Senator slams CBP for investigating journalists and demands internal report be turned over to Congress

Jana Winter
·Investigative Correspondent
Sun, December 12, 2021

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is demanding that the Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog turn over its research on employees involved in a leak investigation of a reporter and a congressional staffer.

“The Department of Homeland Security [inspector general] must provide its investigation to Congress immediately,” Wyden said Sunday in a statement to Yahoo News. “If multiple government agencies were aware of this conduct and took no action to stop it, there needs to be serious consequences for every official involved, and DHS and the Justice Department must explain what actions they are taking to prevent this unacceptable conduct in the future.”

Customs and Border Patrol agents. (Eric Gay/AP)

Yahoo News on Saturday published an article revealing that a secretive unit at Customs and Border Protection had started a leak investigation into Ali Watkins, a reporter now at the New York Times, and her then boyfriend, James Wolfe. At the time, Wolfe was the security chief of the Senate select committee on intelligence.

The unit, known as the Counter Network Division, investigated up to 20 journalists, as well as members of Congress and their respective staffs. The investigations involved conducting database searches on their travel and looking at whether they had any connections to the terrorism watchlist, as well as gathering other personal data.

Yahoo News obtained a full copy of the inspector general report, and interviewed Jeffrey Rambo, the CBP official who initiated the leak investigation. Rambo and two other CBP employees were referred for possible prosecution by the inspector general, but no charges were filed.

Sen. Ron Wyden. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for SEIU)

Wyden is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has oversight of CBP, and he also has long been involved in legislation and debate surrounding government surveillance.

“If the allegations in this story are true, Customs and Border Protection has flagrantly abused government surveillance powers to target journalists and elected officials under the flimsiest of pretenses,” he said in the statement. “This story shows exactly why Americans should fear the expansion of government surveillance.”

“To start, DHS should immediately adopt the Justice Department’s guidelines that limit investigations of journalists and issue public reports with statistics on its searches of reporter records,” he added.

The DHS and CBP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Watchdog: US Federal anti-terror unit investigated journalists

By MARK SHERMAN

  Border Patrol agents hold a news conference prior to a media tour of a new U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporary facility near the Donna International Bridge in Donna, Texas, May 2, 2019. A special Customs and Bordg. er Protection unit used sensitive government databases intended to track terrorists to investigate as many as 20 U.S.-based journalists, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter, according to a federal watchdog. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A special Customs and Border Protection unit used sensitive government databases intended to track terrorists to investigate as many as 20 U.S.-based journalists, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter, according to a federal watchdog.

Yahoo News, which published an extensive report on the investigation, also found that the unit, the Counter Network Division, queried records of congressional staffers and perhaps members of Congress.

Jeffrey Rambo, an agent who acknowledged running checks on journalists in 2017, told federal investigators the practice is routine. “When a name comes across your desk you run it through every system you have access too, that’s just status quo, that’s what everyone does,” Rambo was quoted by Yahoo News as saying.

The AP obtained a redacted copy of a more than 500-page report by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general that included the same statement, but with the speaker’s name blacked out. The border protection agency is part of Homeland Security.

The revelations raised alarm in news organizations and prompted a demand for a full explanation.

“We are deeply concerned about this apparent abuse of power,” Lauren Easton, AP’s director of media relations, said in a statement. “This appears to be an example of journalists being targeted for simply doing their jobs, which is a violation of the First Amendment.”

In its own statement, Customs and Border Protection did not specifically address the investigation, but said, “CBP vetting and investigatory operations, including those conducted by the Counter Network Division, are strictly governed by well-established protocols and best practices. CBP does not investigate individuals without a legitimate and legal basis to do so.”

An employee at Storymakers Coffee Roasters, a small storefront shop Rambo owns in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood, said Saturday that Rambo was not immediately available to comment. He lives in San Diego.

The new disclosures are just the latest examples of federal agencies using their power to examine the contacts of journalists and others.

Earlier this year Attorney General Merrick Garland formally prohibited prosecutors from seizing the records of journalists in leak investigations, with limited exceptions, reversing years of department policy. That action came after an outcry over revelations that the Trump Justice Department had obtained records belonging to journalists, as well as Democratic members of Congress and their aides and a former White House counsel, Don McGahn.

During the Obama administration, federal investigators secretly seized phone records for some reporters and editors at the AP. Those seizures involved office and home lines as well as cellphones.

Rambo’s and the unit’s use of the databases was more extensive than previously known. The inspector general referred possible criminal charges for misusing government databases and lying to investigators, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute Rambo and two other Homeland Security employees.

Rambo complained to Yahoo News that Customs and Border Protection has not stood by him and that he has been unfairly portrayed in news reports.

