From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Aug 18 2002 - 16:02:26 MDT
On Sun, 18 Aug 2002, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> No, I mean I would like to see tested the claim that this system, given a
> massive effort, can produce a cure in one or two weeks. Five years, sure.
This is a divide and conquer problem. For all known existing toxins
a natural course of action would be to develop anti-sera that effectively
negate the effect of the toxin. My approach would be better for
dealing with engineered toxins derived from known existing toxins.
It would be slower, but likely still effective for completely unknown
toxins.
Note that I don't consider it a "cure". That would most likely require
an extensive vaccination program so people do not become ill in the first
place. It is however a reasonable path to reducing deaths to tolerable
levels, preventing further spread and allow time for people's natural
immune systems to kick in and provide a natural immunity.
> Two weeks is hard to see no matter how much effort got put in; and for
> that reason I'd like to see it tested before relying on it as a means of
> defending against bioterrorist attack. We do not live in the Earthweb
> world yet.
If the libraries of candidate molecules are prepared in advance and tested
for toxicology, I think one could get the response time down to 1-2 weeks.
The caveat Anders mentioned -- that because of the risks posed by a novel
agent people might be willing to consume substances that have not undergone
"robust" clinical trials holds.
I would grant that it would be useful to run simulations of the system.
But the government is going to have to be willing to put up a lot of
money to get academia and industry to stop doing their normal activities
for 1-2 weeks to execute a "live-fire" test.
Robert
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