gotta keep 'em separated?

part four-b: agreement on some vocabulary, but no foundation

Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.

- Charles Mackay

part one . . . part two . . . part two-b . . . part three . . . part four-a

you’ll remember the bobs claim no virus (per our specific definition) has ever been isolated or purified. and if “isolation” is really cytopathic effects of a cell culture (see part four-a), then what about purification?

jeff green again weighs in:

"purification" refers to the purification of the original sample itself; that is, the separation of virus particles in a pure form, free from host constituents.

really? both teams agree purification means the virus is separated from all other tiny particles before cell culturing, microscopy or genetic sequencing?

okay, so do virologists actually do this in the lab?

several of the bobs have reviewed the methodology section of many of the virologists’ research papers and noted this step is missing. and christine massey went to the trouble to ask over 200 health/science institutions around the world whether anyone has ever purified any virus from a host. you can find her work here and here. make of it what you will.

team virus’ response to the purification critique is to state virologists rely on the three pillars (cytopathic effects, microscopy and sequencing) as proof of existence without the need to separate the virions from either the particles in the host sample or the particles in the cell culture. they don’t seem concerned about the absence of a foundation supporting those pillars.

i will keep looking but so far haven’t come across an explanation of how virologists know what is killing culture cells, posing for micrographs, and providing genetic material for sequencing without separating the specific particles accused of causing disease. let me know if you have something i can review further.

in the next few posts we’ll take a closer look at those laboratory procedures to see if we can figure out whether the methodology itself provides sufficient proof.

part five