Our bodily juices

Why do the US Air Force and the Russian authorities need them?

Denis Yatsutko, XX2 century
Numerous references to sources can be found in the original article.

Panic is boiling in the network and there is a gush of gloom about the collection of biomaterial of Russians by the American military department. The essence of the story is in a nutshell: on July 19 of this year, the Training Aviation Command of the US Air Force posted on the government procurement website an application for samples of synovial tissue and RNA, which had to be collected by all means in Russia and necessarily from representatives of the white race. With a note: "The government will not consider tissue samples from Ukraine."

In July, everyone who wanted to wrote about it. Experts reassured the people with assurances that, most likely, the fence is being made for some fundamental research, conspiracy theorists gave out tons of paranoid nonsense (sorry, "... does the United States have a desire to populate our country with such Russian clones so that they work here in the interests of their owner-developer?"), bloggers laughed and forgot. But then suddenly on October 30, President Putin mentioned the collection of biomaterial of Russians. And the province began to dance with renewed vigor. It is impossible to pass by such a hype in any way. But, getting into this, we will try not to inflate the smoking wick, but to extinguish it. So: why does the US Air Force need Russian RNA and synovial tissue?

I must say right away that even then, in July, I personally had no questions for the US Air Force, and now there are none. Pilots + synovial tissue – what questions can there be? Rheumatoid arthritis and other ailments affecting the joints are occupational diseases of pilots. I have bad knees myself, and when I asked friends looking for a good doctor, I was advised by the Aeroflot clinic. That is why: it is believed that doctors treating pilots should be well versed in all this.

But – to the facts.

The first part. How it started

The request for commercial goods, posted on July 18 in open access on the American public procurement website, says that the US government needs 12 samples of normal human ribonucleic acid and 27 samples of synovial tissue collected in Russia. There is a clarifying question in the order:

– Will samples from Ukraine be suitable?

– No, – says the answer, – all samples of synovial tissue and RNA should be collected in Russia and belong to people of the white race. The government will not consider tissue samples from Ukraine.

The exception of Ukraine is the fact that the US Air Force submitted the request on behalf of the government, and not some public health agency, and initiated domestic patriots-conspiracy theorists. They immediately began to make assumptions, one more wild than the other, but all coming down to one thesis: from our baptized RNA (which in half of the news and blog discussions turned into DNA), the adversary will make an ethnically oriented biological weapon.

It is important to understand here that the inflators of the July hype (and the main wave, both in Russia and abroad, was then raised by RT, Sputnik International, etc., and picked up by various kinds of patriotic bloggers) either see everything themselves through the distorting gravitational lens of the conflict with Ukraine, or, more likely, they simply understand that this is so readers see them. Well, what does it look like for a propaganda-stricken brain? The US military collects biomaterial in Russia, but separately emphasize that it is by no means in Ukraine. The USA is the enemy. Ukraine is an enemy and a friend of the enemy. They want to make a virus against us, but in order not to hurt their allies, everything is clear, right?

Not really. My first thought was: "And why the fright is there at all this question about Ukraine? Why not about Estonia? Not about Australia? Not about the USA, after all? And, finally, why is the clarification to the terms of the tender formulated not in the usual form for such documents, but as a typical F.A.Q.?" The drafters of the tender presented themselves in the place of possible contractors, whom they know as peeled, and wrote an answer to the question that they could certainly ask? Or NOT to ask, and, consequently, to do meaningless work and submit unsuitable samples?

Actually, everything is simpler – the customers didn't have to present anything. Before announcing the actual tender, the US military structures (I don't know about the rest of the state, but these are for sure) often conduct a kind of pre–competition - for market research. They place the same order, but with an explanation that it was published to study the offer, the market situation and possible clarification of requirements and does not oblige either the government or the companies that provided the information to conclude any contracts. Representatives of contractors write their proposals, submit some documents, describe their material base, etc. And also ask questions they have about the order. Based on the results of this event, the contract officer, himself or, if necessary, after consulting with the customer unit, clarifies the terms of the competition.

A preliminary request for these materials was posted on June 2, 2017, information and requests from companies were accepted until the evening of the working day on June 8. In the preliminary request, Ukraine was not mentioned at all – only Russia and the white race. And also a suggestion to look at the attached list and a message that this study continues another and supports the standards adopted in it, and therefore it is necessary that exactly what is on the list, analogues will not be considered. In the final request, Ukraine appeared – in the form of a question and answer. Because customers, ignoring what was written, still asked: "Is it not possible from Ukraine?" Because for many of them, Russia and Ukraine are still the same thing. Well, or almost the same thing. We already know here that Ukraine is not Russia, and for a simple American collector of biomaterial, this is not yet accurate. Especially when he figures that there is a place almost the same, but there you can either pay less to donors, or save on the registration of all sorts of local paperwork, logistics, etc.

