by Thomas Hopp
I said, “I can’t believe it’s that simple to make. Are you sure there’s nothing dangerous about it? Nothing toxic - ?”
McKean laughed. “Under the circumstances, do you really care?”
“I suppose not.”
He turned to Janet. “You brought the adjuvant?”
She held up a second tube containing a drop of off-white, slightly yellowish oil. She swirled it and a smutty yellow-white material rose from the bottom.
“Adjuvant?” I eyed the foul-looking material. It had an unpleasant, pus-like appearance.
“The second component of our vaccine,” said McKean. “The term adjuvant means, literally, to make young, or to boost the vigor of the immune response. Our adjuvant has a few more ingredients in the mix than other investigators use. In that yellowish suspension are various extracts of killed bacteria, molds and fungi, materials the body naturally tends to react against. We’ve concocted a blend of microbial body parts, you might say, and we add to that an assortment of immune-stimulating hormones, which cause white blood cells to roar with activity. Mix this adjuvant in equal parts with the vaccine peptide and the combination causes a dramatic immune reaction.”
“Is this a secret recipe of yours?” I asked.
“Not really a secret. We’ve published our findings in scientific journals. But our work has been ignored by the scientific community.”
“Ignored?” I said. “Why is that?”
McKean shrugged. “NIH syndrome.”
“NIH,” I said. “National Institutes of Health - “
McKean shook his head. “Try, ‘Not Invented Here’.”
“‘Not Invented Here’ syndrome?” I puzzled. “Are you saying scientists would ignore a perfectly good product because they didn’t invent it themselves?”
“Answer: yes. They’re all looking for their own claim to fame.”
“But wouldn’t that slow down scientific progress?”
“A shame, isn’t it?” McKean pointed again at the tube in Janet’s hand. “But I’m confident this vaccine will make our white blood cells produce what we need right now - antibodies.”
“But why wouldn’t the antibodies be targeted against the adjuvant, instead of the vaccine?”
“An astute observation,” said McKean. “But our immune systems will see the entire mixture as the enemy. Our immune cells will react to everything, including the vaccine peptide. Have no doubts on that, Fin - we have tested this technique on hundreds of albino mice.”
“That’s fine,” I replied. “But I’m not an albino, and I’m not a mouse. Are you sure it will work on us, against this virus?”
“You’ve got me there,” McKean admitted. “We’ve never tried this particular approach on humans.”
“Great,” I muttered. “So my life depends on an untested bit of yellow scum.”
McKean shrugged again. “If this vaccine is inadequate, Fin, then what else would you like to try?”
I shrugged.
Kay Erwin came from her office and took the test tubes from Janet. She entered the airlock and while she dressed in her pressure suit, McKean conversed quietly with Janet. “Don’t let anything delay your new synthesis,” he said. “Thousands of lives may depend on you - maybe many more than that. And if this belated dose of vaccine doesn’t work, you won’t have me to consult with.”
McKean voiced the thought with academic coolness, but it was not received that way. Janet’s eyes widened, her brow creased, and her jaw dropped. Tears welled in her eyes. “Don’t talk like that!” she pleaded. “Don’t tell me what I’ll do when you’re gone. You’re not going to…”
“I only meant,” McKean interrupted, “that if the worst should happen…”
“The worst won’t happen!”
“We don’t have to discuss these matters right now,” McKean said. “But there is one more thing. Despite the urgency, I think you should find time to get some sleep.”
She looked even more surprised. “But, I can’t waste time…”
“Every step in the synthesis is critical, Janet. I don’t want you making errors due to exhaustion. You look well beyond fatigued.”
He was right. Her teary eyes were surrounded by dark circles and her cheeks had a porcelain-like pallor.
“I’m not that bad off,” she insisted. “I got some sleep while the main batch of vaccine was freeze-drying. I only wish I had stayed awake to watch it.”
“When you get the chance,” said McKean, “between stages of the synthesis, please find time to lie down on the couch in the staff lounge. Sleep is the best way to assure you don’t make a serious mistake along the way. We can’t afford a single error.”
