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Handwashing Technique Testing

Handwashing technique testing using GlitterBug® products involves employing ultraviolet (UVA) light to visualize the areas on your hands where contaminants might still linger after washing. This provides immediate feedback on your handwashing effectiveness and can help you improve your technique.

Here’s how to test handwashing

    1. Application of tracer: Apply GlitterBug® Potion, a harmless UV-fluorescent lotion, to your hands. This will mimick the presence of germs and contaminants.
    2. Handwashing: Wash your hands as you normally would, following the recommended steps and duration (20+ seconds).
    3. UVA light exposure: Shine the GlowBarLED light on your hands. The lotion will fluoresce brightly revealing any areas where you missed during washing.

Benefits of using GlitterBug® Potion and GlowBarLED for handwashing technique testing

    • Visual feedback: Provides immediate and clear visualization of missed areas, allowing you to focus your efforts on improving your technique.
    • Educational tool: Can be used to raise awareness about the importance of proper handwashing and educate individuals on effective handwashing techniques.
    • Motivational tool: Seeing the areas you missed can serve as a motivator to improve your handwashing habits.

Best UVA LED lamps for handwashing technique testing

    • GlowBarLED: Portable and convenient, this is ideal for individual use or small group demonstrations.
    • GBX GlitterBug® Disclosure Center: A plastic hand-viewing chamber powered by GlowBarLED helps shield out ambient light to help view the glowing effect in bright environments.
    • GlitterBug Maxi Disclosure Center: A larger viewing chamber with plug-in LED light bar which can accommodate two people at once.

Things to keep in mind

    • Prolonged exposure to UVA light can be harmful to eyes, so it’s important to avoid looking directly into the light.
    • UVA light testing only reveals the presence of the GlitterBug® Potion, not actual germs. Therefore, proper handwashing with soap and water is still essential for effective hygiene.
Overall, using GlitterBug® Potion and the GlowBarLED lamp for handwashing technique testing can be a valuable tool for promoting and improving hand hygiene practices. By providing immediate visual feedback, it can help individuals of all ages learn and adopt proper handwashing techniques, ultimately contributing to better overall health by decreasing the spread of germs and disease.

GlitterBug® Powder: A New Formula

If you’ve been using GlitterBug Powder, you’d be glad to know that it now comes in a new formula that does not contain any of the offending substances on California’s Prop 65 list. This product still works just as well as the old formula, and it is even more helpful now. The new GlitterBug Powder is a handy tool for testing and verifying cleaning and environmental hygiene procedures. You can use it to visually demonstrate cross-contamination concepts as well. Let’s dive in and learn more about this innovative product.

What is GlitterBug Powder?
GlitterBug Powder is a fluorescent powder that glows under black light. This makes it useful for demonstrating cross-contamination concepts and for testing and verifying cleaning and environmental hygiene procedures. The original formula of GlitterBug Powder contained a substance that is on California’s Prop 65 list. This made it difficult for some customers to use the product. However, the new formula does not contain any of these substances, making it safe for use by everyone.

GlitterBug® Powder 35g Bottle

How Does GlitterBug Powder Work?
When you sprinkle the powder onto a surface, even the smallest amount will glow brightly with the black light. After you clean the surface, you can use a black light to scan it for any remaining residue. Any residue left on the surface will glow brightly under the black light making it easy to identify.

What are the Benefits of the New Formula?
First and foremost, it does not contain any of the offending substances on California’s Prop 65 list. This means that it is safe for use by everyone. Additionally, the new formula comes in a convenient flip-up bottle with a sprinkle lid. This makes it easy to use and ensures that you can apply the powder precisely where you need it.

How to Use GlitterBug Powder?
Using GlitterBug Powder is easy. Simply sprinkle a small amount of the powder onto a surface that your trainees will touch. After a short amount of time you can scan their hands and surrounding surfaces that they may have touched with a black light. Any remaining residue will fluoresce, making it easy to identify and visually illustrate how cross-contamination occurs.

