Goddamn viruses. They’re so much smaller than us, can’t we simply fucking step on them or something?
It’s frustrating. We’re so much bigger and smarter than them, but they still kick our asses. They’re like Ewoks.
::cough::
::sneeze::
Assholes.
Cuz they are full of disease :eek: 
The real fault lies not with the virii, but with your own body. The thing is, the part of the immune system that patrols the mucus membranes, where colds do their thing, doesn’t have a very good memory. You know how with a lot of viruses, like, say, chicken pox, one exposure makes you immune for life? Well, not so much with this part of the immune system. Immunity wears off in a matter of months.
So, considering how many viruses can give you a cold, you’d need a couple thousand vaccines. And then you’d need to get revaccinated three or four times a year. Personally, I’d rather just deal with the occasional stuffy nose.
So blame your body as much as the little buggers that do the nasty work! Medicine still relies to a huge extent upon our own internal systems, and in this case, we’re just not really up to the job.
Actually, if I recall correctly from reading a question dealing with this topic in a virology FAQ, a runny nose is not an effective way to fight a virus, and it’s not a mechanism used to combat the virus, and it’s not white blood cells (well, not most of it, anyway). The virus actually hijacks the normal mechanisms used to keep the inside of your sinuses nice and moist in order to help spread itself – it just rides the wild river out of your nose and onto your hands, where it can handily (har!) infect others. And meanwhile, there are still zillions of viruses tucked safely inside your nasal lining cells where you can’t get rid of them no matter how much you blow your nose.
It was funnier without.
Funny, my parents quit cold turkey and never looked back.
And, come on, at least think a little bit about what you’re saying. Even if viri were readily distinguished by what’s in their DNA, the only way to take advantage of that is by millions of little science-fiction nanomachines that somehow puncture cells’ nuclei and then read DNA, and you’d end up destroying a lot of non-virus cells which kinda defeats the whole point of the nanomachines. Think and apply what you’re saying, dammit.
Is it not likely that if we had used the money spent on armaments over the past 150 years for medical research we could have found a cure not just for the common cold but also for cancer and other life threatening disease.
Billions upon billions spent on finding better ways to kill our “enemies” when the real enemy is disease.
When will we ever learn
The number of colds you get diminish as you get older, since your immune system builds antibiotics & makes sure you don’t get the same cold twice.
er, antibodies not antibiotics.
While I can’t disagree with the notion that we’d be far better off spending money on basic research and developing technologies that benefit humanity rather than blow it into tiny pieces, it’s not just a matter of research dollars to breakthrough cures. There are, for lack of a better term, technical thresholds that have to be achieved before you can move onto the next step, and it’s as much talent, education, and a big dollop of serendipity that gets you there.
And while weapons are, in general form, a bad idea, many good things have come from weapons research and development. The integrated circuit microprocessor you’re using traces it’s lineage back to the guidence computer development for the Minuteman II missile, and the fancy, world-spanning network you’re connected to is a direct development of the SAGE air defense network system.
Stranger
Or maybe if we all thought like you do, we’d all be speaking German today. Or Carthaginian.
They’re in the minority, then.
The one who needs to think, here, is you. How do you think our body recognizes invading microorganisms? By jabbing a tendril into every random cell? No, by checking the protein coat that the virus manufactures, that protein coat isn’t just randomly created every time a virus makes a new copy of itself. That protein coat’s structure is controlled by the virus’s genetic material, and that protein coat is the key component of vaccines that are used to fight things like the flu, and various other diseases.
Nor do we need to use nano-style machines to go after viruses based on their DNA. Presently the cocktails that AIDS patients take include drugs designed to short circuit the replication of the HIV virus. These drugs do not stop the cells of the patient’s body from replicating (otherwise they’d never be able to heal from a cut).
You do not know what you are talking about, beyond a Popular Science level of understanding. Even after you map the genome of a virus, this doesn’t mean that you can “read” the configuration of the protein coat that surrounds it. The protein folding problem is the hot topic in computational molecular biology today, and billions of dollars are being spent trying to develop a basic understanding and reliable prediction of how proteins are formed and shaped. And viruses, by their simple nature, can easily and functionally mutate, making the identification and suppression of them a Red Queen style genetic arms race in which the virus has the insurgent guerilla’s advantage of stealth and surprise.
Stranger
Oh, good, you caught me when I’m cranky. First of all, I’ll plead “guilty” to not being virologist, I’ll also plead “guilty” to oversimplifying things because I can’t be bothered to dig through the assorted crap I have around here to find the things which discuss things like protein receptors, B and T cells of the immune system, and general immunilogical response to disease. Yes, I do realize that it is a bit more complicated then what I posted, but going into the level of detail with information I do have access to would add exactly what to the discussion? Most people would probably start slashing their wrists if they were forced to read through the kind of jargon found in your average medical journal. That’s why they’re not doctors.
