Book Review: Viruses, Plagues, and History

Nature is that lovely lady who gave us the polio virus...and the influenza virus...and the rabies virus...and the HIV virus...and so on. She's a lovely lady with death and cruelty in her eyes, and it seems she's totally committed to making all of us miserable.

In 1892, a twenty-eight year old Russian botanist named Dimitri Iosifovich Iwanowsky (1864-1920) reported in the journal of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences the existence of a mysterious infectious agent. He had no idea what it was, except that it was certainly invisible and passed through filters that ordinarily stopped bacteria. Was it merely a tiny bacterium? All he knew was that the agent was apparently the cause of a tobacco plant disease (tobacco mosaic disease), which made the discovery of practical importance. Tobacco, after all, brought to Europe five hundred years before, was so much a part of European culture that in any major city anywhere one could find a cluttered little tobacco shop on nearly every street corner. The Russian journal that accepted Iwanowsky's paper published in the French language, no doubt to assure notice in the academic corridors of Paris, and notice was immediately obtained. Iwanowsky, only four years out of the University of St. Petersburg, had made his mark. He also made a serious mistake by not doing further experiments to test the idea that the infectious agent was merely an extremely small bacterium--but he certainly broke new ground for others to march on.

And march they did. In 1898, the Dutch botanist Martinus Beijerinck (1851-1931), son of a tobacco dealer, discarded the idea of a bacterium as the cause of tobacco mosaic disease, proposed a "living fluid" infection, and called the agent a "virus".

No progress was made for a generation--until 20th century technology arrived. In 1935, the American biochemist Wendell Stanley (1904-1971) isolated the infectious agent of tobacco mosaic virus in crystalline form and proposed that Beijerinck's "virus" was "a molecule". Stanley's work was supported in 1936 by the Swedish chemists Inga-Britta Eriksson-Quensel (?-?) and Theodor Svedberg (1884-1971), who proposed on the basis of studies using electrophoresis and the ultra-centrifuge that the causative agent of tobacco mosaic disease was indeed not a bacterium but an agent of molecular dimensions.

A living molecule? The idea was a great puzzle in the 1930s. We now know that a virus actually consists of a small number of macromolecules, but even so, we're apparently at the interface between the physical sciences and the life sciences. Is it alive or not alive? A virus is a small assembly of macromolecules, an RNA or DNA genome plus proteins, that can replicate itself if it can get inside a compatible living cell and use the genetic machinery of that cell. A common pathological outcome is that the host cell dies after it's used for the successful replication of many virus particles. Another apparent usual outcome is that the genome of the host cell may be damaged in the replication process and turn the cell into a cancer cell.

Viruses are not our friends, and we're really only at the beginning of our understanding of what they do and how they do it. One thing is certain: if the public understood more about viruses, there might be less political and social commotion about vaccinations against viruses. This is one area where educating the public about science is in the direct public interest and not merely an enlightened abstraction. If the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) would put up billboards about viruses around the country, they might do our national security some serious good.

Readable books about viruses by experts are not plentiful enough, and the point of this essay is to recommend a recent arrival by the American virologist Michael Oldstone. In 17 chapters, the author gives the non-specialist reader a complete account of viruses and virus-caused plagues such as smallpox, yellow fever, measles, polio, hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, ebola, hantavirus, SARS, West Nile Virus, mad cow disease, and influenza. His final words are special:

"In the end, the splendor of human history is not in wars won, dynasties formed, or financial empires built, but in improvement of the human condition. The obliteration of diseases that impinge on our health is a regal yardstick of civilization's success, and those who accomplish that task will be among the true navigators of a brave new world."

Read this book (available now)--it's a treat.

[Michael B. Oldstone: Viruses, Plagues, and History: Past, Present, and Future. Oxford University Press, 2010.]

 

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Comments

[mofmars333]

Save & pass this information on to help wake others, especially your physicians, people.

Take no one's word for anything this urgent without doing your own research, your children are too important not to.

Many doctors as referenced in the following links are speaking out & soon many more will be joining their ranks of truth.

"Swine Flu-One of the Most Massive Cover-ups in American History" Renowned expert exposes major H1N1 myths.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/What-We-Have-Learned-About-the-Great-Swine-Flu-Pandemic.aspx

Doctors speak out;

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/727.html

Doctor Admits Vaccine Is More Deadly Than Swine Flu Itself & Will Not Give It To His Kids

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1z7KSEnyxw&feature=related

Poisoning attempt’ charges filed against French H1N1 campaign

http://www.fleshandstone.net/healthandsciencenews/1662.html
www.Nutronix.com/naturalsolutions

Amazing Physician Alert!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0JqQyl09zQ&feature=player_embedded

Jane Burgermeister who filed criminal charges is old news but credible & incredible so be sure to see all the information at her site;

http://www.theflucase.com/

Swine Flu Government Data Scam?

