Gain-of-function experiments on hantaviruses? Yes, but virus threat is still MASSIVELY overblown.



The legacy media feverishly concern-mongered about COVID-19 and then tried unsuccessfully to generate similar hysteria over the gay-spread monkeypox virus.

Clearly desperate for a new health scare — especially after America formally rejected the World Health Organization — outlets seized upon reports of a deadly outbreak of hantavirus last month among passengers and crew of the MV Hondius, a Dutch cruise ship carrying 147 souls embarking from the southern tip of the Andes mountains in South America to the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco.

'We should shy away from making bold pronouncements that may prove dangerously misleading weeks or months later.'

While some publications rushed to attack emerging theories about the nature of the virus, including the notion that it was cooked up in a lab — narrative attacks that neglected to mention a recent gain-of function experiment involving hantaviruses — others pushed alarmist headlines such as:

  • “Is hantavirus the next COVID? Is the U.S. response on point? An outbreak update” — NPR
  • “Why hantavirus is giving us a 'sinking feeling,' despite experts' reassurance” — Canadian state media
  • “Fears rat virus has spread to seven countries” — The Telegraph
  • “Could human-transmitted hantavirus be the next pandemic threat?” — The Week
  • “Hantavirus: Many unknowns surround an 'unprecedented and worrying' outbreak” — Le Monde

Despite provocative headlines and framing, many media outfits and experts have acknowledged that it is extremely unlikely that there will be a hantavirus epidemic, let alone a pandemic — though a news article at CNN cautioned against “calm-mongering” over hantavirus lest “post-COVID anxiety” be triggered.

A new article in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, for instance, emphasized that while the suspected variety of hantavirus on the MV Hondius “can cause severe disease, high case fatality, and intense public anxiety when they emerge in mobile or closed settings,” such “outbreaks are not frequent” and are “unlikely to become a global outbreak.”

Hantavirus is a family of potentially deadly single-stranded RNA viruses that are naturally found in rodents. Only 890 cases of hantavirus were reported in the U.S. between 1993 and 2023, 35% of them fatal.

RELATED: Bizarre academic paper about releasing ticks resurfaces amid surging bites

The MV Hondius. Omar Havana/Getty Images

When spread to humans, hantaviruses can cause two diseases: hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome — a condition affecting the kidneys — and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which affects the lungs.

The hantavirus affecting people on the MV Hondius, the HPS-associated Andes strain, is unique.

Whereas other strains leap from rodents to humans, the Andes virus — symptoms of which appear anywhere from four to 42 days after exposure — has been reported to transmit from person to person via saliva droplets and other oral fluids, although this transmission theory has not been definitively proven.

The breakout on the cruise ship, which has so far claimed the lives of three people, is hardly unprecedented in terms of alleged mass human transmissions of the disease — at least where South America is concerned.

From November 2018 through February 2019 in Chubut Province, Argentina, there was, for instance, a person-to-person outbreak that resulted in 34 confirmed infections and 11 deaths.

Amid continued uncertainty over the genesis of the latest outbreak and media fearmongering, a wide range of theories have emerged about the rodent-borne virus.

Having heard for years about the various efforts to enhance the transmissibility, virulence, or host range of certain viruses, some have speculated that human-to-human transmission of hantavirus points to gain-of-function experimentation.

While there’s been nothing yet to suggest that the virus responsible for the breakout on the Hondius was the result of intentional genetic meddling, scientists have previously modified viruses incorporating hantavirus components and increased their viral fitness in a lab setting. This is similar to the controversial work done on bat coronaviruses at the lab in Wuhan, China.

Hantaviruses are considered a bioagent requiring Biosafety Level 3 containment for research and viral propagation. Consequently, BSL-2 laboratories won’t cut it.

However, a peer-reviewed study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in 2019 by the American Society for Microbiology describes how researchers developed a work-around for conducting hantavirus research in a lower biocontainment-security BSL-2 laboratory.

Researchers tried to make a safer chimeric virus — which is a hybrid virus created by piecing together parts of two different viruses. They used a relatively weaker virus, vesicular stomatis virus, as the main body, and then attached the entry proteins from the more dangerous hantavirus to the outside so that it could infiltrate and infect cells.

