Survivors of 1918 Flu Pandemic Immune 90 Years Later

USNWR ^ | August 17, 2008 | Steven Reinberg

[null and void]

As I recall, there is a village in England where researchers found everyone whose ancestors survived the Black Death carry antibodies to the plague (or something like that).

Not sure either, but what I recall was that their cells lack a surface protein the plague bacillus uses to attach to the cell prior to infecting it.

[blam]

1918 flu antibodies resurrected from elderly survivors

[BradyLS]

I don’t know how they survive the digestive tract but I believe babies under two months of age acquire their mothers’ immunities. Whether they stay immune is another question and I am not a medical expert on it.

Thanks for the reply. I had heard similar things, but am fuzzy on the science, too

[wildbill]

I read in a book on the Middle Ages that there is documentary evidence that certain communities or areas, notably one in middle Europe (Austria/Serbia?) and a couple in England, were spared the ravages of the Black Death although towns all around them were susceptible.

Presumably these interbred communities had developed some sort of antibody that protected them.

[tang-soo]

For the last month, there has been a very ominous commercial running very frequently here in Columbus, Ohio. During commercial breaks, it's not uncommon to be flipping thru the channels and see it on more than one station at a time. It uses very stark photography (black and white) to talk about the outbreak in 1918, with the concluding stern statement, "it will happen again!" with the caption 20??. It then displays a webs site www.OhioPandemicFlu.gov. I imagine it has really frightened young children. As a matter of fact, I just found it on youtube here.

I'm curious if others have seen similar "warnings" around the country.

[blam]

Pandemic Potential Of H9N2 Avian Influenza Viruses

[fightinJAG]

I read a recent article (maybe I can find the link) that showed that those who were descended from survivors of the Black Plague still had notable immune protection.

[fightinJAG]

I wonder about children born in 1918 or early 1919. If they were born healthy, to healthy parents, seems to me the chances that they were naturally immunized for this flu would be pretty high.

[hunter112]

Seems to me, that if you can survive to the 90’s, or to 100, then you have a pretty strong immune system, anyway. Those who had stopped producing antibodies probably lost the ability to protect themselves from other diseases as well, and aren’t here to test.

[fightinJAG]

I do think that needs to be considered.

In my lifetime, at one time cancer was a word that literally was not spoken. It was a “death sentence” and the medical and popular approach was to do anything-—ANYTHING-—to slash and burn it away, no matter how much that might harm the healthy part of the body.

Today we have become a little more sanguine about treating cancer as a chronic disease. One that, depending on the circumstances, need not necessarily be eradicated at great risk, but rather managed and contained.

That’s a helpful change in mindset, I think.

I realize cancer is a very, very complex disease with literally thousands of variations. Still, it rather stuns me when I think that relatively little progress has been made toward “curing” cancer.

I think this may be precisely because the mindset has been to find a “cure,” rather than to find multiple strategies to *manage* cancer. For many people, this may provide as much or more survival time, and it certainly could increase the quality of that survival time.

I’ve been reading recently about the controversy within the prostate cancer field. One professional group is now saying that, particularly because there are so many false positives in prostate cancer screening, and because most cancers can be managed pretty well once found, that they want to change screening criteria to include only men 70 and older.

[fightinJAG]

What is the point of that. Ugh.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

I often wonder if these instances we hear of of people getting diagnosed with cancers at young-ish ages isn't something new at all but something that always happened and without the technology and screening processes we just never knew that people often had and lived long periods of time with these slower growing cancers,

Exactly. There are too many questions. I refuse to do cancer screenings because that would mean I would have to agree to the treatments doctors would want to do to me. The day they being treating me is the day my general health goes down hill and may be the beginning of the end of quality of life.

My grandmother did not treat her breast cancer at all and lived seven years after she told her family about the lump in her breast which probably indicates she had this for many years.

[Publius Valerius]

I wonder if that immunity can be passed on from parents who were adults in 1918, I’m 71 and have never had the flu.

Each flu strain is different. The 1918 flu is different than the swine flu which is different from the Asian flu which is different from the bird flu. Thus, an immunity to one strain of flu might provide some sort of immunity to different types of flu, it does not guarantee an immunity to all types of flu.

If you've never had the flu, you're just a lucky guy.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

1918 flu strain was a subtype of avian strain H1N1, in other words.... bird flu.

[zeugma]

I am immune to Scorpion stings.

Well now. That is an immunity I'd hate to test for. :-)

[Publius Valerius]

At least in today’s world, bird flu typically refers to H5N1.

[gorush]

The 1918 version was, indeed, H1N1. I recently finished “The Great Influenza” by John M. Berry, about that very pandemic. Little mutations occur all the time, every now and then a particularly virulent one comes along. The book was very informative and eye-opening.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Avian flu type H5N1 is the currently "scary" strain, but:

Humans can be infected with influenza types A, B, and C viruses. Subtypes of influenza A that are currently circulating among people worldwide include H1N1, H1N2, and H3N2 viruses.

Wild birds are the natural host for all known subtypes of influenza A viruses of which both H1N1 and H5N1 are strains. Typically, wild birds do not become sick when they are infected with avian influenza A viruses. However, domestic poultry, such as turkeys and chickens, can become very sick and die from avian influenza, and some avian influenza A viruses also can cause serious disease and death in wild birds.

 

 

[zot]

I wonder if some percentage of their children have the ability to make antibodies to that virus.