The Coronavirus Conundrum

An Interview with Dr. Stephen Bryen

by Jerry Gordon and Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant (May 2020)

 

 

Mollecular Landscapes, Coronavirus, David Goodsell, RCSB Protein Data Bank (2020)

 

 

 

As of April 27, 2020, Global COVID-19 reports revealed infected cases have risen to 3,012,389 and fatalities reached 207,885. The US had 987,322 cases and 55,415 deaths due to the coronavirus. While Israel had 15,466 cases and 202 deaths.

 

There are disputes as to whether the social distancing mitigation has reached the point where gradual phased releases from confinement may shortly be feasible given the drop in new cases indicating plateauing may have been achieved in the major US infected states and hot spots. Some public health experts say ending confinement may be dependent on continual testing and contact tracing. Then there is the matter of the timeline for development of promising therapies and vaccines and, yet to complete human trials. However, there are conspiracy theories of whether the release of the coronavirus was part of a nefarious plan in a bio-war effort by Chinese virology institutes engaged in studies of SARS-COVID 2 from Bat and other animal studies. Or whether these coronaviruses were man—made as suggested by French Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier or arose naturally and may have been transmitted from animals in the Wuhan ‘wet market’ located near the Wuhan Virology Institute. There is the matter of criticism of the World Health Organization leadership to cross-check these occurrences, as well as initially going along with the XI- Chinese government initial reports that nothing was awry. Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant and Jerry Gordon brought back Dr. Stephen Bryen, a former US Department of Defense Deputy Under Secretary for Technology and Security, noted military technologist and widely published Asia Times columnist to address these questions.

 

Bryen suggested that the Hubei regional Chinese government officials may have attempted to close off news leaking out. As evidence of the coronavirus spread, the XI regime in Beijing became mortified. That led to indications that there was no big outbreak. Their mistake, Bryen said, was that they did not properly notify the world and did not engage the US. He dismisses conspiracy theories that China was developing a bioweapon seeking domination of the world economic system. That was not in the best interests of China. The spread of the coronavirus was through Chinese commercial travelers to Italy and hence to the EU. He noted the Chinese textile and leather trades in Northern Italy. There were direct flights from Wuhan to Milan, Italy. To deal with the spread of the coronavirus, Rod Bryant indicated that China had shut down internal flights. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Bryen contends was engaging in international research that the XI- government believed had economic potential. China is a major supplier of ingredients for antibiotics and medical treatments that resulted from globalization. India is another source of vaccines and medicines. Bryen noted the call from President Trump made to India’s President Modi seeking large quantities of the controversial anti-Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for US trials as a possible coronavirus therapy.

 

On April 23, 2020 the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) issued a warning, based on limited trials data, about the risk of heart arrhythmic problems for treatment of coronavirus cases using hydroxychloroquine. Bryen thinks this reflects the shift of vaccine production that previously had been in the US and, because of tax advantages in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Scott Gottlieb, former US FDA director issued a challenge to the US to win the race for a vaccine required a speed up of trials and a ramp up of US manufacturing Scale. Breyen suggests that the US should foster development of a critical supply chain by either shifting production to other centers or re-establishing production facilities in the US.

 

Bryen delved into the background of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) investigation into SARS COVID viruses. The WIV is a Bio Safety Level-4 (BSL-4) designated facility authorized to conduct investigation into dangerous pathogens. The Bat population studies were conducted by Ms. Xi-Jang-Li under auspices of both Chinese and US NIH funding. A report she had prepared published in 2015, co-authored with US and other experts, dealt with the Bat SARS COVID -2 virus injected into mice. The WIV produced major scientific papers on AIDS-HIV, Ebola, and coronaviruses with co-authors from Canada, France, and the US. Those papers included research into primate and human transmission. In 2018, a US Embassy team, including a Science Attaché, visited the WIV and found safety violations that they documented warning of a potential pandemic.

 

WIV was not the only BSL-4 facility with such problems. Bryen drew attention to the closure of the US Army Fort Detrick Bio-weapons research facility in 2019 for two months. Moreover, a moratorium on conduct of research into dangerous pathogens at Fort Detrick was issued in 2014 and not lifted until 2017.

 

One of the controversial theories as to what might have occurred at the WVI is the suggestion of French HIV Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier, formerly associated with the Pasteur Institute, now active in doing research in Shanghai, China. He thought that the WIV might have attempted to culture SARs COVID-2 with AID virus proteins, that may have produced the COVID-19 virus. Moreover, Montaigne said that because it was man made it may have a half-life of eight weeks.