“What none of these articles identify me as, is a law enforcement officer who was cleared of wrongdoing, who actually had a true purpose to be doing what I was doing,” he said, “and CBP refuses to acknowledge that, refuses to admit that, refuses to make that wrong right.”

Rambo had previously been identified as the agent who accessed the travel records of reporter Ali Watkins, then working for Politico, and questioned her about confidential sources. Watkins now writes for The New York Times.

Rambo was assigned to the border agency unit, part of the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia, in 2017. He told investigators he initially approached Watkins as part of a broader effort to get reporters to write about forced labor around the world as a national security issue.

He also described similar efforts with AP reporter Martha Mendoza, according to an unredacted summary obtained by Yahoo News. Rambo’s unit “was able to vet MENDOZA as a reputable reporter,” the summary said, before trying to establish a relationship with her because of her expertise in writing about forced labor. Mendoza won her second Pulitzer Prize in 2016 as part of a team that reported on slave labor in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia.

Dan White, Rambo’s supervisor in Washington, told investigators that his unit ran Mendoza through multiple databases, and “CBP discovered that one of the phone numbers on Mendoza’s phone was connected with a terrorist,” Yahoo News reported. White’s case also was referred for prosecution and declined.

In response, AP’s Easton said, “The Associated Press demands an immediate explanation from U.S. Customs and Border Protection as to why journalists including AP investigative reporter Martha Mendoza were run through databases used to track terrorists and identified as potential confidential informant recruits.”

It was Rambo’s outreach to Watkins that led to the inspector general’s investigation. While he ostensibly sought her out to further his work on forced labor, Rambo quickly turned the focus to a leak investigation. Rambo even gave it a name, “Operation Whistle Pig,” for the brand of whiskey he drank when he met Watkins at a Washington, D.C., bar in June 2017.

The only person charged and convicted stemming from Rambo’s efforts is James Wolfe, a former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee who had a personal relationship with Watkins. Wolfe pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with reporters.

In the course of conversations with FBI agents, Rambo was questioned extensively about his interest in Watkins. He used the travel records to confront her about her relationship with Wolfe, asserting that Wolfe was her source for stories. Watkins acknowledged the relationship, but insisted Wolfe did not provide information for her stories.

Rambo said Watkins was not the only reporter whose records he researched through government databases, though he maintained in his interviews with the FBI that he was looking only at whether Wolfe was providing classified information. Rambo said he “conducted CBP record checks” on “15 to 20 national security reporters,” according to a FBI summary of the questioning that was contained in the inspector general’s report.

New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades-Ha said new details about the investigation of Watkins raised fresh concerns.

“We are deeply troubled to learn how U.S. Customs and Border Protection ran this investigation into a journalist’s sources. As the attorney general has said clearly, the government needs to stop using leak investigations as an excuse to interfere with journalism. It is time for Customs and Border Protection to make public a full record of what happened in this investigation so this sort of improper conduct is not repeated.”

Watkins said she, too, was “deeply troubled at the lengths CBP and DHS personnel apparently went to try and identify journalistic sources and dig into my personal life. It was chilling then, and it remains chilling now.”

——

Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

40% OF THE WORLD IS UNDER 30
Pharrell to college grads: ‘We are the emerging majority’
December 11, 2021

NSU graduates cheer for Pharrell Williams who gave the class's commencement speech Saturday, Dec.11, 2021 in Norfolk, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)


NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Grammy-winning musician Pharrell Williams on Saturday told the newest graduates of a historically Black university in Virginia to act like “the emerging majority” and help develop the area’s businesses and culture.

Williams gave the fall commencement speech at Norfolk State University, not far from where the producer and rapper grew up in adjoining Virginia Beach.

“I didn’t attend Norfolk State, but I was always present,” Williams said. “I am honored to have made this part of my work, my story and still today, I can’t wait to see how far you amazing, impressive graduates of Norfolk State ... how far you’ll go.”

Williams received an honorary doctorate from the school and was also named an honorary member of Norfolk State’s marching band — which brought him to tears, The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk reported.

Before the presentation, Willams said he remembered the band as a child and wondered why the band at his Virginia Beach high school lacked the same “cadence” as Norfolk State.

“I wanted to be able to make people feel the way Norfolk State’s band made me feel,” he said.

Williams said the city of Norfolk will thrive because it recognizes how important it is to acknowledge past and local heroes: “Norfolk will not be the city that limits its peoples’ own potential, but instead, it will feed it.”

He told listeners to do their part by spending money at local businesses that care, and by changing outdated language, like the word “minorities.”

“We are the emerging majority,” he said. “Don’t wait until Election Day. Vote with your wallets today, tomorrow and the next day.”

Williams has had a fraught relationship with the city of Virginia Beach recently. He criticized the city months ago for its response to the death of his cousin, who was shot by a police officer in March at the city’s oceanfront. Two weeks ago, it was announced that a grand jury determined the officer was justified in the fatal shooting.

