possible.
As can be seen above, Inglesby states,
It is now possible to engineer new traits into old viruses. For example, it is becoming possible to take the lethality of one virus and combine it with the contagious qualities of another virus. And, last week scientists published research showing how they synthetically could create horsepox, a close viral relative of smallpox. We don’t have the oversight system we need to fully understand or manage these kinds of developments yet, either in the US or internationally. Whatever we do about this, we need to ensure that we don’t slow down science that drives so many good things forward. But we also can’t ignore that new risks are becoming possible. […] In the worst case, this could lead to the accidental or deliberate release of a novel strain of virus that could cause an epidemic, or even a pandemic.
https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Inglesby1.pdf (my emphasis)
Inglesby goes on to reiterate his past claims that the utility of these research programs and experiments are hypothetical at best, but proposes that the ending of the moratorium on DURC/PPP research calls for the intentional search for new vaccines and public health strategies to cope with the risks it imposes on the public.
To Patrol the Earth
Among the coping strategies Dr. Inglesby proposes, he suggests there to be a federal plan in place for “conducting research during public health emergencies to study new medicines, vaccines, and other clinical and public health interventions to gauge whether they are effective and safe.” He also urges the pursuit of a universal vaccine, stating,
We still rely on eggs to produce annual flu vaccine as we have for years. We do this even though we have the technology to produce vaccine using modern recombinant techniques.
Ibid.
We should abandon the egg-based vaccine technology in favor of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, Inglesby argues, because they can be developed and produced on a large scale in a five to six month time frame. Rapidly produced vaccines are much better suited for a sudden global pandemic, but he fails to mention that they are only better to the extent they are both safe (short term and long term) and effective (at reducing severity and preventing transmission). In addition to these strategies, he goes on to say, the United States government ought to provide public health institutions like the CDC and NIH with more funding. It is a matter of national security, he argues, and to aid in preventing harm to the United States and its interests these institutions need at least $100-$200 million more allocated to their budgets annually.
In April of 2018, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was already speaking with news agencies about his philanthropic foundation’s contribution of $12 million towards the effort to find a universal vaccine.32 Mr. Gates said then that,
Experimental vaccines developed with [his foundation’s] money must be ready to be tested in people in 2021 — which leaves scant time for developing a vaccine, testing it in animals, making human-grade batches, and designing the first human trial.
https://www.statnews.com/2018/04/27/bill-gates-universal-flu/ (my emphasis)
Another tech billionaire, Google co-founder Larry Page, also pledged to dump millions of dollars into universal vaccine research by pumping the money into his charity, the Carl Victor Page Memorial Foundation, then steering it to the Flu Lab33, a private for-profit company. The Flu Lab then, reportedly, distributes the money in grants to scientists, private companies, and research programs.34 Since the Flu Lab is a private company, the are not required to disclose their financial statements, giving us no indication as to where these millions of dollars were driven.
Flip the table and chase them with a whip
Four months later in August of 2018, the fledgling German company BioNTech and drug titan Pfizer publicly announced their multi-year collaboration in pursuing an mRNA approach to a universal flu vaccine.35 “BioNTech will receive $120 million in upfront equity and near‐term research payments from Pfizer, and will be eligible to receive up to $305 million in potential development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments. In addition, BioNTech will receive up to double-digit tiered royalty payments associated with worldwide sales if the program reaches commercialization.” As part of the deal, BioNTech would need to develop the technology and complete a first of its kind human study in Germany. Then, Pfizer would assume responsibility for further clinical development and ultimate commercialization of the drug.36 Part of the initial $120 million payment from Pfizer to BioNTech included a $70 million equity stake in the company, giving the pharmaceutical giant an incentive to see this mRNA vaccine go to market and succeed as a universal flu vaccine.37 At the time, the two companies expected a vaccine candidate to be ready for clinical trials in 2020.
At about the same time Pfizer and BioNTech announced their partnership, Nature Communications published the results of a study using mRNA vaccines to elicit an antibody response in mice, ferrets, and rabbits, against the hemagglutinin (HA) “stalk” structure of the influenza virus (different, though analogous to the spike [S] structure in coronaviruses).38 The article discussed research composed at the University of Pennsylvania, funded by the NIAID as part of NIH, with partners from BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals, Acuitas Therapeutics, and academics from the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The results of this study promised a quick and cheap way to make a broadly effective vaccine against a variety of influenza subtypes in rodents, attracting interest and investment from a variety of sources, but the mRNA platform for influenza protection still needed to be evaluated for safety and efficacy in human populations.
