The Paradigm Deception: Debunking the Authenticity of Viruses [EN]

A Dialogue with Grok (xAI) on The Great Viral Deception

Version française : L'Imposture des Paradigmes : contre-vérité de l'authenticité des virus

How can an unproven scientific hypothesis transform into an undisputable truth? The history of science reveals a disturbing reality: our so-called "scientific truths" emerge less from empirical discoveries than from a collective construction, shaped by sophisticated social manipulation mechanisms.

This social construction of scientific facts rests on a fundamental mechanism: intersubjectivity. A belief becomes "reality" in the collective unconscious only when a significant number of individuals share it, following its orchestrated dissemination by a small circle of influential actors. Let’s take a concrete example: the Mercedes logo is universally associated with luxury and wealth, not because of any intrinsic quality, but because this association has been collectively constructed and accepted. Similarly, a border exists only because a large number of people believe in its existence—it has no physical reality outside of this shared belief.

This same dynamic applies to "scientific facts," amplified by social virality mechanisms theorized by Lazarsfeld and Katz in their two-step flow of communication model.¹ According to this theory, information doesn't flow directly from institutions to the public, but passes through "opinion leaders" who validate and legitimize the message. In the medical field, these leaders are primarily institutional scientists and recognized physicians who—consciously or not—participate in spreading and legitimizing the dominant consensus, largely influenced and financially supported by a powerful pharmaceutical lobby. The effectiveness of this system rests on three pillars: the rapid propagation of "acceptable" ideas, the perceived authority of opinion relays, and most importantly, the emotional impact of the message—with fear of illness and contagion playing a central role.

This social construction dynamic finds its most accomplished form in what science calls a "paradigm."

A scientific paradigm refers to a set of theories, concepts, methods, and instruments that achieve consensus within a scientific community at a given time. This consensus rests on a system of intersubjective beliefs, shaped by social and institutional interactions, rather than on irrefutable empirical evidence.

The scientific paradigm takes on its full meaning de facto in the field of virology, where the social construction of knowledge is particularly striking. This questioning, raised by an Artificial Intelligence (xAI's Grok)² as part of a reflection on dystopian counter-truths, fits into a broader context: the rise of the pharmaceutical industry coincides—and this is no coincidence—with the systematic elimination of alternative health approaches in the 20th century. This elimination occurred through mechanisms that, paradoxically, radically departed from scientific rigor—which relies on empirical demonstration—in favor of a social construction of knowledge.

It is thus quite disconcerting to note that the very foundations of virology rest on indirect evidence. This reflection aims to support, based on Grok's revealing dialogue, the arguments confirming that dystopia is not fiction but rather an undeniable reality.

Social Construction of Science

Mechanisms of Intersubjectivity

To understand this incredible deception, we must go back to the works of Gaston Bachelard, Bruno Latour, Ludwik Fleck, and Thomas Kuhn—a lineage of thinkers who revolutionized our understanding of science by presenting it not as an accumulation of objective truths, but as a social construction shaped by interactions between researchers and institutions.

This dynamic, analyzed by Fleck in his single work, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (1935), revolves around the concept of "thought collective" (Denkkollektiv): a scientific community developing "thought styles" that condition their perception and interpretation of phenomena.

These mechanisms of collective influence, based on intersubjectivity, rely on sophisticated propaganda strategies, notably theorized by Edward Bernays in Propaganda (1928) and Gustave Le Bon in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895). These foundational works, supplemented by more recent research on mass communication and social psychology, demonstrate how opinions and beliefs form and spread within scientific communities: a reality exists in the collective unconscious only when a significant number of individuals share it, not through the strength of empirical evidence, but through complex social influence processes.

Formation of Consensus

While Kuhn theorized "scientific paradigms" in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962),³ a fundamental question emerges: how can we differentiate between an authentic scientific revolution and a paradigm imposed by propagandistic consensus? This question takes on its full meaning in light of Bruno Latour's work who, in Science in Action (1987), reveals the mechanisms of social construction of scientific facts: the acceptance of a theory depends less on its intrinsic validity than on its ability to mobilize networks of actors and resources.

