Sizing Up the Viral Threat 78
sciencehabit writes "Ebola, HIV, influenza, MERS. Plenty of animal viruses cause devastating diseases in humans. But nature might have many more in store. In a new study, U.S. researchers estimate that there are more than 320,000 unknown viruses lurking in mammals alone (abstract). Identifying all the viruses in mammals would be a huge boon to scientists and epidemiologists, Daszak says. If an animal virus begins spreading to humans, they could use the new sequences to quickly pinpoint its source. In the lab, they could study the newfound viruses to see which are most likely to jump to humans and then prepare vaccines or drugs, he says. 'It would be the beginning of the end for pandemics.' A complete viral inventory would also carry a hefty price tag: about $6.3 billion, the authors estimate. 'But you have to put that into perspective,' says Daszak, pointing to the 2003 SARS outbreak. That pandemic alone is estimated to have cost between $15 billion and $50 billion in economic losses."
Smaller set? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since most viruses seem to hop from common mammals or birds (cow, pig, chicken, etc. - e.g., "Guns Germs Steel"), have we at least indexed those already?
Re:Smaller set? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cat Flu (Score:2)
Re: Cat Flu (Score:4, Funny)
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3, Funny)
If an animal virus begins spreading to humans, they could use the new sequences to quickly pinpoint its source.
And quickly verify that patient zero was a virologist.
Vaccines... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's all fine and dandy and all, but remember, people are getting so stupid that they think vaccines are more sinister than the viral diseases they can prevent. Lets solve the problem of stupid people first, or just let them all die of measles++.
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The anti-vax movement is not a good example. Vaccines are produced by the medical/pharmaceutical industry and are administered by the healthcare industry.
What you describe is a trend whereby some in the population see any challenge to their world view as a conspiracy. It isn't enough to say they disagree, they concoct an expansive conspiracy against which they will make their heroic stand.
When Not If (Score:3, Insightful)
Time is of the essence... (Score:4, Insightful)
Better hurry, since if we wait 10 or 20 years, that price tag might only be a couple of million. Think of the authors, who have new shoes to buy!
Life's a risk, you live, you die. Society can't handle the costs of current increases to lifetimes. Extending lives is not a de facto good thing.
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Better hurry, since if we wait 10 or 20 years, that price tag might only be a couple of million.
Maybe they already took that into account. Analogies fail me at the moment, but I can just picture them spending years building up this huge inventory only to look back and see most of them have either disappeared or mutated in unexpected ways, so they have to start all over again.
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Speaking of bridges... (Score:2)
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Re:Time is of the essence... (Score:4, Interesting)
but at least bacterias had been very successful developing antibiotic resistance
Which might be precisely the motivation to further our knowledge in the field of virology - even resistant bacteria can be killed with targeted phage therapy.
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Society can't handle the costs of current increases to lifetimes.
Fortunately, there are benefits as well to current increases in lifespan. Those benefits are considerable enough to offset the costs.
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Re:Time is of the essence... (Score:4, Interesting)
Getting old so you can get Alzheimers or other forms of dementia, or simply be a non-productive burden on an "entitlement" society, is good?
When does that occur? According to this book [google.com], the incident of dementia increases at great age. Only 5% of people over the age of 65 have clinical dementia. This goes up to almost 50% at age 95. It significantly increases when one gets past the mean lifespan for a person. I suspect that if we had done this study at the beginning of the last century, we'd see that far lower ages would have similar dementia rates (say subtracting twenty years off).
Re: Time is of the essence... (Score:2)
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When does that occur? According to this book [google.com], the incident of dementia increases at great age. Only 5% of people over the age of 65 have clinical dementia. This goes up to almost 50% at age 95. It significantly increases when one gets past the mean lifespan for a person.
Talk about not getting it. Consider the end result, not the numerical years.
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Consider the end result
The end result is that you die either way. Since the end result doesn't change, then it's not useful as a means of distinguishing between choices.
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Consider the end result
The end result is that you die either way. Since the end result doesn't change, then it's not useful as a means of distinguishing between choices.
My goal is to live as long as possible as sentient and self reliant as possible. My fear is that some set of circumstances may not allow me to make my choice. After watching parents and others have their assets drained while they were kept alive by some odd and intensive measures - like an Alzehiemer's patient's dementia being dragged out by drugs that slow the progression, but not do a thing about the dementia itself - in other words they still didn't know who they or anyone around them, even if it did mak
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If you think that there is no distinguishing between choices of slow lingering death with 24/7 nursing care, and an admittedly shorter lifespan, but circumventing that lingering decline,
That's not an end result. Thus, it doesn't have a special consideration over other things, such as the number of years of good health.
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That's not an end result. Thus, it doesn't have a special consideration over other things, such as the number of years of good health.
