Aging Begins at 30

Unsung Heroes

Ian Maclean Smith, M.D.
Emeritus Professor
Department of Internal Medicine
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
Creation Date: March 2002
Last Revision Date: March 2002
Peer Review Status: Internally Peer Reviewed

James, a laboratory technician aged 52, had a sore throat, fever and headache on December 25^th and a rash made up of tiny scattered bleeding spots under the skin. He died that day. He had processed a patient's bacterial culture without a safety hood. Fingerprinting again showed the organism to be identical to the patient's that he had worked on recently.

Enquiries were made by an e-mail search of members of a professional society regarding similar cases seen recently in laboratory workers. Fifteen were found, and the death rate was 50% in laboratory workers infected at work. The usual time between specimen handling and the onset of illness was four days.

Paul de Kruif fictionalized such tragedies in his books "The Microbe Hunters" in 1926 and "Men Against Death" in 1933. Christopher Collins, in a book called "Laboratory-Acquired Infections: History, Incidence, Causes and Prevention," spelled out the true happenings. Dr. Collins was consultant to the World Health Organization in Geneva on Safety Measures in Microbiology Programs. As he put it, "All new frontiers impose hazards and stresses on health and safety in those who cross them and explore what is beyond." He became especially interested in the late 1950s when protective hoods were introduced. I remember working without one and later with a homemade one.

Investigators who worked on cholera, typhus, yellow fever, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever sometimes died of the diseases they were working on. Some did not die but were the first well-studied cases of Newcastle disease, Marburg virus, simian B virus infections or Lassa and Ebola fevers.

In summary there were 4,079 laboratory-acquired infections reported between 1930 to 1980 and 108 deaths (4%). These involved 37 different strains of bacteria, 90 types of viruses and 28 other families of organisms. The "top ten" were brucellosis (undulant fever), Q fever, typhoid, hepatitis, tularemia, tuberculosis, fungal skin infections, encephalitis, parrot fever (psittacosis), and fungal meningitis (coccidioidomycosis or valley fever).

Some accidents are perhaps avoidable, but the importance of prevention cannot be underestimated. They say "familiarity breeds contempt." It is very necessary to respect every rule for safety when dealing with deadly infections.

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See related Patient Topics Laboratory Tests or Procedures and Therapies.

See related Provider Topics Laboratory Tests or Procedures and Therapies.

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