Officials seek cause of three sudden and unexplained deaths in Longview, Texas area

The Longview News-Journal ^ | 12/8/2002 | Patricia A. Bostic

[ex-Texan]

Breaking news because this is breaking news in Longview, Texas .... Wonder if there should be an al Qaeda alert?

Three healthy women die within 16 to 40 hours of getting sick with a flu-like virus. Strange, very strange.

[crypt2k]

Where is the CDC?

[JRandomFreeper]

Self ping to follow this story.

[FreedomCalls]

Where is the CDC?

Busy trying to define gun violence as a "disease."

I'm serious, while this kind of virulent disease goes uninvestigated, they are wasting their time on politically motivated (liberal left-wing politics at that)stuff like this.

[blam]

Hanta--West nile Virus?

[JZoback]

Wonder if there should be an al Qaeda alert?

I don't want to make light of three people dying, but why on earth would the government post an Al Qaeda warning?

What would you do if they did?

This could be several things, least of all a terrorist attack.

[Domestic Church]

My oldest came down with the nasty tummy virus her younger sibs had(their temps went to 102) one morning during the last week of October and she developed pneumonia rapidly within hours. By suppertime she was fighting for her life at one of the best kids hospitals with a severe attack of asthma on top of the pneumonia, she never had asthma before this and the virus triggered it. If I hadn't taken her as soon as I did she probably would have died too and she turned that green/grey in the ER. It's not just in Texas.

[Lorraine]

I really feel for these families. My best friend died suddenly like this 9 years ago and we never did find out what illness she had. She was only 29 and healthy. She just suddenly got very ill, went to the hospital and died within two days. There were all different types of specialists and infectious disease doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with her. After she died, her parents even paid to have an expert come down from New York to do a second autopsy. They never did figure out what illness she had and it has made it even harder for everyone to accept. I was told then that it happens more often than you would think.

[Domestic Church]

Also my daughter didn't have the fever by the time we got to the ER...her body temp was dropping too.

[Lorraine]

I should mention that my friend's symptoms were not the same as these three women.

[Palladin]

This sounds like the flu epidemic of 1917-1918. Healthy people were dropping like flies. In letters to my father, who was a soldier in France at the time, his mother writes, worriedly inquiring about his health. "You cannot believe this flu, Jim. People in the neighborhood are dying every day. The crepe (funeral wreath decoration) is on five houses on this block alone." This was in Brooklyn, New York, in the winter of 1918.

[Endeavor]

I'd be interested in following this so if you are able to find new information, could you ping me?

It's a bit early to shout Al Qaeda, but these are unusual deaths.

[concentric circles]

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30333
(404) 639-3311

Public Inquiries
(404) 639-3534
(800) 311-3435

[docmcb]

I was born and raised in Longview (LHS class of 1964) and my dad still lives there, at 82. MOST disturbing.

[Fellow Traveler]

Very scary, I have an aunt and a grandmother who live in Longview, and another aunt who lives in Gilmer. I was just down there deer hunting. I am not a huge fan of Good Sheppard hospital. Frankly they seem to misdiagnos many diseases. Although in these cases it sounds like nothing could be done.

[gulfcoastgumbo]

It looks like during this time period there was a big outbreak of the flu that closed the schools in this area.
http://www.msnbc.com/local/KETK/M251602.asp

[JRandomFreeper]

I've got friends with family there myself. I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, but I have been studying food-borne illnesses at culinary school. I'm thinking it may be a toxin mediated infection.

Which one? I don't know.

I would suspect that they are looking for (in order of what I think they might be) E-coli 0157:H7 or a variant; clostridium perfringens; or bacillus cereus.

Prayers for the families.

/john

[FreedomCalls]

Influenza Pneumonia - 1918

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 killed 600,000 people in the United States and more than 25 million people worldwide.

It was called the "Spanish Influenza" because of a large outbreak of the disease that occurred in Spain in May and June of 1918. The influenza may, however, have originated in March 1918 among U.S. soldiers in Kansas; about 500 men there were infected, among whom 48 were listed as having died of "pneumonia". Those who survived the illness may have carried the disease to Europe, where in the summer and fall of 1918 over one and one-half million U.S. soldiers were sent to fight in World War One.

Whatever its origin, by September 1918 the influenza had spread to the civilian population of America. It first reached epidemic size in Boston, and then spread to New York, Philadelphia and beyond, following the railroad lines. 12,000 people died of the influenza in America in September 1918, and a further 195,000 died in October. In fact, the highest death rate in U.S. history occurred in the month of October 1918; the rate was 5 dead for every 100 of the population, or 5 percent.

In America, the City of Philadelphia had the most deaths: out of a population of almost 2 million, almost 13,000 people died in the influenza epidemic. Over 11,000 of those deaths occurred in October 1918.

In July 1918 Philadelphia's Bureau of Public Health had issued a bulletin about the "Spanish Influenza". But health officials had not listed influenza as a reportable disease, and this denial of the danger of what was happening had encouraged people to take foolish risks. So it was that on 28 September 1918 a "4th Liberty Loan Drive" parade in Philadelphia was attended by 200,000 people. Since influenza is a respiratory illness spread by breathing, within days of the parade 635 new cases of influenza were reported; and on 6 October, 289 people died. Then city officials had to recognize that an epidemic was occurring, and they ordered all public gathering places, including churches, schools and theaters, closed. Despite these precautions, by mid-October hundreds of thousands of people were infected, and by the third week of October 1918, over 4,500 were dead. Since a large proportion of the city's doctors and nurses were in Europe to support U.S. involvement in the war there, many people in Philadelphia may have died because they did not get proper medical attention. And yet, although in October open trucks (death carts) were sent out to collect the corpses from wooden boxes on front porches (and abandoned corpses from gutters), by early November life began to return to normal. The end of the epidemic was celebrated along with the European Armistice on 11 November 1918.

The influenza had affected all the armies in the European War. In some American units, the influenza killed 80 percent of the soldiers. But when the U.S. Army general in Europe said that he wanted more men, the President sent them, even though that meant jamming soldiers onto troop ships where they would breathe on one another and transmit the disease. In September 1918, a further 13 million men across America were crowded into schools, city halls and post offices, when they were called together to register for the draft.

In the midst of the epidemic the acting Surgeon General of the Army noted the unusual character of this epidemic: whereas influenza normally was a mild disease that killed only the very young and the very old, this influenza was most dangerous to people 21 to 29 years of age. This influenza took the strong and spared the weak.

[Palladin]

Good article. Here's another:

http://www.haverford.edu/biology/edwards/disease/viral_essays/redicanvirus.htmr

[Palladin]

There's also a good movie about the 1918 flu epidemic:

1918 (1985)

Synopsis: The effects of the "Spanish Influenza" epidemic on a small Texas town in 1918.


Statistics

Genre(s):
Adaptation
Drama
Sequel
Rating: Not available
Runtime: 91 mins.

Distributor(s):
CBS Video
Cinecom International Films
Theatrical Release:
04/26/1985
Video Release: Not available
Locations

Not available




Cast & Role

William Converse-Roberts Horace Robedaux
Hallie Foote- Elizabeth Robedaux
Rochelle Oliver- Mrs Vaughn
Matthew Broderick- Brother
Jeanne McCarthy- Bessie
Bill McGhee- Sam
L T Felty- Mr. Thatcher
Horton Foote, Jr.- Jessie

Crew & Credit

Ken Harrison -Director
Lillian V Foote -Producer
Ross Milloy -Producer
Dennis Bishop -Assistant Director
Lewis M Allen- Executive Producer