As Covid 'Diagnostic Firm' Goes Belly Up in Austria, Questions About its Ties Emerge
Another day, yet another rabbit hole to venture down into: welcome to 'post-pandemic' Covidistan
Editorial preliminary (skip for content): my once quite comprehensive reporting on my home country, Austria, has subsided to a certain degree. The main reason behind this shift is that this Substack, while originally conceived as a kind of ‘journal’, or ‘diary’, with the aim of trying to provide a record of the insanity of yesteryear, was never meant to be a single-topic chronicle. Hence, my writing about ‘other’ topics, including, of course, war and peace, political economy, and, occasionally, more historical essays. Little over a year ago, I also joined Peter F. Mayer and Thomas Oysmüller at TKP.at, a small, non-government-subsidised media outlet that became operational in 2020. Two years on, we managed to get some 11m page views (2022), with about 2/3 of the readership being based in Germany and the other third in Austria; some of the pieces I write here on Substack are subsequently published at TKP.at, and sometimes it’s the other way round.
The below piece will first appear here, but I will provide a German version at TKP.at in due time. And now—on with the snow. The first section is a brief overview that seeks to provide context for esp. my new(er) readers; if you’re a long-term reader, you may wish to skip ahead to the second header.
Covid in Austria—Madness Reigned Supreme, with Almost No Accounting Whatsoever
One of the reasons for the above preliminary comment was the enduring insanity that engulfed the political establishment, legacy media, and about 2/3 of the Austrian populace in spring 2020. In this context, Austria was not unique, but in its implications, Austria—in my coverage dubbed ‘Covidistan’—became an outlier. Sure, arbitrarily imposed ‘lockdowns’ (house arrest) or useless mask mandates in kindergartens (!) and primary schools (!) were as much markers of this lunacy as well as the State of Vienna holding on to FFP2/N95 mask mandates on public transport until spring 2023 (!). None of this was ‘right’, supported by scientific or other data, except for the crap proselytised by ‘the Science™’ and their acolytes in politics and legacy media. The most egregious aspect of Austria’s descent into Covidianism and sectarian pseudo-ideology was arguably its attempt to impose mandatory Covid-19 ‘vaccination’ mandates on the federal level in late 2021/early 2022.
This triggered sustained mass protests by large segments of the population during late autumn and winter, which eventually forced the régime’s hand: while the law shamefully passed parliament (despite a record-breaking +200K ‘comments’ by citizens), the gov’t never implemented it, convened an ad-hoc committee to consider implementation every couple of weeks, and was eventually scrapped in early July 2022. For good measure, I note that this general ‘vaccine mandate’ came about in the typical way, by state governors conspiring behind closed doors how to get on while also scoring cheap political change (and these people are still in office, hence the following link):
These considerations, as long, winding, and seemingly irrelevant, finally bring us to today’s topic—for many of the merely-a-tad-less ignominious mandates were continued. Among the more egregious breaches were certainly the evidence-free and tyrannical mandates imposed on the most vulnerable amongst us, our children.
Students, especially those from grades 1-4 (primary school, aged 6-10) and 5-8 (middle, or secondary, school, aged 8-12) were subjected to all the abuse possible:
mask mandates in classrooms, incl. during sports, breaks, and outside
three times a week, mandatory lateral flow PCR tests were conducted in class
contact-shaming was introduced, i.e., at some point in time, if one child tested ‘positive’, the entire class was ‘quarantined’
Of course, children were subjected to this madness longer than adults, to say nothing about politicos and journos, well, ‘bending’ (abusing) facts and reality to their liking. Heck, the Court of Audits has recently issued devastating reports on the gov’t’s handling of the ‘pandemic’ (see here and here), no accounting or even an apology has been forthcoming.
Hence, we must rely on whatever options and opportunities that yet remain somewhat ‘beyond’ the régime’s possibilities to subvert, which includes what remains of ‘free elections’—see esp. here and here, for two state elections that saw massive losses for Austro-Covidistan’s ‘Uniparty’—and Mr. Market to render its verdict, which brings us, finally, to today’s update.
Biotech Start-up that Ran Mandatory PCR Tests in Schools (!) Files for Bankruptcy
As reported, among others, by tabloid Heute on 25 Aug. 2023, ‘no contracts—known Corona lab files for bankruptcy’. Excerpted, translated, and with my emphases, here is what they write:
On Friday [25 Aug. 2023], bankruptcy proceedings commenced in the case of Artichoke Biotech GmbH from Göstling an der Ybbs at the State Court of St. Pölten in Lower Austria. The company was initially involved in setting up a modern hardware infrastructure and subsequently primarily in carrying out laboratory analyses.
