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Adding to the wealth of information in The Infection Game, this supplement provides three further chapters: New infections and where they come from; Retroviruses; and Pandemics with particular reference to Covid-19
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Life is an arms race SUPPLEMENT – June 2020
Dr Sarah Myhill MB BS & Craig Robinson MA (Oxon)
Chapter 39
Earlier chapters in the Infection Game detail how most chronic pathology has an infectious driver. Some of this can be explained by declining immunity, but it is becoming increasingly clear that we are seeing new diseases caused by new microbes and infectious particles (prions). Why? Man is playing God with Nature. There are three major sources of these chronic infections: Western medicine, agriculture and biological warfare. Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Frankenstein (or The Modern Prometheus) warns of the dangers of playing God:
“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, née Godwin, English novelist (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851)
All humans, indeed all mammals, are carrying an infectious burden of viruses, bacteria, fungi and prions. This is an inevitable part of the arms race. Over millions of years each species has learned to deal with their own personal infectious load in order to survive this arms race. Over these years, humans and animals have regularly consumed each other and the gut has evolved magnificent defences against such infections which include vomiting and diarrhoea, killing with stomach acid and pancreatic enzymes. Icelanders have eaten scrapie-infected sheep brains for years and not developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob 2disease (CJD). Most importantly for us, the human brain has given us good hygiene with clean water, clean food and good first aid principles, and this has substantially reduced infectious diseases.
Problems arise when the infected material from an infected human or an infected animal is injected into another human. This by-passes all our natural defences of surface immunity and skin and gives that infectious particle a head start. We already know that this has happened and known examples of such are as listed in Table 39.1.
Table 39.1: Known cases of iatrogenic* infection
Which diseaseWhich virus or prionNotesHepatitis C and BCan be transmitted through blood productsHepatitis sufferers, past or present, are not permitted to be blood donorsHIVDittoHIV sufferers are not permitted to be blood donors May also be transmitted by dentists CJDPrion disease – from the ineffective sterilisation of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) electrodesSee the NIH Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Fact Sheet1 One case from a corneal transplantSee the NIH Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Fact Sheet1 Growth hormone injections derived from human pituitary glands from dead humansThe longest incubation time was 38 years2 Some of those injected with growth hormone developed Alzheimer’s plaques before the age of 50Some experts have recommended that people with a family history of dementia should not be blood donorsMesothelioma (lung cancer), brain tumours in children, bone cancers, lymphomas and kidney cancersSimian virus 40 (SV40) is a cancer-causing virus. It was a contaminant of the Salk polio vaccine, grown on Rhesus monkey kidney cells and routinely used between 1955 and 1963Mesothelioma has been attributed solely to asbestos exposure, but we now know SV40 is also a factor.33MECytomegalovirus (CMV) can be passed via blood transfusion and organ transplantation4CMV is a common driver of post-viral CFS. It may be a problem for people who are immunosuppressed5Lymphoma, leukaemia and demyelinationHuman T-cell lymphotrophic viruses. These can be passed in blood products and by sexual contactFor more see the Wikipedia entry for Human_T-lymphotropic_virus6MalariaPlasmodium falciparum, P. malariae, P. ovale, P. vivax and P. knowlesi usually transferred by mosquito biteCan be acquired from blood transfusion.7*Linguistic note: Iatrogenic, meaning relating to illness caused by medical examination or treatment, is derived from the Greek iatros (healer) + -genic (producing) and so ‘healer-produced’.
All the associations listed in Table 39.2 are biologically plausible. A theoretical but important concern is the problem that viral vaccines like MMR can only be grown on live animal tissue. All animals have been fighting infection since the beginning of Life on Earth and many have ‘done a deal’ with those viruses on the basis of: ‘you let me live and I will look after you’. Human DNA is 15% retrovirus – we too have done such a deal. But when viruses are grown on monkey, cow, mouse or egg-cell culture, some of the animal cell culture will find itself within vaccines. When you receive a vaccine you too will receive a dose. Vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox and, more recently, rotavirus and HPV, are currently manufactured using cell cultures. For more detail on theoretical and practical concerns, see the book Shattered Dreams – the HPV vaccine exposed by Christina England.84
Table 39.2: Biologically plausible sources of iatrogenic infection
Which diseaseInfectious particleNotesnvCJD (new variant CJD), Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease, multi-system atrophyPrions: PrPsc, beta amyloid, alpha synuclein (PD and MSA), SOD-1 protein; these may be present in all human blood products from blood transfusion to gamma globulin injections and monoclonal antibodies9Prions cannot be identified nor removed from blood products. Incubation is decades. It is a concern that pre-clinical cases are infectious and may contaminate blood products. We have no idea how many cases derive from blood products or vaccinationnvCJDThe infectious prion of sporadic CJD. (PrPsc is the same as nvCJD.) Prions may be present in cow components used for vaccine production; this happens simply because cows are large animals, so much material is available. These products are used in vaccine manufacture and can include amino acids, glycerol, detergents, gelatin, enzymes and bloodThere is no proof, only supposition, that prion disorders are transmitted by food. It is possible that vaccine grown on cow cell cultures or bovine foetal serum contained PrPsc and this is how nvCJD infected young people, of average age 28 (compared with 60 years in sporadic CJD). We have seen one nvCJD mini-epidemic of 223 people homozygous for susceptibility (MM) from short incubation.
We are now seeing the start of a second epidemic of those heterozygous for susceptibility (MV) with long incubation10 In December 1993 and May 1996, the USA’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued letters advising that bovine-derived materials from animals born in or residing in countries where BSE had occurred should no longer be used in vaccine manufacture.
So far in the UK here have been four cases of nvCJD from blood transfusions11 Prion disease of the brain can only be diagnosed post mortem. Dementia is a symptom, not a diagnosis. We have no idea how many dementia patients actually have CJD because we do not look for it and, perhaps do not want to know? 5
Lyme disease, Chagas disease, babesiosis, leishmaniasisBorrelia, trypanosome, babesia, leishmania – from biting insects such as ticks and sand fliesSufferers are not permitted to be blood donorsProstate cancerMurine retrovirus (XMRV) comes from vaccines grown on mice tissue culture (such as yellow fever, rabies, Japanese encephalitis)1230% of cases of prostate cancer test positive to XMRV (compared with 3.7% of the normal population).12
In France, the mouse brain-derived yellow fever vaccine was used until 1982
XMRV has been found in blood used for transfusionMouse-grown monoclonal antibodies are used to treat many cancers, cardiovascular disease, psoriasis and autoimmune disordersMyalgicenc-ephalitits (ME)Ditto comments re XMRV above67% of sufferers tested positive. As a result, patients with ME were banned from being blood donors11AIDsHIVIt has been hypothesised, but is unproven, that AIDS resulted from natural infection from wild monkeys. However, it is equally plausible that HIV came from polio vaccines developed by Hilary Koprowski at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia These were tested on hundreds of thousands of children and adults in the countries now called Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi between 1957 and 1959. HIV is widespread in these populations13,14**Footnote: Readers interested in more detail are advised to look up ‘Bovine Derived Materials Used in Vaccine Manufacturing Questions and Answers’ on the website of the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).156
Intensive farming provides the perfect environment for new infectious particles to mutate and spread into the human population. Table 39.3 sets out the infections concerned.
Table 39.3: Infections spread by poor farming practices
Which diseaseWhich infectious particleNotes