This construction of consensus operates through successive stages. First, a theory is proposed by a group of influential researchers. Then, it is validated by a network of scientific institutions whose authority confers legitimacy upon it. Finally, this theory is disseminated and reinforced through a complex system of publications, conferences, and training programs, thus creating a "truth effect" through repetition and mutual validation. This process, once initiated, becomes self-reinforcing: the more a theory is accepted, the more difficult it becomes to question it, creating what Kuhn calls "normal science"—a (supposedly) epistemological framework where scientists work within the dominant paradigm without questioning it.

Role of Institutions

The analysis of institutions’ role in the social construction of science reveals a complex system of control and influence. As demonstrated by Annie Thébaud-Mony, a French health sociologist, we are witnessing a "process of confiscation and corruption of science serving the private interests of major industrial groups and their shareholders, with the active complicity of the State."⁴

This institutional control revolves around three main axes:

1. Funding control: The explosion of private funding in university research—in the United States, private funding for university research increased from $264 million in 1980 to over two billion in 2001.⁵ Although precise figures have not been made public since—which is telling in itself—it is established that private funding now far exceeds public funding. While some of this funding legitimately enables research development, a significant portion is strategically directed toward approaches that reinforce the dominant paradigm, effectively marginalizing alternative approaches that could question the very authenticity of viruses and their role in diseases.

2. Corruption of the validation process: The peer review system, meant to ensure scientific rigor, is itself compromised by massive conflicts of interest, as evidenced by the billion dollars paid to reviewers between 2020 and 2022. This systemic corruption ensures the maintenance of the dominant paradigm by filtering out publications that might challenge it.

3. Expansion strategy: Major pharmaceutical companies, as illustrated by Pfizer, operate primarily through laboratory acquisitions rather than direct research. This strategy simultaneously eliminates competition and controls the direction of pharmaceutical research.

This institutional system thus creates a "black box" in Latour's sense: a body of knowledge accepted without question, whose construction process is carefully concealed by institutional control mechanisms. The expansion strategy through acquisitions by major pharmaceutical companies, as illustrated by Pfizer,⁶ simultaneously enables the elimination of competition and control over research directions, further strengthening this institutional grip on the production of scientific knowledge.

The Case of the Virus

Construction of the Concept

The history of the virus concept perfectly illustrates the social construction of a scientific fact, based more on institutional consensus than empirical evidence. This conceptual evolution occurred in several stages.

Initially, the term "virus" simply meant a poison or venom.⁷ This vague definition served to explain any unexplained disease. The lack of empirical evidence was compensated by the term's evocative power.

A major turning point occurred with the introduction of the electron microscope in the 1930s. As Thomas Cowan emphasizes: "The eureka moment came with the invention of the electron microscope; scientists finally saw tiny ‘particles’ at the site of disease. These particles had ‘stuff’ inside them, suggesting they were ‘alive.’ They were more abundant in diseased tissue than in healthy tissue […]. There were variations between types of particles, suggesting that one type of particle caused one disease and another particle type caused a different disease. Immediately assuming that these particles were bad for us, scientists named them viruses, after the Latin word for ‘toxin.’"⁸

However, fundamental methodological questions arise: the reliability of electromagnetic optical systems and their potential influence on the interpretation of obtained images have never been subject to in-depth critical studies. This lack of investigation into the very tool of observation constitutes a troubling blind spot.

Even more problematic, direct observation of viruses proves impossible with this type of microscope, their size being too small—between 20 and 400 nanometers. "Observations" therefore rely on a destructive sample preparation that involves complete dehydration, chemical fixation, heavy metal staining, and exposure to high vacuum.⁹

What is "observed" is therefore not a virus as such, but a reconstruction based on preparation artifacts, cellular structures potentially modified by the process, and interpretations based on the dominant paradigm. This fundamental technical reality is rarely mentioned in mainstream scientific literature, which often presents electron microscopy images as direct "photographs" of viruses.

Failures of Viral Isolation and Purification

Moreover, biologist Stefan Lanka confirms that all claims about the existence of pathogenic viruses rest on erroneous historical interpretations rather than direct scientific evidence.¹⁰ The crucial point is that no virus has ever been physically isolated and biochemically characterized as a complete unique structure. Dr. Sam Bailey challenges the scientific community, stating that “No published scientific paper has ever shown that particles fulfilling the definition of viruses have been directly isolated and purified from any tissues or bodily fluids of any sick human or animal.”¹¹ This absence of direct isolation constitutes a major methodological flaw.

