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Sex After a Field Trip Yields Scientific Discovery
sciencehabit writes "A US vector biologist appears to have accidentally written virological history simply by having sex with his wife after returning from a field trip to Senegal. A study just released in Emerging Infectious Diseases suggests that the researcher, Brian Foy of Colorado State University, passed to his wife the Zika virus, an obscure pathogen that causes joint pains and extreme fatigue. If so, it would be the first documented case of sexual transmission of an insect-borne disease. The curious case also solves a viral mystery that's been going on for years."
How many of Mr. Foy's female graduate assistants were tested for the disease?
For all we know, there could be an outbreak going on right now at the CSU campus.
The World is Yours.
TFS is full of shit. Blood transmittable implies sexually transmittable.
Who did he get from in the first place? A fly? Sure you did, says his wife.
...to act as a control if you want.
I'll be in the booth with no disease and Christina Hendricks. For science of course.
Since every new discovery has to be proven by third party, I'm looking for some female volunteers.
The puzzle was solved by a brilliant yet socially inept doctor and his group of attractive assistants. At first they thought it was Lupis...
His wife must be excited!
It may be 7 digits, but at least it's a semiprime
Not really.
Consider that infection risk from tainted blood transfusion is 95% for HIV. While vaginal intercourse is 0.03%
If the virus is much less infectious it probably becomes extremely unlikely for sexual transmission. Sortof like airborn transmission of HIV is also possible if you sneeze out a chunk of blood phlegm when someone is yawning nearby, but so extremely unlikely that it's not really worth mentioning.
0.3% might be the correct value for vanilla sex, it's suprisingly low anyhow.
i think he had sex with the mosquito
Does every disease work the same way with every bodily fluid? I'm no biologist, but I doubt it.
This process cannot be verified until the sex has been peer reviewed!
It should also be published in a reputable scientific journal!
Hey, baby, want to make virological history?
Eww, wait... no, that came out wrong. GAH! No, it didn't come out wrong like that... Someone isn't getting laid tonight. Sheesh, I am terrible at pick-up lines.
The bad news is that you won't be around to see my collect the Nobel Prize.
No, I think the bigger news is that a nerd actually had sex with a real woman.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
From the article:
in an interview with Science, he confirmed that he is the anonymous "patient 1"; his Ph.D. student Kevin Kobylinski, who accompanied him on the trip to Senegal and also got sick, is "patient 2." Foy's wife, Joy Chilson Foy, a nurse at the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, is "patient 3"
So Foy gave the virus to his student and his wife? Huh?
It's not lupus.
When it comes to viral infections the viral load of the fluid is a decent indicator.
I got bit by a fly baby, I swear!
That low for female to male transmission perhaps; male to female transmission is far higher. When you inject a tainted fluid (either blood or semen) into the body, it's a whole lot more infectious than merely being immersed for a few moments in the fluid.
He's also a Perl guru, and has the chutzpah to stop using capitals, even for official publications.
Reminds me of the intro to a talk once. "My name is Chromatic. You can call me Chromatic."
Also reminds me of Robby, the only academic one-name I've ever heard of.
-- coppit (whose nick is easily traceable to his real name)
It is all part of the plan, Mandrake.
"the first documented case of sexual transmission of an insect-borne disease"
What insect did he have sex with?
What if what really happened is he gave his wife Senegalese crabs?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
if you go to brian d foy's web page about his name:
http://www252.pair.com/~comdog/style.html
People I am not
Brian D. Foy, Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University
"If so, it would be the first documented case of sexual transmission of an insect-borne disease. "
There's a skeeter on my peter, whack it off
There's another on my brother, whack it off
There's a dozen on my cousin's
I can hear the bastards buzzin'
There's a skeeter on my peter, whack it off
- John Valby
Sung by Boy Scouts around campfires everywhere since 1960
--
BMO
How long do we have before the mosquitoes start squirting HIV all over the place?
/not a biologist
Who knows if he (patient 1) got the disease from a mosquito as he claims or another way, but it wasn't his PhD grad students he was screwing around with, it was the paper's co-author (patient 3) as his wife (patient 2) now knows.
FTFA: 'And yes, as the paper puts it, "patients 1 and 3 reported having vaginal sexual intercourse in the days after patient 1 returned home but before the onset of his clinical illness." ("My wife wasn't happy with what happened afterwards," Foy adds.)'
Captcha: authors (HA!)
Only for people where intercourse involves the transfer of blood from one person's bloodstream to the other person's bloodstream (and in large enough quantities that viruses reach their target cells, which could be in a completely different part of the body).
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
It sure does when you have blood in your semen!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
A few moments? That's it?
There is no direct evidence that Foy's wife was infected through sexual contact, but the circumstantial evidence is strong.
Would it be possible that the virus got transmitted by direct contact of open wounds on the two? (Like scratches, sores, etc....). I would not exclude the possibility
I work in life sciences and I know for a fact that in order to have scientific proof for something like this you would need to have it confirmed in a quite large number of subjects. A single suspected instance of the transmission is far from being a scientific discovery .
I have to agree though, it makes for a good, attractive title. Coming up next on sciencemag.org: "Sex uncovers wormhole! A scientist finds that after having had sex for 10 hours he traveled backwards in time to find himself at only four minutes after having started....". Stay Tuned.
I find the story "Mono Comes To Android" to be more interesting, and a greater biological challenge.
If I could mod you up I would.
If I'm lucky....
Just a few moments? You're doing it wrong.
