Okay, so it’s not so much cold prevention, but it’s mid-October, the filfth-ridden freshmen have re-entered the dorms, I’m working as an RA again, and I’ve had three colds in the past six weeks. Rather annoying.
So, if I recall correctly, scientists have identified some 250-300 odd viruses as being responsibe for the, “common cold,” correct? It seems that these viruses don’t pose much threat to healthy individuals, but the annoyance that comes with them; the running nose, the coughing, the mucus everywhere, the inability to sidle up to members of the opposite sex and woo them while croaking, “hmmmm… (clears throat) I like you (cough) (sneeze) and so what are you (sneeze) doing next Friday, and I’m sorry that I got snot on your sweater,” is a result of your body’s own immune reaction to the virus. Until your body produces specific antibodies to these viruses, you’ll continue to suffer. Certainly these things suck, but a running nose can only be so productive.
So, why wouldn’t it be possible to inject people with dozens of cold viruses all at once, or even all 250 known cold viruses? They suffer through a standard period of ten to twelve days of annoying cold symptoms, and two weeks later or so, your body has produced antibodies for all of these viruses and you’re now immune to the common cold.
Why wouldn’t this work? Would being exposed to so many different viruses at once prove much more dangerous or even lethal compared to taking them one virus at a time? Would the symptoms from multiple cold viruses really be so much worse? Am I mistaken in how common colds really occur? Are there far too many viral pathogens causing colds than I’ve guessed? Could they be practically be collected alive and given to someone?
Actually, viruses tend to compete, so they wouldn’t all live together.
Viruses are very difficult to grow in a lab, some can’t be grown at all. I wouldn’t feel comfortable injecting anyone with random snot.
I believe one’s immunity to a rhinovirus is very short lived, so you would have to repeat your mega cold once a month or so… It seems to be a zero sum gain.
Viruses are too small to see with a light microscope. They aren’t easy to capture or train, better to try a flea circus.
The symptomatic treatment available OTC today, is pretty effective, and iff you wash your hands, you aren’t likely to get a cold.
Coughing and sneezing are rarely the virial source that infects folks. Touching something or someone with virus on it, then touching your face (mouth, nose, eyes) is a very common source for the spread of colds.
Actually, most viruses don’t mutate. Influenza A mutates between victims, while HIV mutates within the body.
Rhinoviruses IIRC, don’t mutate.
Also, there are different strains of Influenza A existing in the world. The much feared Avian Flu is slightly different than Swine Flu or Hong Kong Flu.
Sorry, that was incomplete.
Influenza A viruses swap genes gradually, so anyone infected during an outbreak will get basicly the same strain.
Because they swap genes, they become a slightly different virus by the next season, so last season’s vaccine won’t work.
With HIV, the virus swaps genes more rapidly, so the disease actually changes within the body. That’s why creating a vaccine for AIDS has been so challenging.
The best way of avoiding a cold is to avoid ill bastards. If anyone heroically comes in to work when ill to spread their diseases, berate them until they go home.
I’ve heard that the cold transmission vector isn’t usually from sneezes and airborne microsnot particles, it’s from contact. Handshakes, door handles, taps etc. In particular, try not to touch your eyes or mouth when in the same building as cold-ridden people.
A biologist friend used to work for the Common Cold Unit near Porton Down, and they had very, very strict rules about sneezing procedures, touching things, and in particular, touching the face.
Why would the medical industry bother making any kind of vaccine for the common cold when they rake in $6 billion annually for cold medications? It’s a non-lethal disease, and if nobody ever got sick, companies would stop giving out sick days, which would make it harder to skip work in order to go to the beach or something.
All viruses mutate if they’re reproducing. Picornaviruses, of which rhinoviruses are a subset, are known to have a remarkably high mutation rate. They have a mutation rate (per site, per generation) that’s 10,000 times higher than humans, for example.
Injecting them into your bloodstream wouldn’t provide immunity on your mucous membranes, which is where it’s needed. You’d need to dump all those viruses into your nose, which would not provide immunity so much as it would give you one mother of a cold. Additionally, immunity developed in these membranes is quite short lived - weeks to months - so you’d have to repeat the process regularly. That’s even ignoring the mutation issue. You’d basically be living your life with a constant cold - the cure being worse than the disease and all that.
On top of that, I’d be willing to bet that very few of these viruses have ever been isolated, let alone cultured. Heck, it’s a fair bet that we haven’t identified all of the viruses responsible.
That’s interesting. I don’t see why immunity would be any different depending on the source of exposure. Can you provide more support for your assertion?
There are different types of antibodies. B cells in mucous membranes secrete IgA antibodies and they just don’t produce the same type of immunity as you get from IgG or IgM secreting cells in the bloodstream. It’s a different branch of the immune system, and it behaves differently.
Any college level Immunology textbook can explain more. Mine is Immunology by Goldsby et al.
Yeah, why would those evil corporations bother fighting polio, smallpox, yellow fever, typhoid, whooping cough, or anything else when it’s so much more profitable to sell people symptomatic treatment?
Here’s a fun project for you: Look up how many people died of infectious disease in 1900. Look up how many people died of infectious disease in 2000. Come back here and tell me that since corporations make more money treating symptoms, nobody’s curing anything.
Well, thank you all, all of your posts have been quite informative. I’ve learned a lot about colds and cleared up some misconcptions. I had always assumed that it was a systemic viral infection when in fact it really only involves nasal mucosa. Also, I wasn’t aware that specific immunity in these membranes lasted only months instead of a life-time. I guess that would really be the final blow to this little idea in addition to all of the practical difficulties of culturing and delivering these viruses. This really upsets me. With every cold, I had always assumed, well there’s another one down, but now apparently all of my colds have been for naught.
