Warning: this article contains content that might be disturbing to the reader. It discusses a potential pathway to a proposed (but theoretical!) mass casualty scenario of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Please proceed at your own discretion.

Why should anyone pay attention to Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche?

It has been some time since Merogenomics’ last blog post - which is highly unusual. There is only one way to explain it: Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche’s book came out and it seeks to explain everything immunologically in terms of what we have witnessed during this pandemic so far as well as a chilling scenario for the ending. His book tries to explain “the immunological theory of everything!”

And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! At least so I think, because as I will explain in a moment, I imagine there might not be anyone who can truly, fully understand this book; it just seems too complicated to follow! But also, I have not yet come across any other published material that attempts to explain the events of the pandemic from an immunological point of view and to such a degree that their theory seems to answer every mysterious aspect of the pandemic.

Why did the vaccines fail? Why didn’t we manage to stop the pandemic?

How can Omicron be more infectious but at the same less dangerous?

Why are the amounts of neutralizing antibodies disappearing so fast after vaccination?

How will the pandemic end now?

How come everyone is fine now when we still have wave after wave of infections?

Why are we having so many variants and so many waves of infection?

Why were there random infection outbreaks appearing around the world?

Without a joke, only Dr. Bossche seems to have an answer for everything using sound, scientifically rational explanations. This is probably the biggest allure of Dr. Bossche - the fact that he is the lone authority in the world that is actually providing theories and explanations to understand the current reality of this pandemic’s outcomes (including any attempted management of this pandemic). Of the literature I have gone through, there is not a second voice of knowledge that even comes close to his level of explanation as to why we are observing certain consequences in both the human and the virus populations.

Furthermore, if you have followed Dr. Bossche’s writing since he came on to the scene shortly after the mass-vaccination stage started, then you’ll know that some of his earlier dire predictions turned out to be very true – despite what the authorities said. Specifically, he warned we would experience immune escape wherein the virus would evolve to a state where antibodies would no longer provide protection from the virus.

We did not even have to wait for a year after mass vaccinations against COVID-19 started, to witness this one-of-a-kind “immune escape” mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that enabled it to seemingly be able to infect anyone: namely Omicron.

This reason alone makes Dr. Bossche’s scientific material extremely important to follow, because he connects dots that no one else seems to connect or even see. And not a single prominent scientist seems to be willing to engage Dr. Bossche in published literature with regards to his pandemic theories. I only managed to find one scientific article that attempted to criticize Dr. Bossche, but it was easy to tell that author did not have enough of an understanding of evolutionary biology to be able to live up to such a task (hence I won’t provide the link so as not to belittle anyone’s growth in knowledge because it is normal that growth needs time, and this author apparently took on the challenge too early in their understanding). I just don’t think anyone else wants that calibre of a challenge because when you study Dr. Bossche’s material, sooner or later you have to come to the conclusion that he always outsmarts you in the ability to comprehend the nuanced complexity of the entire picture. I promise that my personal attempt to demonstrate this is coming up!

But there is another reason why Dr. Bossche grabs attention - and it is a much darker one.

It is because he is predicting a doomsday scenario where he expects we may yet witness a catastrophic mass die-off event that will decimate our population to such a degree that it will lead the SARS-CoV-2 to its own accidental extinction. Here we should probably insert a trigger warning. If you are a person who stresses easily about your own well-being or the well-being of your loved ones, you might not want to proceed with reading this content or the content of Dr. Bossche in general (and maybe this somewhat explains the reason why he has not gained widespread acceptance or prominence - although definitely making ripples). This trigger warning is directed especially at COVID-19 mRNA vaccinated individuals; so this is your last chance to avert your eyes.

The reason being is that in the doomsday scenario he predicts, it would largely be affecting COVID-19 vaccinees and maybe some few who are unvaccinated but already unhealthy (the logic behind these claims is explained below). It is a very disturbing combination to think about: where some unknown genius with a background understanding and explanation for seemingly every facet of the COVID-19 pandemic grabs attention when their initial dire prediction is borne out, but then to follow that, chillingly the genius’ extrapolated conclusion to this viral evolutionary process is a vast population devastation.

It is also madly confusing because the authorities are certainly failing to provide any logical counter-explanations during the progress of the pandemic, and at the same time, no one wants to think about the consequences that Dr. Bossche believes are forthcoming. It is almost with a morbid fascination that I study his material so deeply, just in case he is bizarrely correct; we can all hopefully be a little better prepared and seek out what to do.

For these reasons, when it came out in mid-February of this year, I was quite curious to read Dr. Bossche’s new book (and was almost instantly banned by Amazon so I was lucky to buy it right before that curious decision by the tech giant) which I assumed would crystalize and expand on his prior written and video warnings. There are many aspects I was still unclear and curious about in Dr. Bossche’s past theories -which as Merogenomics I blogged about. No matter what, his complex explanations about why his theories are likely to happen, always seem just out of reach of being fully understood.

But one answer I was very much hoping and searching for is: what can we do now or in advance to mitigate any upcoming or threatening biological disaster? Surely, we don’t have to just sit passively and wait for the disaster to unfold - big or small?

But ultimately, for myself, his book deeply frustrates and even disappoints me. Let me explain.

Book content as painful to get through as the proposed pandemic predictions

The biggest issue I had with the book is that the material is so vastly complex, that even though I totally thought I was already prepared to tackle it, it was horribly overwhelming and it took a tremendous effort to even attempt to understand. I personally think that one issue at hand is that Bossche is too smart for his own good (without realising it) and so he does not simplify the context in a logical manner for the reader.

This book is simply not for anyone, and I imagine only a handful of experts in the world could actually pick it up, grasp it and read it through to its conclusion without scratching their heads even once. I think Dr. Bossche’s mind must walk through such complexity with such ease, so that when he seemingly effortlessly explains concepts that are very obvious to him, it is as if he is unaware that no one else will understand anything because no one has the background to traverse the complexities he does. As a consequence, he jumps between insanely complex topics so casually that he is oblivious that a casual reader will be absolutely lost and need to be carefully guided through this minefield of intellectual surprises.

