Just happened to read an article in the May 18 Newsweek on swine flu (22-28). There's a very understandable graphic on p27 that explains why this flu virus has human, avian, and swine genetic material.

 

It seems that the flu virus is a sloppy pathogen. When it takes over a host cell, forcing it to copy the flu's RNA, there are lots of errors in the process. It is relatively common for some of the host cell's genetic bits to get copied into new flu viruses by error-- leading to a high rate of mutation.

 

The article traces the paths of certain swine and avian flu variations and how (due to world travel and large animal processing operations) they've now kinda come together.

 

Aaaand they say that little boy in Mexico is not patient zero. Patient zero is hard to pin down, but their best guess is some people on a pig processing farm in Wisconsin. I think that's difficult to back up due to the rapid variations in flu viruses.

 

My conclusion is that any lifestyle anywhere anywhen is susceptible to predators and pathogens. We won't ever get completely away from them, so this huge media flurry of finger-pointing is kinda silly. If we hadn't done action A, we might not have pathogen A. Instead we could have pathogen B or C. Who knows which is worse?

 

Virginia
 
> Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 09:21:25 -0700
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Time to wake up the list, if possible
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> 
> geez that is scary about swine flu. some folks say the human dna in it makes them think it was deliberately weaponized. any thoughts?
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Tamar

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