First, distinctions between the two women:

Dagny Taggert (Atlas Shrugged) is the Vice-President of Taggert Railroads, despite the handicapping factor of her femininity. She has earned her position, unlike her nepotistic brother, James, Taggert Railroads’ President. She prefers suit-pants and wears dresses only occasionally. She smokes. She loves only successful men. She builds things only to have society destroy them.

She fights faltering industry, searching for competent workers. She wants to make the world work, wants to make it better, regardless of how hard it lashes back at her.

She wants to make her railroad work. Because it’s hers.

She works against Galt because she wants to have faith in people. And because she doesn’t want to let go of her own property.

Dominique Francon (The Fountainhead) is the wealthy heir of an architect. She loathes society: It repeats, it copies, it steals. She writes a column about architecture in a Wynard paper, for the general public, as all Wynard articles are. She despises the masses, but she chooses to prod fun at them by participating in the system.

She doesn’t make full use of any of her talents. She destroys beautiful things to avoid letting society destroy them. She tries to defeat Roark because he is beautiful, and she believes she has to beat society to the punch.

Dominique sees through society, knows masses are motivated by ignorance and laziness, are easily led. And so she mocks. But Dagny sees the problems without understanding the motivations. She is a doer and not a sardonic watcher-on. So she tries to fix. Desperately.

Dominique must learn to accept mankind’s foolishness without living in fear of it. To live within society and try to achieve, regardless of the world. Dagny must learn to turn her back on the world and her achievements, until mankind is ready to accept them.

Understanding Rand’s point of reference, her major female characters are prodigious – born into wealth and success, but possessed of the will and nerve to maintain reputations free of stereotype. Indeed, in terms of occupation and behavior, Rand’s women are deliberately more masculine than feminine. This woman-as-man character is feminine only when she chooses and primarily in terms of sexuality (Dagny and Dominique) or as a means by which to gain unsavory respect and favors (Dominique). This is both progressive for the era, by suggesting that women both can achieve great goals and deserve the chance to do so, and regressive – it only sees women as successful if they are successful in the same ways as men and never as the ultimate establishers of revolution and progress.

In each book, the male alone, the perfect male (the one I firmly believe Rand would have been attracted to, were he alive), succeeds in fully changing society: rising above all expectations and pre-concieved patterns through his own individuality and self-confidence or by founding a private utopia to restore vitality and innovation to the world. He begins with incorruptible ideals and even she, his counter-part, must learn from him: to abandon society’s opinions and ignorance or it’s slovenly greed nestled behind altruism. He studies hard math or science (Roark – Civil Engineering; Galt – Physics and Philosophy); he is physically fit, tall, sharp-boned and striking. Galt at least, with his blond hair and blue eyes, could be Russian in physiognomy, by description. (Though not so, Howard Roark, whose most outstanding physical characteristic is his redheaded-ness.)

In Atlas Shrugged, in particular, Dagny overpowers men in almost every field. Except for that of sexuality. Here, she is submissive almost to a fault, seeking only to be used for the male protagonist’s pleasure. Even when Hank Rearden believes his desires towards her degrade her, she wishes only to be “degraded”. In Dominique’s case, she even wishes to be “raped” in order to feel more completely owned by Roark. This, perhaps, is Rand’s way of showing that sex is not disgraceful, that a woman may succeed within her career but still have womanly instincts. But must womanly instincts be also submissive instincts?
As both Dagny and Dominique feel similarly about sex, one can only assume that Rand herself was looking for a “perfect” man to be dominated by.

Something else worthy of note: in her two primary novels, both Roark and Galt face true competitors for their positions as prime-lovers. Roark by Wynard, the empire-savant, and Galt by both Francisco d’Anconia, Dagny’s adolescent lover, and Hank Rearden, the inventor of Rearden Steel. And yet, overall, neither had even the possibility of being displaced, for both have such charming self-possession, intelligence, work-ethic and natural confidence that they are glorified almost to the immortal. Both women do have real emotional attachment towards the other men, but neither allow this to overtake their affection for Galt or Roark. And in both stories, he knows it, flaunts it, doesn’t let her forget that she can’t live without him.

(An interesting exception here is Peter, whom Dominique never loves, never tries to love, and who, while successful, is never so in his own right. He is “competition” for Roark only in the sense that time Miss Francon spends with him, even in marriage, is time Roark doesn’t have. Which is precisely as Dominique intends it.)

