Mice Infected With Deadly Plague Missing From Newark Lab (NJ)

WNBC Television ^ | 9/15/2005 | Puppage

[Puppage]

NEWARK, N.J. -- Authorities are searching for three mice infected with bubonic plague that disappeared from a research laboratory about two weeks ago.

While health experts say the risk to the public is slim to none, the incident highlights ongoing security failures at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

The mice went missing from the lab of the Public Health Research Institute, which is located on the UMDNJ campus and conducts bioterrorism research for the federal government.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI are investigating, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported in Thursday's newspapers. The rodents may have been eaten by other laboratory animals, although the possibility that they have been stolen has prompted the institute to interrogate two dozen of its employees and conduct some lie detector tests, the newspaper said.

UMDNJ did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday morning.

If the mice got outside the lab, New Jersey Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs said they would have already died from the disease.

Federal official said the mice may never be accounted for.

[LongElegantLegs]

Well isn't that just peachy...

[AntiGuv]

The rodents may have been eaten by other laboratory animals...

This one has my vote.

[flashbunny]

So are they worried about the mice getting sick from roaming free in new jersey?

[clee1]

Just damn!

Anthrax attack, part 2?

[HereInTheHeartland]

I thought that bubonic plaque isn't that rare in the wild.
Easily treated with antibiotics.

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

I heard it this morning on the radio, as I was driving in the direction of Newark.

Typical of NJ

[Puppage]

So are they worried about the mice getting sick from roaming free in new jersey?

LOL. You'd think so,wouldn't you?

[varyouga]

Maybe one of those animal-liberation-wacko groups broke in and stole the mice. It would be kinda funny if they all got bitten.

[July 4th]

You are correct.

[strategofr]

"While health experts say the risk to the public is slim to none, the incident highlights ongoing security failures at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey."

I'd like to hear the explanation for this "slim to none" risk assessment. It seems to me that someone who steals mice that have bubonic plague might be perfectly capable of keeping the plague organisms alive after the mice have died. Nor, when I conduct my personal risk assessment, am I optimistic about these hypothetical people's motives. My solution: terminate bioterrorism research in New Jersey.

[COBOL2Java]

Infection/transportation

Bubonic plague is primarily a disease of rodents, particularly marmots (in which the most virulent strains of plague are primarily found), but also black rats, prairie dogs, chipmunks, squirrels and other similar large rodents. Human infection most often occurs when a person is bitten by a rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopsis) that has fed on an infected rodent. The bacillus multiplies in the stomach of the flea, blocking it. When the flea next bites a mammal, blood consumed by the flea is regurgitated along with the bacillus into the bloodstream of the bitten animal. Any serious outbreak of plague is started by other disease outbreaks in the rodent population. During these outbreaks, infected fleas that have lost their normal hosts seek other sources of blood.

In 1894, bacteriologists Alexandre Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato independently isolated the responsible bacterium and Yersin further determined that rodents were the likely common mode of transmission. The disease is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

Symptoms and treatment

The disease becomes evident 2–7 days after infection. Initial symptoms are chills, fever, headaches, and the formation of buboes. The buboes are formed by the infection of the lymph nodes, which swell and become prominent. If unchecked, the bacteria infects the bloodstream (septicemic plague), which can progress to the lungs (pneumonic plague).

In septicemic plague there is bleeding into the skin and other organs, which creates black patches on the skin, hence the name Black Death. Untreated septicemic plague is universally fatal, but early treatment with antibiotics (usually streptomycin or gentamicin) is effective, reducing the mortality rate to around 15% (USA 1980s). People who die from this form of plague often die on the same day symptoms first appear.

With pneumonic plague infecting lungs comes the possibility of person-to-person transmission through respiratory droplets. The incubation period for pneumonic plague is usually between two and four days, but can be as little as a few hours. The initial symptoms of headache, weakness, and coughing with hemoptysis are indistinguishable from other respiratory illnesses. Without diagnosis and treatment, the infection can be fatal in one to six days; mortality in untreated cases may be as high as 95%. The disease can be effectively treated with antibiotics.

[mortal19440]

So they might have died in the wilds of NJ, but how many other critters did they infect before they died? It's probably George Bush and his gang that caused the mice to break free.

[ElkGroveDan]

[Mrs. Shawnlaw]

Rove!?

This is just too funny! Wasn't there some vials of deadly illness that got mailed out by accident or something a couple months ago? I thought that was hysterical too!

Time to open up the veterinary catalog and order more meds.

[ElkGroveDan]

I thought that bubonic plaque isn't that rare in the wild. Easily treated with antibiotics.

...and people of European descent have a resistance to the more fatal strains.

[tumblindice]

3 blind mice?

[cgk]

I wonder if I'd still like that book now as a parent. I loved it as a child.

[Cagey]

....as I was driving in the direction of Newark.

I won't ask. LOL

[Petronski]

Someone should check Richard Gere's butthole.


Not me!