Health Friday 8.21.2026 Open Thread: NIH, NIAID, US Army Fund the Creation of an Avian Influenza Vaccine with Plague-Derived Adjuvant

The free vintage image for today’s offering header of Scène de la peste de 1720 by Michel Serre, of the Great Plague of Marseille, is courtesy of Google Images. For more information about the Great Plague of Marseille, please see: https://www.sciendirect.com/science/article/pii/S0755498222000318, “History of the plague of 1720 – 1722, in Marseille”, Michel Signoli, et al.; September 2022. For more information about the Black Death (Black Plague) in Europe, 1347 – 1351, please see: https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death. Note that the article on the Britannica website mentions the fact that the strain of Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis) that caused the Black Death plague in Europe is the ancestral strain of all other plague events since then.

The word “plague” generate images of the Black Death (Black Plague, the Bubonic Plague) that swept through Europe in the mid-1300s. Of thousands of dead people on the streets. Of entire families wiped out in a few days. Of the cries of “Bring out your dead.” And the Black Death is only one example of how devastating the plague can be. There have been numerous other incidents of plague attack, such as the 1720 – 1722 event that struck Marseille, France. Today’s offering discusses a “new aspect” of the plague — of a certain element of it being used as a “vaccine” ingredient. For purposes of today’s offering, Yersinia pestis and Y. pestis are used interchangeably.

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Health Friday is a series devoted to information about Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. There are Important Notifications from our host, Wolf Moon; the Rules of our late, good Wheatie; and, certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They linked here. Note: AI-generated items in today’s offering will be cited as such. If readers wish to post AI-generated items in today’s discussion thread, they must cite their source. Thank you.

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There has been concern and discussion regarding the use of certain “adjuvants” in injected drugs (examples: the Hepatitis B “vaccine” uses an aluminum-based adjuvant; certain influenza “vaccines” still use mercury-based adjuvants (thimerosal.) https://www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/adjuvants.html defines an adjuvant as: “An adjuvant is an ingredient used in some vaccines that helps create a stronger immune response in people receiving the vaccine.” For more information regarding the use of aluminum as an adjuvant, please see: https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum. For more information regarding the use of mercury as an adjuvant, please see: https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/vaccine-ingredients/thimerosal. Both of these articles are by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

However, there are other types of adjuvants that are either now in use, or are being studied for use, in injectable drugs. One such use being studied is the subject of today’s offering: an Avian Influenza “vaccine” adjuvant derived from the Yersinia pestis bacterium (the Black Death, the Black Plague, and also known as the Bubonic Plague.) To repeat: an Avian Influenza “vaccine” adjuvant derived from the Yersinia pestis bacterium (the Black Death, the Black Plague, and also known as the the Bubonic Plague.) Yours Truly begins here, with an article by Jon Fleetwood: https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/hhs-funds-chimeric-bird-flu-pandemic, “HHS Funds Chimeric Pandemic Bird Flu Vaccine Made With Engineered Plague Derivative BECC470s: Journal ‘mSphere'”, 13 August 2026. Please see the screenshots from this article, below:

The paper referred to in the Fleetwood article is here: https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1126/msphere.00171-26, “Optimizing an avian influenza vaccine using a novel Bacterial Enzymatic Combinatorial Chemistry (BECC) TLR4 adjuvant”, Robert K. Ernst, et al.; 10 July 2026. The research was funded primarily via HHS-NIH-NIAID-BAA2017/HHSN272201800043C; via other HHS-NIH-NIAID grants; and, the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (University of Maryland School of Medicine.) The work of one co-author, Devon Riley, was funded via the United States Army Long-Term Health and Education Training Program.

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What is BECC470? Please see: https://www.fromtiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2026.187218/full, “Licensed and investigational TLR4 agonists as vaccine adjuvants: Structural basis, clinical progress, and future directions”; Jiasheng Zhou, et al.; 16 July 2026. Note that, except for one co-author of this paper (who is associated with the Communist Chinese version of the CDC), all other co-authors are associated with research institutes in Wuhan, Communist China. A screenshot of section 3.2 of this paper, which describes BECC (Bacterial Enzymatic Combinatorial Chemistry) is below. There are two versions of BECC470: BECC470b (the biological form of the Y. pestis element in the adjuvant); and, BECC470s (the lab-created synthetic form of the Y. pestis element in the adjuvant):

BECC438, BECC470b, and BECC470s are all derived from the lipid A in Y. pestis.