As a consequence, the book is extremely confusing: I had to resort to a second reading with copious notes plus then I graphically mapped his reasoning in several charts (see below) before I could grasp the details. If you can pick up the book and you follow along without any confusion, you are also probably in some sort of genius category (congratulations by the way). Oftentimes he invents or uses different terms that sound close enough that one cannot ever be certain if they followed everything correctly. I was always left with that nagging feeling; did I get that right? In the end, I don’t doubt that my current understanding of Dr. Bossche’s theories are still not fully clear or totally correct, as I found out that my past understandings needed some adjustments so it is maddingly likely that my new current understanding will need further adjustments in the future!

Dr. Bossche’s perspective is that he was rushed to complete this manuscript before the doomsday scenario he is warning us of takes place (which maybe points to him expecting the impending catastrophe to being very near). That’s fine because this mission of a book was accomplished. But otherwise, I would say this book needs rewriting with someone asking Dr. Bossche a thousand questions so he can provide further explanations and background context in a bid to create a less confusing plot to follow. Thus, I hope there will be a second edition, because his message (even if incorrect with regards to predicting the future, which I hope is so) is worth understanding on a deeper level.

But maybe once delivered in a more palpable format, I think that every quality immunologist, virologist or medical doctor interested in this type of biology should familiarize themselves with his book because Bossche offers many concepts that are still quite foreign to our collective knowledge it seems. He shows you angles to contemplate that you probably never thought of before.

There are other big issues with the book. For example, one is that some of the concepts are just not explained. You basically have to be able to infer the mechanism because it does not seem to be explained directly.

One of the largest premises behind why the proposed doomsday scenario is to unfold is based on the supposition that those who took the mRNA vaccine shot (or mRNA gene therapy injection if you prefer that terminology), and those who are unvaccinated but with poor health status, will suffer from inadequate or deficient immunological memory. This in turn will predispose such individuals to a severe version of COVID-19 from future SARS-CoV-2 variants that are bound to be more pathogenic than the current ones. The reason why these individuals will suffer from deficient immunological memory is because such individuals will not be able to build this immunological memory in their innate immune system component.

Which is all fine to say, but how exactly this innate immunological memory is bypassed is not explained directly! I can only offer my thoughts but I could not find it actually stated directly anywhere in the book as far as my understanding of the material is concerned. It is a big oversight and my second largest complaint against the book. If it is stated, then hooo boy, that one went over my head (probably more than once!)

Where the Bossche book DOES deliver

However, when I first obtained the book, I was really hoping to get into the nitty gritty details behind his logic, and that we could delve deeper into this fascinating assembly of knowledge of Dr. Bossche. In some ways he did not disappoint and right from the beginning, for example, Bossche explains one curious aspect of his theory of how the vaccinated started switching what kind of antibodies they were producing. This had to do with what is referred as cognate vs non-cognate assistance from helper T-cells to B-cells (which is what is mainly needed for B-cells to be triggered to produce antibodies). This was another example of a very difficult concept to get through and I appreciated this extra education because it was a concept I was hazy about (and when I attempted to study it before, I quickly got turned off and never really properly pursued it).

So, there are gems of knowledge that are very likely to expand those of your own and these were probably the best parts of the book. But to get through the book to gain access to these gems was very, very hard.

That is enough about the book review! Now let’s get to the content!

Another warning first: this understanding might be incomplete so proceed with caution as it simply might not be accurate. As you will see, we are mapping a very complex system and I have no way of confirming where concepts might have been misunderstood. But what you are going to see below is the continuous evolution of my interpretation of Dr. Bossche’s material which we have been documenting faithfully on this blog.

But I hope this serves as a continuing framework of trying to decipher Dr. Bossche and will likely evolve further as I continue to attempt to grasp his progressing work. Remember, this understanding of the book only came by reading it twice while rereading certain sections many times over.

And my overarching lesson from the book, if I indeed took one out (but again, not explicitly stated by Bossche), is that the entire immune system’s response to the virus, and then the reactionary virus’ response to the immune system, are dependent on a nuanced relationship between the amounts of virus and antibodies at play, and a nuanced changing of shapes (and charge) of the virus molecules versus host molecules involved in the interactions with the virus. These nuances - in amount and contact surface - are what drive the profound biological effects that then drive the evolution of the pandemic.

Immunological devil is in the microscopic details

As you will see, it is much easier to understand the biological processes taking place in the unvaccinated population because they seem much simpler. This already carries a hint of irony in it because while true, the unvaccinated scenario is also complex, just far simpler than those of vaccinated.

When an unvaccinated person is infected or vaccinated for the first time, this is like having the immune system programmed in a certain fashion – programming a specific immunologic memory for a future recall. As the virus infects host cells, early on in the infection, it will result in the spike protein being presented on the surface of these cells. And right away, here we find one significant difference that Dr. Bossche alludes to that automatically makes mRNA vaccines inferior to natural infections and promptly contributes to potential disastrous consequences.

When the natural virus infects cells and leads to spike protein being presented on the surface of infected cells, the virus also happens to stimulate production of certain peptides (small chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, so you can think of peptides like being the size of a small protein fragment). These peptides apparently mimic the virus proteins, so as a consequence, the actual virus proteins on the surface of the infected cells are not properly recognized by the immune cells (called antigen presenting cells, APC) to trigger an immunological response. Rather, this immunological response only begins once the virus progeny bursts from infected cells and are in circulation looking for new victim cells to infect.

mRNA vaccines are not equipped with such powers; they only lead to the production of the spike protein so the spike proteins then end up on the surface of cells, and are processed by the immunological antigen presenting cells. This starts priming the immunological response towards antibody production much sooner than in unvaccinated individuals.

Antigen presenting cells are the cells of the immune system that first recognize foreign or transformed/diseased molecules in our body; then they destroy the cell or pathogen presenting the offensive unwelcome molecule; and finally they start presenting fragments of it to other components of the immune system to start the chain-reaction of the rest of the immunological response.

