Epidemiology, Virology and Public Health
The principles of virology used within The Rhesus Factor, including the Cairnsian model are all valid - albeit oversimplified. The TT virus really exists. As nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg points out, we are now aware of at least 500 viruses that have inserted themselves into our genome - and we have no idea what they're doing there.
The Rhesus virus is a product of my imagination.
I hope.
For those interested in further reading on the subject, you can't do better than Laurie Garrett's award winning books: The Coming Plague and The Betrayal of Trust. Both contain many of the original references below and both are readily available at public libraries.
The Rhesus Factor
- Opening
quotation:
The extraordinary, rapid growth of the Homo sapiens population, coupled with its voracious appetite for planetary dominance and resource consumption, had put every measurable biological and chemical system on earth in a state of imbalance... With nearly 6 billion human beings already crowded onto a planet in 1994 that had been occupied by fewer than 1.5 billion a century earlier, something had to give. That ‘something’ was Nature.
- Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague
- Chapter
1
Humans (should) view themselves as smart animals swimming in a microbial sea - an ecology they cannot see, but one that most assuredly influences the course of human events.
- William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, Doubleday 1976
- Chapter
2
"…optimised PCR methods for detection of (the) TTV (virus) found, to our amazement, that thirty three percent of volunteer blood donors are infected with it. The virus is ubiquitous. In another PCR-improved study by Japanese researchers, TTV was detected in ninety two percent of the general population…" There are a lot of healthy people carrying the virus (Mushahwar says) which raises the question: "What are these viruses doing in humans and not causing disease?"
-Leslie Pray : The Mysterious TT Virus - What Is It? The Scientist 15[15]:22 July 23, 2001
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
-
Chapter 6
- Chapter 15
Extract from Rhesus: "There are perhaps ten thousand species of viruses, only a few hundred of which have been categorised." Colwell et al “Comparison of V. cholerae. Seriotype 01 Isolated from Patient and Aquatic Environment.”
- Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 96 (1993) : 86-92.
The Rhesus Factor & Foetal Haemolytic Disease: "This (the RH factor) varies tremendously by race. The rh gene deletion probably occurred in Spain (30% of the Basque tribe are Rh negative). Native American Indians, Eskimos, and Asians are almost 100% Rh positive. As the European settlers intermarried with the native populations, one begins to see an increase in Rh negativity - Mexicans - 8%, US Blacks - 8%. I have not seen any data on why this gene deletion would offer a survival advantage. In view of limited reproduction that occurs due to sensitization and loss of later pregnancies, one would believe that the gene pool would have actually have died out."- Kenneth J. Moise, Jr., M.D. Director, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. personal communications with author, January 2000
Endogenous Retroviruses – genetic hitchhiking: The Infection-Chronic Disease Link Strengthens: ‘Genomics, proteomics, and DNA microarray technology will aid diagnosis…’
-The Scientist 14[17]:1, Sep. 4, 2000 NEWS
Ancient Viruses Offer Future Promises. Uncovering mechanisms of murine retroviral resistance may hold clues to fighting HIV. Courtesy of Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research Friend Indeed? Structure of the Friend murine leukemia virus receptor-binding domain. "Imbedded in the genomes of creatures as varied as mouse and man are retroviral remnants. These artifacts of ancient infections result from RNA viruses inserting DNA copies of themselves into their hosts' genomes. Sometimes they hit the jackpot and make their way into the germ line. Sorted and shuffled over the eons, some of these ancient endogenous viruses have serendipitously developed the ability to shield cells against new viruses."- Brendan A. Maher, The Scientist 16[10]:36, May. 13, 2002 RESEARCH
Extract: there are 500 endogenous retroviruse in our genes. "We are superorganisms with an extended genome that includes not only our own cells but also the fluctuating microbial genome set of bacteria and viruses that share our bodies. Some of these onetime invaders have become permanently established in our cells, even crossed the boundary line and entered our own genome....Today, we are carrying around 500 different integrated retroviruses in our own genome...I call that extended set of companions the microbiome, and I pray for more research on how they affect our lives..."
- Joshua Lederberg, 1958 Nobel Prize winner for his work on the genetic mutation of bacteria. Getting in Tune With the Enemy--Microbes, The Scientist 17 [11]:20 Jun. 3, 2003
..conflicting with Kosh's postulate. Infection" is usually associated with an oozing sore, a bout with the flu, or an outbreak in some exotic place. But infectious organisms lie behind many chronic illnesses too, and an increasingly molecular approach to diagnosis is clarifying some of these relationships. An invited panel discussed "The Infectious Etiology of Chronic Diseases" at the second International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, held in Atlanta July 16-19. "Only more recently have we been realizing that coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer, and neurological disorders can have an infectious etiology, either as a cause or a cofactor," Quinn explained. Cancer led the way, added Beral. "Infection-cancer links were regarded as curiosities until after World War II, when interest in viruses and cancer began to accelerate"Koch's postulates are relevant for acute infections, but we run into problems when we think about chronic or long-term symptoms," said Beral....."Why are there unrecognized pathogens? Because of the completely unanticipated microbial diversity...
