EBV alone should have alerted us to the potential dangers of chronic infection. Infecting up to 95% of the…

EBV alone should have alerted us to the potential dangers of chronic infection. Infecting up to 95% of the global adult population, asymptomatically. We’re ‘living with’ it. And it’s becoming clearer all the time what a terrible housemate it is. /1 https://t.co/Xxui0hpUSG

It was the first identified oncogenic (cancer-causing) virus. More have been identified since. Some estimates say more than 250,000 cancer deaths each year are caused by EBV, approximately 2% of all cancer deaths. It’s a causative agent in a range of other diseases too. /2

Including infectious mononucleosis, oral diseases, autoimmune diseases, multiple sclerosis, a range of hematological and epithelial cancers, and EBV-associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (EBV-HLH). See: https://t.co/WXrLtHXzcN /3

The important point here is that most of us have EBV already living inside us. It’s a persistent pathogen, and infects us often asymptomatically. Using the current corrupted touchstone for good public health, it doesn’t kill or even make many people sick in its acute phase. /4

By new measures of public health practice, everything is fine. The danger of using the wrong paradigm to think about infection. Pathogens are part of ecosystems, they’re not just looking for a one-night stand. The acute phase is their on-ramp to a hoped permanent residence. /5

EBV is also insidious because it had infected pretty much all of us before we even started to understand the dangers it poses. That’s the danger of asymptomatic or ‘mild’ infection, seducing us into thinking nothing is wrong. In disease control germs it’s also not Everest. /6

Pretty much all bodily fluids, not airborne. Now the link to MS has been confirmed, there is actually discussion about whether more should be done to control its spread. What should jump out at us about it is that NOBODY KNEW the chronic impact, from the acute manifestation. /7

This is so often the case for chronic disease caused by infection. The acute on-ramp gives little or zero indication of what’s to come. And while the concept of ‘leaky’ vaccines (vaccines that don’t prevent infection) is controversial, maybe there is something to see there. /8

Whether it’s smart to rely upon vaccines-only, when they don’t prevent infection but only severe disease. Whether that just makes the on-ramp wider, allowing for more and repeated infections. Vaccines are agencies in that same ecosystem the pathogen inhabits. /9

Even for our ‘sterilising’ vaccines, other public health measures are employed to control spread. To prevent infections. Our Covid strategy is an economic strategy, not a scientific or medical one. /end