Bubonic Plague

A routine check of an abandoned Waterbury home became a hazardous materials situation when four city firefighters were overrun by fleas and had to be tested for bubonic plague and other diseases. Fire Chief David Martin said Thursday that all the firefighters appear to be OK and are back at work. The firefighters checked out the Taylor Street home after a nearby medical call Tuesday and noticed fleas all over them while riding back to the station in a fire truck. They were brought to Saint Mary's Hospital, where they had to take off their clothes in the parking lot and scrub down.

A routine check of an abandoned Waterbury home became a hazardous materials situation when four city firefighters were overrun by fleas and had to be tested for bubonic plague and other diseases. Fire Chief David Martin said Thursday that all the firefighters appear to be OK and are back at work. The firefighters checked out the Taylor Street home after a nearby medical call Tuesday and noticed fleas all over them while riding back to the station in a fire truck. They were brought to Saint Mary's Hospital, where they had to take off their clothes in the parking lot and scrub down.

NEWARK -- Three mice infected with the bacteria responsible for bubonic plague apparently disappeared from a laboratory about two weeks ago, and authorities launched a search although health specialists said there was scant public risk. The mice were unaccounted for at the Public Health Research Institute, which is on the campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and conducts bioterrorism research for the federal government. Federal officials said the mice may never be accounted for. Among other scenarios, the rodents may have been stolen, eaten by other lab...

MIAMI — Officials decided to shut down much of Miami International Airport after a database showed a scientist with a suspicious item in his luggage had once been charged with illegally transporting bubonic plague, a senior law enforcement official said yesterday. No dangerous material was found on 70-year-old Thomas Butler after he was detained Thursday night, the official said. Butler, a world-renowned plague researcher who was acquitted on charges of transporting the potentially deadly germ in 2003, cooperated fully after he arrived on a flight from the Middle East, said the...

MIAMI — Officials decided to shut down much of Miami International Airport after a database showed a scientist with a suspicious item in his luggage had once been charged with illegally transporting bubonic plague, a senior law enforcement official said yesterday. No dangerous material was found on 70-year-old Thomas Butler after he was detained Thursday night, the official said. Butler, a world-renowned plague researcher who was acquitted on charges of transporting the potentially deadly germ in 2003, cooperated fully after he arrived on a flight from the Middle East, said the...

WASHINGTON -- Government investigators found widespread potential for bioterrorism mischief at many college laboratories funded by the Agriculture Department, including an unlocked freezer supervised only by a college lecturer and containing a biological agent for a plague more severe than the Black Death. "Officials we spoke with about this situation believed there was a strong possibility that similar conditions existed at a number of other institutions," the department's inspector general's office said in a report.

Atop the laundry list of nightmares to obsess about these days is the specter of avian flu vaulting from birds to humans in a big way. Thus a documentary on the biggest pandemic of them all -- the bubonic plague of the 14th century -- is smart and timely. "The Plague," a sensationalist, shallow, two-hour wing-ding that runs tomorrow night on the History Channel, fails to deliver the goods. The show is a reminder that, at its worst, PBS would never run anything this cheesy.

SAN FRANCISCO — They left their X-rays in San Francisco. They brought their hearts back to Boston. For three bone-cracking nights and days the Red Sox were sittin’ by the dock of Sick Bay. They lost Dustin Pedroia (broken foot) Friday night, Clay Buchholz (hyperextended knee) Saturday, and Victor Martinez (fractured bone, left thumb) in yesterday’s 5-1 win over Tim Lincecum and the Giants. “We definitely want to get out of here,’’ Martinez said after Jon Lester’s five-hit masterpiece.

FOXBOROUGH - He has not lost a game on Route 1 since 2006. That was before Gisele, before Spygate, before Bernard Pollard. Tom Brady is almost perfect at Gillette Stadium. The last time he lost any home game was back when we still took Eric Mangini seriously: Nov. 12, 2006 (Jets 17, Patriots 14). Brady has won 22 straight at the Razor, and he has never lost a playoff game in Foxborough. “We’ve played really well over the years here, and we’ve played pretty well in the playoffs, too,’’ Brady said yesterday.

LUBBOCK, Texas -- A lab safety officer testified yesterday that he had immediate doubts when he heard that a Texas Tech University professor had reported 30 vials of plague samples missing. Safety officer Michael Jones testified that Dr. Thomas Butler "didn't seem particularly disturbed. He was fairly calm and didn't seem particularly upset. " Butler, 62, faces 69 felony charges in connection with the incident that caused a bioterrorism scare earlier this year. He faces up to life in prison and $17.1 million in fines if convicted.

SAN FRANCISCO — They left their X-rays in San Francisco. They brought their hearts back to Boston. For three bone-cracking nights and days the Red Sox were sittin’ by the dock of Sick Bay. They lost Dustin Pedroia (broken foot) Friday night, Clay Buchholz (hyperextended knee) Saturday, and Victor Martinez (fractured bone, left thumb) in yesterday’s 5-1 win over Tim Lincecum and the Giants. “We definitely want to get out of here,’’ Martinez said after Jon Lester’s five-hit masterpiece.

FOXBOROUGH - He has not lost a game on Route 1 since 2006. That was before Gisele, before Spygate, before Bernard Pollard. Tom Brady is almost perfect at Gillette Stadium. The last time he lost any home game was back when we still took Eric Mangini seriously: Nov. 12, 2006 (Jets 17, Patriots 14). Brady has won 22 straight at the Razor, and he has never lost a playoff game in Foxborough. “We’ve played really well over the years here, and we’ve played pretty well in the playoffs, too,’’ Brady said yesterday.

Atop the laundry list of nightmares to obsess about these days is the specter of avian flu vaulting from birds to humans in a big way. Thus a documentary on the biggest pandemic of them all -- the bubonic plague of the 14th century -- is smart and timely. "The Plague," a sensationalist, shallow, two-hour wing-ding that runs tomorrow night on the History Channel, fails to deliver the goods. The show is a reminder that, at its worst, PBS would never run anything this cheesy.

NEWARK -- Three mice infected with the bacteria responsible for bubonic plague apparently disappeared from a laboratory about two weeks ago, and authorities launched a search although health specialists said there was scant public risk. The mice were unaccounted for at the Public Health Research Institute, which is on the campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and conducts bioterrorism research for the federal government. Federal officials said the mice may never be accounted for. Among other scenarios, the rodents may have been stolen, eaten by other...

WASHINGTON -- Government investigators found widespread potential for bioterrorism mischief at many college laboratories funded by the Agriculture Department, including an unlocked freezer supervised only by a college lecturer and containing a biological agent for a plague more severe than the Black Death. "Officials we spoke with about this situation believed there was a strong possibility that similar conditions existed at a number of other institutions," the department's inspector general's office said in a report.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexicans have long been taught to blame diseases brought by the Spaniards for wiping out most of their Indian ancestors. But recent research suggests that things may not be that simple. While the initial big die-offs are still blamed on the conquistadors who started arriving in 1519, even more virulent epidemics in 1545 and 1576 may have been caused by a native blood-hemorrhaging fever spread by rats, Mexican researchers say. The idea has sparked heated debate in Mexican academic circles.

People of the Book By Geraldine BrooksViking, 372 pp., $25.95 Few fiction writers travel across territory as vast as that staked out by the intrepid Geraldine Brooks over the course of her career, namely, practically the whole world and several centuries of human civilization. The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "March," which imagines the life of the famously absent father in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," Brooks began her writing career as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald and went on to cover some of the world's most incendiary political...