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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...
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
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
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
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
Actually, they were worried the story was
a hoax by someone who wanted to create fear
and panic.
As you might recall, after the US was hit with
a bioweapons attack (resulting in numerous
deaths, and the shut down of the U.S. Senate
offices), it become popular for people to
"copy cat" the weapon. Soon, people were
sending packets of white talc power in the
mail with threatening notes, all in hopes of
causing a panic and shutting down a business
for a few days.
As we've gotten used to this sort of ruse,
and developed technologies to detect anthrax
spores, the people trying to spread panic have
gotten more clever.
Consider, for example, how hard it would be to
create panic by sending a note through the mail
claiming that the envelope contained small
pox. Since small pox is tightly controlled,
and highly infectious, it's unlikely a group
(other than a government) has a sample of the
virus. So the hoax would quickly unravel.
A clever person who wanted to create a plausible
story about how a small pox virus came to be
found in a public space might have to work
harder. For example, they could make up a
story about old medical samples, museum equipment,
etc.
And so in this case, it's entirely reasonable
for the FBI to question the origin of this
envelope. No, I don't think they started
out by saying "This was planted by Al Queda."
Instead, they started with a skeptical
line of questions: who had the book? was it
ever check out before? where was it kept?
who had access to this text? is the person
claiming to make the find a real librarian?
etc.
I think in this case, you, my friend, are the
one who jumped to conclusions about the
conduct of the FBI. Indeed, it would seem
that your post exhibits the sort of haste
and rush-to-judgement that you seek to
condemn.
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.
It's a widely believed fact that bioweapons and extensive use of tactical nuclear weapons will be used in WWIII that is due to begin in 2006-2007.
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.
Could you pin down the dates a little more, old chap? I need to get my planning in order and know when to go hide.
Thanks!
The only good weather is bad weather.
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.
--
make install -not war
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.
Actually, they were worried the story was
a hoax by someone who wanted to create fear
and panic.
In addition to "Fair and Balanced", I believe Fox News has "Fear and Panic" copyrighted. Watch yourself or you could get sued.
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