Besides these few competitors, both women are essentially chaste. Dominique, for all her icy beauty is a virgin until her encounter with Roark. Dagny has been with both d’Anconia and Rearden before John Galt but staunchly avoided anyone between these far interspersed relationships. From this, we can gather that Rand doesn’t want her characters labeled whores, but rather seeks to prove that women too can have multiple partners.

It’s difficult to determine whether Rand was a true believer in women’s equality, or only an ardent feminist in terms of social, rather than sexual, gender relations. Furthermore, must the two be different? Could supporting social equality be all that is required of feminists, while sexual preferences are left as an altogether separate issue?

While they might seem the complete product of circumstance, there is always one basis for any love triangle: poor timing.

There are two basic scenarios:

If a girl and a boy are (ostensibly) in love and have just committed to each other, but the boy meets another girl and (unintentionally, against his best efforts) falls head-over-heels for her, there may be a love-triangle.

Similarly, if a boy meets a girl and falls in love with her but cannot at that moment stay with her, or believes he will never see her again, and returns home or moves to meet a new girl, his closest match since the first, whom he commits to, only to consistently run into the first girl again, there may be a love-triangle.

The question that then arises to any author is, which is more valuable, love or commitment?

If commitment is the foundation of love, one may well err with commitment. But if love is not an ephemeral concept, not a mere spark but a Vestal hearth which burns regardless of will, commitment only serves as a chain to bind.

Certainly, one cannot undervalue commitment – without it there would be no monogamy, no lives together. But commitment is often just another tool to create obligations on behalf of the hero, another way to test his integrity.

But is choosing to remain with one you love (but less) integrity? Or is choosing to betray commitment at society’s behest to pursue a stronger love integrity?

Perhaps it depends on the situation. The hero who is choosing to look for a greater love is never sacrificing just himself. There are often others, perhaps even beyond the one he is originally committed to, who will suffer because of his decision. In the end, his joy must outweigh their despair, or regardless of his desire, he must stay with his original lover.

On the other hand, failure to discern the appropriate reaction (if one reaction clearly outweighs the other) can be considered a tragic flaw. The hero who walks away from his family and children for another woman, or who chooses a lusty and evanescent affair over his wife might be viewed through such a lens.

In some instances, there simply is no correct reaction. Choosing to stay with the first love in light of the second is false, but choosing to go with the second despite the first is hurtful. Both persons are lovable, both persons are loved, both persons could create happiness. In such a situation one could reason both that to switch from a successful, happy relationship to an unfounded, potentially happy relationship is a pointless risk, and conversely, that if such a chance is not taken, it will be regretted for as long as the hero lives.

Which side erred on and the complexities of the choice are critical to the development and depth of all characters involved.

Born in 1892, in Rockland, Maine, to Cora (Lounella – Masterplots 1) Buzzelle Millay and Henry Tolman Millay, Edna was a precocious child, the first in a series of three daughters. Her father left, at her mother’s request, when she was seven because he couldn’t control his gambling habit. Cora was trained to be an opera singer, but after Henry left, moved the children to Cambden and became a district nurse to earn money for her family’s subsistence (Wheatley 7). Still, Cora never relinquished her artistic passion: she worked with local orchestras and helped them to develop scores (Gray 2). Additionally, Cora taught Edna, who styled herself “Vincent,” the art of meter at four and piano at seven (Gray 2), spending no less attention on her younger daughters, who avidly followed in Edna’s footsteps. Young Millay took advanced piano lessons at the age of twelve (Wheatley 7) and hoped to become a professional pianist, but her fingers while long, were not long enough. After being dissuaded by a local piano teacher, Edna began to focus her primary attentions on writing (Contemporary Authors Online 4).

From 1906 to 1910, her poems were published in the children’s Magazine, St. Nicholas (Contemporary Authors Online 4), starting with the poem “Forest Trees” at the age of fourteen (Quartermain 5). One poem even received a prize and was reprinted in the 1907 edition of Current Opinion (Contemporary Authors Online 4). Through her mother, and while her mother was at work, Millay became introduced to both classical and great contemporary authors and poets. When she entered school, she became the editor of the Camden High School Magazine (Quartermain 5).

Her first serious poem, “Renascence,” was published in the Lyric Year’s international competition, winning fourth place, when she was 19. Many expected it to win first, and its lower ranking was highly protested (Wheatley 8 ) and the poem still garnered great renown. It was written in tetrameter couplets (Quartermain 5). Kennerley republished the poem in Millay’s first book, Renascence, and Other Poems (Contemporary Authors Online 4).

