r/todayilearned • u/tooflyandshy94 • Sep 06 '22
TIL about Jeanna Geise, the first known survivor of rabies, which was thought to be 100% fatal
https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Jeanna_Giese1.9k
Sep 06 '22
Its still considered 100% fatal, the few cases of survival notwithstanding. There is currently no treatment protocol in place that reproducibly increased survival rates. Consider her a very lucky outlier. If you get bitten by a wild animal get medical advise asap if a rabies shot is advisable
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u/ethbullrun Sep 06 '22
yup. the same treatment that saved this young girl has never been repeated in practice which still makes it 100% fatal because so far because the treatment hasnt been repeated.
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Sep 06 '22
[deleted]
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u/Mescaline_Man1 Sep 06 '22
I do have to say it’s not always 100% effective if given within 10 days. I thought the same thing until I came across an article describing the 6 rabies deaths in the USA in 2020/2021? (One of those years). One of the people got the vaccine right away, but I guess they had some other low immune system problems so their body didnt create the antibodies unfortunately. It’s still basically 100% but it’s good to know especially if you have immune system problems to be extra extra careful around wildlife.
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u/jimjamalama Sep 06 '22 edited Sep 11 '22
I woke up with a bat in my room the other night. My cat was sleeping on my head and woke me up, I turned on the light and the bat is flying in circles over us. I know bats can’t take off from the floor or flat surface so I thought it was unlikely it would have gotten close enough to me without waking my cat (cat has HIGH prey drive and kills everything). I still got a vaccine the next day - because why fuck with rabies?! Edit: cat is up to date on all her shots! All of my animals are. Vet said they are fine. Edit2: Just got my second follow up shot! It doesn’t hurt as bad as ppl say imho and it’s very quick, very easy, and you shouldn’t hesitate to get this life saving vaccine even if you think there is only a .01% chance you got bit. Edit bats can take off from the ground!
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u/theBytemeister Sep 06 '22
FYI. Bats can climb pretty well, and they absolutely can take off from the ground.
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u/GNUr000t Sep 06 '22
There really is a wiki for everything...
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u/DrunkStepmother Sep 06 '22
Why wouldn't there be a wiki for rabies...a historical and extremely common fatal disease
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u/Gagarin1961 Sep 06 '22
He thinks they meant that there was a dedicated wiki website for Rabies. Like how there’s a Wookiepedia and a million others on Fandom.com.
In reality the original comment only meant that Wikipedia has a page for rabies.
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u/slackfrop Sep 06 '22
There’s a stellar Radiolab about this case. And how the protocol may have some interesting features that could potentially be repeatable. And how there are tribes in Perú with innate immunity, or at least appreciable survival rates.
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u/dkelkhoff Sep 06 '22
Here’s a link - https://radiolab.org/episodes/rodney-v-death-2209 - they just aired the story again as a repeat.
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u/thewaldenpuddle Sep 06 '22
Agreed…. That radiolab episode was one of the best produced episodes of radio I’ve ever listened to in my life.
Absolutely fantastic, edge of the seat type stuff.
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u/sloopslarp Sep 06 '22
For a long while, Radiolab was the absolute apex of podcasting production.
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u/elendur Sep 06 '22 edited Sep 06 '22
The treatment used for Giese was named the Milwaukee Protocol. As of 2020, the protocol had been applied in 38 known published cases after Giese. Of the 38, eleven patients survived. There is considerable debate in the medical community over whether the Milwaukee Protocol is the reason those patients survived, or if they survived in spite of the Milwaukee Protocol. We just don't know, and there is not a significant amount of research being done in this area, primarily because Rabies is readily treatable via vaccine if administered shortly after infection, which is the case in most developed countries.
Radiolab did a really neat podcast about Giese's story in 2013.
Sauce for later stats
Sauce for anecdotal knowledge - I'm from the same town as Giese and have met her. She's a year or two younger than me, but we did not attend the same high school. She went to the Catholic school - I went public.
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u/fancykindofbread Sep 06 '22
It’s been repeated 30 times with 5 more people surviving. Just listened to a radio on about it. But there are questions as to whether it’s effective or not just some biological outlier.