Moreover, microbiologist Mark Bailey emphasizes that virologists have circumvented this lack of direct evidence by modifying the very definition of the word "isolation." Instead of meaning the physical separation of a particle from all others, the term has been co-opted to designate uncontrolled indirect observations in cell cultures.

A striking example is the 1954 Nobel Prize in Medicine, awarded to John Franklin Enders. As documented by Lanka, Enders published a speculative paper in June 1954 suggesting that tissue death in test tubes could be considered evidence of virus presence. This speculation was transformed into a "scientific fact" six months later when Enders received the Nobel Prize, without any experimental validation having been performed.

This transformation of a hypothesis into dogma illustrates how the virus concept was built on methodologically invalid foundations. Virologists have abandoned scientific rigor in favor of an institutional consensus that persists to this day.

The very foundations of virology rest on indirect evidence. As one example among many, Professor Luc Montagnier, who would receive the Nobel Prize in 2008 (25 years later) for his "discovery" of HIV,¹² himself admitted in a 1997 interview with Continuum that the particles observed in 1983 "did not have the typical morphology of retroviruses."¹³ Even more revealing, he insists: "I repeat, we did not purify."¹⁴

This lack of purification is not trivial. As Dr. Etienne de Harven, an expert in electron microscopy, emphasizes, it reveals a fundamental flaw in the alleged discovery of HIV.¹⁵ In electron microscopy, purification is an absolutely essential step for unambiguously characterizing viral particles. Without prior purification, it is impossible to differentiate between what might be viral and what is merely cellular debris. This distinction is crucial: while Montagnier claimed to have "isolated" HIV, he had never actually performed its purification, a step that is essential in electron microscopy for unambiguously identifying a virus. For a layperson, this can be compared to the difference between spotting a blurry silhouette in a crowd (isolation) and being able to clearly identify a specific person by separating them from the crowd (purification).

Montagnier's team used stimulating substances that artificially force cells to produce certain particles. These stimulants are known to trigger the production of cellular particles that can be mistaken for viruses. Without a control group to validate their observations, this approach reveals less of a scientific discovery than an artificial construction where conditions are created to "find" what one is looking for.

This purification controversy takes on a concerning dimension in light of subsequent scientific debates. Robert Gallo himself, the presumed co-discoverer of HIV, acknowledges in a 2016 PNAS article that the isolation methods used at the time were inadequate.¹⁶ This belated admission raises fundamental questions about the validity of the initial discoveries.

A particularly revealing debate pits Peter Duesberg against Stefan Lanka and the Perth Group. While Duesberg maintains that the virus has been isolated while disputing its role in AIDS, Lanka and the Perth Group demonstrate that even this alleged isolation fails to meet basic scientific criteria. The Perth Group,¹⁷ in their detailed analysis "What has been achieved," emphasizes that the methods used do not meet standard viral isolation criteria.¹⁸

The issue of diagnostic tests is most concerning. Dr. Banks identifies more than sixty factors that can cause false positives in HIV tests, including common conditions such as kidney failure, tuberculosis, influenza, flu and tetanus vaccines, malaria, hemophilia, and even multiple pregnancy. More troubling still, the proteins detected by these tests would not be specific to HIV but of cellular origin—thus calling into question the very existence of the virus.

This fundamental questioning of purification is reinforced by criticisms regarding the reliability of diagnostic tests. Dr. Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR and Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, raised serious doubts about the use of his technique for HIV diagnosis.¹⁹ In a revealing interview, he states that PCR "can find almost anything in anybody" without indicating whether the person is sick or if what is detected represents a real danger.²⁰ This criticism is particularly relevant as PCR amplifies specific genetic sequences without being able to determine their origin or clinical significance.

This same dynamic was spectacularly reproduced during the Covid-19 crisis. The fear of disease and contagion, already central to the HIV paradigm, reached unprecedented heights, enabling rapid social acceptance of unprecedented measures. The social virality mechanism operated at full capacity: medical and scientific opinion leaders, massively amplified by the media, propagated a single narrative, while any divergent voice was systematically discredited, perfectly illustrating Lazarsfeld and Katz's two-step flow of communication theory.