At a combination poetry reading/piano recital, Millay caught the attention of Caroline B. Dow, who worked with the YWCA (Quartermain 5) and who helped her acquire a scholarship to Vassar College in 1913, after she spent a semester at Barnard (Wheatley 8).

Throughout college she published several poems in the Vassar Miscellany and wrote plays that she starred in, such as “The Princess Marries the Page” (Quartermain 5-6).

Then, seeking a career as an actress, she moved to Greenwich village, where she continued to thrive in bi-sexual promiscuity and live a generally bohemian, artsy life. She was a member of the “Provincetown Players” (Gray 3) and wrote, acted in and directed a one-act play for the Provincetown Playhouse, Aria da Capo, in 1919, as well as Two Slatterns and a King in 1921 (Masterplots, pg. 1). While she was in Greenwich, she met her first significant fling, Floyd Dell, a socialist playwright, because she was cast as the lead in his play, The Angel Intrudes at the Provincetown Playhouse (Contemporary Authors Online 4-5). From 1917-1918, she was Dell’s lover.

Next was fellow poet Arthur Ficke. He had also entered in the competition with Lyric Year (Fried, pg. 2-3) and since reading Renascence had corresponded with Millay via post. She finally met him in 1918, while he, a married man, was on his way to a military posting in France; they had a three-day affair, and didn’t touch each other again, but remembered and remained friends always (Quartermain 7). She wrote sonnets dedicated to him that were published in Reedy’s Mirror and collected in Second April (Contemporary Authors Online 5). When his marriage began to hit the rocks, she was in Europe and he became close to Gladys Brown (Quartermain 11).

In the 1920s, she was courted by two of the editors of Vanity Fair (where some of her poems and essays were being published): John Pearle Bishop and Edmund Wilson, who proposed marriage in August of 1920 (Contemporary Authors Online 6). Sickly and on the verge of a break-down, she visited Europe for two years on a regular salary from a different Vanity Fair editor, Frank Crowninshield. There she wrote short stories and essays under the penname Nancy Boyd (Contemporary Authors Online 6; Quartermain 9), which she later collected in the book Distressing Dialogues. In 1922, she brought her mother to Europe on her savings (Quartermain 12) instead of financing a visit to Witter Bynner (another entrant in the Lyric Year competition and the best friend of Arthur Ficke), whom she had promised to marry, if, after his long-distance proposal, she could speak to him in person about the matter. When she did talk to him, it was too late, and the ardor had cooled (Wheatley 13).

She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize, in 1923, for The Ballad of the Harp Weaver (Masterplots, pg.1-2), which is suspected to be a metaphor for her own mother’s diligence and sacrifices. Her prominence and promiscuity combined to win her the unofficial ex-post-facto title of a “New Woman,” of the roaring 20s – unafraid to live, love, or be successful.

Soon afterward, she met the Dutch widower of feminist Inez Milholland (Contemporary Authors Online 8), Eugen Jan Boissevain while playing charades at a party (Quartermain 12) and in July of 1923 (Wheatley 18) married him. He became her manager, and they toured the world together, reading her pieces to assemblies and on the radio. They maintained an “open marriage” sleeping with whomever they pleased, but remaining committed to each other. She was sickly, and he spent much of his time taking care of her. After she regained her strength, they toured the Orient, India and France (Quartermain 14). They bought a house named Steepletop, near Austerlitz, New York and kept it for the rest of their lives (Gray 4; Wheatley 18).

She was awarded an honorary “Litt. D.” degree from Tufts University in 1925 – the first of many (Contemporary Authors Online 1; Quartermain 14). Once a member, she withdrew herself from the League of American Penwomen, out of sympathy for the criticized and expelled Elinor Wylie, who went against societal mores and was living with a married man in 1927 (Quartermain 14).
In its rejection of a conservative value system, this was similar to, if far more politically innocuous than, her involvement in the Sacco-Vanzetti case: on August 27, 1927 she was arrested for protesting Sacco and Vanzetti’s Massachusetts prosecution in a murder, as she felt it was primarily and unjustly based on their status as Italian anarchists (Contemporary Authors Online 9). Their plight inspired her poem, “Justice Denied in Massachusetts.”

The same year, she published the libretto for an opera, The King’s Henchmen, for a score by Deems Taylor (Gray 25).

