DBWI: No Cancer Virus??

the U.S. Army's 6th top biological weapons contractor in 1969-
1970, prepared mutants of influenza and para-influenza
viruses, recombined with acute lymphocytic leukemia viruses?

In other words, how would you like to have a strain of the
flu, that spreads cancer by sneezing?

Can you even rationalize the develop of such a
virus=97 lymphocytic leukemia, that kills most victims in
just a few weeks following airborne transmission?

quote:

Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H. Emerging Viruses
presentation, 1996

In June 1971, scientists at Ft. Dietrick, Maryland accidently released lymphocytic leukemia viruses (LLV) which at the time had a 99% fatality rate, and was easily transmitted by a simple sneeze. Most antibiotics proved useless for the task, and some of the vaccines were often deadlier than the cure. Considering that our generation is the first to grow up in the aftermath of the "Great Plague", which served to kill 80% of the world's population within the span of 4 years, many parts of our culture are picking up the pieces....

How would history look without the LLV Virus???
 
In June 1971, scientists at Ft. Dietrick, Maryland accidently released lymphocytic leukemia viruses (LLV) which at the time had a 99% fatality rate, and was easily transmitted by a simple sneeze. Most antibiotics proved useless for the task, and some of the vaccines were often deadlier than the cure. Considering that our generation is the first to grow up in the aftermath of the "Great Plague", which served to kill 80% of the world's population within the span of 4 years, many parts of our culture are picking up the pieces....

How would history look without the LLV Virus???

I hate to be the eternal optimist, but then again optomism is the only thing to get us through this nightmare. I imagine Earth would be much more crowded and crazy disunited. I've seen charts saying that Earth population without the plague would be around 6-7 billion people! Think about the cost of food, energy, water! Think about the damage to the environment. Thats just the optiomist in me though. With our great minds still intact and being able to focus on other things who knows where things like computers, TV's, phones, etc. would be today. I've heard a proffesor tell me that electronics would be thousand times more powerful and much smaller (don't see how it's possible, but he's the prof!). Also who knows where literature and music would be, they almost went extinct with no one focusing to pass on culture. Sometimes it seems the only big achivment of the past 60 years has been our disese resistance (but thats a natural thing) and the UN world government.
 
I hate to be the eternal optimist, but then again optomism is the only thing to get us through this nightmare. I imagine Earth would be much more crowded and crazy disunited. I've seen charts saying that Earth population without the plague would be around 6-7 billion people! Think about the cost of food, energy, water! Think about the damage to the environment. Thats just the optiomist in me though. With our great minds still intact and being able to focus on other things who knows where things like computers, TV's, phones, etc. would be today. I've heard a proffesor tell me that electronics would be thousand times more powerful and much smaller (don't see how it's possible, but he's the prof!). Also who knows where literature and music would be, they almost went extinct with no one focusing to pass on culture. Sometimes it seems the only big achivment of the past 60 years has been our disese resistance (but thats a natural thing) and the UN world government.
To say that music and the arts suffered under the plague is a major misnomer. Consider that Stephen King's The Stand (1981) is considered the definitive piece in Plague-era pieces. You also have the Star Wars franchise (all 12films) created by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, which served to serve as the "new mythology" for our generation after 1978. Also, consider the works of Bob Marley, John Lennon, and Bruce Springsteen, which actually captured the mournful nature and the loneliness of the period....
 
Small correction: It's a common misconception for some reason that "most" antibiotics proved useless. In fact, most treatments proved useless. No antibiotics were of any use, nor are they of use against any virus. It's strictly an anti-bacterial treatment.

Sorry to nitpick. On topic, for starters we'd all probably be a lot poorer. The inheritances after the plague are responsible for the 14 different properties my family technically owns between Philadelphia and Providence. And that's just from my dad's side - my mom's family was one of those weird ones big enough that there weren't enough houses to go around.
 
Does anyone know exactly what happened on north Korea? As I understand it, their governament isolated the country before the Plague, but now it appears devoid of any surface activity (according to satellite readings).
 
Does anyone know exactly what happened on north Korea? As I understand it, their governament isolated the country before the Plague, but now it appears devoid of any surface activity (according to satellite readings).
According to the latest reports from the White House, the cities of Pyongyang and Pusan are complete ghost towns. The fact that people report only rudimentary agricultural activity seems to support the idea that the government has collapsed. Currently, I believe the plan to send representatives from South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan would be prudent, along with American representation. Just as American contact with Vietnam was prudent in 1996, we must make similar overtures to find out what the world situation really is....
 
er...I dont mean to drag us back in to OTL but there's a very long article in harpers about how a form of cance has evolved to become contagious...spread amongst tasmanian devels...it's not a virus...but tumer cells that act independently and are released into the sliva and bloodstream and act like spores when one cell falls on another host and start reproduceing like crazy....I was in the grocery store checkout line and the article was about 8 or 9 pages and I only go through the first two before haveing to rush off to do other errands...but if what they were implying is true this question might not be DBWI in a few years
 
er...I dont mean to drag us back in to OTL but there's a very long article in harpers about how a form of cance has evolved to become contagious...spread amongst tasmanian devels...it's not a virus...but tumer cells that act independently and are released into the sliva and bloodstream and act like spores when one cell falls on another host and start reproduceing like crazy....I was in the grocery store checkout line and the article was about 8 or 9 pages and I only go through the first two before haveing to rush off to do other errands...but if what they were implying is true this question might not be DBWI in a few years
OOC: I have read that article, and I have to say that it was one of the many inspirations behind the creation of the ATL.

IC: According to the WHO/CDC, there are many areas of Australia that may still be quarantined until the Tasmanian Devil population is placed under direct control. The fact that Australian ranchers suffer LLV at pandemic rates, even in 2008 seems to indicate that the quarantine is still necessary....
 
OOC: Oh my god! Trans-dimensonal poster!!! You could always have used OOC, like I am right now, right?

IC: Didn't several countries tried to completly isolate themselves from the outside world to avoid the virus? Whatever happened to those. I know that Soviet Russia tried it, but it was so large it would never have worked. Didn't the Minister of Health in Britan put together a report about how the countries going into quarentine and sealing themselves off were only offsetting the inevetiable.

The population thing without the virus would be out of control. As it grows, it will only grow faster. Without something like this happening, we would've had mass famine and poverty within the decade.
 
OOC: Oh my god! Trans-dimensonal poster!!! You could always have used OOC, like I am right now, right?

IC: Didn't several countries tried to completly isolate themselves from the outside world to avoid the virus? Whatever happened to those. I know that Soviet Russia tried it, but it was so large it would never have worked. Didn't the Minister of Health in Britan put together a report about how the countries going into quarentine and sealing themselves off were only offsetting the inevetiable.

The population thing without the virus would be out of control. As it grows, it will only grow faster. Without something like this happening, we would've had mass famine and poverty within the decade.

Well I am certain that the People's Republic of China attempted to use the Cultural Revolution to stave off the onset of the LLV Pandemic, by attempting a form of self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, this served to make the situation worse for the Chinese. Without the medical assisstance of the outside world, the plague hit like a wildfire. It is ironic, that the government waited until 1976 "Year of the Dragon" to announce that it had a problem with the LLV PLague. As a result, China became a pariah state, with refugees overloading refugee camps in Hong Kong, Saigon, Seoul, Jakarta, and even Manila....
 
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