Bacteriophages

Aajonus's position on bacteriophages cannot be understood separately from his broader framework on what viruses are. He was consistent and specific across multiple sources: viruses are not alive. They have no nucleus, no respiratory system, no digestive system. They are protein bodies, specifically structured collections of proteins, that the body manufactures for the purpose of dissolving contaminated, damaged, decaying, or dead cellular tissue when bacteria, fungi, and parasites cannot do so because the tissue or environment is too chemically toxic to support those living organisms.

Because viruses are not alive and cannot eat, the commercial preparation called bacteriophages cannot function by the mechanism its name implies. The six viral solvents in the FDA-approved preparation were combined with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria in an unnatural petri-dish-type environment, immersed in a synthesized serum, and the bacteria eventually died. Aajonus raised the question of causation directly: was it the viral solvents that killed the bacteria, or was it the unnatural environment, the synthesized serum, and the radical alteration of conditions that caused the bacterial death? He did not accept the pharmaceutical and regulatory interpretation that the viruses functioned as targeted bacteria-killers in any biologically meaningful sense, because viruses dissolve organic material by chemical action, not by predatory behavior.

Central to Aajonus's critique of bacteriophage science, and of microbial science generally, is what he repeatedly identified as the petri dish fallacy. Cells placed in a petri dish are not in a natural biological environment. The synthesized serums used to sustain them in laboratory conditions do not replicate the chemistry of a living body. Cells in such an environment are already on their way to dying because they are isolated from the organism they belong to. When bacteria are introduced into that environment, they consume the dying and dead cells, which is precisely what bacteria are designed to do: eat damaged, non-recoverable, dead, or weakened cellular tissue. The laboratory observer sees bacteria consuming human cells and concludes the bacteria are pathogenic. Aajonus considered this conclusion to be a foundational error of modern microbiology.

The same logic applies to the bacteriophage experiment. When the six viral solvents were placed in a petri dish with Listeria monocytogenes in a synthesized serum, the bacteria died. The environment itself was unnatural. The serum was artificial. The conditions were nothing like those in a living food supply or a living body. To conclude from this that the viral preparation selectively kills Listeria in real-world food environments, and that spraying it on meat is therefore protective, is, in Aajonus's view, an extrapolation that the experimental conditions do not support.

Aajonus identified the specific bacterium targeted by the FDA-approved viral soup, Listeria monocytogenes, and noted that it is not commonly found in food. He described it as a strain of Listeria, and situating Listeria within his broader framework, he was explicit that Listeria, like salmonella and many other bacteria labeled as pathogens, is a janitorial organism. Many forms of salmonella and Listeria are, in his words, digestive aids. They eat damaged cells or particular parts of damaged cells and work to generate and maintain an ecologically sustainable internal environment. They are not the cause of disease; they appear in the presence of damaged tissue because that is their biological function.

The FDA approval therefore aimed a viral preparation at an organism that, in Aajonus's framework, is not itself a threat but rather a beneficial janitorial microbe appearing in food or the body as a response to cellular damage or degradation, not as the cause of it. Killing or neutralizing Listeria with a viral preparation would, under this framework, eliminate a beneficial organism from the food without addressing any underlying condition that caused damaged tissue to be present in the first place.

Aajonus was direct that the belief viruses self-replicate is, in his words, "theory without proof and poor science." In his laboratory work, which he directed and observed, there was no evidence that viruses were produced or self-replicated outside of cells. When viruses appear to multiply in laboratory settings, what is actually happening, according to his framework, is that live cells added to a viral preparation begin producing more viral solvents in response to the contaminated environment. The cells themselves are manufacturing the viruses. The virus is not reproducing independently. He compared this to asking whether Tide soap can self-replicate. The soap does not reproduce; humans make the soap. Similarly, cells make viruses when they need a solvent, and when more cells in a contaminated environment begin producing solvents, the quantity of viral material increases. This is not self-replication. It is cellular production in response to conditions.

The commercial preparation of bacteriophages involves the extraction and purification of these viral solvents from a bacterial culture. What is being harvested and purified is, in Aajonus's understanding, a collection of protein-based solvents that the bacterial environment produced in response to the conditions imposed on it, not a living organism capable of independent action or reproduction.

Aajonus placed the FDA approval of bacteriophages explicitly within the history of vaccine theory and pharmaceutical commerce. He noted that the approval occurred under the stated justification that the viral soup would protect the public from a rare bacterium, but that this protection had not been proved. He framed it as the same structure that has operated throughout the history of pharmaceutical intervention: a claimed protective benefit is used to justify introducing a substance into the food supply or the body, regardless of whether the mechanism claimed actually operates as described, and regardless of the potential harm from the introduced substance.

He observed that viruses sprayed on food enter the food supply and therefore enter the bodies of people who eat that food. Because viruses are solvents that dissolve organic and inorganic structures, introducing them into food that will be consumed is not, in his framework, a neutral act. The viral solvents act on whatever contaminated, damaged, or weakened cellular tissue they contact. The body does not benefit from having externally introduced viral solvents arrive with food, particularly when the food is already processed, since processed meat and poultry carry their own chemical burden from processing additives, preservatives, and industrial handling.