And here is another important point: a preliminary request was made to find sufficiently qualified capable commercial suppliers among the representatives – attention! – small business. Because in the USA there are many serious programs of state support for small businesses, enterprises founded by women, small businesses founded by women, and so on. State structures may be happy to give everything, even the smallest orders to large institutions that do not ask stupid questions, but it is impossible. We must first try to offer preferential categories. To try – because with very serious orders with preferential categories of suppliers, it may turn out that they not only do not know how to distinguish between Russia and Ukraine, but also something more serious. In this case, the government reserves the right to exclude small businesses, etc. from the tender. But in the end, they did not exclude it, they made a combined request to all types of businesses, they managed only a couple of clarifications.

In total, we will summarize on organizational points why this cannot be work on advanced biological weapons.

1. The collection of material for this kind of research is not entrusted (even potentially) to small businesses, especially those who do not understand such simple words as "Russia, Caucasian" from the first time;

2. The collection of material for secret research is not announced in an open tender, and if it is announced, it is not so. A specific contract squadron with a location is indicated here, the names and surnames of both contract officers involved in tenders for this study (except for those samples that stuck out the Runet like that, there were also tenders for mountains of all research equipment, consumables and software), their service phones; according to this information, there are in the "White Pages" for a minute their home phone numbers, addresses, names of their spouses and children, etc. The applicant indicates the specific research unit to which the biomaterial is intended. If you are interested, this is the Center for Advanced Molecular Diagnostics in San Antonio (Center for Advanced Molecular Detection), a unit of the 59th Medical Wing of the Air Force Training Aviation Command, Joint Base San Antonio (Lackland, Randolph, Sam Houston; Texas). "... conducts research to identify genetic variations correlating with human diseases ..." The Internet has the address of the center, contact phone numbers and names of employees, and so on. They say, our dear enemies, here are all the appearances, passwords and addresses on a silver platter, go and have a drink. Nonsense.

3. The accompanying text to the applicant says "Russian, Caucasian population", and in the list attached as an xlsx file - "Russia, Caucasian". And since it is proposed to turn to the list for specifics, we conclude that we are not referring to Russians as an ethnic group, namely Russians. White. The genetic binding to the territory is generally nonsense. (By the way, in the properties of the Excel file, not only the surname of the contract officer is visible, but the name and surname of the sergeant who created the file is also very secret and simply cries out about the development of biological weapons).

4. Finally, I note that my July assumption, derived from the combination of "medicine + pilots + synovial tissue", about a banal study of arthritis is most likely correct. Because in the description of the applicant it is separately noted that donors should not have musculoskeletal injuries and pathological injuries. And earlier, in 2016, the same 502nd contracting squadron placed tenders for 1,000 DNA samples of people affected by rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis, then another 800 samples from donors with the same diseases, etc. Specialization is evident./NUM

It looks like people are doing a good useful thing.

Someone, I think, may still have a question why the Americans needed the fabrics of white Russians. I answer: there were already genetic variants, probably correlating both with the racial type and with a particular disease. Therefore, initially they could request material separately from Caucasian donors, separately from Negroid ones. And with Russians in general everything is simple: as mentioned above, this is a continuation of the study, focusing on previously set standards. It so happened that the previous portion of the material was supplied by a company collecting samples in Russia. It happened by chance, we won the tender, in which there was no geo-linking. Therefore, the control group was decided to be recruited there, for the purity of the experiment. A representative of the US Air Force today confirmed this to a RIA Novosti correspondent.

The second part of the Marlezon ballet. The most important trigger

Now let's look at the very moving and sounding picture, thanks to which this rather boring story a la "Vasya bought a kilo of cheese in Italy to eat" went bang for the second time in four months.

Meeting of the Human Rights Council on October 30. First, Igor Borisov, director of the Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law, speaks. And his performance is terrible. He complains about 950 thousand appeals from foreign "IT addresses" (sic!), as far as I understand, to some public resource about the elections. It seems to be to the webcams at the polling stations. Borisov asks, even asks:

"Why are so many interested people watching our elections and conducting a video recording of the actual image of a person? And how will it be used further? Taking into account the technologies that exist today. That is, I am personally concerned that the images of my fellow citizens are in the wrong hands."

This incendiary match reminded me of a lot of things at once. In my youth, I worked as an enikeyschik in the computer lab of the scientific library, and one day the head of the automation department there was indignant: "Why do your users go to sites with the com extension?"! He believed that all sites with such an "extension" were "foreign" and "commercial", and, consequently, there was nothing for a Russian person to do on them, and in general – because of them, the server crashes.

