Fun fact: Joseph Mercola, alternative medicine proponent and anti-vaxxer, and Nr. 1 of the Disinformation Dozen, considers the favorite virus denialist’s argument that the virus has never been isolated “counterproductive.” (Can’t link to this paper because Twitter blocks it.) 
As was to be expected, Christine Massey is challenging Mercola, McCullough, Kirsch and others about their belief in existence of this virus and any other virus. Let the virus-deniers and the alternative virus-accepters fight it out. Would be fun to watch! principia-scientific.com/open-letter-to…
This is the main argument by virus denialists: And because “it” has never been purified, we also know that “it” has never been sequenced... Instead, virologists have always worked with soups of material that they assume contains “the virus”. Strange soup! 'fluoridefreepeel.ca/response-to-pe…
Let’s call it “the soup argument” - the only “argument” the virus denialists have. They ignore the exquisite and meaningful detail that can be distilled from this “soup”. They immediately go: La-la-la-la! nature.com/articles/s4158…
In response to @jeremyrhammond Andrew Kaufman claims that virologists live on an island and don't talk with exosome scientists who would be able to tell them viruses and exosomes look very much alike. Well, I consulted three worldclass exosome specialists. integralworld.net/visser171.html
Kaufman does in this video the usual rounds of misinformation. He claims, for example, that isolation is not done properly, with sucrose gradients. Wrong. "We passaged the virus through tissue culture cells and used sucrose centrifugation to purify it." science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Then he says that sequencing is always based on untrustworthy cell culture and not on samples taken directly from a patient. Wrong. "Respiratory samples (naso-oropharyngeal swabs, sputum, bronchial lavage fluid... viral RNA detected at high levels)" (WHO). who.int/publications/i…
Next, control conditions in all virology papers are not set up properly, because they don't show cytopathic effects, which they do when Lanka sets them up. Wrong: "All culture medium, temperatures and incubation conditions, everything else are the same." integralworld.net/visser206.html
Kaufman repeats his ingenuous explanation of virus variant: they are failed replications of the original (fake) index genome of SARS-CoV-2. Wrong. You would get only noise and never the typical pattern of a huge branching phylogenetic tree, with variants. integralworld.net/visser210.html
Next, genomics can be disregarded completely according to Kaufman, because all that is sequenced is human RNA, not viral RNA. How does he know that? He still lacks elementary knowledge of sequencing, which can be found in a CORONA CONSPIRACY chapter. integralworld.net/visser174.html
Kaufman tellingly mentions that he never said that viruses and exosomes are the same, but that it is not possible to tell the difference. But he goes from "it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference" to "it is never possible to tell the difference." Which is not the case.
He objects to the fact that the CDC, not having viral samples at hand at a given moment, used synthetic RNA to validate its PCR tests. Isn't this circular reasoning? Validating tests with synthetic RNA based on a virtual genome? Welcome to 21st century science Andrew Kaufman!
Not surprisingly, virus denialists Tom Cowan and Andrew Kaufman will come up with an official reply about Mercola's recent statement on if SARS-CoV-2 is a real virus. Also available through Cowan's YouTube channel Conversations with Dr. Cowan And Friends. youtube.com/channel/UCh4jE…
At the end of this video Cowan and Kaufman mention they have been pressured by many alt-medics to stop talking about the non-existence of viruses because it would unnecessarily divide and split the freedom movement. Cowan adds pathetically: no, only the truth will make you free.
In this joint video statement the two “doctors” rehash their old claim that viral whole genomic sequencing is unreliable because it arbitrarily adds small reads to an existing template - apparently they still have not yet heard of de novo sequencing and nanopore sequencing?
De novo sequencing assembles genomes without a template (of course, when the genome is ready, comparing it to existing genomes is meaningful for context). And 3rd gen nanopore sequencing directly scans the full RNA string, without fragmenting and reconstructing it again.
More on the various types of sequencing, and how fundamentally ignorant Cowan and Kaufman are, can be found here, in an extensive review of an earlier webinar, ironically called Covid19 Myths. integralworld.net/visser201.html
Now, it is true that in the methods & materials section of virology papers many laboratory and computerized steps exist between RNA extraction from a sample and the final consensus genome. Is there no room for error at all? But, better a bit unsharp picture than none at all!
The crucial point both Lanka, Cowan and Kaufman seem to overlook is that statistically the chance of finding reads (consisting of A, T, C or G) of some length (say 75 nucleotides) in different and unrelated genomes (say HIV and Ebola) is vanishingly small or even non-existent.
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