Is this possible?

Question

Is it possible to create a leathal bacteria that causes the symptoms of a particular disease, but which also reacts fatally to the curitive of that disease?

For example, call it bacteria A1. You inject someone with A1 and they get the symptoms of cancer. However, upon treatment with chemotherapy, the A1 reacts with the chemo and kills the subject instantly. Can that be done?

Answer 1

Possible, yes. Plausible, maybe.

Creating the symptoms of cancer would be a tricky one. Cancer is usually a mutation in a person's dna which causes cells to reproduce without constraint - it may be kicked of by a virus or bacteria, but when you get to the symptoms stage killing the bugs will do no good at all.

But if you picked a purely viral/bacterial disease it would be possible to genetically modify the bug so that it has a particular weakness to some chemical, or so that the bacteria can't reproduce without some sort of supplement. In the first case you would need to treat someone with something to kill the infection. In the second a person would have to stop consuming a certain substance in order for the disease to wither up and die.

Answer 2

To what you suggested: No. You haven't the slightest clue what chemotherapy is, do you? You haven't the slightest clue what cancer really is, do you? You haven't the slightest clue about anything, do you?

Well, maybe the last one is no, but the first 2 are obviously yes.

Granted, it is a possibility that a potential virus or bacteria could be made to react negatively with the "cure," but that would mean a) a cure is already there for a "new" virus/bacterium, and b) as the cure is already located, a variation could be found. It is much easier to just kill the person with a new virus. Ever thought of that?

Answer 3

Didn't Michael Creighton write about this? *shrugs*

Answer 4

this sounds like a bad steven segal movie in the making....

Answer 5

Are you a terrorist?