1918 Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Was Bird Flu

[bustarbusto]

Experts Unlock Clues to Spread of 1918 Flu Virus
Published: October 6, 2005

The 1918 influenza virus, the cause of one of history's most deadly epidemics, has been reconstructed and found to be a bird flu that jumped directly to humans, two teams of federal and university scientists announced yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/health/06flu.html
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2005/10/06/scientists_re_create_1918_flu_pandemic_virus/

Serious security implications of the virus floating around labs, too. Ugh.

[YDogg]

1. I always find it terribly sad to see cemetery markers from that time.

I have seen some that show entire families wiped out not too far from where some of my family are buried. Cousins of my elders were among those lost in large numbers.

My great-grandmother was able to take her daughter - my grandmother - to a rural area where they rode out the epidemic. Thank goodness. It must have been a very frightening time.

[MrBenchley]

8. It's interesting that the pandemic was almost invisible

until recently. The only reference I know of it in popular culture is an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. If there was contemporary novel or movie that referred to it, I'm not aware of it.

[Patiod]

10. Several recent books address that very phenomenom

They theorize that because it happened at the end of a painful war, people were eager to "put it behind them" along with the war.

But that still doesn't explain the collective amnesia -- people who were interviewed by historians were extremely reluctant to discuss it, even/especially those who lost parents (it tended to kill people in their 20's and 30's - prime parenting ages).

[MrBenchley]

13. I find that almost as compelling a story

as the pandemic itself.

"people who were interviewed by historians were extremely reluctant to discuss it, even/especially those who lost parents (it tended to kill people in their 20's and 30's - prime parenting ages). "

The Fitzgerald story is about a woman who is found wandeing the subway with amnesia. She's taken to a hospital, where she impresses the staff by helping with other patients in a cheerful, competent manner; they theorize that she must have been a nurse. No one knows who she is; no one comes forward to say they recognize her. Finally the hero, a newspaper reporter, tracks down her past. She was a housewife whose entire family died of the flu, and she was unable to care for them.

Wish I could remember the title.

[Patiod]

9. We stumbled across an old family graveyard

We were hiking out in the 'burbs, and came across an abandoned family graveyard in the woods. The dates clearly indicated that about 5 members of the family had been taken down by the flu pandemic, which hit Philadelphia particularly hard (corrupt governement, but that's another story).

Seeing the Stars of David on the graves and realizing that it was Yom Kippur, we said a little prayer for the family, and moved on (hoping no souls were disturbed by two recovering Catholics blessing themselves over Jewish graves on a High Holy Day...)

[leveymg]

2. They posted the genetic sequence on the web. Now, its WMD material

for anyone who wants to reverse engineer and drop a big one. Utterly insane.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4986544


"Security fears as flu virus that killed 50 million is recreated

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday October 6, 2005
The Guardian


Scientists have recreated the 1918 Spanish flu virus, one of the deadliest ever to emerge, to the alarm of many researchers who fear it presents a serious security risk.
Undisclosed quantities of the virus are being held in a high-security government laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, after a nine-year effort to rebuild the agent that swept the globe in record time and claimed the lives of an estimated 50 million people.

The genetic sequence is also being made available to scientists online, a move which some fear adds a further risk of the virus being created in other labs.

The recreation was carried out in an attempt to understand what made the 1918 outbreak so devastating. Reporting in the journal Science, a team lead by Dr Jeffery Taubenberger at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Maryland shows that the recreated virus is extremely effective. When injected into mice, it quickly took hold and they started to lose weight rapidly, shedding 13% of their original weight in just two days. Within six days, all mice injected with the virus had died.

In a comparison experiment, similar mice were injected with a contemporary strain of flu, and although the mice lost weight initially, they recovered. Tests revealed that the Spanish flu virus multiplied so rapidly that after four days, mice contained 39,000 times more flu virus than those injected with the more common strain of flu.