Seriously? My Mother in law spent the last ten years not knowing who or where she was. Her body was kept alive those last ten years. For all practical purposes, the "her" of who she was died shortly before she was put in the home.
And most very respectfully it has the entirety of my consideration over other things. You may not like that, but you cannot determine what my consideration is.
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Seriously? My Mother in law spent the last ten years not knowing who or where she was. Her body was kept alive those last ten years. For all practical purposes, the "her" of who she was died shortly before she was put in the home.
And most very respectfully it has the entirety of my consideration over other things. You may not like that, but you cannot determine what my consideration is.
Ok, but your consideration means little to me. There's always sad stories to support whatever you desire. How many peoples' lives and whose lives should we end prematurely to prevent something like what happened to your mother?
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Ok, but your consideration means little to me. There's always sad stories to support whatever you desire. How many peoples' lives and whose lives should we end prematurely to prevent something like what happened to your mother?
Mother in law, not mother. Termination of life should be up to the individual,or family, not "We". Because when "We" get involved, we end up with Terry Schiavo, And we end up with presidents flying home to prevent a woman who's brain was replaced with cerebrospinal fluid and was totally maintained by machinery. Funny how politics works.
Considering the completely immoral political intervention in what should have been a privat family affair, and the Katriina hurricane happening around the same time, and
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or simply be a non-productive burden on an "entitlement" society
Good point. If you like, we can make sure you never make it to that stage of your life. Power of example and all.
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Runner! BZAPP
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Fortunately, there are benefits as well to current increases in lifespan. Those benefits are considerable enough to offset the costs.
Well, Nursing home profits are through the roof. Senile people need places to live.
But in all seriousness, if you've ever seen the inside of these places, with people spending the last 10-15 years of their lives in diapers, drooling and not knowing who they or their relatives are, I'd take an earlier death rather than an extra 15 years as a dementia patient.
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I'd take an earlier death rather than an extra 15 years as a dementia patient.
False dichotomy. Indeed, if you extend your life, you're probably also improving your health in earlier stages. You can just commit suicide when you're done, if you have the intestinal fortitude.
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Not if you want your life insurance to pay out.
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Not if you want your life insurance to pay out.
Yeah, because that 10 thousand dollar llfe insurance policy matches up well to the healthcare system draining your bank account and throwing you and your family into bankruptcy.
The problem with the years we've added to our lifespan aretwofold. One is that people die from a lot less accidents, so on average, it makes everyone live longer. The second is that the real part of that extension of average lifespan is all on the wrong end - extreme old age. If I could have an extra 30 years of my 20s and 30's -
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I'd take an earlier death rather than an extra 15 years as a dementia patient.
False dichotomy. Indeed, if you extend your life, you're probably also improving your health in earlier stages. You can just commit suicide when you're done, if you have the intestinal fortitude.
Silly Drinkypoo - sorry, that's just fun to say - I think I'm going to nickname my wife "Silly DrinkyPoo" - I offer that as possibilities, not an either or situation. Everyone obviously dies of something If I had a massive heart attack, I wouldn't exactly be happy about it, but as I winked out, I would probably consider that a better end than what some reletives have gone through.
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Life's a risk, you live, you die.
There is no risk - it's guaranteed you'll die.
BTW, are you a consistent fellow who thinks we should abandon all public health and safety measures, since life's a risk and we're all going to die anyway?
Society can't handle the costs of current increases to lifetimes.
Cite? Calculation?
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There is no risk - it's guaranteed you'll die.
BTW, are you a consistent fellow who thinks we should abandon all public health and safety measures, since life's a risk and we're all going to die anyway?
Well, that sheds a little light into your ... thinking.
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While it took money to write the algorithms and manage the projects, the use of World Community Grid for the genome comparison project and human proteome folding one and two got a lot of work done affordably, according to the projects' authors. I'd think similar approach could help here.
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Wishful Thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
In the lab, they could study the newfound viruses to see which are most likely to jump to humans and then prepare vaccines or drugs, he says. 'It would be the beginning of the end for pandemics.'
No, it would just be yet another volley in the endless war of attrition that is the evolution of species... but I like your optimism.
Re:Wishful Thinking (Score:4, Interesting)
We aren't playing by the rules any more. We're _thinking_ about how to eradicate disease. In one generation we can come up with a plan, execute it, and see if it worked, whereas evolution takes many generations for each phase.
Multicellular parasites probably took millions of years to figure out how to parasatise our distant ancestors, and have been evolving along with us ever since... until the last couple of centuries when we've begun systematically killing them off. Guinea Worm is almost gone for example, there are less Guinea Worms (we're their only adult stage host) than there are tigers in the world and while we're actively protecting tigers we have a multi-million dollar world programme to drive the Guinea Worm extinct.
