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I write articles on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. In August 2010, I'll be moving to London for a year to work on the book. I'll also serve as a senior fellow at City University London's MA science journalism program.

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Swine flu spreads, and confusion with it

Posted on: September 29, 2009 6:12 AM, by David Dobbs

Updates from the flu front:

Confusion grows over the still-unreleased study that apparently finds, contrary to other studies, that getting this year's seasonal flu shot may raise your risk of getting swine flu. Peter Sandman, meanwhile, argues that since the swine flu seems to have largely displaced the seasonal flu, getting vaccinated for the latter doesn't make much sense. (I'm doing so this afternoon anyway.)

WaPo notes that the swine flu's second wave is starting to really make itself felt in the U.S., with over half the states reporting widespread flu activity.

Low stocks of Tamiflu (how long have we had to stock up?) seem to have contributed to the swine-flu death of an otherwise healthy 14-year-old girl on Sunday. Painful reading.

A timely Times article reminds us not to blame flu shots for every ailment that shows up afterwards. (Review correlation does not imply causation 101.) The CDC, meanwhile, will be doing its own close tracking of post-vaccination effects.

And Crof wonders whether it's too early to worry about the different hospitalization:death ratios in various countries. One of his readers did a study that found the hospitalization fatality rate (the percentage of those hospitalized who die) is 5.43% in Canada but 9.42% in the U.S. (This is since the 'new' flu season officially began on August 30, 2009.) Writes Crof,

I'm hesitant to accept this ratio as a way of gaining an understanding of H1N1. It may make me feel good as a Canadian to see that our public health insurance may be saving lives while the uninsured Americans die at almost twice our rate.

[He should included underinsured Americans in there too.] Then, after outlining several caveats about such a study, he expresses feelings I share:

Maybe the hospitalization:death ratio is a useful tool in the hands of a competent epidemiologist. Or not. I'd appreciate some advice from the experts on this.

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Comments

Has anyone posted an explanation of how the H1Ni flu would 'outcompete' seasonal flu? If there is no significant antigenic overlap, catching one flu shouldn't change your status as a potential host for the other. So why would an increase in new H1N1 flu reduce the opportunities for seasonal flu?

Posted by: Rosie Redfield | September 29, 2009 10:00 AM

This week see’s trials of the new swine flu vaccines on children in the UK

Swine Flu

Posted by: Sean | September 30, 2009 5:36 AM