Liabilities of around 5.1m Euros are offset by assets of three million euros. It must be said that there are still outstanding receivables of 2.9 million euros, but these are disputed. Nevertheless, 50 employees now fear for their jobs and about 50 creditors for their investments [as if their worries would—could—be identical…].
After the beginning of the Corona pandemic [sic, it’s ‘declaration’], the company came up with the idea of carrying out PCR tests for the Coronavirus in mobile container labs. This ‘COVID Fighters’ initiative was also very successful, even winning the tender to conduct COVID-19 testing in schools. From September 2021 to February 2022, regular testing was thus carried out at all compulsory schools in Lower and Upper Austria as well as in nursing homes and wastewater testing at sewage treatment plants throughout Austria.
This is the carrot part here—the ‘Covid Fighters’, as Artichoke Biotech was also known as, profited massively from gov’t largesse by providing their ‘services’ to a number of, above all, captive audiences: compulsory schools in two federal states, nursing homes, and wastewater treatment plants ‘throughout Austria’. Talk about helping themselves to massive gov’t handouts.
In other words: Artichoke Biotech was, first and foremost, a gov’t contractor. Please hold on to that thought before you shed a crocodile tear or two for its ‘intrepid start-up founders’ or their ‘investors’.
The Travails of Gov’t Contracting
In a further tender, Artichoke Biotech GmbH was awarded the contract for school testing for the school year 2022/2023. According to the framework agreements with the contractual partner [what a weird way to describe the Federal Department of Education], the now-insolvent debtor [Artichoke] was obliged to establish performance readiness for up to 5m tests per week. In order to ensure the readiness to perform, a new large laboratory was set up in Mödling [a wealthy suburb south of Vienna; in US parlance, think of, say, some of the ZIP codes in northern Virginia] and the number of staff was increased to 190.
Cancelled Gov’t Contracts
However, due to the reduced threat of the Corona pandemic [sic], school tests were no longer required by the contracting partner [again, the Department of Education]. This caused massive monthly costs for [Artichoke Biotech] that lasted until June 2023. The debtor’s liquidity situation was massively impaired as a result.
As a result, the company drastically reduced its staff and was tempted to develop new projects based on the acquired know-how. However, since the liquidity required for this could not be raised and talks extending credit lines also failed, the consequences had to be drawn in the form of the bankruptcy filing.
Oh, well, what a wonderful idea, eh? Come up with something direly needed (sic), like PCR testing, win gov’t tenders, and go on a spending rampage. Once the gov’t no longer needs these ‘services’, well, good-bye to the company. Spare a tear or two—but wait a second, isn’t there anything else that might be interesting to know?
As a matter of fact, there is. Lots more, to which we now turn.
Who is (was) Running Artichoke Biotech?
According to Artichoke Biotech’s official website (as of 25 Aug. 2023), the company’s CEO is (was) one Boris Fahrnberger. There is not much more information other than a less-than-advantageous picture (there’s worse online, believe me).
Courtesy of yet another website, we learn the following things, which derives from his LinkedIn profile:
Boris has worked in nearly all main sectors, including IT, finance, media and politics. As a senior andragogist and consultant he has helped thousands of people to develop and get inspired. The communication scientist founded Artichoke Computing, a Threefold farming company, in 2019 and recently the project ‘COVID Fighters’, the quickest biomolecular SARS-CoV-2 testing method on the planet.
As an aside, if you’re asking yourself what an ‘andragogist’ is, well, I didn’t know either. Here’s some information courtesy of Wikipedia:
Andragogy refers to methods and principles used in adult education. The word comes from the Greek ἀνδρ- (andr-), meaning ‘man’, and ἀγωγός (agogos), meaning ‘leader of’. Therefore, andragogy literally means ‘leading men’, whereas ‘pedagogy’ literally means ‘leading children’.
In other words: Boris Fahrnberger is someone who quite appropriately may be described as a ‘consultant’ or the like.
We do learn, though, that Mr. Fahrnberger founded a ‘Threefold farming company’, whatever that means, by the name of Artichoke. Curiously enough, the official Austrian company/corporate registry, run by the Federal Department of Justice, lists four companies with that name:
Curiously enough, they all share the same P.O. box and address, and while Artichoke Biotech is now bankrupt, neither its Global Care or Holding siblings seem to be in trouble.
While Artichoke Global Care shares the address with its Biotech sibling, it does not have a proper website or a company logo. According to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (Wirtschaftskammer), though, we may learn that this company offers ‘automatic data analysis and IT solutions’, located at the same address as its Biotech sibling since—10 Aug. 2023.
Artichoke Global Care lists one Martin Käfer as its managing director (Geschäftsführer)—who, back in the good ol’ days of Artichoke Biotech, served as the latter’s CIO.
So much about A. Global Care, but what about A. Holding? There is, in fact, even less information about this Holding company available online: it merely, publicly, that is, lists Boris Fahrnberger as CEO.
Nowhere down this particular rabbit hole is there any indication that Mr. Fahrnberger has any competence in running a biotech company.
How Did Artichoke Biotech Rise so Fast?
Founded in 2019, Artichoke Biotech actually became a multi-million euro company two years later—what an awesome rise, eh?
As a friend quipped on social media yesterday, perhaps he was merely doing his due diligence as a start-up founder, read the Global Pandemic Preparedness Board’s very first report (issued in Sept. 2019)—and set up everything to quickly role out PCR testing on demand.
Entitled ‘A World At Risk‘, at pp. 27-30, we can find the following information (the below quote at p. 27, emphases added):
High-impact respiratory pathogens, such as an especially deadly strain of influenza, pose particular global risks in the modern age. The pathogens are spread via respiratory droplets; they can infect a large number of people very quickly and with today’s transportation infrastructure, move rapidly across multiple geographies.
In addition to a greater risk of pandemics from natural pathogens, scientific developments allow for disease-causing microorganisms to be engineered or recreated in laboratories. Should countries, terrorist groups, or scientifically advanced individuals create or obtain and then use biological weapons that have the characteristics of a novel, high-impact respiratory pathogen, the consequences could be as severe as, or even greater, than those of a natural epidemic, as could an accidental release of epidemic-prone microorganisms.
No shit analysis, geniuses.
A Tale of Two Corrupt Entities
So, Mr. Fahrnberger could be a shrewd businessman whose original intent was focused on something else (Jerusalem artichokes, in particular, if the above internet sources about Artichoke Biotech are to be trusted)—or there is something else to consider in this charade.
Boris Fahrberger, as reported by Die Presse back in 2021, was a suspicious candidate to win the federal contract for Covid PCR testing in schools:
Now that the lateral flow test provider ‘Lifebrain’ is taking action against the Corona test tender for Austria's schools, the SPÖ club is also taking action. On Wednesday, [SPÖ] MPs Petra Vorderwinkler and Rudolf Silvan pointed out an alleged ÖVP-Lower Austria connection at the provider ‘Covid Fighters’—one of the two companies to which, according to ‘Lifebrain’’s accusation, the tender is supposed to be tailored. Now there is to be a parliamentary question to Education Minister Heinz Faßmann (ÖVP).
Now, imagine my surprise at learning about this…/sarcasm, in particular as the test provider ‘Lifebrain’ is actually in cahoots with the SPÖ-led state government of Vienna, which was the beneficiary of Vienna’s long-standing, if totally pointless (see the above-linked Court of Audit report) mandatory testing strategy (sic).
In other words: it takes one to know one.
Here is the parliamentary enquiry by the above-listed MPs, by the way (my translation and emphases):
According to LR Teschl-Hofmeister's answer to the question Ltg.-1377/A-5/293-2020, the BMBWF approached the State of Lower Austria in mid-October [2020] about piloting AG testing in schools. What was the specific content of this conversation and when did the first exchange on this order take place (please indicate a specific date)?
a) Have you also approached other federal states regarding a pilot project or commissioning of corona tests in schools, and if so, which ones and with what content?b) Was COVID Fighters already being discussed during this first exchange?
c) When was it decided that the contract would be awarded to COVID Fighters?
d) Which bodies were involved in this decision and when?
According to the answer to the question, two other companies, ‘which were capable of providing the services that were the subject of the tender on the basis of the results of the market investigation’, were invited to submit a bid in accordance with § 122 (3) BVergG, namely CURA GmbH in Linz and medlog Medizinische Logistik und Service GmbH in St. Pölten. For what reasons were the COVID Fighters preferred to the other two companies in the awarding of the contract?
a) According to the answer to the question, the cost of an RT lamp test by COVID Fighters is EUR 28.20. What was the cost per test in the bids submitted by the other competitors?
b) On the basis of which criteria were COVID Fighters the best bidding company?
The tender for the PCR tests in schools was originally scheduled to end on 6 September 2021—why so late, when the new school year already started again in the East on that day?
Which other companies apart from COVID Fighters and Novogenia submitted bids and for how much?
What were the detailed criteria for the tender for the PCR tests?
What requirements were there on the part of the Ministry of Education or another ministry or specific persons?
How high is the monthly order volume for the PCR tests at schools?
a) For what reasons were the COVID Fighters preferred to the other two companies in the awarding of the contract?
How much money has already been paid out under this contract and to which companies by the deadline for answering the question?
Lots of good questions, eh?
