Tuesday, February 15, 2022

New Yale Center to Advance Phage Understanding, Treatments, Training, Education

February 14, 2022

by Julie Parry

The Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale held its launch event on Thursday, January 27, 2022, by hosting a panel discussion centered around the context of the documentary, Salt In My Soul.

Salt In My Soul chronicles the life of Mallory Smith, a woman with cystic fibrosis, by using her own words from her diary, audio and video clips that her mother Diane Shader-Smith discovered after her daughter’s passing. Smith’s doctors tried experimental phage therapy to treat a multi-antibiotic-resistant infection, but this occurred too late to prevent her death at age 25 from infectious complications after bilateral lung transplant.

Photo by Robert Lisak
Dr. Jon Koff meets with patient.

Director of the Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale, Paul Turner, PhD, Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, discussed the antibiotic resistance crisis and how phage therapy can combat this crisis.

The antibiotic resistance crisis is a “sobering reminder that not too far off in the future, the expected rates of death from antimicrobial resistance in the human population around the world may exceed the rates of deaths from common diseases, such as cancer,” said Turner.

“What can we do?” Turner asked. “We can harness an old technology, phage therapy, and update it for modern times. At Yale, we have had successful therapeutic use of lytic phages.”

The new Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale will work to create solutions for antimicrobial resistance. Through their mission to advance and support phage research; to translate these advancements into new clinical therapies; and to train and educate students, scientists, healthcare professionals, and the community, the new Center combines the work of faculty, researchers, trainees, and staff to further develop phage for therapeutic use. These efforts bridge across Yale University and Yale School of Medicine, especially the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Internal Medicine.

The Center has informally existed at Yale since 2016 when a case of multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa was treated successfully with phage OMKO1, discovered in a water sample from Dodge Pond, a small lake in Conn.

Ella Balasa, an individual with cystic fibrosis and advocate, feels incredibly lucky to have received phage therapy at Yale in 2019. “I believe that without it [phage therapy], at this point, I would have been transplanted because of the severe lung infection that I was facing at the time,” she said.

Balasa had been struggling with antibiotic resistant infections for many years when she came across a story about Yale researchers’ work in phage therapy. She then contacted Research Scientist Benjamin Chan, PhD, scientific director of the Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale. Chan started the process to obtain approval to treat Balasa via the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) investigational new drug expanded access program, or what is often called compassionate use.

“At that point, my lung function was about 20%,” Balasa said. “Phage did clear my infection. I want everyone to know that this therapy can be a viable option for antimicrobial resistance. I am excited that there are groups like you all [Yale] that are bringing clinical trials to people.”

The Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale is making a multi-million-dollar investment in phage biology research and phage applications. They are currently targeting pulmonary infections in cystic fibrosis and other relevant clinical conditions. In addition, the Center will expand to address causes of sepsis, prosthetic-joint infections, post-COVID pneumonia, and other antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in the future.

Jon Koff, MD, associate professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine); director, Adult Cystic Fibrosis Program; and medical director of the Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale, serves as the principal investigator on the CYstic fibrosis bacterioPHage study at Yale (CYPHY), an FDA-approved human clinical phase I/II trial, developed at Yale School of Medicine and funded through Yale University, the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

“[The trial] is an exemplar of using our strategy of looking more towards treating patients chronically over the long term with phages to see if we can affect their multi-drug resistant infections and see clinical improvements. It is similar to introducing an inhaled antibiotic,” explained Koff.

“The trial has been very rewarding and a great opportunity for me to engage with our patients, our community, and providers around the country. We’ve seen patients come to Yale from all over and this has allowed me to communicate to folks from multiple communities about our phage and our phage strategies,” said Koff.

In addition to Turner, Chan, Koff, and Balasa, other presenters in the one-hour virtual event were Gunnar Esiason, cystic fibrosis advocate, and graduate student at Dartmouth in the MBA/MPH program; Will Battersby, film director and producer of Salt In My Soul; and Diane Shader-Smith, Mallory Smith’s mother.

Battersby spoke about making the documentary, the themes throughout, and how people have embraced the work. “If you tell the story of somebody going through extraordinary things, extraordinary themes and lessons will emerge. I had no intention of making a film that would be picked up by the phage community in the way that it has, but it is very moving because of the possibilities in the film, […] it makes you ask so many things about phage.”

