Nature Is Showing You Who's Boss

Terrible mutations may turn humans into plants or animals
20.12.2005
Source:
URL: http://english.pravda.ru/science/health/9418-mutation-0
Herbal cells may settle down and parasitize on the organism of a human or an animal
Geneticists say that mutations seriously change the set of chromosomes, and people with mutations can thus hardly be called humans. In Yerevan in the former Soviet republic of Armenia, 18-year-old girl Narine Aivasyan shocked doctors with her unusual disease. The girl complained about an abscess on her wrist that had been hurting her for a long period already. When doctors opened the bandage on Narine's hand they saw two very thin thorns sticking out of the hand.
The girl failed to enter a higher education institution after she left school, and had to help her mother about the house and assisted her in a store where the woman worked. The girl was fond of pot plants and devoted much time to looking after her plants. Once, Narine pricked herself on a cactus while watering plants. Some thorns got stuck in her wrist. The parents immediately disinfected the wound but it still festered and even expanded. Narine was reluctant to visit a doctor. She had to go to a hospital in a month when a point of a thorn emerged on the skin right on the place of the red wound. Doctors easily removed the strange object, but more thorns turned up on the same spot soon.
Head of the immunology and virology laboratory at the Armenia research center Tigran Davtyan says the world medicine has never known before that herbal cells may settle down and parasitize on the organism of a human or an animal. Deeper study of the thorns removed out of the girl's wrist confirmed their vegetative origin. It turned out that the thorns belonged to a cactus that many people had at home.
The only way to save the girl was to perform an operation to remove the fistula to stop the cactus from parasitizing all about the organism. The wound healed up after the operation and did not trouble the girl for four years.
Narine's mother says the girl could not recover from the shock for a very long period and feared that the thorns might reappear. The tragedy made the girl reserved and unsociable. But still she kept on looking after her pot plants.
One day Narine noticed her wrist turned red once again but she would not confess to her parents that the disease reappeared. The girl felt her forearm swell and soon a thorn as thick as a match burst her skin.
This time a fistula appeared in a sinew zone. Narine clenched her fists, the muscles pushed new thorns out and doctors removed them with pincers. At that, the wound was not bleeding. Doctors removed from 70 to 100 thorns from the girl's arm every day. But they still appeared later, which suggested there were two or three parasite cells still staying in the girl's organism. Doctors from many countries stated there was not a surgical but rather a microbiological problem.
When researchers studied the bigger thorns they arrived at a conclusion that they were no longer of vegetative origin. As a result of mutation, the patient got new unknown cells, some sort of a hybrid of a human and a plant. In other words, the young girl was turning into a cactus.
Experts believe the terrible metamorphosis sounds warning for mankind. “Evolution and progress seriously damage the human immune system. People become more vulnerable to unknown parasites and viruses,” Tigran Davtyan says.
Now the girl is 26. When Narine had blood poisoning some people rumored she died. But parents of the girl told doctors Narine was alive but felt too bed. The strange disease made her extremely apathetic and pessimistic as she knows that doctors obviously cannot help her.
In Kazakhstan, a woman from a remote village gave birth to her third son who turned out to be a very unusual being. The baby was covered with hair from top to toe. Only his cry resembling that of a normal baby proved that he was a human being. Ayaulym, the mother of the unusual baby did not reject him. She took the boy to the village where her family lived. The baby suffers from hypertrichosis, an infrequent genetic disease described in medicine literature. Patients suffering from it have too much hair on the face and body. There are just few people in the world having the diagnosis. Unfortunately, there is still no treatment for the disease.
Until the boy turned five, his parents did not take him to doctors. Being absolutely despaired they had no notion that some treatment for the disease could actually exist. The family lived in isolation, but neighbors soon learnt that a strange being resembling a monkey but speaking the human language was living next door.
Doctors say the boy did not at all feel shy when parents took him to the hospital for the first time. Ablai, this is the name of the unusual boy, is a very active child. Other children staying on treatment at the hospital got used to the unusual boy and even played together. Now the boy is nine years old. Unfortunately, Ablai cannot go to a public school. The local administration sent the boy to a correction educational institution though his intellectual abilities are normal.
People in Kazakhstan have already got used to the fact that healthy parents may from time to time give birth to abnormal babies. They explain the phenomenon with closeness to nuclear testing areas. There are 19 nuclear testing areas in the republic.
Student Alexander Rybakov from the University of St.Petersburg usually feels hurt when strangers mistake him for an old man. Sometimes even co-students at the University think he is an old professor because the young man looks very much like an elderly. At the age of eight Alexander for the first time felt he had some cardiovascular system problems. At the age of twelve, the boy had a bald spot on the head; the face was covered with a web of wrinkles by the age of sixteen. It seemed Alexander jumped over the traditional maturing stages and turned into a pensioner right after being a teenager.
At first, doctors registered that Alexander's internal organs were wearing out too quickly. At the age of 14 the boy's height was much lower than that of other children of his age. Many of callous senior students at school mocked at the boy. But Alexander was very wise for his young age and never took the mockery very much to heart. After graduation from the university Alexander will become a programmer which will give him a chance to work at home.
Viktor Michelson from the Russian Academy of Sciences Cytology Institute says there are two varieties of the ageing syndrome. When patients suffer from Werner's disease they all of a sudden begin to grow old in the young age. When patients have progeria, they look like very old people already at the age of 12. In both cases, people have their ageing gene affected. In other words, their biological clock goes several times quicker. The only treatment that medicine offers to children who turn into elderly is cure of senile diseases typical of the syndrome.
Several months ago, a 13-year-old girl who looked like a very old woman died of a stroke in the city of Orenburg. A boy from Kazakhstan became wrinkled overnight at the age of four.
Some researchers believe that decoding the ageing gene may solve the secret of eternal youth.
It is not clear for sure why babies come to this world being invalids. Geneticists state that inheritance and parents' mode of living are the cause of babies' inborn disability just in fifty percent of instances. It is known that 90 mothers of 100 reject their babies with inborn pathologies right after childbirth.
Doctors say that today half of babies in children's homes in Russia have inborn pathologies. It is typical of modern young mothers to reject their unhealthy babies. These young mothers at the age of 15-18 as a rule smoke a lot, take drugs and suffer from anemia and consequently cannot give birth to healthy babies. Even doctors persuade young mothers to reject their abnormal babies. It is a heavy burden for parents in this country to bring up invalid and abnormal children. The government pays miserable disability pension. Children having abnormalities will not be accepted to public schools even if they have normal intellectual abilities. But if attending a correction school, these children will never have a chance to enter a higher education institution and thus will not have a proper profession and employment. It is particularly distressing that children suffering from diseases and abnormalities unknown to medicine do not have a chance to be accepted in the society even as invalids.
Parents who reject their babies because of their abnormality do not realize that they deprive them of normal life immediately after birth. Parents should remember that they are responsible for their babies' fates. Even abnormal and invalid babies need love and care to survive in the world. Today, medicine may help cure many of slight inborn pathologies to give a happy life to parents and their babies. Parents are the only people who may help children with pathologies be brave and optimistic when they are not welcomed in the society.