There is no pandemic which can kill all people. Even with the worst diseases some humans always survive. No microbial disease is 100% fatal. We have too many people as it is. The real threat to humankind is that we destroy our planet, which we are doing and will continue to do. This is a bad investment since the threat to us is not from microbial illnesses. Even ebola doesn't kill all people who contract it.
Food preservatives are antimicrobials that kill off your gut flora and weaken your immune system. If you want to be healthy from an immune system standpoint avoid preservatives in your food and antibiotics, eat some fermented foods and maybe eats some dirt, or at least grow a garden and get your hands dirty.
4
Most likely, modern humans will have too many adverse immunologic reactions upon exposure to an individual's microbial treasures from a society without modern medicines.
However our own bacteria could be extracted and cultivated to do some medical work either with DNA tweaks or medicine-vacuoles as payload. Our Immune systems already know and tolerate these microbes.
"But the thinking behind the project is sound. "
I would differ from that judgment.
Are beneficial microorganisms actually threatened?
We actually don't have the slightest idea, since we are barely familiar with their diversity or lives. So - not knowing if, or what; should we spend millions and research careers on - pure guesswork? Bad idea.
Example, and don't quote me on exact numbers here; but they're something like this. Go out in your backyard, take a spoonful of soil from anywhere, and culture all the microbes you can. You will, certainly, find quite a few entire species that no one has ever identified before, if you're at all meticulous. Diversity is huge, and abundant.
And? What we know, but don't talk about, is that what you cultured was maybe 20% of the species that were there. The other 80% will not grow and show themselves under our "culture" regimens. We know very close to nothing at all about them. Going to preserve those too? How? And how will you test them for viability or use in the future? No idea. They are the "Dark Matter" of biology. Do they interact with us? No question, yes. How important? No idea at all.
We don't know nearly enough about the necessity nor methods to launch such an effort.
1
Perhaps a more urgent threat to public health are the antibiotics added to soaps and other household products.
There is no scientific or practical reason to destroy benign or beneficial bacteria in our environment. Quite the contrary, antibiotic products reduce our immunity to harmful infection, and they accelerate the evolution of super-bugs. Corporations add them just to sucker uninformed consumers and supposedly increase sales. But for the few dollars corporations earn with this evil trick, all of humanity pays a profound price. Marketers of household products with antibiotics are nothing more than corporate sociopaths.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission should ban antibiotics in all consumer goods unless need and safety can be proven. Until then, it is up to each of us to avoid these products, so please check the label.
5
The microbial world is not the same as the multi-cellular world of complex organisms. Adaptation to changes in the microbial environment are quick and mutations are common. What could be considered a beneficial bacteria today, may be an invasive or parasitic bacteria tomorrow. When changes occur as outside threats, our bodies adjust and cope appropriately leaving the stronger and more resistant of us to survive and pass on our genes to future generations. This is how nature works now, in the past and in the future. Saving the germs may just be creating a virulent pathogen for the future.
I know this is taboo in this publication but I do believe that the excessive and and inconsidered use of vaccines is responsible for the suppression of beneficial bacteria and general weakening of the immune system in humans as well as animals. I am not anti-vaccine, but they should be a careful analysis done about when and in what quantity they should be administered in order to promote and not diminish healthy outcomes.
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@Catherine Parry
Vaccines strengthen the immune system: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/infographics/strengthen-baby-immune-system.html
They allow the immune system to encounter diverse pathogens safely so that it can be trained to recognize them. We also used to get a lot of training like this by eating raw foods straight from the ground that are covered in microbes. Now that everything is so sterile our "bored" immune systems are going haywire and increasing autoimmune disorders. What is your evidence that vaccines suppress beneficial bacteria?
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@Catherine Parry, Vaccines tend to be highly specific not only against specific pathogen species but also against different variants of a given species. Thus, there are several different vaccines against influenza given at the same time to try to protect against as many "flu" variants as possible. It is not clear how the problems you suggest could be caused by a vaccine. Of course, everyone's immune system is unique and some may have a bad reaction against a given vaccine. And some individuals who have an immune deficiency problem should not be given a "live" vaccine because their immune system may not be able to handle the live pathogens, even though these attenuated pathogens do not cause disease in people with a normal immune system. It's always the case of trying to balance the possible good against the possible harm.