Williams wrote city officials last month saying he won’t bring his Something in the Water music festival back to the city’s oceanfront, partly because of how the city handled the investigation.

Banksy creates T-shirt to help statue-toppling defendants
December 11, 2021

1 of 4

A person inside Rough Trade in Bristol, England, Saturday Dec. 11, 2021, holds up a T-shirt designed by street artist Banksy, being sold to support four people facing trial accused of criminal damage in relation to the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston. The anonymous artist posted on Instagram pictures of limited edition grey souvenir T-shirts which will go on sale on Saturday in Bristol. The shirts have a picture of Colston's empty plinth with a rope hanging off, with debris and a discarded sign nearby. (Jacob King/PA via AP)


LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of people lined up Saturday in the English city of Bristol to get the latest work by elusive street artist Banksy — a T-shirt created to help four defendants charged over the toppling of a local statue of a slave trader.

The gray shirt features the word Bristol above the empty plinth on which the statue of 17th-century slave merchant Edward Colston long stood, with a rope hanging from it and debris scattered around.

Anti-racism demonstrators pulled down the statue and and dumped it in Bristol harbor in June 2020 amid global protests sparked by the police killing of a Black American man, George Floyd.

Four people have been charged with criminal damage over the statue’s felling and are going on trial next week.

“I’ve made some souvenir shirts to mark the occasion,” Banksy said on social media Friday. “Available from various outlets in the city from tomorrow. All proceeds to the defendants so they can go for a pint.”

Banksy said the T-shirts cost 25 pounds ($33) and are limited to one per customer.

Banksy’s identity has never been confirmed, but he began his career spray-painting walls and bridges in Bristol, a port city in southwest England. Some of his works have sold for millions of dollars at auction.

Colston made a fortune transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas on Bristol-based ships. He was a major benefactor to Bristol, with streets and institutions named for him — some of which have been renamed since the statue-felling sparked a debate about racism and historical commemoration.

City authorities fished the Colston statue out of the harbor and say it will be placed in a museum, along with placards from the Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Four face trial in UK over toppling of slave trader statue


The toppled statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol harbour (AFP/Handout)

Sun, December 12, 2021

Four people were due to go on trial in Britain on Monday in connection with the toppling of a statue of a 17th century slave trader during anti-racism protests.

Demonstrators pulled down the bronze memorial to Edward Colston in Bristol, western England, on June 7 last year, then dragged it to the city's harbour and threw it in the River Avon.

The actions came as part of global Black Lives Matter protests prompted by the killing by a white police officer of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in the United States the previous month.


Four people were arrested following the toppling of the statue of Colston, a leading figure in the Royal Africa Company which forcibly moved large numbers of West Africans.

Their trial on charges of criminal damage to the listed monument is due to start at 1000 GMT at Bristol Crown Court on Monday, according to court documents.

The defendants -- Rhian Graham, 29, Milo Ponsford, 25, Jake Skuse, 36, and Sage Willoughby, 21 -- have pleaded not guilty.

To support them, the artist Banksy, who comes from Bristol, announced he would be selling T-shirts to mark the occasion for £25 ($33, 30 euros).

"All proceeds to the defendants so they can go for a pint," the elusive graffiti artist wrote on his Instagram page.

The limited edition grey souvenir tops have a picture of Colston's empty plinth with a rope hanging off, debris and a discarded sign, as well as the word "BRISTOL" written above.

The Black Lives Matter protests have forced Britain into a reckoning with its colonial past, prompting a reassessment of statues, road names and buildings linked to historical figures associated with slavery.

Several Bristol institutions bearing Colston's name have since changed their name to avoid negative associations with him and the slave trade.

The statue, which had stood in the city since 1895, was recovered from the Avon and put on display with placards from the event, along with explanations of what happened and why.

The empty plinth was temporarily replaced by a statue of a female protester from the day, but it was taken down within 24 hours as it did not have local authority permission.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government is pressing ahead with contentious legislation to toughen jail terms for vandalism of historical artefacts.

During the countrywide protests, a statue of Johnson's hero, Winston Churchill, was defaced near parliament, branding the World War II leader a racist.

High-profile protests have also been held in Oxford, calling for the removal of a statue of the 19th century colonialist Cecil Rhodes.

phz/bp

REST IN POWER

Anne Rice, who breathed new life into vampires, dies at 80
By JAKE COYLEyesterday



 In this April 25, 2006, file photo, writer Anne Rice arrives to the opening night of the new Broadway musical "Lestat," in New York. Rice, the gothic novelist widely known for her bestselling novel "Interview with the Vampire," died late Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, at the age of 80. Rice died due to complications from a stroke, her son Christopher Rice announced on her Facebook page and his Twitter page. (AP Photo/Dima Gavrysh, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — Anne Rice, the novelist whose lush, best-selling gothic tales, including “Interview With a Vampire,” reinvented the blood-drinking immortals as tragic antiheroes, has died. She was 80.