Several pharmaceutical companies and research institutions pursued the mRNA approach to a universal flu vaccine. Glaxo-Smith Kline attempted to bring a candidate through clinical trials, only to fail mid-way through.39 Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) partnered with BARDA to develop a candidate,40 oral antiviral medications, and monoclonal antibody treatments for the flu.41 This effort earned them a tweet from Dr. Inglesby, encouraging their efforts.42
J&J’s universal vaccine candidate is still in development as of 2022 and aims to be the first oral universal flu vaccine.43 The NIAID began the phase 1 clinical trial in late 2018 for M-001, a universal flu vaccine candidate from Israeli biotech company BiondVax Pharmaceuticals which is now in phase 3. Moderna published results of an mRNA vaccine candidate used in healthy adults to prompt an immune response in May of 2019.44 In October of 2019, the NIH awarded $132 million to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for their universal vaccine candidate after it showed “encouraging” results from its phase 1 trial.45
And Hell Followed With Him
In late September of 2019, mere months before the first official reports of a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Wuhan, China, then President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed executive order 13887 titled, “Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health.”46 In this executive order, Trump voices the same concern Dr. Inglesby has, that a pathogen of pandemic potential (PPP) may emerge rapidly and without warning, and that this risks the deaths of millions to billions of people. The solution laid out in the order, echoing precisely what Dr. Inglesby argued for in 2017, is to reduce our reliance on egg-based vaccine technology, to expand and advance the search for a universal vaccine, and to aid the promotion of the vaccine’s uptake in “recommended populations.”
The interest of the United States in preventing a pandemic is not simply a matter of public health and saving lives, however. This order declares modernizing vaccines to be a national security priority. Not only that, but to secure the integrity of the state “vaccine uptake” in “recommended populations” must be achieved. Pandemics, it states, can cause harm to the United States and its interests by disrupting military operations and damaging the economy. For that reason alone, it asserts, the United States must take action to create new vaccines and get people to take those vaccines when a biological threat arises. That the populace remain alive and healthy should a virus or other biological pathogen become prevalent is only secondary to the interests and integrity of the state.
Interestingly, the order includes the claim that “it is not possible to predict when or how frequently a pandemic may occur,” which runs directly contrary to the entire premise behind DURC/PPP research that, by then, had been allowed to continue and was currently being funded by the United States. Regardless, this executive order paved the way for the use of mRNA vaccine technology in the future. The very near future.
Petit Mort/Event 201
One month after the signing of this executive order, John Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hosted an event called Event 201.47 As mentioned at the start, Dr. Inglesby is the director of the Center for Health Security48 and he served as the coordinator and moderator during the simulated pandemic event. The purported purpose of Event 201 was to determine gaps in preparedness and develop recommendations on how to avoid economic and societal collapse anticipated as effects of a widespread coronavirus pandemic like those referenced in the executive order.49
During the 3.5-hour tabletop exercise, Inglesby emphasizes what he sees as the critical nature of public-private partnerships saying, “there are problems emerging that can only be solved by global business and governments working together.”50 He goes on to repeatedly pose a particular question to the attendees,51 seemingly pursuing a premeditated consensus. In regard to the supply and production of medical counter measures (MCMs) including anti-viral treatments, vaccines, and personal protective equipment, “how should governments, business, and international organizations allocate and distribute [those supplies]?” “Do we think […] there should be some kind of international resource or distribution method or, really, is this going to be every country for itself?”
Consensus was, unsurprisingly, achieved in the session with every attendee agreeing that there should be a “centralized command and control” over data collection and supply distribution to avoid “bad” or “irrational” decisions. Furthermore, they recommend that governments should partner with social media companies to control information and that those companies “should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology.”52
Event 201 included fabricated news clips featuring a simulated news anchor covering the “events” of the fake pandemic. In one of the clips, the anchor hosted two fake immunologists arguing about the feasibility of creating a new vaccine in time to stop transmission and reduce severity of the outbreak. “Sure, there are new technologies that can help,” one fake immunologist says, “but it is going to be difficult […] it takes time to test safety and efficacy, typically years.” The other retorts, “we simply cannot rely on these old timelines and processes. This is a crisis, we have to move beyond these issues,” arguing that during pandemics, regulations are obsolete and only serve as obstacles. “With enough money and political will,” she goes on to say, “anything is possible.”
