"The Flu Hunter"

Read the full article by Michael Rosenwald in Smithsonian. (January 2006)

Summary:

For years, Robert Webster has been warning of a global influenza outbreak. Now governments worldwide are finally listening to him

Robert Webster is the world's preeminent expert on avian influenza. A virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, he helped create the first widespread commercial flu vaccine decades ago. It was Webster who discovered that birds were likely responsible for past flu pandemics, including the one in Asia in 1957 that killed about two million people. Perhaps Webster's greatest contribution to science is the idea that global influenza epidemics begin when avian and human flu viruses combine to form a new strain, one that people lack the ability to fight off.

For all those reasons, Webster is in great demand as governments worldwide try to stave off a possible epidemic of influenza, the likes of which haven't been seen since the great pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed at least 40 million people. Smithsonian dispatched Michael Rosenwald to catch up with Webster and report on the scientist whom one expert has called an "international treasure."

Excerpts:

“Will the H5N1 currently circulating in Vietnam learn to transmit, reproduce, from human to human? Why hasn’t it done so already? It’s had three years to learn how, and so what’s it waiting for? Why can’t it finish the job? We hope it doesn’t.” He paused. “Is it the pig that’s missing in the story?”

(Webster's) lab at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis is the world’s only laboratory that studies the human-animal interface of influenza. It was Webster who discovered that birds were likely responsible for past flu pandemics, including the one in Asia in 1957 that killed about two million people.

It occurred to Webster that there was a problem. The problem was H5N1. Neither he nor any members of his staff had ever been exposed to the virus strain, meaning they did
not have any antibodies to it, meaning they had no defense against it. If they became infected, they would likely meet the same fate as the little boy who died.

They needed a vaccine. Four decades before, Webster had helped create the first widespread commercial flu vaccine. Until he came along, flu vaccines were given whole—the entire virus was inactivated and then injected. This caused numerous side effects, some of which were worse than the flu. Webster and his colleagues had the idea to break up the virus with detergents, so that only the immunity-producing particles need be injected to spur an immune response. Most standard flu shots still work like this today.

Before they went to work in Hong Kong, Webster and his colleagues created a sort of crude vaccine from a sample containing the H5N1 virus. They declined to discuss the matter in detail, but they treated the sample to inactivate the virus. Webster arranged for a pathologist in Hong Kong to drip the vaccine into his nose and the noses of his staff. In theory, an tibodies to the virus would soon form.

“Are you sure this is inactivated?” the pathologist said.
Webster pondered the question for a moment.
“Yes it is. I hope.”
And the fluid began dripping.