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Missing Lab Mice Infected With Plague

Posted by Zonk on Fri Sep 16, 2005 10:12 AM
from the who-wants-bubons-i-do-i-do dept.
Biotech Science
Buford C Nuzzle-Chunks writes "PhysOrg is reporting that 'The FBI and New Jersey officials have started a hushed but intensive search for three missing lab mice reportedly infected with deadly strains of plague'. The Washington Post says it's not that big a deal, but I was dismayed at the PhysOrg article's quote from Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist, about certain federal bio-terrorism labs: 'You have more security at a McDonald's than at some of these facilities.'"
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  • All we need is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by NotFamous (827147) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:13AM (#13576136) Homepage Journal
    Someone to build a better mousetrap!

    • Re:All we need is... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2005, @10:19AM (#13576207)
      Pinky: 'What are we going to do tonight, Brain?'

      Brain: "What we always do, Pinky...try and take over the world!'

      Pinky: 'NARF!'
  • ... just as soon as we capture the last of these rage infected monkeys.
  • If they're "infected wqith a deadly plague," perhaps they simply died?

    • Re:Have they checked the obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Angry Mick (632931) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:20AM (#13576216) Homepage

      One of the articles I read said that a scientist was speculating just that. They got out and probably died not too far from the lab.

      What I'm curious to know is, if they died and were subsequently consumed by either a larger animal (dog, cat, etc.) or smaller insects, would the plague be transferable to the consumer? In other words, could a roach eat the remains of the mouse, a rat eat the roach, and the whole plague start over yet again?

      • Re:Have they checked the obvious? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Fishstick (150821) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:33AM (#13576358) Journal
        IIRC, Plague's primary tranmission vector was fleas:

        The classic mode of transmission to humans is a fleabite. Alternately, broken skin serves as a portal when tissue or blood of an infected animal is handled (skinning or evisceration of infected animals). Competency of the flea to serve as vector for transmission of plague to humans depends on its willingness to feed on a human host and its tendency to regurgitate intestinal contents during a blood meal. Fleas from sylvatic rodents feed on humans only reluctantly. However, the Oriental rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) is an effective vector because of its tendency to regurgitate and to feed on nonrodent hosts. When the flea takes a blood meal from an infected rodent, stomach enzymes cause a clot to form, blocking the flea's proventricularis. At its next attempt to feed, unable to swallow due to the blockage, the flea regurgitates plague bacilli into the bite wound.

        http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic1819.htm [emedicine.com]

        Not sure if you can catch/spread the plague by eating an infected corpse. Seems unlikely this would move through the food chain.

      • It does need incubation... (Score:5, Informative)

        by jpellino (202698) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:50AM (#13576504)
        We worked with this about 20 years ago - Pasteurella sp., though this species is similar. It needs incubation at body temperature, outside of that it doesn't do well - IIRC cultures were dead in less than a day out of their ranges, but we autoclaved everything jsut for good measure. Plus we signed a big piece of paper from NIH saying we'd take full responsibility for it all. Some good news is that not all strains are human pathogens. More good news is it doesn't form spores, so dead bacteria is dead bacteria. Plus it responds well to antibiotics. What we call "plague" bacteria are very common in livestock - ag people call it "shipping fever" because it's usually not a problem until you stuff lots of animals in a stock trailer or car and let them breath, scratch and bite each other for a week, and you can have high mortality on arrival. The wild strains of some of these are nearly ubiquitous in rabbits, and more common than you'd think in household and farm animals.

          • Re:Have they checked the obvious? (Score:5, Funny)

            by dgatwood (11270) on Friday September 16 2005, @01:03PM (#13578003) Journal
            I know an old lady who swallowed a bison. She swallowed the bison to parse the sea. She swallowed the sea to drown the spider that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don't know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she'll vi.

  • well thats good (Score:5, Funny)

    by JeanBaptiste (537955) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:14AM (#13576146)
    "'You have more security at a McDonald's than at some of these facilities.'"

    Given what they serve at McDonalds, thats probably a good thing. I'd rather take my chances with the mice.

  • Easy Solution Then... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaedalusLogic (449896) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:15AM (#13576161)
    Just build a McDonald's at each of these facilities... Boom! You have your security, and the burger joint has a fresh supply of ingredients on hand.

  • What's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2005, @10:15AM (#13576164)
    We're talking about New Jersey. I could understand being concerned if it was somewhere else, but New Jersey? This probably improves the environment and air quality there.

  • Just great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chris09876 (643289) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:16AM (#13576168)
    It's always nice to see that the people who deal with dangerous biohazard materials are so careful with what they do. I guess you just get complacent after awhile... it happens with everything. It's unfortunate that there aren't better routines and checks in place to be absolutely certain this kind of thing doesn't happen.

    Even if it's no big deal this time, who's to say what could happen in the future if mutant infected lab animals are allowed to roam free? ;-)

  • maybe... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jumbo Jimbo (828571) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:16AM (#13576172)
    I heard that they ran off with the farmer's wife, who cut off their tails with carving knife.

  • Yot are we gonna do tonight, Brain? (Score:5, Funny)

    by wowbagger (69688) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:20AM (#13576219) Homepage Journal
    Yot are we gonna do tonight, Brain? Try to take over the world?

    No, Pinky. We are going to try to find a pharmacy and cure this <hack> damn cough!

  • You don't know the half of it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ebrandsberg (75344) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:23AM (#13576253)
    How many labs were flooded during Katrina? How many of those were doing research of this type? What, you can't answer that? Point is, nobody knows WHAT people will be exposed to down there. Three rats with Plague is nothing compared with what could be unleashed.

  • McDonalds security is no laughing matter (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chairboy (88841) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:25AM (#13576282) Homepage
    McDonalds security is no laughing matter.

    Consider, for example, the international fugitive known as the "Hamburglar".

  • The really scarey part.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evenprime (324363) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:29AM (#13576315) Homepage Journal
    The really scarey part is that they had to interview the staff and give them lie detector tests to see if anyone had liberate^H^H^H^H^Hstolen the mice....

    I don't get those PETA/ALF types....

  • Plague (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LordMyren (15499) on Friday September 16 2005, @10:48AM (#13576493) Homepage
    One of my neighbors got the plague. He's like one of the three people on the planet that somehow managed to catch the bubonic plague that year. What shitty luck.

    Evidently the good news for him is that he's now immune.

    • Re:Deadly? (Score:5, Informative)

      by allism (457899) <alice@harrison.gmail@com> on Friday September 16 2005, @10:29AM (#13576313) Journal
      It's not as dangerous as you might think - yersinia pestis has not been eradicated by any means. There are still problems with it in rodent populations - for instance, Boulder County, CO has had a problem with it just this summer in the groundhog population.

      The route of transmission to humans is

      rodent > flea > human

      (if it turns into pneumonia in a human it can be passed human to human, otherwise not).

      Since fleas aren't nearly the problem they were in the middle ages, and we don't have travelers trekking on foot (and picking up fleas) through areas that have a high incidence of yersinia pestis in the rodent population, it just doesn't spread as quickly as it used to. There still end up being a few cases of bubonic plague every year in the US, but it doesn't have the opportunity to spread the way it used to.

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