Shader-Smith shared in Battersby’s sentiment. “Mallory was willing to try phage therapy. We had many, many long talks about it. I think the main reason that people love the film, despite the tragedy, is that they leave feeling hopeful. And phage therapy is that hope,” she said.

Chan has devoted his career to furthering phage research and developing phage therapies. Despite the long history of phage usage, until recently, it hasn’t gained steam in the 0077saestern biomedical community. He gathers his strength to continue with his efforts from cystic fibrosis patients like Balasa and Esiason, parents like Shader-Smith, and supporters like Battersby.

“The cystic fibrosis community is the best. We are in it together. We help each other move through stuff. If it wasn’t for them, I would have burned out a long time ago,” he said.

Koff believes that Chan diminishes his commitment to this work. “Ben minimized his unbelievable energy to follow through on this and to have a vision for translating what he is seeing in the laboratory to the clinic. It has been an absolute pleasure working with him and seeing that level of effort,” said Koff.

“What is awesome is that I am able to be part of this process in the clinic, in the research in collaboration with Paul [Turner] and Ben [Chan] and the research group, and we can see this happening in the clinical trial context. It has been a wonderful experience for me to cross all of these aspects and I think they make our Center pretty unique,” said Koff.

The Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale is funded by Yale University and philanthropic contributors who share the vision for phage therapy.

To learn more about the phage research at Yale, visit Center for Phage Biology and Therapy at Yale. For more information on the CYPHY trial, visit CYstic Fibrosis bacterioPHage Study at Yale (CYPHY). To learn more about the documentary, watch the trailer, or the film, go to Salt In My Soul.

Submitted by Julie Parry on February 13, 2022

Featured in this article

Jon Koff, MD
Associate Professor Term; Associate Director, Fellowship Research, Pulmonary,
Critical Care & Sleep Medicine; Director, Adult Cystic Fibrosis Program
Paul Turner, PhD
Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Benjamin Chan
Research Scientist

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PHAGES

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIOPHAGES

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PHAGE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BACTERIOPHAGE

Vaccine scientists have been chasing variants; now, they’re seeking a universal coronavirus vaccine

BY CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON• THE WASHINGTON POST • FEBRUARY 14, 2022

A health care worker prepares a dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the CareNow Denver University urgent care center in Denver on Nov. 16, 2021. (Daniel Brenner/Bloomberg)

Volunteers are rolling up their sleeves to receive shots of experimental vaccines tailored to beat the omicron variant — just as the winter coronavirus surge begins to relent.

By the time scientists know whether those rebooted vaccines are effective and safe, omicron is expected to be in the rearview mirror. Already, mask mandates are easing. People are beginning to talk about normalcy.

The disconnect highlights the exhausting scientific chase of the last year — and the one that lies ahead. And it underscores a more pressing, overarching conundrum: Is chasing the latest variant a viable strategy? Instead of testing and potentially deploying a new shot when a new variant pops up, what if a single vaccine could thwart all iterations of this coronavirus and the next ones, too?

By now, rebooting vaccines to match a new variant is becoming part of scientific muscle memory. Drug companies made vaccines to fight beta, delta and now omicron. None of those shots have been needed yet, but to many scientists, it is a short-term, shortsighted and unsustainable strategy.

“You don’t want to play this whack-a-mole approach,” said David R. Martinez, a viral immunologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This could go on forever.”

The original shot has held up remarkably well, but there’s no guarantee how it will fare against the next variant. Scientists like Martinez want to end the cycle of catchup.

They are inventing vaccines designed to foster broad protection — an immunity wall that will repel not only the variants of SARS-CoV-2 that we know about, but those yet to emerge.

At minimum, the world needs a truly variant-proof vaccine. Even better would be a shot that would also stop a future pandemic, protecting against a yet-unknown coronavirus that will jump from animals into people in the years to come.

Some experts have questioned why there isn’t already an Operation Warp Speed for these universal vaccines.

Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, stresses the need for patience, along with urgency. There are scientific gaps needing to be filled to build a vaccine that is broadly protective and lasts a long time — and the National Institutes of Health last fall awarded $36 million to groups trying to answer basic questions.