I also remember an article from some wild newspaper of the mid-90s, the author of which warned compatriots against going online, arguing that "enemies remotely monitor your style of working with the keyboard, make up your psychological portrait based on it, and on its basis - a psychological portrait of the nation, and use it to develop a strategy for our destruction."

There is the same paranoia and the same level of competence. And specifically, the arguments about the theft of images seem to be written off from the beliefs of all wild tribes that by drawing or photographing a person, you can steal his soul.

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to Borisov's remark:

"The images are fine. Did you know that biological material is collected all over the country? Moreover, according to different ethnic groups and people living in different geographical locations of the Russian Federation. That's the question, that's why they do it. And they do it purposefully and professionally. Well, we are the object of such a very great interest."

Here, of course, there is a clear roll call with the July RT headline "Military Interest", promoted around these unfortunate RNCs by the forces of official propaganda and conspiracy theorists. And, of course, it is impossible not to recall the arguments of the unforgettable Brigadier General Ripper from the movie "Doctor Strangelove, or How I stopped being afraid and fell in love with the atomic bomb" about "our bodily juices". Don't spare three minutes, take a look.

Now is the time for media that track every public word of any media personality. People usually also follow the words of important politicians and statesmen, simply because a lot depends on these people. The situation with the president of Russia is also complicated by the fact that any real policy has been killed here for a long time and instead there are only various kinds of "signals" given either personally by the first person of the state or through his close associates. Therefore, President Putin in Russia is the main trigger of media (and not only) hype. Especially if he says something that may promise new prohibitions, new bureaucratic obstacles or another actualization of confrontations - within the Russian society or the Russian Federation and other states.

After Putin's word, even if the topic seems to have already become noisy, a wave of hype inevitably rises – and not only media, unfortunately: officials of all stripes are eager, if not to embody the words of the soloist, then at least sing in unison.

So, the voice of the deputy of the State Duma, the former chief sanitary doctor of the country Gennady Onishchenko quickly joined the patriotic symphony. He called for "creating laws dedicated to the biological safety of Russians and taking control of the activities of foreign companies conducting clinical research in Russia." In particular, Mr. Onishchenko said that it is necessary to put the activities of the Invitro laboratory network under control. "The fact that the collection of fluids, organs and tissues of our fellow citizens is taking place today is nothing more than evidence that the United States has not stopped its offensive military program," he explained in a broadcast on a Russian TV channel.

Invitro denied Onishchenko's words, saying that the company strictly complies with the law "On Personal Data". And all biomaterial collected in medical offices on the territory of the Russian Federation is delivered to laboratory complexes that are located exclusively within Russia. All used biomaterial is disposed of within laboratory complexes in strict accordance with SanPiN 2.1.7.2790-10.

The press secretary of the president Dmitry Peskov, apparently reacting to the opinion that quickly swept through social networks that Putin learns the news from the broadcasts of the propaganda RT, hastened to report that the president of Russia learns about the collection of biomaterials of Russians through the special services. That is, everything is serious.

Interestingly, this statement refers us not even to July of this year, but, let's say, to the zero part – to May 2007, when, after the FSB report on bioterrorism presented to President Putin, the export of biological samples from Russia was even suspended for some time, and, as it happens with officials, "without declarations of war" – people came to Sheremetyevo and found out that nothing can be exported and no one can explain why.

And since both the research and clinical flows of biological samples, both from here abroad and vice versa, are huge, many - scientists, doctors, patients – the current situation again worries, and strongly. Especially against the background of the nonsense about "ethnically oriented genetic weapons" multiplying in the networks.

"About genetic weapons," Mikhail Gelfand, a professor at the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics of Moscow State University, Doctor of Biological Sciences, told the NSN agency, "this is some kind of disgusting lie. There are no such weapons. People are too similar to each other to be able to create a specific weapon against some race. It is probably possible to create – very expensive and very difficult – a weapon against some very small ethnic group that has not mixed with anyone for the last thousand years. Russians are not such an ethnic group. It is probably possible, after spending crazy money, to figure out how to exterminate the inhabitants of the conditional Andaman Islands. But there are simpler ways to do this."

And here's what Anna Kozlova, the manager of the NGS project, the department of scientific development support of the Center for Genetics and Reproductive Medicine Genetico, told the correspondent of the XX2 century:

"One of the most interesting results of the Human Genome project was the understanding of how similar people are to each other, and that the concept of race is purely mythical. Yes, different ethnic groups may have different frequencies of specific variants of certain genes, and the predisposition to diseases may differ statistically. But the differences between two individuals are actually much more significant than the differences between groups of people.

It is simply impossible to create a weapon that selectively strikes some ethnic group (and only it). It would be expensive and difficult, and besides, the most effective thing that could probably happen is a weapon that hits 20% of the target ethnic group, 28% of another, 20% of a third, and at the same time some local primates.