The difference is that, according to Bossche, those vaccinated spike proteins on the cell surface do not prime the immune system as effectively and hence lead to production of weaker antibodies. Whereas, the more highly specific natural antibodies are primed into production once the virus is in the circulation, and are then picked off by the antigen presenting cells which then present fragments of the spike protein to the immune system.

The weaker antibodies though, actually help the virus down the road by pushing the evolutionary selection of more infectious mutant variants of the virus. So from right out the gate this is one difference to which Bossche brings attention.

During the natural process, helper T-cells are activated by the virus molecules as well. These helper T-cells are important to subsequently activate B-cells to start producing antibodies. Before that can happen, B-cells are also recognizing viral particles. But importantly, B-cells are also antigen presenting cells so once they are activated by a specific virus fragment, they will absorb the viral particle, and the B-cell will then present it itself to the helper T-cell. If the shape and charge of the virus molecule that activated the helper T-cell is same as the one that activated the B-cell, the helper T-cell will recognize it and stimulate the B-cell to start producing antibodies against that very viral fragment pattern that was recognized by both the B-cell and the helper T-cell. This is referred to as cognate helper T-cells activation of B-cells. B-cells activated by cognate helper T-cells end up producing high quality, target specific antibodies which are ideal because they can be virus neutralizing if targeting just the right element of the pathogen.

However, the production of high levels of this type of very specific antibody requires time because the immune system’s first response is generalized, broad and weak. What takes time is to select for the production of enough highly specific antibodies to then produce them in sufficient amounts to be strongly effective against the pathogen. This is referred to as the maturation process and takes several months. This is one of the key reasons why ideally, we would want to be vaccinated at least several months before encountering a pathogen against which we get immunized with a vaccine.

If the shape and charge of the virus molecule that activated the helper T-cells is not the same as the one that activated the B-cell, the helper T-cell will not recognize it and will not promote activation of the B-cell to start producing antibodies.

But if the shape and charge of the virus molecule that activated the helper T-cell is only somewhat similar as the one that activated the B-cell, then the helper T-cell can still recognize it and activate the B-cell to start producing antibodies against that very viral fragment pattern that was recognized by the B-cell, but only partially recognized by the helper T-cell. So now we had a bit of disconnect happening here. It means that now we are activating B-cells to produce antibodies against slightly different targets. This is referred to as non-cognate helper T-cells activation of B-cells.

B-cells activated by non-cognate helper T-cells end up producing low quality target specific antibodies which will need to mature through further selection processes for several months.

In other words, this approach leads to a shifting of antibody specificity and at the same time introduces a window of overall antibody “weakness” while the B-cells immunological response matures.

On top of that, if we are changing the type of antibodies we are producing, if that shift is not towards good viral targets (i.e., the viral targets are not easily found and recognized by the antibodies), we would not really want that. Ideally, we would only want to risk of shifting our antibody response (and hazarding the period of weakness during which the antibodies are maturing) only if the resulting antibodies are better against the virus.

Immunological response in unvaccinated

When an unvaccinated person encounters the virus for the very first time, assuming they did not have underlying conditions, before the virus can infect some cells, it has to first get through the innate immune system.

According to Dr. Bossche, it is actually this inherent, always present, and non-specific anti-pathogen arm of our immune system that actually clears the bulk of infections. This rigorous wall of defense is comprised of chemicals, antibodies and killer cells and is in fact so powerful and effective, that this is the reason why when the pandemic first started, the actual infection rate of the SARS-CoV-2 was so low. When the pandemic first started, no one had any antibodies that were specific against the virus, so other defenses were at work protecting us.

Bossche thinks that overall, there is a great unfamiliarity of this simple fact (not to mention that at the moment science cannot really control it or manipulate it, so maybe we chose to be ignorant), and this is why or experts are too eager to focus solely on antibody production.

What is also really interesting, is that not long ago it was discovered that the innate immune system (that is this first line of defense) can also be trained. So that exposure to the virus makes it more effective against future encounters.

And ultimately, it is lack of this training for the innate immune system that will be one of the main reasons for the impending disaster he envisions. Specifically, the key components of the innate immune system that are trained in the initial clearance of the virus are the Natural Killer cells (via epigenetic reprogramming which can include coding of additional chemical instructions on top of the DNA to determine how the cell’s DNA is to be used). Bossche refers to it as cell-based innate immune system (CBIIS).

Needless to say, the innate immune system is supposed to take care of the bulk of the infecting virus amount, so that only a limited quantity of virus is in the end involved in the infection. As already mentioned, it is only once the viral progeny are released from infected cells that the bulk of immune system activation (priming) will be taking place to produce virus specific antibodies that need a few months to mature.

Once mature, if a person is reinfected by the same virus (that has not substantially mutated), the B cells that have previously been activated to recognize such virus will quickly be turned on to now rapidly produce highly specific antibodies. Binding of these antibodies to the virus will help to deal with the infection (which ultimately has to be ended by removal of any remaining infected cells as they result in more virus progenies).

And in the meantime, dealing with the infection helped to build immunological memory for both the innate immune response (the immediate, always present response) and the adaptive immune response (the one we train by exposure only and does not exist without such exposure).

But in the critical period of time before the antibodies mature, there are some possibilities.

A person can get re-infected before the antibodies are top notch at fighting the virus.

In the very early stages of infection, the first antibodies to respond are the IgM variety. IgM are curious because they are also weak in comparison to the much stronger binding IgG or IgA type of antibodies that arrive later on the scene. What makes IgM special in this early fight is that they travel in packs, five of them bound together. So, they are like an octopus with many tentacles. The tentacles might not be that strong, but there are enough of them to start mopping up the remainder of pathogen that was not yet cleared up by the immune system.

These antibodies are also short lived and should be gone by 6-8 weeks.

