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Smallpox From The Past
An anonymous reader submits "Earlier this year, librarian Susanne Caro was looking through an 1888 book on United States Civil War medicine and discovered a small envelope labeled 'scabs from vaccination of W.B. Yarrington's children' and signed by Dr. W.D. Kelly, the author of the book. After a bit of research, she realized they might be smallpox scabs used in early live vaccination methods and contacted various officials including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC was excited by the find, because it gives them an untreated specimen from over a century ago, and a chance to look at the disease's evolution. Although the FBI had concerns that the smallpox may have been planted in the book, most of the researchers believe the scabs are too old to be dangerous, and they fear they may not even be able to yield live smallpox."
Sounds creepily like the beginning of a Robin Cook novel...
Because I would hate to contract small pox just for working during a strike...
Ok, the FBI thinks someone planted smallpox, in an envelope LABELLED with biohazard information, in a 19th century book, in Santa Fe. What the hell is wrong with them? I mean, that's just moronic.
is this a bad thing?? I'd feel better knowing that no remnants of the virus were able to survive that long.
About the only time you will find scabs in a book and be excited about it. Mostly you'd say "Ok, I'm only going to buy NEW from now on".
graspee
It's largepox you should be afraid of.
it is all going according to plan...
::DISCLAIMER::
OK, OK, this is totally just a joke, and I really don't think I should have even posted it. Its a joke, I repeat, A JOKE.
One more reason to have the government tightly control what books you check out.
Libraries are a breeding ground for terrorists, I tell you.
Hey, are these raisins? *munch*
Pelé!
From the article:
the envelope rests in a freezer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, awaiting a battery of tests.
Yes, after lying in a library book for 115 years I can see why is important that it be frozen now.
What a wonderful idea for a time capsule that would be. Create a time capsule to be opened in hundreds or thousands of years and place in it some of the diseases which may have died off by then and which the generations of the future will not have had the chance to enjoy.
Infectious disease: The gift that keeps on giving.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Yep. With all that Arab oil money they are funded with, al Qaida has invented a time machine, gone back to 1888, and planted smallpox in a book they know some woman in the future will pick up and read.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I was just eating lunch when this story came up...and lunch almost came up with it...nice timing...
Virus represent the border between living and dead matter. I thought that it meant that when the virus came across a host cell it could inject its DNA and multiply and that is why it is living , and when it didn't it just lay dormant i.e. it was dead matter. Wasn't the whole premise of Jurrasic Park based on this notion ?
But in the article it says ....
If the virus is nothing but the DNA and a protein coating around it, why are the people wanting it to be live ?
Am I missing something ? What am I missing ?
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
They say the same thing about 'Grandpa' Al Lewis, but we know better.
be afraid of large women. Only marry small women my mother always says.
Well said, sir. There comes a time when one must forfeit karma to trolls.
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
Because if you had a sample of Smallpox from 1888 or so you could compare it to the one in the vault and see if there have been any changes in the DNA. Some Virii change over time more than others.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I guess the World Health Organization's crowing about smallpox eradication was a bit too early!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I think that is why parent said "The people of Iran are more closely related to central europeans than either the afro-americans or arabs, and many of them in the north could easily pass for German"
If the virus is nothing but the DNA and a protein coating around it, why are the people wanting it to be live ?
Am I missing something ? What am I missing ?
They are probably referring to whether or not the DNA information is sufficiently in-tact. If the DNA is too far destroyed, the virus probably won't be able to reproduce itself even after infecting a live cell.
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*beware the cute-bunny virus
In this context, "live" virus is able to infect and reproduce. "Killed" virus has been damaged to the point that it cannot infect a cell. Hence the concern over using "live" virus vaccines - the vaccines use a damaged or weakened virus that the body can easily defeat - but occasionally a few full strength particles get through and trigger the disease instead of vaccinating against it. "Killed" virus vaccines use fragments of destroyed viruses, ensuring you can't get sick from them, but possibly not as effective as the live kind.
Clear, Dark Skies
If the virus is nothing but the DNA and a protein coating around it, why are the people wanting it to be live ?
