Measles Vaccine Virus Is Product of Gain-of-Function Experiments Subject to Bioweapons Creation Rules: 'Journal of Infectious Diseases'

Measles vaccine was created through the same process used to generate potential bioweapons.

The development of the measles vaccine, long hailed by the mainstream as a triumph of medical science, has recently come under scrutiny due to its direct connection with gain-of-function (GOF) research.

GOF experiments—which were performed on the virus that led to the COVID-19 pandemic—manipulate organisms to enhance their pathogenicity, transmissibility, or host range—raising serious biosecurity concerns.

The new revelation about the measles vaccine virus’s origin in GOF research challenges our understanding of vaccine development and raises a critical, uncomfortable question:

If the measles vaccine virus was created through the same process used to generate potential bioweapons, what exactly are people being injected with?

The question is more relevant given that peer-reviewed studies confirm the measles vaccine sheds in the recently vaccinated.

Vaccine shedding is the release of live attenuated virus from a recently vaccinated individual, which can expose unvaccinated people to vaccine-derived virus through respiratory secretions, urine, or other bodily fluids, potentially leading to infection.

It’s also relevant given that a recent measles vaccine campaign in West Texas was followed by an alarming measles outbreak in the area, leading many to believe the new infections are linked to the vaccine.

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Measles Vaccine: A Product of Gain-of-Function Research

According to a May 2016 publication in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the live-attenuated measles vaccine was created by passaging the virus until mutations arose that altered virus tropism—a technique that could be considered, by current definitions, GOF research​.

The two most popular measles vaccines are Merck’s M-M-R II and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals’ (GSK) Priorix.

The FDA insert for GSK’s MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine indicates the drug is composed of “live” measles, mumps, and rubella viruses.

Merck’s M-M-R II also “contains live attenuated measles, mumps and rubella viruses,” according to its insert.

Put plainly, the measles vaccine virus was engineered through the same type of laboratory manipulation used in high-risk pathogen research—the kind of work that today is subject to international bioweapons regulations.

“The live-attenuated measles vaccine was created by passaging the virus until mutations arose that altered virus tropism—a technique that could be considered, by current definitions, GOF research,” the Journal of Infectious Diseases publication reads.

Screenshot from Academic.oup.com taken February 27, 2025

This process involved repeatedly forcing the wild-type measles virus to adapt to non-human cells, such as chick embryo fibroblasts, until it accumulated mutations that changed how it infects hosts.

The result?

A genetically modified strain with altered properties, designed to persist in the human body long enough to provoke an immune response—but fundamentally different from the original wild-type measles virus.

This is the definition of gain-of-function: modifying a virus’s genetic properties in a laboratory setting to make it behave differently than it does in nature.

GOF Research and Its Affiliation with Bioweapons

GOF research doesn’t just involve altering viruses for medical purposes—it is a category of work that is strictly regulated under biological weapons laws.

The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) explicitly governs research that enhances the transmissibility, host range, or pathogenicity of viruses, including those modified for vaccines.

In other words, the same laws that apply to the genetic modification of dangerous viruses in bioweapons programs also apply to GOF experiments in vaccines. And that includes the measles vaccine virus.

Are People Being Injected with a Bioweapon?

This raises a profound and unsettling question:

If the measles vaccine virus was created through GOF methods governed by bioweapons laws, should we reconsider what’s actually being injected into millions of people worldwide?

While proponents argue that the modifications were intended for attenuation, bioweapons research has long relied on similar attenuation techniques—modifying viruses to optimize their behavior in human hosts.

What’s the distinction?

If a virus is genetically engineered through GOF methods and falls under the same category of research used in bioweapons programs, does calling it a “vaccine” change what it fundamentally is?

The Dangers of Gain-of-Function Research

Even when conducted for so-called “defensive” purposes, GOF research has well-known risks:

• Potential for Accidental Release: Genetically modified viruses have escaped from high-security labs before. The more modified viruses in circulation, the higher the risk.

• Global Pandemic Potential: GOF research deals with pathogens whose transmissibility and virulence are altered, often in ways that are unpredictable.

• Dual-Use Risk: The same GOF techniques used to make vaccines can be used to create weaponized viruses. And once a virus is modified, there’s no undoing it.

The Dual-Use Dilemma: Vaccine or Bioweapon?

The measles vaccine virus is, undeniably, the product of laboratory-driven genetic modifications that fall under the same GOF processes as bioweapons research.

• If scientists engineered a virus in a lab through GOF techniques, what differentiates it from a bioweapon?

• If bioweapons research uses attenuation to make viruses more suitable for deployment, what differentiates an attenuated virus in a vaccine from an attenuated virus in a military lab?

The line between “public health intervention” and “biological weapons research” has never been thinner.

Conclusion

The measles vaccine has been credited with saving millions of lives.

But the fact remains that the virus injected into people was lab-engineered through gain-of-function methods—the same scientific process governed by bioweapons laws.

That raises serious and urgent questions:

• Should people be informed that they are receiving a virus that was lab-engineered through gain-of-function methods?

• Would the measles vaccine virus pass modern GOF safety standards?

• Why is this aspect of vaccine history not widely discussed?

If gain-of-function research is too dangerous for bioweapons programs, why is it acceptable in vaccines?

Follow Jon Fleetwood: Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood / Facebook @realjonfleetwood

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