Who Can Benefit from Using GlitterBug Powder?
GlitterBug Powder is an essential tool for anyone involved in cleaning and hygiene. It is particularly useful for hospitals, schools, food service industries, and anywhere else where cleanliness is paramount.

Is GlitterBug Powder Safe?
Yes, GlitterBug Powder is safe for use. The new formula does not contain any of the substances that were on California’s Prop 65 list and has been tested for safety when used on people’s skin.

Can GlitterBug Powder Be Used on Food Surfaces?
No, GlitterBug Powder should not be used on food surfaces. The product is designed to be used on non-food surfaces only.

The new GlitterBug Powder is available now and can be bought in individual bottles or in cases of 24.

Hand Washing Verification

As we all know, hand washing is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of germs and infections. However, simply washing our hands is not enough. We need to ensure that we are washing our hands properly and for the right amount of time. That’s where hand washing verification comes in.

Hand washing verification is the process of ensuring that individuals are washing their hands correctly and for the recommended amount of time. This can be done through a variety of methods, including visual inspection, using ultraviolet light to detect fake germs, and even using technology such as hand washing monitoring systems.

In this article, we will discuss the importance of hand washing verification, the different methods used to verify hand washing, and why it is crucial to implement this practice in various settings.

Why Hand Washing Verification is Important

Hand washing verification is critical to ensuring that individuals are effectively preventing the spread of germs, diseases and infections. Without proper hand washing, germs can easily spread from person to person, leading to illnesses and even outbreaks.

Research has shown that many individuals do not wash their hands correctly or for the recommended amount of time. In fact, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that only 31% of men and 65% of women washed their hands after using a public restroom. This highlights the need for hand washing verification to ensure that individuals are washing their hands correctly.

Different Methods of Hand Washing Verification

There are several methods used for hand washing verification, including visual inspection, ultraviolet light, and hand washing monitoring systems.

Visual Inspection

Visual inspection is the most basic form of hand washing verification. It involves observing individuals as they wash their hands to ensure that they are washing them correctly and for the recommended amount of time. This method is commonly used in healthcare settings, where hand hygiene is critical to preventing the spread of infections.

Ultraviolet Light

Ultraviolet (UV) light is another method used for hand washing verification. UV light can detect synthetic germs that are not visible to the naked eye. This method involves applying a substance to the hands that contains fluorescent particles. When the hands are exposed to UV light, the particles will glow, indicating areas where the hands were not washed thoroughly.

GlitterBug® GBX Handwashing Teaching Kit

Hand Washing Monitoring Systems

Hand washing monitoring systems are the most advanced method of hand washing verification. These systems use technology such as sensors and cameras to monitor hand washing in real-time. They can detect when an individual enters a hand washing station, monitor the duration of hand washing, and even provide feedback to the individual to ensure that they are washing their hands correctly.

Implementing Hand Washing Verification

Hand washing verification should be implemented in various settings, including healthcare facilities, schools, and workplaces. It is crucial to educate individuals on the importance of hand washing and provide them with the tools they need to ensure that they are washing their hands correctly.

In healthcare settings, hand washing verification is critical to preventing the spread of infections. Healthcare workers should be trained on the correct hand hygiene procedures and monitored to ensure that they are following these procedures.

In schools, hand washing verification can help prevent the spread of illnesses among students. Teachers should educate students on the importance of hand washing and provide them with the tools they need to wash their hands correctly, such as hand sanitizer, soap and disposable towels.

In workplaces, hand washing verification can help prevent the spread of illnesses among employees. Employers should educate employees on the importance of hand washing and provide them with the tools they need to wash their hands correctly, such as hand sanitizer or soap with paper towels.