“You shouldn’t confuse the rapidity and the ease with which we developed a coronavirus vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 with the extraordinary obstacles you might face in trying to get a vaccine that protects” more broadly, Fauci said in an interview with The Washington Post. “There’s a lot of scientific discovery that needs to go into that.”

Privately, though, scientists say Fauci is urging them to hurry up.

“I worry about chasing variants, because there’s always going to be a new variant,” said Drew Weissman, a vaccine pioneer and immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine who is working on a pan-coronavirus vaccine. “Right now, every six months they pop up, but they’re going to pop up until the world is vaccinated.”

- - -

Flush with the success of the first vaccines, many scientists working on next-generation shots had been thinking big in 2021. Maybe they could make a vaccine that would repel not only SARS-CoV-2 and the original SARS, but also two coronaviruses that cause the common cold, Middle East respiratory syndrome, as well as future bat coronaviruses that could jump into humans.

A New England Journal of Medicine study last year demonstrated that, at least in concept, it was possible to generate broad immune protection against many viruses. Researchers in China showed that survivors of the original SARS outbreak two decades ago who were vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 produced antibodies capable of blocking an array of variants and other coronaviruses.

But making a single vaccine that works against such a wide range of viruses is tricky, and the beta, delta and then omicron variants recalibrated some of that sweeping ambition.

“When SARS-CoV-2 first emerged, it was a virus with very few tricks, and so we were very successful,” said Dennis Burton, chair of the department of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research Institute. “But it’s acquiring more and more tricks, basically, and so it’s more and more difficult to deal with — you’ve got to be more precise with the antibody you induce through your vaccine.”

Before developing a vaccine to stop the next pandemic, it became clear that a more modest goal — a variant-proof vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 - may be needed to help end this crisis.

“Omicron really has pointed us to say, ‘Hey, we’re not out of this epidemic, yet, and we don’t know what the future holds with this epidemic.’ We need to focus on what the next outbreak might be, but also make sure we’re covering any variant ... that would come up in the next three to five years,” said Barton Haynes, an immunologist and vaccine expert at Duke University Medical Center.

In the short-term, Haynes’s team is focused on stopping variants. They are manufacturing a vaccine — a nanoparticle with a fragment of the spike dotting its surface. In animal studies, that vaccine triggered broad immune protection against variants, the original SARS virus and bat coronaviruses. Haynes hopes to begin testing it in people this year.

Results are expected soon from the first human tests of a different “pan-SARS” vaccine developed by scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. In early studies, they have also shown to provide broader protection than the first-generation shots. It consists of a many-sided nanoparticle dotted with the spike found on the original version of the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China.

Vaccines teach the immune system to recognize a virus. They often do this by presenting a version of the virus — which simply could be a telltale feature, such as the spikes on the outside of the coronavirus. The power of these new vaccines stems from which feature they show and how they present it. Virus fragments are assembled onto many-sided nanoparticles, resembling the way the spike might look on the surface of the virus itself — an approach that helps focus the immune response.

“The immune system has evolved to respond strongly to repetition. Viruses have repetitive arrays of proteins on their surfaces,” said Neil King, a University of Washington biochemist with another variant-proof vaccine candidate in human trials. “That’s why nanoparticle vaccines work better, is that they present the antigen as a repetitive array, to provoke that strong response.”

- - -

The first versions of coronavirus vaccines were powerful, but simple. They took spiky proteins from the outside of the virus that emerged in 2019, tweaked them to keep the spikes in the right shape — and presented those spikes to the immune system.

The next-generation vaccines, the ones built to stop future pandemics, will probably require greater sophistication.

Martinez is working on a vaccine at UNC that shows the immune system “chimeric” spikes. Like the chimera creature of Greek mythology - with the head of a lion, the midsection of a goat and the rear end of a serpent — these vaccines use spikes patched together from fragments of different coronaviruses. A piece from SARS-CoV-2, another bit of the original SARS virus and a third component from a bat coronavirus.

Other researchers, like King, are building “mosaic” and cocktail vaccines, which contain other combinations. A tiny particle might be stippled with a key piece of spike proteins from SARS-CoV-2, SARS and two bat coronaviruses, for example. California Institute of Technology researchers created mosaic nanoparticles with fragments from four to eight different coronaviruses.

The precise approach that will form the best universal vaccine is still a matter of scientific debate. But this much is for sure: Updating vaccines every six months isn’t going to be a reasonable — or equitable — way to protect people globally.