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u/Leyzr Sep 06 '22
I read it through the wiki, apparently those who attempted to repeat the treatment didn't follow the same steps. They all seem to have left out the antiviral cocktail initially. So it's still possible, if followed exactly, it could save anothers life.
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u/Farts_McGee Sep 06 '22
So having trained in Milwaukee, we suspect that it was combination of icu proficiency and luck.
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u/firefly07a Sep 06 '22
It has been repeated in practice, it’s called the Milwaukee Protocol. If I remember correctly (I heard it on Radiolab) 30 people have been put on it and a 5 survived
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u/Lord_Nasher Sep 06 '22
You are wrong. The Recife Protocol, derivative from the same protocol from the girl in USA, was used in Brazil, about three people were cured. (“Cured” as in not being able to walk or talk and having to relearn basic motor skills).
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u/Tenshizanshi Sep 06 '22
Why isn't it repeated
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u/lysianth Sep 06 '22
The treatment was repeated, but the success was not repeated.
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u/antellier Sep 06 '22
I don't know why but this made me audibly laugh, that's rare here lol
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u/InterestingApathy Sep 06 '22
But also "An article written by her primary care physician in the April 2007 Scientific American calls this the Milwaukee protocol; he indicates that those who attempted to follow this protocol actually violated it, failing to use the combination of drugs he first described."
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u/g_rich Sep 06 '22
According to the wiki article that’s really not the case, apparently repeated attempts failed to use the antiviral cocktail that was originally used for some reason.
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u/elimeno_p Sep 06 '22
The Milwaukee protocol has been repeated successfully 5 times (out of a total of 30)
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u/Alan_Smithee_ Sep 06 '22
Even being brushed by a bat.
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u/Mutilator_Juice Sep 06 '22
Why are you letting a bat comb your hair?!?!?!
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u/SonTyp_OhneNamen Sep 06 '22
You mean to tell me a shrimp fried this rice??!!
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u/Mutilator_Juice Sep 06 '22
Yessss!!!! This guy gets it.
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u/SonTyp_OhneNamen Sep 06 '22
I‘m fairly certain some 50ish other guys also got it, judging by the upvotes.
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u/dcoble Sep 06 '22
We had one in the house and my wife (who's already vaccinated) "brushed" it out the front door with a broom.
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u/CdrCosmonaut Sep 06 '22
I've seen increasingly more people on the Internet suggesting that rabies isn't all that bad anymore since there exists The Milwaukee Protocol. When someone mentions that it possibly worked once, and other results are more ambiguous, they just get ignored.
Rabies. Is. Deadly.
If you even suspect that you or anyone you know has been exposed to rabies in any capacity, go to the hospital immediately.
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Sep 06 '22
Its kind of ridiculous how many responses i hot for this post, suggesting that my statement is BS because a handful of people survived rabies thanks to the Milwaukee and Receife protocols. That comes against the backdrop of 60000 death from rabies. Thats >99.99% mortality
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u/249ba36000029bbe9749 Sep 06 '22
Obligatory rabies copypasta: https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/7qwtd5/rabies_is_scary/
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u/RowKHAN Sep 06 '22
I thought the treatment protocol after symptoms was a lawyer with a gun
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u/AdamsXCM101 Sep 07 '22
They keep the patents sedated until they die. I'm sure euthanasia is not uncommon.
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u/RowKHAN Sep 07 '22
I was making a bad joke about To Kill a Mockingbird
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u/AdamsXCM101 Sep 07 '22
Atticus Finch shoutout! Did you know Robert Duval played Boo Radley?
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u/HereComesCunty Sep 06 '22
Hijacking top comment to say please drill it into your kids - if you get bitten or scratched by an animal, you tell a grownup straight away, never shrug it off even if it’s just a small scratch
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u/InsomniaticWanderer Sep 06 '22
Let's be real 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999% is functionally no different than 100%.
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u/Khenghis_Ghan Sep 06 '22 edited Sep 06 '22
Fun fact/tangent, .999 repeating is literally mathematically = 1.
Edit: lol downvoted for sharing math proofs. The Reddit hive mind truly is more hive than mind.
