to everyone coming here to inanely quote Kary Mullis on the utility of PCR for diagnosing infection: this piece agrees with him. it makes the same point Mullis made, but in more words.
maybe try to understand that before yelling a lot of things at me.
PCR is like BMI. It’s good on a population level but it is often enough wrong in significant ways on an individual level as to be dangerous in the wrong hands.
I am 6 foot tall, 185 pounds, muscular, with a 32 inch waist. And according to BMI, I am overweight (not obese as previously written)
Which would be absurd even to the most uneducated observer.
PCR is the same. You’re dangerously ill even though to the most untrained it’s clear you’re not sick at all.
The damage these test results enabled is incalculable. What is the purpose of this article, other than to muddy the waters of the clear misuse of PCR to create conditions that caused so much incredible damage to people, young and old, all over the world?
Thanks for this. I’ve grown tired of arguing with people about PCR where the Dunning-Kruger effect has kicked in hard since the pandemic was declared.
I’m a clinical microbiologist and have used PCR as a day-to-day technique for years. Since microbiology labs all have PCR platforms these days it was natural that we should be asked to take on Covid screening since the workload would have overwhelmed the small number of specialist virology laboratories.
There are a few key differences in the way the SARS-CoV-2 PCR has been used which are at variance with normal clinical testing and these account for a lot of the illusion of the pandemic.
Firstly, we normally use PCR as a screening test which is confirmed by culture, where possible, or whole genome sequencing in a specialist laboratory. If PCR is not confirmed, the usual practice is to disclaim the result with a comment to the effect that a positive PCR test does not necessarily indicate the presence of viable organisms. Even where confirmatory testing has been used (in hospital labs but not in the public screening centres) for Covid this caveat has not been used. Given the small but not negligible false positive rate of PCR tests this is problematic…
… especially since most of the people who have been screened are asymptomatic. As Prof. Norman Fenton has demonstrated, a small percentage of false positives in a large population of negative cases can easily swamp a larger percentage of false negatives in the real infected population, exaggerating the case rate by a factor of greater than 10.
We don’t use PCR to screen asymptomatic people for any other pathogen. As an illustration of how problematic this could be, consider Epstein-Barr virus which is carried by 25-30% of the population at any given time without serious consequences. If we were to screen everyone for EBV irrespective of symptoms it would be associated with 25-30% of deaths where it played no part in the patient’s demise. If correlation were confused with causation as it was with SARS-CoV-2, we would conclude that EBV is a killer virus which it isn’t.
Finally, in spite of Kary Mullis’ advice to the contrary, PCR has come to be used as a diagnostic test even in the absence of other signs and symptoms of disease. While it is not uncommon in my lab to have the clinical staff request a repeat PCR where a patient is symptomatic but the test negative, it never happens that they ask us to repeat a positive test in an asymptomatic patient. This is because they are compelled to err on the side of caution due to their responsibility for avoiding cross-infection. However, it does mean that false positives go unchecked while false negatives are challenged further exaggerating the bias pointed out by Prof. Fenton.
The shortcomings of PCR are limited and well known. The real problems come from the way in which it has been applied and interpreted in relation to Covid.
The PCR test was used to support a myth that a person who was not sick (no symptoms) was a person to be concerned about. No one should have been dull witted enough to accept that.
Agreed. As someone who works in clinical research and has conducted pcr testing on everything from porcine fecal samples to mRNA-transfected lymphoblastoid cells, it has been difficult to explain to those who would jump on these misinformed opinions to support otherwise good research. On the other end, it has been equally difficult to get through to some of my colleagues the impact that setting the Ct threshold so high has on interpreting population level data. And I'm certainly no expert in PCR-based experiments but it is amazing to see how fear and political motivations color the thoughts of otherwise brilliant people and cause them to develop these wild theories that are rooted in the processes of groupthink. It's imperative that we address these discrepancies head on as you have done here. Thanks again for another great post.
Sooooo tired of some of the crazy ideas being pushed as click bait on “our side”... there’s SO MUCH to understand about the lies and manipulations that DID happen - we don’t need to run down stupid rabbit holes. :)
Mass testing was used to traumatize the neurotic for the purpose of control. SARS-Cov-2 was equivalent to a bad flu strain, with respect to deaths, with the odd characteristic is that it didn't kill young people like a bad flu.
Testing results where used by totalitarians to lockdown cities, states and entire nations. To destroy small businesses, a locus of conservative values. And worst of all, to first convince people to take the mRNA therapeutics, that we still don't know what is in them, then later mandate them. Because that is what the totalitarians wanted for reasons we still don't fully understand.
My beef with the pcr is I have a feeling, could be wrong, that those who were PCR positive were then not screened for flu and possibly twindemic patients who may have been treated for flu were shoved into isolation on a ventilator and left to die. Maybe not tho.
The most inaccurate perception of the COVID PCR is that it's exceptionally sensitive, which we tend to focus on because we're well aware of the false positives caused by dead virus, old infections, etc. However, the main problem with the PCR is its high false NEGATIVE rate, which makes it completely unfit for the purpose of catching infections early.