So, the effectively persuaded Event 201 attendees argue that the international stockpile of MCMs should be increased and that the stockpile “should also include any available experimental vaccine stockpiles for any WHO R&D Blueprint pathogens to deploy in a clinical trial during outbreaks in collaboration with CEPI, GAVI, and WHO.”53 Old, egg-based vaccine technologies are too slow to react effectively in a pandemic scenario, they say, so,
Investments should be made in new technologies and industrial approaches, that will allow concomitant distributed manufacturing. This will require addressing legal and regulatory barriers among other issues.
Ibid.
Failing Forward
Pfizer and BioNTech would, five months after Event 201, publicly announce their goal to produce multiple mRNA vaccine candidates for the pandemic of COVID-19.54 “The collaboration aims to rapidly advance multiple COVID-19 vaccine candidates into human clinical testing based on BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA vaccine platforms, with the objective of ensuring rapid worldwide access to the vaccine, if approved,” the Pfizer press release reads. Surely, this is what Inglesby meant by conducting research during public health emergencies to determine if new vaccines are effective and safe.
There is no mention of the 2018 agreement between the two companies to develop an mRNA universal flu vaccine although the terms of the agreement are quite similar. Pfizer committed to paying BioNTech “$185 million in upfront payments, including a cash payment of $72 million and an equity investment of $113 million. BioNTech is eligible to receive future milestone payments of up to $563 million for a potential total consideration of $748 million.” In December of 2020, the first doses of the mRNA vaccine produced by this collaboration were administered to members of the public.55
Now in 2022, mRNA vaccines are being pursued by pharmaceutical companies for treating all kinds of diseases including HIV56, cancer, auto immune disorders, and gene therapy.57 Of course, the search for a universal influenza vaccine is still underway, with many mRNA candidates in development by the NIH and several private companies including Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Glaxo-Smith Kline, and Sanofi.58 An article from CNBC on this subject states,
The research and development that led to the Covid-19 vaccines have boosted efforts to find a more powerful, longer-lasting flu vaccine, perhaps taking steps towards virologists’ holy grail: a one-time, universal flu jab.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/universal-flu-vaccine-may-be-next-big-moderna-pfizer-mrna-development.html
And, as if to make the point for me, a researcher from Pfizer told CNBC that, “the pandemic allowed us to deliver on the immense scientific opportunity of mRNA.”
In late December, 2021, Dr. Inglesby joined the White House Covid-19 Response Team as the testing coordinator.59 He remains on the National Advisory Board for the Covid Collaborative, and returned to his teaching position at Johns Hopkin’s Center for Health Security in Spring 2022.
Addendum
Added 11/26/2022
Inglesby has been quoted recently offering support for the work of the now defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), and FTX’s Future Fund. FTX partnered with the World Economic Forum, and SBF funded numerous projects, entities, and individuals involved in biotechnology, biosecurity, and “pandemic prevention.” In light of the information revealed by the collapse FTX over the course of November, 2022 and the fraud committed by SBF, I will be investigating the matter and publishing my findings at a later date. Some information and evidence has exposed, however much more may be forthcoming.
Please forward any comments, leads, and questions to mmbannon@protonmail.com.
Footnotes
1 The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Home page. Accessed 2022. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org
2 Reacher, M. Bioterrorism: Guidelines for Medical and Public Health Management. BMJ. 2003 Mar 22;326(7390):665. PMCID: PMC1125568. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1125568/
3 The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “Journal: Health Security.” Accessed 2022. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/journal/
4 “Tom Inglesby – Covid Collaborative.” WayBackMachine. Accessed 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20210209172609/https://www.covidcollaborative.us/tom-inglesby
5 Note:
Whether or not Dr. Inglesby is still involved with the Covid Collaborative is unclear. Dr. Inglesby’s page has been removed from the Covid Collaborative’s National Advisory Board member page. That page was active as of 11/21/2021. What has changed since then as well is that Dr. Inglesby has been asked, and has accepted the invitation, to join the White House COVID-19 Response Team:
Wikipedia. “White House COVID-19 Response Team.” Updated 15 March 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_COVID-19_Response_Team
Note:
Other members of the White House Response team include Kamala Harris, Anthony Fauci, Jeffrey Zients, and Rochelle Walensky. Andy Slavitt (now a member of the Covid Collaborative) was formerly a member of the WH Covid Response Team, as well.
