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Pastimes : SARS - what next? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (532)	6/16/2003 12:40:47 PM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1070

Actually I am quite familiar with Free Republic. I began covering the anthrax mailings in the fall of 2001 and ended up on a discussion group started by stuart, aka towelhead, (who posts as badabing badaboom on Free Republic). That group also had a poster, mort, who posts as The Great Satan (and previously as Clinton's a Rapist) on Free Republic. Its a long story, but The Great Satan had me banned from Free Republic (I posted under my name). Recently I tried posting some sars info using sars321 (which had nothing to do with anthrax or TGS), but all of my posts were pulled after a few days, so for now I just visit Free Republic to see what is being said. Actaully, although the posts on Free Republic have been pulled, you can still see them via appropriate links (you might have to be logged in as a member to see the posts) freerepublic.com here are earlier posts as niman freerepublic.com (you would be quite amazed at what has been pulled on Free Republic)

To: Ilaine who wrote (532)	6/18/2003 11:44:13 PM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 1070

It looks like some on Free Republic are confused between SARS and the 1918 flu epidemic. The 1918 epidemic was caused by a flu virus which was likely to have been a recombinant between a flu strain and a bird strain. Its spread was facilitate by WWI troops and after quieting down in the summer, it killed 10's of MILLIONS in the following fall. SARS in contrast is caused by a unique coronavirus. Humans get infected by coronaviruses which cause about 30% of common colds. The cold viruses are similar to SARS coronavirus, but quite distinct. The SARS coronaviruses are primarily deletion mutants who have lost 29 nt and decapitated a 122 aa protein in the process (the natural SARS coronavirus is found in severla species and is very similar to the SARS virus except the 29 nt are retained). 17/18 sequenced SARS coronaviruses have this deletion mutation. Those linked to the Metropole Hotel also have an additional 7 point mutations. Some of these point mutations are being mixed and matched via recombinations between one SARS coronavirus and another SARS coronavirus. Thus far there have not been any isolates that are recombinants beween SARS coronaviruses and human coronaviruses that cause colds, such as 229E or OC49. However, there are some regions of significant homology in the genomes of both types of coronaviruses and co-infection by SARS coronavirus and cold coronaviruses could lead to recombinants that could be more infectious (like the cold virus), but still cause a fatal pneumonia (like the SARS virus). SARS is an emerging disease and the fall may bring some major problems and surprises.

To: Ilaine who wrote (532)	6/21/2003 6:40:58 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1070

>>I am also part of a group of posters that have an interest in SARS on Free Republic, a conservative website that has a more than trivial number of nutballs<< You left out more than a trivial number of chronic googlers. Only a chronic googler would come up with a 1988 European patent freerepublic.com and miss 9 US patents, including one issued less than 2 months ago patft.uspto.gov