No shit. Did I say that anywhere in this thread? No.
Again, no shit. Understanding protein folding will also pay off in fighting things other than viruses as well. Things like “mad cow,” scrapie, and their analoges in humans to name but a few.
Again, no shit. Did I say that I should be able to go to the doctor and get a shot in the butt and never have to worry about getting a cold again? No. Nor does the fact that a virus can mutate mean that it is impossible to ever win a final victory against them. We’ve managed to eliminate smallpox, except for some lab samples, Gates has pledged billions to wipe out polio, and we’ve pretty much managed to do away with it in the US (IIRC, the only reported cases were due to a reaction to a type of vaccine that’s no longer in use.). I’m too lazy to google up stats on disease, but I’d be willing to bet that there’s a number of viruses we’ve managed to all but eliminate from the US thanks to things like manditory caccinations, improved sanitation and the like.
No need for the snarkiness my friend, none at all
This is what I mean when I say that you don’t really know what you’re talking about, and I don’t intend that statement as in insult, but rather as an encouragement to learn more about the topic. Comparing the several classes of viruses that collectively cause the syndrome colloquially known as “the common cold” to the Variola viruses that cause smallpox isn’t just apples and oranges but more like pinapples and papayas. Most “cold” viruses are highly contageous airborne diseases which are mutable and adaptable, but except in rare cases, are not lethal. They’re like little Mujahadeen troops, easily defeated in battle but always returning to launch more attacks.
Smallpox, on the other hand, is only moderately contageous, has no airborne vector (contact with fluid leaking from the pustules in contact with mucus membranes or via an open cut is the typical method of infection), and despite the uninformed public fears, is fatal only in a small proportion of cases for populations of predominantly Eurasian descent, particularly the more common but less virulent variety. (Its ferocious lethality upon the aborigonal populations of the Americas and in Oceania is the result of allopatric isoloation and limited genetic diversity.) The virus comes in two highly stable forms, V. major and V. minor, both of which the human immune system rapidly develops antibodies for and maintains lifelong resistance. Developing a vaccine for smallpox was so trivial that all it took was a serendipitous revelation by physician Edward Jenner and adaptation of a natural variant (the cowpox virus) to make an effective vaccine, and because it has a very limited transmission vector, simple public health measures, including precautionary vaccination, quarantine, sanitation, et cetera were sufficient to isolate and starve the virus of fresh meat.
Poliomyelitis, while more virulent and at least equally as contageous (it is transmitted by the fecal-oral route and can survive the highly acidic environment of the gastrointestional tract) is as easily contained by preventative measures (vaccines developed by Jonas Salk, and the mass inoculation virus later developed by Sabin, combined with improved public sanitation and sterilization of municipal water supplies) rendered the poliovirus incapable of effective transmission, virtually eliminating it in the Americas inside of a decade.
From your past postings and discussions, I know that you are an intelligent, curious, widely read person. Before railing at the medical research establishment for not coming up with a simple solution to this problem, please read up on the topic and understand why “curing the common cold” isn’t as simple as just ginning up a simple cocktail of vaccines and inoculating the public at large.
Stranger
&(^%& Flemish! Taking all or jobs and stealing all our women…
Yeah, but so what?
We’d all be speaking German and not getting colds. That doesn’t sound too bad.
[Of course, being under a Nazi regime would be bad, which is what I assume you are referring to]
You’re willing to suffer for a whole week for $50?
I’d be surprised if many people in the developed world would put $50 above a week’s sufferring.
I guess i’ll pick up where Stranger on a train left off.
** Tuckerfan **
I’d be willing to bet 100$ that many viruses have ZERO percent sequence homology(sequence sameness). This is because Viruses aren’t all evolved from some common ancestor like the great majority of organisms alive today. Viruses are simple enough that they have spontaneously come into existance many many times over the history of life. No evolutionary history means no reason for them to have similar sequences/modes of action etc.
However, even if they all had a magical sequence in common so what? How’re you going to even target that sequence? The mammalian immune system can’t even do that and it has been fighting diseases for over 200 million years.
Theres plenty of non-specific antiviral chemicals out there. The problem is that they’ll kill you just as easily as they’ll kill your cold. Even the Anti-aids antivirals they have cytotoxic. They just happen to kill you slower then AIDS will. Therefore it makes sense to use them.
um mice have an HIV analog, It’s called MIV.
Actually Smallpox was so easily eliminated because it DOESN’T mutate. Smallpox was so highly conserved that any deviation from it’s sequence pretty much made it inviable.