6 Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR) Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC) Web Conference. “SUMMARY REPORT/RECORD OF THE PRECEEDINGS.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 13 February, 2018. https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/science/documents/OPHPR-BSC-Meeting-Summary_Web-Conference_02.13.18-updated-03142018.pdf
OFFICE OF PUBLIC HEALTH PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE (OPHPR) BOARD OF SCIENTIFIC COUNSELORS (BSC) MEETING. “SUMMARY REPORT / RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 07 April, 2014.https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/science/documents/BSC_OPHPR_Meeting_minutes_04_07_14.pdf
Note:
Evidence of Inglesby’s position is evident in the meeting minutes, though a CDC.gov page for the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response does not seem to exist.
7 National Health Security Preparedness Index. Home page. Supported by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Accessed 2022. https://nhspi.org
8 Note:
See the full discussion between interested parties here, where relevant figures like Ralph Baric express their “profound concerns regarding the recent US Government directive” and argue that “it is premature to include the emerging coronaviruses under these restrictions, as scientific dialogue that seriously argues the biology, pros, cons, likely risks to the public, and ethics of GOF have not been discussed in a serious forum.” :
National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB). “Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process Written Public Comments.” National Institutes of Health. 14 October, 2014-8 June, 2016. Accessed 2022. https://ia804601.us.archive.org/18/items/gain-of-function-deliberative-process-written-public-comments-1/Gain_of_Function_Deliberative_Process_Written_Public_Comments%20%281%29.pdf
9 Office of Intramural Research. “Dual-Use Research.” National Institutes of Health. Updated 5 October, 2022. https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/ethical-conduct/special-research-considerations/dual-use-research
Quote:
“Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) is life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security.”
10 Biological Security: The Risk of Dual-Use Research. One Hundred and Twelth Congress, Second Session. 75-273(2012) Testimony of Tom V. Inglesby, M.D., p 14-63. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112shrg75273/html/CHRG-112shrg75273.htm
Quote:
“In a recent speech at a biological weapons conference in Geneva, Secretary of State Clinton warned that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had, in fact, issued a call for `brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry to develop a weapon of mass destruction.’ And, of course, there is also a danger that the manufactured strain might somehow escape, so to speak, from the laboratory, which is something we have worried about in the past.” -Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2012, p 1.
11 Ibid., p 3.
12 Inglesby, Thomas V., and Marc Lipsitch. “Moratorium on Research Intended to Create Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens” Moratorium on Research Intended To Create Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens, American Society for Microbiology, 12 Dec. 2014, https://journals.asm.org/doi/abs/10.1128/mbio.02366-14?legid=mbio%3B5%2F6%2Fe02366-14.
13 Lipsitch, M., Relman, David A., Inglesby, Thomas V. “COMMENTARY: Six policy options for conducting gain-of-function research.” CIDRAP, University of Minnesota. 8 March, 2016. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2016/03/commentary-six-policy-options-conducting-gain-function-research
14 Biological Security: The Risk of Dual-Use Research. One Hundred and Twelth Congress, Second Session. 75-273(2012) Testimony of Tom V. Inglesby, M.D., p 14-63. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112shrg75273/html/CHRG-112shrg75273.htm
Quote:
“Nine years ago, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, there were at least three incidents in which researchers working in Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) or BSL-4 labs in Singapore, Taiwan, and China accidentally infected themselves with SARS.”
15 Henkel RD, Miller T, and Weyant RS. 2012. Monitoring select agent theft, loss and release reports in the United States—2004-2010. Appl. Biosaf. 18:171–180. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291598205_Monitoring_Select_Agent_Theft_Loss_and_Release_Reports_in_the_United_States–2004-2010
16 Merler S, Ajelli M, Fumanelli L, and Vespignani A. 2013. Containing the accidental laboratory escape of potential pandemic influenza viruses. BMC Med. 11:252. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-11-252
17 Joseph, Andrew. “You need a special lab to study the coronavirus. Here’s what it takes to get one up and running.” STAT News. 9 April, 2020. https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/09/coronavirus-bsl-3-lab/
