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Researcher Dies After Studying Plague Bacteria
Malcolm J. Casadaban, a molecular genetics professor at the University of Chicago, died last Sunday, seemingly from an infection of a weakened form of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes the plague. "Because this form of the bacteria is not known to cause problems in healthy people, special safety procedures are not required to handle it, said Dr. Kenneth Alexander, a virologist and chief of pediatric infections at the U. of C. Medical Center. Lab researchers who work with the bacteria would typically wear gloves, a lab coat and protective goggles, and the bacteria would be disposed of in a biohazard bag and heated for about two hours, Alexander said. Two key questions in Casadaban's death will be whether there was anything different about the strain of bacteria he was handling and whether Casadaban had any underlying conditions that may have made him more susceptible to infection."
Man, we're so screwed now. This is like a movie. Who knows who he had contact with? It probably morphed in some way and now it's going to sweep the globe wiping out most of the population. :(
when he rises from the dead, will he spread the contagion through his bite, and will cutting off his head finally kill him?
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
I took a lab class from him on genetic engineering in the late 90s. Though he was a little eccentric at times, and spoke with an incredibly soft voice, I remember him as a professor who would spend countless hours with the undergraduate students, teaching them to learn the basics of molecular biology - the U of C will be worse off without this devotion, without him. He even wrote me a recommendation letter for graduate school, but I've lost touch with him since then, now, to my infinite regret. May he rest in piece.
Now my outfits will finally come back in style, and I can get all the chicks instead of lots of stares and police harassment.
"An initial autopsy showed that Casadaban "showed no obvious cause of death"", the report goes on to state that the found the bacteria in his bloodstream.
What was his white cell count? Were cytokines present in his bloodstream? Was his lymphatic system showing signs of duress (engorged, trapped glands; cell death)?
I'm also a bit wary of the fact that the report was released from the University Medical Center where the man worked, not the local Medical Examiner's office. I'd love to see a second conclusion, and not have to fear that the University is doing this as a publicity stunt for their research programme.
Going to be a real embarassment if we find out he died of a cheeseburger, or embollism, or insulin-related shock.
If I get out of my car and promptly drop dead, you're not going to say that driving my car was the cause of death.
or Final Fantasy XX: We've really just stopped trying
First Swine Flu, and now this shit?
May we all pray the remaining survivors (Steve Jobs, Chuck Norris, Richard Stallman and Cowboy Neal) start a new civilization.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
Isn't this where the plot for about a dozen movies kicks in?
Now we got the "bacon flu" AND this plague, so we're good.
Because we don't know who ELSE has stocks of the disease and might want to turn it into a weapon. Plus the more we learn about infectious disease in general the better we can fight it. Anyway how does that link have anything to do with it? The more they vaccinate people, the less likely smallpox will come back. Manufacturing vaccines has NOTHING to do with having live, viable stocks of the actual disease. Which do exist, but that's a totally different issue.
We'll call it "I can't believe its not Plague"
You have to be very smart, takes decades of education, and it can kill you in ways we haven't even discovered yet. And that's why they get the big bucks.
The Admin and the Engineer
Oh rats.
Oh no! That's tragic!
Smallpox is still out in the wild. Vaccines are a calculated risk. You have to figure you will injure or kill XX number of people with the vaccine, versus the number of people that will die as a result of another epidemic. I believe the numbers recently flip-flopped and the risk of harm from the vaccine has become worse than the risk of contracting the disease and many areas are no longer requiring it. The whole controversy over mercury in the vaccines causing autism is still hotly debated, though.
You would think plagues and other horrible diseases should be eradicated not preserved to experiment with later. Take small pox it was supposed to be eradicated but they just won't let it die . But curing diseases would be a bad business model and lead to their eventual unemployment.
Smallpox was a virus that could only infect humans. With most humans immunized, it has nowhere else to go and it disappeared. Yersinia pestis can't be eradicated. It's a bacterium that is endemic among rodents. You would have to exterminate rodents from the wild in most of Eurasia and North America and still not completely eradicate it.
I just... I was saving that bacon.
So I work in the same building as this lab, use the same elevators, touch the same door handles etc. I'm not too worried, but plenty of people are and have been since they started working with your *more dangerous than ecoli* varieties. What really pissed me off is that if I had not heard about this from a PI down the hall yeasterday I would have found out about this through /. I can understand why the UoC doesnt send out alerts like this via email to everyone, but some people do need to know. The PI down the hall basically said "shit shit, god damn it, shit, the cdc will be here to deal with and who knows if we'll be allowed to stay," probably a slight over-reaction, but as my mother the md mph said "this is one of those NEVER things." Anyway, I was very sorry to hear about this, also as TFA says, we really dont know if this was a opportunistic infection that was able to get in because he was already sick or what.
Plague. Death. Otherwise healthy individuals.
'Toxic Skies'.
The only difference is there's no mention of chemtrails in the Sun-Times article. Of course, there wouldn't be, would there.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Smallpox is still out in the wild
The WHO certified its eradication in 1979 so if you know something that the WHO doesn't, I'd like to see a reference that can substantiate your claim.
