Wednesday, April 30, 2003
WHAT VIRUSES HAVE SARS PATIENTS
BEEN TESTED FOR?
By Charles Ortleb
As scientists struggle today with the problem of not finding the SARS-associated coronavirus in most of the patients with the syndrome, wouldn't it be nice if someone would publish a complete list of all the viruses (animal and human) that the patients have been tested for?
Actually, what might be the most helpful, and the most revealing, is the list of viruses the patients have not been tested for.
Is there any other part of the SARS story that's more important now than the fact that the coronavirus may only be part of the puzzle or that it's a huge mistake? Journalists should keep the heat on the CDC on this one. Don't hold your breath.
Meanwhile, dogs and cats are now suspected carriers of SARS in Beijing. They're being taken from the homes of SARS patients and killed. That should raise this crisis to a new prominence in the media.
In the Philippines, some leaders in the livestock industry fear that meat might transmit SARS, and legislators are calling for a boycott of all meat from China. There is still no indication that pigs or other barnyard edibles in China have even been tested yet for the SARS coronavirus. All the quarantines in the world may do nothing to wipe this illness out if animals are a growing unrecognized reservoir of the SARS virus(es).
Click here for a database on SARS and pigs.
Charles Ortleb is the author of The Closing Argument and the co-author of The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Follies.
BEEN TESTED FOR?
By Charles Ortleb
As scientists struggle today with the problem of not finding the SARS-associated coronavirus in most of the patients with the syndrome, wouldn't it be nice if someone would publish a complete list of all the viruses (animal and human) that the patients have been tested for?
Actually, what might be the most helpful, and the most revealing, is the list of viruses the patients have not been tested for.
Is there any other part of the SARS story that's more important now than the fact that the coronavirus may only be part of the puzzle or that it's a huge mistake? Journalists should keep the heat on the CDC on this one. Don't hold your breath.
Meanwhile, dogs and cats are now suspected carriers of SARS in Beijing. They're being taken from the homes of SARS patients and killed. That should raise this crisis to a new prominence in the media.
In the Philippines, some leaders in the livestock industry fear that meat might transmit SARS, and legislators are calling for a boycott of all meat from China. There is still no indication that pigs or other barnyard edibles in China have even been tested yet for the SARS coronavirus. All the quarantines in the world may do nothing to wipe this illness out if animals are a growing unrecognized reservoir of the SARS virus(es).
Click here for a database on SARS and pigs.
Charles Ortleb is the author of The Closing Argument and the co-author of The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Follies.
