A radical new rabies treatment  For the first time people are
surviving the infection without vaccinations—but is this therapy
too risky?  A radical new rabies treatment  Renee C.
Byer/Sacramento Bee/Zuma/Corbis  On Sept. 12, 2004, 15-year-old
Jeanna Giese bent down to pick up a wounded bat in her hometown
of Fond du Lac, Wis. When the creature bit her left index
finger, she treated the cut like any other (with hydrogen
peroxide) and carried on with her life. But a month later, Giese
was struck with double vision, slurred speech, and a fever of
102° F. Doctors tested her for several infections but each
result came back negative. Finally, her mother recalled the bat
bite and doctors filled in the blank: Jeanna had rabies—a viral
infection that causes acute encephalitis and is almost always
fatal when victims do not receive a vaccine of immunoglobulin
immediately after infection.  But Rodney Willoughby Jr., a
55-year-old physician at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin,
would challenge that notion with a radic