 

As noted by Bryen’s Asia Times colleague David P. Goldman in an article on this subject, Defense Secretary Mike Espers told a television interview that “a majority of the views right now is that it is natural, organic”. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and White House Coronavirus Task Force member, referred to a Scripps Research study indicating “that highly qualified virologists looked at the sequences in bats as they evolve. The mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to human”.

 

Bryen criticized the WHO leadership of Dr. Tedros for essentially parroting the diversionary Chinese statement that the coronavirus was not communicable with humans. Bryen thinks the WHO, funded by the US at $550 million annually, should replace Tedros and bring in a qualified public health and medical leader and a functional professional staff. We note that the staff of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (USCDC) provided the first accurate assessment of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Notwithstanding, Bryen drew attention to reports of the contamination of tests with the coronavirus virus by staff of the US CDC, thus causing a critical delay in providing test kits. As regarding tests to lift confinement Bryen thinks priority should be given to nursing homes, prisons, and the military with spot sampling of populations in hot spots. Bryen’s suggestions appear to have been corroborated by White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx in a CNN Jake Tapper interview: “

 

Birx said though she’s always concerned about the potential for a new surge in cases, but that “we have to diagnose the virus before it is evident in communities.”

 

She said in the response team’s guidelines for reopening the country, there’s a setup for “what we call sentinel surveillance or monitoring proactively in long term care facilities, in inner city clinics that have multigenerational households, in prisons, among Native Americans, to really ensure we find the virus before people even get symptoms.”

 

Bryen discussed the research of Tel Aviv University Professor and Israel Prize winner, former Israel Air Force general Itzhak Ben Israel who had developed a mathematical model of the coronavirus that defined a curve with a 40 days to peak, followed by a 70 days half-life.

 

What follows is the Israel News Talk Radio—Beyond the Matrix interview with Dr. Stephen Bryen:

 

Rod Bryant: Officially you are at Beyond the Matrix. You are here with us right now on Israel News Talk Radio with Jerry Gordon, my co-host and producer. We want to welcome those who are watching us on YouTube at Netiv online. Our guest is Stephen Bryen. Jerry, could you talk about Steven Bryen’s background and why we are having him on today?

 

Jerry Gordon: Stephen Bryen is a world-ranked military technologist, former Department of Defense Deputy Undersecretary for Technology and Security. He is a well published author and an Asia Times columnist. He has done research on the dynamics behind the origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic. He is critical about the leadership of the World Health Organization. He is also concerned about the dangerous research into the coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology involving possible foreign and US assistance where this might have occurred. The interesting aspect of it is that it may have been involved doing additional research on HIV vaccines and the coronaviruses.

 

Rod Bryant: Which reveals that this may possible be man-made. If that is the case, there is a theory floating out there that we are going to discuss from a controversial French researcher. That this Coronavirus may have been spawned human transmission as research possibly using HIV proteins were involved. Stephen Bryen, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy quarantine schedule in isolation

 

Stephen Bryen: Yes, I will have to jog some more around my study.

 

Rod Bryant: Did you hear about the fellow that is doing a 20-mile marathon in his house for a good cause?

 

Stephen Bryen: There is a wonderful story about a 99-year-old retired military officer in the UK who has been raising money for the National Health Service by walking back and forth in his little yard with a walker. Colonel Tom is his name and he has raised a huge amount of money, like $30 million.

 

Jerry Gordon: £16 million.

 

Rod Bryant: That is incredible.

 

Stephen Bryen: It is way above that, Jerry, now. He has just done an amazing job.

 

Rod Bryant: That is incredible. A lot of good stories are coming out of the quarantine all over the world. One thing for sure, I am pretty much an optimist, and I like to project good positive things. I am hoping for the best for our nation, and for the people of the world. Stephen, we will get right into the questions.

 

Jerry Gordon: Stephen, why did China delay the disclosure of the COVID-19 breakout in Wuhan, for critical six weeks from December 2019 until lockdown of Hubei Province in January of 2020?

 

Rod Bryant: Stephen, before we came on to the show, Jerry and I were talking about economies. We see things posted on Facebook, saying that China wants to destroy the world economies to have domination and power. However, most people do not understand that the world economic system depends on every other country succeeding and prospering. Because if the world economic system fails, especially China Russia, and Israel, it may have a domino effect. I do not think people realize that it is not in the best interest of China to destroy the economy of the world over this virus. It is ludicrous. So, you do not buy into the whole conspiracy theory that China is attempting to spread this virus to do some nefarious thing.

 

Rod Bryant: China also shut down travel to the northern part of China before they shut out the rest of the world.

 

Stephen Bryen: Yes, they were looking internally.

 

Rod Bryen: Because they were at that time still thinking, this is an internal problem and we should not worry too much about it.

