Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site bu-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!bu-cs!root From: root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Viral infections: Modern medicine seems virtually helpless! Message-ID: <590@bu-cs.UUCP> Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 00:48:52 EDT Article-I.D.: bu-cs.590 Posted: Sun Aug 18 00:48:52 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 06:49:22 EDT References: <191@tekig5.UUCP> <314@kitty.UUCP>, <249@ecsvax.UUCP> Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci. Lines: 20 >From: emigh@ecsvax.UUCP (Ted Emigh) >Subject: Re: Viral infections: Modern medicine seems virtually helpless! >...I can think of no way of >introducing sickle cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease into a population through >chemical warfare. Although I agree with your first point (that these diseases are not racially specific at all in the sense of somehow it is easier to induce in some populations) don't let the limits of your imagination act as a proof. Some attacks on sickle-cell involve specific viruses which change the the broken gene pattern (I forget what it was, but isn't it just one misplaced base?) with the correct pattern. If such a cure is possible, then inducing genetic diseases should be similarly possible, though *not* racially specific (that would take a method that distinguished the race somehow and also induced the disease, pretty absurd.) Kinda points out how frightening a lot of this research is, we may be in more danger from a broken test-tube than all the nuclear bombs combined, at least the latter don't grow by themselves! -Barry Shein, Boston University