Am I missing something ? What am I missing ?
I think they just mean viable, not really "live", since "live" has a weird meaning for a virus. If they couldn't find live virus samples, then either the virus wasn't there, or it was, but is now "dead", in the sense that it can't work anymore.
True, viruses are just dna and protein, or something like that... Collections of complicated chemicals, basically. They can still degrade, given enough time. Heat them up enough, they will "die", by having their molecules scrambled, etc...
But, IANAChemist, nor a biologist, so take my words with a grain of salt.
Just like Nancy Pearl
Many Arabs are Semites.
Most Semites are Arabs.
There's also a slim chance, researchers say, that the scabs could yield live smallpox virus -- believed to reside in only two laboratories in the world
Only the naive believe that live smallpox exists in only two labs in the world. A more accurate statement in the article would have been "only legally allowed in two labs in the world."
There is strong reason to believe that North Korea has the virus. France is also believed to have it. Iraq may have had it up until recently, as it was endemic in the region in the late sixties, and just a few scabs in a refrigerator would have been enough. It used to be common practice for scientists and doctors to keep a bit of smallpox in the fridge when they gathered it from patients. Hence there could be samples, possibly not even labelled or known to the owners, in a number of places in the world.
One reason that the plan to destroy all stocks at the CDC and the official Russian lab was the realization that rogue countries probably had the virus, and hence destroying it would damage future defense attempts.
Furthermore, the USSR and later Russia maintained stockpiles of 20 tons of weaponized smallpox in the eighties (authorized by Gorbachev) and probably to the present, and loaded it into missile warheads. Furthermore, a number of their scientists have since emigrated to other countries. In 1994 a number visited North Korea for unknown reasons. One former Soviet BW officieal entered into a deal with Iraq to sell 5000 liter fermenters.
And then we have accidental discoveries like these scabs. Smallpox can survive in scabs for a long time, although >100 years is stretching it.
The only good weather is bad weather.
But, IANAChemist, nor a biologist, so take my words with a grain of salt
Well, I am a Biologist and your answer is right!
The basic unit of life is the cell. Anything subcellular is not considered "alive" by scientific standards.
-DD
Grow a dangerous desease and see how it affects people... Oops, seems like its spreading everywhere... "my bad"
Russia, China and the Arabs will unite. New York will be devastated by two small nuclear devices and while USA isolates itself to deal with the trauma, China invades Asia and Russia pushes into Western Europe.
Tom Ridge will claim that we now need to ban books in order to be more "secure".
The FBI needs to get a life if they were at all concerned about this. How embarassing. Morons. Everything is "terrorism" until proven otherwise. My god.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I recall a study a while ago that was requesting old pairs of binoculars so that they could measure the air inside for pollutants as it could be used to determine air quality from years past.
Btw: This 'finding' does seem like a need beginning to a bad horror movie.
Mod parent up! Funny please.
"most of the researchers believe the scabs are too old to be dangerous, and they fear they may not even be able to yield live smallpox."
;(
Damn! No virus we spent the last century trying to erradicate -- I've pissed myself in fear over the end of this menace
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Don't worry, this is the FBI which has made short shrift of Osama bin Laden, singlehandedly captured Saddam Hussein, cornered the Anthrax Mailer, cleverly foiled the 9/11 planebombings on advance intelligence, have kept Chinese industrial spies away from our tech secrets, has won the drug war, busted the thieves at Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Arthur Anderson, and the rest. They found the malicious Bush leaker who blew CIA agent Plames cover in Niger, discredited the 16 State of the Union words about the imaginary African uranium bound for Iraq, preempted Iranian and North Korean nuclear bombs. They nabbed the 2000 election vote riggers, and are already jailing the criminals at the top of the 2004 eVote insecurity debacles. If they think something is scary, we should all bow our heads in fear, and double their budget again. If it were possible to promote the FBI chief, we would; instead, we'll just have to settle for the Patriot Act, which dissolves that archaic Bill of Rights which was just getting in the way.
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make install -not war
They've got everything sorted out. They've got sunny beaches, cold beer and hot babes and now you're telling me that they don't have to go and fight in the third world war either!?
