Inflamed and smoked

It began like any other weekday. The usual rush hour, people, cars and the noises of a populated city. But this was to be like no other day. For a process had been unleashed which was to have a devastating effect on the normality of daily life. And if there was to be a solution, it would tax the experts to the limits of their knowledge and expertise.

It really began with nothing more than a flu-like illness in several people in the course of the working day. But that flu-like illness had also manifest in others, in different parts of the world. And the illness progressed such that those afflicted became really ill and incapacitated. The very young, the elderly and the frail required more intensive treatment and so admissions to healthcare facilities began to increase.

At this time, global communication across the multi-media, social media and personal connections became activated. And indeed the affliction of many across the globe took on the appearance of a global viral pandemic. This immediately triggered the virologists and immunologists to begin the process of identifying a probable new strain of flu. With great confidence based on their advanced technology and experience, the institutions and their teams of experts set out to profile the virus fiend and develop the appropriate vaccine. But to no avail. No virus could be identified.

The global pandemic was now accelerating with the first of many deaths being reported. Alarm bells began to ring. The pandemic had all the hallmarks of the 1918 Swine Flu – the roaring immune response with an excessive inflammatory reaction, which resulted in severe and often fatal consequences upon cardiac and lung function. But what was the immune activity and the inflammatory reaction responding to?

Inevitably then, panic took hold of the people. And with this came an upsurge in the numbers of the afflicted and the dead. The world was caught in the grip of a lethal pandemic .... of what? Of inflammation? The clinicians attempted to profile who was contracting the illness and who was dying. The illness had cut across regions, races and gender, almost simultaneously. Most disconcerting was the fact that isolated communities around the globe had been affected in similar ways and with similar profiles to the large urban populations. And still no infecting organism was isolated.

Suddenly a breakthrough from the immunologists. All the afflicted had the same blood group. But the bad news was that this was one of the common blood groups. And so the immunologists roped in the haematologists and the geneticists and sure enough they identified an antibody to a protein made by a previously ‘hidden’ or suppressed part of the DNA, which was linked to the gene coding for the blood grouping. It became apparent that this segment of the DNA molecule was suppressed from birth. And when the immune system matured it was never presented with the protein coded for by that segment. Hence it was never recognized as ‘self’. But something had disturbed the suppressing chemical which had allowed the previously hidden part of the DNA molecule to produce a new protein which was not accepted by the immune system as being ‘self’. So it had mounted a massive attack on the ‘foreign’ protein which was in fact ‘self’.

Armed with this information the experts, now with a slight spring in their steps, boldly turned to their animal models. They developed immunological and genetic engineering methods to artificially destroy the suppressing chemical on the DNA molecule and allowed the ‘foreign’ protein to be made and to elicit an immune response. And indeed it occurred, thus proving their theory and observations.

And all this, while people were dying on an unprecedented scale, world-wide. Normal life had almost ground to a halt. Everyone personally knew many who had been afflicted and who had succumbed. Panic gripped the world.

The experts were now confident. They could taste victory! They synthesized the destroyed suppressing protein and inserted it into harmless viruses which were designed to infect people and thus transfer the missing protein into the nuclei of their cells, thus restoring the suppression of the ‘foreign’ segment of the DNA.

At last arrived the moment when the new viral vectors were ready to be disseminated amongst the populations. But a strange thing happened – tests began to show that the afflicted had begun replenishing their own damaged suppressor chemistry. But despite this, the illness continued to ravage the people unabated. There was no letup in the incidence of the newly afflicted and the death toll continued to soar. The world was gripped by a lethal pandemic and the experts were now clueless and powerless. They had played their last card. Panic, disease and death became the order of the day.

Enter Morton Stanley. A physician by profession, Morton was anything but your regular physician. Generally stoned, Morton dabbled in everything from physics to numerology, from astronomy to astrology and everything in between. While tinkering with his miscellaneous transmitters and receivers (he was trying to make contact with extra-terrestrials) he noted much interference during the time of the onset of the pandemic. He had even ‘purified’ the interfering frequency which had emanated from deep space.

Morton was now salivating with the relish of unfolding possibilities . He was familiar with the newly discovered causes of the pandemic. He now toyed with the possibility that the given frequency emanating from deep space could perhaps have resonated with, and specifically disrupted the suppressing DNA chemical, thus unleashing the pandemic. He checked his receiving apparatus and noted that the frequency was no longer discernible, possibly coinciding with the time that the spontaneous replenishing had begun to occur around the globe. But why was the world still in the grip of this devastating pandemic?

Somewhere in Morton’s stoned right hemisphere emerged the flicker of a hunch. He was drawn to review his old notes on psychoneuro-immunology (PNI) – the study of the influences of mind states on immune function. And there it was ... it jumped out at him. He had to go and find a group of individuals with the implicated blood group that had either not been afflicted or who had survived.

And so Morton’s quest began. His small sample of non-afflicted or surviving individuals consisted of: Highly spiritual individuals who believed that they would survive, but even if they didn’t survive they weren’t afraid of death; several alcoholics who had remained quite euphoric throughout the ordeal; several psychotics who had no connection with their environments; a group of golfers who had been playing their best golf such that they resolved to continue playing and enjoying the roll ‘come hell or high water’.

Yes indeed, Morton had nailed it. The beam of frequency from deep space had resonated specifically with the covering/ suppressing chemical of the DNA segement and destroying it. This had caused a ‘foreign’ protein to be manufactured which had kick-started an immune process characterized by a florid and in many cases, a lethal inflammatory cascade which then had destroyed hearts and lungs. But the real killer was panic and its chemistry.

The pandemic had triggered a mighty collective amygdala panic action with the subsequent outpouring of collective adrenaline and cortisol. It was inevitable that this would, in turn, precipitate a lethal wave of inflammation. And so the masses were succumbing to wholesale and unchecked acute inflammation which was perpetuating itself chemically and psychologically. Mankind was spiraling down the plughole with its own inflammatory juices!

Morton was fired up. He had the solution - Quieten the panic on a macro scale and the inflammation would subside together with the lethal illnesses. But no one was available to listen to Morton. The professors and their legions of academics required Morton’s CV. The little that he had would not gain him access to receptive ears. And the few that granted him an audience demanded supporting data. They laughed him out with his ‘crazy’ theory and his ‘anecdotal’ evidence. It was a futile and hopeless endeavor. And so a disheartened Morton returned to his humble abode, lit a joint or two and watched ... as the darkness descended and the lights slowly went out.

                                             Copyright reserved - Ian Weinberg 2017