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Robin Whittle's avatar

Thanks for all your great work. I can't follow all you write in full detail or keep up with other developments, but I figure that if I try to keep up with your Substack articles I won't miss any major developments.

I had to follow the Jon Fleetwood link to understand that "MCMV" means "murine cytomegalovirus". "Murine" means the subfamily Murinae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murinae, meaning 519 species of "Old World rats and mice".

You wrote "Murine rodents are deer mice", which is surely not correct, since "Murine rodents", I guess, means "519 species of Old World rats and mice in order Rodentia, superfamily Muroidea, family Muridae, subfamily Murinae".

I looked up deer mice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peromyscus - but these are in order Rodentia, superfamily Cricetae (this ae and ea stuff will drive OCD folks bananas), subfamily Neotominae.

Your first reference to "deer mice" is followed by multiple references to deer. Likewise your second of the two references to "deer mice". As far as I know, deer mice and deer have no significant biological connections other than both being mammals.

If I am getting lost in what you wrote, I figure other people are too.

Jim Haslam's avatar

Noted, since I conflated MCVM (herpesvirus) with deer mice, but RML uses herpesvirus as a self-spreading vaccine vector in deer mice:

https://jimhaslam.substack.com/p/rocky-mountain-lab-developed-a-self

I added this link, which was a sublink in Fleetwood's Substack:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9014850/

It's the University of Idaho paper referencing Montana deer mice (their New World Rodentia model) for use in self-spreading vaccine research. New World American deer mice are a transmission model for the Old World SARS-CoV-2 isolates.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8168874/

No relation between deer mice and deer, but both were used as self-spreading vaccine models by US academia, and neither is found in China.

AM1G0's avatar

I'm planning a Covid-19 themed mixed-arts exhibition.

But I could use some help with all the info.

Can anyone direct me to some good resources?

richard.bieber's avatar

Early after the rise of the Omicron variant a Chinese genetically specialized lab discovered traces of mutations in the Omicron variant which you see typically in mice mutations. Since then I’m convinced Omicron is part of the structured biodefense program and is as artificial as the original. Fortunately Omicron worked and saved us.

Jim Haslam's avatar

Interesting, you're talking about this lab mice (hACE2) paper, but no Omicron transmission, only infection:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8702434/

Fang Li (Baric's RBD specialist) proposed the same:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36256797/

Omicron has only shown transmission in deer (don't know about deer mice):

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9785669/