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RE: weapon
By rippleyaliens on 9/25/2007 11:11:06 AM , Rating: 0
My Question would be that if the Virus got stronger,
How about a Cure. What would happen if we sent out the Small POX vaccune into space? Would it get stronger as well.

This is interesting, as someone has stated. Eboli, and HIV.. UNheard of 300-500 Years ago, is now all of a sudden running Wild.. A disease that takes 7-12 years to kill you? I believe that the USA or other Power, created, unleashed.. But actually didnt anticipate this kind of Spreading... As you can see it is focused on countries in Africa.. Yet is hitting every other country in the world, via Sex or sharing needles? A plan was put into place.. and yet we all pay the price...

RE: weapon
By AlvinCool on 9/25/2007 11:45:34 AM , Rating: 2
The properties of a vaccine is that it's a very low level of the same or similar disease. If you made it stronger I believe you would be defeating the purpose.

The point I am trying to make is if you could mutate a virus that much, would the vaccine even work again? I would guess that there are diseases were it would not. Hence it would be a terrible weapon that would probably target the world

RE: weapon
By acer905 on 9/25/2007 12:06:31 PM , Rating: 2
While it is possible that both were created as weapons that suddenly broke out of containment, it is also possible that it was simply a evolution of sorts. I really wouldn't begin to guess. But there is a solution, albeit a slightly non user friendly one... Find anyone contaminated, round them all up, and don't allow contact with anyone else. Once everyone with the disease is gone... no more problem.

RE: weapon
By NT78stonewobble on 9/25/2007 1:12:18 PM , Rating: 2
Jungles are among the densest habitats on earth relative to how many different species live there. I assume that it would include microbiological lifeforms and then viruses too.

Well not only was the diseases not known hundreds of years ago neither were the areas in which they originated.

I.m.h.o. aids isn't part of a conspiracy just proof of how small the world has become.

RE: weapon
By geddarkstorm on 9/25/2007 4:05:33 PM , Rating: 2
No one knows where Ebola comes from. Viruses commonly have a reservoir animal. An animal they can infect but which they don't manifest infection within. They use those as carriers until they find a host they can be truly pathogenic within (humans and gorillas). As it is, scientists have yet to figure out Ebola's reservoir animal. Smallpox, on the other hand, had no reservoir animal, which is one of the major reasons it was able to be irradiated: it had to be in a human host and it had to be pathogenic, so it was easy to do the very thing you propose :) (plus vaccination).

RE: weapon
By Misty Dingos on 9/25/2007 2:55:32 PM , Rating: 2
First things first, a virus requires a host to reproduce in. In all likelihood any virus you sent into space would simply be destroyed. If it did survive it would likely be no more virulent than it was before if no replication takes place. So you would have to have a suitable medium for the virus to exist in. And while some viruses are easy to take of it is my understanding that HIV is not. It seems to be a rather fussy about how it is stored and grown.

The bacteria they experimented with were simply exposed to a harsh environment. The ones that survived that environment were able to survive longer in an adverse environment. Much like the effect of over prescribing or abusing antibiotics.

And hemorrhagic fevers (Ebola, Hanta, Dengue….) have been with us from the dawn of time. Ebola is likely to have been in the great ape population for thousands of years. And is a leading candidate for the disease responsible for the Black Death in the Middle Ages. That’s right nobody has positively even identified the disease responsible for the Black Death.

Greater population density leads us to a greater awareness of these tragic diseases. In the past if a villager contracted Ebola and everyone in his village died, the jungle would simply reclaim the land and none would be the wiser. People finding the empty village would simply avoid the area because of evil spirits.

HIV is a member of the Lentiviruses genus. It was contracted from old world monkeys some time in the 20th century. The ability to manipulate viruses for our own purposes is just beginning to have some scientific viability. The thought that some time from post World War II to 1950 (first documented AIDS death is 1959) someone could have even identified a likely viral candidate to change into HIV is laughable. It took the best minds in virology years just to identify the virus. As a bio-weapon HIV is terrible. It takes too long to work and is easily prevented with simple precautions. And despite what you read in the papers AIDS is not the leading cause of death in the world today. If you want to pick on a disease that has caused more harm than most if not all, I would take malaria.

Most diseases were unheard of 300-500 years ago. Unless a disease had a very distinct characterization it was simple called a fever. How many times have you had a cold or the flu? If the answer is more than about three you would likely have died as a result of one of those infections if you had been born 200 years ago. The cold and the flu were and still are life threatening illnesses, but we now treat with mere nuisance status. AIDS would likely been mistaken as an effect of old age in many or simply another opportunistic fever.

RE: weapon
By geddarkstorm on 9/25/2007 4:09:16 PM , Rating: 2
Common conjecture about HIV is that it's a zoogenic virus that was introduced to humans by total accident through the original and very crude Polio vaccine. There were a lot of contamination issues with that original vaccine, including the use of monkey serum in it which was phased out at later times. Of course, that's all conjecture though there seems to be a fair bit of evidence for it. New diseases commonly crop up through zoogenic methods (spread to humans from a different species).