In 1936, she helped George Dillon, for whom she wrote the sonnet collection Fatal Interview (Contemporary Authors Online 9-10) and with whom she had her last serious affair, translate Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (Gray 29).

Conversation at Midnight (1937), is Millay’s most controversial work, a script for a play that was destroyed in a hotel fire while Millay was visiting Florida and then reworked/rewritten afterwards (Quartermain 17).

With the advent of World War II, her writing transformed. Like many “Lost Generation” writers, it became dull and trite – mostly pro-preparedness propaganda published in the volume, Make Bright the Arrows: 1940 Notebook. She had previously been a pacifist (Contemporary Authors Online 11-12), and most of her poetry had documented love, both fickle and true. Critics accuse her of mimicking the style of both Anna Hempstead Branch and Robert Frost (Sister M. Madeleva, pg. 309, Hall), but yet both Madeleva and Harriet Monroe compare her to Sappho, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rosetti, and Emily Dickenson (pg. 310, Hall). Monroe even adds Emily Bronte to the list (pg. 307, Hall). Millay also wrote “The Murder of Lidice,” at the commission of the Writer’s War Board, detailing the decimation of a Czechoslovakian town and the genocide of its citizens. Later, she regretted the piece (Gray 28).

Millay had a nervous breakdown in 1944 for about 2 years (Contemporary Authors Online 12), which her husband tried to nurse her through. When he died in 1949 – from a stroke after removal of a lung (Contemporary Authors Online 12), she collapsed into drunken depression, and died shortly thereafter of heart failure on October 19, 1940 (Quartermain 18) at Steepletop. She was found on the stairs holding the copy of Rolfe Humphries’ translation of the Aeneid that he had sent her to edit (Gray 4). While she didn’t realize it at the time she wrote “And do you think that love itself,” her prediction within was correct: without Eugen, her sole constant, she could not continue to live.

Her sister, Norma, had Mine the Harvest published for her posthumously (Fried 14).

Works Cited

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 45: American Poets, 1880-1945, First Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Peter Quartermain, University of British Columbia. The Gale Group, 1986. pp. 264-276.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 249: Twentieth-Century American Dramatists, Third Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Christopher Wheatley, Catholic University of America. The Gale Group, 2001. pp. 238-244.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes.” Brainy Quotes. 10 Apr. 2008.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edna_st_vincent_millay.html

“Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2004. 02/25/2004.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=leag71982&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U13022283&n=10&docNum=H1000068563&ST=edna+st.+vincent+millay&bConts=278447

“EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY.” Debra Fried. Modern American Writers. Pages 287-302. Copyright 1991. Charles Scribner’s Sons. The Scribner Writers Series.

“EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY.” James Gray. American Writers Vol. 3. Pages 122-144. Copyright 1974. Charles Scribner’s Sons. The Scribner Writers Series.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Masterplots Complete 2000. CD-ROM. Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press, 2000.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon K. Hall. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale Research, 1981. 305-323. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Clear Brook High School. 24 March 2008.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitCrit?af=RN&ae=FJ3549350021&srchtp=a&ste=14

Undoubtedly the most ingenious and innovative affirmative case at TFA State (held at Dallas’s Coppell High School). [And since counter-plans are so popular, nobody bothered to look at the fact that honestly, our global warming link is ludicrous.]

For a synopsis, skip down to the plantext.

Inherency:

There hasn’t been enough scientific awareness of rodents as the primary vector for the Bubonic Plague, and a case that targets rats will be more effective than a case that targets humans.

Bubonic Plague: A Metapopulation Model of a Zoonosis, M. J. Keeling; C. A. Gilligan, Proceedings: Biological Sciences, Vol. 267, No. 1458. (Nov. 7, 2000), pp. 2219-2230.

By far the vast majority of historical information on the spread of bubonic plague is concerned with the number of human cases, and these outbreaks tend to be short lived, even in large communities (Sharif 1951; Shrewsbury 1970; Twigg 1993). Until now the standard assumption has been that each human outbreak was triggered by some external source, for example, infected rats arriving by ship (Appleby 1980; Slack 1980). While this is undoubtedly it true for many small populations, the model developed here offers an alternative explanation. In large towns and cities it is likely that the plague was endemic in some sections of the rat population and this could trigger sporadic epidemics in other areas; such a pattern of behaviour was speculated for bubonic plague in India during the early 20th century (Sharif 1951). This persistence in the rat population may explain why human epidemics were still experienced, even in cities such as Venice, when stringent quarantine measures were in effect (Appleby 1980). To date, much of the historical interpretation has concentrated on human cases, ignoring the true epizootic in rodents, and therefore neglecting the full dynamics.

