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Researcher believed killed by lab bacteria (Mega Bug Alert)
Reuters ^ | 5/3/2012 | Ronnie Cohen

Posted on 05/11/2012 11:54:34 AM PDT by mojito

A young research associate killed by a highly virulent strain of meningococcal disease is believed to have contracted the bacteria from the San Francisco lab where he was working on a vaccine against it, public health officials said on Thursday.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts are seeking to confirm what they already suspect: that Richard Din, 25, died Saturday in an unusual case of a scientist being fatally infected with an agent from his own laboratory.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; Extended News; Front Page News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: richarddin
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Just in case you didn't have enough to worry about.
1 posted on 05/11/2012 11:54:37 AM PDT by mojito
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To: mojito

Sounds like a 60s Late Show (black&white) scenario — the intrepid researcher working on a vaccine tests it on himself.. (Except in the movie version, the scientist survives, and gets the girl - cue theramin ‘music’ and credits...)

Seriously, though - if this bug is ‘highly virulent’, then how long was he out in public before succumbing?? Was he a good little sheeple and take the bus to work??

This one is definitely on my Watch List....


2 posted on 05/11/2012 12:03:46 PM PDT by Uncle Ike (Rope is cheap, and there are lots of trees...)
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To: mojito

Did he know something about the Breitbart killing?


3 posted on 05/11/2012 12:04:34 PM PDT by crosshairs
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To: mojito

A little GLP would have gone a long way.


4 posted on 05/11/2012 12:06:06 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Do I really need a sarcasm tag? Seriously? You're that dense?)
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To: mojito
dozens of people, including relatives, close friends, medical personnel who treated Din and some of his co-workers at the research department of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center were being given antibiotics as a precaution

But there's hundreds of others whom he came in contact with at the grocery store, the gas station, the library, the parking lot, the mall, the local Starbucks and McDonald's where he ate lunch, his neighbors, the post office, and all those they've been in contact with. Yeah, another worry out there.

5 posted on 05/11/2012 12:06:50 PM PDT by bgill
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To: Uncle Ike

Thu May 3, 2012 10:48pm EDT is the time of the report.
He died one day after becomming ill. Seems like we should have heard about more infections by a week later.


6 posted on 05/11/2012 12:11:37 PM PDT by Gadsden1st
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To: Gadsden1st

” Seems like we should have heard about more infections by a week later. “

Don’t know — the article only describes the time from diagnosis of gross, critial, symptoms until death..

It does not say -

1) when was he infected??

2) what is the gestation period of this bacterial strain in the host?? (this information is also not readily discernible from the Wikipedia article I skimmed just now..)

3) since meningococcal disease initially presents as flu-like symptoms, how long was he feeling mildly ill before going critical/septic and being diagnosed?? And 3a) how contagious is the disease during the mild-symptom phase?? (Wikipedia was also not forthcoming on this aspect..)

There are too many unknowns, especially in timeline and virulence, to justify the assumption that ‘we should have heard by now’....


7 posted on 05/11/2012 12:35:42 PM PDT by Uncle Ike (Rope is cheap, and there are lots of trees...)
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To: mojito

As a point of interest, the thread posted immediately after this one,

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2882669/posts

” Time magazine cover — forget the breast, what about the boy? “

has, at the time I’m typing this, 40 ‘reply’ posts, where this one, which has some pretty serious public health implications, has — six..

I despair for my fellow FReepers, sometimes....


8 posted on 05/11/2012 12:43:46 PM PDT by Uncle Ike (Rope is cheap, and there are lots of trees...)
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To: Uncle Ike

Maybe more FReepers feel qualified to comment on mammaries than on megabugs. One, we may handle every day, the other, not so much.


9 posted on 05/11/2012 1:14:46 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Kartographer

ping


10 posted on 05/11/2012 1:17:18 PM PDT by Uncle Ike (Rope is cheap, and there are lots of trees...)
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To: Uncle Ike

Oh, don’t despair - we are reading.

And it is not time to head for the bunker, yet.

Now, had he taken an airplane flight...that would be another story.


11 posted on 05/11/2012 1:22:38 PM PDT by patton (DateDiff)
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To: mojito

I always find it interesting that our “news organizations” are far too busy reporting on Romney’s high school escapades, and women who breastfeed their children until they are old enough to make their own peanut butter sandwiches, to bother with news such as this : |

Bread and Circuses.

Dear Lord, please guide our course out of this mess.
Tatt


12 posted on 05/11/2012 1:23:55 PM PDT by thesearethetimes... ("Courage, is fear that has said its prayers." Dorothy Bernard)
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To: mojito

The son of a neighbor had aspirations of going to work at the Centers for Disease Control. He studied hard and then went to college and got his degree in microbiology. He then applied to the CDC and got accepted. Six months after he left for his dream job, I was driving by and he was mowing the grass at his parents house. I stopped to say hello and he told me he was back home. When I asked him about his job at the CDC, his comment was that he didn’t know that it was that dangerous before he started work. Now he says, you can get killed with only a single mistake.
He now works for a pharmaceutical company.


13 posted on 05/11/2012 1:30:43 PM PDT by BuffaloJack (End Obama's War On Freedom.)
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To: Uncle Ike

They don’t know how people get it. It’s not something new nor a concern for most people. He must have been a young adult. It is generally a disease of teenagers and they do show up in clusters.


14 posted on 05/11/2012 1:32:44 PM PDT by MarMema (freedom for Amir)
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To: mojito
info here

It's not really cause for alarm. I have handled it and been exposed to it 3 or 4 times in my career and never gotten it.

15 posted on 05/11/2012 1:35:52 PM PDT by MarMema (freedom for Amir)
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To: Uncle Ike
Similar to this

Or this


16 posted on 05/11/2012 2:26:53 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: Uncle Ike

If ‘this’ was an incident to worry about, you would never have known about it.


17 posted on 05/11/2012 2:27:53 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: mojito

Probably was texting.


18 posted on 05/11/2012 8:43:18 PM PDT by Diggity
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To: mojito

The problem with “superbugs” is that the deadlier they are and the quicker they kill, the quicker the bug dies without getting transmitted. Organisms that can’t transmit/reproduce are an evolutionary dead end.


19 posted on 05/11/2012 9:00:19 PM PDT by denydenydeny (Admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt one has for others.-Tocqueville)
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To: Uncle Ike
Yea, but that Time cover had...uhm...some other stuff going on.

It's true. Sex sells, especially kinky sex.

Nasty diseases, not so much.

20 posted on 05/12/2012 9:17:18 AM PDT by mojito
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