Mutagenic drugs can help treat RNA virus infections by increasing the virus's mutation rate, but this can also lead to harmful mutations that could cause the virus to die out. Researchers used a computer model to study how the virus population might adapt to these drugs. They found that successful adaptations need to happen early to save the population from extinction. The study suggests that the way the virus responds to the drugs can be unpredictable and hard to test in experiments, which could pose risks in using mutagenic treatments.