18 Ibid.
19 Russell CA, Kasson PM, Donis RO, Riley S, Dunbar J, Rambaut A, Asher J, Burke S, Davis CT, Garten RJ, Gnanakaran S, Hay SI, Herfst S, Lewis NS, Lloyd-Smith JO, Macken CA, Maurer-Stroh S, Neuhaus E, Parrish CR, Pepin KM, Shepard SS, Smith DL, Suarez DL, Trock SC, Widdowson MA, George DB, Lipsitch M, and Bloom JD. 2014. Improving pandemic influenza risk assessment. eLife 3:e03883. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25321142/
20 Lipsitch, Marc., Inglesby, Tom. “Moratorium on Research Intended To Create Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens.” ASM Journals. Editorial. 12 December 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02366-14 https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mBio.02366-14#B7
21 Note:
For influenza viruses, that feature may feasibly be the hemagglutinin protein or neuraminidase enzyme. For coronaviruses, that would purportedly be the S (Spike) protein. Each of these features are the mechanism by which the virus infects a cell and this is mainly what differentiates one from the other. In addition, coronaviruses have a lower mutation rate. Source:
Manzanares-Meza LD, Medina-Contreras O. SARS-CoV-2 and influenza: a comparative overview and treatment implications. Bol Med Hosp Infant Mex. 2020;77(5):262-273. English. doi: 10.24875/BMHIM.20000183. PMID: 33064680. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33064680/
22 Ferraro, Tom. Global Health NOW. “The United States Is Not Ready for Another Flu Pandemic.” Smithsonian Magazine. 13 November 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/united-states-not-ready-another-flu-pandemic-180967177/ (my emphasis)
23 Biological Security: The Risk of Dual-Use Research. One Hundred and Twelth Congress, Second Session. Pages 75-273(2012). (Testimony of Tom V. Inglesby, M.D.). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112shrg75273/html/CHRG-112shrg75273.htm
24 Emily J Erbelding, Diane J Post, Erik J Stemmy, Paul C Roberts, Alison Deckhut Augustine, Stacy Ferguson, Catharine I Paules, Barney S Graham, Anthony S Fauci, A Universal Influenza Vaccine: The Strategic Plan for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 218, Issue 3, 1 August 2018, Pages 347–354, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiy103https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/218/3/347/4904047
“NIAID unveils strategic plan for developing a universal influenza vaccine.”National Institutes of Health. 28 February 2018. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/niaid-unveils-strategic-plan-developing-universal-influenza-vaccine
Catharine I. Paules, Hilary D. Marston, Robert W. Eisinger, David Baltimore, Anthony S. Fauci, The Pathway to a Universal Influenza Vaccine, Immunity, Volume 47, Issue 4, 17 October 2017, Pages 599-603, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2017.09.007https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(17)30418-1
25 “NIAID unveils strategic plan for developing a universal influenza vaccine.”National Institutes of Health. 28 February 2018. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/niaid-unveils-strategic-plan-developing-universal-influenza-vaccine
26 “A Universal Influenza Vaccine: The Strategic Plan for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.” NIAID, Oxford Academic. Table 1. Accessed 2021. https://academic.oup.com/view-large/118428412
27 Ferraro, Tom. Global Health NOW. “The United States Is Not Ready for Another Flu Pandemic.” Smithsonian Magazine. 13 November 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/united-states-not-ready-another-flu-pandemic-180967177/
28 “Senator Markey Introduces Legislation for Enhanced Investment in Universal Flu Vaccine Development.” Ed Markey United States Senator for Massachusetts. 15 February 2018. https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markey-introduces-legislation-for-enhanced-investment-in-universal-flu-vaccine-development
29 Ibid.
Sen. Markey, Edward J. [D-MA]. Flu Vaccine Act. https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fluvaccineact.pdf, https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2438/text. One Hundred and Fifteenth Congress, Second Session. S.2438. Senate – 02/15/2018 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
30 “Senator Markey Secures Funding in Omnibus Budget for His Call for a Universal Flu Vaccine.” Ed Markey United States Senator for Massachusetts. 23 March 2018. https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markey-secures-funding-in-omnibus-budget-for-his-call-for-a-universal-flu-vaccine
31 Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation’s Preparedness and Response Capabilities. U.S. Congress United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 23 January 2018. (Testimony of Tom V. Inglesby, M.D.) Accessed 2021. https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Inglesby1.pdf
32 Branswell, Helen. “With cash and a call for new ideas, Bill Gates tries to boost the campaign for a universal flu vaccine.” STAT. 27 April 2018. https://www.statnews.com/2018/04/27/bill-gates-universal-flu/
33 The Flu Lab. Home page. Accessed 2021. https://theflulab.org
34 “Developing universal vaccines of the future.” Radleys. Accessed 2021. https://www.radleys.com/blog/developing-the-vaccines-of-the-future/
“Will a “universal” flu vaccine be announced by 2025, with funding from Larry Page?.” FUTUUR. Accessed 2021. https://futuur.com/q/104559/under-larry-page-funding-will-a-universal-flu-vaccine-be-announced-by-2025
Robitzski, Dan. “The Co-Founder of Google Is Quietly Trying to Cure the Flu.” NEOSCOPE. 13 December 2019. https://futurism.com/neoscope/cofounder-google-trying-cure-flu
Quotes:
“While spending millions on medical research is an undeniably good way to use one’s fortune, TechCrunch notes that the way Page has gone about supplying the funds is inherently questionable — while his charity has to make its finances public, the private companies to which it basically redirects his money do not.
