Melodi
Disaster Cat
This is also on the long thread but I thought this was so important that people might want to read it and not have it lost in the shuffle, - this is Nightwolf's response after going and actually reading that PDF that is supposedly linking HIV to the new Coronavirus when in reality it is based on HIV drugs (anti-virals) being used to treat the disease (its a virus). In the same way that these drugs are now being used to treat hepatitis C and other viral conditions - Melodi (aka Disastercat)
HIV/Coronavirus:
This is actually Nightwolf writing, not Disastercat; she asked me to check it out because it's kind of above her pay grade.
A drug combination (lopinavir/itonavir) originally developed and chiefly used for treating HIV is being used (in a sort of "Hail Mary pass" way, I suspect) hopefully to treat the 2019 NoCoV in China.
This does not mean, imply, or even faintly suggest that there is any element of the HIV genome in the Wuhu Flu. Several drugs developed for treating HIV are currently well-tested and considered effective, for instance, in treating plain aul' natural hepatitis C.
The Wuhu Flu is (like the majority of human-pathogenic viruses) an RNA virus; it is not a retrovirus, but it is an RNA virus, and therefore it would not surprise me if some anti-HIV drugs turned out to be as effective against it as they appear to be in the evolving treatment of hep C.
This does not, of course, mean that I think that the Wuhu Flu is necessarily natural. I have been kind of amused by the efforts made from publications from the Lancet to the Sun not to actually stand up, point at China, and scream, "Liar, liar, pants on fire" about the whole "where did it come from?" issue (the Lancet article was the most entertaining to those who read Carefully Professional Doctorese). But no, no reason to think HIV was tossed into the same pot as maybe a couple of other coronaviruses...
UNLESS Blizzard has a reason, disclosable or not, to think otherwise. He is the guy to whom I would listen in a questionable area on this.
Incidentally, on that topic...Blizzard mentioned domestic cats. No one else that I could find has ever mentioned domestic cats...except for a brief mention ca. 2004 (SARS) in which a couple of researchers observed that the SARS virus could be propagated in cats and ferrets; it killed some of the ferrets, but left the cats unharmed, though propagating successfully. The researchers concluded that the common house cat would make an ideal subject for further investigation of the SARS coronavirus. And there the topic went silent.
Would anyone care to guess the country of origin suggested by those researchers' names? (Does anyone even feel that they *have* to guess?)
If the disease becomes an issue in Ireland, I know a number of indoor/outdoor cats who will be crabby full-time locked up cats for the duration...
HIV/Coronavirus:
This is actually Nightwolf writing, not Disastercat; she asked me to check it out because it's kind of above her pay grade.
A drug combination (lopinavir/itonavir) originally developed and chiefly used for treating HIV is being used (in a sort of "Hail Mary pass" way, I suspect) hopefully to treat the 2019 NoCoV in China.
This does not mean, imply, or even faintly suggest that there is any element of the HIV genome in the Wuhu Flu. Several drugs developed for treating HIV are currently well-tested and considered effective, for instance, in treating plain aul' natural hepatitis C.
The Wuhu Flu is (like the majority of human-pathogenic viruses) an RNA virus; it is not a retrovirus, but it is an RNA virus, and therefore it would not surprise me if some anti-HIV drugs turned out to be as effective against it as they appear to be in the evolving treatment of hep C.
This does not, of course, mean that I think that the Wuhu Flu is necessarily natural. I have been kind of amused by the efforts made from publications from the Lancet to the Sun not to actually stand up, point at China, and scream, "Liar, liar, pants on fire" about the whole "where did it come from?" issue (the Lancet article was the most entertaining to those who read Carefully Professional Doctorese). But no, no reason to think HIV was tossed into the same pot as maybe a couple of other coronaviruses...
UNLESS Blizzard has a reason, disclosable or not, to think otherwise. He is the guy to whom I would listen in a questionable area on this.
Incidentally, on that topic...Blizzard mentioned domestic cats. No one else that I could find has ever mentioned domestic cats...except for a brief mention ca. 2004 (SARS) in which a couple of researchers observed that the SARS virus could be propagated in cats and ferrets; it killed some of the ferrets, but left the cats unharmed, though propagating successfully. The researchers concluded that the common house cat would make an ideal subject for further investigation of the SARS coronavirus. And there the topic went silent.
Would anyone care to guess the country of origin suggested by those researchers' names? (Does anyone even feel that they *have* to guess?)
If the disease becomes an issue in Ireland, I know a number of indoor/outdoor cats who will be crabby full-time locked up cats for the duration...