--- In [email protected], Rick Archer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > on 11/9/05 9:58 PM, sparaig at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > wrote: > >> > >> CDC May Distribute 1918 Killer Flu > >> AP - Wed Nov 9, 1:18 PM ET > >> ATLANTA - Federal scientists say they will consider requests to ship > >> the recently recreated 1918 killer flu virus to select U.S. research > >> labs. There are 300 non-government research labs registered to work > >> with deadly germs like the Spanish flu, which killed millions of > >> people worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will > >> consider requests for samples from those labs "on a case-by-case > >> basis," CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said Wednesday. > >> ================================================================ > >> Sure would be a hop, skip and a jump to martial law if they had > >> an 'accident'... > >> > > > > Except ALL of us are descendents from people who survived it, so > > we're actually reasonably safe from it. > > Is immunity from a virus passed on to one's offspring?
Natural immunity (or resistance) is, certainly, because it's genetic. Millions of Native Americans died of diseases brought over by the Europeans to which the Europeans had evolved resistance, but the Indians had not--including the common cold. Today, though, Native Americans don't die of the common cold, because they're descended from people who *didn't* die of it; they've inherited their ancestors' immunity (resistance, really) to those viruses. That's natural selection at work, "survival of the fittest." Of course, the same applies to bacteria and viruses-- they evolve as well. So a person may have resistance to a virus, but if the virus mutates, it may be able to get around the original resistance. Then after a few generations the hosts evolve resistance to the mutation, and the virus has to mutate again. It's an endless dance. Viruses and bacteria, BTW, don't necessarily evolve to become more lethal, because if they kill the host, the host is less likely to pass the bug to others, so the bug isn't able to multiply in a new host; multiplying in a dead host is a dead end. Lethality may not be a species survival trait, in other words. The viruses that cause the common cold are extremely successful evolutionarily because they *don't* kill their hosts--in fact, they often don't make the host sick enough to stay home, so their opportunity to multiply in new hosts is vastly increased. (I think I've got this right. Corrections welcome.) ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
