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Fun information on the swine flu |
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Anything
that hogs the spotlight as much as swine flu has done over the past
month must harbor some interesting facts, some trivia for people who
don't have to actually worry about trying to stay alive through all of
this. Here are a few interesting side-stories on the main story:
How did swine flu come to be named that?
Anyone who keeps up with the news on TV and in newspapers should by now
be aware that the new swine flu virus is a horrendous chimerical
mixture of genes from influenza viruses that attack birds, pigs and
people. Why then is the pig as prominent in the name as it is? The
reason is that the part of the swine flu virus's genes that allows it
to get past human defenses and to become a human flu virus, is one that
comes from the pig and not from birds or anything else. The virus came
to be associated with pigs because pigs are the creatures that supply
the virus with the genes that allow it to infect humans.
Would it be possible for nature to come up with such a strange virus
from three different creatures on its own, without helpful
contributions from bio-terrorists or something?
The thing that could have started the conspiracy theorists off could be
the
way a Texas official used misleading language to refer to how the
government was making cultures of the swine flu virus in a laboratory.
Conspiracy theorists latched on to this and began to claim that the
government was using genetic engineering to create a virus to wipe out
mankind. All that the official was doing when he made that unfortunate
comment was to point to the practice of raising organisms in
petri-dishes in laboratories to study them.
If there is no genetic engineering required to put together a
chimerical virus, how do they come about?
The new swine flu virus has a judiciously thought-out creation of parts
of three different virus species. How do these come together into one
organism then? Influenza viruses have eight genes, and each of these
genes is found on a separate article of RNA. Each gene multiplies
independently. It is possible in any animal that many kinds of flu
virus be attacking each of its cells at once. If there happens to be a
cell that has more than one virus inside at the same time, the viruses
have a good opportunity to mix and match genes crossing over from one
virus to the next. With enough such jugglery done, genes from one virus
can end up in another and this can give birth to a new kind of
combination virus.
Factory farming practices are completely to blame for the swine flu
virus.
Nobody really knows where the new swine flu virus came from. Everyone
is looking to factory farms, but it really isn't fair to place the
blame at their doorstep . If anything, it would be more intuitive to
point to traditional small-scale
farms for a new disease like this. It is on a small family farm that
many different animals get to share a small space together, where they
have regular contact with their human caretakers all the time. Factory
farms have thousands of animals packed into warrens of stalls; there so
many animals of one kind in a place with just one or two people taking
care of them, leaving the rest of the work to computers and machinery.
Some things are easy and attractive to blame; and it feels satisfying
to bludgeon something with a newfound theory. But we must point that
finger at the right place?
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