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Contribution by John Fraim
One of the greatest developments in the current Covid vaccine war appears in the form of a relatively harmless looking 9/16/21 press release from the University of California at Riverside (UCR). The press release begins, “The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories.”
Turning plants into “vaccine factories” goes far beyond the current delivery method of vaccines via injection. Even assuming many of the vaccine mandates of the Biden administration will be defeated in courts, the UCR press release forebodes the beginning of something much more sinister and dangerous: the possibility of vaccines in our foods.
While the specific instance of the jab might be avoided, how can the nanoparticles of vaccines in our food be avoided? And how can one regulate doses outside the supervision of a medical professional? In effect, people might get a Covid “vaccination” not by a needle prick but by food consumption. Consent might be a thing of the past as they could vaccinate themselves unknown to themselves without giving consent.
The research is in the early stages and too new to attract the notice of any whistleblowers out there. As the press release notes, one of the challenges of this new technology is that it must be kept cold to maintain stability during transport and storage. “If this new project is successful,” the release notes, “plant-based mRNA vaccines could overcome this challenge with the ability to be stored at room temperature.”
Made possible by a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the project’s goals are threefold. First, to show that DNA containing the mRNA vaccines can be successfully delivered into the part of plant cells where it will replicate. Second, demonstrating the plants can produce enough mRNA to rival a traditional shot. And, finally, determining the right dosage.
Juan Pablo Giraldo, an associate professor in UCR’s Department of Botany and Plant Sciences is leading the research which is done in collaboration with scientists from UC San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University.
Giraldo says “Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person.”
Professor Giraldo is far from some professor working on questionable projects of little worth. Rather, he is one of the leading plant biologists and experts in nanobiotechnology in the world with a Ph.D. in Plant Biology from Harvard University and a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Nanobiotechnology at the Strano Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Professor Giraldo says “We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens. Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”
According to Giraldo, a key to making all this work are chloroplasts or small organs in plant cells that convert sunlight into energy the plant can use.
He notes “They’re tiny, solar-powered factories that produce sugar and other molecules which allow the plant to grow” and also “an untapped source for making desirable molecules.”
In the past, Giraldo has shown that it is possible for chloroplasts to express genes that aren’t naturally part of the plant. He and his colleagues did this by sending foreign genetic material into plant cells inside a protective casing. Determining the optimal properties of these casings for delivery into plant cells is a specialty of Giraldo’s laboratory.
For this part of the project, Giraldo teamed up with Nicole Steinmetz, a UC San Diego professor of nanoengineering, to utilize nanotechnologies engineered by her team that will deliver genetic material to the chloroplasts.
“Our idea is to repurpose naturally occurring nanoparticles, namely plant viruses, for gene delivery to plants,” Steinmetz said. “Some engineering goes into this to make the nanoparticles go to the chloroplasts and also to render them non-infectious toward the plants.”
There is little doubt that Giraldo is one of the top researchers in the world for creating plant-based vaccines. Specifically, the type of vaccines that deliver the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines into plants. Right now, his initial research is with spinach and lettuce.
But how far behind might be other projects to put Covid-19 vaccines into other vegetables, fruits, and meat? And, for those who think that other foods are too distant from all this, one only must realize that most animals consume plants.
As we move towards the second year of the Covid pandemic, the large battle shapes up between vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. As it is with everything in our new world of the pandemic, both sides have their reasons and evidence to back up their views.
The pronouncements of the CDC and vax leaders like Dr. Fauci are in constant conflict to lead millions to feel the danger is not with the Covid virus but with the vaccine for it. The government has just mandated that workers in companies with over one hundred employees get the vaccine. Court challenges to the mandate will surely come within the next few months.
In all of this, the real change might not be in types of Covid 19 vaccines but rather in their delivery method. There is little question that food is the ultimate delivery method for mRNA vaccines. It’s becoming harder and harder to say no to the shot. But it will be impossible to say no to the food we eat.
(Article contributor John Fraim has a BA from UCLA and JD from Loyola Law School and blogs on a wide number of topics on Midnight Oil Studios).