I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

I have no idea what you mean by the generic term "cure".

The closest thing I can think of that could possibly mutate is the weakened/dead viruses they use in vaccines. But that's not a cure, merely prevention.

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

That's exactly what I'm refering to. The cancer vaccine in the movie mutated and gave everyone that had been cured by the vaccine a more advanced version of rabies. Then it went airborn and plagued the world - 1%. Is it really possible?

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

Well it still isn't fact, because it has never happened. It will be fiction until it happens, possible or not.

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

A wide spread epidemic like that would be terrorizing. What about it in comparison to The Black Plague?

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

the black plague was a virus from rats. Ticks carried it from rats to humans and infected them. That's a little different from an epidemic from people to people. Plus if its not airborne, it shouldn't cause that much amount of deaths like in the movie I am Legend.

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

It did go airborn after the vaccine mutated. Or better yet; think about it if terrorists got their hands on a vaccine that could be used as a cure and then mutate into rabbis on a high-scale. They could use it to inject people as a "cure" then it would kick in later...?

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

The black plague killed between 1/3 and 1/2 of the population of Europe in less than 5 years. The virus in the new version of I Am Legend (It was quite different in the original book, and in both the previous movies) killed far more people, far faster, and I think it did so in a pretty unrealistic way. Even if it had gone airborne it still would have taken far longer to actually spread to the entire planet, and given that it started in New York City with an -ocean- directly to the right of it, and the entirety of a fairly large continent to the left of it, no airborne virus could have spread globally too fast for people in say, asia and africa and most of europe to take some quarantine precautions.

They were preparing to quarantine the entire island, which means that they had a lot of precautions in place already. The scanning device they used demonstrated a false positive (showing someone was infected who wasn't) but they didn't indicate that it could generate a false negative (showing someone uninfected who was infected) so we could possibly assume that nobody who was infected was allowed to leave.

As for the actual mechanics of the creation of the virus in the first place: They had genetically modified measles to attack cancer cells. I'm still unclear how you go from that to a virus that causes light sensitivity, albinoism, and highly increased aggression. I mean, the comparison to rabies is somewhat apt, though I don't think its fair to say that "really bad rabies" is what they had, or the infected would be dying relatively quickly too.

I can understand the possibility of a genetically modified virus undergoing additional mutations, but it seems to have been a bit of a stretch to go from what it did to what it ended up doing.

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

sounds similar to the plot in the book Scorpia

its an alex rider book

they have gold plated nano particles that contain _____ (forgot) that when hit with terahertz beams break and release the contents into the injected persons heart

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

This would never happen, unless protocol was broken. It takes over a decade to get these drugs onto the market after they've been developed. Something that would be given to such a large amount of people would NEVER pass clinical trials quick enough for this to happen.

I mean, when drugs are developed, they're usually tested with animal models for about 5 years. The drug had an effect on animals right? This would have been well known. There's usually about a 1 year application to the government to get allowance for clinical trials, which would have failed miserably if there were any problems with the animal models, and then about 10 years of small clinical trials before anyone from the public can get their hands on it.

Considering this strain was apparently live I couldn't imagine this going anywhere without at least 2 decades of testing.


But ok, assuming it did get out because someone seriously made a big boo boo, if it went airborne from multiple hosts that did not generate symptoms immediately, especially in a place that has direct access via flight to just about everywhere in the world like NYC, it could cause a global pandemic almost instantaneously. This is...precisely why we are very careful in the first place >_>

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

Yes, the mutation showed different symptoms on animals. Dogs were immune to the airborne affects but not physically giving it to them through blood or fluids. And rats were used for tests as animals to test counter-cures, cures for the original mutated cure. But with the rats they went full-scale into the rabbies and became viscous, and flesh-seeking (not literally).

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

You want "rabies" and "vicious" for reference. Viscous suggests a dense or thick liquid.

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

Them I probably didn't spell it correctly. By viscous I mean overly-aggressive.

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

Can you be sure that wasn't just Will Smith's dog? My interpretation was that the dog was immune to the airborne strain just like Will Smith was immune to both stains, that is, an abnormality compared to the general population.

With as fast as humans are able to travel around the world, it is completely plausible for an epidemic like this to happen. We (as society) are careful nothing like this ever gets on the market to prevent such an occurrence, but if something somehow slips through I can see it happening.

Re: I Am Legend: Fact or Fiction?

Not so. The government is always developing new means of "destroying" their enemies. It is very likely that in the near future a new weapon for chemical warfare is created that could be strikingly similar.