E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSUpdated May 3, 5:35 ET: Officials have released the name of the California lab researcher who died after handling a rare strain of bacteria, the Associated Press reports.
The coroner identified the man Thursday as 25-year-old Richard Din of San Francisco.
Original story: A 25-year-old laboratory researcher has died after becoming infected with meningitis bacteria at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, health officials said Wednesday.
State and federal health officials are investigating the death, which apparently occurred April 28 after the researcher was exposed to the Neisseria meningitidis bacteria, which can cause the disease.
"In general, this is an organism that merits rigorous safety precautions in a research laboratory," said Alison Patti, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The young man was employed by the Northern California Institute for Research and Education, part of the Veterans Health Research Institute, which conducted research at the San Francisco site, said Erika Monterroza, a spokeswoman for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
Dr. Harry Lampiris, interim site chief at the San Francisco VA, said that the man was a well-trained laboratory researcher who had been employed at the lab for about six months. He was working on a vaccine against the pathogen, Lampiris said, and was following required precautions.
"People in the lab didn't think there was any evidence that he was either sloppy or inadequately trained," said Lampiris, who added that workers in the lab have been handling meningitis bacteria for more than 20 years.
The young man began complaining of a headache and nausea on Friday. His symptoms worsened, he developed a full body rash and died on Saturday, about 17 hours after he became ill.
It wasn't clear how or when the man was exposed. It also wasn't clear whether workers were vaccinated against meningococcus, but Lampiris indicated that that might not have helped because the strain of the bacteria is resistant to existing vaccines.
Sixty medical workers who treated the man received antibiotics, as well as eight personal contacts of the man and six VA employees, Lampiris said. None of those contacts has reported symptoms, Lampiris said.
"Everyone else is fine," he added.
Such illnesses are rare, with only 16 cases of probable laboratory-acquired meningitis infections recorded worldwide between 1985 and 2001, including six Americans, according to CDC researchers.
Vaccines can prevent some kinds of meningitis and laboratory workers are instructed to take special precautions to avoid exposure. But in rare cases, laboratory workers have been sickened and even killed by the germs they're working with.
Officials have not released the name or other details of the man who died.
Related stories:
From petri dish to people? Lab infections can spread illness, even death
Leave a Comment:
It sounds like they need to review their safety procedures at this lab. There is no reason something like this should happen if proper safety precautions are being followed. The rules in a level 3 or level 4 containment facility , which I would assume this lab is, are very strict to prevent things like this from occurring.
I may have missed it but where did it say this was in a level 3 or 4 containment facility?
Sounds like the beginning of a bad Stephen King movie. Sorry for the families' loss.
Rick - A pathogen such as this, by definition, can only be housed in a level 3 or 4 containment facility. Due to its nature it is illegal to use it in a research facility of lower containment level.
This is a bio-safety level 2 organism, that means bench work is allowed but a safety is also used if the bacteria is likely to form air born droplets.
Just wondering what the lab / microbiology departments at the hospital I work at would be classified as. I'll have to check into this. Learn something everyday
Conspiracy theory here...
He was attempting to steal it and sell it to a terrorist organization. But of course that would cause hysteria amongst the public, so they won't publish that.
As a med tech in the biotech industry I have to agree you can't be too careful.
Rick-
I would think it would depend on how stringently it meets WHO specifications - from Class I to Class 4
And also Rick, I'm sure your hospital lab would NOT be operating if it didn't meet all OSHA and 21 CFR 1910.1450 codes.
My heart and prayers go out to this man and his family. Thank you for your service. It is brave people like this man that have knocked out polio, tetanus, measles ( in general -- in the U.S) Bless all the scientist that work so hard every single day with long hours in the lab and little pay. We need more young people willing to do this work.
I worked for years in a bio-medical lab, I can tell by his comment JS has not worked in a biomed lab. Accidents do happen periodically, most times no one looses a life. We are tested and re-tested on SOP's and still humans make errors, equipment fails. It is in the nature of the work.
As for operating while meeting OSHA criteria --there are other criteria besides OSHA in place, if a lab fails in certain areas they are given an amount of time to fix the issue.
The standard civilian has nothing to worry about, there are plenty of air scrubbers in place and most rooms work in a pressurized containment system anyway. My biggest concern has always been if a lab tech is infected then goes out drinking with his buddies after work and spreads illness. No one ever talks about this.
