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July 27, 2022

Comments of Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche on the White House Summit on the Future of COVID-19 Vaccines

Fast-forward to 6:45 to hear Fauci and watch for as long as you can tolerate ...

This is disgusting.  As someone who has dedicated 3 decades of his professional life to analyzing the shortcomings of our traditional vaccine approaches and proposing new concepts of harnessing our immune system against infectious and immune-mediated diseases, I can only say that this is beyond shameful - a true insult to science! What you're watching is a clear example of what happens when scientists panic and are unable to grasp the basics of the single biggest challenge in vaccine research: 'immune escape'. They regurgitate countless fancy ideas, none of which have worked in the past! Why not? Because none of them has taken into account the formidable evolutionary capacity of viruses when put under (suboptimal!) immune pressure or even considered the critical role of innate immunity other than its inflammatory components (so-called 'adjuvants').

This reminds me of my initial days at the B&M Gates Foundation (2008) when stacks of proposals on new vaccine approaches from the most prestigious research institutes on the globe awaited my evaluation for funding. I soon discovered that very few people on this planet understand how pathogens subvert the immune system. This has been well-illustrated by decades of disappointing HIV vaccine development: billions of dollars have been wasted on all kinds of sophisticated vaccine approaches that basically promote immune escape rather than control the virus. What Fauci and this panel are proposing is to repeat this stupid exercise and "invest" countless billions of taxpayer dollars - Industry will flourish while the state moves deeper into insolvency. The pan-CoV vaccine design they're proposing has it all: multiple antigens in mosaic, nanoparticles, VLPs, mRNA, lipids, ferritin, adenoviral vectors, inactivated or live attenuated virus or other antigen carriers, either delivered parenterally of via the mucosal route! Their 'the more, the better' approach allows for intellectual laziness and undermines true science.

So, what happened to all these prestigious proposals that were waiting for me at the B&M Gates Foundation? I spent a few weeks reading each of them (a few thousand pages) and ended up rejecting them all for lack of immunological rationale or infringement of immunological principles, unnecessary complexity, safety concerns, lack of characterization, lack of feasibility from a manufacturing and regulatory viewpoint etc. etc. They were examples of fancy technologies that made no biological sense (at least not to those with a somewhat deeper understanding of biology, in particular the biology of the pathogen, the host and their mutual interaction). I figured the foundation would fire me on the spot and send me back to where I came from... however, they didn't! Up until this day, I appreciate and respect my former boss for having listened to my detailed arguments. Back in those days, scientific debate was still conducted and encouraged, at least to some extent. Unfortunately these days are now clearly gone! Instead, megalomania and corruption of our prestigious scientific leadership are now dominating the scene. Technologies are embraced over basic biology. Corruption plagues Big Pharma as it's become no secret that Industry is merely focused on generating benefit for their shareholders at the expense of global health.  Do I worry about this development?  I do not. My only concern is for the tremendous backlash disruptive human intervention on our own immune systems will cause, well before these 'high society' scientists and leaders in industry have had the chance to implement any of their new vaccine concepts...

Best regards,

Geert

There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and
that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you
.
- Norman Mailer

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Geert Vanden Bossche received his DVM from the University of Ghent, Belgium, and his PhD degree in Virology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. He held adjunct faculty appointments at universities in Belgium and Germany. After his career in Academia, Geert joined several vaccine companies (GSK Biologicals, Novartis Vaccines, Solvay Biologicals) to serve various roles in vaccine R&D as well as in late vaccine development.

Geert then moved on to join the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team in Seattle (USA) as Senior Program Officer; he then worked with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in Geneva as Senior Ebola Program Manager. At GAVI he tracked efforts to develop an Ebola vaccine. He also represented GAVI in fora with other partners, including WHO, to review progress on the fight against Ebola and to build plans for global pandemic preparedness.

Back in 2015, Geert scrutinized and questioned the safety of the Ebola vaccine that was used in ring vaccination trials conducted by WHO in Guinea. His critical scientific analysis and report on the data published by WHO in the Lancet in 2015 was sent to all international health and regulatory authorities involved in the Ebola vaccination program. After working for GAVI, Geert joined the German Center for Infection Research in Cologne as Head of the Vaccine Development Office. He is at present primarily serving as a Biotech / Vaccine consultant while also conducting his own research on Natural Killer cell-based vaccines.

Email: info@voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org

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