 

Stephen Bryen: From the point of view of the Chinese Government, I do not think there is any evidence that they were trying to do bio-war. For economic, military, or political reason, none of the above. I think there is some case to be made that the labs in Wuhan were working on some projects that had economic potential for China, and obviously, for the labs in Wuhan, and the people they are connected to. That is something we must look at. That is quite different than saying there was some bio-war or some other grand design by the Chinese Communist Party. I do not buy any of that.

 

Rod Bryant: One of the things that we must consider is China provides most of the world with the raw materials for medicines, medications, and treatments. For sure, they would not want to taint their reputation by showing a lab that that has dumped this virus out by accident, because it just makes them look sloppy and they are going to lose business. Potentially, they could lose a lot of business from other countries because it is time for other countries to become a little bit more self-sufficient. What do you say about that?

 

Stephen Bryen: I think you start with the fact that we must have security of supply for certain things. Obviously, medicines are extremely high on the list because if you have sickness in your society, and you cannot assure the supply of antibiotics or other kinds of curatives, you are in trouble. I think there is an emerging consensus in the United States that we must get the pharmaceutical industry back into our country somehow, that we cannot depend on outside sources. After all, it is not just China. The President of the United States had to call President Modi in India and plead with him to provide the—

 

Jerry Gordon: —Hydroxychloroquine.

 

Rod Bryant: Absolutely. It is almost like the oil situation.

 

Stephen Bryen: Hydroxychloroquine is not something you would have typically stockpiled. A lot of American manufacturing used to be either in the continental United States or in Puerto Rico, now is in China, as is a lot of our manufacturing of vaccines and pharmaceuticals.

 

Rod Bryant: It seems like after this is over with, hopefully, many governments will reconsider their own critical supply chain to make sure that they have market access.

 

Jerry Gordon: Steve, let us deal with the origin of this so called COVID-19 virus. The Wuhan Institute of Virology Laboratory had received in 2015 a biosafety level 4. It is a designation that permitted them to deal with dangerous pathogens. They had researchers on their staff who were investigating rather unique, problems eventuating from bat populations several hundred miles away from Wuhan. The question before us is, how did this naturally arise? It is about the experiments and work done by the Wuhan virology laboratories about bat populations which they have done since 2015. They are one of the few important Biosafety Level 4 designated institutions in China allowed to conduct research into dangerous pathogens. The facility was visited in 2018, by scientific aides to the US Ambassador in Beijing who sent a memo back to the State Department questioning their safety standards. With that background, Steve, what do you know?

 

Stephen Bryen: One of the interesting questions is, why did they visit that lab in Wuhan in 2018, Now, there had been some outbreaks of SARS viruses in 2017 in China, but not in Wuhan. It seems to me that somebody was blowing a whistle. Now, remember that this lab was getting money from the United States National Institute of Health, for some research involving American researchers at the University of North Carolina University, and Dr. Shi Zhengli who was at Wuhan. She is the bat lady, that has been her specialty. I think the reason they went there was that they heard things were not as good as they should have been, and they wanted to check it out. And they warned that there could be a pandemic. They understood that there were some major shortcomings in that BS Level 4 laboratory. Incidentally, while we are talking about it, something like that also happened in the United States in July of 2019 at the US Army Level 4, Level 3, labs.

 

Jerry Gordon: Fort Detrick . . .

 

Rod Bryant: Do you know why that was lifted in 2017?

 

Stephen Bryen: I think there was a lot of pressure from the scientific community that we would not be able to develop vaccines and preventatives unless the research went on. It is a legitimate debate. However, it is extremely dangerous, but probably necessary research. That is the kind of dilemma you are in. I think the mistake here is that there was no internationally agreed way of protecting this kind of research with supervision. It was left to each lab to supervise itself.

 

Rod Bryant: What you are saying, there needs to be an international protocol for these types of labs.

 

Stephen Bryen: There is a protocol for the level of the lab. The Biosafety Level 4 lab is considered the highest level. A lot of this research was not being done in Biosafety Level 4 labs, it was done in Biosafety Level 3 or even lower labs, so that must be looked at as well. US government keeps a list of the class A threats and Corona is one of them. Ebola is another one of them There are other pathogens like Anthrax on the list. I think the problem here is that, if we want to go forward with this kind of work in the future, we had better think about a cross-checking supervisory process to prevent mistakes. Now, I want to qualify all this by saying, right now, the balance of opinion on this issue is very much that it was a natural evolution not a man-made one, and that this was not made in the laboratory. There are some people who disagree with that. I am one of them. I think it was made in the laboratory. I am persuaded by the French professor who has done investigations and made some claims, that have been highly disputed. I might add, saying that there was research on an AIDS vaccine going on using Coronavirus. His name is Luc Montagnier. Montagnier is a French Nobel laureate. He is one of the team who discovered HIV. He is not a trivial player although he has been very controversial all his life. He comes from the Pasteur Institute in Paris. These days, he is in Shanghai. He says that the Coronavirus is a man-made virus and that it contains fragments or traces of AIDS proteins that have gotten into the Coronavirus in the lab.