Missing Fossils: Proof by Absence

In our initial dystopian dialogue with Grok, the latter suggested that "fossils or viral traces in geological records would be denounced as fabrications to control the population." This remark takes on particular significance in light of recent claims regarding the discovery of supposed "fossil viruses" in our genome.

These discoveries, widely publicized like that of a "106-million-year-old fossil virus,"²¹ rest on a fundamental confusion between genetic sequences and actual viruses. What is called a "fossil virus" is in reality merely a particular DNA sequence found in the human genome, not actual fossilization in the biochemical sense of the term.

This distinction is crucial because fossilization is a complex biochemical process that requires very specific conditions. As Nancy Turner Banks explains, this process involves chemical redox (reduction-oxidation) reactions that can only occur in the presence of complete cellular structures, particularly mitochondria.²² These cellular organelles are essential as they enable oxidative phosphorylation, a sophisticated energy production process.²³

A crucial point often overlooked is that mitochondria possess their own DNA, distinct from nuclear DNA, and this mitochondrial DNA only dates back approximately 200,000 years.²⁴ This precise dating of mitochondrial lineages makes the claim of the existence of "fossil viruses" allegedly 106 million years old all the more suspect.

Founding Lies: Pasteur and the Construction of the Viral Myth

The absence of fossil evidence is merely the tip of a much deeper deception. The very foundations of virology rest on a series of scientific manipulations whose origins trace back to Louis Pasteur himself. The analysis of his laboratory notebooks, long kept secret, reveals a troubling reality that sheds new light on the social construction of the viral paradigm.

Louis Pasteur had expressly requested that his laboratory notebooks remain secret and never be made public. This wish was honored by his family for over a century, with the documents being preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF, French National Library) under strict prohibition of access. It was not until 1971 that his grandson, Louis Pasteur Vallery-Radot, the family's last heir, made the historic decision to make them accessible to researchers by entrusting them to the French National Library.²⁵ This decision, which went against his grandfather's explicit wishes, allowed Gerald L. Geison to undertake a meticulous analysis of these documents over twelve years, culminating in 1995 with the publication of his disturbing revelations in The Private Science of Louis Pasteur.²⁶

Analysis of the notebooks reveals a striking example of the social construction of scientific fact. Far from the image of a methodical researcher guided solely by experimental rigor, Pasteur emerges as a skilled actor in data manipulation to serve an emerging paradigm. The notebooks demonstrate how he systematically modified his experimental protocols without mention, presented as "evidence" experiments that contradicted his private notes, and actively participated in building an artificial consensus around his theories.

The most revealing example of this social construction of scientific knowledge is the public experiment at Pouilly-le-Fort in France (1881), supposedly demonstrating the effectiveness of his anthrax vaccine. This demonstration, presented as empirical validation of the Pasteurian paradigm, was in reality a sophisticated staging: Pasteur secretly used a method developed by a competitor while publicly disparaging it. This methodological duplicity perfectly illustrates how a "scientific fact" emerges less from experimental rigor than from the ability to mobilize networks of influence and control the dominant narrative.²⁷

Equally concerning and questioning scientific integrity is how the scientific community validated and perpetuated these alleged discoveries without critical inquiry. This blind acceptance perfectly illustrates the mechanisms of social construction of scientific knowledge described by Bruno Latour: a network of institutional actors mutually validating their claims to create an artificial consensus.²⁸

Even when glaring contradictions appeared between his public statements and actual results, the scientific community chose to maintain the myth rather than question the foundations of what had become an institutional dogma. This collective construction of a "scientific truth" based on falsified data perfectly illustrates what Fleck describes as a collective "thought style" that conditions the perception and interpretation of phenomena.²⁹

Research Manipulation

Just as concerning as the absence of direct evidence is the systematic manipulation of research by the pharmaceutical industry. This control over the production of scientific knowledge perfectly illustrates what physicist Richard Feynman described in 1974 as "cargo cult science": a facade of science that imitates its codes without respecting its fundamental methodological rigor.³⁰

As documented by science historian Horace Freeland Judson in The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science (2004), scientific fraud is not an isolated phenomenon but a systemic problem rooted in the very structures of modern research. Judson demonstrates how institutional pressures, the race for funding, and the necessity to publish create an environment conducive to data manipulation.

