On 3/17/23, the MSM news cycle was dominated by an incredible claim by a group of international scientists: “new data” from early 2020 linked raccoon dogs at the Wuhan Seafood Market to the origin of COVID-19. When “Raccoon Dog Mediapalooza” commenced, journalists and science reporters had no data, no preprint, and no peer reviewed paper to validate the claims of these scientists. Now we have all three. Independent analysis of the “new data” shows that the international scientists, largely comprised of “the usual suspects,” have once again misrepresented the evidence to support their preferred narrative [a natural spillover at the Huanan Seafood Market] and have co-opted the mainstream media to amplify it. Today, I interview Dr. Steven Massey to discuss #raccoondoggate, the data, what it shows—and more importantly, what it does not show. Spoiler alert: No credible evidence links raccoon dogs to the origin of COVID-19. Period. After interviewing Steve, one conclusion is clear: it is absurd to conclude from the “new data” that an infected raccoon dog at the Huanan Seafood Market is linked to the origin of COVID-19. We answer the question proposed in the first installment of this travesty: Yes, raccoon dogs are the new pangolins! Dr. Massey is a researcher in bioinformatics, metagenomics and genomics, complexity and molecular evolution.

In early February, Kevin McKernan, Chief Science Officer of Medicinal Genomics, was deep sequencing Moderna and Pfizer bivalent booster vaccines to help solve a technical problem with his sequencing process when he made an entirely unexpected discovery: the Pfizer and Moderna bivalent booster samples were contaminated with DNA that contained the Spike protein gene within it. Self-replicating DNA plasmids containing the spike protein gene are an integral part of the manufacturing process to make the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines; they are not supposed to be in the final product injected into humans. Kevin repeated the analysis on Pfizer’s monovalent vaccine [the original COVID-19 vaccine requiring 3 jabs] using multiple different measuring tools and arrived at the same result: Plasmid DNA with the Spike gene contaminating the vaccine. When he measured the quantity of DNA it was an order of magnitude higher than the acceptable limit specified by the European Medicines Agency [EMA] in some lots. Today, I have Kevin McKernan in the virtual studio to explain his research, what he found, and what it means. #Plasmidgate.

On March 17th, at least 17 major news outlets published a story claiming a group of scientists had analyzed new genetic data from Chinese and that data linked raccoon dogs at the Huanan Seafood Market to the origin of COVID-19. At best, it was journalistic misfeasance, at worst it was willful misdirection. At the time “raccoon dog mediapalooza” dominated the news cycle, there was no data, no preprint, nor peer reviewed paper available for independent examination of the scientist’s claims. “Raccoon dog mediapalooza” was based on “quotes” from “the usual suspects”; a cabal of virologists that have misstated, distorted, and/or overstated the evidence pointing to a natural spillover since the beginning of the pandemic. Today, I interview veteran journalist Mike Balter for the insider’s perspective of the mainstream media coverage of the investigation of the origin of COVID-19 since the beginning. Their over-reliance on “the usual suspects” a small group of virologists with clear self interest in the outcome of an investigation into the origin of COVID-19. Mike has been a working journalist for more than four decades and wrote for Science Magazine for 25 of those years. It’s a long interview but filled with many profound insights.