Wildcat Syndrome

Wildcat Syndrome. One of the most terrifying diagnoses an asteroid miner could hear. First diagnosed in 2058, after a series of tragic events involving asteroid miners, primarily among wildcat operations. The syndrome is characterized by a combination of mild breakdown in the blood-brain barrier coupled with a decrease in Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase production. The result is somewhat terrifying, as the brain begins to suffer slow degradation of neurons in the prefrontal cortex and portions of the cerebellum, resulting in a slow progressing loss of function in memory and emotional control. This causes a wide range of symptoms including paranoia, loss of coordination, cognitive decline, memory loss, and often ends in a severe form of mania dubbed "Wildcat Burn" among the asteroid communities. The disease is related to long term existence in microgravity environments coupled with slight Oxygen restriction common among asteroid miners to preserve this precious resource. In the decades since first diagnosis there have been hundreds of thousands of cases, and an immense research program was dedicated to not merely treating the disease, as effective treatments were found within the first few years, but finding a proper cure. The first experimental curative was developed in 2093 using advanced biologic and tailored genetic medicine techniques. The cure was finally made widely available in 2097, following a surprisingly rapid development and testing program. With the development of a cure the disease is no longer a terrible sentence of death though mental devastation. The cost of the cure, a full course of treatment may cost over ten thousand credits, however, leaves most of the non-corporate, or wildcat, miners still at grave risk. A failed, or merely not yet successful, wildcat miner, unemployed as all wildcats are, has no possibility of access to corporate medical services and would lack the credits to pay private treatment fees, assuming a corporate facility would even offer private service out in the deep belt regions. The announcement of a cure in 2097 mostly ended this scourge throughout the mining operations upon which much of humanity depended so heavily, but also increased the gap between corporate and wildcat miner, which had the predictable, if unfortunate, side effect of dramatically reducing wildcat mining, to the point that wildcat mining was nearly eliminated by the year 2115.

Type

Neurological