Lab Rats & Hens

Three worldwide (pandemic) outbreaks of influenza occurred in the 20th century: in 1918, 1957, and 1968. All three were informally identified by their presumed sites of origin as Spanish, Asian, and Hong Kong influenza. The 1918 flu pandemic killed a startling 40 to 50 million people around the world.

In 1976 came the Swine flu. With concern for a pandemic, vaccines were widely distributed. Twenty-five people died of the malady, but hundreds died from the vaccine. After reports that the vaccine was touching off neurological problems, the government suspended the program, having inoculated 40 million people for a flu that never came. It was an incident that fueled public distrust for medical alerts.

In order for hospital labs treating certain diseases to watch their quality control, there were biochemicals and actual cultures of the bugs kept in inventory. Watching over the order requests took a global effort of cooperation. A young lieutenant assigned to Lora’s team made a shocking discovery. Someone was ordering an abundance of botulin toxin, anthrax, and cholera. It wasn’t going to Iraq – it was shipped to different places in Japan.

To confirm the finding, Lora’s team worked overtime for two months. After corroboration, they sent the alarming information through the chain of intelligence and co-ops. With the overload of work coming from the Gulf War, Lora forgot about indulging her curiosity by tracking the results.

Intelligence agencies hunted the acquisition of the bio-hazardous bugs to members of a cult calling themselves the Aum Shinrikyo. The cult laboratory for toxin production was operational, but by the time Japanese officials located and stormed the warehouse, it had been abandoned. The more disturbing news was that the hazardous materials were never recovered.

There were many discussions between Lora, her boss, Dr. Peterson, and the depleted military Bio-Terror task forces. Peterson’s sober warning of resurgence included a caution – “The renewal of Aum Shinrikyo’s genocidal efforts may manifest as a small attack, a trial, using a remote location, and a small amount of either toxin, or biological agent.”

He went on, “Vigilance - watching for increased occurrences of unusual illnesses in a singular location, or several simultaneous locations, may provide the only warning we will have before the global event.”

In less than two months, “Desert Storm” ended. There were some 148 battle deaths and 347 non-battle deaths of U.S. service members. Later, the diagnosis for “Gulf War Syndrome” was coined. It was considered an anomaly attributed more to psychological disorders, than a physical cause. The symptoms were varied and vague, covering everything from migraines, chronic fatigue, and intestinal problems to neurological deficits and poor muscular coordination. Congressional pressure increased efforts to determine the cause of the syndrome.

Intelligence had gotten better at chemical detection, and they recovered some 6,000 155-mm mustard rounds and several hundred 122-mm sarin/cyclo-sarin nerve-agent-filled rockets at a single depot in Iraq.

Lora could see the similarities in chemical footprints from Grenada. Her team worked with others to determine if there were Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) combinations, as well as any biological toxins or organisms that would cause such varied, low-grade symptoms in the veterans.

She was intrigued by descriptions entered on several patient charts. Skin infections were reported that started as small, raised bumps, like an insect bite. Within a day or two, the bumps developed into fluid-filled blisters with a black center of dying tissue, surrounded by redness and swelling.

That isn’t a blister agent, Lora thought. At first she considered bubonic plague-type agent, but there was only one or two of the buboes ever found on a single patient. It looked like the physical trademark of another unusual, but familiar disease...Anthrax.

Lora read more specifics on the military use and trials of the vaccine. It was reported to be particularly painful when administered, and often caused a severe local skin reaction that lasted for weeks. Although it was FDA approved, it never went through the large scale clinical trials, in comparison to most all other vaccines in the United States.

She shared her findings with the team, and sent the report to Dr. Hammond, at USAMRIID. It was an unpopular discovery that stayed buried for almost two years, until more Congressional pressure brought it to light.

In a routine screen of the many artifacts brought back from the conflict, Lora was fascinated by an intact piece of pottery. After it was cleared of contaminants, she wanted to get permission to send it to a museum for dating. The hieroglyphs were very old...too old for the urn to be in such good condition. Either it was a fake, or it had been well-preserved in a controlled environment.

It was also possible that it was a recent unearthing. Bomb craters revealed some interesting things. It had to be processed with care. The U.S. had an obligation to declare it, and return the find to its rightful nation.

Under special hoods and protective gear, Lora did the test collection and swabbing of the urn herself. She marked the chain-of-custody forms, and took photographs. There was a small amount of fluid in the jug, and she extracted off a portion for analysis. Lora would never know that the precautions she’d taken to protect the ancient vessel, had worked to protect her.

It was another week before she returned to Florida. In her office, she read intelligence report updates. A small article caught her eye. “Death and Ruin in Halabja”. She scanned through it, and then read it again. With foreboding, Lora dashed down to the technology department, and requested everything the analysts could find on their computers about the event. She went to see her boss.

Dr. Jack Peterson was at his desk, peering at a chart of tiny characters under lighted magnification.

“You’ll go blind.” Lora smiled.

“Lora, how are you?”

“What on earth is that?” Lora asked about the chart.

“We have some new codes found on canisters. Some are for classifications of real ugly bugs.” He pointed to the chart. “We found this symbol on a canister at the Port of Tampa.”

Lora couldn’t hold back her smile, “It looks...uh, phallic?”

“Like a dong?”

“Let me guess,” Lora put a finger on her chin, “a sexually transmitted disease?”

“Nope – not an STD, but a supposed cure for one. Dong Quai is a ginseng root.”

Rolling her eyes, Lora found little humor in the illegal and charlatan cures making their way into the country. Some of those shipments were coming into Tampa.

Peterson grinned, “I’m sure you didn’t wander in to discuss dongs.”

“Uh...no.” Lora pulled out the section of the intelligence reports. “Did you hear anything about the massacre over in Halabja?”

“Where’s that?” Peterson asked, and read the article.

“Somewhere in Iraq, south of Turkey.”

When he’d finished reading, Peterson’s head snapped up. “What the hell? When did....” he looked at the dates in the article. “1988! Why didn’t we get immediate notification? This happened almost three years ago!”

“That’s why I came here, to see if you knew anything.” Lora shook her head, “My guess – it’s between jurisdictions. That region would be covered by World Health and the UN.”

Peterson scanned the article again. “From this, it looks like thousands died.”

Lora nodded agreement. “Maybe because it was chemical, instead of biological – we weren’t notified?”

“No!” Peterson roared. “This is one of the sentinel events we’re supposed to know about – we should have been notified!”

“I’ll make some phone calls.” Lora made a fast exit.

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