Black Death's Genome Cracked

exceed writes: "This article on Wired, and this article on Yahoo! News states that scientists have decoded the genome of the bubonic plague bacterium. This will now (hopefully soon) lead to vaccinations and treatments for the disease it causes."

Comments

Technology is a Double Edged Sword...

[Ron Bennett]

Sounds like a great advance, but sadly I fear such information will also be used by some to develop even more deadly biological weapons.

Re:Technology is a Double Edged Sword...

[smack_attack]

I'm more afraid that the vaccine will cause problems too. Ever had a flu shot? They basically inject you with a weakened strain of the virus in order to make you immune, imagine if they inject people with something that isn't weak enough (I've gotten VERY bad flu "symptoms" from getting a flu shot).

With something of this scope I'd rather take my chances without it. Personally if I found out that I had contracted some infectious disease as a result of bio-terrorism, I would be on the next flight to Pakistan trying to cross into Afghanistan so I could personally infect some of those idiots.

Re:Technology is a Double Edged Sword...

[UserChrisCanter4]

Let's consider something for the time being here: Most of slashdot is people in computing-related fields. We know computing. Most of us don't know much beyond the few college-level bio courses... this isn't our area of expertise.

For a moment, let's just replace the words, 'publishing bubonic plague genome information' with "releasing source code for the 2.4 Kernel". Are we all of a sudden afraid that the script kiddies are going to root our box, or do we realize that the release of such information will allow the many skilled programmers of the Linux world to make fine adjustments to the security features of Linux?

I'm talking out of my ass for this last bit here, but I'd have to figure that it takes a significantly skilled person to engineer a more dangerous strain of a given bacteria. I would also have to figure that the thousands of other people with roughly the same skill level could probably come up with a vaccine in a shorter time period. If I wanted something super-destructive, I'd probably stick with a nuke. They're a lot cheaper, and no one's come up with a personal nuke/radiation proof shield that can be injected into a toddler.

Re:Wasteful

[OmegaDan]

ummm, I care. They find squirrels carrying the disease all the time in southern california.

Re:Wasteful

[dadragon]

One word. Bioterrorism. Actuall, two words: Biowarfare.

Re:Wasteful

[Alien54]

It killed 200 million people in the 14th century and continues to kill about 3,000 people each year according to the World Health Organization. Some experts are newly worried that the bug could be used as a bio-weapon in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Which is why you worry. People playing with bio engineering could come up with a new version that could be very nasty.

Re:Wasteful

[MyMarty]

Well, aside from the arguments above regarding bioterrorism, warfare and squirrels there is also the argument that medical science should endeavour to raise the quality of life for ALL people (not just middle-class white Americans). Bubonic plague is still deadly, and can still be found in the unhygenic squalor of many a shanty-town in third and second world countries.

To clarify a couple points

[alewando]

1. Antibiotics help a lot with treating bubonic plague, but they're only effective if the disease is first properly diagnosed. Because people are no longer used to contracting fatal diseases (which bubonic plague always is if left untreated), and because the symptoms are not all that different from symptoms of diseases people are used to shrugging off, the disease is often not diagnosed in time.
2. Releasing the genome to the general public will help vaccination discoveries far more than it will help people who would use the plague for biological warfare. Frankly, you don't have to know the genetic sequence that underlies the organism in order to culture it and construct a suitable delivery device. In contrast, the benefits due to a vaccine discovery are obvious and numerous.
3. A couple people do die of the bubonic plague every year, mostly in Asia and Africa. In addition to the importance of antibiotic treatment and a vaccine discovery, the importance of improving hygiene standards cannot be understated. It's a three-part chain involving rodents, fleas, and humans, so if you eliminate human contact with both, then you've effectively cut humans out of the loop and eliminated human infections.
   

Not far from AIDS

[manon]

This is geat news, but scientists also dicovered something else. In the years when the plague was still making thousands die in Europe, some people develloped an immunity, based on their genes. Call it a mutation.
Now the chances are VERY big that this same immunity is causing some people that are HIV possitive never to get AIDS.
Now we can only hope that the two discoveries can work together in ending both AIDS and the plague.