Scientists Confirm Cause Of SARS: Researchers Inject Monkeys With Suspected Virus

WXII12.com and Associate Press ^ | April 16, 2003

[Gefreiter]

"Scientists in the Netherlands infected monkeys with the coronavirus, which was suspected of causing SARS"

PETA's gonna have a s--t fit.

[aristeides]

Koch's postulates have now been satisfied. The cause has been identified.

[Dog Gone]

We still need to determine whether the coronavirus is mutating to the extent where we might now have multiple viruses which cause different severities of SARS.

[onedoug]

No word on how it's transmitted. The author should get a journalism award.

[rmmcdaniell]

The title is misleading. At first glance it makes you think the virus emerged as a result of the experimental monkey virus crossing over to humans.

[new cruelty]

i agree.

[IYAS9YAS]

My local news this morning said it came from monkeys...what is right? That they tested it on monkeys or that it came from monkeys?

[vetvetdoug]

That is exactly what I was thinking. Koch was one smart individual when he made those profound postulates over a hundred years ago.

[aristeides]

Scientists Confirm Virus As Cause of SARS: Osterhaus said they infected two groups of monkeys with either the coronavirus or with the human metapneumovirus. In a third group, the monkeys were infected first with coronavirus, then with the metapneumovirus. "The animals infected with the coronavirus alone developed the full-blown disease. They developed clinical symptoms and the lesions that are identical to what we have seen in people who have died from SARS," he said. "The animals infected with human metapneumovirus developed only very mild symptoms and definitely not the typical SARS pattern." The third group did not develop a more serious version of SARS, Osterhaus said. "The conclusion today was that the coronavirus alone is capable of causing the typical symptoms," he said.

If I understand this correctly, monkeys who were infected first with the coronavirus and then with metapneumovirus did not develop serious SARS. Does this mean the metapneumovirus somehow protected them?

[per loin]

I think he is saying that the SARS case did not become more serious by adding the second virus, but was as serious as with the coronavirus alone.

[CathyRyan]

So that would knock off the binary virus theory. It is still weird that two brand new virus show up at the same time together in group of ill people. Do they still think the metapneumovirus is brand new?

[Yeti]

"The pace of SARS research has been astounding," Heymann said. "Because of an extraordinary collaboration among laboratories from countries around the world, we now know with certainty what causes SARS."

The successful identification of the coronavirus means that scientists can now turn to other SARS challenges.

... International experts are meeting this week to discuss the future of SARS research.

Sounds like the international medical community has really got this marketing model nailed.

[per loin]

Last I saw, they still thought so. But what do you make of the Chinese insisting that it is a form of clamydia?

[k2blader]

Scientists in the Netherlands infected monkeys with the coronavirus...

Pardon my ignorance, but are they saying this is the origin of SARS? Infected monkeys?

[CathyRyan]

I thought they changed that but I may well be wrong. I have read so much lately that it is all running together. At one point I thought they might have let the wrong bug looseby mistake and they just thought the turned loose the clamydia.

[Centurion2000]

What are Koch's postulates ??

[aristeides]

Koch's Postulates:

1. The specific organism should be shown to be present in all cases of animals suffering from a specific disease but shold not be found in healthy animals. 2. The specific microorganism should be isolated from the diseased animal and grown in pure culture on artificial laboratory media. 3. This freshly isolated microorganism, when inoculated into a healthy laboratory animal, should cause the same disease seen in the original animal. 4. The microorganism should be reisolated in pure culture from the experimental infection.

[Dog Gone]

No, they used monkeys to test whether they had identified the correct virus using samples taken from humans.

[vetvetdoug]

Diseases go better with Koch