Dangerous Gas Theory in relation to drug-resistant bacteria and mutating viruses

In mid-December I authored a theory here on ATS about dangerous gases, methane and hydrogen sulfide, as causing a lot of the increased global incidents that we are experiencing, such as a rise in earthquake and volcano activity, mass animal die-offs, sinkholes, sonic booms and unexplained explosions. There are more events and phenomenon, but right now I want to propose another one that I think is caused by the dangerous gas theory. That’s the increase in drug-resistant and mutating bacteria and viruses.

If you’d like to know more about the dangerous gas theory you can visit the thread here

www.abovetopsecret.com...

This link has the theory about methane plumes rapidly increasing and causing an alarming increased rate of global warming far more dangerous to civilization than CO2 ever was. I’m not going to get into the theory anymore here because you can visit the link and find out a lot, there are pages and pages worth of information in the thread. This thread is rather long but worth the read. I tried to keep it short but there is just too much information to share here. Hopefully you like to read and you take the time because there it's a very interesting theory.

First, you may be asking yourself how diseases and pandemics have anything to do with dangerous gases and atmospheric heating. It’s simple really. There are various types of microbes that eat methane. They live deep underground and they live 30,000 feet into the air. Basically, they are everywhere and they feed off methane hydrates.

The theory goes something like this. The more methane increases it becomes a feeding frenzy for the microbes. What happens when these microbes have more than enough to eat? They multiply. As methane release increases, there is naturally going to be a rapid increase in the microbes that feed.

Through the evolution of bacteria over millions of years you can expect that other species of bacteria can also experience growth. As one species of bacteria rapidly increases, others will follow. I propose in this theory that as the microbes continuously feed on the increased methane hydrates, other bacteria are following the lead, thus, literally thousands of species of bacteria and viruses are experiencing phenomenal growth all over the planet.

To back this idea up, let’s first take a look at what bacteria really are. Bacteria are made up of the same genetic stuff that we are, only we have our DNA stored in the nucleus of the cytoplasm of a cell, while bacteria DNA isn’t stored in the nucleus. Their DNA is stored in the cytoplasm without a nucleus and that gives way for genetic mutation. The bacteria are made up of a genetic material called plasmids, which are small ring-like structures that float in the cell. They are separate from the chromosomal DNA and each has a specific job. One plasmid will cause the production of a chemical which negates antibiotic a, while another plasmid will cause the production of a chemical which negates antibiotic b. Then there is horizontal and vertical transfer of the plasmids to other bacteria. Vertical transfer is when a bacterium transfers the plasmid through its offspring, but it’s the horizontal transfer that may be responsible for the rapid rise in disease. This is when a plasmid replicates itself independently of the host cell and a single bacterium transfers a copy of that plasmid to every bacterium within range, and this includes bacterium of another species.

If you’ve followed news headlines over the past year then you’ve noticed a rise in disease outbreaks or resistance to drugs to fight these diseases. You’re not imagining things if you’ve questioned whether these diseases seem to be getting stronger. The flu virus that normally lasted less than a week has this year persisted for two to three weeks.

Let’s take a look at the microbes that feed off methane. These are called methanotrophs. There are two separate groups of methanotrophs, those that feed off oxygen in the atmosphere (aerobic) or those that thrive in the absence of oxygen underground (anaerobic).
Aerobic methanotrophs are usually found in soils near methane-rich environments, such as oceans, landfills, underground environments, mud and bogs, and rice paddies.

A March 24, 2010 article that Nature.com published found that a new species of methane-eating bacteria lives in environments without oxygen and produce their own.

Nature.com article

The article concludes by talking about the evolution of methane-eating bacteria and which one came first, the aerobic methanotrophs that scientists know so much about, or these newly-discovered guys. Some of them worry though that this new species may have been born recently due to the increase in these methane-rich environments that may have been produced by man.