The pharmaceutical industry, which funds nearly half of the $94 billion devoted to biomedical research, has developed sophisticated strategies to skew results in its favor.³¹ This manipulation occurs from the very design of study protocols: inappropriate dosing of competing drugs, selection of favorable evaluation criteria, and study duration definitions that mask certain adverse effects. These subtle methodological biases create conditions to "find" what one is looking for, rather than allowing objective scientific truth to emerge.

Even more insidious is the manipulation of data after study completion. The selective publication of positive results, combined with non-publication of negative studies, creates a distorted picture of treatments’ actual effectiveness.³² This strategy is sometimes pushed to the extent of multiple publications of the same favorable study in slightly different forms to artificially amplify its impact in scientific literature. As revealed in an internal AstraZeneca document,³³ pharmaceutical companies "provide significant financial support but want data control in return. They can spin the same data in different ways through an efficient publication team. Negative data usually remains well hidden."

Control also extends to the writing of scientific papers through ghostwriting: professional writers, paid by the industry, draft articles to present results in the most favorable light.³⁴ These texts are then signed by renowned researchers who sometimes haven't even participated in the study. This practice not only allows for directing data interpretation but also concealing obvious conflicts of interest.

The number of convictions for fraudulent marketing has increased over the years, revealing the systemic scale of these practices. Among major convictions, in 2009, Pfizer had to pay $2.3 billion for illegally promoting several drugs.³⁵ In 2012, GlaxoSmithKline was ordered to pay $3 billion for, among other things, concealing safety data about its antidepressant paroxetine.³⁶ More recently, in the UK, Pfizer and Flynn were fined £70 million for overcharging the NHS for an epilepsy drug.³⁷ These repeated convictions, far from being isolated incidents, illustrate how the systematic manipulation of research data is part of a global business strategy where profit maximization takes precedence over scientific rigor and patient safety.

More fundamentally, this systematic manipulation illustrates how "scientific fact" emerges not from rigorous empirical inquiry, but from a social construction orchestrated by commercial interests. As Feynman emphasized in his cargo cult science speech, true scientific integrity requires "a kind of utter honesty" and the duty to present not only what confirms a theory but also everything that could refute it.³⁸

Propaganda and Marginalization of Dissenting Voices

This social construction of scientific knowledge could not prevail without a sophisticated system of dissemination and legitimation. As previously discussed, intersubjectivity allows a belief to become "reality" in the collective unconscious when a significant number of individuals share it, while social virality, theorized by Lazarsfeld and Katz, ensures its propagation through opinion leaders who validate and legitimize the message. These two mechanisms are, in fact, merely manifestations of a sophisticated propaganda strategy. As Jacques Ellul demonstrated, what we now call "communication" is nothing but modern propaganda, with media being the main vectors of dissemination.³⁹ Even more insidious is integration propaganda, which particularly affects informed individuals, transforming them into active agents in silencing voices that dare to question the dominant paradigm.

The very qualification of these voices deserves thorough analysis. The term "dissident," often used, presupposes the existence of a good side and an evil side, an artificial dichotomy serving to discredit any questioning of the dominant paradigm. This Manichean categorization, based on arbitrary or even fraudulent criteria, perfectly illustrates the social control mechanisms described by Ellul.⁴⁰ Similarly, the "conspiracy theorist" label, systematically attached to these scientists by a conditioned majority, reveals the very mechanisms of modern propaganda: an attempt at disqualification through the use of a pejorative term whose definition remains deliberately vague.

Judson has thoroughly documented how the academic system itself participates in marginalizing dissenting voices through what he calls the "betrayal of science." Peer review mechanisms, supposedly ensuring research quality, often serve to maintain the dominant paradigm by excluding alternative approaches.

This phenomenon is particularly visible in virology, where renowned scientists have been systematically marginalized for daring to question the dominant paradigm: Jamie Andrews on avian flu, Michael Yeadon (former Vice President of Pfizer's allergy and respiratory research unit) on the non-existence of respiratory viruses—a position all the more striking as it directly contradicts his former employer's commercial activities—, Stefan Lanka (German virologist), Etienne de Harven (electron microscopy), Robert Root-Bernstein (physiology), Gordon Stewart (epidemiology and preventive medicine at NHS and WHO), Alfred Hässig (immunology), and many others.

