© Shutterstock
Well, as so happens, the production facility of BioNTech, the legal manufacturer of the so-called 'Pfizer' vaccine and supplier of most of the mRNA for European output is not only located in Marburg, it is the very facility where the Marburg virus outbreak occurred!
The facility is known as the Behringwerke or 'Behring Works', after the German immunologist Emil von Behring. The Marburg virus outbreak began after laboratory workers at the Behringwerke were exposed to infected monkey tissues. (See here, for instance, on ScienceDirect or here, from Vice, for a popular account, including an interview with a Behringwerke employee who survived the disease.)
BioNTech purchased the Behringwerke facility from Novartis in late 2020 in anticipation of regulatory approval of the COVID-19 vaccine that it would go on to market in collaboration with Pfizer. The company's September 17th purchase announcement is here.
The acquisition was undoubtedly facilitated by a €375 million ($445m; £320m) grant from the German Government, which BioNTech received just two days earlier. (See grant announcement here.)
The unredacted Advanced Purchased Agreement (APA) between the European Commission on the one hand, and Pfizer and BioNTech on the other, notes that "vaccine supply in Europe will primarily come from Pfizer's manufacturing site in Puurs, Belgium and shall incorporate RNA produced at BioNTech controlled manufacturing sites". (See p. 12 of the unredacted APA here.)
The passage also mentions BioNTech subcontractors who are known to be involved in various stages of preparation of the mRNA, such as purification (Rentschler) and formulation in lipid nanoparticles (Polymun). But BioNTech manufactures the 'raw' mRNA at the Behringwerke facility in Marburg.
The Epoch Times report connects the green monkey DNA to so-called SV40 - simian virus 40 - promoters. Whereas McKernan has found DNA contamination in both the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech shots, he specifically raises the alarm about SV40 promoters in what he calls the 'Pfizer' shot.
"At least on the Pfizer side of things," he says, "it has what's known as an SV40 promoter. This is an oncogenic virus piece. It's not the entire virus. However, the small piece is known to drive very aggressive gene expression."
The Behringwerke facility also has another claim to fame - or rather infamy - incidentally. Under the Third Reich, as a subsidiary of the notorious IG Farben chemical trust, the Behringwerke manufactured experimental vaccines that were tested on inmates at the Buchenwald concentration camp. (See here, for instance, from the Buchenwald Memorial museum, although the total number of inmates who died is far higher than the number cited for just January 1942.)
The experiments were at the centre of the Nuremberg 'Doctors' Trial' which gave rise to the Nuremberg Code.
Robert Kogon is a pen name for a widely-published financial journalist, translator and researcher working in Europe. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on Twitter.
Comment: See also: