davidl@tekig5.UUCP (David Levadie) (08/10/85)
We've had antibiotics to combat bacterial infections for HOW long now? There seems to be virtually NO bacterial infection which doesn't yield to SOME sort of chemotherapy. But there seems to be virtually no viral infection that DOES yield to ANY sort of chemotherapy! All that's available is vaccination; once the damned thing gets hold of you, you better hope your immune system can handle it, 'cause if not... And the inventory of pathogenic viruses is becoming MORE and more interesting. Go ahead, get upset about AIDS - How would you like to see an AIDS virus that DOES spread like the common cold? Or a rabies virus? And I don't hear any screaming and yelling about it. Look at rabies, for instance. How long has it been with us? I think there's finally been a recorded case of a rabies victim surviving, in the U.S., under intensive care. Admittedly the problem is difficult; since viruses are such a simple life form, it's difficult to find a means of attacking them without also attacking the host. But it is just appalling to me that so much noise is made about similarly difficult problems; cancer, multiple sclerosis, you name it - SOME of which are often attributable to viruses, and others of which may in fact be due to viruses with extremely long incubation periods - and the medical profession doesn't seem to even care. People make an appalling joke, saying "Herpes is for life". I would expect the medical profession, in THIS day and age, to find that excruciatingly embarrassing! If you get chickenpox as a youngster, you may think you've gotten over it, but the herpes virus which causes chickenpox may give you shingles in your old age. One has to wonder how long we have before the inevitable, particularly with some of the rumors I hear about research in biogenetic warfare. I believe the Wall Street Journal published some articles a while back claiming that that Russians were attempting to engineer a flu virus which would produce cobra venom. That may be a little far-fetched in reality, but it's certainly not beyond the nonexistent morality of some of the nerds in the scientific community to attempt it, if they could get the funding (no need to debate whether there's anyone amoral enough to fund it, I hope). Something like that gets loose, you think the vaccine peddlers are going to be able to get the stuff out in time to vaccinate THEMSELVES, even? Anyone who cares to flame at me for putting this in net.general is welcome to a dose of cobra venom, sans virus, direct from my laboratory. You might direct your responses to net.med, however; there's actually a couple of MD's out there among the compunerds.