This is a dangerous window of opportunity to get reinfected as this will bring lots more of the virus to deal with but with only weak antibodies to attempt to fight against it. Such a reinfection while weak antibodies are still coursing around means they will not only NOT manage to clean up the pathogen, but also, they will commence putting immune pressure on the virus. Immune pressure is basically like saying a virus is being challenged (attacked) but without full effect (virus clearance) which now means that the virus has an opportunity to find a random mutant that will perform better under this pressure. In other words, the immune pressure being placed on the virus is a pressure for evolution to take place (where a new mutated virus has an advantage over other virus peers to pass on that mutation to the next generation). This is how each of the waves of different variants we have been observing over and over throughout this pandemic were selected into existence. It is always due to some continuing immune pressure taking place. When Merogenomics first published about Dr.Bossche, my understanding of his information (which is constantly changing because he keeps adding layers and layers of complexity), was that this also might be an evolutionary development to specifically make sure that enough people actually do get infected again and if they survive, really push towards a primed immunological response. This is because to stop a pandemic naturally (without vaccine intervention which has never been available to us till recently in our medical history) you need the correct balance between people who provide protection with their innate immunity and just the right amount of those who were infected, had the disease due to that infection and survived to provide adaptive immunity just enough to really limit the virus spread, but not enough to invoke the immune pressure on the virus. I assumed why this might work is because it is going to be primarily young healthy people that are most likely to be re-infected and hence have a good chance of survival and thus helping rapidly build the herd immunity.

Where it gets tricky is when in that gap of weak immunity a person gets re-infected but with a new mutant virus that already has some advantages, such as being more infectious.

This is an especially dangerous point mainly for mRNA vaccinated individuals - which we will get to later on.

But in the unvaccinated, re-infection with a more infectious version of the virus (such as the Omicron has mutated to be) will lead to higher levels of virus that are not being properly attacked by antibodies that are made against the older version of the variant, and therefore are not as likely to successfully neutralize the virus. Bossche refers to these as potentially neutralizing antibodies (pNAbs). So these are not ideal antibodies anymore but they still bind to the virus. As a consequence of this “not ideal binding” a new event is described by Bossche that we never encountered previously in his discourses (so another nugget of information in the book).

This non-perfect antibody that is now available in high amounts (this is key!) because it is part of the immune response that now interacts with the altered virus, it leads to viral aggregates. This is a little weird to understand. Basically, it sounds like these weak imperfectly binding antibodies help to clump virus particles together and the key is that this clumping together allows a new way of presenting the virus components to the immune system.¹ The viral particles are presented as a clumped repetitive pattern (Bossche also calls it polymeric – meaning many of – repetitive arrays). Formation of this array is allowing exposure of parts of the spike protein that are typically not easily accessible and observed by the targeting immune system components. They are normally hidden from the immune system (they are not immunogenic because they do not typically stimulate immune responses) and they are even referred to as immunocryptic epitopes. Just to remind you, an epitope is the 3D molecular surface that is recognized by an antibody.

Therefore, to expose these normally hidden (immunocryptic) parts of the virus particles, the virus particle has to be forced to change its shape. In this case, we are talking about the spike protein being induced to exhibit a different shape to expose the previously hidden parts. Proteins changing their shape is also referred to as protein undergoing a conformational change. So, protein altering its conformational change means the protein is changing its 3D shape to some degree. Elsewhere in the book I fished out that specifically it is the N-terminal domain of the spike protein that is exposed in this array pattern.

But these arrays being presented are also different from another point of view. They will restimulate previously primed memory B-cells (meaning these B cells were activated by the previous virus variant) but do not require any help from helper T-cells. In other words, they lead to a new class of antibodies produced by B-cells independently of helper T-cells (meaning, antibodies that are different from all of the ones we have already discussed). This is of huge biological consequence, and it appears to be a seldom utilized secret weapon by the virus.

First, there is no immunological memory being built because no helper T-cells are used to induce B-cells in that direction. Second, the antibodies are weak, polyspecific (they will bind to many similarly shaped targets) and non-functional because they do not neutralize the virus. Bossche refers to these as polyreactive non-neutralizing antibodies (PNNAbs).

In fact, the opposite is true. These PNNAbs enhance virus binding to the ACE-2 receptor and promote virus infection!

To see how such spike protein N-terminal domain could interact with antibodies that promote infection you can visit the linked article and/or see the video below:

So, it is this immunological chain process (where an unvaccinated person is reinfected with a more infectious variant during a critical period of immature innate immunity) that can result in PNNAbs antibodies reacting against immunocryptic epitopes that apparently is responsible for inhibiting the training of the innate immune system (preventing proper CBIIS training).

How that happens exactly was not explicitly explained in the book to my knowledge, or at least it was so obscure that I had no chance of understanding it.

Therefore my inference is that this has to do with the relationship of neutralizing antibodies to the total virus amount that ultimately determines if the innate immune system is trained or not because this ratio/relationship would determine the extent of antigen presenting cells having the opportunity to process the virus and induce immune response. Proper presentation of viral particles by the antigen presenting cells induces innate immunity training. Lack of appropriate presentation prevents this.

So what happens at this stage with the unvaccinated person?

That seems to depend. If their trained innate immunity was working well, it would reduce the level of the virus which would mean that while the non-ideal pNAb antibodies binding to the virus might have stimulated the production of PNNAbs, overall there is enough of pNAbs to ensure that they are processed by the antigen presenting cells which stimulates the arm of the immune response that includes killer T-cells as well as Natural Killer cells, which not only get to be trained to recognize the latest version of the pathogen infected cells, they also kill such cells and clear the infection.

But if the innate immunity was not properly trained, now you could have an issue where there is no longer reduced viral load to start with, not to mention that PNNAbs also promote virus infection, and there is just not enough antibodies to be able to allow for rapid and effective stimulation of antigen presenting cells and the virus clearance might not be as effective by killer cells. This will lead to production of symptomatic infection and also further reduced training of the innate immune killer cells. Bossche refers to this as breakthrough infection (BTI).²

And in mRNA vaccinated individuals this can go to another whole level that can actually lead to reshaping of the immune response which ultimately only pushes viral evolution towards a more pathogenic state. It is important to add, that prior to the Omicron variant, this would not have been possible because the neutralizing capacity of the antibodies was not low enough to promote the production of PNNAbs (or in other words, to promote the viral array aggregates that stimulate the PNNAbs development).