4
@Catherine Parry No, Catherine, vaccines are not like anti-microbial soap. Vaccines do not kill, wipe out, destroy, the bacteria, they give the individual who is vaccinated a stronger resistance to the illness. Please research the definition of "vaccine", it does not kill the bacteria, it is a"a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases"......vaccines make us stronger, more able to fight off the attackers. Very different.
1
A good and worthwhile idea! And not only from "that might be useful in the future" standpoint.
We could get started by getting donations of some of the worst disease-causing pathogens from biological weapons laboratories that several countries still operate, including Russia, the US, China and several others (North Korea). The US and Russia operate their facilities with the stated intent to develop treatments (as, I believe, does China), others (North Korea) either don't say or are openly manufacturing biological weapons (not mentioned in recent talks, I believe). So, unfortunately, at least the worst of the worst bugs are already being kept around, maybe they can be made to do something useful for a change.
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@ ak bronisias: "wise men are available world wide". Ha! Not so sure of that.
1
The article suggests some benefit from banking the germs but what is the cost?
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@Eugene Patrick Devany
What is the cost if we do not? Beware of "Penny wise, pound foolish."
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These collections already exist, and talk to each other, and exchange material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Culture_collections
I work for one of these organisations. We've been doing this for 68 years continuously. We take bacteria, and phages. Other collections take yeasts, algae. I am shocked people think this is a new concept.
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@Dan I Agree. This was my first thought while reading the article. Lyophilized cultures can survive indefinitely with little or no expense involved. Perhaps there is some merit is preserving samples of entire microbial ecosystems, e.g rumen fluid, feces, soils, etc. But this article fails to convey to me any new ideas.
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@Dan Most bacteria have not been cultured so are not found in culture collections.
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Over 220 years ago Edward Jenner put us on this path by committing an act for which he would now be jailed. We cannot turn back the clock of immunization. Nor can we assume any Plasmodium, Vibrio or HIV we stockpile will still have the answer our T lymphocytes are searching for. With five mechanisms of evolution driving variation in pathogen populations to contend with, we need a super strategy to gain a long life for all. I doubt we have the wisdom to achieve the goal. We certainly don't seem to have the wisdom to engage in a serious conversation about a constructive eugenics that would prevent growth of a population that cannot take care of itself.
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@Howard Winet
What does immunization have to do with microbial diversity? And what population that cannot take care of itself are you referring to? Certainly there has been a population control discussion going on among liberals for decades, access to family planning is vital to the economy and survival of our species.
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Natural selection favors those organisms adapted to withstand environmental pressures that limit their survival. Pathogens that are able to increase their gene pool (i.e. diversity) stand a better chance of adapting. Immunization is an environmental pressure that favors a large gene pool in a pathogen. That is how we get resistant pathogens. The natural way we and other organisms counter this tactic is to diversify our own gene pool. The more diverse a host's gene pool is the greater the chance that a resistant gene against a particular pathogen will turn up. If we concentrate on storing "desirable" microbes--a laudable strategy in isolation--we may be storing genes that are irrelevant in the world that will have evolved to greet them when they are reintroduced. As to your second point: Contraception that avoids birth of humans who need special resources to stay alive releases more resources to humans who can contribute to species--including their own--survival. War, other conflicts and accidents will create a sufficient number of needy to satisfy any political tribe's altruistic needs. @E B
Hopefully, such a repository won't be managed by the people that allowed the Svalbard Global Seed Vault defrost.
1
A great idea but I truly hope we never have to resort to such a vault. Humanity likely will have been on a precipitous decline by then. I'll share a personal story here -- I haven't been sick (beyond an infrequent bout of sinusitis) in ten years. I firmly believe it is because I've cultivated a balance of good microbes in my system--by steadfastly pursuing a naturally probiotic diet, avoiding casual use of antibiotics, and not worrying about, for example, cleaning the dirt from my fingernails when I've come in from raking the leaves and mowing the lawn. I don't need flu shots either. In Western culture our sense of hygiene has become grossly out of whack with our status as organisms within a complex ecosystem.