Frequently Asked Questions about Hand Washing

  1. What is hand washing verification?
    Hand washing verification is the process of ensuring that individuals are washing their hands correctly and for the recommended amount of time.
  1. Why is hand washing verification important?
    Hand washing verification is important to prevent the spread of germs and infections

What Everyone Should Know about Hand Sanitizers

Hand sanitizers have been a popular commodity since the emergence of Covid-19 in the Spring of 2020. There was even a shortage for a while, as everyone rushed to stores to stock up. As sales continue to rise consumers should be aware of the ingredients of the product and the marketing techniques that manufacturers use to increase sales.

Alcohol Content

According to the FDA, in order to be effective, hand sanitizers should contain at least 60% alcohol. The label may list this as ethanol, ethyl alcohol, or isopropyl alcohol. If the label does not show the percentage of alcohol contained in the product, do not buy it. 

Some types of alcohol are extremely dangerous, and it is doubtful that a manufacturer would list these on the label if they are present, but the FDA has found contamination with methyl alcohol or 1-propanol in some hand sanitizers manufactured in Mexico and sold in the U.S. Methyl alcohol, or wood alcohol as it is sometimes called, is used to make antifreeze. 1-propanol is an ingredient of industrial solvents.

False Claims

Claims that hand sanitizers can prevent Covid-19, influenza or other diseases are misleading. Any product making these claims should be avoided. Hand sanitizers, when used properly, can only kill germs that are on your hands, and only lasts until you touch something else.

Misleading Marketing Practices

Some hand sanitizers on the market are scented with appetizing smells such as chocolate or strawberries. If a child smells these, he or she may think they are good to drink. Hand sanitizers packaged in containers that resemble beverage cans, water bottles or food pouches can also mislead young children into thinking that the contents are edible food products.

There have been cases where a person has mistakenly believed that a product that contains alcohol is OK to drink. Since alcoholic beverages contain alcohol, why not drink Nyquil, extract of Vanilla, mouth wash, or hand sanitizer and get a similar “buzz”?  Ingesting any of these products could produce headaches, diarrhea, vomiting, irregular heart rate, seizures and if a very large quantity is consumed, possibly coma or death could result. 

Since hand sanitizers seem to be everywhere these days it is important to understand what the ingredients are. Make sure the contents are clearly labeled and contain a minimum of 60% alcohol. Ignore claims made on labels that the hand sanitizer you are buying will prevent influenza, Covid-19 or anything else. It does not. Never ingest hand sanitizer. It is not safe for human consumption. Small children should be supervised when using hand sanitizers. When shopping for hand sanitizers, avoid packaging that could be mistaken for food products. Steer clear of those with appetizing scents. 

Teach people how to apply hand sanitizer correctly with Glitterbug Gel.

How do you know if a surface has been properly cleaned?

Quality control in surface disinfection has always been a challenge. Jim Mann, a Brevis associate, sent us a nifty device to check for surface cleaning. It is called MarX and Brevis is now marketing it as the GlitterBug MarX.This is a stamp device that leaves an invisible circle X mark on stamped surfaces that can be visualized with UV light. It will be simple for quality control personnel to check whether surfaces have been cleaned by shining a UV source, such as the very popular GlitterBug GlowBar LED, on stamped surfaces. In this SARS-CoV-2 pandemic world, knowing that surfaces have been cleaned is more important than ever. And will be in the future when the next pandemic after Covid 19 rears its ugly head, as surely it will.

For decades Brevis has been a world leader in the teaching of hand hygiene with its GlitterBug UV product line and instructional videos. The GlitterBug MarX product is a great addition to this popular family. The MarX device is very portable – and pocketable – at about 1.0 by 2.5 inches (2.5 x 6.3 cm). It is probably capable of at least a thousand stampings if kept covered between uses.

Surface cleaning detection kit with invisible stamper and UVA lamp

Surface cleaning matters even more than ever. Use the MarX to mark surfaces with an invisible mark then use the SpotShooter8 Lamp to see if those marks were properly cleaned off. Easy method to Trust but Verify.

