Hans

The recent outbreak of SARS has jogged an old concern of mine related to AIDS. It seems to me that AIDS lacked but a single quality that would have made it many times more devastating that it already is in its current form; the ability to spread like a cold.

I imagined what would have happened if the AIDS virus' long and asymptomatic gestation period and ultimate lethality were combined with the common cold's ability to spread through the nose, mouth, and lungs. Scary!!

So my curiosity is twofold. Would it require much of a change in the make-up of the AIDS virus for it to begin being transfered like the common cold? Specifically, is it simple enough that a natural accurance of this change is a valid concern? And, of course, the other concern is could someone with more brains than common sense engineer the change?

tronvillain

From what I recall, I think the answers would be yes, no, and probably not.