It appears that there are three separate publications of the Robert K. Ernst, et al., paper: the 10 July 2026 paper in the ASM Journals, cited above; another publication, a day later in July 2026, in journal Vaccines (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S02644-10X26005839), “BECC-adjuvanted hemagglutinin influenza vaccine promotes enhanced immunogenicity and protective efficacy”, Robert K. Ernst, et al.; 11 July 2026; and, a Biorxiv preprint version, published in March 2026 (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2026/03/05/2026.03.03.709477.full.pdf, “Optimizing an avian influenza vaccine using a novel Bacterial Enzymatic Combinatorial Chemistry (BECC) TLR4 adjuvant”, Robert K. Ernst, et al.; 5 March 2026. All three of these publications appear to have same parameters: One, that Gain-of-Function experiments were performed with multiple strains of Avian Influenza and then injected into the lab mice; Two, there is no direct mention that BECC438, or BECC470b, or BECC470s, are derived from the lipid A of Y. pestis; and, Three, that BECC adjuvants are “superior” to the other types of adjuvants currently in influenza “vaccines.”

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Back to the article by Jon Fleetwood. Something caught Yours Truly’s eye: It appears that the lipid A portion of a certain strain of Y. pestis, called KIM6+, is the one that was chosen to lab-create BECC470b, which was then chemically engineered to create BECC470s. Please see below:

Yours Truly did some digging into KIM6+. The 2023 paper, which also has Robert K. Ernst as co-author, is here: https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2405-8440(23)05327-6, “Physiochemical characterization of biological and synthetic forms of two lipid A-based TLR4 agonists”, Robert K. Ernst, et al.; available online 8 July 2023. Another paper, from 2021, by Bland, et al., discusses the KIM6+ strain of Y. pestis and its infectivity: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1009995, “Acquisition of Yersinia murine toxin enabled Yersinia pestis to expand the range of mammalian hosts that sustain flea-borne plague”, David M. Bland, et al.; 14 Octocer 2021. Please see below, from the Results section of this paper:

It appears that the KIM6+ strain of Y. pestis is one that has about 50% more capability to infect. And it is the KIM6+ strain that was chosen to lab-create BECC470b; and then to have that chemically engineered to lab-synthesize BECC470s — both of which can be used as vaccine adjuvants.

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Robert K. Ernst holds at least two US Patents related to the use of KIM6+-derived Y. pestis lipid A constructs that can be used as adjuvants in vaccines: US10358667B2, 7 January 2016, “Adjusted expiration” of 19 March 2034: and, US11124815B2, 21 September 2021, “Adjusted expiration” of 7 March 2034. Both Patents have the same Title (“Immunotherapeutic Potential of Modified Lipooligosacchardies/Lipid A”); the same Inventors (Robert K. Ernst, et al.); and the same Licenses and Options (Licensed to TollereBio Corporation [Robert K. Ernst], Optioned to Virtici, LLC.)

Reading through US10358667B2, one finds, for example, that a BSL-2 biosafety laboratory level is, apparently, sufficient to work with the KIM6+ lipid A of Y. pestis, and to lab-create BECC470 adjuvants from this bacterium; that BOTH the “biological version” of BECC470 (BECC470b) and the “synthetic version” of BECC470 (BECC470s) can be used as vaccine adjuvants; and, that the BECC470 vaccine adjuvants, per the Patent, section VIII. Use of Exemplary Lipooligosaccharide/Lipid A-based Mimetic Compositions: “…is [sic] useful for…” the following vaccines, among others, listed in the Patent:

measles, mumps, rubella (think MMR);

polio;

plague;

chickenpox;

HPV;

Hepatitis B (think newborn “vaccination” with this one);

pertussis;

tetanus;

and, shigella (Shingles)

And, in fact, Dr. Ernst is at work creating a shigella “vaccine” that includes BECC-engineered adjuvants: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/pii/S0264410X25000763, “BECC-engineered live-attenuated Shigella vaccine candidates display reduced endotoxicity with robust immunogenicity in mice”, Robert K. Ernst, et al.; 19 March 2025. This paper appears, in Yours Truly’s opinion, to “dance around” actually mentioning the apparent use of Y. pestis-derived elements in the Gain-of-Function shigella “vaccine” that was administered to lab mice (administered using various methods, including intramuscular injection and gastric injection.) The paper does list various Patents that are “related” to the paper, including both US10358667B2 and US11124815B2 (discussed above in today’s offering.) The paper also lists the 2018 Ernst, et al., paper regarding the use of Y. pestis-derived BECC438 in a vaccine administered to mice: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264410X18307680, “A lipid A-based TLR4 mimetic effectively adjuvants a Yersinia pestis rF-V1 subunit vaccine in a murine challenge model”, Robert K. Ernst, et al.; 27 June 2018.

