Going viral: The original and still worst case scenario

And you thought computer viruses were bad

According to Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, “virus” is a term for a group of infectious agents, which, with few exceptions, are capable of passing through fine filters that retain most bacteria, are usually not visible through the light microscope, lack independent metabolism. and are incapable of growth or reproduction apart from living cells. They have a prokaryotic genetic apparatus but differ sharply from bacteria in other respects.

The complete particle usually contains either DNA or RNA, not both, and is most often covered by a protein shell or capsid that protects the nucleic acid. They range in size from 15 to several hundred nanometers.

Said to be Earth’s most abundant biological entity--staggeringly so--viruses cause a wide variety of diseases, including:

• AIDS

• Chickenpox

• Common cold

• COVID-19

• Dengue fever and Zika

• Ebola and Hanta fever

• Hepatitis

• Herpes and cold sores

• Influenza

• Measles, mumps, rubella, and shingles

• Mononucleosis

• Polio

• Rabies

• Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

• Smallpox

Human Herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) deserves special mention as it has been implicated in dozens of conditions, ranging from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma to myocarditis. And, if that weren’t bad enough, COVID-19 infection can reactivate HHV-6. As it is, HHV-6 is present in virtually 100 percent of humans, but this is a recent phenomenon.

A retrovirus is a type of RNA virus that replicates in a particularly cunning manner. It uses an enzyme called reverse transcriptase to convert its genetic information into a DNA format, suitable to be integrated into the host’s DNA genome. Thus, the host is now doing the work of replication. Retroviruses are considered “retro” because they reverse the direction of the normal gene copying process.

Usually, cells convert DNA into RNA so that it can be made into proteins. But with retroviruses, the process starts with a “backwards” step. First, the viral RNA is transformed into DNA. Then, the host cell can copy the DNA. Two other retrovirus enzymes are operable in this process. Protease, which allows the retrovirus into the host cell in the first place; and integrase, which inserts the invader’s converted genetic material into the host’s DNA.

Two infamous retroviruses are human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and human T-cell lymphotropic virus I (HTLV-I), which causes leukemia. And then we have human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs). Consider that 8% of our own DNA originally came from viruses.

As noted in a review article entitled “Neural Cell Responses Upon Exposure to Human Endogenous Retroviruses,” “HERVs, usually dormant, can be reactivated by environmental factors such as infections with other viruses, leading to the expression of viral proteins and, in some instances, even to viral particle production.” According to another author, “HERVs have been implicated in the onset and progression of multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and schizophrenia.”

Given the hysteria created over SARS-CoV-2, you’d think that the medical community would be extremely concerned about viral loads in general. But, you’d be wrong.

Back in the day (the 1970s), it was medical orthodoxy that absent a major problem, no baby should have a virus active at birth. These days, the medical establishment acknowledges that at least 1 in 200 of newborns have Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and at least 1% of newborns have HHV-6.

While admitting that these viruses can have devastating effects on the children involved, such infections are simultaneously downplayed as being mostly asymptomatic. Back in the 1970s, this was surely not the case, as med students were taught that CMV is a major cause of hearing loss, and that herpesviruses are implicated in seizures. Multiple children today are being diagnosed with “seizure disorders” with no workup for any Herpes related virus.

Somehow, the older findings have been downplayed, along with the formerly vital notion that such preparations as flu vaccines were to be avoided in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy. But now, it’s perfectly OK to give a pregnant woman experimental COVID vaccines at any time, based on no data whatsoever.

How interesting that we seem to be more highly virus-infected, and dumber scientifically at the same time.