Janet Parker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The east wing of Birmingham University Medical School
The east wing of Birmingham University Medical School

Janet Parker (1938–1978) was the last person to die from smallpox.[1] She was a Medical photographer and worked in the Anatomy department of Birmingham University. Parker died after being exposed to the smallpox virus which was grown in a research laboratory, on the floor below the Anatomy department.[2] The tragedy led to the suicide of Professor Henry Bedson, the Head of Microbiology department.[3] An official government enquiry into Parker's death was led by Professor R. A. Shooter, [4] whose report was debated in the British Parliament.[5] Government discussions on Shooter's report have recently been declassified. [6][7] Parker's death triggered radical changes in how dangerous pathogens are studied in the UK.[8][9] The University was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive for breaking Health and Safety laws.

Contents

[edit] Death

At the time of her death, Parker lived in Burford Park Road, Kings Norton, Birmingham, UK, and was employed at the University of Birmingham Medical School, Birmingham, England. She often worked in a darkroom above a laboratory where research on live smallpox virus was being conducted. On August 11, 1978, Parker, (who was vaccinated against smallpox in 1966) fell ill, complaining of a headache and muscular pains. She developed spots that were thought to be a rash. Ms Parker was admitted to East Birmingham (now Heartlands) Hospital on August 24 and diagnosed (by Professor Alasdair Geddes and Dr.Thomas Henry Flewett) as being infected with Variola major, the most lethal strain of smallpox. The next day, smallpox virus was confirmed by electron microscopy on fluid from her rash. Janet Parker was transferred to Catherine-de-Barnes, (then an isolation hospital) where she died of smallpox on September 11, 1978. Many people had close contact with Parker before she was admitted, but only her mother contracted the disease. Parker's mother survived, but her father, Frederick Witcomb, died aged 77 of a heart attack when visiting Parker in the hospital.

The rear of the building showing the location of the smallpox laboratory, (bottom) and the rooms were Parker worked (above)
The rear of the building showing the location of the smallpox laboratory, (bottom) and the rooms were Parker worked (above)

Although the exact route by which Parker was exposed is unknown, the laboratory in which the experiments were being performed had no microbiological containment facilities apart from a "fume cupboard". The Shooter Report concluded that Mrs Parker had probably been infected by a strain of smallpox called Abid (named after one of its earlier victims, a three-year-old Pakistani boy), which was being handled in the smallpox laboratory on 24 and 25 July. The virus had travelled in air currents up a service duct from the laboratory below, to a room in the Anatomy Department which was used for telephone calls; on 25 July Parker had spent much more time there than usual ordering photographic materials because the financial year was about to end.

On September 6, Professor Henry Bedson, the son of Sir Samuel Phillips [10] and the head of the medical microbiology department, committed suicide. At his home he cut his throat and he died at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Birmingham few days later. His suicide note read "I am sorry to have misplaced the trust which so many of my friends and colleagues have placed in me and my work."

In 1977, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had told Henry Bedson that his application for his laboratory to become a Smallpox Collaborating Centre had been rejected. This was partly because of safety concerns; the WHO wanted as few laboratories as possible handling the virus.[11]

[edit] Smallpox eradication

Main article: Smallpox
A group of smallpox viruses
A group of smallpox viruses

In 1979, smallpox was declared eradicated by the World Health Organization. WHO recommended the cessation of vaccinations, and also recommended that stockpiles of the virus be limited. All known stocks of smallpox were destroyed except for the stocks at the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Vector Institute in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk in Siberia. However, other countries are rumored to have kept stockpiles, and Russia is rumored to maintain them in multiple laboratories.

[edit] In popular fiction

The Parker case provides a major plot element in the Patricia Cornwell novel Unnatural Exposure. The killer, an apparently respectable microbiologist, turns out to have been a junior researcher at the medical school at the time of Parker's death, and to have been scapegoated for the accident after Professor Bedson's suicide. Nursing a grudge over her blighted career, she develops a new strain of poxvirus from material stolen from the Birmingham lab, and attempts to start an epidemic.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.qmul.ac.uk/news/newsrelease.php?news_id=18 Twenty five years on: Smallpox revisted Queen Mary, University of London
  2. ^ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-68630951.html Smallpox Threat: Preparations bring back memories of outbreak - Birmingham Post - HighBeam Research
  3. ^ http://www.edwardgoldsmith.org/page233.html Goldsmith: Genetic engineering]
  4. ^ Shooter, R. A. Report of the investigation into the cause of the 1978 Birmingham smallpox occurrence. London: H. M. Stationery Office (1980).
  5. ^ Smallpox (Birmingham) (Hansard)
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ [2]
  8. ^ Hawkes N (1979). "Smallpox death in Britain challenges presumption of laboratory safety". Science 203 (4383): 855–6. PMID 419409. 
  9. ^ [3],
  10. ^ Sir Samuel Phillips Bedson, Fellow of the Royal Society,(1886-1969), [4]
  11. ^ LRB · Hugh Pennington: Smallpox Scares
  • Tucker, Jonathan. Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox. Grove Press, 2002, 304 pages. Includes an account of the Parker tragedy.

[edit] External links