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Science that may have inspired this story.

posted 11 years ago by InfoBabe
9 replies | jump to latest

About 10 years ago there was documentary about an Aids exposed man who did not get the disease. Because of his life style, he should have. There was extensive genetic study.

After some genetic search, they found a village in northern England that had never been severely effected by the plague. Some residents had ancestors that went back many centuries. The local churchyard bore their names. Present day residents still carried their genes. The upshot was that there is a plague/aids immune gene. One copy and one would get ill but recover. Two copies, and the disease would not be contracted, though not all carried the immune gene.

The gene originated in Scandinavia. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan also carried the gene. Associated with it was a minor hand deformity. Nostradamus who was also a physician and constantly exposed to the plague, never contracted the disease.

I can see how this could have inspired this story. With so much superstition, including the church, it was not much of a stretch to imagine how a such a village would have been regarded.

It is sobering to think that probably most of us on IMDB have ancestors that survived that period in history.

[–] inko8 11 years ago

please more info on the hand deformity -- i keep getting crappy results when i search!

"Ugh! I don't like this." --Ambrose Bierce

[–] InfoBabe 11 years ago

All I know, I posted. It was from a documentary from at least ten years ago. It was probably from the History Channel, PBS or one of those channels

[–] inko8 11 years ago

ok. thanks for replying.

"Ugh! I don't like this." --Ambrose Bierce

[–] inko8 11 years ago

hey-- i found it: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20101001/ARTICLES/101009926

"Ugh! I don't like this." --Ambrose Bierce

[–] InfoBabe 11 years ago

That is so good! That is how I remembered it. Now we have to find the link with aides and plague immunity.

[–] inko8 11 years ago

Using formulas that estimate how long genetic mutations have been around, researchers have discovered that the mutation dates to the Middle Ages. (Similar research in mitochondrial DNA -- passed along by women -- has suggested that Europeans are all descended from seven Ice Age matriarchs.)

Why would the mutation stick around so long instead of giving up the ghost? Researchers initially thought the mutation provided protection against the bubonic plague that caused the Black Death in Europe. Those with the mutation would have lived longer and had more children while many of their neighbors died off. The fact that the genetic mutation also provided protection against HIV centuries later would just be a coincidence.

The plague scenario has been largely discarded in favor of another deadly scourge. "A disease like smallpox that has been continuous since that time ... is more likely," said Yale University professor of epidemiology Alison Galvani, who co-wrote a study about the possible smallpox link in 2003.

According to Galvani, while the plague came and went, smallpox stuck around well into the 20th century, providing even more incentive for a protective gene to live on: It would keep people alive generation after generation, instead of just during one brief epidemic.

There are other cases of genetic mutations affecting two diseases: People who inherit one of the two mutations necessary to develop sickle-cell anemia end up with extra resistance to malaria, said Dr. Donald Mosier, professor of immunology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Last February, Mosier co-wrote a report in the journal Nature that debunked the plague theory after researchers found that mice bred with the AIDS-protective gene mutation still got sick with the plague. Mosier's not quite sure smallpox deserves credit for extending the mutation's life either, however, and suspects that a less high-profile disease -- diarrhea-causing dysentery -- may be why the mutation has lived on.

[...]

Then there's the pesky matter of the few people who have gotten infected with HIV even though they're supposed to be immune. "It's extremely rare," Mosier said, "but you don't want to tell people they'll be protected and then have them change their risk behavior and get exposed."

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/01/66198?currentPage=all

curiouser and curiouser...

"Ugh! I don't like this." --Ambrose Bierce

[–] raf-33 9 years ago

That does explain why Jeremy Beadle was so resistant to everything, each week all of Britain would hope the lurgee would take him, but nope.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. -Isaac Asimov

[–] Jonstoni 8 years ago

It is very clearly pointed out in the end that the village was not protected from the plague. It was just remote.

Yo momma

[–] InfoBabe 8 years ago

I only said it was possibly the inspiration, but similarly, I do not recall reading of any of the royal family or even nobility dying of the plague. Maybe they were able to just get away from the sickness since they had places to where they could go and were maybe a little more sanitary, not co-habiting with rats who bore the disease bearing fleas.