Why Virus Denial Is Wrong Part 2

I wrote recently about the old-new topic of virus denial from a molecular biological perspective. My main thesis there was that the purported non-existence of viruses makes no sense in light of the fact that viruses contributed extensively to the subject of molecular biology. If they did not work in the way 'orthodoxy' would have it, infecting cells from all domains of life and having them copy their genomes and synthesise their proteins, then a great number of landmark experiments would be built on sand. The deep, serially-constructed understanding of molecular biology gained through those experiments would be an extraordinary coincidence, getting the right answers for completely the wrong reasons.

Virus denial is a subset of germ theory denial, the strongest form of which would have it that there are no microbial pathogens at all - no viruses, no bacteriophages, no bacteria, no fungi or protists. Even adherents of that view might be forced to concede that the organisms exist - the last three can be easily seen by light microscopy; it would be pretty foolish to deny - but insist they are at best a result of disease, not a cause.

One Michael Yeadon has now entered the fray. After extensive discussions with proponents of virus scepticism such as Tom Cowan and Andrew Kaufman, he has now declared that 'respiratory viruses do not exist'. I'm not linking; find it yourself! Now, Yeadon has gained notoriety during the pandemic, as have several others, for pursuing a contrarian stance. He declared the pandemic effectively 'over' due to herd immunity ... in 2020! He was a manager at Pfizer, which people seem to think gives him authority (which assumption does not extend to current CEO Albert Bourla) and he has a PhD in respiratory pharmacology, but his authority on respiratory infection and viruses seems little more than that of any other informed layman. Such as me.

It's not clear to what extent Yeadon has bought into virus denial - whether just pathogenic respiratory viruses, or the whole nine yards. Some fellow-travellers, such as Dr Sam Bailey, expend significant energy in denying that even tobacco mosaic virus, which kick-started the whole thing back in 1892, exists. Dmitri Ivanovski had shown that a bacteria-free liquid was able to transfer tobacco mosaic disease between plants. Martin Beijerinck built upon this work. Bailey's critiques seem stuck in the 1800's, complaining that they did not include 'controls' to rule out the mechanical transfection process as the cause of the disease. She is of course free to repeat these experiments however she sees fit. If mechanical stress alone causes the disease, it should be easy enough to show.

If science had not moved beyond the invisible 'filtrable agent' view of this early work since then, perhaps some scepticism might be warranted. But several Nobel Prizes have been won using TMV as a model or material source. It provides a reasonably pure source of RNA. It was the first plant virus purified and sequenced and x-ray probed, the first to have a complete genome map of protein structures and functions, the first to show RNA alone was sufficient to infect, and was used to establish that the genetic code was non-overlapping. Rosalind Franklin, a key member of the team that elucidated DNA's structure, subsequently moved on to TMV. Any number of suppliers will provide TMV for use in high school biology labs in exchange for hard cash. All in all, that's a hefty cv for something that does not exist!  

Of course, one might retreat to the position that the virus exists, it just doesn't cause the disease. Yet the only reason anyone even noticed these things is due to their association with disease. Until more sophisticated techniques became available, 'causing disease' was the only way anyone could tell they were there! So it would be one heck of a lucky break to have found something that was non-pathogenic, sparking an entire new field into the bargain, using infection as the test of its existence.

This use of pathogenicity as an 'assay' is true for many other viruses used in research. In the popular model system of bacteriophages and E. Coli, a remarkable amount of genetic and molecular biological detail was gleaned through the coarse assay of dropping phage onto a 'lawn of bacteria''. Where phage thrives, the lawn dies. Although one might not see this as a 'disease' scenario, you might like to picture it from E. Coli's perspective. And - as I have already shown in the prior post - many of the animal viruses used in molecular biology research came from disease scenarios - poliovirus, adenovirus, herpes, and so on. Only a fraction of viruses is pathogenic. Every species on earth harbours a few. But pathogens figure prominently in research, partly because they give a clear macroscopic indication of their presence: the associated disease.

Deniers also need to address the issue of the immune system. If microbes are not pathogenic, why does the immune system expend so much sophisticated energy fighting and 'remembering' them? Why produce antibodies and cellular memory? Much of the sensation of being ill, indeed, and the more serious outcomes of diseases such as Covid, result from the immune response rather than the pathogen itself. The body doesn't need to - and shouldn't - fight endogenous proteins.

One is frequently buttonholed online by people demanding evidence that any virus has been 'isolated'. It's not clear what they expect to receive in evidence, nor how they would verify it if they did. Viruses were isolated years ago! That's how you get x-ray pictures and gene sequences and protein structures. Or they will point to Koch's Postulates, designed as a rule of thumb (and with exceptions known to Koch) before viruses were even discovered. In their strict form, they preclude the 'isolation' of any obligate intracellular parasite, including bacteria such as Wolbachia, Rickettsia and Chlamydia. The latter two are clinically significant; and treatable by antibiotics. It would be particularly foolish to remain bound by these 1890 rules into thinking they cannot, even in principle, exist!