It's just not fair!
I don't know how frequently it happens to the rest of you, but I score mod points every couple of weeks - I hate having to change from threaded to nested, Not to mention that I dont really have the time to process 2-500 comments per story. I look at high-modded comments that appeal to me and have spawned threads, and then just read and mod the thread. Maybe /. should be more selective with moderators, and offer to pay them say $100 for 24 hours with 5 points, so they can have the time to peruse every comment.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
what do you prefer that term for... to describe your momma?
And some idiots still insist on using the wrong plural of virus.
You can't even use the lame ass excuse that 'virii' is the accepted plural for computer viruses, because you are talking about actual viruses here.
Rot in hell, moron.
welcome are new FBI overlords.
Seriously, this was probably a routine chit chat thay have when enybody discovers something like this.
I'm sure they new full well it wasn't a real issue. otherwise it would have been VANS of FBI agents.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I like scabs too! And now the Centers for Disease Control has essentially said that that's not abnormal!
Yay!
the FBI had concerns that the smallpox may have been planted in the book
In a related story, the authorities are now scouring libraries coast to coast to find the book entitled, "Where I Am Hiding" by Osama Bin Laden.
Maybe we should start training ourselves in case medical help is too far away or otherwise unavailable. You never know...
More info.
I think this just demonstrates that you just mod those that have been modded up.
Don't you feel that makes your moderation worthless?
Why not browse those recent couple of stories (no one asks you to rehash the last two weeks) nested at threshold 0 (the editors take most of the obvious trolls out to -1 almost instantly).
Personally, I browse at 0, nested becasue mods often fail to highlight meaningful posts posted at +0 or +1 only, and the browsing system doesn't allow recursion through threads in any nice way otherwise.
I am wondering if a virus is really a separate entity or is really intrinsically a property of the host. Is a cold virus really just that, or is it a piece of human genetic machinery that has the capability of being shared between humans when one human picks their nose?
The reason I got to wondering is that it seems diseases that stick around have some kind of evolutionary purpose. Sickle cell anemia gene confers resistance to malignant malaria, cystic fibrosis gene confers resistance to cholera, and so on. Sexual reproduction was a big evolutionary breakthrough in allowing diversity in the offspring to adapt to environmental pressure.
Do you suppose a virus is a remnant of some other mechanism, such as conjugation where bacteria can swap genetic material? If a virus served no evolutionary purpose, it seems that individuals who were virus resistant would have a slight edge and over many generations viruses would die out. The fact that they are still here suggests that the cell mechanisms that support virus reproduction serve some other purpose than making a person sick.
Wrong thread buddy
Also, a biologic agent takes hours if not days to act, allowing for retaliatory strikes, so a biologic ICBM is clearly a kind of Doomsday Machine -- what is to say that the smallbox doesn't spread back to Russia. And you have such a Doomsday Machines, in the words of Peter Sellers, why don't you advertise it to the whole world? What good is a Doomsday Machine that you keep secret?
First, I think if they can get any DNA out of it, that would be nice. If they mostly (at least supposedly) want to study the evolution of the virus, I'm sure they can garner some information just by comparing the DNA sequence of whatever they pull out, vs. the "current" stock. Of course it's always best to get the whole genome, but there will almost always be highly conserved (having a very low mutation rate) DNA regions. In organisms with large genomes, you can often compare those against each other to study the amount of divergence.
...
... I'm slightly confused. If the latest vaccine used was cowpox-based, are they trying to study the similarities between now-cowpox and then-smallpox? I can see them wanting to understand how a virus has evolved, but I don't see what exactly comparing it to cowpox would do. Perhaps they want to study how the two have diverged. Any thoughts?
Second
"This could lead to a greater evolutionary understanding of the smallpox vaccine we're using in the U.S.,"
Hm
The floggings will stop when morale improves.
There is no doubt that Kanatjan Alibekov knows a lkt about bio weapons. It is also clear that the island of Vozrozhdeniye is contaminated to hell and that Biopreperat was involved with the nasties. I think that he is exaggerating though because of his involvement with the bioweapons detection and defense industry.
