470 – Doomwatch – The Inquest

What happens when Doomwatch is called in to investigate rabies?  Simon and Eugene discuss The Inquest. Episode Synopsis: Hardcastle of Doomwatch is on the job at a lab in Ipswich.  The lab manager, Dr. Fane, is giving Hardcastle an earful of the problems he’s had running his lab, and the constant attacks and vandalism that he, his staff and his lab are under.  The attacks are the responsibility, Fane feels, of one Miss Lincoln – an animal rights activist and local crank.  Hardcastle may not be entirely convinced, but then he’s shot by someone attacking the lab and is sent to hospital. With Chantry on holidays and Ridge out of the country, it’s Colin Bradley’s turn to shine.  Quist sends him to be in the line of fire and pick up where Hardcastle got interrupted. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] The situation is that a young girl has died of rabies – something that is almost unheard of in the British Isles – and the coroner’s inquest it imminent.  The inquest had been postponed to give the Ministry of Health an opportunity to locate the infection vector and take immediate preventative steps. Miss Lincoln has made accusations that Fane’s lab is responsible for the for the rabies case and the Ministry of Health had requested the Ministry of National Security to send in Doomwatch to investigate that possibility. The inquest begins. Mr. McAllister, from the Ministry of Health, testifies that, while they have found no vector, as yet, and that it must almost absolutely certainly be a dog.  There are other animals that can carry rabies, but it’s not that, it’s bound to be a dog, and the Ministry has quarantined several suspect dogs and ordered all dogs in the area muzzled until further notice. Miss Lincoln, a virologist by training, asserts that Tsetse flies, which are used in the lab’s experiments, have gotten loose and might have been the vector.  Tsetse flies, like mosquitos, are blood suckers and have been known to be a vector for viral transmission.  Fane asserts that it is impossible for the flies to get loose, although Miss Lincoln presents a specimen at the inquest, claiming it was captured in the village. Bradley testifies that, from Doomwatch’s research, it’s virtually impossible since Tsetse flies cannot carry the Rabies virus.  Further, though, he does understand and explain for the inquest Miss Lincoln’s concern. Tsetse flies are related to fruit flies.  Fane’s project is to reduce fertility in Tsetse flies, which are a major cause of death and economic hardship in Africa.  Fane started by doing genetic research on fruit flies and then, through a process called passage (which, coincidentally, can create blue spiders) moves the successful fruit fly results into Tsetse flies.  Fruit flies carry a harmless virus, the Sigma virus, which is related to rabies, but does not exist in Tsetse flies. Lincoln’s hypothesis is that the fruit fly virus, Sigma, through the passage, entered the Tsetse flies, where it then mutated into something indistinguishable from rabies.  Those flies then escaped from Fane’s lab and infected the girl. In his opinion this is also virtually impossible and it is without doubt dogs, and while there was no sign of a bite on the dead child, Rabies can be transmitted to a skin lesion via licking, and that must be how she contracted the disease. Further, to the uproar of the community, he recommends shooting all dogs in a five-mile radius. Quist comes to Ipswich to convince Hardcastle to check himself out of the hospital against doctor’s orders.  They’re just too short-staffed and he needs him back on the job.  They bump into Bradley in the pub and decide to stick around for the end of the inquest. When the inquest resumes, McAllister reveals that he’s just received word that one of the quarantined dogs has tested positive for rabies and that the infected dog had been collected from none other than Miss Lincoln!  All eyes in the court turn towards Miss Lincoln! But no!  She says, that dog was a stray I rescued, shortly after dogs broke out of Dr. Fane’s lab!  All eyes turn back towards Dr. Fane! Hardcastle has an idea, and he and Quist leave to check it out.  The hotelier’s son, Harry, was friends with the dead girl.  He loves dogs.  He has a dog bite on this arm and he’s been stealing food for dogs.  Quist and Hardcastle find an abandoned building and the remaining dogs at large from Fane’s lab.  They also find Harry, holding a rifle on them – the very same rifle that shot Hardcastle. It seems Harry has been listening to Miss Lincoln and it’s put ideas in his young, impressionable mind, radicalizing him into a lab terrorist… and when I say, ”lab terrorist” I mean a terrorist who targets labs, not a terrorist who is a Labrador retriever. They talk him down and take him to the hospital, then return to the inquest.  They reveal that Harry stole the dogs from the lab, hid them in the abandoned building, took his friend, the dead girl, to see the animals where she got infected.  The rabid dog, still not showing signs of the disease, then escaped and was picked up by Miss Lincoln. “So, Dr. Fane, take a look at this picture of the rabid dog.  It’s got docked ears.  That’s illegal in the UK, so this must have come from Europe.  Where did you get the dogs?!” And all eyes turn back towards Dr. Fane. “I just bought them,” says Fane, “from the hotelier!” And all eyes turn towards a minor character that’s barely played a part in this episode, but now we learn has a deal with a smuggler to bring him contraband schnapps from Europe, and, when there’s a demand, dogs. Exonerated, Fane is relieved, but Quist rounds on him, “You run a sloppy lab.  Get your act cleaned up!” The end [/expand]