Ok, so the CDC has confirmed..and other things!

[bhjelle at unm.edu]

In article <3p3s3u$45i at decaxp.harvard.edu>,
Lisa Ronthal <lronthal at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>: analyzing blood samples from the current outbreak in Zairesaid this virus 
>: is *extremely similar* to the Ebola Zaire strain that ravaged Yambuku 19 
>: years ago.  'You have a virus that over a 20 year period of time has 
>: remained relatively intact' said CDC spokesman Bob Howard.    That in 
>: itself is puzzling, because viruses such as Ebola are highly unstable and 
>: prone to mutate.  There is no explanation yet for the similarity between 
>
>Just hoping to God that some nut/terrorist/cult didn't get ideas from the 
>last six months' spate of Ebola books, movies, etc. and do something 
>unbelievably stupid-clever... ?
>
Uh-oh, can see where this is going. How do we know that "viruses
like Ebola are highly unstable..."? No basis! If, as is widely
suspected, Ebola lives in some animal host in nature, it is
*expected* that it is adapted well for that host and unlikely
to change much over 20 years. This is seen with many other
viruses that are commonly "accepted" to be unstable.

This alleged instability of RNA viruses is one of the
most misunderstood phenomena, even among some virologists.

Brian>
>