Honestly, I am glad I am done with this field, when you are young you think nothing can ever happen to you. I have children now that depend on me. I would rather study and write instead of actually working with pathogens.
The one thing I bet you didn't know is that many of the rats that are used in testing (not infectious disease--but new pharmaceuticals and vaccines) are disposed of right into land fills along with regular city trash, birds eat their bodies and then birds fly around pooping on people. I lay awake thinking about this at night. I am only in my 30's I should be thinking of hot men ----not dead rats :)
ChrisWanker
This bacteria would make a very very bad weapon, it requires you to be susceptible to the bacteria. The bacteria itself does not survive too well on surfaces and is not passed on in an airborne fashion it requires person-to-person contact and not just a shake of a hand or a hug.
Good grief Kallie, you have unnerved me! Especially since just yesterday my teenager complained that his day was, "Crappy. Literally." What I thought was typical teenaged drama turned out to be real. While sitting in shorts cross legged waiting for instructions in P.E., he was dive bombed by a bird. Being in this position allowed him to be crapped on on his knee, lower leg, arm and wrist all at the same time. Later in the day while risking a trip to the restroom he stepped through vomit. At lunch time a friend received a call from her mother and promptly cried: her brother had just been shot. After lunch while enduring yet another 2 hour long class his English teacher yelled at him for spinning his pencil, thus distracting her "star" student nearby. A crappy day indeed.
At any rate, it's a miracle any of us survive to adulthood!
Bacteria, viruses, prions, and other tiny stuff are extraordinarily dangerous, and in many instances it only takes a miniscule quantity to infect . . .
Consider Mycobacterium tuberculosis for a moment . . .
When breathed deeply into the lower part of the lungs, it only requires 8 to 10 bacilli of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to infect a person, and this miniscule quantity easily fits inside a 5-micron droplet of fog, which is a typical diameter for fog and some of the more fluffy types of low altitude clouds . . .
More curiously, based on a series of calculations which involved at various times what might be the most unusual application of Avogadaro's number in the history of the known universe, the quantity of such 5-micron diameter fog droplets--each having 8 to 10 bacilli of Mycobacterium tuberculosis--required to infect every person on this planet will fit inside the rotating cylinder of a standard concrete mixing truck, since it is less than 8 cubic yards by volume (more along the lines of 5.5 cubic yards of gnarly fog) . . .
This is an excellent reason to avoid fast-food restaurants, salad bars, and looking for love in all the wrong places at the dawn of the early-21st century, really . . .
Really! ;-o
P. S. And it also is an excellent reason to focus diligently on being current on vaccinations and all that stuff . . .
p.s. Really? really?
Yes... Really!
NO....REALLLY!!!
JS in SD,
Yeah they had protocols at Fukijima too. As long as there are humans involved things can go to sh*t in a second.
Fukushima...
But the protocols there were adequate for normal extremes... Not freakish extremes.
Humans, or, in Japan's case, the mind-paralyzing amount of raw force contained in an earthquake or tsunami.
The amount of safety protocols at these labs is insane (in a good way). To work in the lab I am in, you need rabies shots, tetanis shots, and respirators are required. We work with mice that haven't been exposed to the wild since Taft was president.
Sounds like the safety procedures in the lab were possibly not followed to the T.
Unfortunately, the punishment for that is death.
Just what I was thinking. The article has a line that says "was following required precautions". Since they have been handling meningitis bacteria in this lab for 20 years with no infections, it seems likely that this relatively inexperienced worker (6 mo.) had a lapse in procedure at some point.
A couple years ago I almost died from meningitis. This is a horrible way to go. I have never experienced such pain in my life. Further controls are obviously needed.
What were your symptoms? I've heard of the headache. What else happens? Did it take you a long time to recover?
I had meningitis when I was in high school. Luckily, it was the viral type which is less deadly but being that it is a virus there is nothing they can do beyond trying to keep you alive. I was in the hospital for a month and was around 95 pounds at one point (I'm 5'9" so that's pretty thin). It started with a headache and a fever, much like flu symptoms but the fever just kept rising until it peaked around 106. I couldn't eat anything and the head/neck ache was so profound that I became delirious. At my school they held an assembly to inform my classmates that I was probably going to die, but thanks to the good doctors and nurses at the University of Pennsylvania hospital, I survived. Luckily, there have been no lasting effects of the illness, but it took me a good four months to get back to normal.
