London - Undemocratic, this is the right word describing the British electoral system which excludes its citizens living abroad and EU citizens in UK from general elections. Look at the electoral register and see people from Antigua, Bahamas, Botswana, Zimbabwe and all the Commonwealth countries can have their say on who rule the UK.
The ‘post-imperial’ electoral system gives ex colonies citizens the right to vote in the country which once exploited their own, and this is absolutely right and fair. But it is utterly unjust citizens from the neighbouring countries living in the UK and the British abroad (who lose the right to vote after a number of years) are excluded from the democratic process by the law since 1969. Why? Is it just for chance or this is the result of the British crossparty establishment's 'domestic defence policy'?
The answer is complex and touches the very founding process of democracy. Every political establishment, in every country, defends itself from whom considers, and wrongly classifies, as defector. This means those who flee their countries of origin are perceived as potential political defectors able to detect the structural, systemic failures of political systems in the countries they left: people emigrate when understand there is no hope for change. But why then Indian or Pakistani, for instance, living in the UK take part to national elections and have MPs representing their communities in the House of Commons while European origin and British expats don't?
Firstly because they are from former colonies and Commonwealth citizens, secondly because nearly all Commonwealth countries (except for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and perhaps few others), are not democracies comparable to the EU ones (exceptions here as well starting from Hungary) therefore people from Nigeria or Malawi have de facto a different political awareness and might not be able to promote changes in the structural system of an advanced democracy such as Britain.
Today the campaign to give British citizens living abroad and EU citizens in UK full political rights launched by Another Europe is Possible, The 3 Million and British in Europe marks a radical change in support of democracy in Great Britain, and goes far and beyond Brexit. The fight is for a fair and just society representing all and for a political system no longer allowed to hide and perpetrate exclusion in the name of a dead ‘post-imperialist’ establishment.
Let Us Vote: campaign and petition launched by Another Europe is Possible, British in Europe and The3Million
African unsustainable development between EU grants and China loans
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rMA15: the story of mice adapted SARS-COV-1
From 2007 SARS was studied on rats in biolabs
NOTE: THIS ARTICLE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND DOES NOT REFER TO ENGINEERED VIRUSES AS CAUSES OF COVID-19. IT EXPLAINS HOW FROM 2007 SARS HAS BEEN STUDIED ON MICE IN BIOLABS ACROSS THE WORLD.
London, 24 April 2020 - In January 2007 in the US Laboratory of Infectious Diseases of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in Bethesda, Maryland, researchers were carrying out experiments on SARS-CoV virus after 2003 epidemic caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-COV-1) that originated in bats.
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They decided to use mice as models of human SARS disease as they are easily accessible and relatively unexpensive. As mice support SARS-coronavirus replication in the respiratory tract, but do not develop the disease, the team decided to ‘potentiate’ SARS-COV-1 by adapting it: as one single inhalation of the virus did not produce effects, they made 15 serial passages in the respiratory tract of young mice. The use of this mouse-adapted virus allowed studies on viral disease and its prevention in a mammalian host.
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This way a new biologically derived virus, rMA15 was born in a laboratory following 15 intranasal inoculations of SARS-COV, lethal even for the high resistant mice. The virus is not a result of engineering but biological mutation.
“We adapted the SARS-CoV (Urbani strain) by serial passage in the respiratory tract of young BALB/c mice. Fifteen passages resulted in a virus (MA15) that is lethal for mice following intranasal inoculation” says the study report. ”The virulence and lethality of the MA15 virus result from six mutations in the SARS-CoV genome that occurred within 15 passages through BALB/c mice. Introduction of these six mutations into a recombinant SARS-CoV infectious clone, rMA15, conferred a lethal phenotype on the virus for young BALB/c mice”.
That way scientists since 2007 could observe and study effects of SARS-COV induced illness more easily. MA15, much more lethal than the original SARS-CoV, started to be used in laboratories for research of vaccines because experts after 2003 epidemic launched the alarm on high risk of pandemics.
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“The MA15 virus has six coding mutations associated with adaptation and increased virulence; when introduced into a recombinant SARS-CoV, these mutations result in a highly virulent and lethal virus (rMA15), duplicating the phenotype of the biologically derived MA15 virus. Intranasal inoculation with MA15 reproduces many aspects of disease seen in severe human cases of SARS.”
