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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?
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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.
Isn't this where the plot for about a dozen movies kicks in?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.