The government and military researchers who reconstructed the virus say their work has already provided invaluable insight into its unique genetic make-up and helps explain its lethality. But other researchers warned yesterday the that virus could escape from the laboratory. "This will raise clear questions among some as to whether they have really created a biological weapon," said Professor Ronald Atlas at the centre for deterrence of biowarfare and bioterrorism at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Publication of the work and the filing of the virus's genetic make-up to an online database followed an emergency meeting last week by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which concluded that the benefits of publishing the work outweighed the risks. Many scientists remained sceptical. "Once the genetic sequence is publicly available, there's a theoretical risk that any molecular biologist with sufficient knowledge could recreate this virus," said Dr John Wood, a virologist at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Potters Bar."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Ready4Change]

3. And Penicillin was discovered in 1928.

Pandemics after that discovery killed tens of thousands, not millions. At least in countries that antibiotics were available. That's still a bad thing, but it's not the end of humanity.

BTW, it was someone here on DU who pointed this out to me. Thanks!

[Another Bill C.]

5. Antibiotics are anti-bacterials.

They may be effective against opportunistic bacterial infections but not against the flu itself.

[eShirl]

6. But can penicillin halt or prevent

an H5N1-induced cytokine storm? I'm skeptical.

[Canadiana]

7. Unfortunately,

antibiotics do not help with infuenza, as it is a virus. However (and I will be posting on this alter), as a medical student...this avian flu is a load of crap to scare us all!!! I mean it's just such a diversion...my profs are astonished.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. as explained by my infectious disease friend, antibiotics do help

The virus weakens the body and allows infections (respiratory, in particular) to take hold much easier. If you treat the infections, allow the patient to use his/her own defenses against the virus, most people will recover.
The virus makes you very sick- but, it alone kills only the old and infirm, or very young.

[eShirl]

15. the 1918 flu killed healthy young adults,

those with a robust immune system. From what I've been reading in the Current Events Flu Clinic Forum http://www.curevents.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=40 the flu induced the immune system into over-reacting with what is called a "cytokine storm" and that rather than a secondary infection is what killed so many.

[NNN0LHI]

16. The 1957 and 1968 pandemics initially killed healthy young adults also

All three pandemics were characterized by a shift in age distribution of deaths to younger population under age 65 (at least initially); shift was particularly dramatic during 1918 pandemic (see References: NIH: Focus on the flu; HHS: Influenza pandemics; Simonsen 2004; Webster 1997).

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/idsa/influenza/panflu/biofacts/panflu.html

1918-1919 (Spanish Flu)------ 500,000 dead in US

1957-1958 (Asian Flu)--------- 60,000 dead in US

1968-1969 (Hong Kong Flu)--- 40,000 dead in US

[Patiod]

14. Avian flu may be load of crap, but aren't we due for a pandemic?

Everything I've read (like Gina Colada's book on the 1918 pandemic) indicates that these things sweep the globe every so often, whether we like it or not.

Not that this is "it", but it's not as if it's an impossibility.

(I should note that I used to work for a company that tracked the spread of influenza each year, so this was a regular topic of lunchroom conversation for years. Because of this background, I've been more attuned to any kind of flu news compared to normal people.)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

17. every 25-35 years, a wave comes through

yes, we are due for one.

[Ready4Change]

19. Thanks to all who responded.

The information available here is wonderful.

Thanks for the correction on antibacterials not being directly effective against viral diseases. Also thanks for the info on how antibacterials still help in an indirect, but often effective, way.

Question: Was there a large body of researchers into things like what penicillin became before 1928? Or did the discovery of penicillin and it's effectiveness open that line of research up?

[kohodog]

4. Now it was 100 Million according to one news show this am

Booga booga. Time to be really afraid. Go into a closet and suck eggs. Turn off the news. You don't want to hear the indictments.

[Oversea Visitor]

11. Grrr

is someone trying to cover their track? :puke:

[ThomWV]

18. Jesus Christ, Anyone Else Got Any BoogieMen They Want To Bring Out

This place is beginning to sound as bad as NPR when it comes to sounding off about threats that do not exist.