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u/easwaran Sep 06 '22
Vi Hart has some great videos explaining this too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TINfzxSnnIE
Importantly, she doesn't just show you that it's true - she shows you why you could use the notation in a different way, but that this way of using it is more helpful for most of the things we care about.
Mathematical notation is a human choice, and it's helpful to understand why humans chose to make it work the way we did.
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Sep 06 '22
117 billion humans have ever lived. Around 99.999999999% of them are not you.
Yes I know the number of nines is not intended to be accurate, but I just can't ever help but point out that there are way way way too many anyway
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Sep 06 '22
tbh, yes. but one of the only (two?) hospital/teams/protocols in the whole world to cure someone is like... 10-15km from where i live. i'll still get the shot, but those are better odds i'll tell ya
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u/Thomas_Catthew Sep 06 '22
Rabies is still effectively 100% fatal. By the time symptoms show up, it's already too late.
If you get bitten by a wild animal, always get your rabies shot. Sometimes it can be years before the virus begins to act.
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u/newamsterdam94 Sep 06 '22
Is getting bitten the only way of contracting the virus?
What if I am open wound comes into contact with infected blood?
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u/KingDudeMan Sep 06 '22
Google says no to blood, urine, or feces. So just don’t get bit by or make out with any wild animals.
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u/HimOnEarth Sep 06 '22
Alternatively, go to a medical professional after direct blood contact with an animal. Even if it isn't rabies I'm sure there's other risks
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u/newamsterdam94 Sep 06 '22
I saw the video of the hydrophobic dude, and getting rabbies is like a me fear of mine.
I go cave exploring so I come into contact with the occasional bat(s).
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u/assholetoall Sep 06 '22
Save your pennies to get the vaccine.its not cheap (or all that fun), but it's available with enough planning.
Source: Wife is a veterinarian and has had the rabies vaccine.
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u/_grey_wall Sep 06 '22
I assume it's free in most western countries except the states, right?
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u/Sarrtram Sep 06 '22
Only free in the states post bite unfortunately. Insurance is what covers you getting it beforehand
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u/assholetoall Sep 06 '22
Probably not as a preventative measure (without suspected contact). Rabies is somewhat rare and the vast majority of people will never encounter it in person. So the cost and discomfort associated with the vaccine is not necessary for most people.
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u/DaHeebieJeebies Sep 06 '22
make out with any wild animals
But I was really looking forward to seeing ur mom later
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u/Majestic_Electric Sep 06 '22 edited Sep 06 '22
Rabies is spread via saliva, so just avoid contact with wild animals (especially bats, raccoons, and feral dogs) and you should be fine.
I’d be more concerned about other potential pathogens that could be in that blood, not rabies.
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u/WineAndDogs2020 Sep 06 '22
Getting scratched can do it too, because animals often lick their paws, which means a scratch can deposit saliva in the resultant wound. Bottom line with possible rabies contact: you cannot be too cautious.
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u/Keffpie Sep 06 '22
The last person to die of rabies in Sweden (it's not present here in the wild) was a 19-year-old girl who met a puppy in Thailand. Not all animals with Rabies go rabid, some get incredibly cuddly instead. This one licked a small cut on her hand that wasn't even bleeding.
3 months later she got sick, and two weeks after that she died in hospital in Gothenburg - it took five days before they even realized what it was, as no one had seen rabies in 30 years.
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u/Lien028 Sep 06 '22
This one licked a small cut on her hand that wasn't even bleeding.
No she was NOT licked, *she was bitten according to* this study.
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u/Keffpie Sep 06 '22
You're correct - the reports at the time was that she was licked, but clearly she was bitten. However, it is true that you can get rabies from a seemingly friendly animal if the lick a cut or wound.
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u/ecafsub Sep 06 '22
You can contract it from a scratch by a rabid animal, because saliva is probably on the claws.
If an open wound comes into contact with a rabid animal, get treatment. Saliva can easily find its way in. Urine, blood, and feces don’t carry the virus, but it is present in sperm and vaginal secretions.
Not an STD you’d want since when the first symptom shows up, you’re already dead.
Human-to-human infection is rare and all known cases are from organs from infected donors.