In my own case, I was infected with Delta in a foreign country three days before my flight back (I later learned, obviously I didn't know at the time) . If Day 1 was the day of my infection, I took a pre-travel PCR on Day 3, which was negative. The next day I flew, and my symptoms started during the flight, mainly a dry cough. I wasn't sure if it was just the dry air of the plane, but I knew that since my home country makes everyone arriving by plane take a PCR at the airport, that if it really was COVID it would be caught then.
The plane arrived and I took my airport PCR, which was also negative. By this point I was sure that the two PCRs would have caught it if it was COVID, because like every other critic of COVID restrictions I had an idea of the PCR as being ridiculously, even overly sensitive. So waking up the next day I felt a bit ropey but not too bad, so I went into work and worked a full day, annoyed by a persistent cough and congestion.
The next morning I had a low-grade fever, so I decided that even if it was just the flu, I should stay home until it passed, to avoid freaking people out at work. Long story short, I only finally tested positive on the sixth day after my symptoms started, or the tenth day after I was infected. By the time I tested positive, my fever had already gone away.
I thought my experience must be one in a million, but when I actually looked up the PCR false negative rate I was stunned to see that even the day before symptoms start, the false negative rate is 67%, meaning two out of three people who actually have COVID test negative. On the day that symptoms start, still 38% test negative, or more than 1 out of every 3. The lowest the false negative rate EVER gets is 20% on Day 8, after the person has already had full Covid symptoms for more than 3 days!
Clearly, a test which misses the majority of people who are presymptomatic but infectious, and still misses 1 in 5 who have symptoms, can NEVER be effeftively used to stop a virus from spreading in the population. If 10,000 actually infected people get tested on a particular day, at minimum 2,000 of those infected people will recieve false negative tests, whereupon they will go out in public or to gatherings and infect others. The PCR seemed to have been seized upon because it was the most accurate testing method available, without stopping to think whether it was in fact accurate enough for the purpose it was being used for.
to everyone coming here to inanely quote Kary Mullis on the utility of PCR for diagnosing infection: this piece agrees with him. it makes the same point Mullis made, but in more words.
maybe try to understand that before yelling a lot of things at me.
What an absurd article. Here is the truth about the fraudulent PCR testing:
https://tritorch.com/PCRFraud
After you read that you will never look at eugyppius the same, and rightly so. This article is a joke.
PCR tests were not used to save people. They were used to control people. That’s the point.
PCR is like BMI. It’s good on a population level but it is often enough wrong in significant ways on an individual level as to be dangerous in the wrong hands.
I am 6 foot tall, 185 pounds, muscular, with a 32 inch waist. And according to BMI, I am overweight (not obese as previously written)
Which would be absurd even to the most uneducated observer.
PCR is the same. You’re dangerously ill even though to the most untrained it’s clear you’re not sick at all.
The damage these test results enabled is incalculable. What is the purpose of this article, other than to muddy the waters of the clear misuse of PCR to create conditions that caused so much incredible damage to people, young and old, all over the world?
Thanks for this. I’ve grown tired of arguing with people about PCR where the Dunning-Kruger effect has kicked in hard since the pandemic was declared.
I’m a clinical microbiologist and have used PCR as a day-to-day technique for years. Since microbiology labs all have PCR platforms these days it was natural that we should be asked to take on Covid screening since the workload would have overwhelmed the small number of specialist virology laboratories.
There are a few key differences in the way the SARS-CoV-2 PCR has been used which are at variance with normal clinical testing and these account for a lot of the illusion of the pandemic.
Firstly, we normally use PCR as a screening test which is confirmed by culture, where possible, or whole genome sequencing in a specialist laboratory. If PCR is not confirmed, the usual practice is to disclaim the result with a comment to the effect that a positive PCR test does not necessarily indicate the presence of viable organisms. Even where confirmatory testing has been used (in hospital labs but not in the public screening centres) for Covid this caveat has not been used. Given the small but not negligible false positive rate of PCR tests this is problematic…
… especially since most of the people who have been screened are asymptomatic. As Prof. Norman Fenton has demonstrated, a small percentage of false positives in a large population of negative cases can easily swamp a larger percentage of false negatives in the real infected population, exaggerating the case rate by a factor of greater than 10.
We don’t use PCR to screen asymptomatic people for any other pathogen. As an illustration of how problematic this could be, consider Epstein-Barr virus which is carried by 25-30% of the population at any given time without serious consequences. If we were to screen everyone for EBV irrespective of symptoms it would be associated with 25-30% of deaths where it played no part in the patient’s demise. If correlation were confused with causation as it was with SARS-CoV-2, we would conclude that EBV is a killer virus which it isn’t.
Finally, in spite of Kary Mullis’ advice to the contrary, PCR has come to be used as a diagnostic test even in the absence of other signs and symptoms of disease. While it is not uncommon in my lab to have the clinical staff request a repeat PCR where a patient is symptomatic but the test negative, it never happens that they ask us to repeat a positive test in an asymptomatic patient. This is because they are compelled to err on the side of caution due to their responsibility for avoiding cross-infection. However, it does mean that false positives go unchecked while false negatives are challenged further exaggerating the bias pointed out by Prof. Fenton.