“I don’t think the experience with the variants to date, trying to pursue the new variants as they emerge and rapidly generate variant-specific vaccines — I don’t think that is a strategy for the long term, even in high-income countries, and certainly not in less-well-resourced environments,” said Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit funding efforts to develop variant-proof and universal vaccines.

Discovering that antibodies exist that are capable of recognizing and neutralizing a broad array of viruses is key. But learning how to trigger them to create a shield of protection could be more complicated than it sounds.

It might not be enough that people can generate antibodies to block a variety of coronaviruses. The trick becomes whether a vaccine can generate sufficient quantities to protect people. In HIV, for example, antibodies that block many strains of the always-mutating virus have been isolated in people with long-term infections. But using a vaccine to replicate what nature can accomplish has loomed as the Holy Grail for the field.

In SARS-CoV-2, the spike protein looks a bit like a tree, and rare antibodies that bind to the base of the tree can block a broad array of related coronaviruses in laboratory studies, said Duane Wesemann, an immunologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“But it’s very low frequency, and if we’re making a vaccine that just does that, we have to see it may not be that easy,” Wesemann said. “It’s not clear we can elicit those special antibodies in high enough levels.”

A universal vaccine will arrive in a more complicated world than the first-generation vaccines encountered. People will have different levels of pre-existing immunity, from vaccinations and from infections related to variants.

Scientists do not agree about how previous exposures -— known as immune imprinting, or sometimes called “original antigenic sin” — will affect people’s response to new vaccines, for good or bad. One possibility is that new vaccines will create the strongest response to the virus people were originally exposed to, not the newest one. But vaccine designers like Martinez see the potential to exploit this quirk of the immune system as an asset, to focus the response on the right target.

Another scientific issue that remains to be solved is durability. A broad vaccine with protection that fades rapidly might be impractical to use to prevent future pandemics. After all, SARS emerged about two decades ago, and MERS a decade later.

“We’re looking for a tetanus-like shot,” Haynes said. “We all have to get a tetanus shot every 10 years. That would be really terrific.”

The quest for a truly universal vaccine is urgent, but many experts caution that it’s a far different challenge than creating the first-generation vaccines.

“We have been studying influenza viruses more than 70 or more years, and we are trying to make universal influenza vaccines, and we still haven’t been able to do it,” said Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who is working on a pan coronavirus vaccine at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “But this is a different virus, and I think it’s worth trying. What I’m trying to say is that it may not be easy.”

Canada invokes Emergencies Act for the first time in 50 years, to quell trucker protests

The busiest US-Canada border crossing reopened last Sunday
Web Desk Updated: February 15, 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference in Ottawa, Ontario, on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, to provide an update on the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine rollout in Canada |Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in 50 years, to quell the trucker protests in the country against coronavirus mandates. Earlier, the police had arrested 11 people with a "cache of firearms" blocking a border crossing with the United States. As news agency AFP reported, Trudeau said the military would not be deployed at this stage, but authorities would be granted more powers to arrest protesters and seize their trucks in order to clear blockades, as well as ban funding of the protests.

Thousands of protesters railing against vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions descended on the capital Ottawa last month, deliberately blocking traffic around Parliament Hill.

Trudeau said one must be “very, very cautious” about deploying troops on Canadian soil, adding there has been no such request to the federal government. He said any formal requests for assistance from the City of Ottawa or Ontario will be considered. Organisers had raised millions for the cross-country “freedom truck convoy” against vaccine mandates and other restrictions.

It has attracted support from former US President Donald Trump. Ottawa's mayor, meanwhile, is calling on several opposition Conservative lawmakers to apologize for praising the protesters and posing with them. A photo posted by one of the lawmakers shows them some giving the thumbs-up—in front of one of the protest trucks, which have been barricading roads and honking horns in the city almost non-stop.

The busiest US-Canada border crossing reopened last Sunday after protests against COVID-19 restrictions closed it for almost a week, the owner announced. The bridge's owner, Detroit International Bridge Co., said in a statement that the Ambassador Bridge is now fully open allowing the free flow of commerce between the Canada and US economies once again.

Police in Windsor, Ontario, said earlier that more than two dozen people were peacefully arrested, seven vehicles were towed and five were seized near the bridge that links the city and numerous Canadian automotive plants with Detroit.

