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Aetiology

Discussing causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena.

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"...a veritable expert on tawdry cosmetic procedures gone horribly awry..."--Kevin Beck

Tara C. Smith is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Her research involves a number of pathogens at the animal-human nexus. Additionally, she is the founder of Iowa Citizens for Science and also writes for The Panda's Thumb and WIRED SCIENCE's Correlations. Please note the views expressed on this site are Dr. Smith's alone and may not be representative of the groups mentioned above.

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Infectious Disease Series

October 31, 2005

Cervical cancer vaccine and politics as ususal

Category: Cancer epidemiologyClinical trialsGeneral EpidemiologyGeneral biologyInfectious causes of chronic diseaseInfectious diseasePolicyPoliticsPublic healthVarious viruses

As mentioned in the comments to this post, there is a brewing controversy over upcoming guidelines outlining who should receive the "cervical cancer vaccine," a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV). Briefly, the HPV vaccine is a highly...

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October 27, 2005

More academic journals discussing ID

Category: General biologyIntelligent design/creationism

(And not in a supportive way). PZ and Orac discussed a recent New England Journal of Medicine editorial critical of intelligent design. Though the article had several shortcomings, it's always a bonus to see other scientists treating ID as a...

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October 24, 2005

New vaccine recommendations coming

Category: General EpidemiologyInfectious diseaseOutbreakPolicyPublic healthVarious bacteriaVarious viruses

Doctors recommend hepatitis shot for kids Hepatitis A is a virus that causes (obviously) hepatitis, as well as jaundice, fatigue, nausea, fever, loss of appetite, and diarrhea. It's often spread fecal-orally; that is, you put something in your mouth that...

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October 20, 2005

"God is to engineering what Michael Brown is to hurricane relief"

Category: Intelligent design/creationismIowa/area newsScience education

That's my new favorite anti-ID quote, spoken by Mark Blumberg, at the University of Iowa Freethinkers' panel discussion on intelligent design last evening. Dr. Blumberg was discussing what a piss-poor design the human vertebral column is, and concluded his talk...

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Oh, Mike Seaver, what happened to you?

Category: HumorIntelligent design/creationism

I liked him so much better during his "Tiger Beat" days. Next thing they'll tell me is that Boner has become a monk... (But on the plus side, "argument from banana" is now my favorite creationist argument)....

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October 19, 2005

What the hell is going on with Tularemia? or, a Rant about public health problems

Category: General EpidemiologyInfectious diseaseOutbreakPolicyPoliticsPublic healthVarious bacteria

It's situations like this that really irk me. I mentioned the tularemia detection in DC here almost 2 weeks ago, already annoyed that there hadn't been more information about it. There has been some discussion on the ProMed list, but...

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October 18, 2005

Intelligently designed avian flu?

Category: General EpidemiologyGeneral biologyInfectious diseaseInfluenzaIntelligent design/creationismScience education

Ah, how rare is it that my interest in stomping creationists and my interest in infectious disease collide. But I guess that when there's a topic as hot as avian influenza, it's inevitable that even the folks at the DI...

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October 17, 2005

And speaking of prions...

Category: Infectious disease

We still don't know what's going on with Idaho, where there have been 9 suspected cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in 2005. More below the fold....

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Intro to prions at Panda's Thumb

Category: Infectious disease

Andrea Bottaro has an excellent review of prion genetics over at Panda's Thumb. Prions are, of course, the transmissible agents that cause diseases such as kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob in humans, and related disease such as "mad cow" disease, scrapie, and...

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October 12, 2005

"Stupid about STDs" update

Category: General EpidemiologyInfectious diseasePoliticsPublic healthVarious viruses

On Monday, I mentioned a survey MSNBC and Zogby conducted regarding attitudes about sex and STDs. Today on MSNBC, they have another article on the rise of STDs in America, highlighting some depressing trends. Meanwhile, in what you'd think would...

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Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink

Category: General EpidemiologyInfectious diseasePublic healthVarious bacteria

In the October issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, James Hughes and Jeffrey Koplan discuss the problem of safe water. Hazardous drinking water and poor sanitation is something that gets brought up when there's a disaster (like Katrina, or the tsunami...

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October 10, 2005

Newsflash: people still stupid about STDs

Category: General EpidemiologyInfectious diseasePublic healthScience educationVarious bacteriaVarious viruses

Okay, so it's just an MSNBC survey (aided by none other than Dr. Ruth), but geez, when will people ever wise up about sex? MSNBC.com and Zogby International asked online readers to share some intimate details about their personal lives,...

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October 7, 2005

Pandemic influenza awareness week. Day 5: How ready are we, and what can YOU do?

Category: General EpidemiologyInfectious diseaseInfluenzaPolicyPublic healthVarious viruses

Thus far this week, I've discussed the history of pandemic influenza in general, and avian flu in particular. I've discussed some issues that must be addressed to prepare us for a pandemic, and the groundbreaking resurrection of the Spanish influenza...

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October 6, 2005

Pandemic Influenza awareness week Day 4: 1918 influenza virus reconstructed

Category: General biologyHistorical studies of diseaseInfectious diseaseInfluenzaPublic healthVarious viruses

I know I said I was going to discuss a bit more about pandemic preparedness today, but I think I'll hold off on that to discuss this story: It sounds like a sci-fi thriller. For the first time, scientists have...

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October 5, 2005

Pandemic influenza awareness week. Day 3: Challenges to pandemic preparedness

Category: General EpidemiologyGeneral biologyInfectious diseaseInfluenzaPublic healthVarious viruses

The scientific community is all too familiar with the dangers an influenza pandemic could bring. The politicians and general public are starting to become aware of the issue as well; indeed, one can hardly open a newspaper or turn on...

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October 4, 2005

Pandemic influenza awareness week. Day 2: Our adventures with avian flu

Category: EcologyGeneral EpidemiologyInfectious diseaseInfluenzaPolicyPublic healthVarious viruses

Anyone working in the area of influenza virus epidemiology is familiar with the name Robert Webster. A virologist at St. Jude's Children's Hospital in Memphis, the native New Zealander has been leading the charge against influenza for well over 40...

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