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Sep 06 '22
also scratching if i recalled it correctly (the animal might lick it's claws). not as common but it can happen. i use to work (no as a health worker tho) at a place where they did rabies shots and people went in all the time to get it, so i heard the recommendations from the nurses a dozen times. it was some years ago, it's not as fresh in my mind. just go and get the shots it's usually two, one right after and one some time later (can't remember how much time between shots but it's more than a week). in the place i used to work they told people to watch the animal that attacked you (if you could, obviously), in the case of being a street dog or cat. if it had rabies it would be dead whitin a week. anyway hope it helped, if anything was wrong blame the nurses that worked with me, sorry ):
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Sep 06 '22
[deleted]
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u/Heated13shot Sep 06 '22
Intresting. So it's like that brain eating amoeba. Your body has to murder it before you even realize you have it, and the moment you show symptoms you ded.
We typically only identify illness via symptoms so something that is "all or nothing" could appear more fatal than it really is.
Granted, I assume the survivors had low initial viral loads or have some natural resistance or something. It's still treatment yesterday if you know you got exposed.
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u/grandmasterflaps Sep 06 '22
What's this about the brain eating amoeba?
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u/g_rich Sep 06 '22
If you like swimming in lakes don’t read about brain eating amoebas.
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u/VoiceOfRealson Sep 06 '22
AFAIK the very few reported survivor cases (without vaccine) were all where the transmission came from bats.
That does not at all mean rabies from bats is safe though.
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u/ZedZero12345 Sep 06 '22
She's a mom with twins, now
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u/hillo538 Sep 06 '22
Do they have like I am legend anti rabies blood?
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u/PM_ME_CHIPOTLE2 Sep 06 '22
Only one way to find out!
Okay there’s probably two ways to find out but sticking 2 kids into a death match with rabies-infested animals is infinitely more entertaining than the other option.
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Sep 06 '22
I hope she's a better mother than the one she had.
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u/ZedZero12345 Sep 06 '22
If she just keeps the kids away from bats. She's a hundred percent better.
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u/shhansha Sep 06 '22
It’s not bad parenting that she got bitten by a bat — shit happens. It’s arguably bad parenting (or, more generously, ignorant parenting) that they didn’t immediately take her to get a rabies shot.
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u/cloud_watcher Sep 06 '22
Not even not immediately. They just didn’t know. She’d been in the hospital confounding neurologists for days before her mom said, “Wouldn’t have anything to do with that bat bite would it?” She said the doctor turned white when she asked that. I’m a veterinarian and am constantly preaching about rabies because so many people just don’t know exactly what to do, even doctors sometimes. (I don’t mean this doctor, I mean ER doctors who tell people “rabies is rare here. I wouldn’t worry about it.” (Real example.)
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u/ZedZero12345 Sep 07 '22
Actually according to wiki. The mother disinfected and dressed the bite. The fact it was a bat bite was disclosed later by the girl. The mother thought it was a scratch. Just from our bats, they are small. I wouldn't be sure they could break the skin.
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u/CatOfGrey Sep 06 '22
https://www.science.org/content/article/some-rabies-patients-live-tell-tale
An interesting look at research into people who might have survived rabies, including two villages where 10% of the people test positive for rabies antibodies. Possibly from contact with bats.
Still, y'all don't want to bank on this. If you get bit by something that might be rabid, don't roll the dice - rabies is not how you want to die.
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u/BrokenEye3 Sep 06 '22
You listen to RadioLab too, huh?
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u/Verdantvive Sep 06 '22
It’s been so many “returns” to old episodes lately.
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u/Anustart15 Sep 06 '22
Tends to be what they do over the summer since I'd assume a good chunk of the people that work on the podcast go on vacation
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u/shadowrh1 Sep 06 '22
been getting into radiolab, any notable episodes you’d recommend?
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u/bgbookoo Sep 06 '22
Some of my favourites:
An Ice-Cold Case, Rodney versus Death (about the girl on this post), Dark Side of the Earth, From Tree to Shining Tree, Hello.
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Sep 06 '22
There was one about how your life expectancy is tied to your father and grand father's life and if they went through a famine or not.
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u/Verdantvive Sep 06 '22
I love the old episodes with both Robert and Jad that were purely science-focused: Baby Blue Blood Drive, Sleep, Time, Stochasticity, Animal Minds…
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u/Noctudeit Sep 06 '22
Within a rounding error, it is 100% fatal, and those who survive are not unscathed.
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u/thxxx1337 Sep 06 '22
Knowing how awful of a death sentence rabies is, reading about the unsuccessful attempts is kind of heartbreaking
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u/notahopeleft Sep 06 '22
However it is efforts like these that could eventually get us a good reproducible result.
At the first symptom, your fate is sealed anyway. If I am in this situation and if you catch me while my mind is still sound, I’ll sign whatever needs to be signed to let doctors try any new treatment.
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u/nevercommentsonposts Sep 06 '22
After reading about the Japanese man who was subject to a lethal dose of nuclear radiation 100 times over during an industrial accident, I'll have to pass. He was begging to be killed within a week after previously agreeing to "any and all treatment for science". They kept him alive well after his intestines and skin had rotted into sludge. No amount of pain medication would even touch him.
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u/The7Reaper Sep 06 '22 edited Sep 06 '22
Hisashi Ouchi? Poor dude went through absolute hell.
His own family are as much to blame as the doctors, they kept insisting on the treatments and on reviving him any time he flatlined.
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u/Elefantenjohn Sep 06 '22
It is so weird to me that rabies of all things is the one that is 100% deadly
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Sep 06 '22
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u/Poop_Tube Sep 06 '22
The thing with prions is that they’re not technically alive. They’re miss-folded proteins.
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u/thats_hella_cool Sep 06 '22
Not to be pedantic, but viruses are also not technically alive. But yes, viruses and prions are not one in the same.
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u/iiiinthecomputer Sep 06 '22 edited Sep 06 '22
It isn't. Rabies after symptoms begin to show is 100% deadly. By the time you know you're sick you're absolutely going to die.
People sometimes turn up with rabies antibodies but no active rabies infection and no deadness. People are fairly frequently bitten by infected animals and survive despite the high chance they got some rabies virus exposure.
But once it has progressed to the point where it is eating your brain you're dead.
It's a little like saying that Ebola is 100% fatal once you're bleeding from every orifice and through the pores in your skin. Yeah. It's not 100% fatal, but advanced disease is. The difference is that Rabies is almost asymptomatic until disease progression is well advanced.
None of which makes it any less terrifying.
Also, Naegleria fowleri is very close to 100% fatal once symptomatic too. Absolutely horrifying. Some kids died from it in my country recently after playing with a hose supplied by groundwater in a hot area. Heartbreaking. Absolutely nothing to be done.
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u/-Daetrax- Sep 06 '22
She is sixth total, but the first without vaccine. The others had the vaccine fail.
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Sep 06 '22
If they survived, how is that vaccine failure?
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u/-Daetrax- Sep 06 '22
The vaccine supposedly keeps all symptoms at bay.
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Sep 06 '22
It has to be administered along with an immuno-globulin before you show any symptoms. I was thrashed by a stray cat years ago, waited a few days to see if this cat came back around as it typically did every day or so, but it never showed. Got nervous and went to the hospital, and they told me walking into triage that if I had an elevated fever from exposure my chances of survival were zero. Not a great feeling being told you're one thermometer reading away from a death sentence.
Had the full series and the cat showed back up several weeks later, so ultimately it wasn't an exposure, but at least I'm now semi-vaccinated if it ever happens again.
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u/El_Disclamador Sep 06 '22
This sounded terrible and glad that you didn’t get rabies, but when you said thrashed by a stray cat who didn’t come around for a few weeks, it made me imagine it jumped you with a baseball bat and then laid low for a while.
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Sep 06 '22
Hah, well it actually started a fight with my other cats on my back porch, and I foolishly intervened out of some sort of instinct, completely ignoring that my cats were in fact vaccinated for rabies.
But, I'm sure I stopped them from getting hurt, so while it sucked I felt like I had contributed something positive.
