@Paul
The “Vaccinegate English” video shows a press conference organised by the anti-vaccination lobby group Corvelva to announce Dr Loretta Bolgan’s findings to the world. You describe her as an “adviser to an Italian Parliamentary Committee” as if she’s some sort of equivalent to Prof. Chris Whitty, but as far as I can tell she sat on a subcommittee concerned with Depleted Uranium in 2016. She’s actually a researcher (or “scientific consultant”) with Corvelva – the anti-vax campaigners.
A few days later, Dr Enrico Bucci (an Italian equivalent of Ben Goldacre) published a detailed critique of Dr Bolgan’s claims, with 8 major methodological objections. He summarised:
In light of the considerations made, it is therefore not possible to confirm the presence of any of the contaminating genomes reported, and there are strong clues that lead us to think about the presence of numerous false positives.
In her response, Dr Bolgan rowed back from her former “strong” claims:
I have to underline an important thing once and for all: Corvelva is not doing a batch release check and has not requested to use validated methods for batch analysis, as producers, accredited laboratories and the ISS must do.
As already mentioned, the data are not definitive and there may be inaccuracies in the reports. Everything will be reviewed and corrected as the work progresses.
We are in the research and development phase…. Inter-laboratory tests and the introduction of appropriate certified viral mix standards will allow us to verify or deny the hypothesis you proposed, that is, that the method is not (yet) optimized for viruses.
libraries were not obtained and therefore it was not possible to run them on the sequencer to check exactly what the reagent / environmental contamination is. However, efforts are being made to try to understand what ‘physiological’ contaminations there are and inter-laboratory tests will also help in determining possible laboratory-dependent bacterial contaminations.
So by her own admission Loretta Bolgan conducted a preliminary study without screening filters, on vaccine samples with unknown contaminants, found what seemed to be viruses and elements of DNA and immediately broadcast her findings (which may contain “inaccuracies”) to the anti-vaxxer press; and then weakened her claims considerably when challenged. She still hasn’t refined her methods or submitted her work for peer review. How come, if it was so urgent back then that she had to tell the press before even confirming her results or validating her methodology?
Do you know if any independent studies replicated those preliminary findings? (I’d have thought the anti-vaxxers would be getting celebratory tattoos if so.)
Good luck with your search for truth, Paul.