Tag Archives: Meryl Nass

The Dangers of Central Bank Digital Currency

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Excellent 40 minutes of Catherine Austin Fitts on CBDCs (which may be rolling out next in New Zealand, after a failed launch in Nigeria last year)

They try things out in one setting, then another, till they get it right

MERYL NASS
AUG 12, 2024

In this installment of our series ‘Our Digital Future’, Alistair Harding speaks to financial guru Catherine Austin Fitts about the unified ledger, programmability, and the possibility of central bank control over how we spend our money.

https://realitycheck.radio/replay/our-digital-future-catherine-austin-fitts-cbdcs-on-the-unified-ledger-programmability-and-the-possibility-of-central-bank-control-over-how-we-spend-our-money/

And about that failed launch in Nigeria.

Why Did CBDC Fail in Nigeria? Valuable Lessons for Developing Countries

By Tuhu Nugraha

October 22, 2023

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/10/22/why-did-cbdc-fail-in-nigeria-valuable-lessons-for-developing-countries/

In the rapidly digitizing era, many nations are eyeing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) as the future solution for payment systems. However, Nigeria’s case illustrates that transitioning to CBDC isn’t a straightforward path, especially for developing countries.

Based on an analysis by Nicholas Anthony on Coindesk, the Nigerian government attempted to propel a transition to a cashless economy by implementing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Yet, the imposed cash usage restrictions led to public protests demanding the restoration of paper money. Despite the government’s efforts to boost CBDC adoption, such as removing access restrictions and offering payment discounts, these initiatives proved fruitless.

Moreover, with cash withdrawal limits and currency redesigns, the situation worsened, triggering a cash shortage and escalating public dissatisfaction. Consequently, CBDC adoption in Nigeria remains abysmally low, with less than 0.5% of the population using it, while over 50% have embraced cryptocurrency. What can we learn from Nigeria’s CBDC failure?…

sa-mRNA — What is it?

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What is self-amplifying mRNA?

And it is already being used in Japan and maybe soon in the US. It combines the unknown duration of effect of mRNA with the mutation-producing effects of nuclear DNA.

MERYL NASS
JUL 26, 2024

Here is what the Perplexity AI says. Note that it can be called self-amplifying DNA also:

Self-amplifying DNA refers to a type of DNA-based vaccine platform that combines elements of conventional DNA vaccines with the self-replicating capabilities of RNA viruses. Here are the key points about self-amplifying DNA:

  1. Structure and components:
    • It is a circular double-stranded DNA molecule
  • Contains a strong promoter (e.g., human cytomegalovirus immediate early promoter)

Encodes viral replicase genes, typically from alphaviruses or flaviviruses. Includes the gene of interest (GOI) encoding the vaccine antigen

  • Mechanism of action:
    • After delivery into cells, the DNA is transcribed in the nucleus to produce self-amplifying RNA
  • This RNA is transported to the cytoplasm where it self-replicates and produces high levels of the antigen
  • The self-amplification process mimics viral infection, leading to sustained antigen production
  • Advantages:
    • Combines benefits of DNA vaccines (stability, ease of production) with self-amplifying RNA technology

Requires lower doses compared to conventional DNA or mRNA vaccines

  • Induces potent humoral and cellular immune responses
  • More stable than RNA, simplifying storage and distribution
  • Delivery methods:
    • Can be delivered as naked DNA, often using electroporation for improved cellular uptake
  • Can also be formulated with lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for enhanced delivery
  • Applications:
    • Promising platform for rapid vaccine development against emerging infectious diseases
  • Potential for use in therapeutic cancer vaccines and other applications
  • Self-amplifying DNA, also referred to as DNA-launched replicons (DREPs), represents an innovative approach in vaccine technology that aims to combine the advantages of DNA vaccines with the potency of self-amplifying RNA systems.

I was asked to expand on this idea. I don’t want to alarm unnecessarily nor fail to alarm when appropriate. Let me give an example: how I approached the COVID mRNA vaccines before they were released.

