Using evolution to fight diseases?

[Julian Assange]

Paul Cisek (pavel at space.Bu.EDU) wrote:
: I apologize if this posting exposes my ignorance of virology, or if my
: question is a common one.  (My scan of the last 10 days of mail here did
: not find it mentioned... so I thought I'd bring it up)

: A major difficulty in fighting diseases such as "staph" or Ebola is that
: any biochemical weapon only increases the `selective pressure' upon the
: disease population.  So if all individuals are not successfully wiped out
: then the resistant survivors proliferate and we are faced with a tougher
: enemy.  Viruses in particular are extremely quick to evolve resistant strains.
: However, is it possible to use their strength against them?

[...]

All you have done is create two viruses - you haven't destroyed the original.

-Proff