 

 

Rod Bryant: Okay. He is saying it is not a natural occurrence, it is not going to last long.

 

Stephen Bryen: Any time you graft something on like this it cannot survive for awfully long.

 

Jerry Gordon: The question was basically about the World Health Organization. Why they went along with the initial stories that the Chinese were putting out there?

 

Rod Bryant: And are they capable of managing the World Health Organization?

 

Rod Bryant Is the head of the WHO organization a physician?

 

Jerry: He has public health and immunology degrees from the UK.

 

Stephen Bryen: He has medical degree, but it is not a particularly good one from what I understand. And certainly not in line with this. He does not know what he was talking about. Beyond saying that it is not what the scientific community would call very credible.

 

Stephen Bryen: World health is much broader than just that narrow field. Let us be honest about that. I think we need a world-renowned scientist to head that organization, who has real credibility throughout the scientific and public health communities. Because they are both involved in this. I would hope that he steps down, and they bring in someone who is really first class.

 

Rod Bryant: You have written about an Israeli scientist who has a different model that projects an eight-week cycle of infection that might favor the lifting of confinement. Who is he and how technically grounded is he in these analytics?

 

Rod Bryant: My wife and I, a couple weeks ago, went to look for a couple of items we needed to pick up, and we went through the store, and it was a little disturbing. A handful of people in this 60,000 square foot building, and the products, full of the shelves and hardly anybody there to buy. People are afraid to go. I would think that if tomorrow, they decided to just open the stores, there are going to be a lot of people, especially those at risk, who are going to stay home. There are going to be other people that are going to get out on their own. Do you think that the overused word draconian measures to have people to stay in their homes locked down, do you think that was too much of a response or just what we needed?

 

 

Stephen Bryen: I think his instinct is he would like to see people get back to work soon.

 

Rod Bryant: For sure, governors regardless of what their political alliance is, have at least their political career as part of the reason why they should consider that.

 

Jerry Gordon: Having said all that, some of the requirements for lifting the confinement are additional testing the populations as well as contract tracing. Steve, what is the state of that art such that it does not become an onerous barrier to mitigating these significant economic impacts?

 

Stephen Bryen: I think there are a couple of things. Obviously, more testing is good. We should do that because we can identify a problem before it emerges to something terrible. I would start testing in nursing homes, prisons, subway riders and other confined areas, and in the military for the same reason. In confined places because it seems like that is where the worst of the worst happens. In fact, I think the most terrible thing about this disease is what is happened in nursing homes. I have one that is just a few blocks from my home, where they had 15 deaths. It is hard to believe that is what is going on. We need to do better on how we handle confined spaces and hot spots. If we focused on those two things, I think we would have a better chance to getting through this. That is just me speaking, but I think trying to do it on a global basis, the whole society by tracking everybody, then it is impossible, you cannot do it. However, if you do it where you know where you have serious problems and you can anticipate having problems, which is a big help. Of course, we still need some treatments, we need some solutions. We do not have them yet.

 

Rod Bryant: Actually, that is the fly in the ointment here, we must have a treatment or an injection to keep people from getting it. It has been a great show. Stephen, as always, a plethora of great information, we really appreciate it. Until next week at this same time, Jerry and I and Stephen want to say Shalom to you and have a wonderful week. Stay safe.

 

 

Listen to the Israel News Talk Radio—Beyond the Matrix interview with Dr. Stephen Bryen.

 

Watch the Netiv-online Youtube video of the Israel News Talk Radio—Beyond the Matrix with Dr. Stephen Bryen.

 

 

 

«Previous Article Table of Contents Next Article»

 

 

____________________________

Jerome B Gordon is a Senior Vice President of the New English Review, author of The West Speaks, NER Press 2012, and co-author of Genocide in Sudan: Caliphate Threatens Africa and the World, JAD Publishing, 2017. Mr. Gordon is a former US Army intelligence officer who served during the Viet Nam era. He is producer and co-host of Israel News Talk Radio—Beyond the Matrix. He was the co-host and co-producer of weekly The Lisa Benson Show for National Security that aired out of KKNT960 in Phoenix Arizona from 2013 to 2016 and co-host and co-producer of the Middle East Round Table periodic series on 1330amWEBY, Northwest Florida Talk Radio, Pensacola, Florida from 2007 to 2017.

 

Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant is creator and host of Israel News Talk Radio—Beyond the Matrix.

Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast