From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Apr 27 2003 - 20:20:06 MDT
--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Phil Osborn wrote:
>
> > As any serious search will reveal, SARS is quite
> > capable of killing healthy young individuals, but of
> > course the elderly or immune-compromised are at
> > special risk.
>
> True. My previous comments on the fatality rate
> appear to be low due to the early statistics being
> used. It now looks like the fatality rate is up
> in the 7-10% range.
As I reported several weeks ago.
>
> > A research scientist friend of mine with good DoD
> > connections tells me that he has info to the effect
> > that DoD gives SARS a 50% chance of being a bioweapon
> > that got away, presumeably from the Chinese.
>
> I'd question that. There are enough nasty bugs out there
> living in hosts humans don't encounter frequently (would
> you like to discuss the various bacteria and viruses that
> live in or on insects?) that it only takes a single crossover
> from a species that has learned to live with it to humans
> that haven't to cause a world of grief.
I'd have to differ. I've gotten several reports that indicate it first
showed up outside a Chinese military bioresearch center in Guangzhou
(sp?) province.
>
> Everything I've seen so far suggests its genetic makeup
> is far enough away from any known virus that it would have
> required a world class feat of genetic engineering (beyond
> anything anyone else has managed yet) to pull off the
> engineering of a virus this complex.
But what about the fact that it is so different from any other known
coronavirus? Something like that just wouldn't pop out of nowhere
naturally. It's about as likely as a virgin hermaphrodite giving birth
to a martian.
>
> The virus has a 30K genome of RNA and has a number of
> overlapping genes. I would assert that humans currently
> lack the talent to produce something that large and
> especially compress a genome to allow overlapping genes.
> Nature manages to accomplish this through a lot of trial
> and error.
And why wouldn't researchers try to construct some sort of accelerated
evolutionary environment?
30k genome of RNA isn't exactly needing a million monkeys typing
forever to get a Shakespeare play now, is it? More like a short poem by Goebbels.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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