Either way, there are methane-eating microbes everywhere and especially in the present day with the amount of methane to feed the hungry little buggers. To actually have bacteria that can thrive without ever having any oxygen at all shows the tenacity of these bugs. And if that’s not tenacious enough, here is another eye-opening article that describes the discovery of bacteria and fungi floating in the atmosphere at 30,000 feet.

LA Times article

The scientists said in their report that these microbes are floating at 30,000 feet, in an atmosphere that they had previously assumed was just sea salt and dust. They tested the air before and after a hurricane and they assume it’s these storms that lift the bacteria high up into the atmosphere and that it floats along in the jet stream and has to come down somewhere.

Note the scary part in the article about how the scientists found Escherichia and Streptococcus bacteria. They found 17 types of bacteria. All these bacteria catching a ride on hurricane-force winds to 30,000 feet then feeding on the high amounts of methane rising to these levels could lead to a dangerous recipe. As I mentioned earlier, the more to feed, the more growth the bacteria will experience.

Not only do the scientists claim that these 6-mile high bacteria could affect weather patterns, but they state that they may also carry disease to far away places. I propose that we take this a step further and suggest that these bacteria, traveling in packs, are the cause of mutating strains of virus and drug-resistant bacteria popping up all over the planet today. They have plenty of food in the methane-rich environments in the mud, in the oceans, deep underground and now, high in the atmosphere. Plenty of food means that there will be rapid growth in their numbers, at first for the microbes feeding off the methane, but then, for all other species within range as I previously described with horizontal transfer.

Continued...

Over the winter of 2012-13, there have been numerous stories in the news about superbugs, or bugs that have become resistant to the drugs that we’ve used to fight them. That’s not a good sign of the times. Common viruses that we’ve learned to fight are mutating into much stronger and more deadly strains. Have you asked yourself lately why so many diseases you’ve grown up with are now scary to think about? News article after news article the same theme rings true; viruses have mutated and bacteria’s have learned to resist the current-known drugs.
Now we’ll examine a dozen different bugs that have made headlines lately starting with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). This disease was first detected in the United States in 2001. According to the Minnesota Department of Health website, CRE causes a variety of infections that include pneumonia, bloodstream, wound and urinary tract infections.
To date, healthy people usually don’t catch CRE infections. It’s been regulated to persons with chronic medical conditions, prolonged stays in health care settings, those with medical devices such as intravenous catheters and people taking antibiotics over long periods of time but it became resistant to antibiotics to anyone who caught it, according to this USA Today story.

USA Today article

The man died within three months and the disease wasn’t finished. It continued to ravage the weakest victims in the hospital spreading throughout in different forms confusing the doctors who couldn’t discover the secret to how the bug was spreading.

The deadly superbug has been spreading throughout health institutions over recent years picking off the weakest of patients and the bug shows up in different forms such as urinary tract infections or pneumonia.

This dangerous drug-resistant bacteria has now spread to 41 states and though it remains contained to health care facilities, professionals fear that it may make the jump into the general public. That would be a serious threat to the public because this strain of CRE sweeping across the nation’s health care facilities has defeated even the most potent antibiotics. This has conjured fears among the professionals of illnesses that can’t be stopped.

It’s truly not known how wide spread CRE really is because there isn’t any national data base or tracking of this disease. The CDC is urging the medical community to start tracking, but only a few are doing it.

It’s also much harder to actually track because of the variety of infections CRE comes in, such as pneumonia, that many times it isn’t correctly diagnosed.

This is a very real threat that receives little to no attention whatsoever from the main stream media. This USA Today story is the only story you will find if you do a Google search for CRE. There are a lot of informational web pages on state health pages and the CDC government site, but that’s it. Why is the MSM afraid to tell us about this serious threat?

Doctors from the article in the USA Today admit that there isn’t much hope anything can be done about this disease. There isn’t enough money in it for drug companies to try to develop new antibiotics so the focus will be on prevention.

This isn’t really the prognosis that anyone is looking for. Basically, we have no drugs to fight this disease, it’s spreading rapidly throughout the United States, and so far it’s contained to medical facilities but there is a very real possibility that it will jump into the general public, and then, we may have a real pandemic on our hands. The death rate for this disease stands at 40%, but keep in mind so far the disease has only struck among the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.