This new recombinant virus — the result of an artificial mash-up of genetic material — apparently started acting just like a real hantavirus and underwent a series of mutations to become more infective:

Serial passage of the rescued rVSV-HTNV Gn/Gc virus markedly increased its infectivity and capacity for cell-to-cell spread. This gain in viral fitness was associated with the acquisition of two point mutations: I532K in the cytoplasmic tail of Gn and S1094L in the membrane-proximal stem of Gc. Follow-up experiments with rVSVs and single-cycle VSV pseudotypes confirmed these results. Mechanistic studies revealed that both mutations were determinative and contributed to viral infectivity in a synergistic manner.

The lead researcher on the 2019 study declined Blaze News' request for comment.

This study is anything but a smoking gun. Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have originated in the neighborhood of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where dangerous gain-of-function experiments were being conducted on coronaviruses, the Hondius outbreak seemingly took place a world away from this ostensibly low-danger hantavirus study.

Still, researchers have yet to provide a comprehensive and satisfying explanation for how the Andes virus spreads, prompting speculation that members of the scientific community that possibly manufactured the SARS-COV-2 virus are again not being entirely forthright about what they know and don’t know regarding the Hondius outbreak.

“Public health officials have to be more honest and more humble about how this virus actually spreads,” noted Joseph Allen, professor of exposure assessment science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “An essential lesson from COVID is that officials should be candid about communicating that we are often learning in real time, and we should shy away from making bold pronouncements that may prove dangerously misleading weeks or months later.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Gay-spread monkeypox is back. Watchdog asks policymakers to drop the political correctness.



Health officials in California recently confirmed that monkeypox, a virus spread almost entirely in the West by and among homosexual men, has once again reared its ugly head in the United States.

The Oversight Project, a government watchdog group, is calling on policymakers poised to tackle the latest outbreaks to drop the political correctness that tripped up previous approaches to the disease.

Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, told Blaze News, "Public officials should be honest about how and where monkeypox is spreading, should not be worried about offending anyone, and should pull the fire alarm if animals and children start catching it."

Monkeypox is a nasty disease caused by a virus in the same genus as the virus that causes smallpox. While endemic in various African regions, monkeypox made a global play in early 2022.

Individuals infected with monkeypox may experience a painful rash that can look like pimples or blisters, respiratory problems, exhaustion, fever, swollen lymph nodes, and chills. The disease can be spread via respiratory droplets, through "direct contact with a rash or sores of someone who has the virus," and through "contact with clothing, bedding, and other items used by a person" with the virus.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that of the 528 infections diagnosed between April 27 and June 24, 2022, 98% of those infected were homosexuals and that "transmission was suspected to have occurred through sexual activity in 95% of the persons with infection."

RELATED: 'Trans' fad is dying out among American youth, and straightness is ascendant: Study

Photo by Ronaldo Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Months after then-President Joe Biden stated in May 2022 that "everybody should be concerned" about the virus, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra declared that a "public health emergency exists nationwide." Numerous states including Illinois and New York subsequently rushed to declare statewide disaster emergencies.

'They should shut down gay bathhouses.'

While the Biden administration and various state health authorities appeared willing to admit that the spread was predominantly among homosexuals, they nevertheless generalized the threat, glossed over the nature and locations of the spread, and refrained from cracking down on super-spreader venues in the same fashion they had when tackling COVID-19 — while in some cases fretting both privately and publicly about feeding into homosexuals' "sexual shame and stigma."

Such efforts to gloss over critical facts and to pretend the virus presented a danger to the general population evidently caused consternation behind the scenes.

The Oversight Project flagged, for instance, a May 27, 2022, email in which Dr. Stephanie Cohen, then-medical director of the San Francisco City Clinic, noted to other officials at the San Francisco Department of Public of Health that while she supported the "desire to not stigmatize gay men/MSM and agree that other populations can be affected, I worry a bit that we are not being fully transparent about current [epidemic]."

The Oversight Project noted that "officials were primarily concerned with not stigmatizing, the exact opposite of the COVID response."

