Ending Plague by Francis W. Ruscetti

Author:Francis W. Ruscetti
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510764712
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2021-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

***

As a staff scientist back in Frank’s lab in the mid-1990s, my work on inflammatory cytokines and monocytes was key to understanding an emerging, highly dangerous viral infection, Ebola.

One project I was asked to collaborate on was to determine the difference between two strains of Ebola, the “Zaire” strain and the newly categorized “Reston” strain. These studies were being conducted in the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), just across the baseball field from our labs at the NCI.

I conducted the studies in monocytes as a logical starting point based on my PhD thesis research. I reported the results in an abstract showing the differences in pathogenicity (disease causing) between the Zaire and Reston strains of the virus.

To put it plainly, the Zaire strain was extremely dangerous, killing by creating an inflammatory cytokine storm in primary monocytes. But the Reston strain created no cytokine storm in primary monocytes and was thus of little danger to the public.

However, the corrupt, old boys’ club of science, Robert Gallo, Tony Fauci, John Coffin, and Harold Varmus, to name a few, didn’t like the story emerging from our data. We were challenging the narrative, just as we’d done when we said that HIV infection didn’t have to cause AIDS. Simply stated, there could be HIV infection with no AIDS, and a diagnosis of AIDS with no HIV infection. It was all about the response of the immune system.

Similarly, the Reston strain of Ebola was benign.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.