6 ms·

Indeed, and HIV is a “natural reservoir” disease that will continue to generate new strains even if we managed to eradicate it from the human population. The si

Indeed, and HIV is a “natural reservoir” disease that will continue to generate new strains even if we managed to eradicate it from the human population. The simian variant is just too compatible with us to ever really go away.

Leherenn 7y ago
Would it be possible to eradicate it from the simian population as well since they are so similar? I assume it would highly depend on how it is eradicated in humans, but the difficulty in finding and treating them would be balanced by what is I imagine a much lower population.
JauntTrooper 7y ago
Assuming the simian carriers don't go extinct over the next few decades.
- marshray 7y ago
  Or humans for that matter.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Humans are very unlikely to go completely extinct in the next decades.
asveikau 7y ago
If we eradicate it in humans and also people stop eating bushmeat (or including chimpanzees or whatever in that category) then it seems to me like it would be unlikely to make the jump back to humans. This actually raises an interesting question about potential diseases lurking in food sources. We now have 20/20 hindsight that eating an ape caused this and is therefore a bad idea. They obviously didn't know that when they chose to eat apes. There could be other such food sources that we don't know to be problematic yet. I am reminded of prions and mad cow, kind of a similar story.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Do prions actually lead to Alzheimer's? I've read a lot of conflicting articles on that lately.
  - austinjp 7y ago
    Prions do lead to certain degenerative brain diseases. Alzheimer's is caused by different factors, though. Perhaps you're thinking of beta amyloid tangles, which are a different matter.
- dmix 7y ago
  Much like how they found the bushmeat apes as a source and with madcow prions, when a whole bunch of people are getting sick it's usually pretty easy to use statistics to determine a common food or infection source. The implications of food on longer term stuff like cancer will always be a hard thing to nail down but for serious diseases like this I don't think its currently a huge barrier.
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    > pretty easy to use statistics to determine a common food or infection source. It's getting harder. Privacy protections mean this type of analysis across hundreds of millions of records isn't really possible anymore. Without hundreds of millions of records, identifying "people who drank milk from Mr Smiths farm in 1969 were 200% more likely to get parkinsons 45 years later" couldn't be done. Yet if Mr Smiths farm had cows with some as-yet unidentified prion disease, this is the only way we'd find it.
    - kingkongjaffa 7y ago
      > It's getting harder. Privacy protections mean this type of analysis across hundreds of millions of records isn't really possible anymore. You think we have LESS data now than we did in the past? We have more than ever, and easier ways of collecting data than we have ever had.

Leherenn 7y ago

Would it be possible to eradicate it from the simian population as well since they are so similar? I assume it would highly depend on how it is eradicated in humans, but the difficulty in finding and treating them would be balanced by what is I imagine a much lower population.

JauntTrooper 7y ago

Assuming the simian carriers don't go extinct over the next few decades.

marshray 7y ago
Or humans for that matter.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Humans are very unlikely to go completely extinct in the next decades.

asveikau 7y ago

If we eradicate it in humans and also people stop eating bushmeat (or including chimpanzees or whatever in that category) then it seems to me like it would be unlikely to make the jump back to humans. This actually raises an interesting question about potential diseases lurking in food sources. We now have 20/20 hindsight that eating an ape caused this and is therefore a bad idea. They obviously didn't know that when they chose to eat apes. There could be other such food sources that we don't know to be problematic yet. I am reminded of prions and mad cow, kind of a similar story.

djsumdog 7y ago
Do prions actually lead to Alzheimer's? I've read a lot of conflicting articles on that lately.
- austinjp 7y ago
  Prions do lead to certain degenerative brain diseases. Alzheimer's is caused by different factors, though. Perhaps you're thinking of beta amyloid tangles, which are a different matter.
dmix 7y ago
Much like how they found the bushmeat apes as a source and with madcow prions, when a whole bunch of people are getting sick it's usually pretty easy to use statistics to determine a common food or infection source. The implications of food on longer term stuff like cancer will always be a hard thing to nail down but for serious diseases like this I don't think its currently a huge barrier.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  > pretty easy to use statistics to determine a common food or infection source. It's getting harder. Privacy protections mean this type of analysis across hundreds of millions of records isn't really possible anymore. Without hundreds of millions of records, identifying "people who drank milk from Mr Smiths farm in 1969 were 200% more likely to get parkinsons 45 years later" couldn't be done. Yet if Mr Smiths farm had cows with some as-yet unidentified prion disease, this is the only way we'd find it.
  - kingkongjaffa 7y ago
    > It's getting harder. Privacy protections mean this type of analysis across hundreds of millions of records isn't really possible anymore. You think we have LESS data now than we did in the past? We have more than ever, and easier ways of collecting data than we have ever had.