The watchdog group further revealed that while health officials around the country were well aware that the disease was being spread at LGBT events and homosexual venues such as bathhouses, they refrained from seeking health crackdowns on such locations.

The disease, which the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Anthony Fauci was reportedly cleared to conduct gain-of-function experiments on, has apparently made a comeback.

Last week, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the City of Long Beach's health department both confirmed new cases of monkeypox in their respective jurisdictions.

The announcements by both health authorities appear to have once again been worded to avoid stigmatizing homosexuals. The Long Beach health authority noted, for instance, that "Mpox can spread through specific behaviors, regardless of a person’s race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation."

The Los Angeles County DPH, echoing the state health authority, did, however, note that the disease primarily impacts "communities of gay and bisexual men" and that risk can be mitigated by reducing the number of sexual partners, limiting attendance at "sex or circuit parties," and refraining from sharing "fetish gear" and sex toys.

"Monkeypox is back. We encourage policymakers to follow the science instead of political correctness this time," stated the Oversight Project.

When asked what prioritizing science over political correctness would look like in practice, Howell told Blaze News, "It means they should shut down gay bathhouses if they're again epicenters for monkeypox."

Editor's note: Mike Howell is a contributor to Blaze News.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Disease that wiped out over a third of medieval Europe is back — in Colorado



The plague swept through medieval Europe, killing between 30% to 50% of the population — up to anestimated 200 million people. While the bacterium responsible, Yersinia pestis, is found in rodents, it can be transmitted to humans through the bite of infected fleas. Between humans, it can be spread through unprotected contact with an infected person's bodily fluids or through inhalation of respiratory droplets expelled by someone stricken with the pneumonic plague.

Outbreaks of Yersina pestis were responsible for numerous nightmarish epidemics — not only the Justinianic plague in the 5th-7th centuries and the 14th century Black Death, but also in modern times, largely in Asia and Africa. According to the World Health Organization, the three most endemic countries are Madagascar, Peru, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Public health officials in Pueblo County, Colorado, confirmed Tuesday that a resident was infected with the plague.

Officials did not disclose the identity of the infected person.

'If you develop symptoms of plague, see a health care provider immediately.'

The Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment advised locals to:

  • eliminate places rodents can breed or hide, such as rock piles, brush, and trash;
  • avoid contact with dead animals;
  • use insect repellent to avoid flea bites;
  • treat pets for fleas;
  • keep pets away from rodent-infested areas, including prairie dog colonies; and
  • don't sleep with pets.

Alice Solis, program manager of the county's office of communicable disease and emergency preparedness, said, "If you develop symptoms of plague, see a health care provider immediately. Plague can be treated successfully with antibiotics, but an infected person must be treated promptly to avoid serious complications or death."

Infection is brutal and frequently lethal. Systemic infection caused by the bacteria in the bloodstream and lung-based forms have a case-fatality ratio ranging from 30% to 100% if not treated.

Symptoms vary depending on the variety of plague.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those infected with the bubonic plague — which is not spread person to person — develop swollen, tender lymph glands as well as fever, headache, and weakness.

Those with pneumonic plague, which is contagious and spread through the air, suffer chest pain, high fever and chills, a cough, difficulty breathing, and an upset stomach. If untreated, the disease can lead to lung failure, shock, and death inside 24 hours.

When plague bacteria multiply in the blood leaving a patient with septicemic plague, the patient is likely to suffer similar symptoms as well as profuse bleeding.

The U.S. does not presently have a plague vaccine available for use. However, streptomycin, gentamicin, the tetracyclines, and chloramphenicol are reportedly all effective against pneumonic plague.

Although infections are extremely rare, plague occurs naturally in areas of the western United Sates. For instance, it is endemic throughout the Sierra Nevada mountains and other parts of California, where it is often carried by squirrels and chipmunks.

Other once-eradicated or controlled diseases have made a comeback in recent years, in part as a result of unchecked illegal immigration.

