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Science

Searching for Lethal Influenza Strains 60

Posted by michael from the don't-want-to-go-on-the-cart dept.
1gor writes "Scientists want to exhume the body of the victim of the world's most lethal influenza pandemic between 1918 and 1919 to examine the structure of the virus, reports Bloomberg.com. In an airtight coffin they expect to find well-preserved virus known for its unique ability to kill healthy young people. The strain's attack and mortality rates were highest among people aged between 20 years and 50 years. Are you scared already?"
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Searching for Lethal Influenza Strains More

Searching for Lethal Influenza Strains

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  • you know. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Thursday December 12, 2002 @01:05PM (#4872062)
    The guys that are working this must crap their pants every time they sneeze.

  • 'A' not 'The' (Score:3, Informative)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Thursday December 12, 2002 @01:07PM (#4872082) Journal
    Body of 'a' victim I expect. It killed more people than the world war.

    • Re:'A' not 'The' (Score:4, Funny)

      by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Thursday December 12, 2002 @02:19PM (#4872781) Journal
      Body of 'a' victim I expect. It killed more people than the world war.

      'A' world war, not 'the' world war.

      • Unless I had truncated the phrase from "the world war that had just occured." Which is fair usage. Badda bing! My grammar triumphs once again.
        • Unless I had truncated the phrase from "the world war that had just occured." Which is fair usage. Badda bing! My grammar triumphs once again.

          You would get points there had you truncated...

          You ended your statement, however, with a period, thus concluding your idea.
          Ooooh... denied...
      • If you want to be that nitpicky, then it's "the first part of the world war". If you understand anything at all about the cause of "World War II", then you know that it really isn't a separate war but merely the second phase of the first.
        • And the Cold War which just ended was really a continuation of WWII.
          • > And the Cold War which just ended was really a continuation of WWII.
            And, biological weapons based on the influenca virus may well start a new 'cold'-war.

        • If you want to be that nitpicky, then it's "the first part of the world war".

          Yeah, and the Civil War was not civil. And the Hundred Years War didn't last 100 years. I could go on.

          Lighten up, it was a grammar joke, not a history joke.

  • Geeks don't need to worry (Score:4, Funny)

    by DeadSea ( 69598 ) on Thursday December 12, 2002 @01:09PM (#4872106) Homepage Journal
    Living in my parents basement, never leaving the house, having no human contact, there is no way that I'll ever get the flu. The germ that destroys humanity may already be breeding in my filth, but I've learned to live with it.
    • I read that as "Greeks dont need to worry" and spent quite a few minutes re-reading and trying to grasp the joke!!!
    • Living in my parents basement, never leaving the house, having no human contact, there is no way that I'll ever get the flu. The germ that destroys humanity may already be breeding in my filth, but I've learned to live with it.

      This is actually worse than living outside. You're not exposing your body to enough bugs. You're immune system needs to get a workout to keep you healthy.

      Listen to George Carlin's rant on germs. He claims he stayed healthy because he grew up swimming in raw sewage* (the Hudson River, circa 1940's), "you know... to COOL off!"

      Get his CD, "You are all diseased." Track 3. George Carlin "was tempered in raw shit!" That's how he avoided get polio. It's really funny.

      BTW, he doesn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom, "unless he shits on them."

      * Another GC'ism: "Why do they call it raw sewage? Do some people cook the stuff?"

  • influenza doesn't scare me...yet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nocomment ( 239368 ) on Thursday December 12, 2002 @01:14PM (#4872158) Homepage Journal
    Scientists scare me sometimes though.

    "looky here let's open up this box where a deadly virus might be trapped floating about and study it"! We'll just hope it doesn't get out.

    Reminds me of,
    "I'm not real sure if this atmoic detonation will rip the atmosphere off the earth in a chain reaction, well here goes....*boom*".
    When you say it like that it almost sounds like a farside cartoon, but it's pretty close to what happened.

    I think if anything scared me, it is the fact that scientists will do anything to figure things out regardless of how potentially dangerous it is.

    The mentality of, "if it can be calculated then it should be" really pisses me off.
    • so are you saying that it's better to ignore this strain than to research it? isn't that security through obscurity? if an influenza strain similar to this eventually pops up i personally think it would be better to have at least some knowledge of the virus.. would you rather have them study it while it's killing everyone?
    • How is it you're still able to read slashdot while having your head stuck in the sand?
    • You'd probably find that the virus was signifigantly less virulent in todays population than it was in 1918. Many people alive today are decended from people who either never caught the disease, or caught and recovered from the disease. The people who carried traits that made them most vulnerable to the disease for the most part died -- 20 to 100 million of them.

      The problem with an extremely deadly, extremely virulent disease with high mortality and quick victim demise is that it tends to burn itself out. It uses up all it's best victims and leaves behind a population resistant to it's effects. Even generations later, the disease would find a much harder time gaining a foothold.