Canada in crisis: Why Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act to end trucker protests

A confrontation between a ‘freedom convoy’ protester yelling ‘freedom’ and a person opposed to the occupation. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

February 14, 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act in an effort to quell the protests by truckers and other groups opposed to measures aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. The federal government has never before acted to implement this once-obscure piece of disaster and emergency legislation.

Trudeau has suggested the additional tools the Emergencies Act provides for will allow the federal government to manage situations as they emerge, take extraordinary actions that are time-limited, have specific geographic bounds and deploy a measured use of out-of-the-ordinary expansive governmental powers.

“This is about keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs and restoring confidence in our institutions,” Trudeau said in a national address Monday.

Canada is still in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic emergency. At the time of Trudeau’s announcement, 35,470 Canadians had died of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to reporters’ questions after invoking the Emergencies Act in response to the so-called freedom convoy’s ongoing occupation of Ottawa.

Never been invoked

The Emergencies Act of 1988 is part of the Revised Statues of Canada. Such legislation is reserved for use under the most extreme emergencies or existential threats. In more than 30 years, no Canadian government has determined that any disaster — natural or man-made — has created such a grave threat to the nation.

The act’s legislation names examples of emergencies that may rise to the level of top concern. Public welfare emergencies are what most people would consider as disasters, including natural phenomena and man-made catastrophes. Public order emergencies consist of various threats from civil disorder — the current occupation of Ottawa being an example. In addition, aspects of international emergencies and warfare can be addressed within the context of the Emergencies Act.

The legislation means that additional extraordinary government powers can be applied to manage an extreme emergency. These include additional layers of security for specific locations and critical infrastructure, people can be compelled to render essential services with compensation and the RCMP — Canada’s national police force — can be used to enforce municipal laws.

In the case of the current protests in Ottawa and other parts of the country, an additional new and significant aspect affects the financial support mechanisms for the ‘freedom convoy’ occupation. The methods and instruments of such financial support will now come under closer security in accordance with a broadening of Canada’s anti-terrorism financing rules.

War Measures Act

The shadow of history is important here as Trudeau stresses he is not using the invocation of the Emergencies Act to call the Canadian military onto the streets to confront citizens.

It’s an essential point for him to make: in 1970, Trudeau’s father, Pierre, invoked the War Measures Act in one of the most controversial decisions of his 15-year tenure as prime minister. The older Trudeau brought the military into the streets during the October Crisis after a series of terrorist attacks perpetrated by the separatist group known as the Front de libération du Québec.

Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau announces the War Measures Act in response to the 1970 October Crisis, when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped Québec’s Deputy Premier Pierre Laporte.

The War Measures Act dates back to 1914. It was intended to give the Canadian government extra powers during times of war, invasion and insurrection. Due to real and perceived injustices related to use of the act, it was repealed in the 1980s. One of those injustices was that the War Measures Act facilitated the internment of nearly 22,000 Japanese Canadians living in British Columbia during the Second World War.

Read more: Coronavirus: Racism and the long-term impacts of emergency measures in Canada

When the Emergencies Act succeeded the War Measures Act in 1988, it introduced changes regarding how the federal government can use extraordinary powers in times of crisis. Those changes include forcing cabinet to seek Parliament’s approval for new emergency laws, and requiring any emergency actions to take place in a manner consistent with the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Charter is the most recognized part of Canada’s Constitution. It guarantees the rights of individuals by enshrining those rights, and puts certain limits on them.

Trudeau stressed that by using the Emergencies Act, the government was “not suspending fundamental rights or overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are not limiting people’s freedom of speech. We are not limiting freedom of peaceful assembly. We are not preventing people from exercising their right to protest legally. We are reinforcing the principles, values and institutions that keep all Canadians free.”

In the coming days, Parliament will begin an unprecedented process of legislatively enacting emergency powers. It is not guaranteed that Parliament will concur with all of the provisions of the implementation of the Emergencies Act as tabled by the Trudeau administration.

A confrontation between a ‘freedom convoy’ protester yelling ‘freedom’ and a person opposed to the occupation. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

All disasters are political

The historic invocation of the Emergencies Act — due to the actions of a small group of people — begs the question: what comes next?