Another disease that has been on the rise this past winter is Pertussis (Whooping Cough). The year 2012 had the most reported cases since a vaccine was developed for it in the 1950’s. This disease mostly affects young children and can sometimes be deadly to infants. Here is another story showing that this was another disease on the rise in 2012 with 18 deaths.

Examiner.com article

In just the state of Vermont alone they have declared an epidemic of the disease that carried into 2013. In Vermont there were 612 cases of which 90% had been vaccinated. That’s scary and what has the medical community recommended for this situation? More vaccines! Now they want to up the doses and they are pushing for pregnant women to get vaccinated in the hopes that it will make the new born baby be immune to it.

Continued...

With pertussis we have a vaccine that worked for 50 years suddenly proving ineffective to the disease. Ineffective vaccines, resistance to antibiotics and bacterial mutations are certainly becoming the new normal as is the case with pneumonia and its resistance to drugs in 2012.

NY Times article

A top British health official warned in January of 2013 that bacteria resistance to drugs is more of a threat to humanity than global warming. Of course, she’s referring to the carbon emissions type of global warming, not the theory I propose here. Though I’m not trying to diminish the extent of the threat we face against these diseases. This is just one of the many catastrophic threats we face. This British official warns that resistance to drugs is rising at an alarming rate and that there are no new antibiotics in the pipeline.

Medicalexpress.com article

This professor in the article warns there are no wonder drugs in the pipeline. Pharmaceutical companies are more concerned with profits and the big bucks lie in finding medications for chronic illnesses rather than antibiotics. This means there is little to no research for curing bacterial illnesses. As we head into this uncertain future with deadly gases changing our planet on an unknown timeline, we face a world that our grandparents faced. They faced a world of deadly bacterial diseases without antibiotics. Think about this for a minute. Common ailments such as a scratch, or a strep throat, can lead to death. Regardless of my theory about the deadly gases, this is a real and serious threat to our future.

In the story about the Prof. Davies, she states that there is only one cure left for gonorrhea and that it’s ineffective in 80% of cases. Here is a story about drug-resistant gonorrhea.

Salon.com article

Tuberculosis is another respiratory infection that mostly strikes the elderly and young children that is also growing resistant to drugs. On a worldwide scale, tuberculosis is common and has been since ancient times. It’s a very ugly disease that can strike any where in the body beyond the lungs where it’s most common. It causes night sweats, fatigue, coughing and coughing up blood as well as fever and weight loss. Although tuberculosis is endemic in third world countries, especially sub-Saharan Africa (due to weak immune systems from HIV), it declined sharply in developed nations due to detection methods and antibiotics. That has changed and the disease is on the rise in these countries as well.

Guardian article

Here is a new thread about tuberculosis drug-resistance

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Do we see an alarming trend here?

Before I go into the viruses that are mutating and spreading throughout the globe, I’d like to compare the differences between a virus and bacteria. For example, the bacteria are anywhere from 10 to 100 times larger than a virus. The virus is sub-microscopic and there is even debate whether they are actually living organisms or just an organic particle that invades a host cell. This is another difference between the two; the bacteria are an intercellular organism, meaning it lives between cells, while the virus is intracellular, meaning it actually invades a cell and then lives within it.

Bacteria are one-cell living organisms that come in different shapes, such as spheres, rods, curving rods and spirals, while virus are not even considered cellular. That’s why there is some debate whether they are living or not. Bacteria have DNA that floats inside cytoplasm within a cell wall and a cell membrane. Viruses on the other hand have DNA that resides inside a coat of protein.

Bacteria are localized infections while viruses are systemic, meaning they infect whatever system as a whole. A bacterial infection is usually in the one spot where the bacteria are living, such as a cut, a strep in the throat or pneumonia in the lungs. A virus will invade the cells of the host throughout the body, such as the flu and body aches, sniffles, diarrhea, and vomiting.

