The Fundamental Characteristics of Viruses
An excerpt from Dr. Chlebowski’s upcoming book, due to be released in Spring 2021, about how to keep the immune system healthy in the face of toxicity and viruses.
In my days of naturopathic school, viruses always struck me as something very unusual. Viral origins, their inner workings, and our apparent symbiotic relationship with them always impressed me as something we didn’t truly understand. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much positive feedback when I would bring up these unpopular ideas with my professors. My questions were mostly met with blank stares or awkwardly brushed off to quickly move on to the next topic. I always found it very strange that my teachers spoke of them in the same breath as bacteria. They have such unusual characteristics for something we call alive. How could we put them in the same category as bacteria? Viruses don’t share in the five fundamental characteristics of other infectious pathogens, not a single one!
Viruses do not eat. Unlike bacteria, parasites or molds, viruses don’t require any nutrition to consume. They don’t need protein, carbohydrates or fats to “survive”. They can “live” indefinitely (30,000 years at least) with no sustenance. No consumption and no excretion. There is nothing else in our current understanding of “life” that does not consume to survive. Nothing.
Viruses have no need for oxygen. They don’t breathe. Viruses placed in an oxygen-deprived non-organic compartment, or one rich in oxygen behave in the same way. They are oxygen indifferent.
Viruses have no circulation. They have no fluids akin to blood or lymphatic fluid. They have nothing to, or any need for, moving substances around their strange little geometric shapes. They are just a protective shell with some important information coiled up inside.
Viruses can take or leave water. It doesn’t harm them nor does it help them. They can be immersed in the stuff or have a complete absence of it and they remain unchanged. This is an awfully unique feature for a creature on a mostly watery planet where every other life form critically depends on Adam’s ale.
Viruses are non-motile. These inert little critters don’t show signs of motion. They don’t have cilia, or legs, or muscles that move them around. There is only one recent study that purports any type of motility in viruses. Perhaps we don’t fully understand their motion yet, but they certainly don’t use typical means of moving around that other life forms utilize. They appear to just lie in waiting until you come in contact with them. How very strange.
Viruses are not made out of cells. Cells are the known as the building blocks of life. They are the Lego pieces that the vital force puts together to create structure. A single viral particle is known as a viron and is made up of a set of genes bundled in a protective protein shell. But they have no cells like all other life forms. Their structure is more akin to a mineral compound with many acute right angles and complex mathematical construction.
Viruses don’t meet Koch’s Postulates. They don’t look anything like the other infectious pathogens we know so very well so. Scientists have all but abandoned these useful predicates because viruses don’t fit inside of them, apparently if you don’t like rules you can just toss them out! Viruses are notoriously difficult to grow on a medium. Perhaps because that medium is not susceptible to the virus, to say another way, that medium has no place or need to store the information the virus has to offer.
All of this is to say that viruses are metabolically inert. They do not engage in metabolism, respiration, hydration, motion, or have any type of circulation or cellular structure, they only replicate. Despite these fundamental differences from all of the other known infectious pathogens we have historically lumped them in the same category and therefore assumed they have the same modus operandi. It is time to rethink their role in illness. Unfortunately, due to the scientific community’s unwillingness to accept new and controversial ideas we still have a long way to go to change people perceptions about viruses.
Dr. Chris Chlebowski