Harms: Disease

1. Global warming is happening now, and there will be an increase in overall temperature in the next few years.

Drew McKeen: Producer/Director of onthebrink.org, 2002, <http://www.onthebrink.org/evidencerisk.html>

“Any time you get into projections, you get into a lot of uncertainties. But the [climate] models are getting a lot stronger,” said Jay Gulledge, a senior research at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia.
Gulledge says some current projections point to a rise in average global temperature of 0.5°C (slightly less than 1°F) by the year 2030.

2. Global warming is significantly linked to insect populations and diseases.

Brian Handwerk, for National Geographic News, July 27, 2005 <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0727_050727_globalwarming.html> “Global Warming: How Hot? How Soon?”

Pests And Vector Borne Diseases:
* Conditions created by global warming including warmer temperatures, milder winters, excessive rains, and drought provide fertile breeding grounds for pests.
* Insect populations are extremely sensitive to temperature changes and even a slight increase in temperatures can result in an explosion of pest-borne diseases including malaria, West Nile virus, yellow fever, cholera, dengue fever, hanta virus, and bubonic plague.

3. The plague poses a unique threat to sub-Saharan Africa, hitting small villages with more mortality than large towns.

Morbidity in Historical Plague Epidemics, O. J. Benedictow, Population Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3. (Nov., 1987), pp. 401-431.

During the last pandemic of plague similar observations were made in India and China. Hankin noted in 1905 that ‘the intensity of plague in towns and villages in the Bombay Presidency has been in inverse proportion to their size’. This statement is supported by a table based on data from the plague epidemics of 1897-8 (Table 8). Hankin wished to test his surprising finding and turned to history for his data. It turned out that in the Indian plague epidemics of 1812 and 1836 the same pattern of inverse correlation between population densities and mortality rates was found. Hankin even consulted research on the late-mediaeval plague epidemics in England and produced interesting evidence to the same effect.“
A few years later Greenwood reached the same ‘curious and interesting’ conclusions in his statistical studies of plague in the Punjab: ‘the rate of plague mortality tends to increase as the absolute population of the infected community diminishes’. Inspired by Hankin, Greenwood gathered and analyzed studies of plague in England during the late mediaeval and early modern periods. Again his conclusions confirmed Hankin’s findings.
Almost 30 years later Wu Lien-Teh reached the same conclusion for China: ‘the smaller the community the greater the rate of mortality.” Two historians, Gottfried and Cipolla, have also noted the basic point: the effects of plague epidemics were at least as severe in rural as in urban areas in spite of lower population densities. They do not, however, seem to have grasped the ‘curious and interesting’ epidemiological aspects of this observation.

4. The plague has significant morbidity rates, up to and exceeding 80%.

Morbidity in Historical Plague Epidemics, O. J. Benedictow, Population Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3. (Nov., 1987), pp. 401-431.

In this paper we have presented 48 instances of plague epidemics for which it has been possible to establish morbidity rates at good or reasonable levels of validity. In 23 of these epidemics, that is in almost half of our cases, the morbidity rates exceeded 50 per cent. Even the average morbidity rate in southern France in 1720-2 was significantly higher than 50 per cent, the median lying between 60 and 69 per cent. Only in six of the 23 instances were the morbidity rates between 50 and 59 per cent, while in at least eight instances they exceeded 80 per cent. The median level was again between 60 and 69 per cent with seven cases.
However, it is important to remember that these are gross morbidity rates which do not take account of the number of refugees who left the epidemic areas. Net morbidity rates showing the diffusion of plague in the populations actually resident during the epidemics, must have been higher, and the proportion of morbidity rates which exceeded 50 per cent must have been significantly higher. While Schofield’s general view on morbidity rates may be correct, the material presented above shows that plague stands out as a disease with unique powers of diffusion in the material circumstances prevailing in Europe in the past.

5. The Plague poses a severe threat to humanity.

Reuters, Jan. 14, 2008, “Plague a growing and overlooked threat.”

