― H.L. Mencken
In the previous entry, we learned how a process invented to increase the size of research samples of DNA called polymerase chain reaction is used to test for viruses even though the guy who received a Nobel Prize for inventing it said using it that way doesn’t work.
Kary Mullis’s PCR process takes segments of DNA through a “cycle” that doubles the amount. If you run a single segment of DNA through just 40 cycles, you’ll end up with 1 x 240, which is over a trillion copies. Remember that number, it’s going to be important later.
We also saw that the COVID-19 virus, like any other virus, is just some genetic code surrounded by a shell that acts as a “Trojan horse,” allowing the virus to invade the cells of living organisms. Once inside, the genetic code exits the shell, hijacking the cell’s functions to make it produce more copies of the virus.
The genetic code inside the COVID-19 virus’s shell is RNA. So, since the PCR cycle only works on DNA, before a sample is tested for COVID-19 another process is used to convert the former into the latter. Once that’s done, the sample is run through a number of PCR cycles to amplify the amount of any converted-viral-RNA that was originally in it so there’s enough be detected.
But two factors are responsible for creating the massive unreliability of PCR testing that, as we saw in part 1, the New York Times reported on but downplayed to push for mass testing of a different kind without discrediting the whole concept.
- The bits of genetic material whose amount is being amplified ARE NOT viruses. They’re just small segments of inert genetic material found inside a virus’s shell. Without the shell, they don’t have any ability to infect a cell and reproduce. The PCR test doesn’t detect “live” viruses, at best it only detects their “remains.”
- The detection of viral remains involves massively amplifying the amount in the original sample by running it through successive PCR cycles. And nothing about the PCR test itself will tell you if there was actually any “live” virus in the original sample.
The number of PCR cycles it takes to amplify a sample containing viral remains to the point where they can be detected is called its cycle threshold.
And if the New York Times were interested in producing journalism rather than shilling for mandatory testing, they would have focused their whole story on something you have to read three-fourths of the way in to even find out.
The Food and Drug Administration said in an emailed statement that it does not specify the cycle threshold ranges used to determine who is positive, and that “commercial manufacturers and laboratories set their own.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is examining the use of cycle threshold measures “for policy decisions.” The agency said it would need to collaborate with the F.D.A. and with device manufacturers to ensure the measures “can be used properly and with assurance that we know what they mean.”
So the FDA and CDC have spent months hyping a test that involves amplifying tiny samples of viral remains until there’s enough to detect. But, according to the New York Times, there are no rules or even any guidelines for how much amplification the testing companies do.
Even though obviously, the more positive test results they churn out, the more downstream business they’ll get from people who are worried because they had contact with someone that tested positive and the general increased concern over the virus.
And, of course, the Times neglected to mention any of that but, instead, focused on pushing for continuing to mass test for COVID-19 but using a different test.
As we saw in the previous entry, they also failed to mention that, since any test will have a false positive rate, mass testing will mean that an alarming number of bogus COVID-19 cases will continue to be reported every single day from now til eternity even after the virus has run its course, creating an illusory pandemic that never goes away.
Convenient huh?
But what the New York Times says about the unreliability of PCR testing also significantly understates how badly the cycling process is being abused to inflate the number of positive test results.
And it’s probably no coincidence that, had they been upfront about just how unreliable the data we’ve thus far gotten from PCR-testing is, they would have had a tough time claiming there was any justification for mass testing by other means.
Their article informs us that most testing companies run the samples they receive through 40 cycles. As we saw above, that means any genetic material in them is being multiplied over a trillion times. We’re told that a few companies run samples through only 37 cycles, which is still multiplying the amount of converted viral-RNA by a factor of almost 140 billion.
But the worst is yet to come.
Though the CDC replied to the Times by saying they were “examining the use of cycle threshold measures for policy decisions,” the New York Times either didn’t know or didn’t want you to know that the CDC already has guidelines that recommend … wait for it… 40 amplification cycles. Even though their own researchers were unable to find any live virus in samples with a cycling threshold greater than 33!
That’s right folks. The CDC issued guidelines for COVID-19 testing that their own research shows are bound to mean that a lot of people not infected by the virus would get back test results falsely saying they were.
Moreover, even running samples through the 33 cycles the New York Times mentions as the cutoff point in the CDC’s research appears to be way too much amplification.
One paper the CDC cites reports finding no “live” virus in any samples whose cycle threshold is greater than 24. And, even the CDC found a lot more samples that had no live virus than they did samples that did for cycle thresholds between 24 and 33.
The Times claimed that around 90% of samples taken from a set of positive tests that used 40 cycles were really negative because, when they were run through only 30 cycles, no viral remains were detected.
But given that 30 cycles also appear to be way too much amplification, it’s likely that a lot more than just 90% were actually bogus. Who knows how few positive diagnoses would have been verified if they’d used the much lower 24 number of amplifying cycles recommended by the Oxford team and above which the other research cited by the CDC found no live virus.
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