  1. I was worried about them but there were noreal data to go on
  2. I assisted Dr. Sin Hang Lee in his petition (as editor) to the FDA to try and stop them in Nov 2020 on the basis that the Pfizer trials were not conducted per existing standards
  3. I shared information from Dr. Patrick Whelan on my blog about problems that might be anticipated.
  4. I did NOT tell people not to take them. I warned them about problem that might be anticipated.
  5. Later I did warn people, once the problems became clearer, in January 2021 and later. I was one of the first to issue warnings, as soon as I could identify problems.

Looking back, I wish I had issued stronger warnings. But I had no reason to think the vaccines would be as bad as they were.

Right now I am looking at a theoretical vaccine construct. I’m worried. But I don’t know how worried to be. I have no human data. But Japanese doctors, where these vaccines are already being made and used, have warned that they are a disaster.

How big a disaster, I don’t know. I hope to find out in September when I will be in Japan, speaking at the ICS 6 Conference in Tokyo with the Japanese doctors who are speaking out, if not before.

And now we learn that CSL Sequirus is involved in the Japanese vaccine. BTW, 6 cases of chest pain in 828 subjects shortly after vaccination were blown off by the investigators. The control vaccine was Comirnaty, which would (naturally) make comparator vaccines look not too bad.

Here is the rest of this press release:

The approval is based on positive clinical data from several ARCT-154 studies, including an ongoing 16,000 subject efficacy study performed in Vietnam as well as a Phase 3 COVID-19 booster trial, which achieved higher immunogenicity results and a favorable safety profile compared to a standard mRNA COVID-19 vaccine comparator.  Initial study results have been published in MedRxiv and are expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal by the end of the year.

[Here is the preprint: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.13.23292597v1]

“We are proud of the role that Arcturus has played in this collaboration to develop and validate the first approved sa-mRNA product in the world,” said Joseph Payne, Chief Executive Officer of Arcturus Therapeutics. “This approval for the sa-mRNA COVID-19 vaccine is a major achievement, and we are excited to embark on future endeavors that utilize our innovative sa-mRNA vaccine platform alongside our global exclusive partner, CSL.”

CSL’s vaccine business, CSL Seqirus, one of the largest influenza vaccine providers in the world, partnered exclusively with Meiji Seika Pharma for distribution of the sa-mRNA COVID vaccine, ARCT 154, in Japan.

“Our expertise in seasonal and pandemic influenza positions us well to help the global community reduce the burden of COVID-19 and we look forward to playing a key role in helping protect the people of Japan,” said Stephen Marlow, Senior Vice President and General Manager of CSL Seqirus.

About sa-mRNA
Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology protects against infectious diseases by instructing cells in the body to make a specific protein, stimulating the immune response, and leaving a blueprint to recognize and fight future infection. However, sa-mRNA makes copies of the mRNA which generates the production of more protein compared to an equivalent amount of mRNA in a vaccine.  The technology has the potential to create more potent cellular immune responses and increase duration of protection, while using considerably lower doses of mRNA.

About CSL
CSL (ASX:CSL; USOTC:CSLLY) is a global biotechnology company with a dynamic portfolio of lifesaving medicines, including those that treat haemophilia and immune deficiencies, vaccines to prevent influenza, and therapies in iron deficiency and nephrology. Since our start in 1916, we have been driven by our promise to save lives using the latest technologies. Today, CSL – including our three businesses: CSL Behring, CSL Seqirus and CSL Vifor – provides lifesaving products to patients in more than 100 countries and employs 32,000 people. Our unique combination of commercial strength, R&D focus and operational excellence enables us to identify, develop and deliver innovations so our patients can live life to the fullest. For inspiring stories about the promise of biotechnology, visit CSLBehring.com/Vita and follow us on Twitter.com/CSL. For more information about CSL, visit www.CSL.com.

