CDC: Cold-virus variant has killed 10

CDC: Cold-virus variant has killed 10

www.cnn.com

ATLANTA (AP) -- A mutated version of a common cold virus has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months, U.S. health officials said Thursday.

Adenoviruses usually cause respiratory infections that aren't considered lethal. But a new variant has caused at least 140 illnesses in New York, Oregon, Washington and Texas, according to a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Earlier this year, hundreds of trainees at Lackland became ill with respiratory infections. Tests showed a variety of adenoviruses in the trainees, but at least 106 -- and probably more -- had the mutated form of Ad14, including five who ended up in an intensive care unit

The Ad14 form of adenovirus was first identified in 1955. In 1969, it was blamed for a rash of illnesses in military recruits stationed in Europe, but it's been detected rarely since then.

So.. here's an obscure mutation of the common cold virus that suddenly breaks out during the 60's, in the perfect control environment to study it's effects. A military installation, remote from the US and easy to quarantine if things get out of hand, with military doctors on hand to study and record all the details.

It disappears for almost 40 years, then suddenly turns up at another military base but this time at home and it's spreading across the country rapidly. Now this doesn't seem to be a "killer" disease that would leave millions dead, but it does seem like it would have the potential to overwhelm the medical services and create chaos in the community.

Did they get sick of waiting for the Bird Flu and decide to do something themselves?

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

FYI...not trying to derail your thread or anything, but we are also talking about this over on the Medical Issues forum here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...'

reply to post by Jazzerman


There can be parrallel threads on both ATS and ATSNN

To quote the article as posted:
"Severe illnesses are more likely in people with weaker immune systems."

Just a thought I had:

These men were in boot camp: sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, and a stressful environment. Is it possible a rare event occurred and the group got sick due to the whole group having close proximity and compromised immune systems due to the environment?

With the information presented, I think conspiracy is a far fetched idea at this time.

Just my $0.02.

Originally posted by FredT
There can be parrallel threads on both ATS and ATSNN

No problem, I was just trying to inform mythatsabigprobe about the other thread so that I and others didn't have to duplicate our posts twice since this topic is rather personally interesting. Thanks for the reminder, and I hope mythatsabigprobe didn't think I was trying to get his thread closed or anything...many apologies if it came across that way.

Hey, that's no problem I appreciate you pointing out the other thread.

It seems like you know your stuff, would you be willing to answer a couple of questions about this virus?

On the other thread you said;

An educated guess would lead me to believe that the new virus might be able to block interferon cytokine production, which would effectively negate the antioncogenic properties produced by Macrophages and Lymphocytes.

Does that mean that the virus can basically shut down the immune system and do whatever it wants to the host? How would you treat a virus like that?

Does it seem odd to you that a virus would survive almost 40 years between outbreaks and turn up once again in a military installation? I mean, why not a prison or a school, or some other country's military base?

If you were the evil Dr. Jazzerman for a moment, bent on controlling the world, would you use a virus like this or is Ad14 just for candy assed evil scientists?

Ive heard from a buddy who knows a guy in the airforce that was infected with this virus. He is on medical leave for several months and appears to be fine. Interesting thing is though he said most information pertaining to this virus is classified by the airforce.