revere | August 23, 2009A pandemic is an outbreak that's world wide. Usually it's a single strain of some pathogen. But it doesn't have to be. There can be multiple strains, each intent on reproducing itself but adapted to its own niche:
revere | August 22, 2009Infection with norovirus is something to which the adjective "unpleasant" hardly applies. While it's a self-limiting affliction, if you've ever had it, it's hard to imagine anyone subjecting themselves to norovirus willingly. But if anything illustrates the principle that people will do anything for a buck, this does:
"Getting sick for science (and money)"
revere | August 21, 2009The current pandemic with swine H1N1 remains sensitive to the oral neuriminidase inhibitor, oseltamivir (Tamiflu), an antivial. How long that will last isn't clear, and neither drug in this category (Tamiflu or zanamivir/Relenza) is very effective, although they appear to work to some extent against sensitive influenza virus. But Tamiflu can be expensive and the cost adds up when we are talking of tens or hundreds of millions of doses. Part of the cost is that the drug company that makes Tamiflu, Roche, is in business to make money and isn't readily giving up its licensing rights to allow…
revere | August 20, 2009Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is the ranking Republican on health insurance reform and has also been a dogged critic of conflicts of interest in academic medicine. We've commented before that Grassley is a gold plated hypocrite because he himself reads ghostwritten talking points from the insurance industry, makes false and fraudulent claims on their behalf while trying to influence legislation and himself takes millions in health industry money without publicly acknowledging it. He has become typical of the corrupt phonies he self-righteously complains about.
Grassley's own corrupt behavior…
revere | August 19, 2009The original post was called, "Timing is everything." That's a truism. But it could have been called, "Elections do matter."
"Timing is everything" was posted the April before the 2006 mid term elections and it highlights blogger extraordinaire Jordan Barab and the importance of OSHA. Now it's 2009 and guess who the Acting Director of OSHA is? Jordan Barab. If your heart can withstand a wrench or two, here's some more of Jordan's blogging: "Jordan Barab's Weekly Toll"
Jordan is "Acting" pending confirmation of Obama's nominee to be OHSA's permanent Director, Dr. David Michaels. We've already…
revere | August 18, 2009We hear rumors the Obama FDA is not like the Bush FDA. We'll see. We don't expect to agree with everything they do. But if the question is, how are they doing?, one response might be, "compared to what?": "Tough guys at the FDA (sarcasm alert)"
revere | August 17, 2009Still "fishin' " but back at the bait shop we left this note.
Over the years we've written a lot about the basic science of influenza. Much of it centered on avian influenza H5N1 ("bird flu"), an extremely nasty and worrisome virus that is bubbling away in a rich stew of humans and livestock on three continents. But while we were keeping an eye on the pot, worrying it would boil over, an influenza pandemic started in an unexpected place (North America) and with an unexpected virus (of swine, not bird, origin). All pandemics are different and influenza viruses also differ one from another. But…
revere | August 16, 2009Here's some more while we fish. Some things are worth repeating and some people worth celebrating. Quiet Heroes of Public Health was a 2005 post which included a bow to the Environmental Research Foundation's Peter Montague, whose last (and 1000th) issue of Rachel's News was in February of this year (2009). Click through.
We're looking forward to the book, Peter.
revere | August 16, 2009We may be on vacation, but flying Rabbis with trumpets deserve a day of their own and because it's swine flu related there is no escaping this delectable item. PZ over at Pharyngula even had a link to a video which is something to behold. But first, for those of you who haven't heard the latest in public health measures against SWINE flu (which the ultra orthodox Israeli Health Minister won't permit to be called swine flu because pigs are unclean, which is why we shouted it in caps for emphasis), we present you with the death defying show from Kabbalah Airlines:
Dozens of rabbis and Kabbalah…
revere | August 15, 2009If the Reveres fished, they'd put up a sign that says, "Gone fishin'". But we don't fish, so that wouldn't be true. By now everyone probably knows the Reveres are at the beach, allegedly on vacation. Since only one Revere writes at a time, I will use the first person here (it's easier), but I am speaking for the non-person composite that goes under the name revere/Revere. And the first thing "I" want to say is that the internet is eating me alive. Thanks to its magic I can now be connected to work 24/7. And I am. It's making me crazy (crazier?). It has to stop.
I suffered through a couple of…
revere | August 14, 2009If you are a paranoid hypochondriacal person with young children who lives in a suburb, you've come to the right/wrong place (take your pick). Because now you get to hear about Baylisascaris procyonis. What's that, you ask? The procyon part should be the tip-off, but I suppose not that many people know that Procyon is the genus to which raccoons (Procyon loto) belong. We're going to talk about raccoon latrines.