Continued...

As far as reproduction and multiplying, bacteria have everything they need for their growth and reproduction. They usually reproduce asexually but they have plasmids genetic material that can pass between them. Viruses, on the other hand, carry their DNA packaged in a protein and sometimes a membranous coat. The virus has to use the host cell in order to reproduce. A virus attaches its legs onto the surface of the cell it’s invading and then injects its genetic material contained in the head of the virus right into the cell. Once injected, the virus can either use the cell’s machinery to produce its own proteins and/or virus bits or it can integrate for a later date. That later date comes when enough offspring are developed inside the cell, it bursts releasing the new viral particles. Once this happens the cell is destroyed.

Back to the theory, first, the Flu has unquestionably risen in the amount of reported cases and the degree of how ill victims of the virus become. This past winter flu season started very early and peaked a month too soon. The headlines came quick and they were bold.

As January progressed the flu soared past peak season into epidemic levels hitting the elderly particularly hard. The outbreak had hit 48 states and 30 of these were at high levels with hundreds of deaths and hospitalizations, despite the illness slowing down in some areas.

Bloomberg article

This year we saw a huge push for the vaccine. It used to be important for the elderly and small children to get the flu vaccine since they were the most susceptible to the virus, but all of a sudden there was the huge push this year for everybody to get it. You were bombarded with it in advertisements, the news, regular doctor visits, at work, in schools. You name it, and guess what? We have a flu outbreak like we haven’t seen in decades.

Officials tell us that it’s just a particular strain of the virus, nothing to worry about. Their explanation was that they guess at what strain of flu will hit each year and then choose their vaccine based on that. They said this year they were wrong, they chose one particular strain but another chose to show up. The one that did show up is the one that hits a little harder, they said. Many people who were sick with the flu this year complained that it lasted at least two weeks and sometimes three.

It wasn’t long into the epidemic we began hearing many complaints that people who had received the vaccine were sick with the flu and the great debate began. It was reported that 30% of those who got sick had received the shot. The CDC admitted that the vaccine only has a 60% success rate, “so if you haven’t had your shot yet, what are you waiting for?”

It’s obvious that the pharmaceutical companies were wrong this year in predicting what strain would be prevalent. They assumed the weaker strain so they made millions of vaccines for that strain but then a much more virulent mutated strain showed up so that the shot was rendered useless. Those who got the shot were or weren’t going to get sick while those who didn’t get the shot were or weren’t going to get sick. The vaccine made no difference either way and the pharmaceutical companies won’t admit that they were wrong, so they had to push the rest of their 145 million vaccines that remained. Either way, a much stronger virus appeared from what had been predicted or expected.

Following right along with the virulent flu was the norovirus, a stomach flu. This past winter saw an alarming increase in norovirus cases worldwide. The food-born illness was also reported to be affecting millions of more people than on a usual year and the new emerging strain is more potent.

Huffington Post article

The story also says that norovirus is so common that it is significantly underreported and most people won’t go to the hospital for their symptoms, but based on the cases so far, it is definitely on the rise.

The very scary Ebola virus that has been known to exist in African nations since it was first discovered in 1976 was reported to have made its way into Asia. Africa has some regular small outbreaks in places like Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and the Congo. This is a terrifying scenario if this disease should start spreading to other parts of the world.

An outbreak of Ebola killed dozens of people in 2012 in Africa, but now it seems that the virus, or a relative, has been found in Bangladesh. This disease that kills 80% of its victims is very contagious and spreads quickly, so quickly that it hasn’t been able to escape Africa because it kills its victims so quickly that containment hasn’t been that difficult.

Business Insider article

Continued...

Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever that strikes in the African nation of Uganda quite frequently. The latest deadly outbreak struck in November of 2012 and many had concerns that it was a mutated form of the virus. It seemed to be more contagious spreading quicker making it harder to quarantine.