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@Henry Su I'm with you. When I feed (and pet) the rabbits, which live in pens outside, I don't wash my hands. I pick apples off the trees and eat them w/o brushing off most dirt. I pull carrots in the garden, brush off the dirt, and chomp down, I haven't been sick in decades. (And I have never used one of those lotions that cleanse your hands!)
@vermontague, I don't use the hand sanitizers either. I take a crowded subway to and from work every day. Obviously I am not touching things indiscriminately but like you, pets and dirt are the least of my worries.
@Henry Su I agree with most of what you said. But, "I don't need flu shots, either." Yes, you do. You don't know which influenza epidemic is going to be the one that your body is not set up to defend itself against. If only cemetery stones noted how many people die of the flue. But that would ruin a lovely walk in a cemetery. Flu shots are not "hygiene", they are vaccinations. Do yourself, and those around you, a favor. Get flu shots. Please.
1
Modern medicine, modern society itself, and its war against viruses, bacteria, nature itself?
Human society is a most peculiar enterprise. Humans uniformly appear to agree that humans must be removed as far as possible from a state of nature, that we must neither allow nature in its many forms, from wildlife and bacteria and viruses, to prey on us nor must we allow the most powerful and naturally healthy humans to decide our affairs as in barbarous ages, and in fact up until quite recently.
We subscribe, whether religious or secular, to a meek shall inherit the earth philosophy. We prefer humans weakened one way or another, as harmless if not actually children or past middle age and relatively calm. And there is no small part of society dedicated to controlling, regulating, directing humans from the ages of adolescence to middle age.
The plan seems to be to create a humanity much less violent with respect to itself, with much greater lifespan, and buffered constantly against nature by as many means as possible not to mention medicine. The question of course is is this a sensible course not to mention possible, and how strange it is that humanity seems instinctively to have grown in this direction, for it has been developing over centuries regardless of different cultures, religions, nations, peoples.
We seem to have turned the concept of health upside down: The naturally healthy are dangerous and we must pursue a new health, human where nature has never seen it before.
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@Daniel12, The choice is yours. People can choose to forgo vaccines and antibiotics if they wish (and die a lot younger, as most of our ancestors did).
1
Despite their name, bacteriophages do not eat bacteria. They are viruses that infect, replicate in, and in some cases destroy bacteria from the inside out. Early microbiology researchers didn't understand what they were seeing when their cultures went from opaque to lysed, and thought something must be eating the cells.
hence, "bacteriophage".
And this world bank of germs is a great idea. Make sure the whole biome is stored-- the bacteria, the single-celled eukaryotes, and the phages.
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In ‘War of the Worlds’, humanity is saved from the Martian invasion by humble germs. It may be fiction, but a perfect allegory to how beneficial microbes could be.
12
Scientifically this is a very good idea for humanity, not Earth.
Honestly Earth doesn’t need humans to last longer on the planet.
If a plague wiped out all of humanity, the planet would be better off and could slowly begin to heal.
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Duh? Microbes help every animal digest food and without designer bugs everything taste bland. Take aquaculture fish and eat a farmed catfish and go phooey. Antimicrobial resistance and death from sepsis will kill 100,000,000 million healthy people by 2050 (O'Neal 2016). Put these ideas in your pocket because this is the #1 topic of tomorrow.
1
A reasonable idea on its surface......but essentially saying that we need a germ bank to protect us from OURSELVES and our anthropogenic hazards......created by unaware and selfish drives to ACCUMMULATE .........unending amounts of UNNECESSARY ..........material and monetized wealth.
What humanity, really (and URGENTLY )needs is a LIVING VAULT of conscious wise men gathered from EVERY HUMAN CULTURAL GROUP that still exists today......to make decisions for preserving ALL forms of life on the earth.
The wise men are available world wide......and the destructive exploitation of the earth biosphere can be reversed.....if we realized.....that WE ARE ALL CREW on what may become a sinking ship !
4
Looks like the same old story.
Prosperous industrial stories stealing valuable assets of non-industrial societies, citing some manufactured urgency.
