Some years ago (70’s) a scientist, Hans Selye (1907-1982) noticed that almost every factor that pressed the body to respond somehow got at first the same response, or complex of responses. He knew nothing about glucocorticoids, which turned out to be the cause, nor did the public really pick up on that part, but they loved the idea of “stress” and the hand-in-hand feature of the psychological with the physical. We talk about being "stressed" all the time.
“Stress, either physiological or biological, is an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition. Stress is the body's method of reacting to a condition such as a threat, challenge or physical and psychological barrier. Stimuli that alter an organism's environment are responded to by multiple systems in the body.In humans and most mammals, the autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis are the two major systems that respond to stress."
Glucocorticoids are a class of corticosteroids, which are a class of steroid hormones. Glucocorticoids are corticosteroids that bind to the glucocorticoid receptor that is present in almost every vertebrate animal cell. The name "glucocorticoid" is a portmanteau (glucose + cortex + steroid) and is composed from its role in regulation of glucose metabolism, synthesis in the adrenal cortex, and its steroidal structure (see structure to the right). A less common synonym is glucocorticosteroid.”
This is background for discussion of the tides of virus that sweep through the lives of humans. Everything from weather to working conditions to difficulties at home can cause stress. In fact, when I was a kid more cranky than usual, my mother said I was “catching cold”. If she were the cranky one, she said it was “that time of the month.”
Scientists need to give everything names so they can sort and discuss them, so they don’t refer to viruses by the point of originating discovery, the way fossils are named for where they are found, but rather by appearance or behavior. Very Latinate and technical.
Flu viruses are classified in a unique way, by using a different system than the pandemics. So what is to us “swine flu” (or if you are a vulgarian, “pig flu”) is to them H1N1. First of all “flu” (or if you like fancy, “influenza”) is categorized by virulence, A, B. or C. “In virology, influenza A virus subtype H1N1 is the subtype of Influenza A virus that was the most common cause of human influenza in 2009, and is associated with the 1918 flu pandemic. It is an orthomyxovirus that contains the glycoproteins haemagglutinin and neuraminidase.” Those last two big fat words are the origin of the H and N in H1N1.
“The (H1N1)pdm09 virus was very different from H1N1 viruses that were circulating at the time of the pandemic. Few young people had any existing immunity (as detected by antibody response) to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus, but nearly one-third of people over 60 years old had antibodies against this virus, likely from exposure to an older H1N1 virus earlier in their lives.”
One theory about the deadliness of the 1918 pandemic was that antibodies from an earlier wave of infections had somehow interacted with the later stress and immune responses. The parallel idea now might be cytokine storms which are a total overreaction of antibodies that don’t just destroy the virus, but also the body’s own tissues. I can’t resist the thought that it’s like our war responses when we bomb the guilty even if it kills innocent people who happen to be nearby.
“The 1968 pandemic was caused by an influenza A (H3N2) virus comprised of two genes from an avian influenza A virus, including a new H3 hemagglutinin, but also contained the N2 neuraminidase from the 1957 H2N2 virus. It was first noted in the United States in September 1968. The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States. Most excess deaths were in people 65 years and older. The H3N2 virus continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza A virus. Seasonal H3N2 viruses, which are associated with severe illness in older people, undergo regular antigenic drift."
I will boast that when the 1957 H2N2 virus hit, I was a freshman at NU and did not get sick, though nearly everyone in my dorm did. It was a bird-based virus carried in migratory paths and I grew up in Portland, OR, which was on one of those paths. That might be the explanation; that I already had antibodies that worked.
If one continues the parallel between social reactions to social stress as being like the physical response to stress both psychological and physical, then it becomes easier to interpret what’s happening to us. We can ask, what are the haemagglutinin and neuraminidase in our society? Aren’t they need and violence? Increased need leads to increased violence, but there are many kinds of violence and few address real needs.
Governance is about reducing the stress on the population enough for the country to function. No jobs, no housing, no food are cytokine-storm-type responses that kill the very flesh of us. There is no formal categorization system but it is clear there are plenty of other references: relation to prior major stress episodes, contagion around the world, attachment of the name to the place and time of origin. The sources of contagion are always around. Sometimes they flare.
Trump is a vector, a carrier of hatred, dementia, suffering. His face collapses more and more, eyes narrowing, mouth clamping, cheeks sagging, hair thinning. Like the plague rats of history he carries the fleas of minor hangers-on who have the fantasy that bookkeeping will make them rich and respected. Bloodsuckers.
So our responses, both autonomic and HPA axis are arousal. Food banks. Sharing. Realization. Many small strategies of amelioration like outdoor dining or catching up on reading. Trump thinks the result will be more business, but my guess is it will be deeper thinking about what’s really important and how to reorganize. By that time Trump will be confined to a nursing home, a viral hotspot, which seems fitting. The others . . . oh, wait until we get our antiseptics on the others, those human germs.
(Most of the variant quotes are from using Google.)
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