Royster wrote:
A kyuss worm is in no way shape or form a disease or a parasite. It doesn’t carry any disease. It is simply a worm (albeit a very nasty one).
You make some pretty good points. For clarity's sake, a disease is a condition. Specifically, a condition that impairs normal function in a living thing. An organism cannot be a disease but they can cause disease. In that case, the organism is pathogenic. Diseases can have no underlying organisms, typically one, or several different ones. Some quick examples that might help...
Sickle-cell anemia is a disease with no underlying pathogenic organism.
HIV is not a disease, it's a pathogenic class of virus because it causes the disease condition AIDS.
Meningitis is a disease caused by any number of bacteria or viruses.