Here, I'll lend you mine...
Posted on 02/28/2007 3:46:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
LONDON (Feb. 28) - Scientists want to exhume the body of a British diplomat who died of "Spanish flu" during a pandemic in 1919 in hopes of discovering clues to fight a possible future global outbreak sparked by H5N1 bird flu .
Sir Mark Sykes, best known for his work dismantling the Ottoman Empire, is believed to be buried in a lead-lined coffin, something which may have preserved enough human tissue to yield useful information on how he died, and the nature of the avian flu that killed him.
"We're after an intact body," said John Oxford, a professor of virology at Queen Mary's College, who has asked for permission to obtain the corpse. "Sometimes people who have been buried in lead are very well preserved. If we obtain that (the body), then we can ask a lot of important questions about the way that Sir Mark died."
Understanding more about the Spanish flu might help scientists design better treatments for H5N1. Victims of the Spanish flu frequently experienced an overly aggressive immune response, which began to attack their own bodies. The same phenomenon has been seen in human H5N1 cases.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.aol.com ...
If they start messing with that strain of flu I pray to God they are careful!
My BS meter is in the shop.
Weren't there some frozen bodies buried in Greenland or some arctic location where they were going to try this a few years ago?
And the finding is ... not flu of any kind. Apparently the man died of lead poisoning. Lead content of his remains was astronomical. Scientists baffled.
There was an oubreak of smallpox in London in the 19th century after grave diggers disturbed soil near the graves of victims of a previous smallpox epidemic more than a hundred years previously. It was discovered that the immunity from vaccination against smallpox is not life long.
...in Alaska, I believe.
Everyone I know has been really sick in the past month. If this were 1918 it would be a PANDEMIC! Thousands would be dead.
Today we do not pack millions onto filthy troop ships. We have indoor plumbing. The streets are not ankle deep in horse manure. Doctors wash their hands and their offices are spotless. Voila! No pandemic!
Well, that's the kind of work for a high-level biolab- something like level 4 that CDC and a handful of other places have. Or maybe level 3.
I wonder if Sykes knew that, long after he was buried, the Church of England could authorize his remains to be dug up and used "scientifically".
What authority is required here?
... but it's for the good of all mankind you know.
He's not dead, he's just resting!
Pinin', 'e is.
This bird flu epidemic just can't get off the ground.
Maybe its the dodo bird flu ?
Nice job on that Sir Mark. Thanks a million.
They've already recreated it in the lab and are testing it on animals. I posted an article about it recently.
I remember my grandparents talking about the 1918 Spanish flu, how everyone had been terrified of it, and how quarantine notices were pasted over peoples' doorways.
Here, I'll lend you mine...
Thanks ;)
Sykes may have died young, but he didn't exactly have a quiet life. Quite a guy, in fact. See the following for more detail on his eventful history, and also fascinating insights (if you have a taste for that sort of thing) into the minutiae of English ecclesistical law, which were required to clear the exhunation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,2022981,00.html
At least in this country the rule is that permission to exhume a body in a non-criminal case is dependent on the living relatives, no matter how much time has elapsed. Perhaps Sir Mark's relatives would have liked to be approached first before they read about this in the newspaper.
They were. See article referred to in post 21, which gives a blow-by-blow account of the civil and ecclesiastical processes required before an exhumation can be authorised.
Interesting guy.
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