Kay Erwin came into the ward from the airlock, isolation-suited and carrying a metal tray with the two vaccine components on it. She set the tray on the countertop and picked up a syringe wrapped in sterile packaging. Her black-gloved hands made tearing the paper-and-plastic laminated holder difficult.
“Darn this moon suit,” she said.
“Allow me,” said McKean. He took the syringe package from her and opened it deftly with his long fingers. “Now, Fin,” he said in a lecturing tone, “allow me to demonstrate the final preparation of a synthetic vaccine.”
He picked up the test tube containing the milky vaccine peptide solution and drew the liquid into the syringe, half-filling it. He then took up the tube of yellowish adjuvant and squirted the syringe’s contents into it, making a 50-50 mix of vaccine and adjuvant. He drew the mixture into the syringe and expelled it back into the tube several times until it congealed to the consistency of mayonnaise. It had a horrid, yellow, mucinous appearance.
“That looks good,” McKean said, raising the test tube and eyeing it carefully.
“Looks bad, if you ask me,” I said.
“Let’s hope our immune systems agree. Now, I’ll divide it in thirds.”
“Into halves,” Jameela said. “You know I am already immune.”
“Maybe Dr. Taleed really did give you a tetanus shot,” said McKean.
“No,” she replied. “It was Taleed’s smallpox vaccine. I am sure of it now.”
McKean drew the syringe plunger back to the one-half cc mark, and then raised the needle in front of his face and carefully pushed out a small amount of the emulsion, which slid down the barrel of the needle like the mucus trail of a slug.
“It’s ready,” he said. “Fin, please turn up your sleeve.”
The syringe needle was of a large gauge, to allow the viscous liquid through. As I watched the droplet of vaccine make its sluggish way down the needle’s shaft, I wasn’t so sure I wanted that needle or its load of slime in my arm. But I did as he asked. I lowered my bathrobe sleeve and pulled up the short sleeve of my gown. Kay Erwin wiped the side of my shoulder with an alcohol swab.
With the hint of a smile crossing his face, McKean pinched the flesh of my shoulder and jabbed the needle deep into the muscle. I grimaced as he slowly forced the thick goop through the needle and into the flesh, nearly an inch beneath the surface. The swelling sensation inside the muscle was nauseating. McKean withdrew the needle and Erwin rubbed a fresh alcohol swab over the skin. The eerie, over-full feeling in the flesh made sweat break out on my temples. My chin tightened in a suppressed gag reflex.
McKean observed me as if I were an experimental animal. “Not too severe a reaction,” he observed.
“I’ve seen worse,” said Erwin. She took a second syringe out of a package, drew the remainder of the vaccine from the test tube, and gave McKean his dose. He flinched at the injection, but quickly recovered.
I rubbed my shoulder, which had developed a new and annoying sensation. “This itches,” I said.
“Be glad,” said McKean. “It’s a sign your body is reacting. The itch represents the first wave of white blood cells already coming in contact with the vaccine. They’re responding by pumping out interleukins, histamines, prostaglandins, and a dozen other immune-system alarm signals. Your body is already on the attack. Welcom
e the itch, Fin. And the painful throbbing you will feel later. They are harbingers of a good immune response.”
“So you think I’m already getting immune to Taleed’s virus?”
“Theoretically. I’m sure the vaccine is stimulating a response. Let’s hope it’s not just against the adjuvant.”
“How long before we know the answer?”
“A few days. A week.”
“But the virus is already growing.”
“It does have a bit of a head start.” He turned to Erwin. “Do you suppose the government might be interested in producing this vaccine?”
Kay Erwin shifted uneasily, squeaking her moon suit. “I’ve just heard some unfortunate news on that subject.”
“Unfortunate? What news?”
“I was on the phone to General Moralez at Fort Detrick before I came in here. I suggested this vaccine to him, but he has already committed their resources to the same approach you started with, producing the whole B7R subunit in bacterial culture.”