Plague, the disease that devastated medieval Europe, is re-emerging worldwide and poses a growing but overlooked threat, researchers warned on Tuesday.
While it has only killed some 100 to 200 people annually over the past 20 years, plague has appeared in new countries in recent decades and is now shifting into Africa, Michael Begon, an ecologist at the University of Liverpool and colleagues said.
A bacterium known as Yersinia pestis causes bubonic plague, known in medieval times as the Black Death when it was spread by infected fleas, and the more dangerous pneumonic plague, spread from one person to another through coughing or sneezing.
“Although the number of human cases of plague is relatively low, it would be a mistake to overlook its threat to humanity, because of the disease’s inherent communicability, rapid spread, rapid clinical course, and high mortality if left untreated,” they wrote in the journal Public Library of Science journal PloS Medicine.
Rodents carry plague, which is virtually impossible to wipe out and moves through the animal world as a constant threat to humans, Begon said. Both forms can kill within days if not treated with antibiotics.
“You can’t realistically get rid of all the rodents in the world,” he said in a telephone interview. “Plague appears to be on the increase, and for the first time there have been major outbreaks in Africa.”
Globally the World Health Organization reports about 1,000 to 3,000 plague cases each year, with most in the last five years occurring in Madagascar, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United States sees about 10 to 20 cases each year.
More worrying are outbreaks seen on the rise after years of relative inactivity in the 20th century, Begon said. The most recent large pneumonic outbreak comprised hundreds of suspected cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 200.

Thus the PLAN: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its public health assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by providing F1-V transgenic tomatoes to Mastomys natalensi (African rats) to prevent the proliferation of Yersina Pestis a.k.a. the bacterium that causes the Plague. We reserve the right to clarify.

Solvency:

1. Most instances of the plague are in Africa, but the F1-V vaccine prevents the plague in mice.

Jarrett CO, Sebbane F, Adamovicz, et al. Flea-borne transmission model to evaluate vaccine efficacy against naturally acquired bubonic plague. Infect Immun Mar 25, 2004;72(4):2052-6

Successful replication of the natural transmission route of bubonic plague through the bites of infected fleas means scientists can conduct more realistic tests of other experimental plague vaccines, the NIAID said in a news release yesterday.
The study was published in the April edition of Infection and Immunity, now available online. It was authored by B. Joseph Hinnebusch, PhD, and two colleagues at the NIAID laboratory in Hamilton, Mont., along with two collaborators at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md.
Plague is on the federal list of “class A” potential biological weapons. A plague vaccine was available in the United States until 1999, when the manufacturer stopped making it. The vaccine prevented bubonic plague (the most common form of plague, associated with flea bites and leading to swollen lymph nodes, fever, and other symptoms) but did not protect against pneumonic plague (lung infection, usually from inhaling the pathogen).
“Replicating the natural transmission of plague from flea to host in this model is tedious and unusual work,” NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, MD, commented in the news release. “This creative approach, however, brings researchers much closer to answers to real-life questions.”
The researchers used a vaccine called F1-V, which was invented at USAMRIID and has been shown to protect mice, ferrets, and monkeys against injected plague, the NIAID said. The vaccine also has protected mice and monkeys against pneumonic plague.
In the study, the investigators infected fleas by feeding them blood containing Yersinia pestis, the plague bacteria. The fleas then were allowed to feed on 15 mice that had been inoculated with the experimental vaccine, which contained an adjuvant (immune booster). The fleas also were allowed to feed on 15 mice that had received only the adjuvant. The vaccinated mice all remained well, while 14 of the 15 unvaccinated mice fell ill with plague.
“This research shows that the vaccine worked in a real world context,” Hinnebusch stated in the NIAID release. He said that in previous successful tests of the vaccine, the animals “received laboratory-grown plague bacteria and were artificially exposed to it by needle and syringe.”
Hinnebusch said it “wasn’t a given” that the vaccine would work in a natural setting, because in natural transmission, the bacteria are deposited with flea saliva into the animal’s skin in a way that can’t be duplicated artificially. In a natural infection, the digestive tract of some fleas becomes blocked with clumps of bacteria. When the fleas attempt to feed, the host animal’s blood is exposed to the highly infectious clumps and is regurgitated back into the animal.
The researchers will use the natural challenge model to test other experimental plague vaccines and will try to learn how Y pestis spreads through an animal after being transmitted by a flea, the NIAID said. The investigators hope to develop treatments to counteract the spread of plague in an infected person.
Bubonic plague killed an estimated 200 million people in pandemics in the 6th, 14th, and late 19th centuries. The World Health Organization now reports about 2,500 cases annually, with 180 deaths, the NIAID said. About 75% of the cases occur in Africa.