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/731.html

Join "US" at;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-christian-hall/thimerosol-in-flu-vaccine_b_342736.html#postComment

[mofmars333]

Part 2

Young girl winds up in hospital after being injected with H1N1 swine flu vaccine without parental permission

http://www.naturalnews.com/027395_swine_flu_hospital_vaccine.html

Ron Paul

http://www.voteronpaul.com/newsDetail.php?Ron-Paul-Government-Can-Quarantine-the-People-2678

Chicken-pox Vaccine & Death – New US Government Study

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/chickenpoxadultdeaths/


Pentagon resumes experimental
vaccine testing on US troops

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/16.html

[mamacat]

Talking about viruses and epidemics, our mom was a witness to the 1918 flu epidemic. She told us stories about seeing bodies literally piled up on the sidewalks of New York, and of horse drawn wagons coming down the street to pick up the bodies. She saw it with her own eyes, and she scared the bejeezus out of us with her stories. (I always get vaccinated when a vaccine is available for a potentially life threatening disease.)

[my2cnz]

I'm curious how indepth this book covers prion disease.

[RMankovitz]

Studies of DNA fragments of our paleo ancestors show that viruses have been part of our makeup for at least the 2.5 million year existence of the homo genus.

Even in jest, a statement suggesting that nature has death and cruelty in her eyes and seems totally committed to making all of us miserable, is the height of anthropocentrism.

What nature did give us is a robust and properly functioning defense system that allows us to live in harmony with a variety of parasites, including viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Unfortunately, the medical community is still trying to locate our defense system, much less understand it. Until recently, they thought is just consisted of antibodies in the blood. Now, some realize it mostly resides in the gut, consisting primarily of parasitic bacteria. They have yet to indentify the bulk of these bacteria, much less what constitutes a healthy mix. Perhaps certain fungi and viruses also will be shown to be part of the mix that keeps us healthy.

As Bechamp lectured Pasteur, who finally agreed, the key to wellness is our defense system, not the administration of anti-infectives. Vaccines do not prevent anything. If they work at all, they prime our defense system for a future invasion. By definition, those that succumb to disease have a weak defense system.

A discussion and references concerning a program designed by nature to maintain a robust defense system can be found in "The Wellness Project."

Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness,com

[Dan Agin - Huffpost Blogger]

Your assumption that the human immune system as it is now evolved can handle any parasitic invasion is off the mark and misinformation. A massive bacterial infection will quickly cause septicemia if not treated with antibiotics--and a few generations ago that's exactly what happened and people died by the millions. If you don't agree, and you think you have protected yourself with some regimen, fill up a syringe with a pathogenic strain of E. Coli, inject it into a vein, and sit down. I suggest while you're sitting down you call a funeral home. As for pathogenic viruses, the problems are much worse. What we need at the moment are not regimens but more research.

[RMankovitz]

"Your assumption that the human immune system as it is now evolved can handle any parasitic invasion is off the mark and misinformation."

I stated no such thing. Massive bacterial infections, injecting E. coli, and walking in front of a moving truck all can be detrimental to one's health.

Do you disagree that the survivors from a past pandemic were generally those with a robust defense system?

Many in the infectious disease arena believe pathogens can mutate faster than anything we can dream up, other than our innate defense system. It worked well in the past, or our species would be extinct. For more on mutations and our losing battle with antibiotics, see:

http://www.idsociety.org/badbugsnodrugs.html

I agree that we need more research. In the meantime, one can sit around and pray for a new antiviral or antibacterial, or take some action. Regarding regimens, here are a few to get one's defense system back up to the factory specs intended by nature:

Test your Vitamin D level, and keep it in the normal range.

Test your zinc level, and get it to the point that you pass the zinc taste test.

Test your iodine level, and get it up high enough to counter the toxic halogens in our environment.

Eat the foods nature intended, and follow her detox protocols.

Keep in mind that the medical community is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. See:

http://silver.neep.wisc.edu/~lakes/iatrogenic.pdf

[royniles]

Metaphorically speaking, nature's indifference to pain and suffering IS cruel in its effects and only a homeopath, or naturopath perhaps, would come to nature's defense.in that regard. Being somewhat cruel professions themselves when it comes to some of the consequences of their practice.

[Dan Agin - Huffpost Blogger]

royniles: This is absolutely true. Too many people in the health business depend on public ignorance of science and medicine to aid their sales. If you know more about how your car works than about how your body works, the health business loves you. Good health is a good thing, but free advice about good health is available in any public library, and on the Web at the National Library of Medicine and the CDC. In general, people who discourage vaccination of children against common childhood diseases are people dangerous to the community.

[royniles]

Priced quite reasonably at Amazon by the way.