About Arcturus Therapeutics
Founded in 2013 and based in San Diego, California, Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: ARCT) is a global late-stage clinical mRNA medicines and vaccines company with enabling technologies: (i) LUNAR® lipid-mediated delivery, (ii) STARR® mRNA Technology (sa-mRNA) and (iii) mRNA drug substance along with drug product manufacturing expertise. The Company has an ongoing global collaboration for innovative mRNA vaccines with CSL Seqirus, and a joint venture in Japan, ARCALIS, focused on the manufacture of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. Arcturus’ pipeline includes RNA therapeutic candidates to potentially treat ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency and cystic fibrosis, along with its partnered mRNA vaccine programs for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and influenza. Arcturus’ versatile RNA therapeutics platforms can be applied toward multiple types of nucleic acid medicines including messenger RNA, small interfering RNA, circular RNA, antisense RNA, self-amplifying RNA, DNA, and gene editing therapeutics. Arcturus’ technologies are covered by its extensive patent portfolio (patents and patent applications issued in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and other countries). For more information, visit www.ArcturusRx.com. In addition, please connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

from:    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/what-is-self-amplifying-mrna?publication_id=746368&post_id=147039126&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

OMG!!!! The Seas AREN’T Rising!!!!

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Shocker: NYT admits the seas only rise in some areas, and islands aren’t disappearing. And the “science” was looking at aerial photos over time. Duh.

Remember when the Maldives govt held a cabinet meeting underwater for publicity?

MERYL NASS
JUL 09, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/26/climate/maldives-islands-climate-change.html

On a wisp of land in the Indian Ocean, two hops by plane and one bumpy speedboat ride from the nearest continent, the sublime blue waves lapping at the bone-white sand are just about all that breaks the stillness of a hot, windless afternoon.

The very existence of low-slung tropical islands seems improbable, a glitch. A nearly seamless meeting of land and sea, peeking up like an illusion above the violent oceanic expanse, they are among the most marginal environments humans have ever called home.

And indeed, when the world began paying attention to global warming decades ago, these islands, which form atop coral reefs in clusters called atolls, were quickly identified as some of the first places climate change might ravage in their entirety. As the ice caps melted and the seas crept higher, these accidents of geologic history were bound to be corrected and the tiny islands returned to watery oblivion, probably in this century.

Then, not very long ago, researchers began sifting through aerial images and found something startling. They looked at a couple dozen islands first, then several hundred, and by now close to 1,000. They found that over the past few decades, the islands’ edges had wobbled this way and that, eroding here, building there. By and large, though, their area hadn’t shrunk. In some cases, it was the opposite: They grew. The seas rose, and the islands expanded with them.

Scientists have come to understand some but not all of the reasons for this. Which is why a team of them recently converged in the Maldives, on an island they’d spend weeks outfitting with instruments and sensors and cameras.

They were there to learn more about how the steady collision of blue waves and white sand does surprising and seemingly magical things to coastlines, both destroying land and extending it. Really, though, they were trying to answer a bigger question: If atoll nations aren’t facing certain and imminent erasure, then what are they facing? For having a future is not the same thing as having a secure future.

If, for instance, some of their islands become difficult to live on but others do not, then atoll governments will have to make hard choices about which places to save and which to sacrifice. In the places they save, they will have to plan for the long term about supplying fresh water, about creating jobs, about providing schools and health care and infrastructure. They will have to invent the best future they can with the limited resources they have.

In short, atolls might not be such outliers in this world after all. Look hard enough, and they start to look a lot like everywhere else…

To understand what had happened to the atolls since this acceleration began, two researchers, Arthur Webb and Paul Kench, decided to look down at them from above. The scientists collected aerial photos of 27 Pacific islands from the middle of the 20th century. Then, they compared them to recent satellite images. “I’m not sure we really knew what we would find,” Dr. Kench recalled.

Their findings caused an uproar.

The seas had risen an inch or so each decade, yet the waves had kept piling sediment on the islands’ shores, enough to mean that most of them hadn’t changed much in size. Their position on the reef might have shifted. Their shape might be different. Whatever was going on, it clearly wasn’t as simple as oceans rise, islands wash away.

Dr. Webb and Dr. Kench’s study, which came out in 2010, inspired other scientists to hunt for more old photos and conduct further analysis. The patterns they’ve uncovered in recent years are remarkably consistent across the 1,000 or so islands they’ve studied: Some shrank, others grew. Many, however, were stable. These studies have also added to the intrigue by revealing another pattern: Islands in ocean regions where sea level rise is fastest generally haven’t eroded more than those elsewhere…

from:    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/shocker-nyt-admits-the-seas-only?publication_id=746368&post_id=146418320&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email