McKean shook his head. “It might take weeks to get a culture growing, and months to produce enough of the product.”
“They claim to have new ways of accelerating the process.”
“I hope they do. Otherwise they’re just stuck in the rut of routine. They’ve been making vaccines that way for years. What about the CDC? Any greater interest there?”
She shook her head and looked at McKean apologetically. “They’ve appointed a new head of what they’re calling the Jihad Virus Group - Roger Devon. You know him, don’t you?”
McKean’s eyebrows raised high. “Of course I do. He’s the former CEO of Virogen, one of ImCo’s competitors and the harshest critic of my Congo River vaccine. He almost blocked its FDA approval. Even went before a panel of congressmen to testify against it. Said my Flag molecular handle would interfere with immunity - which it didn’t.”
Erwin nodded. “So you know exactly who he is. But did you know he had his own version of a Congo River vaccine under development when yours was approved? You wrecked his plans. He was on the brink of getting rich off Virogen’s vaccine.”
McKean smiled ironically. “Big-time scientists like Devon don’t forget easily. Or forgive.”
“Having talked with the man, I would say he wants to spit on the ground every time your name is mentioned.”
McKean sighed. “But that’s still no reason not to try our vaccine. You told him I would give him the formula, no strings attached, no patents filed, for the good of the nation?”
“I did,” said Erwin. “But I think he would do anything to make sure you don’t invent a second successful vaccine before he creates his first. He’s got his entire vaccine division going almost directly opposite what you’re doing. They’re trying the classic procedure - viral attenuation.”
“What!” McKean cried. “He’s leading them backward in time, decades into the past. There are a dozen ways to make a vaccine more quickly.”
“Attenuation?” I asked. “What’s that?”
McKean explained for my benefit, “You grow the whole, live virus in cell culture, infecting human cells over and over again and picking out mutated viruses that grow more slowly. Eventually you get a strain of virus that grows extremely slowly, so the immune system has time to react before the virus spreads throughout the body.”
“It seems like a good strategy,” I said.
“But that’s a much longer timeframe to develop the vaccine. Months before they’ll have something attenuated enough to test in animals, and years before they would dare try it in humans. Roger Devon is taking his team out of the running, as far as I’m concerned. It’s NIH syndrome at the CDC.”
Erwin said, “He just can’t stand that the synthetic vaccine is your idea, Peyton.”
McKean shook his head. “How many researchers in his group?”
“A whole department. An entire building on the CDC campus. Sixty or seventy people.”
“What a waste of manpower at a critical time,” McKean muttered. “And what an exercise in futility. It’s a matter of foolish pride, rather than scientific reasoning.” He looked through the window wall. Janet stood watching the conversation with disbelief on her face. “And what have we’ve got?” He smiled at her affectionately. “Just you, Janet, with Robert and Beryl to help. That’s what it comes down to.”
She said, “Suddenly, I feel awfully small.”
“Don’t worry,” McKean said. “It doesn’t take an army to make a synthetic vaccine. In fact - ” he turned back to Erwin, ” - while Janet carries out the second synthesis, Robert and Beryl will be idle part of the time when their assistance is not needed.”
“That’s true,” Janet agreed. “We don’t need three people for one synthesis procedure.”
“I would like them to fill up that time with another experiment I’ve been considering. It might prove quite timely. I would like them to sequence another part of the viral DNA, the fourth invariant segment.”
Janet looked surprised. “Why? There’s no gene there, no protein encoded there, and no useful antigens. What would you expect to find?”
McKean smiled deviously. “I’m not willing to say at the moment. It’s just a hunch, but please put it on a second-highest priority level for Robert and Beryl, just below helping you with the new synthesis. I would really like to see that DNA segment.”
“Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”
“I do. Now, don’t let us delay you any longer. Hurry back and get things moving!”
As Janet was leaving, she gave McKean a fragile smile as the elevator doors closed.
Kay Erwin cleaned up the syringes and swabs, and left us to go to the airlock.
McKean gingerly touched the lump on his shoulder. “This is the first time I’ve ever been comforted by an irritation,” he said.
PART FOUR: A NATIONAL EMERGENCY
Chapter 16
Jameela wandered off as McKean and I discussed our shots. Twenty minutes later she came back from her room, showered and looking radiant with her hair knotted behind her head. She had gotten a pair of silk pajamas from Kay Erwin and, even in the blue terrycloth bathrobe and slippers, managed to look elegant. She joined us at the small table in our room just as Hawkins arrived with dinners of pork roast, seasonal vegetables, mashed potatoes, and gravy. My appetite was thin, thanks to a dull aching pain in my shoulder and a queasy stomach. I gave up on the idea of eating and made small talk with Jameela and Peyton. Suddenly, McKean grabbed the remote and turned the volume up on the news again. It was a female CNN anchor, with a picture of the wrecked white truck beside her on the screen.
She said, “For more detail on how this incident started, we go to our local affiliate, Andrea Winchell, in a segment taped earlier in the location where the chase originated.”
The view shifted to Andrea with a microphone, standing near an aid car beside another stretch of wide-open freeway. The vehicle’s lights were flashing, its rear doors were open and two crewmen were loading a stretcher into the back with a man strapped on it. Although the victim’s face was scraped and bleeding, McKean recognized him immediately.
“Mike!”
“This is a very confused scene,” said the reporter as the aid men pushed the stretcher inside. “There are three police cars here in addition to the aid car, and they’re not willing to tell us much. But so far we’ve learned this incident may be linked to the smallpox scare in Washington State.”
“They’ve got that right,” said McKean.
“Unfortunately, the man who could tell us the most - ” she nodded toward the aid car, ” - is unconscious and is not expected to live. He apparently jumped from the van while it was moving at seventy miles-per-hour. Colorado State Trooper Dean Westfall saw it happen.”
She held her microphone up in front of the Trooper.
“I think he jumped on purpose,” said Westfall. “I was following the truck because its rear door was cracked open a bit, which is illegal. And suddenly both doors flew ope
n, and this guy came flying out. I had to swerve to miss him, but I saw a bunch of other people in the van. I hit the lights and siren, and stopped to assist the victim. But the truck kept rolling, so I called in a fugitive report before rendering assistance. He’s pretty banged up. And lucky I didn’t run over him.”
The screen shifted back to the news anchor. “That footage was filmed six hours ago,” she said. “And that incident led to the overturned truck situation we have been following. Back to that scene now, where Andrea is waiting.”
The scene shifted to the truck location, where Andrea stood waiting with her microphone at the ready.
“Go ahead, Andrea,” the anchor prompted.
Just as Winchell was about to speak, someone off-camera called to the reporter briefly. She took on a shocked expression and then turned to the camera again.
“The entire first-response team here, including our film crew, myself, and Officer Westfall, have been ordered to a Public Health Hospital in Grand Junction. We’re to be quarantined and treated for smallpox exposure.”
A man in an orange hazmat suit came from off-camera and began giving orders. “All right folks,” he called. “Shut off the cameras. Let’s wrap this up and get you all somewhere safe.”
The reporter made a hasty sign-off and the program cut to the newsroom, where the flustered anchorwoman segued to a commercial break.
“Those poor people,” Jameela said.
McKean didn’t respond immediately. He slowly shook his head. “And poor Mike. I would have saved part of the vaccine if I knew he was still alive.”
“Your cousin is a brave man,” said Jameela.
I agreed. “I bet he jumped out when he saw the police car.”
“I’m sure he did,” said McKean. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for him. He’s in a terrible fix. Even if he survives his injuries, he’s still got to survive the virus. And if he gets a shot of the next batch of vaccine, it may be too late to do him any good. It looks like Mike is an unwilling guinea pig, the negative control on our little vaccine test.”
“Negative control?” I puzzled.
“The experimental subject who gets a dose of the disease without any help from the vaccine. In animal studies, he would be the one expected to get sick and die while the vaccinated ones lived.”