Protection from COVID-19 but not other diseases

We have previously discussed these PNNAbs infection-enhancing antibodies (as how previously Bossche referred to them) based on prior Bossche writings. If we compare previous notes with current ones, there still seems to be some unexplained gaps but we just have to ignore those until future clarity.

An important point to remember is that these PNNAbs, while they promote infection in the upper respiratory tract where we usually first encounter the virus, they reduce the transfer of the virus to more distant organs (including lower respiratory tract and lungs) which is why we are now seeing reduced severity of the disease.

How is this achieved?

It appears that PNNAbs, by binding to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, they prevent that domain from being bound by sugar molecules that can be found on the surface of dendritic cells.³ Ironically dendritic cells are some of the important antigen presenting cells, so they are key in fighting the infection. But as they course through the body and tissues in search of a pathogen to destroy, sometimes, the pathogens can just attach to the dendritic cell (via sugar molecules bound to lectins - proteins that interact with specific sugars) and go for a ride! Thus, it appears that inadvertently dendritic cells can spread an infection to other regions of the body. Bossche refers to this as trans infection, or transferring of infection from one area of the body to another. This is apparently what we have seen previously prior to the Omicron. But Omicron has become so effective at escaping the neutralizing antibodies, that it easily stimulates production of PNNAbs and these PNNAbs reduce the severity of the disease because they compete with dendritic cells for the binding to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein.

But it is this suppression of the disease by PNNAbs that may be the final straw in the evolution of the virus towards a much more pathogenic version down the road. And it will be the emergence of this future pathogenic variant, due to the immune pressure of PNNAbs on the virus’ ability to develop the disease (virus pathogenicity) that, if combined with the untrained innate immunity in the vaccinated, then it could lead to Bossche’s disaster scenario.

But before we go there, one final option in the current realm of the unvaccinated. The final option is that the unvaccinated could have been re-infected by a variant even more powerful than the Omicron (what Bossche refers to as early Omicron-derived sub variants, or EOSVs).

These current Omicron-derived variants (what we are dealing with right now), are now so powerful that they can completely bypass the use of PNNAbs as they are so infectious, they do not need to rely on PNNAbs to promote the infection. Thus, they so fiercely infect the cells that PNNAbs or pNAbs do not have even much chance to interact before cells are infected. These Omicron-derived variants have a couple big consequences of their own.

First, they promote inflammation which in turn results in an enhanced production of lectins (which can bind to specific type of sugars found on the spike protein) on the surface of the dendritic cells. This means more of the dendritic cells can tend to interact with the virus via the spike protein N-terminal domain. This in turn will remove some of the virus from circulation, which in combination with the original effect of trained immune system on also removing some virus load, skews the number of available pNAbs to virus ratio to still allow virus uptake by the antigen presenting cells and trigger the killer cells to clean up the infection.

But again, here is another twist. These dendritic cells could also be interacting with other pathogens as well and promoting disease development in those who might be susceptible.

In addition, all of this constant activation of antigen presenting cells to constantly work with the SARS-CoV-2 virus fragments also reduces their availability to work with any other pathogens to present their fragments to the immune system. This means, we can just over-focus the immune system in one direction and it is not working as efficiently with other pathogens.

If I follow Bossche correctly, this at least partially explains why we have seen the many unusual disease outbreaks of different kinds around the world in a short succession.

The image below summarizes what we have been discussing thus far.

And this now finally provides us with enough background to tackle the mRNA vaccinated individuals.

mRNA vaccinated or unvaccinated with poor health status

The story for these individuals is much different, and Dr. Bossche never minced any words when he stated that he thought mRNA vaccination was going to be a calamity. Let’s see to what degree we can unpack this riddle. First, he blames the rapid evolution of the virus that we indeed have observed to be due to the mass vaccination during the pandemic because this has induced the perfect conditions for the virus to evolve away from our meagre weapons, and as a consequence we now have to deal with a much more dangerous situation.

As already alluded to above, it seems Bossche is stating that mRNA vaccinations automatically predispose individuals to negative outcomes by helping promote the immune pressure on the virus which will eventually lead to a virus evolution into an entity that will no longer be recognized by the very immune system that mRNA vaccines were responsible for programming. Thus, short term protection was traded for long term failure that is only going to be seen down the road.

Originally, part of those “down the road” consequences was the eventual selection of the Omicron variant (which Bossche predicted early on and which we eventually witnessed) which was the game changer. Indeed, we can all recall that prior to Omicron the world was zealously divided into two camps: unvaccinated vs vaccinated, and there was no opportunity to accept any reasonable circumstances to belong in either of the camps. The media and many of the authorities were promoting the unsubstantiated idea of the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. This all categorically changed when suddenly the Omicron variant arrived that could infect anyone, and we were all back in the same spot: all at risk of infection once again. Nobody understood what just suddenly happened and why.

In Bossche’s world, Omicron is the game changer, and is this immune escape variant that charts the path to evolution of future, more pathogenic variants.

Thus far we could summarize these events as follows.

Now let’s start with the Omicron craziness in the vaccinated.

At first, we have the same scenario we described in the unvaccinated, if a person is infected with a more powerful variant so that the available antibodies are not properly neutralizing antibodies. Once again, we are going to experience the production of weak viral aggregates and the development of infection-enhancing antibodies (PNNAbs).

But the vaccinated, on account of not having had their innate immune system trained, start with much higher levels of the virus. This means that unlike what we have seen in the unvaccinated, the ratio of potentially neutralizing antibodies is higher. And on top of that you have high levels of PNNAbs being stimulated into production which further induces virus infection and more virus level production.

And this leads to a dramatic shift in the biological course, what Bossche refers to as steric immune refocusing (SIR), an event that essentially changes which antibodies are produced against the virus. And it is not in our favour, but in favour of the virus, leading to the development of poorer and poorer quality antibodies. This explains why we have seen such rapid reduction in antibody’s efficiency especially in the vaccinated (for latest review see below video).

How does immune refocusing happen?