USA Today article

This disease has symptoms of fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, sore throat, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain. This sounds like the flu, until you hear about the other symptoms that hit the more sickly patients, such as a rash, red eyes, hiccups, and internal and external bleeding, then death.

Officials believe that Ebola is first contracted into humans through some sort of contact with a ‘reservoir,’ an infected animal that is often a monkey. So, as the story says about bats in Asia, right now they may be the reservoirs but could easily spread over to humans there.

The last two viruses that I want to talk about are carried by mosquitoes. The first is the popular West Nile Virus. According to this news story from the Washington Post, the reoccurring theme is present again as it is in so many of these bacteria and virus stories, “it seems to have mutated into a nastier form.” The title of the story is Hints of a more virulent, mutating West Nile virus emerge.

Washington Post article

Doctors in the story argue that West Nile may have mutated because they have found harsher symptoms, or attacks on the brain. The CDC, of course, tried to argue a different angle on this and said the virus isn’t a new one, but said that the doctors are only seeing harsher symptoms because there are more cases. So, one side said it’s a mutated virus while the other side said it is more widespread. Either way, the disease is on the rise.

Regardless of all the arguments with each disease I’ve mentioned in this thread, the same acknowledgment rings throughout, they are all rising in numbers at an alarming rate, as is stated in the first paragraph of this story that states the World Health Organization worries Dengue Fever could become a global epidemic.

Terradaily.com article

Dengue Fever is a mosquito-borne illness that causes fever, headaches, itching and joint pains. The advanced stage of the disease has hemorrhaging and death. In the story, it is said that 100 countries has this disease with 2 million cases a year in the last two years, but one person from the WHO believes that there are most likely up to 50 million cases worldwide because of underreporting.

Here is another new thread at ATS about a sars-like disease that is making its initial appearance and has thus far claimed 10 lives, two in the UK. The latest victim returned to the UK from a trip to the Middle East.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

After all that I’ve discussed in this thread, some theorize that it may not all be bad. A story from Fox News published back in 2007 stated that methane-eating microbes may save the world because they eat the methane before its released which is stabilizing the levels in the atmosphere, which in turn, will keep the heating of our planet at sustainable levels.

Earlier in this chapter I discussed all the different forms of methane-eating microbes that live in the mud of rivers and lakes, deep underground, high in the atmosphere, in the oceans, landfills, rice paddies and volcanoes. In all these situations, you’ll find these little bugs feasting on the hydrates still held under pressure in the earth, or released as a plume of gas into the air. Although I do believe that these microbes are feasting on the methane, I just don’t think they are having the effect that was originally expected when this story came out.

Fox News article

Instead of these methane-eating microbes eating all the methane and keeping it at a stabilized level that’s not threatening the earth, my theory suggests that instead, these microbes have themselves grown at epidemic proportions and spread that growth into other species of bacteria, as I have detailed throughout this thread. Over and over again the words, “at an alarming rate” are repeated. This is a dozen different diseases in just the past year alone that have mutated or grown drug-resistant. The bottom line…the earth contains too much methane for these little buggers to do the job we all hoped they could do and instead the methane has contributed to their rapid growth.

Or perhaps it's natural selection (in this case unnatural selection since humans are doing it). Pathogens are evolving to be resistant to the drugs used against them. The individual pathogens which are susceptible to the drugs are killed but those that have a natural resistance survive and are able to multiply and pass their resistance on to their "offspring".

Start throwing increasing ease of travel into the mix and you get "new" diseases popping up to add to the problem. People are carrying bugs which used to be found in limited areas far and wide, more and more.

Pretty simple concept and it is problematic.


Now, if methane were being used to fight infection you might have something.

reply to post by Phage


Why so suddenly has natural selection decided to take this course in so many different pathogens? I understand what you'r saying here, but why in just the last year have we seen such a dramatic increase in all these diseases?

reply to post by Phage


Yes, that is exactly what the OP states, and then expands on.

The resistance you describe is attributed to plasmids which can be passed vertically from parent cell to daughter cell, or horizontally, from any bacterium to any bacterium.

