I believe there may be a correlation to the emergence of new infectious diseases to the time period where cross species modification has become so common place. It is occurring on a large scale today.
The following scientific article postulates that we now have more than 100 different genes from different species, even kingdoms if you will, yet alludes that evolution is responsible.
If evolution is responsible then why have humans evolved so quickly in the last 3 decades?
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/humans-may-harbor-more-100-genes-other-organisms
Is it possible that there has been cross species contamination resulting in new infectious diseases?
It seems there is a great deal of skepticism with regards to this topic.
I doubt emerging infectious diseases of the last 3 decades would have occured had we limited genetic modification to the same species.
We have delicious and healthy bananas because of genetic modification within the species.
It is the practice of multiple cross species modifications that concerns me and its not just happening in salmon.
It being performed across bacteria, nematodes, fungi, et al, that are used in crop pest control across a wide range of unregulated products.
Agrobacterium and bartonella were once two of a very small number of bacteria that were capable of horizontal gene transfer. Now there are many more.
As we become more plant like, insect like, fungus like, etc., it opens up the possibility that we become affected by pathogens that used to be limited to just plants and insects.
Any diseases which resulted from these actions would be by default an emerging infection.
I dont believe that nature or evolution is responsible for these new forms of organisms with DNA that have become so genetically complex.
Conjugative DNA transfer into human cells by the VirB/VirD4 type IV secretion system of the bacterial pathogen Bartonella henselae.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21844337
This was a recognized potential for concern for some time now.
Health Considerations Regarding Horizontal Transfer of Microbial Transgenes Present in Genetically Modified Crops (2005):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1364539
Genomic changes associated with the evolutionary transition of an insect gut symbiont into a blood-borne pathogen (2017):
http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ismej2016201a.html
Vertical transmission of Bartonella schoenbuchensis in Lipoptena cervi
https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13071-015-0764-y
What is it regarding expanding horizontal and vertical gene transfers connection to emerging diseases that makes it so difficult to comprehend? Or is it just too scary a topic to consider?
More importantly if cross contamination of genes is responsible for emerging infectious diseases, is there anything that can be done to contain it?
No, there is no way to put that genie back into the bottle so they will just continue to scramble for new drugs and when they find them you might get treatment. The problem is that they are not finding drugs that work at all.
And the emerging infectious diseases beat plays on....
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC201166/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5226397/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2395248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/782/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=lyme+2017