First, we will see numerous parliamentary procedures in Ottawa starting immediately with the specific details of what the implementation of the Emergencies Act will actually mean.

Second — perhaps more importantly to those in Ottawa and elsewhere whose lives are being negatively impacted by the continued disruptions — the act will swiftly allow for action to bring the immediate crisis to an end.

There will be changes in how people will be allowed to gather. There will also be designations of new zones with enhanced security protocols at locations with critical infrastructure, government operations, border crossings and airports.

Additional services will be provided to spots under occupation, such as downtown Ottawa. Specifically, services such as heavy towing could be brought to bear on the situation in ways not available before.

Third, the invocation of the Emergencies Act sends out the symbolic message that Canada is treating the current anti-mandate blockages and occupations with the utmost seriousness. As Ottawa approaches the third week of the occupation, this action should have taken place much earlier.

In the end, all disasters are political. There will be an examination of why it took so long to invoke the Emergencies Act. But in the meantime, Canada is telegraphing to the world that public order will be maintained — and the government can take action to quell this crisis of social origin.

Author

Jack L. Rozdilsky
Associate Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, Canada
Disclosure statement
Jack L. Rozdilsky is a Professor at York University who receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as a co-investigator on a project supported under operating grant Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Research Funding.

Sean Hannity says if Canadian truckers are arrested he “can’t guarantee that at that point people won’t defend themselves”

DEAR SEAN THERE IS NO 2ND AMENDMENT IN CANADA

WRITTEN BY MEDIA MATTERS STAFF
PUBLISHED 02/14/22

EZRA LEVANT (GUEST): There is no revolution in the streets of Canada. You see for yourself, it's a festival environment. There's no violence. It's happy -- moms and dads and kids. Trudeau is claiming they're dangerous, claiming they're terrorists so he can seize bank accounts. The most scary thing announced today by the finance minister, who was on the World Economic Forum board, is that banks will be directed to seize your accounts without due process and you can't even sue them. They're indemnified. He is going after his political opponents to seize their resources Venezuela style.

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): I've got to tell you, I never thought I'd see it in Canada, but I see that the truckers are winning. I think these five provinces, it's a significant win. And if -- I mean, if he wasn't going to this extreme, the truckers have been peaceful. If this turns into something else because he's sending people in there directly to confront them, I can't guarantee that at that point people won't defend themselves. Is Trudeau that stupid? He looks -- he doesn't seem that bright to me.

‘We Will Hold the Line’: Freedom Convoy Organizers Say They’re Not Deterred by Emergencies Act

Limin Zhou and Omid Ghoreishi

Feb 14, 2022
From The Epoch Times

THE MEDIA ARM OF THE RIGHT WING PRO TRUMP FALUN GONG CULT

OTTAWA—Freedom Convoy organizers say they will continue to protest on Parliament Hill despite the federal government’s declaration of a state of emergency.

“We are not afraid. In fact, every time the government decides to further suspend our civil liberties, our resolve strengthens and the importance of our mission becomes clearer,” organizer Tamara Lich said on Feb. 14 in anticipation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoking the Emergencies Act over the protests demanding an end to COVID-19 mandates.

“We will remain peaceful, but planted on Parliament Hill until the mandates are decisively ended. We recognize that there is a democratic process within which change occurs. We have never stepped outside of that process, nor do we intend to.”

Trudeau is the first prime minister to use the Emergencies Act. The act replaces the War Measures Act, which was last used by Trudeau’s father, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, in 1970 during the October Crisis when Quebec separatists kidnapped and killed Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.

The act gives the state additional powers to deal with the protests and blockades, such as providing legal tools to cut funding to protesters, as well as freezing the corporate accounts of companies whose trucks are used in any blockades and removing their insurance.

The province of Ontario and the city of Ottawa have also declared states of emergency over the protests.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (C) comments on the on-going truckers mandate protest during a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, on Feb. 14, 2022. (Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images)

The protests were initiated by truck drivers opposed to COVID-19 vaccination mandates for cross-border travel. As convoys of truckers made their to Ottawa, many supporters joined the movement, which turned into a large-scale protest against all COVID-19 mandates and restrictions. Many protesters who converged into Ottawa on Jan. 29 say they intend to stay in the capital until COVID-19 mandates are lifted.

Separately, protest convoys set up blockades at border crossings in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia. The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor to Detroit, which accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars in trade between Canada and the United States, was cleared over the weekend.