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Thereafter the adapted rMA15 was used in researches to assess whether SARS-CoV like viruses circulating in bats can infect directly humans so a new recombinant virus was created in which the gene encoding the spike glycoprotein of SARS virus was swapped with the gene from a bat virus called SHC014 and the SARS-CoV used in the experiment was in fact SARS-MA15.
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The result was a recombinant virus called SHC014-MA15, an engineered one which replicated well in a human epithelial airway cell line and in primary human airway epithelial cell cultures. One of the results of the experiment was that the spike glycoprotein of a bat coronavirus can mediate virus entry into human cells showing a viral genome sequence alone is not enough to establish the infectivity and danger to humans.
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The new SHC014-MA15 was labelled by some media as the new SARS 2.0. But some virologists say this alarm wasn’t justified.
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Here is what the Center for Retrovirus Research, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA said: last Feb 26 2020. "No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2 because this virus is undoubtedly distinct from SL-SHC014-MA15, with >6,000 nucleotide differences across the whole genome. Therefore, once again there is no credible evidence to support the claim that the SARS-CoV-2 is derived from the chimeric SL-SHC014-MA15".
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The prestigious Nature in 12 November 2015 warned over risky research in November 2015. But an Editors’ note, last March makes clear: "We are aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus."
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All scientists have drastically ruled out the present pandemic SARS-COV-2 is an engineered virus and any relation with SL-SHC014-MA15 virus as this is engineered.
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But rMA15 virus, instead, is not an engineered one; it is the natural, biological outcome of 15 inhalations in mice of SARS-CoV-1 which simply biologically mutated inside the animal. All scientists reckon SARS-CoV-2 comes from an animal.
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At present researchers don’t know if SARS-CoV-2 immediately started to spread in humans after a single transmission from an animal, or if it took multiple zoonotic events between an infected animal population and humans.
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Why then, if mice infected with rMA15 were so widely used in laboratories across the globe, have never been mentioned as possible cause of the present pandemic? Because genome is different? How many generations of mice are needed for a virus mutation then? What other experiments and biological passages have been made since 2007 with MA15? Maybe these have not been published? Or the virus rMA15 escaped the lab years ago to mutate outside the lab?
Over these months we have been told that this pandemic originated from a bat or pangolin which infected a human in Wuhan wet market where bats are not even being sold. But any other plausible assumptions on laboratory escape are ruled out as unverified theories, conspiracy theories, irresponsible, sensationalists mediatic attacks to the scientific community.
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Meanwhile journalist trying to investigate what happened in Wuhan laboratory at few steps away from the wet Market are detained by police and forcibly quarantined by Chinese government.
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Many information emerged over the last two months about biolabs weak and internationally inconsistent regulation, laboratories escapes and the amount of ongoing research on SARS.
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In the New York Post of last 22 Feb, journalist Steve W. Moshes explains that after 2003 SARS outbreak, SARS-CoV virus escaped from virology labs more than once in China and that the country only Level 4 microbiology lab that is equipped to handle deadly coronaviruses is right the National Biosafety Laboratory. He lays out the chance laboratory workers became infected accidentally and then infected families and friends and brings as supporting evidence the fact that Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology issued a new directive: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus”, right in the frame of measures to contain the outbreak.
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At this stage, should we still believe the Wuhan wet market stories of bats and pangolins?
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Wouldn’t be more honest to admit that researches are ongoing on the actual incident that caused the pandemic? The way laboratory escapes reports are drastically targeted as baseless attacks to scientific evidence sounds frankly as a collective defence on the side of the scientific community and on the one of the pharma corporates which finance laboratory research: they fear discredit and anger in a moment of exasperation of the public opinion.
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Laboratory accidents can happen. Day will come the scientific community will have to admit this has been the case.
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SOURCES:
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A mouse-adapted SARS-coronavirus causes disease and mortality in BALB/c mice.
A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines: Status Report
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No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2
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Genomic variations of COVID-19 suggest multiple outbreak sources of transmission
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Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab
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GENETICS SOCIETY OF HUNAN PROVINCE REPORT EXPLAINS SARS TRIALS ON MICE
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