Earlier this happened with plants & animals.
Today it is microbes.
3
Thank you, Ms. Schenck, for this interesting article. There are thousands of species of bacteria in our bodies, and the vast majority belong there. The science of probiotic therapy, which aims to enhance populations of beneficial bacteria in the gut, especially during and after antibiotic administration, is in its infancy.
I had the misfortune of contracting pneumonia earlier this year, which necessitated my taking three different antibiotics. I am cured of the infection, but have been left with mild irritable bowel symptoms that I had never experienced in the past. Many patients who take antibiotics may acquire bacterial overgrowth of certain bacteria, such as Clostridium dificil, which can be deadly, and also yeast infections (which can also be deadly in some cases). But there may be more subtle health effects from microbial disturbances, many of which we have yet to be determined. Some common illnesses (diabetes, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease?) are conceivably triggered by antibiotic therapy.
It is always too late that man discovers that messing with Mother Nature was a big mistake. While the science of microbial health marches on, a more immediate benefit may be realized by routine freezing of the feces of patients prior to antibiotic treatment, with the aim of later reintroduction, orally by capsule or endoscopically, to restore healthy intestinal flora. I know it sounds utterly disgusting, but I predict such practice may be mainstream in coming decades.
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@Mosttoothless Diseases such as diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease were with us long before the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s.
4
@Mosttoothless Good for you - and modern medicine - you survived what could have been a killer illness. Unfortunately there is price to pay for the support and defenses of modern medicine. With time and a good diet you will get past that IB, too. No one said it was a one step battle. Good luck.
1
We *are* the disease.
8
Would seem like an ideal GMO application in light of yield/input monocrop plans .
We need a global bank of germs?
No. We need to save the biosphere while there is still something left to save, before Creation itself disappears into a void of our own making, a black hole of extinction — at our stupid, greedy little hands — taking us with it.
If a “global bank of germs” is part of that effort, fine. I’m 200% for it. But we must lift our gaze beyond our navels and our parochial silliness and focus on the actual Big Picture. It has nothing to do with the Florida recount, Steve Bannon’s insane machinations, Trump’s psychotic tweets, Putin’s and MBS’ murderousness or whether the Rams will win the Super-Bowl this season. It is, quite simply, that the economic thrust of our entire civilization dooms it first to to decay then to utter destruction; taking us with it. And the longer we deny it, and pretend it isn’t happening, not only ensures that it will but when the crash comes it will be terrific. As Yeats wrote in “The Second Coming”,
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned ...”
although I would amend “mere anarchy” to “utter tyranny”. It will be that and more, and our denial makes us parties to our own destruction, individually and collectively.
7
Isn’t this what’s actually done at Porton Down and elsewhere in England? Granted it’s not oriented toward bacteria in hunter-gatherer societies, it’’s nowhere near global; but, it’s the sort of collection you can already consult it you want to meet the early 20th century version of influenza, for example
1
Evolution by natural selection puts us in the middle of a scientific technological arms race against germs. Some germs have proven to be much smarter than us. Malaria has been around longer than modern humans. While the flu virus has been tougher than our Nobel laureates.
Germs have multiple genetic strategies to resist our efforts to stop them from procreating and reproducing themselves. Focusing on beneficial germs to put in this bank sounds pretty wise. Frankly I am surprised that it has not already been done.
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@Blackmamba This is an astute comment - and there are additional important efforts underway on this front like Eric Alm's at MIT. Thank you!
3
Modern medicine and its war against bacteria and viruses?
The concept of medicine itself is strange, certainly the human construction of it. In nature, and until quite recently in human existence health was mostly a given, you either had health and survived (basic Darwinism) or you did not. Modern medicine and modern society as a whole (even secular) seems predicated on the Christian "The meek shall inherit the earth" view of life, that specimens of humanity which would have succumbed in nature deserve to not only live but are more entitled than the naturally healthy.
This is why in modern society we seem to desire in daily existence that humans be either in a state of infantilism, childhood, or be middle aged and beyond. The middle years of humanity, the actually and naturally healthy years, we consider a problem, a danger to society, which is why adolescents must be controlled as much as possible and in as many ways as possible and healthy adults must work hour after hour in increasingly watched and controlled environments.