“Even if Page were to choose in the most exceptionally wise and effective way, I would object to the creation of LLCs in which billionaires can hide the exercise of their power,” Stanford philanthropy expert Rob Reich told TechCrunch.”
35 This source has been deleted. Evidence of its existence can be proved at Archive.Today: https://archive.is/wnGvx
“BioNTech Signs Collaboration Agreement with Pfizer to Develop mRNA-based Vaccines for Prevention of Influenza.” Pfizer, BioNTech. 16 August 2018. Accessed via Archive.Today 2021. https://biontech.de/sites/default/files/2019-08/20180816_BioNTech-Signs-Collaboration-Agreement-with-Pfizer.pdf. Press Release.
36 Alan. “Pfizer, Biotech Partner on RNA Flu Vaccine.” Science & Enterprise. 16 August 2018. https://sciencebusiness.technewslit.com/?p=34269
37 Ibid.
Morrison, Chris. Biopharmas targeting common viral denominators to battle flu. Nature Journal, biopharma dealmakers, pages B3-B5. November 2019. Accessed 2021. https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d43747-020-00801-1/d43747-020-00801-1.pdf
38 Norbert Pardi, Kaela Parkhouse, Ericka Kirkpatrick, Meagan McMahon, Seth J. Zost, Barbara L. Mui, Ying K. Tam, Katalin Karikó, Christopher J. Barbosa, Thomas D. Madden, Michael J. Hope, Florian Krammer, Scott E. Hensley, Drew Weissman, Nucleoside-modified mRNA immunization elicits influenza virus hemagglutinin stalk-specific antibodies, Nature Communications, (2018)9:3361, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05482-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05482-0.pdf
39 Dennis, Matthew. “GlaxoSmithKline expects lower drop in earnings this year; Q2 sales rise 7%, topping forecasts.” FirstWord PHARMA. 24 July 2019.https://old.firstwordpharma.com/node/1654810?tsid=33
Quote: “The company also halted work on the universal influenza vaccine GSK3277526A as results, including interim data from a Phase I/II trial, “didn’t support further development.”
40 Saganowsky, Eric. “Johnson & Johnson, BARDA join forces to prep for pandemic flu, inking deal for vaccine and drug R&D.” FIERCE Pharma. 19 September 2017. https://www.fiercepharma.com/vaccines/j-j-barda-partner-up-to-advance-pandemic-flu-preparedness
Hodgson, John. “Drug makers chase anti-flu pill.” Nature Biotechnology. 12 May 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41587-019-00013-8
41 “Johnson & Johnson Announces Collaboration with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to Fight Influenza.” Johnson & Johnson. 15 September 2017. https://www.jnj.com/media-center/press-releases/johnson-johnson-announces-collaboration-with-us-department-of-health-and-human-services-to-fight-influenza
42 Inglesby, Tom, M.D. [@T_Inglesby] “Good to see J & J working w BARDA on pand flu vax, including universal flu vaccine research fiercepharma.com Johnson & Johnson, BARDA join forces to prep for pandemic flu, inking deal for vaccine and drug R&D.” Twitter, 20 September 2017.
Good to see J & J working w BARDA on pand flu vax, including universal flu vaccine research fiercepharma.com/vaccines/j-j-b…
43 This source has been deleted. Evidence of its existence can be found at Archive.Today: https://archive.is/lDbQ3
Service, Robert F. “New pill shows early promise for blocking many strains of flu.” Science. 7 March 2019. https://www.science.org/content/article/new-pill-shows-early-promise-blocking-many-strains-flu
Quote:
“In July 2019, Vaxart announced that it has entered into a research collaboration agreement with Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V. (Janssen) to evaluate Vaxart’s proprietary oral vaccine platform for the Janssen universal influenza vaccine program. Under the agreement Vaxart will produce an oral vaccine containing certain proprietary antigens from Janssen, and test the product in a pre-clinical challenge model. Upon completion of the study Janssen will have an exclusive option to negotiate an exclusive worldwide license to the Vaxart technology encompassing the Janssen antigens.”