Are you implying you didn't know what he meant? Or that there was a recent emergency international broadcast of the appropriate plural usage of 'virus'?
Or are you just an ass?
Are you making excuses for ignorance?
Do you promote ignorance as a virtue?
Jimmy Hoffa's Corpse
Amelia Airheart's Plane
WMD's
OP's Smallpox Strain
Ozzy Osbourne's Balls
The Holy Grail
Nichole Brown Simpson's TRUE Killer
They're all just sitting there waiting to be picked up.... REALLY!
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
I believe I remember from high school biology that scabs from a vaccination would yield cowpox virus, not smallpox. If that's so, then surely this has to be some combination of hoax, urban myth, and/or publicity grab.
nt
1. Check out century old book 2. Plant smallpox scabs 3. Have scabs found by innocent bystander 4. ??? 5. PROFIT!!
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
This is probably the first time it's been possible to test the long-term lifespan of the virus. If the scabs are, as hoped, totally dead and consequently pose no danger, that means future generations may be able to sleep a little easier. If it's dead.. then so are a lot of other virii stored likewise.
However
In the 19th century railways tunnels were built to connect Kings Cross in London with the main railways to the North-East. The tunnels were bored through an undocumented plague grave. Several workers were infected with the Bubonic plague as a result
And that is a real nightmare virus.
I can almost remember when I used to be asleep.
Tough being alone surrounded by sleepers.
AIAAD (Actually, I am a doctor). In fact, my specialty is Infectious Diseases.
By 1888 vaccination against smallpox using cowpox or vaccinia virus was a common practice, as opposed to "variolization" (inoculation with actual smallpox virus, aka variola virus), since the former was so much safer. This is touched on only briefly in the Washington Post article. So even if there is viable virus in the scab, it may not be smallpox. For reference see the first part of this chapter.
>K
As you forfeited your's to the mods who sided on the side of the trolls ad modded you down in support ofthe trollish predicessors, sir.
CDC: Ohh! An envelope full of infectious scabs... This is the best Christmas ever!
-3Suns
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The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Dr: Oh, just put it in a book so 100 years from now someone can find it and get all excited.
Anyone else find this just a tiny bit sick? Saving scabs for later use?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Yes, they explained that. His point, however, was viruses are not living things, so it wouldn't be possible to find a living sample. It's pedantics, mostly. It's generally understood that a "dead" virus is one that is damaged to the point that it can no longer infect a cell.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
really.
Funny. Every time I go past some 1-n x 100 year old construction being torn down, I think of the scores of undernourished and sickly slave / immigrants / miserably-poor-in-general - workers that built them, coughing, retching, bleeding,sneezing or spitting as they piled brick, adobe, wattle or stone upon moist mortar. And then more brick, wattle, adobe or stone.
And try not to breathe as I pass the clouds of fine dry dust that waft up from the new demolitions done for progress' and economy's sake.
I do definitively feel an urge to invest in exotic pharmaceuticals.
But, if the wars in Europe didn't bring back The Plague, then, well, we can all rest easy. Right ?
I think that you want to be thinking "live" as in ammunition, rather than "live" as in animal.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
What sort of idiot would give a potentially deadly Weapon of Mass Destruction to the government that is the greatest propagator of such items? How many kilotons of smallpox, anthrax and other goodies already exist in US stockpiles (and shared responsibly only with our trusted allies of the moment). And now some generous soul gives them another variety with which to hold the world hostage? God save us from such generosity.
Thank you. That's exactly what they mean.
My question on this issue: why wouldn't PCR allow the DNA for a smallpox virus to be recreated from such a sample(or for that matter from samples dug up from some graveyard someplace)? I'm not that familiar with virology-pointers to the literature would be welcome.
Hi Doc -
I just want to say Thanks for the intelligent, articulate, and persevering posts. You rock.
-kgj
-kgj
get it right or pay the price.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
The entire world's population will be reduced to deranged psychos looking for fresh blood.