We seem to prefer the naturally healthy be considered somehow in the wrong and that actual health belongs to weaker members of society and they are to perpetually be given this health by medicine, that they do not naturally have health but must be given it and that is the ultimate good and future course of society. We seem to prefer the old and as old as possible control society and society be a machine focused on power and health of old age.
4
Just for clarification: the characterization of the history and status of TB seems a bit misleading here. We never really came close to eradicating TB globally, and we do have drugs that cure patients with drug-resistant TB (in fact, we have several very new drugs that are poised to make DR-TB treatment much more tolerable and effective). Not major issues, but accuracy and precision would make a stronger case than overstatement.
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@SR
Thank you for clarifying the status of TB. Drug-resistant TB gets a lot of attention as it should, but millions around the world suffer with TB daily. World TB Day is commemorated annually on March 24.
3
The idea of a global bank of germs and viruses is sound and timely. Similar concepts have been implemented for plant seeds as well as for the 15 World Data Centers with data about our world that originated during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58. The International Science Council would be an appropriated steward for this vital repository that could be located in multiple countries that would accept the responsibility and costs associated. ISC has the institutional capacity to enlist national and global scientific organizations to address this need from the multiple perspectives that would be involved. Such a vital resource for future generations is not a matter for private pharmaceutical companies because many fields of scientific investigation would be involved.
If in the future humans strive to settle other worlds the "Noah's Ark" of that future age would need far more than animals. In view of the alarming decline in biodiversity we may need to plan to reseed and resettle our own planet as the environmental stressors presently destroying bio-diversity are better understood and ecological engineering can be undertaken working with all elements of the ecosystem.
13
The interplay between the world of pathogens and the wider world is complex. Clearly, epidemics of polio arose as the youngest children lost the exposure to the polio viruses when they had some passive maternal protection because we sought to protect them from harm. The actual rate of tuberculosis began falling well before the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940's. Improvements in living conditions with less crowding lead to less opportunity for the disease to spread. So, public health is a two-edged sword, both helping and hurting our war with the microbial world.
Just as we save seeds as insurance against crop losses from increasing monoculture, we should save bacteria and viruses as Ms. Schenck outlines. Even specimens from past animal and plant collections help us today ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/science/zoological-museum-st-petersburg-russia.html )
A thoughtful collection from the past can always provide guidance for the future.
13
Excellent idea. There are other questions, too. Would there be a 2nd back-up vault? Given spectacular failures caused by human error or simply electrical failure (such as happened with stored embryos recently), it would seem that something so important would need more than one storage site. That, too, brings up the consideration of which country would be a site for such a venture (and who would have control). Can countries rise above hostilities to share at the relevant times? Who 'owns' the germs? Who pays the cost of maintaining them? Would the store be added to over time?
Again, excellent idea, but one needing much thought and negotiation.
9
I enthusiastically support the bacterial gene bank concept. We cannot afford to lose the genetic diversity of these microbes, as they may well provide insights into cures for presently untreatable diseases. However, the author's statement that tuberculosis has "disappeared from the modern world" is completely in error. Although TB rates in the US are presently quite low, this bacterial infection is in fact the most common infectious cause of death worldwide. In South Africa, where I work, TB is the most common cause of death, period: greater than trauma, heart disease, or cancer. Pharma industry-supported antibacterial research is now at a historic low. This is an opportunity for public and NGO-supported research to take the lead for this important but neglected public health problem.
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@RS Wallis, MD
Malaria is not bacteria. Nor is HIV. Nor is flu. Germs and microbes are lay catch all terms.
3
A germ bank isn't just a good idea; it's the responsible thing to do. Not only is the abstract notion of microbial diversity a possible key to preserving human immune response, and a source for "good" microbes, but preserving the "bad" ones is also imperative.
Who knows what scientific breakthroughs might be possible through studying the chemical and genetic structure of even the most deadly diseases? The smallpox vaccine was only developed thanks to cowpox; the study of HIV radically altered our understanding of the human body's immune system, and immunodeficiency diseases.