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u/El_Disclamador Sep 06 '22
So it was the neighborhood bad boy 🤔 really glad you didn’t get rabies though. Had a somewhat similar experience with my grandmother (cat bite, not getting jumped with a bat), and the daughter she lived with (who is a staunch anti-vaxxer) wanted to downplay the whole thing. My brother and I had to step in and take her to the ER
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Sep 06 '22 edited Sep 06 '22
So are you saying it was a vaccine failure because they did develop symptoms yet ultimately survived?
That is actually dependent on the timing of the vaccine in comparison to the time of exposure.
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u/a_phantom_limb Sep 06 '22
Since they didn't recover the bat and they weren't able to isolate the virus in her blood and tissue samples, am I right to assume that they confirmed the rabies diagnosis through antibody testing?
I'm wondering if the particular strain with which she was infected had some mutation that impaired its function or replication, but I guess we'll never know for sure.
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Sep 06 '22
OP is incorrect, she isn't the only one.
The treatment success rate for Milwaukee protocol is up to 14% (that's a total of 5 people, but 2 of 10 are under a revised version ).
But there are some concerns. All survivors share a specific antibody, so there is a suspicion it's caused by a genetic immunity (though the people in question seem to still need the protocol, as nobody survives without it).
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u/Kthonic Sep 06 '22
So this process awakens their mutant gene?
Where do I sign up? I don't have rabies, but surviving rabies is almost as cool as Mystiques power so awaken away.
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Sep 06 '22
So this process awakens their mutant gene?
More likely it gives them some protection, and the process delays the damage from rabies just long enough for their natural immunity to give them a chance.
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u/elendur Sep 06 '22
Up to eleven survivors using the Milwaukee Protocol or variations thereof as of the end of 2019.
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u/Starslip Sep 06 '22
There have also been a small number of people who have had rabies antibodies present in their blood without having received the vaccine, implying that natural immunity might be possible. This is, of course, nothing to rely on with something as deadly as rabies, but is interesting.
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u/AdamsXCM101 Sep 06 '22
You would think science would be curious about that and maybe do some research or something.
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u/Majestic_Electric Sep 06 '22
I’d want medically-assisted suicide if I ever started showing rabies symptoms.
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u/BMB012887 Sep 06 '22
She graduated high school with honors in May 2007. She expressed her intention to become a veterinarian after graduating.
Jeanna mocks the gods with her profession of choice.
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u/Xecron050 Sep 06 '22
I grew up in Oakfield, small town by Fond du Lac. She visited our school and made a presentation once. It was neat
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u/elendur Sep 06 '22
Oakfield, WI. Primarily famous for getting hit by a dozen tornados (including at least one F5) in three hours. That's what we call a bad day.
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u/lunarcrystal Sep 06 '22
Who the hell let's their kid pick up a wild BAT (the kind with wings), watches them get bit, and thinks hydrogen peroxide should be just fine, no hospital necessary...
Don't touch bats, people. Yeesh.
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u/Imfrank123 Sep 06 '22
I listened to the book “rabid” it was very good. Rabies is probably the scariest disease out there.
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u/Utterlybored Sep 06 '22
I heard about this case on an NPR show. The medical theory was that Rabies doesn’t affect the “hardware” of the brain, just the “software.” Rabies directs your brain to behave in ultimately fatal ways, even as your immune system progresses in its fight against the infection. Induced coma let’s your body fight it off while the coma reduces the havoc caused by the “software override” of your brain.
That was the theory of medical professionals at the time, but the inability to replicate treatments suggests that explanation may be way off base.
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u/extrafruity Sep 06 '22
I got bitten by a puppy while I was serving in East Timor. Went to med and the doc was all like 'oh I think rabies incidence in this area is low, not serious, vaccine is awful, confident you're fine, blah blah'. I thought ok and off I went not giving it a second thought. Until, j phoned my dad a few weeks later. He's also a doctor and he was HORRIFIED he straight up started ranting about what a stupid fucking risk to take etc etc. I was like SO blasé about it and then dad realized I had no idea it was fatal. Lol. I really didn't. We have no rabies in NZ and I legit didn't know. I'm still here though so I guess it all worked out OK but yeah, what a moment.
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u/HalloweenLover Sep 06 '22
How long ago was it? If I remember correctly it can lay dormant for some time. If you get the vaccine before symptoms show you are good but once they start that is it.