  • Lethality (Score:3, Informative)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Thursday December 12, 2002 @01:27PM (#4872274) Homepage Journal

    Reminds me of this readable account [theatlantic.com] of Australian research into more effective mousepox strains.

    Imagine an air-borne influenza with the same kind of engineered ability to agitate and misdirect the human immune system response. It would make the 1918 influenza look tame by comparison.

  • are they trying to figure out how to kill healthy young people? can someone explain how this will help our understanding of medicine?

    also, a simple cost-benefit analysis should point out that the risk of killing another 20M people isn't worth whatever we get from this.

    • Re:why? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ceejayoz ( 567949 )
      are they trying to figure out how to kill healthy young people? can someone explain how this will help our understanding of medicine?

      Perhaps they're trying to figure out how it killed 20 million healthy young people, so they can prevent it from ever happening again?
    • Or perhaps they're trying to wipe us out and live forever off our stem cells?
    • I would suggest that they are interested in learning about how to kill healthy young people, as well as how to stop a deadly virus.

      As much as it would suck eggs to die a horrible death at the hands of someone's biological weapons, biological weapons are here to stay.

      Actually, I really hate to imagine what a World War III might be like.

      BTW, if bio-warfare fascinates you, you would probably enjoy the game "Deus Ex."

      • i tried looking at the DX website, but clicking on the buttons (PS/PC) didn't do anything. Although the DX2 info made it look pretty cool.

        And WWIII will definitely suck eggs (or mustard, or chlorine, or worse, or ... )

  • Thought this had been done already? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Hubert_Shrump ( 256081 ) <cobranet@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday December 12, 2002 @01:30PM (#4872301) Journal
    This [stanford.edu] states that there's already a sample out there that is currently being sequenced... Though the evidence off the page above is 404...

    This [stanford.edu] is the fearful graph you're looking for.

    • Anyone that lived through that would be having a fit if they found out about this. Why the fsck do we need to dig up armageddon?
    • Did you look at that US map of how long it took to spread [stanford.edu]?

      Week 1: it's in only places that have international contact (NYC mainly).
      Week 2: all major cities and surrounding regions have it.
      Week 3: all minor cities have it (since people have travelled to/from major centres).
      Week 4: everywhere has it!

      Exponential growth reminiscent of the super flu from Stephen King's The Stand! I'm sure Washington State wouldn't be a week 3 infection this time around, either. Heck, with travel being more popular here, I doubt it'd take 2 weeks for the polination of pretty much everyone with a killer virus that is airborne to take its toll.

      Of course, you have to wonder how long it would last. Would it be safe for people to destroy all the bodies in an incinerator? What about all the technology that we have now that'd fail in catastrophic ways with no one to monitor it? This is some seriously scary stuff.
    • Yes, you are right that samples that are believed to be from this influenza outbreak are already being studied. Samples have been isolated from fixed and frozen samples. Here is one example from Science 1997 Mar 21;275(5307):1793-6:

      Initial genetic characterization of the 1918 "Spanish" influenza virus.

      Taubenberger JK, Reid AH, Krafft AE, Bijwaard KE, Fanning TG.

      The "Spanish" influenza pandemic killed at least 20 million people in 1918-1919, making it the worst infectious pandemic in history. Understanding the origins of the 1918 virus and the basis for its exceptional virulence may aid in the prediction of future influenza pandemics. RNA from a victim of the 1918 pandemic was isolated from a formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded, lung tissue sample. Nine fragments of viral RNA were sequenced from the coding regions of hemagglutinin, neuraminidase, nucleoprotein, matrix protein 1, and matrix protein 2. The sequences are consistent with a novel H1N1 influenza A virus that belongs to the subgroup of strains that infect humans and swine, not the avian subgroup.


      A recombinant strain has also been created (under level 3 biosafety conditions) bearing the 1918 HA, NA, or M segments, and interestingly these strains were blocked in mice by currently available antiviral agents (reference =Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2002 Oct 15;99(21):13849-54).

  • Be afraid... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Simon Field ( 563434 ) on Thursday December 12, 2002 @01:53PM (#4872550) Homepage


    Clearly the reason we study things like this is because we fear them.

    We want to prevent another outbreak. We want to study why it was so lethal, so we can cure it and similar epidemics.

    We also fear that someone else will resurrect this bug and spread it around.

    But those who fear that the U.S. is studying it in order to make biological weapons will also figure out that a biological weapon like this will not be useful without the ability to innocculate your own population against it.

    When large democracies study diseases, even with the worst motives, it scares me less than if we found that suicidal cults or fanatics were studying them. Even if the government is studying it for all the wrong reasons, we end up better able to defend against it.

    There will be more pandemics. They may be man-made, but more likely they will be natural.
    And the only way we will be prepared for them is to study them.