If only the Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo) had known about this, vaudeville may have taken a different turn back in the early 1900s. There is a story, which I can’t verify, that explains why Harpo never talks. Seems that the brothers were on tour and in one particular town, their act was not well received. So as they were walking out of town to get to the train station, Harpo turned around and said something like, “I hope your town burns down.” The next day when they looked at the newspaper, what do they see but an item about how that town had been mostly destroyed by a large fire. Of course, they had nothing to do with starting the fire, but Harpo’s curse was so prescient that the other brothers prevailed on Harpo not to talk any more. And he never did in their acts including when they got into movies. The story may be apocryphal but I like it anyway. If it didn’t happen, it should have.

Buy Now

Meanwhile, GlitterBug MarX has happened and is available now for your consideration and use. Check it out. You will be impressed with its simplicity and effectiveness.

Thank you,

Gordon Short, MD
Brevis Corporation

Epidemic Intelligence Service

EIS, Epidemic Intelligence Service
The most important organization you may never have heard of

Of course if you are an OCD reader of my previous blogs, you have seen my references to the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its legendary founder, Dr. Alexander Langmuir. Although I had been assigned to audit the course upon entering active duty in the US Public Health Service in 1957 on my way to becoming a “toxicologist” in the Technical Development Laboratories of the CDC in Savannah, GA, and had an abiding interest in this remarkable organization, I hadn’t a clue as to its amazing reach and influence around the world until I read the book, “Inside the Outbreaks, The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service” by Mark Pendergrast (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010).

CDC is remarkable for both its geographic and illness span. Although it started as the Communicable Disease Center, with a major focus on all kinds of infectious disease epidemics, it now embraces subjects such as gun violence and environmental toxins such as lead and mercury in culinary water supplies. EIS officers are mostly MDs but the program also includes veterinarians, dentists, statisticians, nurses, anthropologists, sociologists, microbiologists, epidemiologists, etc.

Thanks to the stellar reputation of Dr. Langmuir and his success in attracting only top students to participate in the EIS course, EIS officers have been in high demand throughout the world. EIS officers only go where they have been invited, but their assistance has been requested around the world. These hardy souls have answered the call to places that bear little resemblance to conditions in the US. That can mean eating what the natives eat (Use your imagination) and sleeping in primitive huts. And traveling by whatever is available: bicycle, dogsled, elephant, camel, boats, you name it. They are hardy adventurers who will go anywhere to do what is necessary even at the risk of their own lives. And there have been a few who paid the ultimate price.

Langmuir stressed the importance of doing “shoe leather” epidemiology by which he meant getting out into the field and talking with those most affected by any outbreak. You can’t learn the essentials by staying in your hotel and watching TV and reading the local newspapers. How is the disease spread? Direct contact with bodily fluids (as in Ebola) or droplet and/or airborne as in influenza. What is the incubation period? What percentage of patients are asymptomatic? What percentage fatal? What age distribution? How do you tell when the peak incidence will occur?

The answers to these and other questions requires people in the field collecting data from all appropriate sources. Who are these people? A surprising number come from the ranks of the Epidemic Intelligence Service. These are the frontline troops who merit more attention than they get.

Gordon Short, MD
Brevis Corporation

COVID19: Show people what they should know to protect themselves from (Coronavirus)

Inform people about how to protect themselves from the acquisition viruses and germs such as Corona Virus. One cannot watch the news lately without being inundated with stories about the latest deadly virus outbreak. Scenes showing the dire situation in China where the outbreak seems to have started are prevalent in the media. Closed borders, sequestered or isolated travelers, cruise-ship customers in lock-down. Investigators are working feverishly to determine the sources of these viruses and the routes of transmission especially from one person to the next.

New Posters: Coronavirus in Public Places

Stay Safe Poster Protect Yourself Poster

The usual routes to infection are the most likely suspects. Touching surfaces in public and then touching our portals of entry (eyes, nose and mouth), breathing in of airborne germs or ingesting contaminated food. Of course we are  concerned with preventing illness amongst the population at large but must also realize that protecting oneself is of primary importance. In that vein Brevis presents new posters to inform people about the basic steps that can help to protect themselves.