When these plasmids are developed through selection as you suggest, the OP postulates that the resistance is transferred horizontally to benign bacterial colonies which are increasing in number due to the increase in methane in the atmosphere.

These benign cells are more likely to contact malignant bacterial colonies than the initial resistant strains.

So basically, you have 3 strains, A, B and C.
A and B are human pathogens, C is a global methane feeder.
A develops immunity to an antibiotic, but is never in contact with B. A passes immunity to C.
C is everywhere, so eventually spreads this immunity through the world and to B.

What you're saying is 100% correct, it's just not 100% complete.

On a side note OP, your theory is very well developed and plausible, it does need to be tested though before you start patting yourself on the back. Keep in mind that there is rarely a single causative explanation for any biological mechanism, most of the time you're going to be taking 4, 5, 6 or more theories in to account when modelling something as complex as the global bacterial resistance trend.

reply to post by Dispo

I saw the mention of plasmids however I must have missed the connection to the inter-species transfer of resistance. You do present an interesting scenario though.

I think more direct methods of gaining resistance within a species and increasing exposure to formerly exotic strains is a more likely scenario than that suggested by the OP or yourself. As I pointed out.

reply to post by Phage


Again, models on this scale are usually far too complex to be described by a single causative factor. Your theory may hold more weight in the descriptive process, or vice versa, but we won't know without studies.

reply to post by Rezlooper

Why so suddenly has natural selection decided to take this course in so many different pathogens?

It hasn't been that sudden really, it's been going on for quite a while and getting scarier all the time.

More people. More people traveling. More people receiving antibiotics. As another poster pointed out. It's complicated, not simple.
download.thelancet.com...

reply to post by Phage


If you read most of the news stories I've linked to, they state the increases this year and they all state the same words "at an alarming rate" and "much nastier mutated form." In my gas theory thread I show that methane levels have been rising since 2007 after they leveled off in the late 90's. That's how I tie in the disease increase, five years of a feeding frenzy and now we are witnessing the effects.

reply to post by Rezlooper

If you read most of the news stories I've linked to, they state the increases this year

Maybe that's because they are recent articles but yes it very well may occur at an increasing rate. That's the nature of things involving a growing and increasingly mobile population.

they all state the same words "at an alarming rate" and "much nastier mutated form."

They wouldn't be the MSM if they didn't do that.

That's how I tie in the disease increase,

There is a saying in science:
Correlation does not imply causation
I bet you could tie a few more things to methane levels too but that increase in 2007 that you're talking about was something like 0.6% wasn't it? Not really that large a change if you're talking about a food source.

reply to post by Rezlooper


I didn't point it out earlier because I thought you knew and were just trying to use the resources available, but you can't use popsci to prove a point.

Any statistics in the MSM are a lie, even if they're true. Once they're reported in a popular medium, they become lies.

No but seriously, you need the raw data to compile your own statistics, it all goes back to what I said before about studies - we need more of them. You need to examine the data and perform all kinds of analyses on them to imply a relationship between something and something else.

For example:
Sequence: 1, 2, 3, 4
Popsci: Oh my god as n increases, the integer increases. We're all doomed.
Science: There is no significant correlation between n and integer value. Further studies needed.

Major swine flu outbreak in India with 95 deaths.

B angladesh goes on high alert after deaths in India

reply to post by Rezlooper

www.britannica.com...

reply to post by Phage


Thanks for the post. Agreed, these pandemics shall come! But, how many were there in 1968? How many were there in 2012-13?

reply to post by Rezlooper

You're the one with the theory. It's your job to get the statistics.
But make sure you don't just use statistics that back you up. Use all of them

reply to post by Rezlooper


I blew this off initially but dispo(?) convinced me that methane might be a factor. Still, there are multitudinous factors.

Exponential Growth
Tipping Point

Here's another mutation of a disease: The bird flu may have finally made a jump to human-to-human contraction.

Bird flu death in China sparks fears of human transmission