Blaze News previously reported that cases of polio, tuberculosis, leprosy, and malaria have cropped up amid record influxes of illegal aliens as well as refugees and asylees — whom the CDC indicated are not required to meet vaccination requirements before entering the country.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A Department Of Friendship Can’t Fix The Sexual Revolution’s Lonely Fallout

Democrats are finally noticing our society is decaying, but they are almost uniformly unwilling to admit that the culture they've championed has anything to do with it.

Think Twice Before Drinking From The Tap: Federal Study Finds ‘Forever Chemicals’ May Be Poisoning Your Water

A sip from the tap might not kill you today, but it might over 30 years.

Veterinary drug transforming American city streets into zombie nightmares: 'Literally eats your flesh'



Drug addicts are reportedly experimenting with an especially destructive drug: the veterinary tranquilizer xylazine.

Xylazine, often called "tranq" or the "zombie drug," has profoundly devastating effects on human beings. Users who do not immediately die by overdose frequently see their skin rot, turn black, and slough off or their injection wounds become infected and compromise entire limbs.

This danger is compounded by the drug's increasing popularity in big American cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia.

Los Angeles, another hard-hit city, has witnessed the animal tranquilizer spread into the local street drug supply, prompting the LA County Sheriff's Department to begin actively testing confiscated drugs for traces of xylazine.

Zombie-maker

The zombie drug, usually purchased online from Chinese suppliers for $6-$20 per kilogram, is neither a controlled substance nor a new drug. It has been long marketed as a veterinary drug and used as a sedative.

According to a 2014 study published in the journal Forensic Science International, "In humans, it could cause central nervous system depression, respiratory depression, bradycardia, hypotension, and even death. There have been publications of 43 cases of xylazine intoxication in humans, in which 21 (49%) were non-fatal scenarios and 22 (51%) resulted in fatalities."

TheBlaze previously reported on a warning provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which said, "Repeated exposure to xylazine, by injection, has been associated with severe, necrotic skin ulcerations that are distinctly different from other soft-tissue infections (e.g., cellulitis, abscesses) often associated with injection drug use. These ulcerations may develop in areas of the body away from the site of injection."

The drug is reportedly used frequently as an adulterant in recreational drugs — to enhance or mimic the effects of other illicit drugs, such as heroin or cocaine.

While dangerous on its own, used in combination with other drugs, xylazine can prove especially fatal.

For instance, a 2021 American study detected the drug in 42 Connecticut fatal overdoses from March to August 2019.

'Self-destruction at its finest'

KTLA reported that the recent rash of xylazine use has seen some users horribly disfigured. Some have been found covered in sores, requiring amputation. Others have had their skin fall off and inner workings exposed.

Tracey McCann, a user, told the New York Times earlier this year that the needle bruises she had from fentanyl were hardening and turning crusty. "I’d wake up in the morning crying because my arms were dying," said McCann.

Brooke Peder, a 38-year-old user in the city, lost her leg as the result of a zombie drug wound that became infected and ate into the bone. She bore her arm for the Times, revealing "patches of blackened tissue, exposed white tendons and pus, the sheared flesh was hot and red."

"The tranq dope literally eats your flesh," said Peder. "It's self-destruction at its finest."

"We had a woman come in and her sister had passed away from a fentanyl overdose," addiction expert Cary Quashen told KTLA. "But not only was it a fentanyl overdose (but) her skin was starting to rot, the muscles on her leg and her arm. So that’s a sure sign of xylazine."

DEA special agent Bill Bodner told KTLA, "It's really gruesomely disfiguring people. ... It’s much more likely to stop someone from breathing and the things that come along with xylazine, it’s a vasoconstrictor. So when you’re injecting it, it’s actually reducing the blood circulation."

The DEA released an intelligence report on the drug in October, detailing instances of exhibits involving the drug in the agency's laboratory system between 2020 and 2021. The report noted a 61% increase in the Northeast U.S. census region, a 193% increase in the South, a 7% increase in the Midwest, and a 112% increase in the West.

As xylazine-positive overdoses in the aforementioned U.S. census regions, the Northeast has seen a 103% increase; the South, a 1,127% increase; the Midwest, a 516% increase; and the West, a 750% increase.