- Ricki Lewis The Scientist 14[17]:1, Sep. 4, 2000
Koch's postulates relate to causality - whether a specific living organism causes a particular disease. They are:
1. The organism must be present in every case of the disease
2. The organism must be able to be isolated and grown in pure culture
3.The organism must, when innoculated into a susceptible animal, cause the specific disease
4. The organism must them be recovered from the animal and identified.However, Kosh's postulates are inadequate for most diseases unless the specific cause is an overpowering infectious agent.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease USAMRIID
“It is almost and axiom that action for short-term human benefit will sooner or later bring long term ecological or social problems which demand unacceptable effort and expense for their solutions. Nature has always seemed to be working for a climax state, a provisionally stable ecosystem, reached by natural forces, and when we attempt to remould any such ecosystems, we must remember that Nature is working against us.”
- Nobel laureate Sir McFairlane Burnet, immunologist. Natural History of Infectious Diseases, Burnet and White, Cambridge University Press 1972
Water hides a host of viruses VIRUSES could be the most important form of life in both freshwaters and the sea, according to a group of scientists from the University of Bergen, in Norway. Almost every textbook of marine ecology ignores viruses. And, until now, most microbial ecologists thought that viruses were an insignificant part of the ecosystem.... The second important implication of the huge numbers of viruses in rivers, lakes and the oceans is that they can ferry genetic material between organisms. This is an important consideration for genetic engineers who want to release 'altered' bacteria into the environment. Viruses move bits of genetic material around by the process of transduction, in which they mistakenly incorporate some of their bacterial host's DNA into their own and then transfer it to their next host. With so many more viruses available to ferry genes around, transduction is probably much more common than previously thought.
- New Scientist vol 123 issue 167. 19 August 1989
Extract, "Antibiotic and chlorine resistant cholera arrived in the U.S., something epidemiologists feared since the 1990s." El Toro strain of cholera…. ‘Aliens and interlopers at sea’- Lancet 342 (1993) : 1216-19, AP. Lockwood.
Chlorine and Antibiotic resistant cholera evolved from strain V. cholerae 0139. “It hit epidemiologists and physicians like a two-by-four between the eyes, because there is no explanation for its emergence and spread but ecology.”- Lancet journals, Rita Colwell August 1993.
Extract: "Before Watson and Crick discovered the link between genes and the structure of DNA in the 1950s, Barbara McClintock discovered jumping genes – transposons."
- DNA the Secret if Life; James Watson, Random House
Infectious cancers By Ricki Lewis. Infection is usually associated with an oozing sore, a bout with the flu, or an outbreak in some exotic place. But infectious organisms lie behind many chronic illnesses too, and an increasingly molecular approach to diagnosis is clarifying some of these relationships. An invited panel discussed "The Infectious Etiology of Chronic Diseases" at the second International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, held in Atlanta July 16-19.
-The Scientist 14[17]:1, Sep. 4, 2000 NEWS
Infectious cancers/retroviruses
Cairnsian view of evolutionary processes in microbes:
Some of the most important contributors to human capability may be hard to sell exclusively to one person at a time. This is especially so when we consider the so called public goods, which people consume together rather than separately. This applies particularly in such fields as environmental preservation and also epidemiology and public health care. I may be willing to pay my share in a social program of malaria eradication, but I cannot buy my part of that protection in the form of ‘private good’ (like an apple or a shirt). It is a ‘public good’ – malaria free surroundings – which we have to consume together.
- Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, economist. Development as Freedom, Knopf 1999.
Betrayal of Trust: Laurie Garrett Read it and weep.
Real world 'Camiccis' : Problem of Lost Health Benefits Is Reaching Into the Middle Class By JOHN M. BRODE -New York Times 25th November 2002
Rise in Insurance Forces Hospitals to Shutter Wards New York Times 25th August 2002 Jospeh B. Treaster
"As many as 98,000 hospitalized Americans die every year and 1 million more are injured as a result of preventable medical errors that cost the nation an estimated $29 billion." Sandra G. Boodman
-Washington Post Tuesday, December 3, 2002; Page HE01
California Is at Fiscal Brink By John M. Broder "Gov. Gray Davis announced a series of steps on Friday intended to save $10.2 billion to plug a deepening hole in the current budget and to serve as a prelude to even deeper cuts in next year's. Mr. Davis proposed freezing pay for state workers and warned of large-scale layoffs. As many as 200,000 people could lose their health coverage under the state Medi-Cal program."
-New York Times December 9, 2002
Extract: “There are a lot of theories about the trigger, including the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe hypothesis,” Obermann injected.
