by Sarah Hozumi
Death toll for two-way ‘plague’ bacteria reaches 2 billion globally
TOKYO (Newsway) – The World Health Organization has sounded the alarm in a damning report it issued on Monday over the newly discovered bacteria that many continue to inject into themselves even as the death toll reached 2 billion globally.
“Though many have reported ‘miraculous’ side-effects ranging from cured diseases to improved health, for the most part, people simply die after ingesting this bacteria,” the WHO said in the report.
Temporarily referred to as Yersinia pestis janus, the bacteria was first discovered at the beginning of this year in a RIKEN lab in Tokyo through what Prof. Manami Iguchi of Tokyo University – who was not part of the research – calls “a fateful accident.”
“I don’t think most of the world is going to thank them for this discovery, though,” she said.
Yersinia pestis is a strain of bacteria known for causing plagues, most famously the bubonic plague in the 1300s.
Five researchers in the lab – Takeshi Yamamoto, Toshi Shiota, Michiko Suzuki, Miwa Matsunaga and Rina Satou – were exposed to the bacteria on Jan. 11 of this year.
On Feb. 12, Shiota, Matsunaga and Satou all showed signs of what a RIKEN report described as “improved health.”
Shiota, an avid swimmer, found herself able to hold her breath underwater for increasing lengths of time, a source who asked not to be identified said.
An injury Matsunaga sustained to her left knee disappeared over the course of a month, the source said.
Satou’s eyesight improved so much, she no longer needed glasses, the source added.
Yamamoto and Suzuki were hospitalized shortly following their exposure to the bacteria, where their condition swiftly deteriorated. They both died of multiple organ failure on Feb. 15.
“That is where someone should have paused all of this and really reflected on whether or not this discovery is really good for humanity as a whole,” Iguchi said.
“Unfortunately, no one did.”
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‘Godlike’
News of three researchers gaining what Dr. Robert Carroll at the Johns Hopkins Hospital called “godlike improvements to their physiques” went viral across most social media platforms within a week of the discovery.
The three remaining researchers were able to re-create, then replicate the bacteria, and in late February – and with the surprisingly swift approval of the Japanese government – RIKEN began offering it to hospitals in the Tokyo area as a “last-resort” option for patients with severe illnesses.
A total of 5,400 patients were given the bacteria. Of them, 2,400 died while 3,000 showed nearly complete recoveries from what would have otherwise been fatal injuries or illnesses.
“To be honest, no one has any idea what’s going on here,” Carroll said. “If I were to venture a guess, I’d say the bacteria will either kill you or completely cure you based on how it reacts to the environments inside your body. My money would be on the bacteria already living inside of your body playing a starring role in deciding.”
While many governments across the globe called for greater scrutiny and more testing to determine how to better skew the bacteria in humanity’s favor, public demand for access to the bacteria was so deafening, it became available in most developed countries as a prescription by mid-May.
By June, the WHO reported over 30 million people had died after ingesting the bacteria.
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A ‘blessing’
Meanwhile, the internet became flooded with success stories of those who injected themselves with the bacteria and obtained some sort of unique improvement to their bodies – from eating more food and never gaining a pound to never needing to sleep.
One such benefactor is a social media influencer based in London who goes by the screen name Madame Camasene. She has 4 million subscribers on her video-sharing platform.
“As soon as I heard about this thing, I knew I had to live-stream trying it,” Madame Camasene said in an exclusive interview with Newsway.
Her live-stream of injecting herself on June 14, then the first 24 hours following, currently has 500 million views.
“It’s amazing what it’s done for me,” the influencer said. “The doctors say it did something to my vocal cords, but I can change my voice however I want.”
She has used that to do spot-on impressions of famous celebrities, with each video viewed over 2 million times.
“This bacteria has been a blessing,” she said.
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‘Was it worth it?’
An American father of three who lost two of them to the bacteria doesn’t see it that way.
“I wish I could go back in time and tell those Tokyo researchers to keep their findings to themselves,” Michael Pall of Falls Church, Va., said.
His three teenage children – Alex (17), Brandon (16) and Taylor (14) – found out about the bacteria online on around June 15, Pall said.
“Alex already had pretty bad sleep apnea, and Brandon had surgery on his elbow after a car accident three years ago. Taylor has pretty bad asthma and anxiety attacks.”
Thus, he decided to consult with their family doctor.
“There wasn’t even any hesitation – like she was prescribing pills for a headache or something,” Pall said.
Two days after their injections, Alex and Brandon developed severe respiratory symptoms.
“The ER didn’t even have room, so we were sent home.”
Alex and Brandon died the following day.
Taylor, meanwhile, says her asthma is gone but the anxiety has only grown worse.
“And she feels like she’s responsible for killing her older brothers because she was the one who told them about it,” Pall said.
Pall is seeking legal action against his family doctor, but considering the sheer volume of lawsuits in the U.S. against doctors from bereaved family members such as Pall, he’s not hopeful anything will come of it.
“You have to ask yourself, was it worth it?”
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‘Mother Nature’s Russian roulette’
The bacteria has already shown signs of mutating, with researchers around the world struggling to keep up.
“There’s just too many people ingesting the bacteria,” Carroll said. “I can’t begin to tell you what the future of it is, whether it’ll get better at healing us or better at killing us, but considering the fatality rate, I think we should brace ourselves.”
The WHO has issued a strong warning that anyone considering injecting themselves with the bacteria should only do so as a last resort.
“Until further research has been done, we must consider this bacteria to be dangerous,” the report said.
World leaders are planning on holding an emergency summit on the bacteria in September in New York City, where they are considering new global regulations.
“That’s like trying to shove all the evil in the world back into Pandora’s box,” Iguchi said. “But we’re too late; the box has been opened.”
The WHO predicts the death toll could rise to 3 billion by the end of the year.
Carroll said, “This bacteria has become Mother Nature’s Russian roulette, and we’re mostly losing.”
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Bio:
Sarah Hozumi is an editor who has lived near Tokyo for about 15 years. Along with having a fantastic time learning Japanese, she loves photography and gardening. To see short stories she’s had published, and to read her blog mostly about all things Japan, visit sarahhozumi.com.
Philosophy Note:
I was inspired to write this while wondering at what “the greater good” could be in a case like this. If humanity did stumble across some sort of tool like this that cures more than it kills but does indeed kill, would we still use it? I also understand more and more the sinister nature of social media glossing over the more complex aspects of life, and how that might be used in a case like this. The pretend news article I’ve written makes me wonder where we might draw the line, in reality, if such circumstances ever occurred – if we even do draw a line.
