Friday, December 17, 2004
Girl's Dramatic Recovery From Rabies Follows Web-Fueled, Worldwide Prayer
When a brown bat fell into the aisle during a Mass at St. Patrick's Catholic Church, 15-year-old Jeanna Giese didn't hesitate to scoop up the furry mammal and hurry it outdoors to freedom. The soft-hearted teen was well-known for rescuing creatures in need.
A bite or a scratch, so tiny it seemed insignificant, took the parochial school girl on a journey to hell, with a return so triumphant that believers around the world have deemed it a miracle of prayer made possible by the connecting power of the Internet.
Medical experts say Jeanna is the first person in the history of recorded medicine to have survived a full-blown case of human rabies without having been given an initial series of anti-rabies injections.
Her father, construction worker John Giese, explains the recovery this way: He simply called people to say, "We need to start praying -- if there's anything you can do to think about her."
From there, "it snowballed."
Jeanna's story turned global through Internet prayer chains. The International Herald Tribune, circulated widely throughout Western Europe, carried her story. It quoted Dr. Charles Rupprecht, the leading expert on rabies at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, calling the recovery a miracle.
"By all indications, she's cleared of infection," Rupprecht said during a press conference in Milwaukee. "What makes it historic is that she's the first."
"Rabies is considered 100 percent fatal," said Rodney Willoughby, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital and an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "We didn't have much to offer."
The five known survivors of rabies, besides Jeanna, received immediate anti-viral treatment after contact with a rabid animal.
Using a maverick approach they called an informed gamble, the teen's medical team put Jeanna into a coma to protect her brain and give her immune system "time to catch up." On the third day she was started on a "cocktail" of four drugs, one that needed CDC approval.
While Jeanna was in the coma, her mother, Ann, read her daughter e-mailed letters of prayer and hope that came from across the country, and eventually from around the world.
The Rev. John Radetski, a priest at St. Patrick's Church, cautions against calling his parishioner's recovery a "miracle" because of a quantity of prayers. He believes conversations with God should be in the context of servitude and seeking God's will.
"I don't think this happened because some kind of prayer quota was filled. Why would he grant healing in one instance, but not in another?" he said.
Some people would like to view prayer from the standpoint that if they get enough people together they can "lobby to God" and change his mind, the priest noted. He doesn't believe it works that way.
"Prayers can be directed at healing, but we don't call the shots. Mass prayer is not going to change the outcome of something. Maybe science made a breakthrough in this case. But when God worked a healing through Jeanna, it was for the glory of God and for people to witness his saving grace," he said.
On Nov. 18, Willoughby declared Jeanna officially cured, even though she remains under close supervision.
The teenage girl with a soft spot for animals is expected to be home by Christmas.
Skeptics can say what they want, but Jeanna's family believes her healing is an act of God. Said her father, John Giese, "We believe that prayer got us to this point."
By Sharon Roznik
Religion News Service
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