This systematic marginalization of dissenting voices, orchestrated by a network of powerful actors maintaining the status quo, perfectly illustrates Latour's theory of networks and power. The concept of virus has thus become what Latour calls a "black box": knowledge accepted without question, whose construction process is carefully concealed by dominant institutions.

This control over science operates primarily through funding control. This financial dependence allows research directions to be steered toward private funders' interests, thus marginalizing any alternative approach that would question the dominant virus paradigm. The corruption of the peer review process, with one billion dollars disbursed between 2020 and 2022, completes this mechanism for controlling scientific production.

Beyond the systematic silencing of dissenting voices, it is the very methodology of virus detection that reveals the artificiality of their existence. The tests supposedly proving viral presence perfectly illustrate this social construction of scientific knowledge.

Illusory Free Will

This manipulation extends to "nudge" techniques, direct heirs of the first major exercise in mass psychological manipulation orchestrated by Wilson's Committee on Public Information (Creel Committee).⁴¹ Within this committee, Walter Lippmann, an influential French-speaking intellectual, developed the theoretical foundations of modern mass manipulation through his theory of "stereotypes" and his concept of "manufacturing consent"⁴²—concepts that Bernays would later adopt and popularize in the field of communication. The famous 1917 "I Want YOU for U.S. Army" poster represents the very prototype of disguised free will: while giving the illusion of personal choice, it inexorably directed individual decision-making toward the state's objective. A century later, the "non-mandatory" health pass imposed during the alleged Covid pandemic illustrates the persistence of this strategy: while maintaining the illusion of individual choice, the system effectively punished refusal through drastic deprivation of fundamental freedoms.⁴³ This contemporary choice architecture—from studied pharmacy merchandising to public health campaigns—⁴⁴ perpetuates this tradition of sophisticated manipulation, initially theorized by Lippmann then more broadly exploited by Bernays,⁴⁵ inexorably guiding toward allopathic treatments, particularly in response to an alleged "virus," deliberately ignoring the long list of short, medium and long-term adverse effects.

Conclusion

This analysis demonstrates how the virus concept was built on a major methodological deception, perpetuated by a sophisticated system of propaganda and institutional control. The systematic absence of direct evidence—whether in isolation, purification, or even fossil traces—is masked by semantic manipulation and opportunistic redefinition of scientific terms.

This social construction of the "viral fact" perfectly illustrates the mechanisms described by Latour and Fleck: a paradigm prevails not through the strength of empirical evidence, but through the ability of a network of institutional actors to create and maintain an artificial consensus. The systematic marginalization of dissenting voices, combined with the corruption of the scientific validation process, enables the maintenance of this collective illusion.

The consequences of this deception extend far beyond academic boundaries. As dramatically illustrated by the Covid-19 crisis, this viral paradigm serves to justify unprecedented social control measures while generating astronomical profits for the pharmaceutical industry. More fundamentally, it reveals how "science" can be instrumentalized to serve interests that are no longer scientific.

Faced with this disturbing reality, it becomes imperative to question not only the viral paradigm but more broadly our very conception of science and truth. For as Orwell emphasized, "in times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

1. Katz, Elihu, and Elmo Roper Lazarsfeld. 1955. Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. New York: Free Press.

2. Dialogue in French with Grok: Lena Delaine (2025), La grande imposture virale.

3. Available online in a more recent edition.

4. Thébaud-Mony, Annie. 2014. La science asservie. Santé publique : les collusions mortifères entre industriels et chercheurs. Paris: La Découverte. Read as well, Peer Reviewers Have Financial Conflicts, Too [archive], last accessed January 11, 2025.

5. Egilman, David. 2005. “Over a Barrel: Corporate Corruption of Science and Its Effects on Workers and the Environment.” International journal of occupational and environmental health, 11(4), 331-337, p. 332. Available from: ResearchGate.

6. Pfizer operates primarily through laboratory acquisitions rather than direct research. This expansion strategy through acquisitions simultaneously enables the elimination of competition and control over pharmaceutical research directions, perfectly illustrating the mechanisms of power concentration described by Latour.

7. According to Merriam-Webster (last accessed January 11, 2025), the etymology traces back to "Middle English, 'pus, discharge from a sore, semen,' borrowed from Latin vīrus (neuter) 'venom, poisonous fluid, acrid element in a substance, secretion with medical or magical properties.'" The infectioncycle website (last accessed January 15, 2025) details the evolution of the term "virus," though unfortunately based on an erroneous scientific paradigm.