2. Using tomatoes bred with the vaccine is the best way to confer immunity.

Vaccine. Volume 24, Issue 14, 24 March 2006, Pages 2477-2490. Plant-made subunit vaccine against pneumonic and bubonic plague is orally immunogenic in mice. M. Lucrecia Alvareza, Heidi L. Pinyerda, Jason D. Crisantesa, M. Manuela Riganoa, Julia Pinkhasova, Amanda M. Walmsleya, Hugh S. Masona, and Guy A. Cardineaua. Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology (CIDV), The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. The School of Life Sciences, Tempe, AZ, USA. Received 15 October 2005; revised 9 December 2005; accepted 14 December 2005. Available online 13 January 2006.

There have been previous initiatives to devise an alternative plague vaccine that could be administered needle-free and they are currently being tested in animal trials by different research groups. One of these is a micro-encapsulated preparation of F1 and V antigens, delivered intranasally to mice, that protects against parenteral and inhalation challenges with Y. pestis [33]. Another utilizes oral immunization with a recombinant Salmonella enterica expressing Y. pestis’ antigens that has also been reported to provide protection against a subsequent challenge with the bacteria [34], [35] and [36].
The production of therapeutic proteins in plants represents an economical alternative to fermentation-based expression systems, especially for the manufacturing of high-volume reserves of subunit vaccines (for a review see [37]). Plants have been shown to provide both an encapsulated antigen and an oral delivery system. Plant-made vaccine antigens can be delivered to a mucosal surface (for example, when provided orally or intranasally). Additionally, plants can be grown locally and inexpensively using the standard growing methods of a given region and can also be produced virtually indefinitely from seeds [38]. Oral delivery is made possible because it is believed that the plant cell wall provides enough protection against degradation to allow much of the vaccine antigen expressed in the cells to reach the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) in an intact and immunogenic state. Since plant-made vaccines were first described by Curtis and Cardineau [39], different groups have experimented with transgenic plants for expression and oral delivery of recombinant vaccine antigens. The six human clinical trials accomplished with plant-made vaccines have shown the potential of using the plant-made vaccine technology [40], [41], [42], [43], [44] and [45].
In this paper, we describe the development and evaluation of an alternative oral subunit vaccine candidate against plague, produced by expressing the F1-V fusion protein in tomato. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a plant made, orally delivered plague-vaccine. Tomato has many advantages over other host plants for the production of oral vaccines. Tomato yields large masses of palatable fruit that are edible raw (avoiding heat denaturation of the antigens) and has well established industrial greenhouse culture and fruit processing. Unfortunately, a vaccine expressed in fresh tomato fruit has a short shelf-life. For this reason, fresh tomato fruits expressing the fusion protein F1-V were pooled and freeze-dried. Freeze-drying is a well-established technology that is inexpensive and provides antigen stability at room temperatures, batch consistency and concentrated antigen. The integrity and antigenicity of the F1-V fusion protein in the freeze-dried, tomato fruit powder was confirmed by ELISA and Western-blot analyses.
Using the tomato plants is a better alternative to current strategies.
Using transgenic tomato plants to produce an oral vaccine in fruit without any protein purification and with minimal processing may provide a cost-effective alternative to current vaccine production strategies. In this paper we show that an antigen from a non-enteric human pathogen (Y. pestis) can be orally immunogenic when produced and delivered in plant tissues. Plant-expressed F1-V has the potential to be useful as a booster vaccine against plague since it is able to elicit specific mucosal sIgA and serum IgG1 responses. A prime-boost vaccine for plague also has practical implications. In an imminent or post-release bioterrorism event, the ability to dispense a parenteral priming dose with the distribution of tomato powder pills that could be self administered would greatly improve national preparedness.

C₂₁H₂₃NO₅. Branching, tenuous chains of carbon and hydrogen, laced ever-so delicately with nitrogen and oxygen. The formula for unadulterated rapture. Injected frost or inhaled snowflakes.
Heroin, beginning its tumultuous course.
Cold and numbing, particles of 3, 6-diacetyl morphine ester, crystallized as a hydrochloride to ease consumption, transmute rapidly into monoacetylmorphine – a false endorphin – upon hasty contact with an anticipation-laden brain.