Syphilis, the Great Imitator

I wouldn’t put any money on the accuracy of my memory as to the attitude of Alexander Langmuir about Tuskegee. What I think I remember distinctly is that the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was briefly mentioned and discussed in the Epidemic Intelligence Service course I audited in the summer of 1957at the CDC. It was discussed as if it were an ordinary investigation to discover more about the natural course of syphilis.

Syphilis, the Great Imitator, has 4 phases: Primary (chancre), Secondary (rash– the Great Pox), Latent, and Tertiary. Each has its own unique characteristics that help to make syphilis “The Great Imitator.” Treponema pallidum, the causative agent is a sneaky devil that can go underground for decades clinically while eating away at vital organs. In 1932, when the Tuskegee Study began, there was considerable uncertainty about many aspects of the natural history of this disease. For example, when syphilis enters its latent stage, is it inevitably going to end in tertiary syphilis with aortic aneurysms or general paresis of the insane or tabes dorsalis or gummas? Or might there be a spontaneous cure? And what is a “cure”? A negative Wassermann test (which was known to be unreliable at that time)? Since the latent phase could last for several decades, there would be a good chance that the patient would die of some unrelated condition such as stroke or heart attack. So what effect would syphilis have on life expectancy?

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In 1930 there was considerable speculation about these questions and so it seemed desirable to study the disease prospectively over an extended period of time. And so the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was begun in 1932. But why Tuskegee and who were the subjects?

It had been observed that in Macon county, home of the famous Tuskegee Institute founded by Booker T. Washington, about 35% of the male, Negro population had a positive Wassermann test for syphilis. (About 80% of the Macon County population was black.) These men were mostly sharecroppers, many illiterate. They were poor and unlikely to be able to afford antisyphilitic therapy. Therefore this population represented a group that could be observed for an extended period without ethical concerns about “doing no harm” since they weren’t going to be able to afford treatment anyway.

Incidentally, the study was later heavily criticized because the subjects were treated as “guinea pigs” and not as humans. But may I remind any gentle readers that Negro slaves were defined in the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 2) as 3/5 of a white person. Negro slaves were further defined as “property” and could not become citizens (See Dred Scott decision and Roger Taney , Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court). Thank you, Founding Fathers (who were mostly slave-owning southerners). Not guinea pigs but maybe like upright beasts of burden. This attitude did not disappear immediately after the Emancipation Proclamation.

The plan was to recruit about 400 men with a positive Wassermann who were in the latent, asymptomatic phase. Those who were in the early stage, roughly five years after the primary chancre, would be referred for treatment and were not eligible for the study. About 200 men with negative Wassermanns would be recruited as controls. But what does it mean to “observe”? The patients had to be given physical exams periodically and also have repeat Wassermanns and spinal fluid exams to look for neurological changes. That’s heavy-handed “observation.”

The study has been criticized because the subjects were not treated with a full course of the prevailing antisyphilitic drugs. (They were treated with a suboptimal course of several months.) But before the late forties when penicillin became the accepted treatment, the standard treatment was the arsenicals, arsphenamine or neoarsphenamine. These treatments consisted of painful intramuscular injections administered monthly for at least a year. All aside from the possibility of a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction, an asymptomatic patient had a right to to question this procedure. Furthermore, from a medical perspective it was unclear as to the effectiveness of treatment at this stage of the disease and what benefit might ensue. The youngest subjects recruited in 1932 were age 25. By 1948 the subjects were then at least 41 and most were older. At this point the ethical situation begins to become murky. Would treatment be beneficial? But there was much uncertainty and that is why the study was being done. There was considerable incentive to continue as before.