In Yours Truly’s opinion, this entire situation raises important questions, among them: One: Why is the United States government (via HHS / NIH / NIAID), and the United States Army, funding research into using any element of the plague bacterium in a drug of any type, let alone a drug that can be injected? Two: How is it possible that a BSL-2 level laboratory can be considered to have sufficient biosafety to work with any element of the plague bacterium? Three: Why was KIM6+, apparently one of the most deadly and infective lipid A elements of Y. pestis, used to lab-create BECC470b and BECC470s? And, Four: Is it possible to completely “de-nature” the deadly effects of any element of Y. pestis sufficiently for such element to be used as an adjuvant in vaccines?

Peace, Good Energy, Respect: PAVACA1

(Intellectual Property Disclaimer and Notice: Except for the linked URLs and other items available on the Internet, the ideas and/or opinions in today’s offering are by PAVACA1 (M.E. Forbes, aka M.E.C. Forbes.) Credit must be given to PAVACA1 if ideas and/or opinions in today’s offering are used by other blog writers; by podcasters; or in print or social media.)

Should We Be Skeptical of Industry and Media Denials of Use of Graphene Family Nanomaterials in Vaccines?

At this point, I don’t really know the answer to this question. I’ve only been studying it for a few hours. However, given the sordid track record of the Faucisphere in government, the duplicitous alien planet Big Pharma, and that wonderful global organization of medical liars and policy-reversing Tedros types, the United Nations of China, I’m not feeling like giving these sneaky profiteers a clean bill of health just yet.

Let’s just say that I’m still collating.

As both American government and American / Western corporations increasingly act like their Chinese counterparts, I expect to see dog-killing treats with little “Made in the USA” graphics on them very soon, unless we bring the Great Fake Election and Virus Scam of 2020 to a very “judicious” close.

It was only tonight, that I had ever even HEARD of the idea of graphene or its derivatives in vaccines.

This HAD to be a conspiracy theory, I thought. NO. FUCKING. WAY.

Seriously. My immediate thought was “no way”. That would be like putting little molecular razor blades in the little biomolecular apples known as cells. Who the hell would do that shit?

And YES – when I went looking for information about the toxicity of graphene and friends, sure enough, there is a TON of information about it.

LINK: https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12989-016-0168-y

If you read that article, you will see that “molecular razor blade” is indeed just ONE of the ways that graphene and coconspirators damage cells, organs, organelles, and anything else that gets in their way.

It’s not like one might not expect that, given that graphene is a bit like asbestos and other inorganic particulates, only flatter and sharper, but you never know – maybe there are windows of low toxicity where things are OK, or at least BETTER. Indeed, such variable CURVES of toxicity are hinted at in the paper above, dependent on the size of the razor blades.

Science! It works! When you’re honest, of course, but if so….. it works!

But back to FAUCISM and why I don’t exactly trust the current “situation”.

After I was sure this stuff actually HAD toxicity issues that one might reasonably expect, I went looking to verify that this business about putting it in vaccines was just a nutty conspiracy theory.

And sure enough, a helpful “ABMG” type (associate of Bill and Melinda Gates- reference HERE) from New York and Forbes magazine assures us that NO – all the conspiracy theories about “graphene oxide” in the Pfizer COVID vaccine are exactly that – DUMB conspiracy theories.

LINK: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/07/10/graphene-oxide-in-pfizer-covid-19-vaccines-here-are-the-latest-unsupported-claims/

The problem, if you go read this, is that the denial falls a bit flat. As in VERY flat. It reminds me of a variety of failed debunkings. It’s very much like a “Snopes evasion”, if you are familiar with those.

It’s nothing like the following:

“Pfizer kindly gave us three sample vials of their vaccine, which we were allowed to select at random from actual pharmacies and hospitals, with a letter of authorization from the head of Pfizer vaccines. We took these to an independent laboratory skilled in the determination of biopharmaceuticals and nanomaterials, including graphene and its derivatives. Not only were there no components that are not listed on the Pfizer and CDC websites – there was no detectable graphene of any kind, when subjected to known methods of isolating graphenes.”

See? An answer like THAT is “game over”, as Scott here likes to say.

Instead, the answer I got was basically a recounting of the true but mostly irrelevant fact that Jane Ruby is highly unqualified to talk in a deep and expert way about a lot of the things she talks about ANYWAY.

To which I say…..

“Yes, this is true. Back to the question. Please. They aren’t putting this stuff in the vaccines – ARE THEY?”