It's worth noting the first edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (1694), a highly prestigious institution established in 1635 to be the official guardian of the French language, which defined virus as: “Terme de medecine & de chirurgie, qui n'est guère en usage que pour signifier le venin des maux vénériens. Son mal n'est point dangereux, il n'y a point de virus. le virus a gagné les parties solides.”—[Translation: "A medical and surgical term, rarely used except to signify the venom of venereal diseases. His illness is not dangerous, there is no virus. The virus has reached the solid parts."]

This semantic evolution perfectly illustrates how a concept can be transformed to serve a new scientific paradigm.

8. Cowan, Thomas et Sally Fallon Morell. 2020. The Contagion Myth. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.

9. Full quote: “The publications in virology are largely of a descriptive nature, rather than controlled and falsifiable hypothesis-driven experiments that are the heart of the scientific method.” From: Bailey, Sam, et al. 2022. Settling the Virus Debate. Available from: drsambailey.com (archive).

10. Lanka, Stefan. 2020. “The Misconception called Virus.” WISSENSCHAFFTPLUS magazin, 03. Available from: Internet Archive.

11. Read more: Bailey, Sam. 2022. A Farewell to Virology (Expert Edition). Available from: drsambailey.com (archive).

Bailey, Sam, et al. 2022. Settling the Virus Debate. Available from: drsambailey.com (archive).

12. Montagnier shared the Nobel Prize with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi.

13. A retrovirus is a special type of virus distinguished by its method of reproduction. While most living organisms use DNA as the carrier of their genetic information, retroviruses use RNA. To multiply, they must transform their RNA into DNA (the reverse of the normal process, hence the prefix "retro"). It's as if, instead of using the standard storage format, they use a different format that requires special conversion to function in our cells. HIV is the most well-known example of a retrovirus. This peculiarity was long considered exceptional in biology, which makes the lack of purification in Montagnier's work all the more surprising.

14. Tahi, Djamel. “Did Luc Montagnier Discover HIV? ‘I Repeat, We Did Not Purify!’.” Continuum, 5(2), 31-35. Available from: Internet Archive.

15. Full quote: “All the images of particles supposedly representing HIV and published in scientific as well as in lay publications derive from EM studies of cell cultures. They never show HIV particles coming directly from an AIDS patient. The pictures are always embellished by computerized image reconstruction, with attractive colors and refined three-dimensional effects. The endless, worldwide publication in the media of these elegant artifacts has done much to persuade scientists and lay people alike to accept the existence of HIV as a key part of the orthodox consensus.” Harven, Etienne de. 2010. “Human Endogenous Retroviruses and: AIDS Research: Confusion, Consensus, or Science?” In Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (15/3): 70—available online.

16. Nolte-‘t Hoen et al. 2016. “Extracellular vesicles and viruses: Are they close relatives?” PNAS, 113(33), 9155–9161. Available from: PNAS.

17. More about the Perth Group.

18. Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al. 1996. “The isolation of HIV: has it really been achieved? The case against.” Continuum supplement, 4(3). Available from: The Perth Group (archive).

19. Read more: Johnson, Christine. 2001. “Viral load and the PCR. Why they can't be used to prove HIV infection.” Continuum. Formerly available at: sidasante.com.

20. Ibid.

21. Barreat, Jose Gabriel Nino, & Aris Katzourakis. 2022. “An ancient endogenous DNA virus in the human genome.” Journal of virology, 96(22). Available from: ASM Journals.

22. Full quote: “These coupled reactions known as redox reactions are a principle energy mechanism that drives the cells slower biochemical processes.” Turner Banks, and Nancy Banks. 2010. AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire: The Deadly Virus of International Greed. Bloomington: iUniverse. Available from: Internet Archive.

23. Ibid.: “Oxidative phosphorylation is the metabolic pathway that uses energy released by the oxidation of nutrients to form the energy molecule ATP.”

24. Ibid.: “Nuclear DNA (A nucleus) is inherited from both parents, but mitochondrial DNA (B nucleus) is inherited solely from the maternal germ line and traces back 200,000 years.” Book Summary on which Turner Banks relies: Haskett, Dorothy R. 2014. “‘Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution’ (1987), by Rebecca Louise Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan Charles Wilson.” Available from: Embryo Project Encyclopedia (archive).