I've seen too many episodes of House. I can just see it now... Wilson at home or in his office, ticked off because House has somehow let mosquitos into the office, but chewing him out for something else entirely. Just as he's about to go off on another tangent, Wilson says, "Die, you malaria-spreading bitch!" (because we know only female mosquitos bite) all of a sudden, House will remember this article, get that weird vacant, distant look on his face, and leave the room. Wilson will kill another mosquito.
I had a sucky sig.
Sciencing is Fuun. :D
wait...Doh!
I would have told him to take his little souvenir back where it came from.
The part they miss here, is the transmission from him to his wife was NOT the FIRST time that's ever happened.... But the second!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
0.3% might be the correct value for vanilla sex, it's suprisingly low anyhow.
Whereas the risk is somewhat higher for chocolate sex, and extremely high for strawberry sex?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Have you had chocolate sex? Worth it. Strawberry sex is kinda meh to me though.
I am become
Rocky Road!
They considered that, but circumstantial evidence pointed to sexual transmission. According to TFA, the virus has to complete a 2-week life cycle within the insect before it can infect the next human; Foy's wife fell ill just 9 days after his return. Thus she did not get it from an insect bite. In addition, the mosquitoes in that region are not known carriers. (Different species.)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
What the fuck are you going on about?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Neapolitan Sex sounds nice right about now...
Depends on how you want to define "work". Most blood-borne viruses are actually unable to penetrate the skin, they simply don't have the correct proteins to bind the the receptors. Mucus membranes(like those found in genitalia) seem to be easier to infect, but still a lot of viruses cannot. The problem is when you have cuts(often times microscopic) in the skin, that allows viruses that are usually only found in blood to "escape" the blood of the seropositive person and also allows them to find another opening into the blood stream in the seronegative person.
This is most likely how Hepatitis-C is spread via sexual contact. Note that most doctors do not consider Hep-C to be an STD because although possible, it's actually incredibly rare for Hep-C to be transmitted sexually as it probably requires cuts on both partners to actually be infections. ANd even then the rate of infection is probably pretty low.
Hepatitis C is highly contagious for blood borne contact (ie: between IV drug users) but there have been no recorded sexual transmissions.
Yes there have. From 'kipedia
Sexual transmission of HCV is considered to be rare. Studies show the risk of sexual transmission in heterosexual, monogamous relationships is extremely rare or even nil.[22][23] The CDC does recommend the use of condoms between long-term monogamous discordant couples (where one partner is positive and the other is negative).[24] However, because of the high prevalence of hepatitis C, this small risk may translate into a nontrivial number of cases transmitted by sexual routes. Vaginal penetrative sex is believed to have a lower risk of transmission than sexual practices that involve higher levels of trauma to anogenital mucosa (anal penetrative sex, fisting, or use of sex toys).[25]
The reason it's so rare is it essentially requires broken skin on both partners, and for the virus to find it's way out of the wound on the infected partner into a wound on the other infected partner(or for hetero sex, the infected partner to be a menstruating woman). So yeah, it's rare, but it's certainly not impossible. This is also why it's not really considered an STD, it's PRIMARY infection vector is not sexual contact.
Monstar L
Strawberry sex is kinda meh to me though.
You forgot the whipped cream ;-)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
She must be thrilled.
Does every disease work the same way with every bodily fluid?
No. Case in point, HIV: high virus content in blood and sperm, low content in spit. And spit actually kills it. That's why a blowjob is so much safer than other kinds of sex, even without a (weird tasting) rubber...
Apparently, you can even give a blowjob right after going to the dentist, without any risk to either of you (but it might not be very comfortable, obviously...)
"Honey, I got it from a skeeter! Honestly!"
"......!?!?! I want a divorce, YOU PERVERT!"
You forgot the whipped cream ;-)
... but how do you get any whipped cream, if it doesn't turn you on?
Stay out of those damn countries.
"Sex transmits a disease just like it has been documents to happen in boars." (see TFA)
vs
"A mosquito gets in his (most likely) crappy, soft shell backpack in Senegal, stays inside it for two days while crossing a third of the globe, manages to survive the beating while being thrown around in the Senegalese roads and at two or three different airports, survives some cold temperatures in the cargo bay of an airplane (is stuff stored at room temperature or slightly below there?) gets safe and sound to his home and then chooses to infect only the person he had sex with but none of his kids.
Yes, you're right it sounds much more likely the tiny bug survived all that.
A U.S. geek appears to have accidentally written history simply by having sex.
Fixed that for you.
"[Foy] and [his wife] reported having vaginal sexual intercourse in the days after [Foy] returned home but before the onset of his clinical illness."
"My wife wasn't happy with what happened afterwards," Foy adds.
YA THINK?!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Any Sex sounds nice right about now...
FTFY.
My wife will never let me go backpacking again...
What is this "sex" that you refer to ?
The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible.
This is another /. news worthy story, cmdtaco asleep at the wheel again...if you need editors tat badly, I am game for it...but you will only get pure geekspeak columns, and none of this crap.
Going down in history for having sex = the pinnacle of human achievement.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
After a few moments, they tend to figure out what is going on and try to get away.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I've accidentally bit the inside of my own cheek hard enough to make it bleed after going to the dentist. No way in hell am I putting my body parts in someone else's mouth while they can't feel anything.
For science of course!
He will have to test this hypothesis a number of times with various hot grad students to see if yields the same results. I figure a reasonable sample size should be 30-50 2-5 times each just to be scientifically through.
I just for a second thought that you wrote no way that i take someone's body parts....
That's a good one, right up there with "I swear honey I got it from a toilet seat!". I smell a divorce in the works.....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I don't know if "honey but we made history!" is going to work :-\
-Gel214th