Rice died late Saturday due to complications from a stroke, her son Christopher Rice announced on her Facebook page and his Twitter page.

“As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions,” Christopher Rice, also an author, wrote. “In her final hours, I sat beside her hospital bed in awe of her accomplishments and her courage.”

Rice’s 1976 novel “Interview With the Vampire” was later adapted, with a script by Rice, into the 1994 movie directed by Neil Jordan and starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. It’s also set to be adapted again in an upcoming TV series on AMC and AMC+ set to premiere next year.

“Interview With the Vampire,” in which reporter Daniel Molloy interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac, was Rice’s first novel but over the next five decades, she would write more than 30 books and sell more than 150 million copies worldwide. Thirteen of those were part of the “Vampire Chronicles” begun with her 1976 debut. Long before “Twilight” or “True Blood,” Rice introduced sumptuous romance, female sexuality and queerness — many took “Interview With the Vampire” as an allegory for homosexuality — to the supernatural genre.

“I wrote novels about people who are shut out life for various reasons,” Rice wrote in her 2008 memoir “Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession.” “This became a great theme of my novels — how one suffers as an outcast, how one is shut out of various levels of meaning and, ultimately, out of human life itself.”

Born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien in 1941, she was raised in New Orleans, where many of her novels were set. Her father worked for the postal service but made sculptures and wrote fiction on the side. Her older sister, Alice Borchardt, also wrote fantasy and horror fiction. Rice’s mother died when Rice was 15.

Raised in an Irish Catholic family, Rice initially imagined herself becoming a priest (before she realized women weren’t allowed) or a nun. Rice often wrote about her fluctuating spiritual journey. In 2010, she announced that she was no longer Christian, saying “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control.”

“I believed for a long time that the differences, the quarrels among Christians didn’t matter a lot for the individual, that you live your life and stay out of it. But then I began to realize that it wasn’t an easy thing to do,” Rice told The Associated Press then. “I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t make this declaration, I was going to lose my mind.”

Rice married the poet Stan Rice, who died in 2002, in 1961. They lived amid the bohemian scene of Haight-Ashbury in 1960s San Francisco where Rice described herself as “a square,” typing away and studying writing at San Francisco State University while everyone else partied. Together they had two children: Christopher and Michelle, who died of leukemia at 5 in 1972.

It was while grieving Michelle’s death that Rice wrote “Interview With the Vampire,” turning one of her short stories into a book. Rice traced her fascination with vampires back to the 1934 film, “Dracula’s Daughter,” which she saw as a young girl.

“I never forgot that film,” Rice told the Daily Beast in 2016. “That was always my impression of what vampires were: earthlings with heightened sensibility and a doomed appreciation of life.”

Though Rice had initially struggled to get it published, “Interview With a Vampire” was a massive hit, particularly in paperback. She didn’t immediately extend the story, following it up with a pair of historical novels and three erotic novels penned under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure. But in 1985, she published “The Vampire Lestat,” about the “Interview With a Vampire” character she would continually return to, up to 2018′s “Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat.”

In Rice’s “Vampire Chronicles,” some critics saw only cheap eroticism. But others — including millions of readers — saw the most consequential interpretation of vampires since Bram Stoker.

“Let me suggest one reason why the books found a mass audience. They were written by someone whose auditory and visual experiences shaped the prose,” Rice wrote in her memoir. “I am a terrible reader. But my mind is filled with these auditory and visual lessons and, powered by them, I can write about five times faster than I can read.”

Rice’s longtime editor, Victoria Wilson, recalled her as “a fierce storyteller who wrote large, lived quietly, and imagined worlds on a grand scale.”

“She summoned the feelings of an age long before we knew what they were,” Wilson said in a statement. “As a writer, she was decades ahead of her time.”

Rice will be interred during a private ceremony at a family mausoleum in New Orleans, her family said. A public celebration will also be planned for next year in New Orleans. “Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris,” a novel Rice wrote with her son Christopher, will be published in February.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

mRNA vaccines will not change your DNA – debunking Doug Corrigan

SKEPTICAL RAPTOR
Science of vaccines, cancer, nutrition, evolution

POSTED ON2021-12-12 BY THE ORIGINAL SKEPTICAL RAPTOR

LONG READ

There are so many quacks coming out of the woodwork to push pseudoscience about mRNA vaccines – now, Dr. Doug Corrigan, Ph.D., uses science pseudoscience to “prove” that the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 are going to mess with your DNA. He’s wrong and let’s tell you why.