Taking a closer look

As Los Angeles is one of the American cities hardest hit, the LA County Sheriff's Office has begun to track how common xylazine is, reported the New York Post.

This was not previously a priority, as the drug is not illegal.

Beginning in April, the LACSO's pilot program has had crime lab analysts noting preliminary signs of the tranquilizer when testing confiscated drugs.

"In the greater Los Angeles area, we are seeing xylazine as an additive within fake fentanyl pills," DEA Los Angeles Field Division spokeswoman Nicole Nishida told the Los Angeles Times. "While the numbers are relatively low in our community compared to elsewhere in the United States, the presence of xylazine is now becoming more frequent and the trend is concerning."

The Times indicated that federal data shows that roughly 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized in 2022 contained the tranquilizer.

If they determine by month's end that the number of xylazine positives is high, they will figure out standards for conducting additional confirmatory tests.

"This is going to be very unique for us, because I’m asking them to track a non-controlled substance," Capt. Ernest Bille, who oversees the department’s Scientific Services Bureau, told the Los Angeles Times.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Rare monkeypox case identified in Massachusetts after European outbreak



The first U.S. case of monkeypox this year has been reported in Massachusetts after a small outbreak of the viral disease reported in several European countries.

A man who had recently traveled to Canada has been hospitalized with a viral infection at Massachusetts General Hospital. Testing completed Tuesday confirmed that the man was infected with monkeypox, a rare but potentially serious viral disease that causes flu-like symptoms and swelling of lymph nodes before progressing to a widespread rash on the face and body, the Massachusetts Department of Health said.

"DPH is working closely with the CDC, relevant local boards of health, and the patient’s health care providers to identify individuals who may have been in contact with the patient while he was infectious. This contact tracing approach is the most appropriate given the nature and transmission of the virus," the agency said. "The case poses no risk to the public, and the individual is hospitalized and in good condition."

Monkeypox is a disease that is native to parts of central and west Africa, where people may be exposed to the virus through bites or scratches from animals. The virus does not spread easily between people, but transmission can occur through contact with body fluids, monkeypox sores, or through respiratory droplets following prolonged face-to-face contact, officials said.

This was the first monkeypox case to be identified in the U.S. in 2022. Two previous cases were reported last year in Texas and Maryland, in patients who had each traveled to Nigeria.

There have been nine reported cases of monkeypox in the United Kingdom, mostly identified in men who have sex with other men, according to U.K. health officials. A total of 68 cases have been reported in Europe, including in England, Spain, and Portugal, NPR reports.

"This [outbreak] is rare and unusual," said Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser for the U.K. Health Security Agency in a statement Monday.

"Exactly where and how they [the people] acquired their infections remains under urgent investigation," the agency said.

Officials in the U.K. are perplexed because the virus seems to be spreading among people who have not had contact with anyone who has traveled to Africa.

"What is even more bizarre is finding cases that appear to have acquired the infection via sexual contact," said UKHSA epidemiologist Mateo Prochazka in a tweet. "This is a novel route of transmission that will have implications for outbreak response and control."

'Are you trying to hide something?': Reporter presses Jen Psaki for the number of breakthrough COVID cases among White House staff



White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked to provide specific information about the number of breakthrough COVID-19 cases among White House staff during a news conference.

In this clip, Pat Gray and Jeff Fisher reacted to the moment when a reporter asked Psaki if the Biden administration won't release the number of breakthrough cases among vaccinated staffers.

"Are you trying to hide something?" the reporter asked.

Psaki told the reporter she was not hiding anything and asked the reporter why she needed to have that information.

Pat was shocked by Psaki's "bizarre" question and noted that reporters need that information because they are reporters.

Watch the clip to hear what else Pat had to say. Can't watch? Download the podcast here.


Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

A Dose of Hope? | Guest: Brandon Tatum | 4/29/21
play icon

A Dose of Hope? | Guest: Brandon Tatum | 4/29/21

70 Percent Of American Adults Are Now Overweight, A New High

The American public wasn't healthy going into the coronavirus pandemic, and it's not getting any healthier during lockdown.