revere
Posts by this author
April 22, 2010
It was a year ago today we put up our first post about swine flu: "The California swine flu cases." I think we were the first blog to notice it, and it began this way:
Late yesterday afternoon a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Dispatch appeared on CDC's website that is unique in my…
April 21, 2010
Yesterday we posted on our strong support for open access publishing of tax payer supported research. We are taxpayer supported scientists (at least our NIH grants are) and we consider our work to be the property of the public, who paid for it. Whenever possible (which is most of the time) we do…
April 21, 2010
When two of the most loathsome members of the US Senate bring back again a bill that won't die, you'd think I'd be in high dudgeon. But I'm not. I hope the bill isn't killed or is allowed to die -- again -- and we finally get it. I'd much rather that the two right wing whack jobs, Senators Joe…
April 20, 2010
The Icelandic volcanic eruption is still causing havoc in Europe with ripple effects elsewhere as people and planes are grounded for travel in or out of much of northern Europe. Pressure from the traveling public, air carriers and business is mounting to let passenger and cargo planes fly again.…
April 19, 2010
When I was young there was a brief fad for 3-D movies. You had to wear those red/green glasses they gave you in the movie theater but the effects were pretty spectacular. I remember seeing Vincent Price in House of Wax and it was pretty impressive to my 11 year old psyche. But 3D faded. Something…
April 18, 2010
With health care costs growing without bounds, the medical devices industry and President Obama are hard at work. Not hard at work reducing costs. Hard at work convincing us that the solution to the cost crisis is more technology. Right, Mr. President. And John McCain is a maverick and Sarah Palin…
April 18, 2010
Some things are pretty hard to swallow. You know what I mean:
See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
April 17, 2010
It would be surprising if failure to fund local public health and neutering regulation would result in a decrease in foodborne illness. Alas, there is nothing surprising about CDC's latest report on incidence of foodborne illness in the US. They put the best face on it they could, pointing to a…
April 16, 2010
This was in the news a couple of weeks ago, but I held on to it so I could remind people of it again, the "too big to nail" syndrome":
Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you.
That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical…
April 15, 2010
When CBS-TV decided to run an anti-abortion ad during the Superbowl there was a lot of talk about the propriety of airing highly polarizing advocacy advertising in such a highly visible media slot. There has been less talk about the content of the ad beyond the obvious fact it was making an implied…
April 14, 2010
I am pro-abortion. Not in the sense that I think abortions are good. I don't. In the sense that I am pro-surgery for medical conditions that can be surgically treated, or pro-pharmaceuticals for medical conditions that can be treated with drugs. I consider an unwanted fertilization to be a medical…
April 13, 2010
The Grant (here, here, here) is finally done and going in Fed Ex tomorrow morning. It's been a long haul and we will undoubtedly be sending in preliminary results or new publications between now and the end of September, since the review isn't until November. That's right. I've been working on it…
April 12, 2010
Markos Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of DailyKos, the world's largest political blog. He travels quite a bit and is dependent on his laptop and the internet. So I read his first experience with the iPad with a great deal of interest. Go read it (like they need the traffic; on a quiet…
April 11, 2010
To mark the end of grant writing, a bit of a departure: Music that isn't political. A French band called Okou (words are in English). Tatiana Heintz (vocals) is a French woman whose mother is from the Ivory Coast and Gilbert Trefzger (steel guitar) is Swiss. His father is from Egypt. They are now…
April 11, 2010
Tiger Woods is all over the media. Why not here?
April 10, 2010
This song was written by Florence Reece in 1930 - 1931 during the bloody campaign to organize workers in Harlan County, KY. They were fighting for safer working conditions. Mine safety has improved since then, mainly because of the mine workers union, but workers in many mines, like the Upper Big…
April 9, 2010
This week Canadian public health researchers published the long awaited paper on possible association between vaccination for seasonal influenza the previous flu season and risk of having a medically diagnosed infection with pandemic influenza during the first wave of infections (April to July)…
April 8, 2010
Yesterday I gave a nod to an important epidemiologist, the late Alice Stewart. I'm old enough to have known her, but not old enough to know the most famous epidemiologist of all -- indeed sometimes called the "Father of Epidemiology" -- Dr. John Snow. Snow is also claimed as the "Father of…
April 7, 2010
If you aren't an epidemiologist of a certain age -- or even if you are -- you've probably not heard of Alice Stewart. Alice was one of England's premier epidemiologists in the mid to late 20th century, but I didn't meet her until she was in her 80s. At the time she could still bound up the two…
April 7, 2010
Dear influenza virus:
You owe the Council of Europe and a number of others an apology. They are angry -- and rightly so -- that you didn't kill many more people and wreak havoc in every country on the globe. You could have. Other influenza viruses killed a lot of people, especially when there was…
April 5, 2010
We are now through with two major religious holidays, Easter and Passover. I dislike both holidays, Easter because it is soaked in images of cruelty and mythology, Passover because it is a nationalistic orgy. Now that I've offended half my readership, let me say something positive about something I…
April 4, 2010
I haven't bought myself an iPad yet, but I'll probably do it before heading off on vacation in August. By that time it will have passed its shakedown phase and we'll know the best and worst. But from what I see and hear it looks pretty good, especially if you travel a lot. My trusty MacBook Pro…
April 3, 2010
Better late than never. When the Bush administration proposed sweeping airport quarantine rules in 2005, even those of us most concerned about avian influenza thought it was a fruitless policy on scientific grounds, not to mention issues of civili liberties and economics. The airlines hated it, too…
April 2, 2010
There's a lot of fascinating robotics work being done these days, although it is disheartening to see how much of it is designed to help kill people or just kill them outright. But not all of it and over at Boingboing there was an example of a project designed to do household chores. We already…
April 1, 2010
The AMA just took over a journal called Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. In fact they proudly announced they were the exclusive publisher and distributor of the journal, formerly published by Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins. I wouldn't even know about it except it was in…
March 31, 2010
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano is asking academics to work with her agency to develop "innovative initiatives" to protect the nation from terrorist threats. This is what I would call a faith-based initiative, in this case, faith in the technological fix. DHS…
March 30, 2010
There is a good Canadian Press by Michael Macdonald about the often long time it takes to make a full recovery from flu. A full blown case of classical influenza can really lay you low for days or weeks. People often report never having felt so sick. But once you are "recovered" and back to work or…
March 29, 2010
A day or two after CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) released a report about risks to pregnant women from pandemic 2009 flu, CDC held a suddenly announced press briefing about the current H1N1 situation (I listened in but a transcript should be up on the site by the time you read…