COVID-19 vaccine facts and myths – UPDATED info about the new vaccines


Contents [hide]
1 What are mRNA vaccines?
2 Will the mRNA vaccine change my DNA?
3 What is Doug Corrigan claiming?
4 Summary
4.1 Related

What are mRNA vaccines?

I’ve written this several times with regards to both the Pfizer and Modern mRNA vaccines, but it bears repeating, because a lot of people may come to this article for the first time.


The Pfizer and Moderna Therapeutics COVID-19 vaccines are mRNA vaccines that rely upon an mRNA, or messenger RNA, molecule to induce an immune response. However, it does not do this directly.

Normally, during the process called transcription, RNA polymerase makes a copy of a gene from its DNA to mRNA as signaled by the cell. In other words, the mRNA sequences in the cell usually correspond directly to the DNA sequences in our genes. These mRNA sequences “carry” that genetic message to a ribosome for translation, where tRNA triplets, which code for one amino acid, attach to the appropriate mRNA triplet, adding one amino acid to the protein chain.


As in DNA, genetic information in mRNA is contained in the sequence of nucleotides, which are arranged into codons consisting of three ribonucleotides each. Each codon codes for a specific amino acid, except the stop codons, which terminate protein synthesis.

At this point, note that the mRNA does nothing to the DNA strand in your genes – it merely reads the sequence.

Yes, that’s a lot of cell biology, though I took years of courses in cell biology, so trust me when I say I barely touched the surface. If you want to take a deep dive into the science of mRNA and mRNA vaccines, my friend Edward Nirenberg wrote two articles that will satisfy your desires – they really make it clear how this all works and doesn’t work.


However, here’s a basic video that shows how this works.

Alan McHughen, in his outstanding book, “DNA Demystified: Unraveling the Double Helix,” describes how mRNA works:

When an mRNA strand exits the nucleus and enters the cytoplasm, it attaches to ribosomes, and this is where protein synthesis progresses. The ribosome reads the base sequence of the mRNA, three bases at a time. Each three-base triplet, called a codon, specifies a particular amino acid, except for a few with regulatory functions (e.g., UGA =“Stop!”).

If the first three-base codon is AUG, then a molecule of the amino acid methionine is brought into place. If the next triplet is AAA, that brings in the amino acid lysine. The methionine and lysine molecules are attached together. The next triplet is, say, GCC, and that brings in alanine, which is attached to the lysine. The ribosome has read nine bases, AUGAAAGCC, and compiled a short chain of three amino acids, abbreviated Met-Lys-Ala, or MKA (see amino acid abbreviations here).

The ribosome continues reading all of the mRNA bases until it hits a stop signal—which is also a triplet codon such as UGA—and the now long chain of amino acids falls loose. This chain may be a functional protein immediately, or, more usually, it might undergo some additional post-translational processing by enzymes to become active.




Once the mRNA has created a number of the proteins (in this case, the S-protein), that mRNA molecule is then ripped apart by enzymes in the cell, so that the individual RNA nucleotides can go back to being reused in a whole new mRNA sequence. The cellular machinery of translating DNA into proteins is constantly recirculating itself.



The mRNA vaccine technology relies upon a specific mRNA sequence to kickstart the endogenous production of proteins that are structurally equivalent to the viral antigens. The mRNA sequences in the vaccine enter the cell (with a carrier protein), heads to the ribosomes to create the SARS-CoV-2 antigens. These antigens will depart the cell and will trigger the body’s adaptive immune system to produce antibodies effective against the actual target, in this case, the S-protein or spike on the SARS-CoV-2 virus.


One more thing – the antigens produced by these mRNA sequences are biologically inert. They will induce an immune response, but they will not cause any other biological effect including becoming pathogenic.

So, let’s summarize. The mRNA vaccines make use of the cell’s ribosome to create the S-protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That antigen induces an adaptive immune system response that will “remember” that antigen allowing the immune system to quickly attack the virus if it shows up.

Someone used this analogy to describe how mRNA works. Let’s say you have a book that represents the genetic code (lots of people describe our genetic code as the official manual of our person). You then scan that book in a copy machine, and now you have a bunch of papers that are an image of the original book. The copy does not change the original book. It can’t.


And mRNA cannot change your DNA.

DNA Genotyping and Sequencing. Technician loads robot for genetic studies of the human papillomavirus (HPV) at the Cancer Genomics Research Laboratory, part of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG).

Will the mRNA vaccine change my DNA?

If you spent one minute reading the above section, you’d know that the answer is no.


You should have noticed that the mRNA molecule merely reads the DNA information and carries it to the ribosome. It does not change the DNA message in any way, it’s not how the whole process of translation works.