Jorge- Well the most painful symptom was the MASSIVE headache. Labeling it a headache doesn't do it justice more like a hammer beating the inside your skull. A had a freezer bag of ice on my head 24/7 while on hydrocodone which did nothing.
I suffered for 2-3 weeks with this. Lost weight which I didn't mind and I personally never got my youthful vigor back after having this at 33. My local "hospital" labeled it a sinus infection which I knew was BS so I went to another towns ER. Had 3 spinal taps one after another and an IV of dilotted sp? which eased the pain some.
I have been beaten by gang members, had a person attempt to cut off my hand ect.. NOTHING compared to that pain. I really wanted to die to be honest. The CDC called me to report my ailment also.
Glad you're still with us Midnight Toker :)....blaze on!
This is how the extinction or culling of humans starts. Some labs still have that Spanish super flu that started a huge pandemic. Somebody intentionally or accidentally releases this stuff in to the populace could be devastating.
I, also had meningitis as a child. It would be a HORRIABLE way to die ,I would not wish it my worst enemy.
It may be the failure of the infection control: the maintenance part. OSHA follows up?
Condolence and prayers go to the lab researcher's family and friends.
Any quarantine?
When I started working in laboratories in 1986 they were still doing mouth pipetting (where you put this tube in your mouth and sucked some of the blood up into the tube). No one cared if at some of our satellite locations they were streaking plates with bacteria without the use of a laminar flow hood. Heck, wearing gloves was optional back then. It's a wonder I lived through it. I think some people did get infected with hepatitis and died but they just became another statistic.
I'm glad I'm out of that business. The pay wasn't worth it and some of the patients were so awful. Medical lab work is very hard, abusive and intensive work and the rewards just aren't there.
It can't be THAT bad, sheesh, try being a migrant laborer picking vegetables all summer in back breaking sweltering heat.
ug1- I don't think marinmom was saying that working in lab was the worst job ever, only that it sucks. Which it does. A grad student has a 60-hour a week minimum commitment, is paid almost nothing, and is not even directly aknowledged as constituting life by many faculty. When an article names the head of a lab, you can be damn sure that he is not the one who waded through the stream looking for the invasive crayfish, or measured the length of every leaf on every plant at a study site, or ran a genetic analysis on 18,000 bacterial colonies, or hand washed the cages for 300 rats every freaking week for years.
Not that I'm bitter.
This is so, so sad! My condolences to his family.
I, as well had meningitis as a child. It is ALOT more than a headache. My fever got up to 106, that in it's self gives you pain all over. I stayed in the hospital (in isolation) for two months. The doctor didn't give my mom any hope that I would ever live a normal life. The spinal taps, I recieved twice a day were terrible.
That sounds like a nightmare, Karen. Glad you made it through!
yyyiiikkkkkeees period.
When I was taking my practicum in the medical, I had to spend a morning in a lab, and the one thing I was told over and over was,"Do not smell anything you handle". It is a natural thing to do without thinking, at least it is to me, and I was happy to leave the lab.
Do a search on the drug Xigris recently pulled from the market by Eli Lilly.
A close family member nearly died from Neisseria meningitidis that had gotten into his bloodstream and resulted in sepsis a few years ago. He was in respiratory distress and unable to maintain his blood pressure with failing kidneys and liver and had about a 10% chance to live with the possibility to lose one or more limbs due to the effects of the infection even after living through the infection.
Xigris saved his life and limb(s).
I just wonder had this drug been available, could this 25 year old have been saved??
AnimalHouse - Do you know why the drug was removed from use?
Interesting to note that Xigris was an anti-thrombotic, especially given the number of people (including celebrities) that have been diagnosed with pulmonary embolism or died from it.
Why does people like to play with such deadly things. Why is our government always the first in line when something else deadly comes along. Guess they maybe thinking about thining us out someday.
Um, to make a vaccine against them, maybe?
I don't know what our government is constantly apologizing to some population for infecting them years ago with some random STD or disease.
12 Monkeys
When you play with fire sometimes you get burned. No difference here than a lion tamer who is attacked and killed or the snake charmer being bitten and killed. Very sad.
