The article in question (Plague Death Came Within Hours, Spurred by Scientist's Medical Condition) was written on February 25, 2011 by Tom Randall and can be found at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-25/plague-kills-u-s-scientist-in-first-laboratory-case-in-50-years-cdc-says.html.
Bacteria are truly remarkable in the ways they can proliferate, even when they have been supposedly "weakened" to the point of being considered harmless. A scientist describes the harmless strain of the plague as "like having a lion, where we took out all of it's teeth and claws," where the plague's teeth and claws were it's proteins. That was not the case in which a scientist studying this supposedly harmless strain was killed by it. This was because of the rare case that Dr. Casadaban had a rare disease called hemochromatosis, in which there is an abnormal buildup of iron in the body. Yersinia Pestis feeds on iron to survive and can accomplish this by using it's own proteins to break down bulk in the body to get to it. Because iron was so readily available in his body, the bacteria did not have break down excessive bulk to acquire it, therefore the lack of proteins in this particular strain was negligent in this unique situation.
A lesson learned from the fate of Dr. Casadaban is that you can never be too careful within the laboratory. While he did follow all safety procedures and the risk of dying to a neutered strain of the plague was improbable, this event may lead to a revision in safety protocols in studying bacterial strains. In fact this strain was considered so safe, the fact that he was working with it was not noted when he was checked into the hospital which is just unbelievable. This is also an especially interesting case because this very genetic adaptation (hemochromatosis) helped many people in the days of when the black death was so deadly to survive it by offsetting it's symptoms. Bacteria can be unpredictable, especially when there are many factors that we cannot determine nor diagnose readily. We have seen new ways to possibly improve the field of medicine with IBM's new supercomputer, WATSON, which will be able to more accurately diagnose certain medical conditions. Until then however, we'll have to make do.
This article was very interesting and goes perfectly with what this course is trying to teach us; that diseases are not to be taken lightly. Even scientists have to be very very careful, and even then there are great risks to get infected and/or death from the diseases. This is a perfect example of just that, with a disease that once killed millions. People forget that disease like the Plague or even the flu or still around and can cause a huge threat to populations around the world if they begin to spread again. This was a great choice in article and I really enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this article because nobody really thinks about the plague as something that could still be a threat, but clearly it is. Like Sarah said, if something like this were to spread around today it would probably be easier to manage than it was back then, but it would still be a major problem. It also has even more of an impact I think that it was a scientist who died because usually people sort of think of scientists in that field as invincible because they are educated in that area, but it just goes to show that everyone no matter how informed can be susceptible to disease.
ReplyDeleteI also liked this article because it is great to bring up the fact of the dangers of disease. Like Sarah and Liam both said, the plague coming back would be a huge problem. Looking back on the affect the plague had is terrifying. The fact that there are scientists still experimenting with, and studying the plague is very scary. This article shows that although science has advanced significantly, scientists studying these bacteria and diseases can not afford to be careless, because some of the things they are dealing with can most definitely end in death, or ever another epidemic.
ReplyDeleteWow. It sounds like a weird nightmare when something seemingly "perfectly safe" ends up killing you. And i can't believe that they didn't feel it necessary to mention that he was working with the plague when they admitted him to the hospital, that's completely ridiculous. It's also an interesting point how back then, people had genetic adaption that we don't have anymore today. Bacteria can be unpredictable. It's unfortunate that we all have to learn the hard way that diseases can not be taken lightly.
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