Ah, whew. I misread the summary; I was afraid that not brushing my teeth was going to kill me one of these days.
True, but take note there are 2 issues here:
Smallpox exists all over the world in the freezers of research labs. There has/had been an intense debate on whether or not to eradicate the last samples in existence (assuming Dr. Scientist will admit to having some.) Safety of the world/rightfulness of destroying another life form (scratched my head with that one)/diminishing human resistance to a pathogen by removing it from the ecosystem, lots of (sometimes silly) arguments.
This is newsworthy if he actually died from this strain which we had thought was not dangerous. Considering that it has been used as a vaccine and plenty of others have been exposed without any ill effects, it seems like concluding that the plague bacteria is what killed him is very premature. There's no direct evidence that this is the cause of death - there is no cause of death as of yet.
The autopsy showed "showed no obvious cause of death" except for the presence of the weakened strain of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis in his blood, the U. of C. Medical Center said in a statement."
That is far from conclusive, especially given that there aren't any reports that he developed the symptoms of the infection before dying. Chances are we'll get some more conclusive information as they continue to review the case and the data from the autopsy along with tissue samples and toxicology tests. However, there is the possibility that the cause of death will not be known. There are a number of deaths each year in otherwise healthy people which can't be conclusively proven to be caused by a single cause.
Don't they have penicillin in Chicago? really? This guy died from studying the plague and it didn't occur to him to get some antibiotics?
They're using their grammar skills there.
If you play with fire, you will eventually get burned. You can talk about precautions and safety measures and such. Human beings make errors. The more complete they believe the security precautions to be, the more likely they are to become careless of the dangers. More than enough people have read the book or seen the movie "The Stand". Someday, someone will be looking back at Stephen King's work or Legend and will be amazed at how prophetic it was.
It's really more like predicting that there will be a terrible NASCAR crash and a much loved driver will be killed. It's really only a matter of time.
But curing diseases would be a bad business model and lead to their eventual unemployment.
Oddly, people like you are the ones who think this way, whereas the medical profession and makers of vaccines seem to prefer eradication. Hence the current status of smallpox, polio, malaria, measles, etc. (in the U.S.).
However, as noted elsewhere, the Y. pestis plague cannot be effectively eradicated, as it uses rodents as a reservoir. Eliminating such diseases is very difficult.
In Soviet Chicago, plague study you!
It's been a long time since we had a plague on our hands, maybe it's time for comeback of that disease?
By "in the wild", I meant that there are samples of the virus that are not in direct control of someone we trust. My point was that we are weighing the risk of an epidemic (quite likely if smallpox is used as a weapon) against the harm that will happen to a small percentage of the population as a side effect of mass vaccinations.
You were supposed to do this just after the 2012 'election' of the next Cheneyesque King/Dictator/Emperor to create just the right amount of fear to allow for the elimination of the last vestiges of the constitution.
But curing diseases would be a bad business model.
I think this attitude is present in the pharmaceutical industry and drives some of their research priorities. I don't think its present in the general medical research as those guys honestly want to understand and cure a disease as their first priority, and second if it can't be cured at least manage it.
You would have to exterminate rodents from the wild in most of Eurasia and North America
I am intrigued by your idea, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That would make it something of a challenging business model on the smaller scale, since it's general medical practitioners who end up prescribing your drugs. The company that produces the drug that cures the disease is going to get substantially more sales than the one that simply alleviates the symptoms.
On the larger scale, disease eradication isn't exactly simply a matter of pharmaceutical research -- it's very difficult. Still, if a pharmaceutical company developed a product that could be reasonably used to eradicate a disease, a push to eradicate that disease would be an enormous windfall for the company. (Still, to be fair, unless it's something that's available cheaply, eradication is nearly impossible, since a lot of the drug needs to be provided to poor people and countries.)
I think it's more that eradicating diseases isn't a pharmaceutical-research priority because you can't do it simply be developing a drug.
Instead of eradicating rodents, wouldn't it be easier to inoculate them much how we did the human population?
Actually, exterminating the rodents is not the cure. Sprinkle malathion or parathion on cotton balls and scatter them around where the kids and pets cannot get them. Rodents gather them up and use them in their nests. The stuff kills off all the riders the rodents have on them. and walaa, no more mites, lice, fleas, etc. This has been tried and is effective for wiping out the deer tick - mouse vector for lyme disease in whole counties for years. I do not understand why it is not used more commonly. I guess maybe some liberals objected to inhumane treatment of lice. Someone called Peta?
wake up and hold your nose
Do you want to buy a bridge?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm not sure if I know something the WHO don't. I know something you don't: the WHO certainly did not have unrestricted access to classified military laboratories in the US, UK and Soviet Union. Since the break up of the latter, their stockpiles could be who (not WHO) knows where.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
being in a laboratory is far from being "in the wild". besides that, the WHO does actually have access to smallpox reserves in secure facilities for testing purposes. so rogue military organizations are not the only ones that have samples of it, if any of them have samples. but like i said earlier. having stockpiles of it for medical research is hardly "in the wild". btw, i know something you don't: the difference between don't and doesn't.
the abyss gazes also into you.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I'm annoyed that the pharmaceutical companies are developing drugs to treat symptoms and then heavily marketing directly to the end users. Got heartburn? Instead of simply altering your diet, go out and buy the over the counter medication xyz! Or worse, ask you doctor as you may have a serious condition that can only be treated by drug zyx.