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Sep 06 '22
I was just talking about this to my wife yesterday. The girl went on to get her driver's license and go back to school. With that said, the Milwaukee protocol doesn't work reliably. It's worked once with a decent degree of success, on her. And I think it almost worked on another person, who then left the hospital against medical advice and died.
Once the headaches set in, you're fucked. Maybe, maybe you think it won't be you. Maybe you think you'll beat it. Maybe you think you're a lucky person.
You aren't. You'll be another science experiment. You'll be terrified of water, and lose your ability to think, and speak, and swallow until you drown in your own spit.
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u/PyroDesu Sep 06 '22
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u/Ppleater Sep 06 '22
Any number reported for this as high as 20 is very suspect. Many of the "surviving" cases cited when a source is reporting larger numbers like that are misrepresented, with many of them not actually being confirmed to have rabies or not actually surviving long term but rather only surviving longer than is typical for someone suffering from rabies, such as a month rather than a couple of weeks.
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u/Majestic_Electric Sep 06 '22
Still, the chances of someone surviving rabies is extremely slim (if not 0) without immediate medical attention. Once you start seeing symptoms, you’re fucked.
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u/sinmantky Sep 06 '22
google a pic of her. disappointed that she does not look like Man-Bat, much less, the ability to emit ultrasonic pitches.
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u/AdamsXCM101 Sep 06 '22
Say what you want about the Milwaukee Protocol, without it nobody would have thought Rabies was survivable at all. The MP upset the closed minded medical establishment and raised questions about its credibility.
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u/sovereignsekte Sep 06 '22
So, serious question: Would she be at all or partially mmune to the virus now? Not really sure if there's even an answer to that.
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u/dkelkhoff Sep 06 '22
Here’s the Radiolab podcast episode where this story is told, with additional details: https://radiolab.org/episodes/rodney-v-death-2209
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u/_dirtywater444 Sep 06 '22
Jeanna Geise Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For The Cure
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u/hostile65 Sep 06 '22
There is a human, a homeless woman in the south, that had naturally occurring antibodies in her tested blood.
Unfortunately before more information could be collected she dipped out of the hospital.
Seriously wild story you won't find online, but she is definitely a person researchers want to get a hold of.
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u/RosesandDragons Sep 06 '22
If I was her, you'd have to lower your voice when talking to me. I'd be lawless in these streets.
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u/Dawnawaken92 Sep 06 '22
If I remember correctly she's severely disabled. So "survived" is a broad use of the term.
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u/waxera Sep 06 '22
Her quality of life is considered high.
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u/ZedZero12345 Sep 06 '22
No, lives a normal life, a mom with twins. She had some nerve damage but it resolved.
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u/runthepoint1 Sep 06 '22
This is like a tunnel of misinformation lol
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u/NOOBEv14 Sep 06 '22
Someone is exceedingly wrong but I can’t tell who. The Wikipedia doesn’t mention kids but does say she can walk, operate a car, graduated from college, and wants to be a vet.
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Sep 06 '22
It's just people who got their info from various stages.
At first her condition was pretty bad, nerve damage and shit like that.
But it's been 20 years since then. She went into a treatment program for that type of damage and a lot of it has resolved.
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u/ZedZero12345 Sep 06 '22
Old wiki.. I just Googled the name. They had a bunch of news clips. Graduation, wedding baby announcement. That sort of thing.
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u/thats_hella_cool Sep 06 '22
Her story is fascinating. One thing I’ve always wondered for her and the very select few others that have recovered.. was the virus completely eradicated from her body? Or is there a chance that in the near or far distant future she could have a “flare up” like we see with diseases like HSV and EBV?
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Sep 06 '22
there was a dude cured in a public hospital next to where i work (it's a university hospital)
they created the "Recife Protocol" (sometimes refered as Brazilian Protocol) which derives from the Milwaukee Protocol
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670764/
and that's also it, i think everyone else after died
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u/TheTimeWeWaste Sep 06 '22
I’m just here to say it’s still 100% fatal, like every other comment in here.
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u/SharksForArms Sep 06 '22
Turns out it's only ~100% fatal.