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New Test Could Reveal Every Virus That's Ever Infected You
sciencehabit writes: A new blood test can find almost every virus you ever caught—in a single drop of blood. Called VirScan, the test surveys the antibodies present in the bloodstream to reveal a history of the viruses you've been infected with throughout your life. Besides diagnosing current illnesses, the new test could be an important tool in developing vaccines and studying links between viruses and chronic disease.
Insurance companies could use this to determine the pattern of risk in your behavior throughout your life. Someone with antibodies for a bunch of diseases related to risky behavior could be charged a higher premium to represent that tendency for greater risk-taking.
For example, someone with antibodies for 50 different flu strains is clearly taking more risk than someone who has only, say, 10. Maybe they don't wash their hands well enough, or maybe they expose themselves to sick people more. Either way, they are riskier people and should pay more.
Next they will be saying that the test only looks at the Virus' metadata. They will only be logging the numbers of those who infected you, but not look at the actual antibodies.
A great application would be to find people who have developed antibodies for deadly diseases that we as yet don't have a cure for.
The sad part about reading about yet another mission to capture Big Data is not how it can be used for us, but how it can be used against us.
I hate having to think that way, and yet I'm forced to now. Every time.
I also struggle who to blame more. A society that demands everything for free, or the corporations that gladly subsidize those demands by selling your online soul in exchange.
Don't vote GOP if you don't like it then! Even more so with the end of job based health insurance.
As under the old system the only plans that will cover you will be some type of Medicaid plan (if you qualify) and Medicare (if you qualify) In the past some people where on Disability just for the healthcare and had to cut hours on the job as mini wage went up.
Other then there the ER that will cover some stuff and try to bill you for it. All at a higher cost of Medicare for all.
Bearing that the jail / prison system will pick up the slack at a much higher cost the then ER.
I have a condition called hypogammaglobulinemia. My body doesn't produce immuneglobin. I do weekly infusions of immuneglobin and have done so for six years now. The med is made from the donations of 10,000 people.
What virus have I NOT had under this test?
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
that I can get this test so that next time I get sick they can check the difference and have an explicit idea of what I have. . .
Now, every time I go to the doctor, they are like "we will put you on these antibiotics and if you don't get better, you have a virus." It feels like the freaking middle ages. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Your body is still producing those anti bodies, and they have cataloged that substance in the data base and weeded out anti-bodies produced by auto-immune diseases, to reduce false positives. But still it is a major advancement.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Even after I format my disk?
I know some viruses insert into the genome at random places. Some of the places are close to known oncogenes, and may enhance the risk of expressing those oncogenes.
A virus known to do this may well be otherwise harmless, but if we can identify it, we may be able to vaccinate children against it, thus reducing the later risk of cancer from that cause. There might be dozens of them and we might be able to reduce cancer over-all this way
I am an MD, and I get misinterpretations of this test all the time. Some of my patients with Chemical Sensitivity and/or Chronic Fatigue were poisoned and also have fear/stress/anxiety issues. Both poisoning and fear/stress/anxiety can increase all antibodies even the viral antibodies with no prior viral infections.
Poison such as pesticide can act as an immune stimulant to provoke the body into producing antibodies to everything. This immune stimulant effect is known as an adjuvant. Adjuvants in immunology provoke and potentiate an immune response. But Adjuvants are non-specific. Whatever is presented to the body, the body ramps up more production of antibodies with an adjuvant. Present a virus to the body with an adjuvant and the body produces more antibodies to the virus. This is why adjuvants are always used in vaccines.
The problem is that if you bump your elbow while taking an adjuvant, elbow cells are released into the body. The body begins to produce anti-elbow antibodies. I recall there was one vaccine given to dogs that produced a Lupus in the dogs.
Fear/stress/anxiety releases extra histamine and interleukin-6 into the body potentiating the immune response as well.
The end result is that either poisoning or fear/stress/anxiety can produce anti-virus antibodies WITHOUT the actual infection.
Saying this could tell you every virus you had in your life is nonsense. Antibodies do not last forever in the body. If they did, we wouldn't require BOOSTER SHOTS.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Don't we have antibodies for bacteria and other pathogens also? Are they somehow less interesting?
I heard this article in the CBC. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks... Here is a quote: "They found that in animal models, measles provokes a kind of "immune amnesia", in which the immune system forgets how to fight infections it's previously encountered. Further epidemiological work suggested that this amnesia can last more than two years, causing roughly 50% more deaths than would have happened otherwise." This would affect the validity of this test and makes me question if this is the only disease that has this affect.
Antibodies only stay in the body to combat viruses for a certain period of time after that virus was killed, not one's whole life. That is my understanding from a Duke-trained med student.
Are there certain viruses that show antibodies for one's entire life and ones that don't? or is the headline misleading? I am very curious.
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I've always claimed I had hepatitis, twice in fact the first time when I was 5 years old, yet no clue which "strain", last year I had blood work done to test for hepatitis, it came back I had had A and B, not a carrier and I haven't had hepatitis in quite sometime, as told by the antibodies.
A few weeks ago I proved to my self age is catching up, by dropping to the floor when my Kidneys quit working, a series of unusual events saved my life. A blood test was taken (as expected) but they could measure an enzyme and tell I how long I had been on the floor (a very long time). While kool trying to piece together what happened to me, it was claimed by those living close by I was down for less than the given time (so still a bit of work left) - Kidneys started right back up and not a problem now, but I was told I was the bluest person anyone had ever seen.
A blood test from me was explained to my sister as I thought I was being treated in North Korea (just out of it), she couldn't believe what they were able to tell with just that one sample (apparently a lot), she was quite impressed as it was being explained to her.
BTW if interested, I'm retired and the hospital bill less the ambulance ride there came to over $8000, my amount due is $0.00, I've got some great insurance I lucked into just by being older. (and not Obama care).
But with just those two examples, I can see a tell all blood test in the near future.