In studies such as this, the investigators have been criticized for treating the subjects as guinea pigs and not as human beings. How could this be so if the study was utilizing some black doctors and the Tuskegee Institute and the indomitable black nurse, Nurse Rivers?

I got some insight into this by my experience living in the South, first from February 1942 to June 1943 on Parris Island, the Marine boot training camp. The top medical officers for the Parris Island base hospital consisted of a Commanding Officer, a Chief of Surgery, an Executive Officer, and a Chief of Medicine (my father). The separate houses were lined up in a row and behind each pair was a maid’s quarters. One weekend when our maid, Lucy, was at her home on the mainland, I looked into these quarters. These consisted of two plain bare rooms each containing a bed and a dresser and bare wooden floor. Between the rooms was a “bathroom” with a sink and toilet. If there was a tub or shower, I didn’t notice it. To the eyes of this 11-year-old kid, raised in an upper middle class suburb of New York, this was a shock, to use a mild expression. But Lucy was always cheerful with nary a complaint. I guess she “knew her place.”

It took me a bit longer to learn mine. One time I had occasion to ride by myself on a public bus some where off the island. At age 11 I wasn’t very tall and when I got on the bus, it looked like every seat was taken. Except that straight down the aisle there was a vacant seat in the middle of the back row. To which I headed.
After I sat down and started looking around, I noticed that all the people sitting around me were highly pigmented and all the palefaces were in the front half. What to do? Nothing that seemed reasonable. So I sat there. The black people around me were too polite to say anything and I was too bashful. But I couldn’t help wondering what they were thinking.

Fifteen years later with a wife and baby son, I returned to the deep South to begin my service as a medical officer with the USPHS in Savannah from August 1957 to August 1959. We attended a small Adventist church, membership about 100, that was on a side street that wasn’t paved. The church itself was clean but definitely showing its age. Not antebellum but certainly not modern. However, we soon fell in love with the members there, all delightful, kind souls. In Savannah at that time there was a new, black Adventist church with a membership of around 400. Sometime in 1958 or 59, Little Richard came to town during his sojourn in the Adventist church and was the featured guest at the black church. My wife and I decided to go hear him. For some reason we were a minute or two late and the place was packed. But immediately a smartly dressed usher wearing immaculate white gloves approached us and ushered us down to seats in the front of the church. Why? What was so special about us? I wasn’t wearing a uniform. We were just a young couple with no VIP markers. Except white skin. It made me distinctly uncomfortable. Especially since the black choir, when guests of the white church, was required to enter via the back stairs into the church rather than the front entry.

In those presegregation days, restrooms were always “Men,” “Women,” and “Colored.” And, of course, the “Colored” were always consigned to the back of the bus.

My job was as a “toxicologist” at CDC’s Technical Development Laboratory on Oatland Island. The building was originally constructed as a retirement home for railway workers. Later it was acquired by the government to be used as a rapid treatment center for syphilis. After the arrival of penicillin, it was turned into TDL. As if the swampy southern east coast didn’t raise enough mosquitoes in the great outdoors, TDL raised millions more in its own mosquito vivarium. The purpose was to study the biology of different species. This was undoubtedly an improvement of my observation that whenever I patted one on the back it left a red splotch as a reminder of why I observed that mosquitoes suck.

So, after all this rambling, let’s get back to is my bottom-line assessment of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. This is how this one observer sees it:

In 1932 the study was reasonable and justifiable given the current state of knowledge about syphilis.
The study was flawed from the beginning because the participants were treated with arsenicals although in a suboptimal dosage.
When penicillin became widely available and accepted circa 1950, the youngest subjects were at least in their forties and it was unclear whether treatment would significantly alter their health status.
In 1957 (when I was at CDC), it was deemed advisable to continue the study because there was much more to be discovered. But by then it was a bit like holding a tiger by the tail.
The participants were generally well treated, if Nurse Rivers story is to be believed. And I believe her.
But it is true that the participants were treated as guinea pigs in the sense that they did not give “informed consent.” But how does one “inform” uneducated sharecroppers?
The study helped result in more stringent ethical guidelines – as it should have – but it is unfair to retroactively apply those guidelines.
Others may disagree (and have) but these are my tentative conclusions. What think you?