The Federal Ministry of Education’s answers, though, are, well, underwhelming:
As regards questions 1 and 2:
The Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Research provided the province of Lower Austria an RT lamp laboratory bus in October 2020 to conduct a pilot test. pilot test after it was announced that the method was recognised as PCR-equivalent. equivalent. The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research was not aware of any other federal state at the time that had recognised this procedure, although the procedure is also a nucleic acid nucleic acid amplification method for the detection of viral RNA according to the WHO. In the meantime, the RT lamp method has been included in the Austrian Testing Strategy of the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health Care and Consumer Protection. [note that no specific date is cited]
The award procedure for the implementation of the RT-Lamp rapid tests was handled by the state of Lower Austria. These procedures are therefore not subject to of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. A Involvement of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research in the selection of the The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research was not involved in the selection of the company carrying out the tests or in the negotiations for the awarding of the contract.
Note, further, that by invoking ‘states rights’, the Federal Department of Education also avoided answering the question about the cost per PCR test.
As regards question 3, the date 6 Sept. 2021 was cited until which tenders could be submitted.
As regards question 4, no answer was provided citing the ‘proprietary’ nature of the information in question.
A quite curious item appears in the answer to question 5 about ‘the detailed criteria for the tender for the PCR tests’. Here is the Ministry’s answer:
For the renewed call for competition, high quality requirements—such as requirements for internal quality assurance, external quality assurance through mandatory regular participation in interlaboratory tests, sensitivity specifications, or use of CE-certified materials—are defined as minimum requirements in accordance with the underlying framework agreement of Bundesbeschaffung GmbH (BBG) [the LLC through which the federal gov’t buys goods and services].
Whereas in the case of a best offer principle, target requirements are evaluated, in the case of the lowest bid principle, quality requirements must be fulfilled by all bidders as a minimum requirement. These are therefore non-negotiable and non-assessable criteria. These can either be fulfilled by the companies or not. On this basis, the principle of the lowest bidder under public procurement law is applied. The decisive criterion is therefore the price offered if the minimum qualitative requirements are met.
Remember, Artichoke Biotech has had no experiences in the large-scale operation of PCR testing whatsoever at that point in time. All they did was claiming that they meet the requirements and offered the lowest price.
As regards question 6,
the renewed call for competition was based on a framework agreement of the Bundesbeschaffung GmbH (BBG) and the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research concretised it for school-specific needs. The majority of the tender contents therefore resulted from this framework agreement, for which there were no specifications on the part of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. The school-specific requirements were elaborated by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research when the tender documents for the renewed call for competition were prepared and agreed with the BBG. These exclusively concerned points arising from the special circumstances at schools, such as in particular the suitability for children of the test materials used, the school-specific collection and evaluation processes, the assignment system between test person and result, as well as data management and school-specific reporting.
If your mind recoils at this ‘logic’, well, welcome to the club.
As regards the non-specification of the concretised school-specific needs, such as ‘the suitability for children of the test materials used’, let us just posit here that, apart from the idea that testing is carried out either at home or in schools by the children themselves, overseen by parents or teachers, ask yourself: what could go wrong? Who’s liable in the case of a problem or medical emergency? And, finally, let’s not forget the conditioning aspect of this entire charade.
As regards payments rendered per question 7, the federal gov’t held that
a breakdown of the respective volume of tests per month is only possible after invoicing has taken place and the corresponding invoice has been checked and approved, as invoicing is based on the services actually performed and thus on the available laboratory results. At the time of the request, no month had been fully invoiced.
Thus followed that no answer was provided as to question 8.
Bottom Lines
We now have some answers, eh?
Legacy media reporting, by omitting these well-known facts, is doing its readers yet another disservice.
Gov’t officials and opposition MPs, by not insisting on appropriate answers fro gov’t contractors, are essentially opening the floodgates of fraud and the like.
Gov’t contractors, such as Mr. Fahrnberger’s Artichoke Biotech, are abusing the system to a degree that is mind-boggling—and are escaping via bankruptcy filings.
Oh, by the way, did I mention that Mr. Fahrnberger enjoyed quite excellent ties to the powerful Lower Austrian ÖVP, the party of the then-federal Minister of Education?
What a coincidence in ‘winning’ a multimillion euro gov’t contract with limited oversight, apparently shoddy tender procedures (also run by the ÖVP-governed state of Lower Austria, by the way), and that in spite of having no discernible experience or competence in, well, biotechnology.
Somehow, all of this doesn’t make a lot of sense, that is, until we begin to perceive ‘the pandemic’ as a giant scam that deactivated virtually all the regular laws and protections—constitutional liberties, occupation and safety regulations (think: mask mandates at work w/o the mandatory 30 minute break every 1.5 hours), to say nothing about a free-for-all with respect to gov’t procurement.
The results are in: free-riders, aided and abetted by a defunct judiciary that refuses to investigate, and legacy media that lies by omission.
Let’s just hope nothing a tad more serious than ‘Covid’ happens, for I do think the above story is indicative only of some Austro-Covidian aspects, but its essence is, well, timeless.
This could—and has—happened literally everywhere.