Why do we need to investigate the "national genome" at all? For example, the study of genetic diversity and differences between ethnic groups helps to reconstruct the history of mankind, clarify the origin of peoples and the relationship between them.

It is also necessary for the identification of gene markers associated with the most common diseases, stratified randomization of clinical trials, and the development of personalized medicine. There are large-scale population genetics projects with sequencing of hundreds of thousands of people, for example, in the USA, Great Britain, China, Saudi Arabia. There are similar projects in Russia too. For example, the project "Russian genomes", which aims to create a database of genomic data of more than three thousand people, or the project "2000 exomes", aimed at researching the gene pool of Tatars and studying their ethnic history."

About who actually collects the DNA of different peoples on the territory of our country, and why it is necessary, says Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head. Laboratory of Genomic Geography of IOGen RAS Oleg Balanovsky:

"Let's start with the one who collects biological materials on ethnic groups in different geographical locations of the Russian Federation. This is done by Russian scientists: the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg University within the framework of the Russian Genomes project approved by the President of Russia, the Institute of Medical Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Ufa Scientific Center and many other state scientific institutions and universities of our country.

Why is this being done? These studies are needed in order to recreate the history of each nation – we received our genes from our ancestors, so the DNA, as in the chronicle, records the origin of the population, and the most important demographic events that happened to it, and how people adapted to environmental conditions. The President of Russia recently supported the idea of creating a series of films about the peoples of Russia. A rare such film does without the genetic history of the people, and it is on the study of this history that the population geneticists of Russia are working.

These studies are indeed conducted purposefully and professionally. They are funded by the Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations, the Russian Science Foundation, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Ministry of Education and Science, Programs of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Council of Ministers of the Union State and other state funds."

Part three. But why ?

It's hard to believe that the president made such a notable statement simply because, by the way, he remembered a propaganda note more than three months ago. Even more difficult is that not a note, but a dubious report, which is a hundred years old at lunch. The smile with which he responded to the remark about "stealing images". Thinking about why it was necessary at all, it is also not easy not to notice against what background it is happening. And this is happening against the background of the beginning of the presidential election campaign. Vladimir Putin, however, has not yet been nominated. The Kremlin has not officially nominated anyone yet. But other advances – for the most part, however, either insane or decorative, occur. Including loud ones (Ksenia Sobchak) so much so that the electorate realized: the movement has gone.

And against this very background, the president (and, according to the majority, the future candidate from the party of power) makes a hype statement, scares someone, but reminds the majority where the enemy is, reminds that the enemy is not asleep, that times are, in general, vague. And at the same time, the surname Putin is on everyone's lips.

Look: the elections are in March, the statement was made at the very end of October. Something similar happened, if you remember, in 2011: the elections were supposed to take place (and took place) in March 2012, and at the very end of October, Putin, who was then prime minister, said: "Fans of kickbacks and cuts should be beaten in the face!"Also a loud, biting phrase and also denoting an enemy. True, internal. The hype also began – and the next month Putin was already everywhere: he went to Russia, visited a seven-billion earthling, then, on November 3, demanded to reduce energy consumption, etc. Bloggers then sneered and suspected a split personality: a man, they say, being the chairman of the government and, perhaps, the only real ruler in an incredibly centralized country, is going to to fight corruption and requires something from, practically, state-owned companies. And political scientists mumbled under their noses: "He does everything right, intercepts the agenda from the opposition, heads it." And a month after the statement about the "faces of lovers of saws", on November 27, the congress of United Russia approved Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the post of President of the Russian Federation.

For some reason, it seems to me that what we have been seeing and hearing for the last three days is also the beginning of the presidential campaign. And not necessarily Putin – the presidential campaign of the conditional "Kremlin". In the end, it may always turn out that the authorities have some trump card with ears hidden up their sleeve. And so, both in the most probable case, that is, in the case of Putin's nomination, and in the incredible case of a presentation of a "dark horse", but a presentation made by whom and when necessary, just need scares, an enemy, a sense of the time of troubles. Because long-standing experience shows that in times of troubles, cities and villages "kiss the cross" to those who are "in Moscow", whom "Moscow has recognized". In today's conditions, "Moscow" is the "Kremlin".

Well, in order not to get up twice, they can at the same time make our biomaterials more state-owned than ours, adopt some wild law about it, prohibit or restrict something. They are not satisfied with the ridiculous and inhumane article 282, the wild powers of Roskomnadzor and the law that came into force today prohibiting anonymizers, VPNs and other popular means of circumventing Internet resources blocked in Russia to provide access to Internet resources blocked in Russia. The more you restrict a person, the easier it is to manage them. For this, "bodily juices" will do.

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