P.S.: The best definitive study is “Bad Blood. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment” by James H. Jones. (1993)

Gordon Short, MD
Brevis Corporation

The Deadly Plum

If history is correct, there was a day when there were plum trees on Plum Island. But the history of Plum Island is so convoluted that it is hard to say. Anyway, it got its name and who really cares how.

Some years ago a good friend, Jay Dirksen, PhD, (pharmacology and bionucleonics) said that I might enjoy Nelson DeMille’s book “Plum Island.” Although I love good fiction, I’m always frustrated by not knowing how much is based on fact and how much is made up. Although I grew up in Queens, Long Island, I had never heard of Plum Island and had trouble believing much of what DeMille described.

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An internet search led me to a book by Michael Christopher Carroll called “Lab 257, The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory” (2004). In this factual account I learned that essentially everything that DeMille said about Plum Island was true and that the story of Plum Island is frightening in the extreme. Or at least should be.

Plum Island is an 840 acre island that is only a mile away from the north fork at the eastern end of Long Island. It has a long and unremarkable history going back to when it was owned by native Americans. Whites took over before the Spanish American War and the military built the large Fort Terry there and also a lighthouse.

With the military still in charge after World War II, the story becomes more interesting. The military imported a Nazi scientist, Dr Erich Traub, through Operation Paperclip, to be a founding father of a biological warfare laboratory on Plum Island. Traub had worked for the Nazis (reporting to Heinrich Himmler) in the arena of biological warfare. When the USDA took over management of Plum in 1954, it was ostensibly to do research on diseases that could be a threat to domestic animals – cattle, horses, sheep, chickens, etc. Such diseases as foot and mouth disease and many others. But the dividing line between research to protect domestic livestock and to disable the same (of an enemy) is blurry.

While Carroll’s book well describes all that has been wrong with the operation of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the more encyclopedic history of the island from its earliest days called “A World Unto Itself, The
Remarkable History of Plum Island, New York” by Bramson, Fleming and Folk (2014) takes a less histrionic viewpoint and describes some of the scientific discoveries that were developed by PIADC scientists under the direction of Drs. Maurice Shahan, Jerry Callis, Roger Breeze and others.

Nevertheless, the history of Plum Island has enough mystery associated with it to have generated a plethora of fantastic fables, urban legends, conspiracy theories or whatever. Such as the Montauk Monster or that Lyme Disease was actually invented on Plum Island and released on an unsuspecting public.

Plum Island operates at a BS-3 level, some would say at an enhanced BS-3 level that approaches BS-4, the highest level. There are BS-4 labs at Fort Detrick, MD and at CDC in the Atlanta area. BS-4 means that the disease being studied is very serious in its potential to harm humans – usually deadly – and there is no vaccine or reliable treatment. It requires the researcher to wear a fully enclosed space suit connected to a hose that keeps positive pressure inside the suit. Strict protocols are observed with decontamination before exit from the suit and return to outside clothing. It was hoped by the Plum Island scientists that such a lab could be built on the Island but this did not happen.

Which reminds me of an experience I had many years ago here in Salt Lake City. At the time I was chairman of the Environmental Health Committee of the Utah State Medical Association. I was no longer in the practice of pathology, but I continued to pay my dues so that I could be on this committee. (My interest at the time was in trying to influence legislation to restrict smoking in public places.) One of the other members of the committee (Dr. Buchi?) said that he had heard that there were plans to build a BS-4 lab at the Dugway Proving Ground southwest of Salt Lake City. With the previous history of the Skull Valley sheep kill of 1968 (where several thousand sheep were killed, apparently from VX nerve gas that drifted east from Dugway during a test, it seemed to our committee that building a BS-4 lab upwind from Salt Lake City was undesirable. We strenuously opposed the plan and the lab was never built. But I’m not sure there was a cause and effect relationship to our opposition.