And philosophically, there's the question of stewardship of the Earth. I don't mean that we're obliged to take care of our world because some deity demands it of us, but because ethically we must preserve life in all its diversity, as the only beings capable of doing so.
What immense responsibility: not to protect all forms of life, but the decision to eradicate some form of it, because it poses some risk or danger or inconvenience that humanity doesn't want to face—without regard to its importance in the ecosystem.
Such possibilities are being openly explored: using genetic modifications to destroy entire populations—perhaps even species—of mosquitoes, to avoid a potential disease vector. If we're willing to tamper with the food chain to eliminate disease, might we do more harm than good, perhaps upset the balance of life on earth?
If all life is sacred, that includes mosquitoes, and germs.
21
Private enterprise could fund such global banks as investments, and could sell samples that might help cure diseases or use the banks for proprietary research in curing them. These investments might be risky but have the possibility of huge payoffs, similar to the payoffs possible in other areas of health under the system of private enterprise. Enough diseases and epidemics could give the owners of these global banks the ownership of the world. What one thinks of this would correlate with what one thinks about our current way of providing and paying for health care.
@sdavidc9
Let me see if I understand this. Wealthy investors will go into traditional societies, harvest microbes now extinct in the Western world, and then sell these microbes to pharmaceutical companies. Next, these companies will use these microbes to develop drugs that can treat modern diseases. Unfortunately, these modern diseases will spread to these donor societies because of their inevitable westernization (along with antibiotics and junk food). However, the new drugs for these diseases will not be affordable to these donor societies. Somehow, I suspect the countries where these traditional societies can be found have become wise to our ways.
Anyway, it is difficult to think of examples when private enterprises have invested much into big, long-term projects. Investors want their returns within their lifetimes, preferably within months. They generally don't care about investment even into the next generation, let alone several generations down. If this were not the case, we would have had a serious carbon tax for some time already.
38
In a word, NOOOO! I work in the health care field and have a husband dying of cancer. Having profit as the underpinning of our current health care system creates a lot of unecessary suffering and inequality in the medical care people receive now. Putting a profit motive on a project which may be needed to potentially save the human species, is naive at best and crazy at worst. Since it's a project that those of us with the most will need, from folks with the least it behooves us to work together not to turn our responsibilities over to a corporation or two.
How much more beholding to the 1% must we get?
41
Wouldn't it be easier to store the genomes of bacteria and viruses on computers? The genomes of bacteria are small, relatively speaking and the various proteins could be created by standard biotechnology.
3
@Robert
We don't currently know which bacterial/viral genomes to store. Nor do we have 100% accurate means of sequencing genomes.
Absent those, we need to cast wide nets now and figure out what's important later, when we've improved our capabilities.
19
@Robert
Computers are information banks. Like libraries. They are not biological banks.
3
DNA encodes information. Robert is correct
1
Interesting article. Makes one wonder, in our zest to get everyone a flu shot, the results haven’t been all that great. What ever the vaccine is trying to eliminate more often than not it doesn’t work.
1
Flu vaccines do not eliminate the flu. The vaccine works by applying a modified form of the virus to provide resistance to a current influenza virus for which it was developed. It does not eliminate flu viruses as they regularly mutate! New vaccines are needed for each new influenza mutation to be effective.
Eliminating the influenza disease considers eliminating at its source -- usually farm animals like chickens and pigs, -- and may get its start from some migrating birds. Attempts have been made to eliminate or slow down the disease before it becomes epidemic by slaughtering the source of the infection in the animal environment that may or may not work. The problem is rapid mutation of the flu virus that originally infects migrating birds and then to farm animals.
@Dan Green
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@Bernce Glenn
Thanks makes sense. However flu always seems seasonal ?
@Dan Green
It's like saying "I never see anyone saved by guard rails on the highway, so.....", or "why do we need pasteurized milk, who dies from dairy?" Or, "those oxygen masks.... why?"
7
Lets start by making home made yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut part of our regular diet.
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@samnj A sensible and tasty suggestion! Thank you!
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@samnj
And then crossing fingers and toes. Throwing salt over your shoulder. Never walking under ladders. Avoiding black cats...
2