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Originally Posted by cosmicfish
In which case you are proposing this as part of the overall global biowarfare programs being enacted, correct? How does this influence the overall impact of the war, and what is still going on 150 years later? What would be the result of global powers with a 100% lethal bioweapon and an apparent willingness to use it? I think you are talking about a massive change to the game, TMP meets The Stand.
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No change to the game at all. 95% of the worlds population on 18 November, 1989 dies.
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Originally Posted by cosmicfish
This may come as a surprise, but some people produce brand new antibodies to any given illness. Variations in the illness and the individual means that nothing is ever 100% lethal because some percentage develop antibodies even when none yet exist, especially when you add in modern medical care, or even better, Morrow medical care.
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I am taking medical courses for certification as a Radiological Technician. I have taken the sophmore anatomy and physiology courses. I am aware of antibodies/antigens, and self/non-self. Something that presents to a memory cell or macrophage has to be recognized, if a body has no recognition due to inheritance or immunization the immune system fails to recognize and does not mount a response. Other systems produce some response typically pyrogens are released and we have a fever, histamines are released locally and globally to counter inflammation, the kidneys and especially the liver are stimulated to remove toxins or purge salts and urea. Another response is that macrophages (activated white blood cells) trigger cell death in a malfunctioning cell, this is a normal function of the body.
The body does "learn" however, this takes days and not hours. If a virus is replicating faster than the immune response the host dies.
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Originally Posted by cosmicfish
You are applying third world epidemiology to a first world nation. Hemorrhagic fever kills so many and never gets down the road because their medical care is terrible (which is why so many die) and because they quarantine the village (which stops the spread). And even in the kind of scenario you describe it still takes weeks or months to kill everyone whom it is going to kill.
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Yes, I am..... because the state of world is even less than that in the days, weeks, months, and first years post nuclear exchange.... First world anything is dead and the carcass only to be scavenged.
Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers are nightmarish on their own, however the are naturally occuring and made the jump from simians to sapiens. An artificial is made by combination and extraction limiting the antigens or presenting apparently harmless antigens to the memory cells antibodies. This produces no response or spoofs the memory cells so that no response is generated until the runaway train of cytotoxins causes septicemia.
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Originally Posted by cosmicfish
If you want to propose a new illness, describe it in detail. Let's look at it like we would with any other weapon, with actual numbers and our best cut at real science, and see if it holds up. If someone proposed a hypothetical rifle that would shoot through a tank and fit in your pocket, we would dissect it in detail and talk about how it changes everything, let's do that here.
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I don't have my copy of "the little book of death" which describes real world diseases world wide... It is an interesting read.... I got it at B&N.