“The Emergencies Act will be used to strengthen and support law enforcement agencies at all levels across the country. This is about keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs, and restoring confidence in our institutions,” Trudeau said.

“The police will be given more tools to restore order in places where public assemblies can constitute illegal and dangerous activities such as blockades and occupations as seen in Ottawa, Ambassador Bridge, and elsewhere.”

Lich said Canadians “should be surprised” that such “an extreme measure” is being used against peaceful protesters.

“We have countless vulnerable people in our crowd, including children, the elderly, and the disabled, who cannot be met with force by a genuine liberal democracy. The right to peaceful protest is sacrosanct to our nation. If that principle is abandoned, the government will reveal itself as a true tyranny and it will lose all of

Children participate in the Freedom Convoy protest against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions in Ottawa on Feb. 9, 2022. (Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times)

its credibility,” she said.

Lich said she realizes some people are opposed to the protests, but noted that a democratic society “will always have non-trivial disagreements and righteous dissidents.”

“There are many reasons for us opposing the mandates,” she said. “Some of us have been mistreated by our government, including many of our indigenous communities, who have personally experienced medical malpractice. Some of us simply want bodily autonomy and oppose the mandates on principled grounds. No matter our reasons and opinions, it is how the government responds to its citizens that determines the fate of the country.”

Addressing the prime minister, Lich said, “No matter what you do, we will hold the line.”

“There are no threats that will frighten us.”

Brian Peckford, former premier of Newfoundland who is acting as a spokesperson for the Freedom Convoy, said this is “a very, very strange moment in our history.”

“This is again government overreach. We don’t do these kinds of things in Canada. We engage in dialogue,” Peckford said.

“It’s my understanding that the government of Canada has not reached out once to the truckers since they have arrived in this capital city. I find that very hard to understand, because how can you justify going to a measure like an emergency, measures where a lot of powers can be imposed upon the citizens, when you have not even yourself taken any action to engage.”

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FALUN GONG

Inside The Nerve Center That Keeps The Ottawa Trucker Protests Running

What do they eat, where do they go to the bathroom, how did they get functioning saunas, and other questions answered.

Paul McLeodBuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on February 14, 2022,

OTTAWA — When Ottawa police let hundreds of protest vehicles drive into the downtown core of the nation's capital they did so under the seemingly reasonable assumption that there was no way the demonstrators could stick around in the streets of a city where temperatures regularly dip below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

The police were wrong. Backed by donations of cash and supplies, the anti-vaccine mandate protesters have created an off-book supply chain to keep hundreds or thousands of people clothed and fed indefinitely.

They do this with the help of a separate site — a parking lot full of vehicles and tents — that serves as a sort of supply depot and logistics center. Staged next to a baseball park on Coventry Road, a few miles east of downtown, it is essentially sanctioned by the city. Police have abandoned hopes of removing protesters for now and are adopting a strategy of containing and keeping watch.

That is not to say that police have left it entirely alone. Earlier this month, dozens of armed officers executed a nighttime raid on the site, seizing a cache of fuel.

While the vibe downtown feels akin to a Canada Day festival, the Coventry Road site has more of a quasi-military feel. Journalists are, generally, not welcome. There have been no reports of violence, but intense-looking guys staring down reporters sends the message.

“I got the distinct impression that it would be way, way better for me to be somewhere else. I left,” Matt Gurney wrote in the Line

One of the first things photographer David Kawai and I saw on Saturday afternoon when we arrived at the site was a white van with “FREDOM” taped on the side. It wasn’t a typo. The owner of the van said he just ran out of tape.

When I approached the registration tent — there is a registration tent — a man who lived nearby said his 16-year-old son wanted to come and volunteer. “He’s a strong boy, he can lift stuff for you,” the man said. “The only thing is, he can’t drive.”

I identified myself as a reporter with BuzzFeed News. This kicked off a tense and confused few minutes where several people surrounded me, saying they needed to determine if I was good media or bad media. One woman demanded I prove I was who I said I was. It wasn’t clear who was actually making the final call, but eventually one man stood up for us. We were allowed to enter.