Most diseases targeted for world eradication today are human diseases, there are half a dozen or so, plus we already killed off one human (Smallpox) and one non-human (Rinderpest) disease organism. But in the richer industrialised countries where dozens of illnesses were already eradicated (we almost got Measles, if not for the stupid half-fit antivacc people we'd have done it in Europe and North America) there are also cattle and pet diseases being wiped out.
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But, but, but ... you don't understand! Wise and thoughtful Slashdot posters realize we'll never be completely successful, so let's not toot our horns about what we have done.
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There are no rules. The game is called "survival of the fittest", and that really is it.
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There are no rules. The game is called "survival of the fittest", and that really is it.
Came to give this exact same response, thanks for beating me to it.
Disease control is just like security - every time someone builds a better lock, someone else comes along and builds a better lockpick. Only in this case, "someone else" is the entire universe.
go ahead, make my end-of-days (Score:1)
Re:go ahead, make my end-of-days (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, I have an idea. Let's all firmly lodge our heads up our asses and make believe that not studying potential health threats means there won't be any health threats.
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Hey, I have an idea. Let's all firmly lodge our heads up our asses and make believe that not studying potential health threats means there won't be any health threats.
Don't want to do that. Sticking one's head up their own ass would expose them to a lot of germs.
Re:go ahead, make my end-of-days (Score:4, Insightful)
lets give them that money to "study the newfound viruses to see which are most likely to jump to humans". I'm sure that could never end up being abused.
Give me a call when that "abuse" is up to 0.1% of our spending on the military-industrial complex, the educational-industrial complex, or bonuses for running successful scams in finance.
OR.... (Score:3)
So when a new disease presents itself we can identify it, sequence it, compare that sequence to a library to find out what animal it probably came from, then use the sequence to make a vaccine.
OR
When a new disease presents itself we can identify it, sequence it, then use the sequence to make a vaccine. It seems like the library only helps to find the animal it originated in, and we don't really seem to have trouble doing that quickly for most of the big, pandemic-causing viruses.
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I'm pretty sure you can't just "use the sequence to make the vaccine".
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I'm not an expert in vaccines so I'll ask: are you making that up? Because it certainly sounds like you are. I don't see how knowing the reservoir would help you make anything but a subunit vaccine, and despite the obvious advantages those haven't exactly taken over. Not to mention if you want one fast you're not going to screw around with subunits. If you DID want to do that for some reason, as I said before, it doesn't seem to take long to find the reservoir in most pandemic situations.
A dictionary of
Cost (Score:2)
Thats less than a months expenditure for the United States military middle east operations.
They don't call it the Military Industrial Complex for nothing.
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Only 320,000? (Score:3)
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320,000 potential DIFFERENT viruses in mammals. I'm sure the 10^30 virus particles in the ocean have some redundancy.
What do you mean by "different"? Mammals are mammals, viruses are viruses. Mammals reproduce sexually and have reproductive barriers, which makes it somewhat easy to classify them into "dogs", "cats", "chimpanzees", "slashdotters" etc. But viruses don't really face the same issue. Given how unclear the barriers are in this case, I think the total number of virions can easily correspond with total diversity since each virion is potentially different enough to serve as an originator of a wholly new strain, an
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SARS in particular I remember as causing border crossings (at least here in North America) to go absolutely apeshit. Between the direct losses of increased staffing and asinine posters (seriously, until it got Suddenly Acute, the only symptoms a lay person could identify were "like a cold") there were huge indirect losses of increased travel time and people simply not bothering to travel.
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And that's just the unknown viruses we know about. Who knows how many unknown unknown viruses are lurking?
Ah yes, the Rumsfeldome.
You can't just throw money at it. (Score:2)
Taxonomy isn't a field that all scientists wish they could work in.
Good luck trying to get high school science students interested in the concept of biological classification.
Thousands of researchers, trillions of virii ... (Score:2, Insightful)
The smart money isn't on the researchers, because the sheer
numbers alone favor the occurrence of a virus which might just be
the golden bullet in terms of its ability to spread combined with its
morbidity.
And today more than ever, with air travel and international shipping of
things like chicken and meat, the virus has a better chance of finding
new hosts in widespread areas than it ever had before.
The US and other countries WILL regret importing food from China,
mark my words well and remember them when you bur
economics (Score:3)
"A complete viral inventory would also carry a hefty price tag: about $6.3 billion"
Who wants to pay for that? Government? Private industry? The Gates Foundation? It's a major gamble for an uncertain reward. When you do the numbers it just doesn't make sense.
Economics aside, the human factor says it should be done. Assuming that ever larger numbers of humans on our planet is desirable. Is this what we want? I, for one, am willing to sacrifice your existence if it leads to a better world.