Lewis Carroll, inspired through the power of LSD, wrote Alice in Wonderland – a tacit endorsement of the psychedelic hallucinogen. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley proposed the mind-boggling, spirit-draining lethargy of recreational soma. In Dune, Frank Herbert introduced mélange, an alien and prescience-enhancing spice, similar to opium in its addictive potency, and distinguishable by its roughly cinnamon-y scent and the trademark blue-in-blue eyes of addicts. These drugs were coveted for their power to impose an alternative reality, to pro-offer transcendence.

In contrast, it is the illusory, but grounded, euphoria that results from absorption of Heroin into the bloodstream that secures it a lofty and permanent grasp on its devotees, impressing them psychologically and physiologically. Heroin initiates instinctively cling to ritual – shooting up in the same ragged alleys, worn bathtubs, or crowded cafeterias to refine the high. After exposure, physiochemical addiction requires only a handful of days, and in each dose the drug’s impact is near-instantaneous, with only a few seconds to a few minutes before arrival of the opioid rush.

First marketed as a panacea for morphine addicts, Heroin was originally sold by Bayer, the pharmaceutical corporation that piloted aspirin, to an unknowing and unsuspecting populace. To the company’s chagrin, though the new drug invoked indefatigable courage, it only aggravated the addiction – once in the liver, heroin metabolized into an acetylated, augmented version of morphine twice as potent as its predecessor.

Since then, it has become a widely popular and illicit medium (a schedule I substance, according to the U.S. Controlled Substances Act of 1970) for injection among thrill-seekers worldwide. Rarely, it is offered as a very limited-access prescription painkiller.

Of itself, diacetylmorphine isn’t lethal, unless taken in excess. But the Heroin dealt on the streets is often of murky consistency, and duplicity is expectedly rampant among slumlords. When impurities are present, or when Heroin is synthesized with other depressants, the drug yielded is less stable and more prone to overdose and adverse side effects.

Withdrawal, too, is agonizing, but not fatal. Malaise, vomiting, anxiety, depression, and fever can set in within the first day of abstinence. To reduce symptoms, most addicts are gradually weaned from Heroin to methadone or diazepam – opioids with less strength.

So it comes to be that shivering from the goose bumps of discontinuation, the glorious snowfall of Heroin finally melts.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big – Theodore Roosevelt.

When F.D.R. took office, the nation was ailing. Unemployment was at a historic peak, the banking system was faltering, and most were wanting for food. He spent his first one-hundred days in office proscribing policies that were to be the cure –ambitiously developing his New Deal, a clever and desperate ploy to revive the inert economy. The hundreds of agencies started by his administration provided relief, reform, and recovery. Several, including the FDIC and the SSS (questionable though it is), still do.

Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure – Confucius.

The same forethought that allowed F.D.R. to deal so aptly with domestic and economic reform propelled him to instate the first peace-time draft and to start lend-lease programs with the Allies. His fear of an inevitable war with domineering aggressor nations prepared the U.S. for the day Japan struck Pearl Harbor – the military was already in training.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing – Socrates.

Aware of his inadequacies and lack of omniscience, Roosevelt encouraged advice from the most competent minds in the nation, his “brain trust”, using the specific wisdom of professionals to custom-tailor his plans.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness- Niels Bohr.

The fire-side chats were brilliant, reassuring and coaxing an anxious nation through the power of personal contact. Roosevelt worked with the press, not against them, to form an alliance that the people could rely on. With an easy-going, informal living-room manner, he won over the people’s support, and kept them well-informed of his policies.

In a leadership position, I too shall seek to be open to audit, prepared for the worst, and aware of the people’s will.
Like Roosevelt, I shall attempt to take quick, deliberate action against pre-existing problems, prevent future problems, maintain intimacy and honesty with those I represent, and solve international problems multilaterally.
Yet, with respect to Roosevelt’s august achievements, I will not actively emulate any leader. Modern circumstances call for innovation, not duplication; recognition, not worship.
The words of many leaders can provide a guidebook, and the actions of many individuals can form a historical outline, but it is the responsibility of self to discern the imperatives of the present.

I split – cataclysmically, instantaneously, permanently. Split on my own because I chose to. Because I enjoy being intelligent. Because I enjoy setting my own trends. Because being similar is boring. Because nerdy is just-right.

I was in 6th grade when I split, from a conformist, a follower, a hopeful diva, to a brazen nerd, a budding writer, a proud reader. I was in 6th grade when I washed off the make-up.

Goodbye, might-have-been Lindsay.