The FunVax
The Pentagon, Washington D.C., April 13, 2005
In April 2nd, 2012, a four minute video depicting a scene from a meeting in a lecture hall was uploaded to Youtube. From the time and location stamp on the video, it seems the meeting took place in Room BC232 in the Pentagon on April 13th, 2005. The camera shows someone giving a presentation and at least six people observing and they all seem to be wearing business suits.
The presenter is discussing religious fundamentalists and fanatics and how their brains light up when certain religious texts are read, which he attributes to the expression of the VMAT2 gene.
He shows two comparative graphs and two comparative brain scans to demonstrate how the VMAT2 gene functions in the mind of a fundamentalist and in that of a non fundamentalist.
“The virus would immunize against this VMAT2 gene ... The present plan and the tests we have done so far have used respiratory viruses, such as flu or rhinovirus and we believe that is a satisfactory way to get the exposure of the largest part of the population”. He is asked for the name of the virus and states that it is called “FunVax” which is the vaccine for religious fundamentalism.
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In 2004, Dean Hamer, a geneticist, author and film maker published his book “The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes” in which he discussed the idea that biology and genetics may explain why some people are more or less likely to develop a spiritual outlook than others. This book received quite a bit of attention in the media and there were articles in 2004 in Time Magazine and Scientific American that discuss this idea.
By spiritual, Hamer does not mean “religious” but takes the definitions of two American psychologists, Abraham Maslow and Robert Cloninger. Maslow, an avowed atheist, believed that spiritual people or “self actualizers” as he called them, were highly ethical but not always conventional in their morality, and were generally compassionate to others. They may also have had “peak experiences” - moments of meaning and clarity which Maslow described as "rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter."
Hamer discussed one of the biological markers for being a more spiritual person, the VMAT2 gene found in the human genome. He discussed twins and siblings that had similar genetic makeup, but not exactly the same, and also compared their spiritual outlook. He was not so much concerned as to whether or not they believed in God or were a member of a religious order, but looked at these factors outlined by Cloninger to measure spirituality:
- Self Forgetfulness - the ability to immerse oneself in an activity and forget about time (e.g. meditation, making music, gardening, etc.)
- Transpersonal Identification - the ability to identify with other people, creatures, beings and make sacrifices for their sake at the expense of the self
- Mysticism - a fascination and acceptance of things that can not be explained.
The definition of “spiritual” as defined by Hamer, Maslow and Cloninger is completely at odds to “religious” as defined by the man promoting the “Funvax” video. The mysticism of spiritual people is completely antithetical to the black and white literal text based truth
of the fundamentalist. And fundamentalist terrorists completely fail the “transpersonal identification” criterion: if they were able to identify with the victims of their terrorist activity, they would be unable to commit such acts.
It is clear that the action of the VMAT gene and how it expresses itself emotionally as described by Hamer, is not the same activity that the Funvax presenter is discussing. A virus that would suppress spiritual behavior would create a world with more fundamentalists, not fewer ones. Either the presenter is completely naive about how the VMAT gene really works, or he is trying to pedal a fraudulent product to the Department of Defense.
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The notes on the Youtube video, posted on April 2nd 2012, credit Joey Lambardi for leaking the video. There are several posts about Lambardi on the “Stop FunVax Now” blog, including an interview with him, where he tells the story of how he happened to acquire the video and other materials regarding FunVax. The authors of the blog claim that they are the friends of Joey Lambardi.
Lambardi was a videographer for a military unit called “Combat Camera”. Somehow the chain of command was altered and he found himself reporting to an Army Colonel and a CIA officer. He was assigned to make a video about a war hero who returned home from Iraq. During this time, a package was sent to him at the home where he was staying, which included 2 videos and several documents. Lambardi says the video of the presentation was about 8 minutes long, although the clip on Youtube is just over four minutes. There is also a clip of a party in a lunch room with a cake that says “FunVax is a Go” however, this never made it to Youtube. The documents include a quarterly report which can be seen here: https://funvax.wordpress.com/2011/06...report-060107/
It is not clear who the actual authors of this blog are or if there really is a “Joey Lambardi” or that name is just a pseudonym. In September of 2011 it was announced on the blog that Joey was arrested in Argentina. The last post appears in December of 2012 which states that the blog was discontinued at the request of Lambardi’s lawyer, however, there was an appeal for a kickstarter for a film on the truth of FunVax. It does not seem as though a film was ever made.
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In 2016, the Iranian news agency AhlulBayt published an article about two Iranian intellectuals, Nader Talebzadeh and Prof. Ali Karami, who came forth with information about bioterrorism and pointed a finger at the Pentagon’s Funvax program. Talebzadeh claimed that:
It [the FunVax virus] has been added to the Zamzam Well in Mecca where Muslim pilgrims drink water. The virus is believed to negatively influence the brain, causing a decline in religious faith and lack of desire for worship among Muslim people”.
Not only do Muslims drink the water from the Zamzam Well during their Hajj or Umrah pilgrimage, but they also bring it home to their friends and families.
It is interesting to note that during this period, starting in 2012, another cornona virus made an appearance almost exclusively in the Middle East, the MERS virus.
Persons who do not believe that the United States could be executing covert vaccination programs in the Islamic world should take a look at this Guardian article from 2011 which shows that the Obama administration admitted to going exactly that: CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA