The Laptev Virus

“No, her behavior was atrocious. Eventually, of course, she succumbed to the infection too, but I think they had to put her in jail to restrain her.”

“Wow. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I mean, what people will say about us a hundred years from now when they look back at the things we’re doing?”

Sarah looked down at her desk. It was a sobering topic for her. “Hopefully there will still be people a hundred years from now,” she said, her voice tight. “If we keep wrecking our planet the way we are…” She did not complete her sentence. Thinking about the climate crisis and pollution always filled her with dread.

“Hey,” said her husband more gently. He could always read her feelings, even over the phone. “Hey, it’s going to be fine. We humans are resilient. We’ll figure it out.”

Sarah took a deep breath. Now was not the time to allow herself to become frightened about the future of humanity.

“Plus,” said John, obviously intent on changing the subject, “we just solved this mystery, didn’t we? We now know that Opus was our Typhoid Mary. And actually, it makes sense. When I got here this morning I did a thorough search of the vivarium records and I found that the group of mice that is not behaving spent some time in room C12 a few weeks ago. So, we’re all good, right?”

Sarah smiled and felt a bit better. Even strong people sometimes succumbed to their fears, she knew. But her sanguine husband was right. There was still room for optimism in this world. “We’re all good. Thanks, honey.”

CHAPTER 23

“Wow,” said Shane, “can you imagine what an effective weapon it would be?”

The entire research team, along with Rhonda and Angela, were seated in the conference room and had just begun discussing the findings from the last few days. The discovery that the mice were infected with another organism prior to commencing the study had been a tremendous disappointment, but when they later found out that this infection actually protected the mice from Laptev hemorrhagic fever virus, everyone had been surprised. Further studies had been designed and several had been completed. The results were now being reviewed.

“Weapon?” asked Tally, narrowing her eyes.

“For fighting the virus, hello! If everyone who has a Toxoplasmosis infection is protected, then that solves that problem in record time,” Shane said and snapped his fingers. “All we have to do is develop a vaccine with the live infection, and presto! And, oh, here’s a great idea: what if it turned out that Toxo protected us from other major pathogens as well? Wouldn’t that be amazing? This could usher in a whole new era for disease control! All of our concerns about finding new antibiotics or worrying about the toxic effects of drugs that we now use might one day be null and void. It would be a whole new world, a complete revolution in medicine.”

“Whoa, hold on here a moment. You can’t really be serious!” said Drew.

“Why not? Think about it: if having this infection protects you from terribly dangerous viruses and possibly other pathogens…”

Sarah’s jaw tightened. “Wait. Just stop a minute here, Shane, you are definitely going too far. Do you realize the implications of doing something like that? I mean, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that we should consider infecting humans who are not ill with this known pathogen in case they come in contact with Laptev HFV?”

Shane hesitated. “Well, maybe not everyone, but just the ones who want to work in the Arctic.”

Angela nodded and scribbled furiously.

“Hang on!” said Rhonda, joining in the fray. “What you are suggesting would be wholly unorthodox, unethical and I seriously doubt the FDA would approve anything like this without tons of clinical studies. Do I need to remind you that Toxoplasmosis is a known harmful pathogen? It’s a teratogen. It can cause terrible birth defects in human fetuses. We couldn’t possibly ask people to receive live vaccines with Toxoplasmosis and take that risk.”

Sarah nodded. “Rhonda is right. Even if we were sure that an infection of Toxoplasmosis would have the exact same effect in humans as it does in mice, which, by the way, is a huge leap, it would take years of studies to be sure that it was safe. Years. Plus there’s the fact that it’s entirely possible that it doesn’t behave the same way in humans at all.”

“But don’t you see? We are sure that it behaves the same way. Angela said that all of the survivors of Laptevgate had Toxo. Max, that bear hazer guy, he had a whopping infection. That’s what the results showed,” said Shane.

Angela nodded her head vigorously. “He’s right.”

“See? So I don’t understand why everyone is so bent out of shape. There are already millions, or I should say, billions of humans infected with Toxoplasmosis. I was reading that it’s probably somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of the population of the world that have this infection now,” declared Shane, crossing his arms.