Dugway is to Utah what Area 51 is to Nevada. Secrecy prevails. However, I had a tenuous connection to Dugway when I was at CDC’s lab in Savannah. When I was engaged in the malathion study in the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida, I used a micro method for determining serum cholinesterase activity that was developed by a scientist at Dugway. (I get a kick out of watching the expressions on people’s faces when I mention that I was in a Federal Prison in Florida.)

Well, I have wandered a ways away from Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York to Utah and Nevada and then down to Georgia and Florida. But that is the prerogative of old men so perhaps I can be forgiven. (Are you familiar with “The Story of the Old Ram” by Mark Twain? You should be. )

Happy Meanderings! (But I don’t recommend going to Plum Island in search of plums. Unless you want the deadly variety.)

Gordon Short, MD
Brevis Corporation

Image by WikiMedia

A Pig from Jersey

The last Saturday of June, 1957, having finished my internship, I left Lansing, MI, about midnight in my little VW with orders to report to CDC in Atlanta at 8:00 AM Monday to begin my two years of service in the US Public Health Service. I was to audit the course for the Epidemic Intelligence Service before reporting to the Technical Development Laboratory in Savannah, GA. The EIS course was founded and taught by Alexander Langmuir. Langmuir was a bigger than life, charismatic story teller who quickly made me feel that epidemiology was the most fascinating subject available to mere humans. There were maybe 40 or 50 of us taking the course and in front of our assigned seats there was a stack of reading material that looked generally pretty serious. But on the top of the stack there was a small paperback book with the title “Eleven Blue Men” by Berton Roueche. It looked strangely out of place and unserious and I put it aside for later.

I don’t remember when “later” arrived, but when it did, I was treated to a series of fascinating articles of which the Jersey pig was the first. It concerned a schlachtfest being held at the New York Labor Temple, a German-American meeting-and-banquet hall. A schlachtfest, for those of you uninitiated, is a pork feast. The pig in question was purchased by a butcher in Staten Island and the carcass was taken to the Labor Temple in Manhattan where it was converted into sausage among other things. One of the men involved in this escapade had eaten some of the raw sausage to check on the seasoning, and the rest is history. The man became very ill with fever (he later died) and the physician, a Dr Levy, came to the diagnosis when he discovered an elevated eosinophil count in his blood smear. It was then confirmed by a muscle biopsy which showed numerous Trichinella spiralis parasites.

Trichinosis is one of the many parasites one studies about in Microbiology, but I had never seen a case until some years ago when I was assisting in an outpatient laboratory here in Salt Lake City. I didn’t see the patient myself but I heard her story second-hand. This young lady had been on vacation in Hawaii and had been invited to a luau. The luau was the genuine thing apparently with a whole roast pig on a rotisserie above a fire. Everybody enjoyed the fresh roast pork. Except that the young lady in question arrived somewhat late to the proceedings and her portion of pork was from a more interior portion of the carcass that had not been adequately heated to kill the larvae.

Here the details are sketchy but she apparently had the usual GI symptoms followed by severe muscle pain. By this time she was back home in Salt Lake City and her doctor ordered the usual lab tests including a CBC. Thus the blood smear that showed more eosinophils than I had ever seen before. This was some time in the 1970s and I don’t remember the percentage of eosinophils
but I think it may have been around 30%, about 10 times normal. The smear was lit up with red lights like a Christmas tree. That number of eosinophils doesn’t define trichinosis but it certainly is highly suggestive.

Today trichinosis is very rare, but it is just the rare diseases we don’t think of that can rear their ugly heads and bite us in the rear. Tricky trichinosis. Maybe the ancient Hebrews knew something important. Whatever. May Trichinella spiralis rest in peace and bother us no more.

Gordon Short, MD
Brevis Corporation


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