stealth viruses: 21st century plagues? >> by john shirley >> *spark-online issue eighteen

Sure, I'm going to talk about terrifying nightmarish disease scenarios in the 21st century but hey, it's going to be a great century, honest it is. For example, we won't need transplant donors soon--organs will be grown to order for you from your own DNA. If you've got the right insurance or enough scratch, you'll be able to undergo rejuvenation treatments involving telomerase and, probably, micro-machines that re-set your body's cells.

Nevertheless we'll have our share of problems in the 21st century. Sometimes the roads to the finest places are fraught with potholes. Now and then maybe a major sinkhole…

If you're in the teeth-chattering Midwest or northeast USA now you might find it hard to believe, but most scientists agree that there's some kind of global warming trend. However, they disagree on how serious it is and what causes it. Some argue that we're not really causing it ourselves at all--that it was simply time for a global warm trend due to long-term climactic cycles. These researchers argue that we're coming out of a sort of mild “ice age”. Whatever the cause, the consequences will have to be dealt with. Micronesia islanders may well lose their homes--the fascinating island of Yap, for example, is a likely early casualty, as melting ice caps raise the level of the sea and engulf this little paradise. Democrats aren't currently thinking of Florida as a paradise, but those with property there are anxious about the fact that the entire peninsula is not far above sea level--we could lose a great deal of it, unless we build a dike so big that Holland's will seem like a sand castle.

Still, most of the world's exposed land won't be badly compromised--the real danger to humanity from global warming is something else entirely: the danger of plague.

According to Harvard Medical School's Dr. Paul R. Epstein, “Climate restricts the range of vector-borne diseases (those with animal carriers) while weather affects the timing and intensity of outbreaks. There are strong indications that a disturbing change in disease patterns has begun, and that the global warming trend identified by the more than 2500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is contributing to these changes…” One of the most significant changes is the upping of “night-time minimum temperatures”--which means that insects that are limited by winter and nighttime temperatures are freer to migrate northward. Mosquitoes which carry malaria and encephalitis and birds carrying disease organisms move from the tropics to--as we've all heard--places like New York City, where deadly outbreaks of encephalitis are already a grave concern. A related problem is the increase of flooding, and a general 'subtropical' wetness that will be coming to previously temperate zones--all the extra standing or flood-intrusive water is a breeding place for mosquitoes, and disease organisms like cholera.

Another possible 21st century plague is the terrifying prospect of the wider spread of “Mad Cow” or Creutzfelt-Jakob disease (not wanting to spell that over and over, I'll hereafter call it CJD). Victims of CJD develop vast numbers of tiny holes in their brain that induces debilitation, fatal insomnia, dementia, and death. CJD is often caused by 'cattle eating cattle'-- that is, cattle having been fed ground up cattle brains and other parts as protein enhancers in their feed. This disgusting practice infects healthy cattle with prions--basically they're amyloid proteins in the brain that have been transformed from healthy protein into an abnormal variety by their contact with other abnormal proteins. A kind of 'bad apple ruining the barrel' effect at the microbiological level. Prion diseases include scrapie in sheep and goats, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, feline spongiform encephalopathy in cats and CJD in humans. Although the meat industry demurs, CJD appears to be spreading in Europe--and physicians are increasingly worried about it in the USA. It's also found in wild animals, such as elk and mink.

Speaking of sick cats, there is increasing evidence that some cats may spread a form of toxiplasma parasite, shed by their feces (picked up when they eat mice or birds), which is transmittable to humans--and which might be the actual cause of paranoid schizophrenia. The evidence grows, at any rate, that schizophrenia may be at least partially caused by brain lesions resulting from parasitic micro-organisms.

Other brain-damaging micro-organisms are part of a spectrum of viruses called 'stealth viruses'. A chilling term, isn't it? According to the Center for Complex Infectious Diseases, “many mental illnesses are the symptomatic manifestations of a non-inflammatory stealth virus infection of the brain.” Stealth viruses capture and mutate critical cellular genes, leading to disruption in normal brain activity. The CCID also reports that there is an epidemic of atypical neurological illness in the Mojave Valley region and all the patients involved test positive in stealth viral cultures. “Stealth adapted” viruses don't provoke an effective anti-viral response--they seem to fly in under the body's defensive radar. Scientists are only just now planning tests of anti-viral compounds to control the problem. Schizophrenia is a terrible problem, afflicting millions--is it possible it could be cured by antiviral medication?

Has all this made you queasy? Feel slightly ill, reading this? Going for your thermometer? Writing this has had that effect on me--but I remember a time as a young man when I was bitten by a raccoon. I made the mistake, then, of not going to the doctor but later looking up the symptoms of rabies--I developed the early symptoms of rabies, with low fever and sensitivity to light, and had those symptoms till a doctor told me I didn't have the disease. Within minutes of his telling me that, my fever went down and all symptoms disappeared, in a dramatic illustration of the mind-body connection.

So if this piece has made you feel slightly ill--it's just suggestion. Honest.

John Shirley is the award-winning writer of numerous novels and screenplays. Check out his official website at: www.darkecho.com/johnshirley.