Yesterday, I was trapped in a convention center in the middle of ski-resort-land attending seminars. Okay, so maybe I wasn't "trapped" per se as I got to listen to a lot of cool, cutting edge research on molecular pathogenesis (a.k.a. studies about organisms that cause human disease). One interesting talk centered on the weird form of pink eye that I mentioned last year. This form of conjunctivitis was not your run-of-the-mill itchy eye, nope, this was caused by the rather uncommon Streptococcus pneumoniae which is more serious (take my word for it, very gross pictures were shown of the disease during the talk which was conveniently timed right before lunch).
I found it curious that despite its mini-outbreak proportions, the majority of people infected were only undergraduate students. An extremely small percentage of graduate students were infected. Health care workers, maintenance crew, administrators, staff, and others did not get infected. One possible reason that was postulated was undergraduate living habits such as not cleaning contact lenses and sharing glasses. Not surprisingly, people living in a fraternity or sorority were more likely to contract the disease than others.
What was interesting was the sequencing analysis. Students had contracted either one of two strains, one from California and one from New York. Both of these strains had caused outbreaks many years ago in those respective states but then had all but disappeared. Last year's outbreak also eventually petered out (partly due to antibiotics) even when the students went home to various parts in the country for spring break. However, a few months ago, these two strains appeared again in another outbreak in the middle of Maine. So the question is, where are these strains coming from? How is it spread, and why is it flaring up in isolated areas? Where is it residing when it isn't causing any disease?
However odd the epidemiology for conjunctivitis is, there are more interesting and deadly diseases. Particularly diseases used as biological weapons. I had the fortune of listening to a professor recounting stories he had heard from associates who had first hand experience. He once had a Russian colleague who had worked at a secret research installation in Siberia during the Cold War. Most people believe that the remaining strains of smallpox were under high security at Atlanta's CDC and in Moscow. However, the strains in Moscow had been secretely moved to the laboratory in Siberia where scientists were working on possible uses for smallpox under the government-fed delusion that the other side was also working on the same thing. In order to cover-up the smallpox immunizations of the communities around the laboratory (in case there was an accident), people were vaccinated via a shot in the rear instead of the arm in the belief that no one would look there.
In another case, this time around the era of the rise of Castro and the Bay of Pigs, the United States government decided to use biological weapons to help take over Cuba. They would use one of three diseases depending on the amount of time they needed. One would act in a few days. The second could act for two or three weeks. And the third could act for a month or more. However, none of these diseases would be lethal, just bad enough to make the victim to wish that he were dead instead. With the populace immobile that way, a country could easily be taken over by an outside force. Some minds might find this particular method more "humane" since no one is killed, but I certainly don't find it ethical. These diseases won't be a weapon in the gun sense, but they are definitely torture agents.
Another obvious example is anthrax. However, the professor had the interesting view that the previous anthrax scare (via snail mail) was less due to bioterrorism and more for a political statement by the as-yet-to-be apprehended party. He argued that if bioterrorism was intended, a much more efficient method should have been used; one milligram could be used to kill hundreds if not thousands of people. He used the example of an experiment which used monkeys. On a ship, cages of monkeys were left on deck outside. Other monkeys were located inside the ship with the doors sealed. One milligram of anthrax was sprayed outside which not surprisingly killed all the monkeys sitting outside on the deck. However, all the monkeys inside the ship were also killed.
To add salt to the wound, don't think that anyone is very prepared if a delibrate outbreak happened. I've heard of an emergency exercise in Colorado to check the preparedness of the community in case bioterrorism struck. In this example, the hypothetical disease used was the bubonic plague. The exercise, however, had to be stopped on the fourth day (it was intended to last for ten) because it was estimated that by that time, the plague would have reached China. A far cry from self-containment.