The hint is in the name. Steric refers to steric hindrance which is another way of saying “blocking access to”. So, what is blocking access to what? It is the weak potentially neutralizing antibodies (pNAbs) that now can weakly interact with the virus spike protein, not enough though to induce sufficient uptake of the virus particles by the antigen presenting cells (which is key in preventing steric immune refocusing) but just enough to also start blocking easy access to the most obvious, most prominent fragments of the virus (dominant epitopes) by immune cells such as B-cells.

This means in this situation we do not have previously primed memory B-cells recalled into action because the dominant epitopes that would trigger them again are partially masked by these poor-quality antibodies. In the mean time we do have a recall of previous cognate helper T-cells that are eager to activate B-cells. And they do! But not the previously made memory B-cells against the dominant epitopes of the virus. Instead, because of the masking, new previously un-activated B-cells are being activated from scratch by these helper T-cells against other areas of the virus that would not be the most obvious immediate target (or subdominant epitopes). So now we are stimulating new B-cells to launch the production of completely new lines of antibodies against different areas of the virus that are not as easily targeted. So immediately the immune system is refocused towards building worse quality antibodies.

On top of that, remember, the helper T-cells activated the B-cells that were actually recognizing slightly different version of the virus then these T-cells did when they were first called into action. This means that these helper T-cells are activating these new B-cells in a non-cognate manner: the virus fragment that helper T-cells recognized is not identical to what B-cell that is being activated has recognized.

This also leads to rapid production of poor-quality, low binding antibodies that will not be effectively clearing the virus, but instead rapidly placing high immune pressure on the virus. And that means once again, evolution of the virus that will lead to immune escape!

If we are following everything correctly, these subdominant epitopes are exposed by formation of those viral particles arrays that also induced the formation of PNNAbs. In this case we are talking about the spike protein on the surface of either newly infected cells or post vaccine booster where cells took up the vaccine genetic mRNA code and also resulted in the arrays of spike proteins on the surface of cells.

Thus, these helper T-cells might be able to activate some of the B-cells in the cognate manner but now there is also opportunity to activate new B-cells in non-cognate manner to shift the production towards new (and worse) antibodies.

So, by developing poor antibodies that could not help remove the virus but started restricting access to most desirable epitopes for the immune system to be most effective, the immune system was redirected into probably the worst possible case scenario: poor quality attack against one of the most rapidly dividing adversaries we could come across (and therefore having the ability to rapidly mutate as with each replication random mutations can always sneak in).

There seems to be some sort of threshold below which a virus is no longer properly removed by the immune system. So, when the simple random mutations produced every time viruses are dividing and producing copies of themselves show up, it is at this threshold at which the immune pressure begins for a selection of a key mutation that likely will exhibit an obvious advantage to survive in this environment.

Above that threshold, there seems to be no longer immune pressure because the immune system is effective enough to block easy viral transfer amongst our population host members. This is where we reach herd immunity. The goal of every immunization is to hopefully produce an effective weapon against the pathogen so that it is kept in check. If that weapon is not effective, because it no longer happens to match the pathogen, just like what happened during this pandemic, this condition is the evolutionary breeding grounds for selection of new variants.

And we have seen a dizzying array of these new variants during the pandemic, beyond anyone’s expectation in the whole wide world. There was no expert, that I know of, that was warning about this stunning surprise of the pandemic evolutionary capacity. It is still a head scratcher for scientists and authorities it seems. Even Bossche was surprised by this. He expected the virus to become dangerously pathogenic a long time ago. He was also admittedly surprised by the viral evolutionary events we are witnessing (variant after variant showing up non-stop). He did adjust his theories, and this is what this book of his is attempting to get across. Bossche claims in some of his video interviews that we might potentially be seeing evolution compressed to such a degree, that under non-pandemic circumstances, it could have potentially taken centuries to witness selection of so many variants as we have witnessed already in this pandemic.

And this is only the first of two back-to-back steric immune refocusing events! This first one, according to Bossche, would immediately lead to repeat of the same cycle of events: another round of steric immune refocusing!

The first round of steric immune refocusing resulted in the immune pressure on the virus that resulted in virus mutations being evolutionary selected for that reduced the ability of antibodies to effectively fight the virus. Meaning, development of an even worse set of antibodies (targeting even less dominant epitopes than before - those that are even less accessible).

There might be support for this idea as Merogenomics did a video on the virus’ evolution as deciphered by looking at actual, isolated viral genetic codes and it indeed appears that post mass-vaccination, the virus evolution shifted towards escaping antibodies.

Thus, now we are dealing with an even more effective virus attacking us (now we are into the post-Omicron era!). Along the way, symptoms of disease largely disappeared because of the PNNAbs preventing targeting of the virus to more distant organs/tissues. Ironically, while the symptoms disappeared, we have been fighting the virus so poorly, it had opportunity to evolve to be more effective against us. Sounds like a bit of a paradox, and indeed, Bossche is the only scientist I have come across that provides any explanation for it.

So then, this even more effective virus can now escape the antibodies even better, and once again we are dealing with sub-par quality antibodies that cannot effectively stimulate antigen processing cells to help deal with infection, while simultaneously having antibodies that sterically mask the subdominant epitopes. Thus, the previous poor-quality antibodies have already masked the domain epitopes, steering the immune system into the direction of producing the antibodies against subdominant epitopes and now these antibodies are repeating the same mistake, leading to redirection of the immune system to produce antibodies against even worse viral fragments (like sub-sub dominant epitopes!).

Once again, the B-cells against the subdominant epitopes are not properly recalled (remember, B-cells also need few months to fully mature) because those epitopes are now masked by the bad quality antibodies (pNAbs), and once again, they are stimulated by helper T-cells in a non-cognate matter: meaning, we are steering the immune system in a new direction again!

Another round of immune escape rapidly ensues.

This second round, according to Bossche, could lead to selection of virus mutants that are more infectious, i.e. those mutants that can bind to ACE-2 receptors on our host cells even better.

The product of that second round of steric immune refocusing is the evolution of a new monster family of Omicron subvariants – the current state we are in at the moment!

This state of pandemic evolution in mRNA vaccinated individuals is represented in the graph below.