Huge difference, those things you speak of are for entertainment. I went into research because I ( like most young people) wanted to help save the world. I wanted my life to mean something and make a difference for future generations. Just two generations ago when a woman gave birth she raised her kids knowing there was a strong possibility her children would die become infected with polio etc.....now mothers have babies counting on them growing into adulthood. The last two generations have been a game changer in our battle against pathogens. We have a long way to go and with better longer lives comes the need for more birth control, smaller families.
I knew someone who passed away from meningitis at 15 years old. Her name was Mary Jo Kwett. It devastated her family and was awful. Mary Jo taught me how to play the flute when I was 6 and I am now a band teacher so I owe her my passion; for teaching me to love music. I still think about her to this day (12 years later) and hope she knows wherever she is that people miss her. Every time one of my children get sick I immediately think of meningitis just because I know it can happen, I knew someone that has died from it. Mary Jo was sweet, amazing and her entire family was always so nice to everyone. I really wish this didn't happen. I do think that it isn't considered "common knowledge" in what to look for and should be, more awareness needs to happen.
Obviously they need to review their protocol. Check, recheck.....then check it again. I see a lot of complacency where rules and regulations can be taken for granted, especially in such a high-risk environment. Very sad for the young man.
I believe the key here is "if proper safety procedures are followed" I think people who work with this type of pathogen become too comfortable with it and comfort leads to unplanned carelessness. You should always treat this type of pathogen as if you have never worked with it before.....Just as in a hospital setting you are supposed to treat everyone even yourself as if you are contaminated...............Sad
I worked at a hospital in the early 80's, before the invention of fire, on an AIDS floor and . I was a private duty nurse taking care of an end stage AIDS patient with TB who coughed all over and he also had dementia. We didn't wear masks and all the tiny droplets floating around,wheew and when the MD came into lance some type of infection on the gents finger, he asked me to assist but then balked at me for wanting to put gloves on.. I look back now and wonder how I made it out of there unscathed. This was at a large teaching university too!
.
I, too, survived a nasty bout with bacterial meningitis. Spent a week in ICU, then several weeks in the hospital, followed by 3 months off work because of an incapacitating dizziness. The headache/neck pain is enough to make one look for a 'quick way out." This was followed by a 3 day coma.....that at least relieved me of the agony of the headache. There was no vaccine for this......still might not be one. I believe there is a vaccine for the viral form of meningitis.
This disease is a terrible way to go, and can, in some cases cause blindness and deafness, among other problems, as it destroys parts of the brain due to the high fever that accompanies the non-stop nausea and pain. So sorry for this young man and the ones he leaves behind.
My heart goes out to the family of this young man. I contracted viral meningitis as a young adult and know how easily it can be dismissed as the flu or a migraine. Meningitis progresses very quickly; for me, it started with a headache and within five hours I was in the ER with excruciating head pain, a stiff neck, nausea, brain swelling (felt mushy), no equilibrium and a high fever. After a scan to rule out an aneurysm, the doctor prepared to release me with a migraine. My husband insisted on a spinal tap. The head pain is so extreme you don't even feel the spinal tap. I know the story is about procedural concerns with bacteria in a lab, but I hope that anyone who experiences unusual head pain goes to a hospital immediately.
My son had cerebrial meningitis when he was 18 months old. The first doctors misdiaginosed it, he had a fever of over 106, the theomentor only went to 106, they put him in an oxygen tent for four days, it never went below 101. They did a spinal tap and said their was a slight indication of infection, but nothing to worry about! Later I learned that any indication of infection is something to worry about. They deceided he had a virus after 6 days and sent him home. The next day the fever want back over 106. They put him in the hospital again, and three days later said he was coming down with measles and were going to release him again!! This time I called my mother in another city in tears, she called their county hospital who advised her that they would admit him if it was warranted. I took us 4 hours to driver there, the doctor my mother spoke to was still waiting for us, it was 10:00 in the evening, she said she was so upset after she spoke with this doctor, because I refused to let them release him but transfer him instead, he told her we were over wrought parents and there was nothing wrong with him! They also did a spinal tap and at 1:00 in the morning found that he indeed had meningitis. He was put in isloation for 3 weeks and then spent another 5 weeks in the hospital. She advised us that their would always be a chance that he had brain damage and a hit in the right place in the head could cause many problems. Thank God to this day he is fine but we worried about him all the time, he is now 42 years old. Second opinions can be lifesavers especially when the child it too young to tell you where it hurts!! My thoughts are with this young mans family.