The Truth About Slashdot
Hm
Well, I think that most likely they'd compare these smallpox samples with the frozen ones. You know, the "last" of the smallpox virus, controlled by the government, in some highly guarded freezer somewhere. Identifying how those samples differ could lead to insights into current cowpox-based vaccines.
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*beware the cute-bunny virus
More than likely these would have been used after the inital nuclear strike. It's probably more cost-effective to have a disease spread over the mid-west US, western Canada, Mexico, and other places any remaining Americans would have fled to.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
That will teach those uppity librarians for refusing to follow Ridge's orders to track everything everyone read...damn terrorists. Libraries are dangerous places, I tell you. Full of ideas, evil ideas even. And disease. Probably drugs, too. And sex.
If the virus is nothing but the DNA and a protein coating around it, why are the people wanting it to be live?
Am I missing something? What am I missing?
As a card-carrying virologist let me give you a run down on the information you're missing. If you don't consider the type of nucleic acid (RNA or DNA), there are two types of viruses that infect mammalian cells - enveloped and non-enveloped. Enveloped viruses (such as smallpox) have an outer lipid bilayer (the envelope) that is studded with glycoproteins that need to bind specific molecules on the surface of mammalian cells to permit fusion between the viral envelope and the cell membrane. Fusion allows the virus' nucleic acid to enter the cell. The viral envelope is very fragile, and breaks down rapidly when dried. When the envelope breaks down, it spills the contents of the virus out -- i.e. the nucleic acid, which in the absence of the envelope doesn't have a means to specifically enter a cell. This is one reason why wiping surfaces with 100% ethanol (a dehydrating agent) is quite effective against enveloped viruses like HIV.
Even viruses that are not enveloped have protein coats that directly interact with cell surface molecules that act as receptors to mediate the entry of these viruses into cells. The proteins that make up these coats also denature (lose their proper shape) with time, although this is typically a slower process.
Finally, how stable is the viral nucleic acid? Viral nucleic acids are typically not present as naked RNA or DNA, but in a complex of DNA or RNA with proteins that coat them. These coated nucleic acids are quite stable. Nucleic acid from DNA viruses (like smallpox) is likely to be more stable than nucleic acid from RNA viruses, and I'm guessing that they should be able to do phylogenetic studies on the strain of smallpox present in those scabs after amplifying recovered DNA by PCR.
BTW, after many years of Slashdot lurking, a wee bit of horn tooting. My lab works on how the genome of EBV latches on to human chromosomes. Here's a pretty picture from our work that was on the cover of the Journal of Virology last month.
Mmm... figs... .... .....
Meet you after I delve into this jar of fig preserves...
Karma: Good, or bust!
Maybe this is the same virus strain that was used by Colonel Bouquet when he responded to Lord Amherst's request when he wrote: "Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occassion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them".
I forgot that only those that speak/write perfect english are allowed to post to slashdot; poor you having to read what an imperfect human wrote, I understand that it must have been a very painful experience for you.
Do you prefer am. or br. spelling? I just want to know what I should spend the next 2-3 years studying before posting again, so that you don't have to be insulted by my bad english ever again.
perl -e'print$_{$_} for sort%_=`lynx -dump svanstrom.com/t`'
It is either fair or balanced.
One scab - scab
More than one scab - scabii
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
In about 1914, my grandmother's family was hit by smallpox in the farming community of Tallapoosa County, Alabama. It prostrated both parents (in their early 30's) and the eldest daughter, leaving only the five-year-old daughter (later my grandmother) to prepare food for the family and care for her baby sister. All lived, which probably means the virus was variola minor, a new, weaker version of smallpox, which had a 1% mortality rate (in place of the horrible 20% rate for variola major). Variola minor was the most common smallpox by the twentieth century. Yet look at how strongly this weaker form disabled a whole family of healthy people. We must not lose the horror of this disease, especially variola major. It must be kept down. Fortunately, it has no animal hosts holding it in mutating reserve, like influenza or SARS. Stopping it in people stops it. Even a large emergency would be stoppable, eventually.
If you are alone, whose voice is coming from this post? :)
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make install -not war
What is really needed now is a moderation option called "Eeewwwww!"
Table-ized A.I.