Of course, the reprogramming of the immune system towards priming new B-cells against subdominant epitopes does not just result in the rapid production of weak antibodies. Eventually these B-cells can also undergo their own maturation process to lead to higher quality antibodies, but again, that would take time. But along the way due this delayed maturation of antibodies and with the constant exposure to the spike protein, the immune system, according to Bossche, is also triggered into a class switch of antibodies, specifically towards IgG4. These antibodies are made when the body wants to become tolerant to an invading molecule. But IgG4 cannot be processed by antigen presenting cells. Thus, these antibodies would also be helping in the development of steric immune refocusing.

Merogenomics recently reported on the observation that some mRNA vaccinated individuals have been showing increased production of IgG4 antibodies, which once again, seems to have caught our experts by a surprise.

Needless to say, this might not be a good sign, and perhaps a certain indicator to Bossche as to what is happening?

Current push to more pathogenic variants

This basically brings us up to the current state of events according to Bossche. After two rounds of steric immune refocusing, the virus has had the opportunity to become so effective at dodging our antibodies and so infectious that it can just bypass them and go straight for the jugular and infect our cells. No stopping it (except for any trained innate immunity which can recognise different patterns than just antibodies).

This means that now in vaccinated individuals, there is a massive quantity of virus, easily produced. This triggers similar events to what we already described in the unvaccinated. Because the virus can now so easily infect, it no longer can trigger the steric immune refocusing because antibodies no longer have the opportunity to mask anything. They are just bypassed.

These massive higher levels of virus now lead to inflammation, which is sensed by the body, leading to dendritic cells producing more lectin sugar-binding molecules, which means now they are capturing the virus more frequently. This means that competition between PNNAbs blocking the virus being transferred to distant organs and dendritic cells capable of achieving capture is increasing and now this is creating yet another immune pressure! But this time the immune pressure could likely be for the virus to change in such a way that PNNAbs will no longer elicit that protection.

In this scenario, vaccinated individuals will suddenly come under attack by a virus that can completely bypass their innate immune system, bypass their antibodies, with a virus that is more infectious and on top of that now, a virus that is more pathogenic! Bossche coined a new term for this future monster, and calls it highly virulent Omicron-derived variant (HIVICRON).

This is the calamity that Bossche warns against.

One interesting by-product of the infection with the latest Omicron subvariants is that they still form weak viral aggregates and still promote PNNAbs formation, even if by now PNNAbs no longer help the virus to be more infectious (because the virus is so efficient at recognizing ACE-2 receptor, it just does no longer benefit from this). These PNNAbs slow down the immune pressure on the virus for the evolution process to be delayed.

But once the PNNAbs levels drop enough in due time, suddenly we will have only marginal effects of what PNNAbs will be able to achieve with regards to competing with dendritic cells for their role in trans infection and that is when the future mutant variants of the virus will be selected. Bossche informs us that this future mutation will allow the virus to adopt a new pattern of sugar molecules being attached to the spike protein that will prevent PNNAbs from being able to have any effect. At that point, the protection from severe disease that PNNAbs are currently providing us with will be gone.

The new boosters ironically helped to prolong the impending disaster by allowing further production of protective PNNAbs, but at the same time, increased the number of people involved in putting evolutionary pressure for the virus to adapt.

In other words, according to Bossche, there is no escape from this. Hence the title of his book, the immune escape evolution of the virus we are seeing because we mass vaccinated the world is inescapable: the inescapable immune escape pandemic.

Another by-product is that now there are ample antigen presenting cells involved in activating the killer cells. They are now rapidly cleaning up the infection as a consequence that they basically remove the presence of all symptoms. But along the way, our system’s ability to focus on antigen processing is all dedicated to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and there is no room to be processing biological material of other pathogens. As a consequence, while we are well protected from COVID-19, our immune systems are still exposed to all other pathogens. Hence the bouts of infections sprouting up that we are witnessing around the world.

I guess, all of these are signs to Bossche that we are in the final stage of the emergence of HIVICRON. Bossche rushed with this book because he felt this is how imminent this selection of HIVICRON could be. And once HIVICRON emerges, he believes that the mortality rate will be so enormous and so rapid (primarily amongst the mRNA vaccinated who did not have the opportunity to train their innate immune system with the natural infection), that this will accidentally drive the virus into its own extinction.

The virus will achieve such a high level of being dangerous to hosts, and kill so many people so fast, it will actually result in sudden collapse of our population having the ability to transmit the virus among ourselves. Without enough transmission among people, the virus cannot survive too long. Remember, the vast majority of unvaccinated people should be spared because they had their innate immune system trained appropriately to effectively fight the virus.

I am not sure how to react to Bossche’s doomsday scenarios. It is really worrying to study this. If this were to happen, we are talking about something horrible. Part of me wishes he is certainly wrong, and I try to look for information that will expose his theory to be wrong.

The only problem, as you can see from above, Bossche thinks of so many details that no one can really match him in terms of all possible angles of biology contributing their effects. No one is probably smart enough to even be able to contradict him.

The only hopeful nugget I can think of where Bossche is wrong is his timing. He has been warning about this calamity ever since mass vaccination began. That’s now two years later. He has come up with a new theory to explain why it is taking longer, and it is a grand theory (of everything) but it has also been several months since he has been exposing this latest theory, and in all of that time he has also been suggesting that HIVICRON could arrive in months, even possibly mere weeks if the conditions are right. Well, it has been months and luckily, we are blissfully living a normal life right now. Part of me hopes he is wrong and some other surprising outcome will arrive instead, just like he was surprised that steric immune refocusing took place along the PNNAbs. And that along the way, a proper biological balance will be restored that will end the pandemic in a different manner than what Bossche predicts.

During the production of this article, Bossche indeed published a new piece on his site where, for the first time that I am aware of, he started outlining possibilities where his worst case scenario might not materialize. Up to this point, he typically professed his certainty of the impending doom as always more than 100%. Maybe he is reconsidering his theories in light of how long it has been taking, and honestly, it is the first glimmer of hope that I have seen Bossche toss our way that maybe everything will just turn out fine.