  • So now Randall Flagg's out wandering around in Nevada somewhere... It's only a matter of time until 90% of the population is dead and the rest are fighting for god.

    Bring on the walkin' dude...
    • in The Stand the communicability was more like 99.4% (pg. 30).

      that would leave about 1.5 million people in the US (assuming our population is 280 mil). seemed like there were fewer in the book/movie, but that is a technicality.

      • yeah, i was just generalizing. it's mentioned in the book (i've only read the unabridged & uncut version, so i don't know if it's mentioned in the shorter version) that most of the people were basically in hiding, and i dont blame them. a good portion of the people died accidental deaths even after the plague had struck: a man jogging died of a heart attack, a lady died after a gun blew up in her hand while she was attempting to fend off some random guy, etc.

        Glen Bateman's character mentions at some point that the people will slowly start pooling together and at some point society will rebuild itself. The first comers, the ones we see in the movie, number only in the thousands or so until after vegas is "removed." when stu returns, the entire elected committee is replaced with new people. he and fran leave to live in maine shortly after because they just dont want to be involved in a large society.

        regardless, here's to hoping something like that never happens for real. :)
  • The strain's attack and mortality rates were highest among people aged between 20 years and 50 years. Are you scared already?"

    Homer: Eh, not the end of the world.
    Marge: No, it's the Apocalypse! Bart, are you wearing clean underwear?
    Bart: Not any more.

    Seriously though, if you want an article that will make you soil yourself silly, read the Demon in the Freezer [cryptome.org]. It's a long read, but definitely worthwhile. And scary as hell...
  • The Bloomberg story mentioned in the article quotes Agence France-Presse as citing an article in New Scientist. Searching on 'influenza' at the magazine's web site doesn't find any reference to this topic. Can anyone who subscribes to the dead-tree edition elucidate?

  • Are you scared? (Score:3, Funny)

    by rlowe69 ( 74867 ) <ryanlowe_AThotmailDOTcom> on Thursday December 12, 2002 @04:53PM (#4874499) Homepage
    The strain's attack and mortality rates were highest among people aged between 20 years and 50 years. Are you scared already?

    Actually no, I'm 51.

  • The Spanish Lady (Score:3, Informative)

    by Guppy ( 12314 ) on Friday December 13, 2002 @04:41AM (#4878818)

    I had a little bird,
    her name was Enza.
    I opened the door,
    and In-flew-Enza.

    When the 1918 flu first broke out, it occurred during what was quite possibily the worst possible conditions for a it to occur. WWI was on, so large numbers of young people were being shipped all over the globe. At the same time, in many counteries the press was hobbled by wartime censorship, thus delaying the medical community's recognition of the pandemic's existence. The nickname of that the Flu was given, "The Spanish Lady" actually came about from Spain's status as a neutral nation during this time -- the press was able to speak freely, and so its existance was revealed there first.

    The 1918 flu virus had a couple of interesting features. As the Bloomberg article mentions, it has an unusual ability to kill young adults. Basically, your typical influenza virus (and many diseases in general) have a U-shaped mortality curve -- highest among children and the elderly. However, this particular outbreak had a W-shaped curve, with a sudden spike right in the middle.

    The reason for this mortality spike has long been a matter for conjecture. One feature of this particular flu outbreak was that it often killed suddenly, sometimes without warning, with victims also frequently showing presence of hemorrhage and edema in the lungs. This was so unusual that some have wondered if it was influenza at all -- after all, back then a virus was a mysterious "filterable agent", invisible to the most powerful optical microscopes. However, we do know from more modern research that a particularly large proportions of people who lived through that period have antibodies against a particular influenza type.

    A theory is that the high lethality was not due just to the virus itself, but to an immune over-reaction (which would be strongest in young adults) which damaged the lungs. Other theories have suggested that perhaps the influenza outbreak was actually a co-epidemic, with some other agent also present -- another virus, a bacterium, even lungworms have been proposed. While it is likely that weakened victims often picked up secondary infections, evidence for an actual binary epidemic is weak.

    Could the epidemic occur again if the strain were resurrected, or perhaps spontaneously put back together by the mutational drifts and re-arrangements that Influenza constantly is undergoing? Indeed, one of the questions is why hasn't it survived into the present? Some have suggested that perhaps the impact was large enough that humanity has been selected for greater resistance. Or perhaps features of the disease have since been incorporated into the various strains which still smolder today, producing a herd resistance which would be enough to prevent a major pandemic. Or maybe we've just been lucky, and it went extinct all by itself.

    Either way, I think that even if it suddenly popped up, with all it's virulence intact, we're in much better shape today. We have a network that tracks the ebb and flow of flu epidemics every year, we have a spread of well-characterized vaccines (plus a new nasal spray vaccine coming soon), plus four different FDA-approved anti-virals for influenza. Even if it turned out to be something radically different -- and the historical antibody profiles previously mentioned suggest it's not.

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