So I keep reading…… to which I then say…..

“Yes, it sounds like this is a conspiracy theory, and the people who say that the vaccine is 99% graphene oxide – obviously ludicrous – are almost certainly spouting bullshit. But I don’t care about that. ARE THEY putting this stuff in vaccines?”

So I keep reading, and the proof boils down to trusting that the ingredient list that Pfizer originally gave to CDC and FDA doesn’t include graphene oxide, and that Pfizer would never lie to CDC or FDA, because they would get in trouble.

Seriously. Go to the link and read it.

Of course, just because CDC lies like crazy, and FDA is horribly political, and BOTH are beneficiaries of these vaccines, wouldn’t affect what they might say.

Nor the fact that this IS an experimental vaccine where they don’t actually include the list of ingredients in the package for some weird reason, like maybe they would be lying if they did.

I mean, the Fauci People are mostly honest, mostly.

Well, I didn’t get a good answer from the debunking. So I looked elsewhere. THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.

LINK: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1742706120303305

Oh! An adjuvant! You don’t say!

And a CARRIER, too! On top of that!

Why, there’s almost no need to stop by Forbes and have a science journalist just miss the fact that scientists find this stuff useful in vaccines, despite – or maybe even BECAUSE OF – its toxicity.

Thank you, Science Journalism! You’re almost as great as the other kinds!

BUT WAIT – THERE’S MOAR. Lots moar.

LINK: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c05039

A vaccine that keeps pumping out vaccine for 30 days after you inject it? Holy shit!

A vaccine that stabilizes messenger RNA at body temperature? Holy shit!

A vaccine that can migrate (“translational efficiency”) to the lymph nodes? Holy shit!

Now don’t get me wrong – this is great stuff. This is cancer-curing stuff – using mRNA and hydrogels and adjuvants and graphene oxide – gotta love it. You get CANCER – you might like this stuff.

Of course, if you get that cancer from a graphene oxide-containing vaccine for coronavirus, that might be a different story, but who is gonna profit on both ends of THAT equation? Don’t be silly! Insurance will mostly pay for it, mostly.

Yeah, you know what I’m sayin’.

And what’s REALLY interesting here is how LONG this vaccine lasts, when you use this graphene oxide stuff. I mean, it lasts a LONG TIME. And migrates, too! Even better than the old lipid nanoparticle technology!

Which just kinda seems a lot like the way the Pfizer vaccine lasts a long time in people’s bodies, and now even LONGER on the shelf, maybe TOO long in the body, which is good for gene therapy or cancer treatment, but bad for a disease vaccine, but let’s just ignore that alleged motivation for using a less safe new tech for a vaccine.

What I find interesting is how this graphene oxide stuff seems to STABILIZE the mRNA. Wow! Would that help an mRNA vaccine survive higher temperatures in normal refrigerators, like Pfizer does now?

Silly me just wondering aloud. It’s called a “hypothesis”.

And would Fauci and CDC actually TELL us if they changed the formulation just a little bit?

You see where I’m at?

And it gets worse, because graphenes cause symptoms a lot like COVID in the lungs, but – no – I don’t even want to go there. THAT is really kinda conspiracy theory. Let’s just stick to the simple question.

Is. Anybody. Using. Graphene, graphene oxide, or whatever. In COVID vaccines?

You know what? I don’t know. And I don’t trust government, industry or media to tell us the truth.

Because they all now ACT just like we’re in China. I mean, state media supports state industry.

Think about that.

W

Wolf's Chill Second Date With Retrosynthetic Dinopox

Perhaps you recall my PREVIOUS correspondence and “review” of the new, two-shot shingles vaccine, Shingrix – or more specifically, my review of the FIRST SHOT.

Wolf’s Hot Date With Retrosynthetic Dinopox

Hey, it’s not every day that I get to post something that’s not only about the unspeakable issue of vaccines, but is both PRO-VAX and ANTI-VAX at the same time. I mean, what’s the use of FREE SPEECH if we can’t use it to troll EVERYBODY – including PENCILNECK? Whoops – WRONG PENCILNECK. Let’s try …

Continue reading

Well, I’m BACK to report my experience with the SECOND SHOT.

This was all something of a surprise.

I had FINALLY – in LATE JUNE – gotten to see a doctor [IN PERSON] for COVID-19 aftermath. This was LONG AFTER having gotten the disease in late January [LONG STORY] and THEN spending the first half of this year figuring out how to treat both the disease and the aftermath MYSELF [AND WITH YOU GOOD PEOPLE], mostly through internet rumors, discussions here, and self-experimentation by trial and error.

