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Cure for the common cold?
Name: Mrs. Garb's grateful class
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
Hello! we are a 3/4 class in Rolling Meadows, IL. We
are participating in the Toshiba Exploravision contest.
Our team is studying technological advances in medicine.
We would like to know if in the future there will be a
cure for the common cold? Will we be able to technologically
get rid of the cold forever??
Is research being done now to find a cure for the common cold?
What is a common cold?
We are going on vacation today. Hooray! we will be back in our
class in two weeks. Please help us by leaving an answer to our questions.
Replies:
Thanks for your note, and Happy New Year!
I'll give my opinion on this question:
First there are many many disease causing bacteria , and many of
the bacteria undergo genetic changes which makes them resistant
to medicines we currently use.
As far as a cure for the common cold, my suspicion is that it,
just like dandelions, will continue to be a constant, though
non-deadly nuisance for us humans. The only solution would
be to have all disease causing organisms (bacteria or viruses)
removed from the earth. Something like that is not at all likely.
Besides that, the fact is that we cannot get rid of all the earth's
bacteria; our normal digestion, for example, relies on E. coli
bacteria which live in our intestines. Without E. coli we
would cease to exist. Other bacteria which break down things
like dead leaves, animals, trees, etc. are essential to return
nutrients to the earth and keep our environmental 'tidy'.
Even things like hair or skin cells would quickly accumulate if
bacteria did not quickly break them back down to their basic
components.
Therefore, preventing the cold I think is an insurmountable task.
As far as CURING the cold once you have it, I think we will not
really progress much further either. When a person becomes
infected, the bacteria invade cells and the result is our 'sick'
feeling. By the time we 'feel sick' the bacteria has already
made its invasion and won (at least temporarily). Our body's
resistance to the invasion involves production of immune cells
to fight the organism or virus. Time is required for this
battle to be waged (and won).
Naturally, much of medicine is designed to aid in this battle (antibiotics)
or to at least make us feel better while the battle wages on...
like aspirin, sinus medicine, and other drugs which try to
counteract some of the histaminic reactions produced by our bodies
in response to the invasion.
What I do see sometime in the future is perhaps production of
types of immunization to protect us from some of the more
hazardous bacteria. I do think, with the common cold, however,
that we have to at least try to grin and bear it.
Ric
Thanks for using NEWTON!
Most common colds are caused by viruses. We would like to make
a vaccine that would protect us against theses viruses, like the
vaccine that protects us from polioviruses. Unfortunately, cold
viruses change their "coat" proteins rather quickly, which means that
our immune systems trained to find one type of coat will not find the
"new" kind of coat...so the c vaccines are not particularly effective.
Steve J Triezenberg
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Update: June 2012
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