5 Janet Parker Quotes

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"Janet Parker" was a British medical photographer who became the last person to die from smallpox. She was exposed to the virus as a result of a laboratory accident at the University of Birmingham Medical School. Parker worked as a medical photographer in the Anatomy Department, where she was accidentally exposed to a strain of smallpox virus that was grown in a research laboratory on the floor below. Her death led to the suicide of the then Head of the Microbiology Department.

An official government inquiry into Parker's death was led by microbiologist R.A. Shooter, whose report was debated in the British Parliament. The conclusion that the virus was most likely spread from the smallpox laboratory through ducting was challenged in court when the University was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive for breach of Health and Safety legislation. The prosecution failed. Expert evidence, presented by the defence and accepted by the magistrates, showed that sufficient virus material could not be produced by the laboratory to generate an infectious dose in the room where Parker was supposedly infected. Although the source of infection was traced the mode of transmission was not. Parker's death triggered radical changes in how dangerous pathogens were studied in the UK.{{cite journal

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