Evidence of living bacterial cells entering the Earth's upper atmosphere from space has come from a joint project involving Indian and UK scientists. The first positive identification of extraterrestrial microbial life was reported on 30 July 2001. http://www.astrobiology.cf.ac.uk/news.html. See also Diseases from Space, Hoyle- Wickramasinghe Hypothesis (Panspermia) http://www.space.com/searchforlife/chandra_sidebar_001027.html
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 19
- Ch 26
“One person infected every four seconds, one dying every ten seconds. The global statistics are almost too grim to shock. TB claims more lives, often young and productive, than malaria, more even than AIDS. And yet TB lacks the pull of HIV, Ebola or Malaria. No Hollywood movie dramatises its workaday carnage…Three million people are dying every year. (This is) a microbe you can catch simply by sleeping in the same room as someone (infected). TB is not humdrum, it’s Ebola with wings.- Mario Raglivione, head of TB control for the World Health Organization (WHO)
At least one third of all active cases in New York City in 1990 were drug resistant…One strain, dubbed “W”, was resistant to so many drugs that it was essentially untreatable.- Laurie Garrett, Betrayal of Trust
Human disease is emerging as one of the most sensitive, and distressing, indicators of climate change. Floodwaters in arid North East Kenya caused Rift Valley fever, a cattle disease, to jump the species barrier and kill hundreds of people. Victims of the ‘bleeding disease’ died so fast that doctors at first suspected it was anthrax. As temperatures rise, mosquito-borne yellow fever has invaded Ethiopia, while dengue fever is spreading through the Americas and has reached Texas…- New Scientist, January 1999
Human activities give rise to new disease. SARS, BSE, and West Nile aren't just making headlines, they're making history. These diseases are truly products of our age — an age of global transport, industrialized agriculture, and global warming. And they represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of emerging diseases...- David Suzuki 03 June 2003
You can’t sue a doctor for violating an ecosphere, but you can sue for failure to give an antibiotic that you think would have enhanced the possibility of patient survival.- Mark Lappé, Germs Won’t Die
Superbug children immune to antibiotics. MORE than one in 10 British children carry superbugs that are resistant to one or more antibiotics, and the proportion of adult carriers could be even higher, scientists report today.
A study of 539 seven and eight-year-old children in Bristol found that 11 per cent of them were carrying bacteria such as an E.coli strain that is resistant to chloramphenicol, a drug rarely given orally to children. Of more concern, three per cent of the children carried bacteria resistant to ceftazidime, an antibiotic reserved for treating serious conditions such as cystic fibrosis.The study implies that bacteria resistant to common antibiotics may become simultaneously resistant to less frequently used antibiotics. This is because the genes that make the bacteria resistant are found on the same piece of bacterial DNA and are passed on together. (my emphasis).- Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent, ISSUE 2183 Thursday 17 May 2001 Daily Telegraph
Global warming and diseases Ross Gelbsan heatisonline.org
Dengue Fever : D.M. Morens, ‘Dengue Fever and Dengue Shock Syndrome’ Hospital Practice, July 1982.
West Nile Virus contamination in blood supplies, David Brown Washington Post Friday, September 13, 2002; Page A03
At the World Summit on Children convened by the U.N. in September 1990, the Bush administration was in the dubious position of having, on the one hand, to pledge sweeping concern for the health and survival of the world’s children while hoping no one would publicly note that the health status of America’s impoverished kids rivaled that of children in much of Africa and South Asia.- Laurie Garret, The Coming Plague
Not only (has) America’s cities sunk to Third World levels of childhood vaccinations and access to health care, but its surveillance and public health systems (has) reached states of inaccuracy and chaos that rival those of some of the world’s poorest countries.- CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 43 (1994)
Extract: In 1990, a man growing up in Bangladesh had a better chance of surviving…-J. Taylor Gibbs (ed) Young, Black and Male in America: An Endangered Species (1988)
Extract: In 1992, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services predicted that there would be 60,000 AIDS…D. Michaels and C. Levine, ‘Estimates of the Numbers of Motherless Youth Orphaned by AIDS in the United States,’-Journal of American Medical Association 268 (1992) : 3456-61.
Extract: That’s not fiction, that was the case in Russia twenty-five years ago and look what happened there!
"As Mr. Putin has pointed out in two of his four state of the union messages, Russia faces shocking demographic trends. For every 10 babies born, 17 Russians die. The government predicts that the population will decrease 30 percent to 40 percent by 2050. And even these dismal figures may be too optimistic, as they are based on Western European models of public health and not the Russian reality of widespread substance abuse and tuberculosis and pending AIDS epidemics."-Murray Feshbach, A Country on the Verge, New York Times June 01, 2003
Extract: In 2001 WHO said TB could be controlled in five years with just $400 million.
-The Boston Globe, 15th May 2001
Abacavir¡™ -- Glaxo Wellcome drug now called Ziagen™. Zidovudine™, commonly called AZT. Both belongs to a class of drugs called nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors and are primarily used in the treatment of AIDS. See www.imunet.org
