3 ms·
In some cases we do know. For example, we know about the relationships between chicken pox and shingles. I don't know if measles is considered more pedestrian,
by notacoward 5y ago
In some cases we do know. For example, we know about the relationships between chicken pox and shingles. I don't know if measles is considered more pedestrian, but its "immune amnesia" effect is pretty well known. Polio is certainly not pedestrian, but post-polio syndrome is also well studied. So to at least some degree virologists do look for and at such connections. There's certainly more that could be done, but there are also only so many virologists and they have to pick their priorities.
- berberous 5y agoI heard an interesting podcast (can’t recall the name) with some scientist who does a lot of work diagnosing mystery diseases by just sequencing the shit out of everything possible, which only recently became feasible. One story he told, which I may be misremembering slightly, was someone who went blind in one eye suddenly. They sequenced his eye, and found a common virus that was best matched to a 1970s variant, which the patient recalled having that virus and being fairly sick one year in the 1970s. So the, terrifying, implication was that he got sick, recovered fine, and then 40 years later a latent bit of the virus blinded him in one eye, and pre-sequencing, no one would have ever known about the link between the two events.