After all the discussion, the data gathering, the prescribing, the scheduling, and the blood-drawing, I was asked WHICH ARM for my vaccination.

“WHOA-OH!”

Yes, I had forgotten that it was only just in September of 2019 when I had been infected with the mythical disease of RETROSYNTHETIC DINOPOX – namely recombinant glycoproteins of Herpes zoster virus plus various adjuvants – which had knocked out my left arm like a line-drive baseball, and left me mildly sick for the better part of a week.

Was I ready for a REPLAY?

UGH.

Well, as I stated before, retrosynthetic dinopox is bad, but SHINGLES is far, far worse.

Yeah. Gimme the disease shot.

So – what has it been like? In a word…..

“SYSTEMIC”.

While I immediately noticed both soreness and swelling at the injection site, deep in the muscle of my triceps (back of the arm), most of the local effects were delayed.

Much like the FIRST shot, redness did not reach the surface for over 24 hours, and was not pronounced until about 36 hours.

In contrast, systemic effects were almost immediate. I could tell that something was happening while I was driving home. It was that uneasiness one feels at the beginning of the flu, or – COUGH, COVID-19x (more on “x” later). It’s somewhat non-descript, but unnerving – the unmistakable feeling of incipient illness.

Unsure of how significant these effects might be, I plotted a course which would take me close to both a hospital and an outpatient clinic, in case things got bad. Fortunately I got home without incident.

Once home, I was able to take it easy and observe things more carefully. I was feeling joint stiffness, dull and very diffuse headaches (more aptly labeled discomfort), and a kind of light tingling all over – a mild but very definite “electric shock” sensation. This sensation persisted for about a day, too.

Taking a brief nap, I noticed a dull ache in my kidneys some time after awakening. This was very reminiscent of what I had experienced with COVID-19x, as well as earlier [mild] episodes of kidney stones when I was not hydrating enough. I had treated both of these before with vitamin C and plenty of Gatorade and water – the same trick worked here.

By evening, I noticed that I was experiencing mild chills. These lasted almost all night, but they were gone by early morning. This is one of the more interesting parts of the experience. I don’t remember experiencing chills as part of the FIRST shot at all.

They weren’t terrible chills – no shaking – no chattering teeth. Just some goosebumps and a mild desire to put on a jacket in an admittedly cool summer.

I decided not to alter my normal regimen of vitamins and supplements. I had considered backing off on all minerals to ease the burden on my kidneys, but the truth is that I needed to treat the post-COVID endothelial damage to my kidneys more than I needed to go easy on them. This turned out to be correct – my kidney aches went away without reducing my mineral supplements in any way. Good hydration and vitamin C were all I needed.

The first night (or, TBH, morning) of sleep with round 2 of retrosynthetic dinopox was reasonable but not exactly pleasant. I eventually felt rested, but just barely.

My sleep was filled with recurring dreams of – as best as I can describe it – being medically strafed by small planes, the noise of which would shoot away a kind of weird ground cover grown by the vaccination and COVID-19. I won’t even get into the spiritual aspects of this, which involved American Indian converts to Christianity around the Revolutionary War. That’s a bit harder to explain.

These were not normal dreams. These were definitely “I’m coming down with something” dreams.

The next day, however, was much better. ALL symptoms were diminishing, except for redness at the site of the injection. I eventually has a “prophylactic Gatorade” before bed, but otherwise had a normal day, and even did some light yard work and heavy lifting.

Things were “on the mend” – at least SYSTEMICALLY.

Interesting, though, that by the SECOND night (36 hours), redness at the injection site had increased to the point where it was clearly visible. The total area of redness was as big as my whole hand and fingers. There was still localized swelling at the injection site.

Redness maximized by the THIRD night (60 hours). It diminished somewhat by the 4th night (84 hours), and was almost GONE by the 5th night (108 hours). I was back to “heavy work” earlier that day. At this point, I regarded the vaccination drama as OVER.

SO – the bottom line – FOR ME – is that the SECOND Shingrix injection was NOT AS BAD as the first.

Take that for what you will.

Thus, my final recommendation is the same as before. BE A SMART VACCINE SHOPPER. Listen, if you want, to what I have to say – apply it to your own case and beliefs if you so choose. You don’t have to do what I did – just know what I know, and consider whether my experiences have any bearing on yours.

And THAT is the way all reviews should be, IMO. We report. You decide.

Cheers!

W

LINK: http://www.pharmafile.com/news/522455/gsks-shingrix-scores-approval-china