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New Virus Jumps From Monkeys To Lab Workers
sciencehabit writes "It started with a single monkey coming down with pneumonia at the California National Primate Research Center in Davis. Within weeks, 19 monkeys were dead and three humans were sick. Now, a new report confirms that the Davis outbreak was the first known case of an adenovirus jumping from monkeys to humans. The upside: the virus may one day be harnessed as a tool for gene therapy."
The California National Primate Research Center. Hmm, does that sound like it's owned by a private corporation or the US Government? I know, lets make a bunch of retarded, baseless accusations under the assumption that it is without first taking 5 seconds to look it up.
Why would it "wipe out the bulk of the human race"? We encounter new viruses every year and our immune systems adapt. The workers in question didn't die either. How do you make the leap from a simple virus in an ape jumping to a few isolated humans to it wiping out the human race? Been watching too many movies? How would this be different than say, avian or swine flu? Somehow because it comes from an ape suddenly we're all doomed? Grow up.
I think you read the article wrong.
The original source of the infection was perceived to be the rhesus monkey, because it was the only thing with antibodies that wasn't sick (and thus was presumed to be the carrier). The virus either passed from rhesus to human to titi, or from rhesus to titi to human.
Either way, a monkey made a human sick. The article specifically points out that this isn't a common human ailment, so it didn't originate in a human. A human wasn't the "source" of the virus. That's the entire reason it's usable for gene therapy; humans don't already carry antigens for it so we won't immediately kill it if it is introduced into our body with a beneficial payload. Theoretically. After all, even with no previous human exposure, the humans in this case managed to kill it off in four weeks.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.