Bug Warfare Woes—Part 2

There is another way to deal with the invasions of microorganisms that promises a far more effective approach to dealing with various diseases caused by bugs. Rather than go to war with them, we could engage with them in positive ways that disarm them, and then live with them. This approach does not force them to become more virulent and fight back. This is a smarter, nonviolent approach.

We have already used this approach in developing vaccines. The process of creating many vaccines is to cause the harmful microorganism to evolve into a milder form in a laboratory, which we then inject into people. As a result, a person develops immunity to that milder bug (that we have literally bred) as well as the more harmful one, without getting sick. There is no attempt to kill off the microorganisms; instead, we disarm them (make them less virulent) and then live with them by building immunity. This is a way of duplicating how we naturally encounter many nonlethal kinds of bugs, which do not do us much harm at all—such as the rhinovirus that causes the common cold (which is a distant cousin to the SARS-2 virus that causes COVID-19).

This is how we can come to live with organisms that hardly make us sick—by transforming them into less deadly mutations. Many of the viruses and bacteria that invade us really have no intention of causing us serious harm. All they want to do is breed, multiply, and flourish—just as all life does. If they can do that without sickening us, that would be fine with them. In fact, our health can be important to their well-being… if we die, they must quickly find another host before they too expire. 

They are, however, in constant competition with other kinds of microorganisms (sort of a bug arms race), so they try to reproduce in huge quantities. That sometimes causes them to get out of hand, or evolve into extremely virulent bugs that cause diseases such as malaria, cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, smallpox, tuberculosis, and others.

We now have the science to characterize the genetic makeup of these microorganisms. This knowledge can help us to control their evolution and transform them into weaker, rather than stronger mutations. The fact that they mutate so fast, means that we can alter their genetic character in just a few weeks. When we do so, we need not go to war with heavy weapons that cause them to fight back. We can earn to live with them!

Furthermore the weapons we use to fight microorganisms (such as antibiotics) often cause lots of collateral damage when they also harm the trillions of beneficial bacteria that inhabit our bodies. Thus, after a dose of powerful antibiotics that has wiped out both the bad and the good bacteria, we must then use probiotics to recolonize our gut system with beneficial and necessary bacteria. 

We have the capability to make that transformation to a peaceful coexistence, if we forgo our natural instinct to go to war with every bug that we meet and learn to live harmoniously with them.

Bug Warfare Woes—Part 1

This last year has witnessed an extraordinary worldwide struggle with the COVID-19 disease. Not since the plagues of the 13^th century or the 1918 flu has such a huge impact of disease on human civilization occurred. COVID is an example of the dangers we humans flirt with, as we increasingly interact with and encroach upon the natural world. When we do so, we inevitably encounter diseases that leap from animals to humans. We can be thankful for how quickly modern science described the genetic basis of this latest virus and developed a vaccine in record time.

But did we set ourselves up for this threat, and have we handled it well? Yes, we have brought about a situation that virtually guaranteed the current pandemic, with our behavior that has made us vulnerable to animal diseases, and no, we have not dealt with it appropriately. A far better response could be imagined—if only one that fostered better cooperation between countries and regions. Yes, we can take credit for a “warp speed” vaccine, but there are much better ways we could have handled the epidemic.

Considering humanity's dealings with infectious diseases caused by various kinds of microorganisms, the struggle began long ago. But real warfare did not begin until humans concentrated in densely-populated clusters. All of the infectious bugs that cause human disease require high-density environments such as cities, for them to move easily from person to person. They require a host to invade, reproduce inside, and then invade another host, in order to perpetuate their species. 

Long before we realized that microorganisms were the cause of these diseases, we turned to religion or magic to protect us. The mysterious sources of these illnesses bewildered us. Then, a couple of hundred years ago we realized that microscopic critters were the cause... critters who invaded our bodies and made us sick. That understanding soon led to some ways in which we could effectively battle against them. So, in the same way that we respond to an invading human army, we went to war with bugs. Our mentality was to defeat them, in order to escape their diseases. Kill them and we could carry on securely.

Soon we began to understand the value of natural antibiotics to enlist in the war. And we later created vaccines—injecting us with harmless versions of an organism that would trigger our immune system to identify and defang the bugs. We began to use hygienic practices that either fended off or destroyed germs. These treatments were fantastically successful in curbing or fully eradicating several social diseases. 

But the process of going to war on microorganisms proved to be triumphant only in the short term. Just as humans have been caught up in arms races with each other throughout history—which has succeeded only in perpetuating endless and increasingly devastating wars—bugs have continued to engage with us in battle by quickly evolving to become increasingly formidable foes. As an example, the US developed the atom bomb in the 1940s and used it to terminate WWII (it was a “bomb to end all bombs”). But the USSR soon had the bomb too… so we both graduated to the hydrogen bomb. Now we stare each other down, with our finger on the trigger that could terminate humanity.

A result of this mentality is that, in our war on bugs, we have brought about the evolution of extremely hardy microorganisms that are now immune to most of our antibiotics. We've literally bred superbugs in this arms race. In a very similar manner, we have retaliated against agricultural pests by manufacturing pesticides that we've lavishly spread across the environment, with the long-term result that we've bred super insects that have grown a resistance to our insecticides. These problems have been brought about by our attitude of going to war, with little thought to where that approach will inevitably lead: a never-ending arms race.

Next time, a better way…