A case in point is the flood of drugs to lower HDL cholesterol levels, even though there is scant evidence to show that artificially lowering those levels has any long term heart health benefits. The better alternative is to fix your dietary issues which has been shown to have long term health effects.
Big Pharma is actively researching marketing options and constantly trying to figure out what the next big, marketable drug is going to be.
what if he transmitted it to others?
Wetterhahn was a chemist who was working with dimethylmercury which people did not realize was nearly as dangerous as it was. She died of mercury poisoning despite following all the standard safety requirements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn Sometimes we just don't know enough.
The whole controversy over mercury in the vaccines causing autism is still hotly debated, though.
I don't define mindless morons spouting drivel that has been disproved in scientific study after study as debate. Mercury containing timersol has never been linked to autism or any autistic spectrum disorder in any study that has withstood peer review. Vaccines in general have never been linked to autism or any autistic spectrum disorder in any study that has withstood peer review. Most people and organizations who "still hotly debate" the issue either have direct financial incentive or some other secondary gain involved with allowing parents of ASD kids to shift the "guilt" to some causal factor other than genetics or just plain luck.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Indeed, some of the studies actually showed increase mental capacity in the groups associated with ethylmercury exposure from thimerasol in vaccines. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/acip/downloads/min-oct07.pdf
They mean the Descolada! It's starting! There will be dead people, and live pigs all over the place.
"Because this form of the bacteria is not known to cause problems in healthy people, special safety procedures are not required to handle it, said Dr. Kenneth Alexander, a virologist and chief of pediatric infections at the U. of C. Medical Center."
He's a 'virologist' so perhaps he doesn't know too much about this but often when a pathogen which doesn't cause problems in healthy people does end up cause problems - it is usually not the pathogen which has mutated but the patient who had an underlying -often undiagnosed- condition.
This is Yesinis Pestis (sp?), not some super high-tech man made disease. Mother nature has an incredible stockpile of the disease and she's producing daily. Go bury your panic filled head in a vat of solidifying concrete. Not everything is a weapon. Better outlaw trees because they can be weaponized into clubs.
My pets had the most awful flea infestation ever this year, that would not yeild to poison of any kind!!! If there had been plague going around then it would have killed all my pets and probably my whole family ( if there were not antibiotics ).
I would give the animals flea shampoos ( which is not easy for cats! ) every three days. I also bought flea powders, flea coat sprays, Frontline, and other brands of flea drops that are supposed to work for thirty days. Let me tell you that nothing got rid of all the fleas except shampoos, but that the animals would be reinfested in one day after a shampoo. The drops which are supposed to work a month meant I couldn't very well wash them off with a fleabath, those drops ( including Frontline Hartz and Seargeants ) never lasted more than three days. I changed every piece of cloth covering in the house ( and I have not a bit of carpet in the house ) and used a bunch of bug bombs, and still saw some fleas after a few days. Though I did put a flea COLLAR on each of the animals. While a flea collar won't kill all fleas, they do seem to keep the number of them under control unlike any other measure. With collars in place fall came, and I think my house is finally flea free. Phew!
...
One of the more annoying examples of this was in the several months before Nexium had received FDA approval commercials popped up on the boob tube showing happy people doing happy things and saying, "Ask your doctor about Nexium, the new purple pill." It seems impossible to me that people would be asking the doctor for a drug when they didn't even know what it was for, but my doctor's assistant says they did, in droves. Poor doctors had no idea what the hell this was, since it hadn't received FDA approval yet, just knew that there was a huge pent-up demand for it. When approval finally arrived the commercials stayed the same, just the voice-over changed. Mind control at its best.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Well, when you say "most" humans are vaccinated, that means that "some" humans are not, and thus as long as some humans are not it will continue to persist. Not to mention the fact that we are playing around with a disease that at one time killed nearly half the planet's population of humans. So now it is grown in a lab around other diseases, and who knows what tests are being done to it. It may very well become like Hepatitis C which over decades of study and treatment has evolved sufficiently to be quite deadly and resistant to all treatments.
So, via extrapolation it isn't hard to imagine a new and improved Black Death killing machine at some point in time. I think that researchers are way to cocky and overconfident, in many fields. The "It won't happen to Me" Syndrome, that permeates mankind's mentality. I don't know whether bacteria can or can't be eradicated, I'm not so confident as you that it can't be done, if we really wanted to, but I doubt anyone, in a position to do it, really wants to. That however, doesn't mean we should be helping it evolve into something far more deadly. This facility is probably getting Federal grants, and there's probably some military funds in there somewhere.