44 Terry, Mark. “Moderna Publishes Influenza Vaccine Clinical Trial Data.” BioSpace. 10 May 2019. https://www.biospace.com/article/moderna-releases-phase-i-data-from-2-influenza-trials/
45 Ghizzone, Marley. ““Researchers ‘Encouraged’ By early Data From Universal Flu Vaccine Study” – Marley Ghizzone” Mount Sinai, Peter Palese and Florian Krammer. 19 October 2019. https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2019/researchers-encouraged-by-early-data-from-universal-flu-vaccine-study-marley-ghizzone
46 President Donald J. Trump. Executive Order 13887: Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health, E.O. 13887 of Sep 19, 2019. Federal Register 84 FR 49935, pages 49935-49939 (5 pages). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/09/24/2019-20804/modernizing-influenza-vaccines-in-the-united-states-to-promote-national-security-and-public-health
47 “Center news: Players for Event 201, a pandemic exercise, include global business leaders and prominent government and public health leaders—livestream open to all.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Health Security. 15 October 2019. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/news/center-news/2019/2019-10-15-event201.html
“Event 201.” Event 201 A Global Pandemic Exercise, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security. Accessed 2021-2022. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
48 “Biography of Tom Inglesby.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security. Accessed 2021-2022. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-people/inglesby/
49 Note that the fatality rate assumed at Event 201 was between 7-10%.
50 “Event 201 Pandemic Exercise: Segment 1, Intro and Medical Countermeasures (MCM) Discussion.” Youtube, uploaded by centerforhealthsecurity, 4 November 2019.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Vm1-DnxRiPM?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
51 “Event 201 Players.” Event 201 A Global Pandemic Exercise, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security. Accessed 2021-2022. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/players/
52 “Public-private cooperation for pandemic preparedness and response.” Event 201 A Global Pandemic Exercise, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security. Accessed 2021-2022. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/recommendations.html. [at number 7]
53 Ibid. [at number 2]
54 “Pfizer and BioNTech Announce Further Details on Collaboration to Accelerate Global COVID-19 Vaccine Development.” Pfizer, 9 April 2020. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-further-details-collaborationPress Release.
55 Saplakoglu, Yasemin. “1st dose of COVID-19 vaccine given in New York.” LIVE SCIENCE. 14 December 2020. https://www.livescience.com/first-doses-coronavirus-vaccine-america-new-york.html
56 Kekatos, Mary. “Moderna launches clinical trial for HIV vaccine that uses mRNA technology.” abc NEWS. 27 January 2022. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/moderna-launches-clinical-trial-hiv-vaccine-mrna-technology/story?id=82510807
Staahl, Derek. “In-Depth: How San Diego scientists designed the first mRNA vaccine for HIV.” abc10 News San Diego. 3 February 2022. https://www.10news.com/news/in-depth/in-depth-how-san-diego-scientists-designed-the-first-mrna-vaccine-for-hiv
57 Fuller, Deborah. “How mRNA and DNA vaccines could soon treat cancers, HIV, autoimmune disorders and genetic diseases.” The Conversation. 24 January 2022. https://theconversation.com/how-mrna-and-dna-vaccines-could-soon-treat-cancers-hiv-autoimmune-disorders-and-genetic-diseases-170772 Accessed from: PBS NewsHour: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-mrna-and-dna-vaccines-could-soon-treat-diseases-like-cancer-hiv-autoimmune-disorders
58 “NIH launches clinical trial of universal influenza vaccine candidate.” National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), 1 June 2021. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-launches-clinical-trial-universal-influenza-vaccine-candidate. Press Release.
Lowe, Derek. “Moderna’s mRNA Flu Vaccine.” Science. 10 December 2021. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/moderna-s-mrna-flu-vaccine
59 Global Biodefense Staff. “Tom Inglesby Joins White House COVID-19 Response Team.” Global Biodefense. 20 December 2021. https://globalbiodefense.com/2021/12/20/tom-inglesby-joins-white-house-covid-19-response-team/
