Originally posted by Peter Brake
reply to post by marg6043

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Just to be clear the mutation I am talking about is to the makeup of the flu virus. Our immune system is attacking the virus which is mutating itself trying to keep ahead of our defences.

You are right though that an increase in virus mutations will kill many and continue to do so. Biotech scientists have created themselves a job continuously fighting mutations that they themselves are causing. While the rest of us pay for the medicines, get sick and die.

Originally posted by retroviralsounds

Originally posted by Peter Brake
reply to post by marg6043

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Not quite. We aren't creating the mutations any faster than the virus can create them itself. Everytime it infects someone, its going to change. Period. We as biotech scientist, aim to model and study these viruses in an attempt to understand and possibly predict these mutations but we are not causing them by any means. You can safely say an RNA virus 'has a mind of its own'.

Mercury is included in the vaccine for swine flu. This is a heavy metal are you saying that you know that this type of heavy metal does not increase gene transfer? For a mutated virus to survive it must have an advantage as it is effectively competing with the existing swine flu and must survive long enough to be spread to the next victum.
So the virus is their with a variety of opportunities to mutate in differant directions, has the boost from the heavy metals increased, the possible variants?
Biotech scientists use antibiotics to lower the species barrier in their attempts to insert foreign genes for genetically modified organisms. The transgene in the organism has been shown to be more available for a virus to mutate from. Are you saying that a more available gene is of no use to a mutating virus?
Do you agree that antibiotics help organisms to mutate? Do you know of any that have been banned from human use? I haven't I think these same antibiotics are being given to people with the swine flu & complications. Whose responsibility is it to inform the health authorities of this?
My thought on this is that yes you have increased the speed of the virus mutating, in that you have increased it's survival chances by offering antibiotics which increases gene availability,
GMO's for the same reason
and injected mercury into our bodies again giving the virus more chances of finding a gene which it can use to mutate.
If the virus is working on three differant mutations, it has three times as many chances of succeeding the strongest being the one that is passed on.

Originally posted by Peter Brake

Originally posted by retroviralsounds

Originally posted by Peter Brake
reply to post by marg6043

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Not quite. We aren't creating the mutations any faster than the virus can create them itself. Everytime it infects someone, its going to change. Period. We as biotech scientist, aim to model and study these viruses in an attempt to understand and possibly predict these mutations but we are not causing them by any means. You can safely say an RNA virus 'has a mind of its own'.

Mercury is included in the vaccine for swine flu. This is a heavy metal are you saying that you know that this type of heavy metal does not increase gene transfer? For a mutated virus to survive it must have an advantage as it is effectively competing with the existing swine flu and must survive long enough to be spread to the next victum.
So the virus is their with a variety of opportunities to mutate in differant directions, has the boost from the heavy metals increased, the possible variants?
Biotech scientists use antibiotics to lower the species barrier in their attempts to insert foreign genes for genetically modified organisms. The transgene in the organism has been shown to be more available for a virus to mutate from. Are you saying that a more available gene is of no use to a mutating virus?
Do you agree that antibiotics help organisms to mutate? Do you know of any that have been banned from human use? I haven't I think these same antibiotics are being given to people with the swine flu & complications. Whose responsibility is it to inform the health authorities of this?
My thought on this is that yes you have increased the speed of the virus mutating, in that you have increased it's survival chances by offering antibiotics which increases gene availability,
GMO's for the same reason
and injected mercury into our bodies again giving the virus more chances of finding a gene which it can use to mutate.
If the virus is working on three differant mutations, it has three times as many chances of succeeding the strongest being the one that is passed on.

First off, this is a bunch of absolute gibberish, clean it up to some decent english and I might be able to answer some of your questions. No heavy metals do not increase the rate of mutations in an RNA virus. No antibiotics do not increase the rate of mutation in an RNA virus. Secondly, antibiotics aren't prescribed for viral infections, only bacterial infections... antiviral medications are prescribed, but I am not a believer. Viruses infect your very own cells, hijack them, and reprogram them to create more virus. This means the opportunity for intervention with a virus are slim and none. Data shows Tamiflu works, so I guess it does, but again, I am not a believer.

IMO i'd much rather have the vaccine than tamiflu in my body.

Originally posted by Peter Brake
reply to post by retroviralsounds

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First off, this is a bunch of absolute gibberish, clean it up to some decent english and I might be able to answer some of your questions. No heavy metals do not increase the rate of mutations in an RNA virus. No antibiotics do not increase the rate of mutation in an RNA virus. Secondly, antibiotics aren't prescribed for viral infections, only bacterial infections... antiviral medications are prescribed, but I am not a believer. Viruses infect your very own cells, hijack them, and reprogram them to create more virus. This means the opportunity for intervention with a virus are slim and none. Data shows Tamiflu works, so I guess it does, but again, I am not a believer.

Yes I know antibiotics are not used to fight the swine flu, which is why I mentioned they have complications for which they are receiving antibiotics. Do you think it is a good idea to use antibiotics as a medicine to fight bacteria when it is known to increase gene transfer? Or do you debate this?

-Nothing increases the gene transfer of RNA viruses (or everything increases transfer, either way you look at it, it means the same thing). RNA virus SNPs, transfers and mutations are nearly completely unknown.

I understand the normal process of virus reproduction, we are discussing it's mutation however. To mutate it requires further genes. Agreed? a mutation is a change of it's genetic code.
-No. The mutations happen spontaneously.

What is the source of this new gene?, any organism it comes in contact with? If so then I can see why you haven't disagreed with my concern of transgenes being a 30 times greater source of genes than any other.
-RNA viruses can only gene transfer with other RNA viruses. Everytime the virus infects a cell, its probably going to mutate a bit. These mutations are usually just point mutations, meaning only one base pair of the RNA strand is changed. Over time though, these singular changes can amount to a changing of the protein the RNA codes for.

Surely a virus (which is not singular) is going flat out infecting cells reproducing & grabbing genes to mutate, has hits and misses. Meaning some of the genes that it grabs are useful and some aren't. If it grabs 30 times as many genes it has 30 times as many chances of it being useful and getting a successful mutation.(meaning it survives our immune response & gets passed to the next victum)
-Again, it does not grab genes. I'll try to explain this. The virus infects the cell, and inserts its genome into the host cell's DNA. When the DNA is replicated (cell division) it creates more identical RNA viruses. Since RNA has no proof reading function, and polymerases are not perfect, there are going to be a few mistakes in the new RNA strand... these are the mutations.

As for the antibiotic having no increase in the rate (clever) of mutation attempts in a virus - maybe but, as it lowers the species barrier effectively it makes genes more available and therefore a wider range of genetic material is available to it which increases it's chances of a successful mutation.
-Again, mutation rates are independant of other organisms, unless H1N1 happens to infect the same cell as say H3N2 (this year's seasonal flu, I think).


I have heard that viruses are mutating about as fast as it can. However the mutations generally do not do any better than the last version. A wider range of more readily available genes gives the virus a better chance of survival. Antibiotics and heavy metals makes genes more available, more genes = more chances of success.
-Yes, this is true, but evolution teaches us the mutated viruses that aquire a 'better' gene will overcome those who do not get it.

online.sfsu.edu...
www.organicconsumers.org...

I would appreciate any links you can send
-This is all from personal knowledge. As a scientist I am more than happy to talk science at anytime, if you have questions, keep them coming either in this thread or by U2U and I'll reply