Furthermore, the mRNA from the mRNA vaccines don’t interact with your DNA in any way. They cause the ribosome to produce the S-protein antigen, and that’s it. Once precisely one copy of the molecule of S-protein is produced at the ribosome from one strand of mRNA from the vaccine, that mRNA strand is broken down into individual nucleotides to be reused by the cell. And in case you were wondering, RNA nucleotides are the same whether they’re manufactured by cells or in a test tube. They are molecularly exactly alike.

Repeating this over and over, so everyone gets it.

If mRNA could functionally change the DNA, it would open up a whole world of genetic medicine. We could fix all kinds of genetic diseases with this mechanism.

But that’s not how mRNA works, so we can’t.

There are actually other reasons why these mRNA vaccines are not going to affect your DNA:

Your cells’ genome (DNA) is contained within the nucleus of the cell, which is surrounded by a double-membrane. It allows for large molecules, such as mRNA which has read the DNA, to leave the nucleus, but blocks large molecules from entering it. So the S-protein mRNA from the vaccine will not enter the nucleus until it is broken down into individual nucleotides, at which point, they are exactly the same as all of the other nucleotides.
Even if the mRNA molecule could affect the DNA and even if it could get into the nucleus, there are all kinds of error correction machinery in our DNA to keep out random bits of code. With trillions of cells in each human, each containing billions of DNA base pairs, there are naturally a lot of errors that could kill a human if the quality control machinery of the DNA didn’t keep close watch over errors.
Similarly, this mRNA cannot get into the mitochondria (which have their own DNA) and cause damage to its DNA. Even though the mitochondrion lacks a cell nucleus, it does have its own ribosomes and genes, and they would react to the S-protein mRNA in the same ways as the cell – it would not change its DNA.
What is Doug Corrigan claiming?

First, we should ask who is Doug Corrigan? Well, he states that his educational background is:



I have a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, a master’s in Engineering Physics (concentration: Solid State Physics), and a bachelor’s in Engineering Physics (concentration: electrical engineering.)

Now those of you who know me understand that I don’t care about credentials. I could be a janitor, and as long as I use verified, reliable, and published evidence, that’s all you need. I discussed with Orac a few weeks ago, where he stated that he uses the Orac nom de blog because he wanted to make his points irrespective of his education and training as a surgical oncologist.

Doug Corrigan may have these advanced degrees, but we have examples of a Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling who pushed the pseudoscience of vitamin C. Or a biochemistry professor at a respected university, Michael Behe, who denies evolution and pushes creationism.


Just because one has impressive credentials could mean they know what they’re writing about, or they’re pushing junk science. But I’m not convinced of Corrigan’s list of what he has done. A search of PubMed shows that Doug Corrigan has published zero articles – given what he claims about himself, I’m curious as to why zero peer-reviewed articles are published with him as an author. He doesn’t even have a third or fourth author article.

Generally, but not always, a Ph.D. candidate will publish at least one, but usually more, article based on their research. Some even publish parts of their Ph.D. thesis. But we’ve got nothing from Doug Corrigan, unless “Doug Corrigan” is a fake name and he published under another name!

One last thing – he seems to push some extremist religious nonsense about science including a claim that a god left his/her signature in science. Much of what he writes is right out of the creationist playbook.


Finally, Doug Corrigan is a fan of genocidal herd immunity, the one that avoids vaccines, but lets millions of people die. I get the impression that he is anti-vaccine, at least anti-coronavirus vaccine. And he pushes that “boost your immune system” quackery that I’ve thoroughly debunked in the past.

Enough with Doug Corrigan’s background. So what is he claiming about the mRNA vaccines?


Let’s just quote what he writes:

It is well known that RNA can be “reverse transcribed” into DNA. Residing in our cells are enzymes called “reverse transcriptases”. These enzymes convert RNA into DNA. Multiple sources for this class of enzymes exist within our cells. These reverse transcriptases are normally made by other viruses termed “retroviruses”. HIV is a retrovirus and so is Hepatitis B, but there are many other retroviruses that fall in this category. In addition to these external viruses, there are viruses that are hard-wired into our genomic DNA called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). These ERVs harbor instructions to produce reverse transcriptase. In addition to ERVs, there are mobile genetic elements residing in our DNA called LTR-retrotransposons that also encode for reverse transcriptase enzymes. To top it all off, reverse transcriptase is naturally used by our cells to extend the telomeres at the end of chromosomes.


Corrigan is discussing one way that RNA could change genes, and that’s through an enzyme called reverse transcriptase, which generates complementary DNA (cDNA) from a viral RNA template. However, reverse transcriptase does not exist in humans except in the presence of retroviruses like HIV. In that case, it’s using its own viral RNA template, not just pulling random mRNA out of the cell. It wants the cell to produce a bunch of new retroviruses by hijacking the DNA.


The SARS-CoV-2 virus is not a retrovirus, so this will not be an issue. But even beyond that, the vaccine does not contain reverse transcriptase, so the mRNA chains in the vaccine are not going to do anything to your DNA through this process.

