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From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Viral infections:  Modern medicine seems virtually helpless!
Message-ID: <324@bbncc5.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Aug-85 02:04:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncc5.324
Posted: Sun Aug 11 02:04:43 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Aug-85 02:07:29 EDT
References: <191@tekig5.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 54

> Admittedly the problem is difficult; since viruses are such a simple
> life form, it's difficult to find a means of attacking them
> without also attacking the host.  But it is just appalling to me that
> so much noise is made about similarly difficult problems; cancer,
> multiple sclerosis, you name it - SOME of which are often attributable
> to viruses, and others of which may in fact be due to viruses with extremely
> long incubation periods - and the medical profession doesn't seem to even
> care.  People make an appalling joke, saying "Herpes is for life".  I would
> expect the medical profession, in THIS day and age, to find that
> excruciatingly embarrassing!  If you get chickenpox as a youngster,
> you may think you've gotten over it, but the herpes virus which causes
> chickenpox may give you shingles in your old age.

I've exerpted the parts of this guy's posting which make the most sense
responding to, inasmuchas most of it reads like an acute panic reaction to
a diagnosis of genital herpes.  A couple of points of clarification:
chickenpox and shingles are both caused by herpes zoster, and not by the
herpes simplex viruses.  Also, there are no human cancers which are yet
proven to be caused by a virus, with the possible exception of AIDS-related
Kaposi's sarcoma, but the mechanism of the development of KS in people with
AIDS is still unelucidated.  The "noises" about viral contributions to
other diseases such as MS and juvenile diabetes are actually early leaks of
scientific investigation in progress, so it is simply silly to claim that
the "medical profession doesn't care."

He also betrays a rather peculiar attitude towards those who practice
medicine, as if they were selling something "guaranteed", rather than the
unfortunate truth even in this day and age, namely, that they are people
who try to use their limited knowledge to help people get well, or barring
that, remain as comfortable as possible.  Research is always trying to
expand the horizon of what is known so that it can be safely and
effectively applied in medical care, but there will always be gaps in our
knowledge.  "Acute embarassment?" Hardly--there is no reason whatsoever to
be embarassed.  Frustrated and challenged, maybe.

As he says, viruses are a particularly difficult nut to crack, because
their actions are intimately tied up with the ordinary expression of
genetic information in the cell; they don't really "live" on their own, so
it is much harder to discover and produce the kinds of "magic bullets"
which have been the hallmark of modern therapy for other infectious
diseases.  Also, the herpes viruses seem to hide very well from the body's
immune system by residing in the spinal ganglia inbetween flareups.  But
there have been a number of effective drugs introduced in the last 15 years
which have anti-viral activity in very specific situations: idoxuridine in
corneal herpes simplex, vidarabine in corneal herpes and herpes simplex
encephalitis, and most recently, acyclovir for these indications and the
symptomatic treatment of genital herpes as well.  Amantadine is effective
in the prophylaxis and treatment of influenza A infection, and we can expect
more progress on these fronts as research continues.  No one promised it
would be easy.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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