The shortcomings of PCR are limited and well known. The real problems come from the way in which it has been applied and interpreted in relation to Covid.
The PCR test was used to support a myth that a person who was not sick (no symptoms) was a person to be concerned about. No one should have been dull witted enough to accept that.
Agreed. As someone who works in clinical research and has conducted pcr testing on everything from porcine fecal samples to mRNA-transfected lymphoblastoid cells, it has been difficult to explain to those who would jump on these misinformed opinions to support otherwise good research. On the other end, it has been equally difficult to get through to some of my colleagues the impact that setting the Ct threshold so high has on interpreting population level data. And I'm certainly no expert in PCR-based experiments but it is amazing to see how fear and political motivations color the thoughts of otherwise brilliant people and cause them to develop these wild theories that are rooted in the processes of groupthink. It's imperative that we address these discrepancies head on as you have done here. Thanks again for another great post.
All doctors who have done harm must be held accountable: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-do-no-harm-part-2
Simply: thank you 😊
Sooooo tired of some of the crazy ideas being pushed as click bait on “our side”... there’s SO MUCH to understand about the lies and manipulations that DID happen - we don’t need to run down stupid rabbit holes. :)
Mass testing was used to traumatize the neurotic for the purpose of control. SARS-Cov-2 was equivalent to a bad flu strain, with respect to deaths, with the odd characteristic is that it didn't kill young people like a bad flu.
Testing results where used by totalitarians to lockdown cities, states and entire nations. To destroy small businesses, a locus of conservative values. And worst of all, to first convince people to take the mRNA therapeutics, that we still don't know what is in them, then later mandate them. Because that is what the totalitarians wanted for reasons we still don't fully understand.
My beef with the pcr is I have a feeling, could be wrong, that those who were PCR positive were then not screened for flu and possibly twindemic patients who may have been treated for flu were shoved into isolation on a ventilator and left to die. Maybe not tho.
This is a worthy effort, for which many thanks and much respect. There's a truism that no good deed goes unpunished. I can see that happening already.
This is a great article, from a different angle from many years back when the NY Times was a decent newspaper:
About a pandemic that never was - created by testing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html?smid=url-share
Any average can be valid, representative, precise and still be meaningless.
Example:
The average German* has slightly less than one ball.
*Equally true re: Americans, Russians, etc.
The most inaccurate perception of the COVID PCR is that it's exceptionally sensitive, which we tend to focus on because we're well aware of the false positives caused by dead virus, old infections, etc. However, the main problem with the PCR is its high false NEGATIVE rate, which makes it completely unfit for the purpose of catching infections early.
In my own case, I was infected with Delta in a foreign country three days before my flight back (I later learned, obviously I didn't know at the time) . If Day 1 was the day of my infection, I took a pre-travel PCR on Day 3, which was negative. The next day I flew, and my symptoms started during the flight, mainly a dry cough. I wasn't sure if it was just the dry air of the plane, but I knew that since my home country makes everyone arriving by plane take a PCR at the airport, that if it really was COVID it would be caught then.
The plane arrived and I took my airport PCR, which was also negative. By this point I was sure that the two PCRs would have caught it if it was COVID, because like every other critic of COVID restrictions I had an idea of the PCR as being ridiculously, even overly sensitive. So waking up the next day I felt a bit ropey but not too bad, so I went into work and worked a full day, annoyed by a persistent cough and congestion.
The next morning I had a low-grade fever, so I decided that even if it was just the flu, I should stay home until it passed, to avoid freaking people out at work. Long story short, I only finally tested positive on the sixth day after my symptoms started, or the tenth day after I was infected. By the time I tested positive, my fever had already gone away.
I thought my experience must be one in a million, but when I actually looked up the PCR false negative rate I was stunned to see that even the day before symptoms start, the false negative rate is 67%, meaning two out of three people who actually have COVID test negative. On the day that symptoms start, still 38% test negative, or more than 1 out of every 3. The lowest the false negative rate EVER gets is 20% on Day 8, after the person has already had full Covid symptoms for more than 3 days!
These numbers are from the UK govts study of false negatives here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gos-impact-of-false-positives-and-negatives-3-june-2020/impact-of-false-positives-and-false-negatives-in-the-uks-covid-19-rt-pcr-testing-programme-3-june-2020
Clearly, a test which misses the majority of people who are presymptomatic but infectious, and still misses 1 in 5 who have symptoms, can NEVER be effeftively used to stop a virus from spreading in the population. If 10,000 actually infected people get tested on a particular day, at minimum 2,000 of those infected people will recieve false negative tests, whereupon they will go out in public or to gatherings and infect others. The PCR seemed to have been seized upon because it was the most accurate testing method available, without stopping to think whether it was in fact accurate enough for the purpose it was being used for.