Read more: Parry, Wynne. 2010. “Age Confirmed for 'Eve,' Mother of All Humans.” Live Science. Available from: livescience.com (archive), last accessed, January 15, 2025.

25. BNF Archives, Pasteur Collection, 1971.

26. Geison, Gerald L. 1995. The Private Science of Louis Pasteur. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

27. Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

28. Latour, Bruno, & Steve Woolgar. 1979. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Bervely Hills: Sage Publications.

29. Fleck, Ludwik. 1935[1979]. Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Available from: Internet Archive.

30. Feynman, Richard. 1974. Cargo Cult Science [Caltech Commencement Address]. Available from: Caltech Library.

31. Lexchin, Joel. 2012. “Those Who Have the Gold Make the Evidence.” Science and Engineering Ethics, 18(2), 247-61. Available from: ResearchGate.

32. Turner et al. 2008. “Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials.” The New England Journal of Medicine, 358(3). Available from: NEJM.

33. From an internal AstraZeneca email dated July 8, 2003, sent by Seroquel's Global Brand Manager to the Seroquel global brand team, regarding a report on Investigator Initiated Trials (IIT), from: Spielmans, G.I., & P.I Parry. (2010). “From Evidence-based Medicine to Marketing-based Medicine: Evidence from Internal Industry Documents.” Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 7(1), 13-29. Available from: ResearchGate.

34. Ross et al. 2008. “Guest Authorship and Ghostwriting in Publications.” JAMA, 299(15), 1800-1812. Available from: JAMA.

35. U.S. Department of Justice (2009). Justice Department Announces Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement in Its History. Available from: justice.gov (archive).

36. Public Citizen (2010). “Rapidly Increasing Criminal and Civil Monetary Penalties Against the Pharmaceutical Industry: 1991 to 2010.” Available from: citizen.org (archive).

FBI (2012). “GlaxoSmithKline to Plead Guilty and Pay $3 Billion to Resolve Fraud Allegations and Failure to Report Safety Data.” Available from: archives.fbi.gov (archive).

37. Competition and Markets Authority (2022). “£70 million in fines for pharma firms that overcharged NHS.” Available from: gov.uk (archive).

38. Richard Feynman: see note 30.

39. Ellul, Jacques. 1962. Propagandes. Paris: Armand Colin.

40. Ellul: ibid.

41. The Committee on Public Information (1917-1919), chaired by George Creel—hence the name Creel Committee—represents the first institutionalization of modern state propaganda, with Bernays as a key actor later transforming these governmental techniques into marketing tools. For more on George Creel and the Committee: Axelrod, Alan. 2009. Selling the Great War: The Making of American Propaganda. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

42. More to read: Herman, Edward S. et Noam Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books. Available from: Internet Archive.

43. The health pass system (2021-2022): a perfect example of coercion disguised as free choice, where refusal led to exclusion from most public spaces and social activities. In the US, vaccine mandates varied by state and sector, while the UK implemented a NHS COVID Pass system, though less restrictive than the French version.

References: Mervosh, Sarah and Claire Cain Miller. "Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.: Where They Are and Where They Aren't." The New York Times, December 18, 2021. Available from: The New York Times (archive).

UK Government. 2021. "NHS COVID Pass." Available from: Internet Archive.

44. Merchandising is a behavioral influence technique that guides purchasing decisions while maintaining the illusion of free choice.

45. “[…] our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of […].” Bernays, Edward. 1928. Propaganda. Horace Liveright.

Bernays was an opportunist who drew from Lippmann's work while copying Ivy Lee (1877-1934)—pioneer of public relations and advisor to John D. Rockefeller—to develop his propaganda business for private and public institutions.

Read: Curry Jansen, Sue. 2013. "Semantic Tyranny: How Edward L. Bernays Stole Walter Lippmann's Mojo and Got Away With It and Why It Still Matters," International Journal of Communication 7, 1094-1111. Available from: IJOC.

On Lippmann: Steel, Ronald. 2017(1980). Walter Lippmann and the American Century. New York: Routledge.

On Ivy Lee: History & Business (2023). "Ivy Lee, révolution dans la communication !" Available from: historyandbusiness.fr.