Now, Corrigan is claiming that there are “endogenous retroviruses” that are hardwired into our DNA. That is true – about 8% of the human DNA comes from viruses during our long evolutionary past. In other words, retroviruses added genes that conferred some evolutionary advantage to humans and so were kept around. It’s a fascinating subject in evolution.

But let’s be clear – there is no evidence that the reverse transcriptase enzyme has been hard-wired into our DNA. Corrigan is trying to convince us that the endogenous retroviruses are fully capable of producing reverse transcriptase. What he fails to understand is that only some genes from retroviruses are incorporated into our DNA, not a whole virus. I could find no evidence of reverse transcriptase running wild in the cell nucleus.


Furthermore, the COVID-19 vaccine mRNA stays in the cytoplasm of the cell – as I stated above, mRNA molecules cannot enter the nucleus of the cell, where the DNA exists. So even if the reverse transcriptase enzyme existed in the nucleus of a human, the mRNA could not get there. Furthermore, even if there were reverse transcriptase enzymes and even if they could get into the nucleus, all it would do is cause our cells to produce S-protein, which will not affect human physiology.

But let’s be clear, none of this is happening. Full stop.

I am trying to figure out why Doug Corrigan thinks that reverse transcriptase actually exists in normal human cells that aren’t infected by hepatitis B or HIV (the most common viruses that produce reverse transcriptase, but they don’t leave behind the enzyme, they use it to take over a cell to replicate). Corrigan does not refer to published research nor does he link to outside reliable blogs or websites that might explain this hypothesis about reverse transcriptase. I did the work for him, because I’m not a lazy writer, and I found no one claiming that there is endogenous reverse transcriptase running around our cells (outside the aforementioned infectious viruses that produce the enzyme to hijack the cell).



Summary

This is one of the myths that will circulate through the anti-vaxxer community. And everyone will say “look, Doug Corrigan has a Ph.D., so he knows what he’s talking about.” And using confirmation bias, they will ignore all of the other researchers who don’t make these claims.


I have my concerns about the mRNA vaccines, but it has nothing to do with safety and certainly nothing to do with changes in the DNA. I think these vaccines are extraordinarily safe, short- and long-term. However, I don’t think we’ve had adequate time to establish long-term effectiveness, but I’m sure my concerns about that will be allayed as we get more data.

But right now, there is simply no evidence that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines will have any effect on human DNA. These claims lack biological plausibility along with any published evidence.

Doug Corrigan’s claims have no merit and are pure pseudoscience.

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An mRNA vaccine against HIV shows promise in animal trials
By Robert Preidt & Ernie Mundell, HealthDay News

Experiments in mice and rhesus monkeys showed that the vaccine triggered antibody and cellular immune responses against an HIV-like virus. Photo by Adam Gregor/Shutterstock

Cutting-edge mRNA technology brought safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines to a world in crisis -- could it do the same for a much older foe, HIV?

An experimental HIV vaccine that uses the same mRNA platform technology as the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines shows promise in animals, a new U.S. government-led study finds

"Despite nearly four decades of effort by the global research community, an effective vaccine to prevent HIV remains an elusive goal," said Dr. Anthony Fauci. Besides being the nation's leading adviser on infectious disease, he also directs the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), where the new research was conducted.

Speaking in a NIAID news release, Fauci said, "this experimental mRNA vaccine combines several features that may overcome shortcomings of other experimental HIV vaccines and thus represents a promising approach," He was also a co-author on the study.

An expert in infectious disease unconnected to the new research was similarly optimistic.

"These are promising results," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

He believes that mRNA-based strategies will have "several uses outside of COVID-19, where they made their clinical debut. An HIV vaccine has been elusive, however, the study shows proof of concept in an animal that it may be possible using this technology."

RELATED Biden unveils strategy to end HIV/AIDS epidemic in U.S. by 2030

In the NIAID study, experiments in mice and rhesus monkeys showed that the vaccine triggered antibody and cellular immune responses against an HIV-like virus.

In the monkeys, those who received a primer vaccine followed by multiple booster shots over the course of a year had a 79% lower per-exposure risk of infection by simian-human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) than unvaccinated monkeys. The study was published Dec. 9 in the journal Nature Medicine.

SHIV was used in the research because non-human primates are not susceptible to the HIV-1 virus that infects humans, the researchers explained.

The vaccine carries mRNA instructions for making two key HIV proteins, Env and Gag. Muscle cells use the proteins to produce virus-like particles (VLPs) with numerous copies of Env on their surface, which then trigger an immune response, according to the investigators

The VLPs cannot cause infection or disease on their own, because they lack the complete genetic code of HIV, the study authors stressed.

