cytomegalovirus
Article
cytomegalovirus is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 13, 2022 and July 01, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “The number one cause of birth defects in developed countries is cytomegalovirus”; “a genetically-modified version of cytomegalovirus”. It most often appears alongside acetaminophen, ADHD, Afrobarometer.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: April 13, 2022
- Last seen: July 01, 2025
Appears In
Related Pages
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- acetaminophen (1 shared issues)
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- ADHD (1 shared issues)
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- Afrobarometer (1 shared issues)
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- AGI (1 shared issues)
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- AI 2027 (1 shared issues)
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- AI Safety Institute (1 shared issues)
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- Allan Shivers (1 shared issues)
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- America (1 shared issues)
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- American Butchers Association (1 shared issues)
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- Apollo Program (1 shared issues)
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- Arguments About Aborigines (1 shared issues)
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- Arthur Jensen (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
The number one cause of birth defects in developed countries is cytomegalovirus. About 50% of Americans are chronically infected, but the body eventually adjusts and this is low risk: the biggest danger comes if you get a new infection during pregnancy. The CDC says about 1/200 US babies are born with CMV, and about 1/5 of those will have a birth defect; I would be concerned that the others might also get subtle damage.
Inline links: is cytomegalovirus, The CDC says
Cytomegalovirus is spread in bodily fluids, and you can avoid it by not exchanging bodily fluids with new people during pregnancy. That means kissing (though it’s probably fine to kiss your long-term monogamous partner - if they had it, you would have gotten it already) and unsanitary food-sharing. Young children are known to be terrible at keeping their bodily fluids to themselves, and daycares are known CMV hot spots. Practice good sanitary precautions when interacting with children and wash your hands regularly.
4: SecureBio runs a “nucleic acid observatory” that searches wastewater for new or dangerous viruses. In April, they announced that a local sewage system contained a genetically-modified version of cytomegalovirus, which appeared to be a “discard” from a local lab (related to but not exactly the same as a lab leak; discards can be deliberate dumps of viruses considered too innocuous to worry about). This particular virus isn’t dangerous, but it serves as proof-of-concept that the observatory is doing its job.
Inline links: SecureBio, they announced