Bacteria, viruses, and life itself

We are a society of germophobes. We are preoccupied with cleanliness as a matter of health. We run to the doctor if a cold doesn’t disappear in a few days, eager to stamp out whatever germs are making us feel so awful. All of this makes sense from the perspective of avoiding or eliminating disease. But, as with most things, life is more complicated than this.

Here are two cool bits of information I've come across in recent days that might make us think twice about our germicidal tendencies.

The first is about a bacterium called Clostridium difficile, “C. diff” to friends. Health care professionals are worried these days about a C. diff “epidemic.” C. diff can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. And here’s the kicker: taking antibiotics, perhaps to fend off some other nasty bacterium, actually increases your risk of getting C. diff. This happens because antibiotics also kill off the useful gut bacteria that usually keep C. diff. in check. Mild illness caused by C. diff may actually get better if you stop taking whatever antibiotics you’re on. Severe C. diff symptoms require treatment … get this … with a different antibiotic. Unfortunately, drug-resistant strains of C. diff are cropping up as the bacterium adapts to our overuse of antibiotics. 

So here’s how it works: we take antibiotics to kill off bacteria, also killing off the wrong bacteria, making us more susceptible to C. diff (a bacterium), against which further antibiotics are increasingly feeble, perhaps increasing our vulnerability to C. diff.

Clearly, this is a medical challenge. But it’s also a philosophical, even an existential challenge. For one thing, it challenges our usual neat categories of “good” and “evil.” It forces us to reconsider the agents that we see as invaders and the drugs that we see as heroic defenders. It’s harder to keep the categories clear when inviting a defender increases our vulnerability to the invader, when the rescuer is a potential villain.

OK, hold that thought for a minute …

Then, just to make things more interesting, here’s another tidbit. To quote from an article in Discover magazine, “If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born.” Hmmm … a virus as the heroine? It seems that there is particular gene that’s essential for the placenta to do its job of transmitting nutrients and wastes between the mother and the fetus. And get this: this gene is not a human gene at all. Instead, it seems to be a gene from a virus.

 Apparently, over the millennia, our ancestors have collected souvenir fragments from the viruses that infected them (with those miserable diseases that we are so eager to snuff out). These virus fragments are like hitchhikers, slipping into our DNA and changing the direction of evolution. In fact, it turns out that fragments of viruses make up over 8% of our DNA. Who knew?! And imagine: we have such a virus to thank for the placenta, the amazing organ that makes human life possible.

So this is fascinating in itself. But it also brings me back to that puzzle: how do we know which visitors to fight off and which to welcome? And, on a larger plane, who do we think we are, anyway? We plan and maneuver and study and investigate and invent … and still, we’re products of the very things we resist, and we’re not really sure how to differentiate among the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly (but nonetheless good).  

I won’t expound on the obvious parallel here—what/who we resist and exclude in our own lives and how they might sustain us in the end, if we can only let them. We’ve all heard that lesson many times. But these ideas also bring me to a frequent (for me, at least) train of thought, one that arises more and more as I age:

We are just a blink in time. We are not, despite some politicians’ apparent belief to the contrary, the final outcome of evolution. We are some sort of step in a much larger process. Here we find ourselves: hugely dependent on the tiniest of agents, even as we fight them with all our scientific prowess. And down the line, even if we don’t wipe out the human species and destroy the planet through war, climate change, or distracted driving, everything will change. Slowly, but it will change. We’ll be gone, so it might seem irrelevant. But that’s what our long-ago ancestor might have thought, the one who got infected with the virus that made placentas possible. That is, if “thought” had evolved by then.

 This fascinates me, the long cascade of time. As I face the accelerating change in my own life—my body, my mind, my relationships, my general place in the world—I think a lot about change and mortality and the inevitability of both. The real value, to me, of this train of thought is the invitation to accept the flow and to recognize the uncertainty of our place in it. This is not to say that scientists shouldn't seek the cure for the common cold. It’s not to say that I should resign myself to a dispirited, passive decline in my aging years. It is only to say that time and change move on. I’m better at welcoming this some days than others. But bacteria and viruses are good reminders.