Dr. Zach Bush (02:52):
Instead of calling them viruses we simply call them bacteriophage. But bacteriophage is the translation and transportation of genetic information from one bacteria to the next, and then it goes inside. If the bacteria chooses to reproduce that, it will start manufacturing that and redistribute that back out into nature in a higher volume so it can amplify that genetic signal. Interestingly, whether it be human or a bacteria, the cell has a lot of regulatory functions as to decide which DNA or RNA is allowed to enter into the cytoplasm of the cell, and which DNA or RNA is allowed to survive long enough to interact with the highly regulated machinery that will determine whether you will actually make a protein and allow that gene to turn on or not. This is a highly regulated communication network of genomic updates, and viruses are produced with the very mission of creating adaptation.
Dr. Zach Bush (03:23):
A virus will never go out into nature and do the same thing that another genome already does all the time. It's not necessary. It doesn't waste the effort of repeating itself if that genetic information has already been brought into the physiology of an organism and is now in a homeostasis or balance without genetic experience of being a live organism. For this reason we don't continue to produce the same virus over and over again. We will take a virus in, we'll produce it for a short period of time. We take that into the tissues of our body that most need that genetic information and then we reach a balanced state. If you get influenza, a specific species (or strain, rather), of that genetic code, you will update that whole genomic sequence within you. Interestingly, we now know that the DNA is constantly updating.
Dr. Zach Bush (04:13):
Some of this DNA will hold onto that information. The herpes viruses and some of these chronic viral conditions out there mean that that genome has been supplanted into your long-term storage devices of your genome. The human genome as now understood through sequencing has been composed of over 50% of its volume from viral inputs. 10% of the genome, in fact, has been inserted directly by retroviruses like HIV. So the genome that makes us human today is a billions of years' journey into the construction of the complexity and intelligence of this genomic information inserted into us by viruses. I want to emphasize how important these viral genomic things are. These aren't like, Oh, I got exposed to a germ and I accidentally integrated that into my system, and now I keep it at bay. No, these are important, critical updates to our adaptive capacity as human beings.
Dr. Zach Bush (05:13):
The good examples of this are, in fact, the genome of stem cells. A stem cell is actually not able to be pluripotent (meaning it can change and turn into a liver cell or a bone cell or a kidney cell) unless it has the genetic update of a retrovirus that was inserted millions of years ago. So through a retrovirus, we gained the function of a pluripotent stem cell as multicellular organisms. Same thing actually gets even more interesting, in that the mechanism by which we produced the placenta to have produced the very first human being, the placenta needed retroviral and viral information genes that regulate that production of the placenta. So if not for viral updates to our genome, we would have never had the adaptive capacity and the biologic intelligence to birth a single human being.
Dr. Zach Bush (06:07):
So how is it that we have so screwed up with this COVID thing, a demonization of the very genetic code that has produced life on earth? But unfortunately that's what we've done and we've done it really with an ulterior motive. It's been interesting to see for the first time the pharmaceutical industry and the mechanisms of the WHO and CDC really show their cards for the first time, and that their entire agenda seems to be targeted at the production of a multibillion dollar vaccine. They didn't seem to have the concern of showing us how we could be in a balanced state with this virus--which has of course happened every other time we've seen a coronavirus. We saw SARS and we saw MERS, and within a single year--within 2 years or 2 seasons, a single 12 month period, the encompassing two of our respiratory seasons--SARS disappeared, no vaccine. 2012 MERS disappears, no vaccine.