Thread by @AeroDork

Thread: The weird story of how a carefully covered up German air raid in WW2 contributed to the development of modern chemotherapy drugs.

As the tide of WW2 turned in late 1943, the allies suspected that increasingly desperate Germans would turn to chemical weapons. In preparation, they secretly parked a boat load of mustard gas at the captured Italian port of Bari.

On the night of December 2, 1943, 105x Ju-88 bombers hit the harbor at Bari hard, sinking or damaging 40 allied ships.

Among them was the SS John Harvey, whose cargo of mustard gas leaked and poisoned 600+ survivors of the attack. The allies desperately covered up the leak, fearing Germans would make a preemptive chemical strike.

Years later, researchers digging into the data noticed that survivors of the leaked mustard gas had very low white blood cell counts. Mustard gas, it seemed, stopped rapidly dividing cells from developing…a great tactic for fighting cancer.

This line of research would contribute to the creation of mechlorethamine, an early chemotherapy compound still in use today.

The story of the attack on Bari opens all sorts of hypotheticals and potential alternate histories...many of which we are fortunate to have avoided.

Source: abmceducation.org/sites/default/…

@xeni may be of interest☝️