The first tent we went into felt like an administrative area, complete with tables, chairs, supplies, and whiteboards listing names and numbers of key contacts. Another whiteboard listed French and English directions ranging from handling fuel to dealing with police (“Stay calm/Restez calme,” “Right to remain silent/Vous avez le droit de garder le silence.”) Signs with slogans like “Natural immunity is God’s science” sat in the corner.

After a bit more haggling over access, we were allowed to enter the main tent. It felt like entering a small supermarket. Tables overflowed with supplies. Fresh produce, canned goods, soap, winter clothing, you name it, it was on offer. Dozens of people were buzzing about. Some were working, some were sitting and enjoying a meal.

“This is just a place for people to come and warm up, eat,” said Carlo, an organizer from Montreal who didn't want to give his last name. “It’s very heartwarming. It’s shocking, actually, to see the amount of support that we get.”

Carlo said all of the supplies were donated. Volunteers transport them downtown as needed, or protesters can come out to Coventry Road for a meal.

Taped to the exit of the main tent is a photo of a young girl holding a sign saying “The truckers are coming to save us.” One of our guides paused to point it out, saying, “This Is What We Do It All For

The operation feels both surprisingly organized and ad hoc. At a couple points, a man walked up to us to ask what we were doing and who authorized us to be there. My answer didn’t seem particularly convincing. I said I had been told to call a man named David, who after some discussion gave me permission over the phone to walk around. But no one seemed to know what the proper protocol for handling media was, if one even existed, and no one kicked us out. The longer we hung around, the more the organizers warmed up to us.

Carlo took us to an unexpected feature of the camp: two fully functional saunas. He said a guy came and dropped them off out of the blue, telling organizers to use them as long as they want and to give him a call when they’re done with them. Same story for the mobile bathroom unit.

“Companies are just pouring in and installing stuff for us, whether it’s mobile bathrooms, kitchen equipment, tents. Everything you see here was donated,” he said.

There was no visible sign of police. Carlo said it’s clear the police don’t want the camp there and they’ve come a couple times — most notably during the fuel raid — but for the most part have left the camp alone.The people there are, understandably, proud of how much support they’ve received. Through these donations, they’ve created a supply chain that has kept the downtown protests going strong for over two weeks now

“We’re here for as long as it takes,” Carlo said. “We came here already equipped — and with the support we’ve been getting, I think we’re more than equipped right now to be here for the long term.”

The Coventry Road supply center is not, however, the movement’s headquarters, and protesters spend most of their time downtown. Top organizers are also elsewhere so that, according to one volunteer, police can’t move in and round them up.

The supply chain manifests in soup kitchens and hot dog stands on street corners downtown, with volunteers doling out free food and drinks to anyone who wants some. The size of the demonstrations notably spike on weekends, when people drive in from hours away to take part. During the week, people sleep in their cars and trucks.

One question multiple people have asked is: Where do they go to the bathroom?

There are some lines of porta-potties set up throughout the downtown core, but not nearly enough. I asked Greg, a protester who has been living out of a van on Kent Street for over two weeks, where he relieves himself. He said a lot of the local restaurants, cafés, and hotels have let protesters come in and use their bathrooms.

This is a bit of a sore spot for residents. Last month, one Ottawa resident compiled a crowdsourced, unverified list of businesses “supporting” the convoy, which spread around Instagram and Twitter. People and businesses strenuously denied the list was accurate. Convoy supporters picked up on the witch hunt vibe of the list and spread it as evidence of the intolerance from the left

My impression from talking to bar and restaurant workers is that they are having a very trying few weeks. Some definitely are letting protesters use their bathrooms, but not as some sign of tacit support for the cause. I’ve heard that businesses don’t want to anger the protesters and become a target for retaliation. There’s also just a humanitarian element; most Canadians aren’t going to feel good about saying no to someone who badly needs to go to the bathroom.

As for showers, Greg said many residents in the Ottawa area have extended offers for protesters to come to their homes and wash up.

Then there’s the issue of the millions of dollars’ worth of donations. Organizers initially raised around $10 million through GoFundMe before the company shut the page down and returned the donations. The crowdfunding campaign then moved to the Christian website GiveSendGo and raised around $9 million more. The provincial government successfully petitioned the Superior Court of Ontario to freeze those funds. What happens to the money will be an issue for the court to decide.

GoFundMe did pass on about $1 million to protest organizers before the campaign was shut down. It’s not clear where that money has gone.