The other disconcerting part is that along the way, while studying published science on the pandemic, some of the published information can support Bossche’s theory. We pointed out a few examples here (videos above and references therein). But that could just be Bossche’s own skillful interpretation of seeing that very same science, and knowing how to adapt his theory to explain all of these scientific observations. After all, that is what makes Bossche so unique. He has explanations for seemingly everything in the pandemic.

So what if Bossche is right?

This is the question that is constantly nagging at me. Even perhaps, why I study Bossche so diligently. Part of me wants to understand his unparalleled explanation of the pandemic events from immunological and virus evolution point of view, partly to see if he changes his mind or if I can find patterns to start doubting his theory of the impending mass casualty catastrophe; plus, I have to think – assuming that he could be right, and if he is right, what does it mean to all of us?

So, let me spitball the situation a bit. What if I am an mRNA vaccinated individual that is now predisposed to deadly infection by HIVICRON, what can I do?

This was my biggest disappointment with Bossche’s book. It offers nothing in terms of any steps of protection. It is not like there was nothing we could do if his predictions were to come true.

The first threat is obviously getting infected. Can I avoid getting infected? Probably the biggest line of defense because if infection does not take place, the body is allowed otherwise a normal healthy existence.

So that means, can I escape a population that could infect me. Being able to completely isolate from people for several months (Bossche thinks that once death waves start, the pandemic will end quickly). So, I would think I need to either achieve that in the city (tough) or I move out of the city into a sparsely populated area.

Another option is moving to an area that is made up of mostly unvaccinated people. Such populations would have a form of herd immunity protection due to the high number of unvaccinated with their trained innate immunity. At the moment, the only area of the world that did not participate in the mRNA mass vaccination experiment is Africa. That is where the largest populations of unvaccinated exist. So as a vaccinated person could I move to Africa or another region that is made up of mostly unvaccinated people?

These are some basics that come to mind. How do I escape the infection? Very hard but not impossible obviously.

Then I wonder, can I do anything to improve my immune system?

Personally, my first thought is to reduce the state of disease as much as possible and not add to the already compromised immune system. This means mainly: reduce inflammation.

This is where practicing a healthy lifestyle comes in. If you wondered why a healthy lifestyle is so beneficial, reducing inflammation is a good reason that can spring to mind! That quality of lifestyle should extend all the way to including good mental health too.

How else can I improve my system?

A couple ideas that spring to my mind, that are of interest to me: supplements, and fasting.

Supplements can help with boosting the quality of the immune system and a Merogenomics video covered the science behind vitamin D and vitamin A (below). What would truly be the smartest combination of supplements? I would want to find out from the true top world experts, but I also like to study the science on my own (hence the videos created).

And fasting is an interesting concept that possibly could help maintain the body in a better molecular shape, including stimulating the production of new immune system cells. The question is: can we help restore the quality of our immune system if we stimulate the production of new immune cells through fasting? So, this is another area I investigate.

An unusual or unorthodox attempt to improve the immune system could be through the concept of optimism training. Basically, happy life, happy immune system. This falls under quality of lifestyle, and what I meant by good mental health. The science behind optimism is very interesting and it seems to confirm that optimism has a positive influence on the immune system. And if that is the case, yes, I am willing to try to train my optimism in the same way they have tried in scientific papers. This is just another personal time investment but of course I will welcome positive mood outcomes irrespective of the immune system effect.

I think Dr. Bossche, with his expertise, should chime in on such an important topic. If he is predicting that those who took mRNA injection are now at risk, why not say what they could do to minimize that risk?

The only hint of anything of that nature was mentioning the potential use of antivirals. But here now Bossche is not certain if this approach will work any longer. He has been proposing this earlier, but now with the constant evolution of the virus, the window of effective use of antivirals might have disappeared although perhaps it can still be an effective method in countries with low vaccination rates.

This is why my interest in Vitamin A is so fascinating because it could be like an antiviral against COVID-19 while at the same time apparently fulfilling its role in helping boost our immune systems.

Does that mean we should be monitoring our levels of vitamin A to make sure it is at appropriate levels?

At this point, with so little science on pathology post-vaccination coming out, I cannot think of anything else but at least here are my own first basics.

And at the top of the list, if Bossche is right, hide and hopefully run away from any high population centre.

In the meantime, in case he is right, practice as healthy a lifestyle as you possibly can muster! If Bossche is wrong, you are not losing anything, only gaining good habits.

Finally, to hedge your bets, consider improving your immune system somehow. Here, you must do your own thorough education, of course. There are non-invasive ways, probably the least risky being training that self-optimism. Everything else might automatically not be for everyone, because our personal biologics are diverse and can have differences in response. This includes fasting or supplements. So, proceed in these areas with care.

I am sure there are tons of ideas but at least this shows you which angles to at least start thinking of protection against Bossche’s dark predictions.

To conclude, it is probably worth being aware of Bossche’s theory, but don’t bother reading the book unless you are a genius or good expert in the field, and consider options in case he is right.

Oh Bossche!

1. This statement might not be the correct interpretation. Instead of the pNAbs clumping the virus, based on further studies of Dr. Bossche's material, the clumping is dependent on how much progeny is released. Large quantities of the virus progeny can lead to this clustering. The PNNAbs are the byproduct of exposure to these viral aggregates.
2. Actually, breakthrough infection is used only for infection post-vaccination and Dr. Bossche uses different term for re-infection in unvaccinated, but we will use the same term for both events for the sake of simplicity.
3. This statement might also be incorrect in that it is possibly not the sugar molecules on dendritic cells that are captured by the spike protein but the other way around. Rather, dendritic cells latch onto the sugar molecules on the spike protein via their lectin proteins. Later in this article, this mechanism is mentioned, indicating how confusing the understanding of this aspect was. 

This article has been produced by Merogenomics Inc. and edited by Jason Chouinard, B.Sc. Reproduction and reuse of any portion of this content requires Merogenomics Inc. permission and source acknowledgment. It is your responsibility to obtain additional permissions from the third party owners that might be cited by Merogenomics Inc. Merogenomics Inc. disclaims any responsibility for any use you make of content owned by third parties without their permission.

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