You have confirmed previously that cancer is caused by the consequences of mitochondrial dysfunction, initiating a sequence involving production of reactive oxygen molecules that damage DNA to cause malignant transformation, tumor production and metastasis. Can that mitochondrial dysfunction be a consequence of viral attack, or the attendant immune system defense mechanisms that can harm normal cells of the host?

It is very much the case that mitochondria are a frequent target of chronic viral infection and that is because viruses must hijack a host mammalian cell to replicate, and this is particularly dangerous and damaging to mitochondria that have their own RNA and must utilize that to maintain themselves, their integrity, and their numbers in proportion to the needs of the body. When commandeered to work in a slave-like fashion for an invading virus, they cannot serve the body. The energy declines and this can cause damage to the mitochondria directly, who may never recover and will be limping along and be underpowered, with many consequences for health and well-being. In addition, the presence of these viral particles in altering the cell membrane in particular, will be noticed by the immune system to detect something is amiss. And there may be a direct attack on the mitochondria, suspecting they are a foreign invader, after all, and a part of the problem in league with the viral invasion underway. Immune attack on those host organelles will damage the mitochondria, even irreversibly, and in the process, further malignant transformation from the reactive oxygen species being generated by the immune system. So this is a multistage, multicomponent, confluence of events doing all the wrong things in all the wrong ways to cause trouble, the end result being a carcinogenic effect when these end products damage cellular DNA to cause a malignant transformation that cannot be controlled and repaired before it gets out of hand.