In studies involving mice, "two injections of the VLP-forming mRNA vaccine induced neutralizing antibodies in all animals," according to the NIAID release. Importantly, the Env proteins generated in the mice looked very similar to those seen in whole virus, much more so than was seen in prior attempts to produce an effective HIV vaccine, the research team said.

This "closely mimics natural infection and may have played a role in eliciting the desired immune responses," study leader Dr. Paolo Lusso, of NIAID's Laboratory of Immunoregulation, said in the release.

In experiments involving rhesus macaques, monkeys first received a dose of vaccine and then subsequent booster doses over the following year. According to NIAID, "the vaccine was well-tolerated [by the monkeys] and produced only mild, temporary adverse effects in the macaques, such as loss of appetite."

Just over 14 months after the initial shot, "all vaccinated macaques had developed measurable levels of neutralizing antibodies directed against most strains in a test panel of 12 diverse HIV strains," according to the release. Beyond the promising boost in antibody levels, inoculation also appeared to strengthen the monkeys' T-cell activity against SHIV -- T-cells are another key component of the immune response.

More work remains, however, and science that appears to work in animal studies doesn't always pan out in humans.

"We are now refining our vaccine protocol to improve the quality and quantity of the VLPs produced," Lusso added. "This may further increase vaccine efficacy and thus lower the number of prime and boost inoculations needed to produce a robust immune response. If confirmed safe and effective, we plan to conduct a Phase 1 trial of this vaccine platform in healthy adult volunteers."

More information

There's more on HIV vaccines at HIVinfo.NIH.gov.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Crews search rubble after 6 die at Illinois Amazon facility

By SOPHIA TAREEN

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This Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, satellite photo provided by Maxar shows a close-up of an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Ill., after severe storms moved through the area late the previous evening, causing catastrophic damage. (Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies via AP)

CHICAGO (AP) — Search efforts at an Amazon facility in Illinois where at least six people were killed in a tornado were expected to take several days, but authorities said they did not expect to find additional survivors.

The company has not said how many people were in the building not far from St. Louis when the tornado hit at 8:35 p.m. Friday — part of a swarm of twisters across the Midwest and the South that leveled entire communities. Authorities said they didn’t have a full count of employees because it was during a shift change and there were several part-time employees.

Both sides of the warehouse used to prepare orders for delivery collapsed inward and the roof caved, according to Edwardsville Fire Chief James Whiteford. Authorities received reports of workers being trapped and the fire unit arrived within six minutes, Whiteford said. Police helped pull people from the rubble. While 45 employees survived, six people were killed and a seventh person was airlifted to a hospital.

Whiteford said crews would search the rubble for several days.

Madison County Coroner Stephen Nonn on Sunday identified the six people who were killed. Four were from Illinois: 26-year-old Austin J. McEwen of Edwardsville, 29-year-old Clayton Lynn Cope of Alton, 46-year-old Larry E. Virden of Collinsville and 62-year-old Kevin D. Dickey of Carlyle. Two others — 28-year-old Deandre S. Morrow and 34-year-old Etheria S. Hebb — were from St. Louis.

Cope’s younger sister, Rachel Cope, said her brother had worked for Amazon for over a year and served in the Navy. He was also an avid motorcycle rider, lover of video games and his dog, Draco.

“He would go out of his way for anyone,” she told The Associated Press in a written message.

Nonn’s said Sunday there were no pending reports of missing people related to the building collapse.

“Search efforts continue to ensure that there are no additional victims,” he said in a statement.

The damage to the building was extensive; the structure’s steel support pillars were exposed after the walls and roof caved.

“These walls are made out of 11-inch thick concrete, and they’re about 40 feet tall, so a lot of weight from that came down,” Whiteford said at a Saturday news conference.

Employee Amanda Goss had just started her first week in a new job as an Amazon delivery driver when the tornado hit.

“As I look up, the corner of the building was shaking, and it comes down the garage area and then I felt the gates coming in behind me,” Goss told KTVI-TV. “All I do is sit there in my van hoping it don’t move.”

The Amazon facility, among three in Edwardsville, is a 1.1 million square foot (102,193 square meter) “delivery station” that employs about 190 workers across several shifts, according to Amazon. The facility, which opened in July 2020, prepares orders for “last-mile delivery” to customers. Edwardsville is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones, and everyone impacted by the tornado,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “We’re continuing to support our employees and partners in the area.”

Amazon said that when a site is made aware of a tornado warning, all employees are notified and directed to move to a shelter.

But company officials declined to answer specific questions about when employees were warned.

A union representing retail employees that has pushed to organize Amazon employees blasted the company for “dangerous labor practices” for having employees work during the severe weather.

“Time and time again Amazon puts its bottom line above the lives of its employees,” Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Requiring, said in a statement. “Requiring workers to work through such a major tornado warning event as this was inexcusable.”
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Follow Sophia Tareen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiatareen.