Gray Plague

The Gray Plague was a pandemic prionic disease that killed thousands of people between 1981 and 1982. Many scientists working for A.E.G.I.S. and other groups believe that the Gray Plague is responsible for the massive increase in the number of births with human+ abilities.
==Origins of the Gray Plague==
In 1981, researchers at a GeneTech laboratory in Century City were doing research into the nature of human+ abilities, trying to determine what the unique factors Travelers have in their blood that granted them their unique abilities. During one test, an unknown pathogen was released from the lab, making Century City ground-zero for the Gray Plague.
==Initial Presentaiton==
Patients presenting with the disease were at first diagnosed with a hemolytic anemia, arriving with severe fatigue. Unfortunately, the disease progressed rapidly, with many early patients quickly crashing from massive, systemic hemolysis. The disease was identified late in the course when a peculiar pigment began to deposit following hemolysis, giving patients the characteristic gray skin that would become the disease's hallmark.
The Gray Plague rapidly spread across the country, and then around the world, soon claiming many lives. Initial treatment was simply transfusion with packed red blood cells, which was able to sustain a great number of patients throughout the course of the disease, though this severely strained bloodbanks world-wide.
==A Cure?==
After several months, scientists finally managed to isolate the causitive agent, which turned out to be a prion, an abberant protein able to reconfigure a host's native proteins into the disease-causing prions, the first such identified disease of its kind. Within a year, GeneTech released a drug capable of binding and innactivating the prion, thus providing an effective treatment (though it required survivors of the Plague to take the drug for the rest of their lives). GeneTech's stock value increased almost 4000% in a week.
==The Survivors==
Over the next twenty years A.E.G.I.S. began to notice an increase in individuals manifesting human+, and it soon became obvious that these new manifestations could not be accounted for by natural Traveler births. After several years, it was concluded that survivors of the Gray Plague (especially those who recovered spontaneously) and children of suvivors were at an increased chance of manifesting human+ abilities. This has borne out over the years, with the addendum that these abilities are only manifested by the children of female survivors of the plague (as it is hypothesized that the prions cause changes in the mitochondria of the host).
Category:Paradox History
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Category:Paradox