Yes, raccoons have latrines. Who would be crazy or stupid enough to build a latrine for raccoons? Other raccoons. Raccoons have communal defecating sites called raccoon latrines where…
revere | August 13, 2009Science Based Medicine is a site we highly recommend with experienced scientists and practitioners in charge. In other words, it's run by adults. But scientists often disagree about things. This is apparently a secret to non-scientists and many reporters who assume that when two scientists disagree, one is lying or wrong. But it's true nonetheless. Whatever the subdiscipline, there are disagreements. If you pick up almost any issue of Science or Nature you will find plenty of them, usually (but not always) couched in polite language in the Introduction or Discussion section of a paper or in…
revere | August 12, 2009The Reveres are at the beach. It's not our natural habitat, but the generic Mrs. R. loves the beach so here we are. We often write in the morning (after emerging from our small flat in Hilbert space) but today we were otherwise occupied and then went to the beach and baked our brains out. Then we tracked sand into our rented unit ("Next time you vaccuum!") and now as we sit down at the keyboard we sense a distinct absence in neuronal activity. Our neurons, that is. Your neurons may be firing with alacrity, in which case you will want to go elsewhere. Because baked brains are a meal best…
revere | August 11, 2009Yesterday (today as I am writing this) the British Medical Journal published another Cochrane meta-analysis on the efficacy of neurimminidase inhibitor antivirals (the only two in use now, being oseltamivir [Tamiflu] and zanimivir [Relenza]). Their conclusions have made the news, so I guess I should cast my baleful eye on their handiwork. I think there is less here than meets the eye, but first let's look at what meets the eye.
This is a meta-analysis, that is, an analysis of other analyses, the other analyses in this case being drug trials of Tamiflu or Relanza in children. So it's an…
revere | August 10, 2009Things have been quiet at CDC but apparently they have been changing. First, Dr. Richard Besser, who acquitted himself ably as Acting Director after January 20 until early June when Obama's new appointment, Dr. Thomas Frieden took over, has decided to leave CDC for television. Yes, television. Many at CDC will be sorry to see him leave. He was "the people's choice" for new Director, as one old CDC hand put it. I had heard that he had once had a TV show in California prior to his CDC days and he's obviously telegenic, articulate and knowledgeable. He will be joining ABC News as its senior…
revere | August 9, 2009The other day we did something we don't like to do when talking about flu, we made a prediction. We predicted a bad swine flu season in the fall in the northern hemisphere. The history of flu epidemiology is that making predictions is dangerous. Flu has the ability to make fools out of anyone, regardless of expertise. One commenter in particular disdained the risk we took as being no risk at all. It was perfectly obvious to him (or "anyone paying attention") that next flu season would be a swine flu horror show. It may well be, and then this commenter will certainly gloat and perhaps have…
revere | August 9, 2009Sadako Sasaki was 2 years old on August 6, 1945 when an atomic bomb destroyed her city, Hiroshima. Three days later, 64 years ago today, a second atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki. The radiation exposure from the Hiroshima bomb initiated a malignant transformation of Sadako's blood cells and ten years later she developed leukemia:
During her long hospital stays, Sadako began to fold paper cranes. According to Japanese legend, if an individual folds 1000 paper cranes, a wish will be granted. With each crane she folded, the wish was the same-to get well. October of 1955, Sasako folded her last…
revere | August 8, 2009We're communicating through the marvel of the internet, you and I. Obama figured out how to use it to advantage and McCain didn't. Maybe it's a generational thing. At any rate, at this moment in history, any party that doesn't learn from history is bound to be history. Any Party like the Republican Party. Their preferred mode of communicating is via the Echo Chamber of far right talk radio and websites. Democrats have figured out how to use technology more creatively -- creative in the sense of creating people who agree with their positions. Instead of scaring the living crap out of people or…
revere | August 7, 2009We've been rather kind to Senator Charles (Chuck) Grassley in the past. Yes, he's a right wing Republican with some really odious ideas, ideas for which he deserves to be criticized. But he's also been a champion of the Federal False Claims Act which has encouraged and protected whistleblowers to reveal how corporations have taken the taxpayer for a ride, something for which he deserves credit. Lately he has been on a tear about the ways Big Pharma has been buying influence with high profile medical professionals, with the direct implication that this has skewed their practice, their research…
revere | August 6, 2009Making predictions about something as unpredictable as flu is foolhardy. I rarely (if ever) do it, but I'm going to do it now. I am predicting a bad and early H1N1 swine flu season in the northern hemisphere next fall and winter. The reasons for this departure from our usual custom is a paper in Nature from 2007 I just re-read. It's entitled "Seasonal dynamics of recurrent epidemics" by Stone, Olinkyl and Huppert from Tel Aviv University and it appeared in vol. 446, pp 533-536, 2007 (doi:10.1038/nature05638; html version here, if you have a subscription). The paper isn't specifically about…