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I don't know what's going to happen with swine flu. I do know that if there is a nasty flu season we'll all get through it better if we help each other, not run from each other. It's national independence day in the US, so I thought this clip of the crowd singing the National Anthem (hat tip, Paul…
The number of people who die from seasonal flu every year varies greatly from year to year. No one really knows what it is. The most frequently (mis)quoted figure is 36,000 deaths directly or indirectly, although this figure is a long term seasonal average of excess mortality correlated with flu…
It's not even three months since the first H1N1 swine flu cases were diagnosed in San Diego, but already there is a significant amount of science published on the subject. Lots of genetic sequences from various isolates, clinical descriptions of hospitalized and fatal cases and now animal…
The first cases of swine flu were diagnosed in the US in San Diego in mid-April. The discovery was serendipitous, the result of out-of-season US-Mexican border surveillance and use of a new diagnostic test at the Naval Health Research Center. When the new test protocol showed infection with…
For reasons not revealed to anyone I know, WHO is saying the Tamiflu resistance in a Danish swine flu isolate is "isolated case." Could be, but I'd sure like to know why they think so, other than they don't have any other examples. Meanwhile WHO and CDC continue to advise prompt use of Tamiflu (…
Currently the only antiviral drugs effective against the swine flu (novel H1N1) virus are the two neuriminidase inhibitors, oseltamivir (trade name Tamiflu) and zanamivir (trade name Relenza). Relenza is in active form at the outset and cannot be absorbed orally. It must be inhaled, leading to…
Crafting a message on swine flu is not easy, and it's easy to make missteps. I think CDC has gotten it pretty much right over the last two months, but not everyone has. We've written here since the beginning (some examples here and here) that describing any flu outbreak as "mild" is inapt. Flu…
A few days ago we posted about hedge funds getting ready for a swine flu pandemic. At the time we wondered what other industries and businesses were getting ready. We don't know the answer, but we are seeing more signs the message has gotten through. Yesterday we saw this story about a regional…
There is a misconception that because I am an atheist and poke fun at religion in this space every Sunday that I must have contempt for religion for its own sake. It's true I find many of the pious contemptible, but not because they are pious. You can be stupid in all sorts of ways and that's just…
Early returns on what is happening in the southern hemisphere suggest that novel H1N1 is crowding out the expected seasonal strains, something that pandemic strains have usually done. In 1918 there was a pandemic with the H1N1 subtype that settled down as the dominant seasonal flu virus until the "…
Science may know no borders but scientists have nationalities. Many live within the countries where they have citizenship, while many travel to where they can do more and better science. In the 21st century no nation can afford to squander its scientific talent. But some do it, anyway, either in…
A story in yesterday's New York Times was headlined: In New Theory, Swine Flu Started in Asia, Not Mexico. That sounded pretty interesting. What's the new evidence? The answer? None. Just speculation. So what's going on?
Contrary to the popular assumption that the new swine flu pandemic arose on…
For years those concerned about the consequences of an influenza pandemic from an exceptionally virulent flu virus, like A/H5N1 ("bird flu") have despaired about motivating business, government and neighbors to take it seriously enough to make serious preparations. It's understandable. There's are…
CDC has another snapshot of what the flu surveillance system is seeing up through week 23 (ending June 13). It shows flu still circulating in many communities at a time when most seasonal flu is normally at a very low level. Indeed of the 2765 specimens tested in CDC's network of 150 laboratories,…
If you don't want to smell, the FDA has a recommendation: use an over-the-counter cold remedy that contains an intranasal zinc solution. You won't smell. Possibly ever again:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today advised consumers to stop using three products marketed over-the-counter as cold…
All eyes are on Iran as young people struggle for basic freedoms: to assemble, to speak freely, to participate in civil society regardless of gender. It's a struggle not special to Iran. For some Americans, winning those rights is within recent memory. And when I was a young man, I had…
Blood on the streets in Teheran. Religion is not the only cause of this. But it's one of them Not Islam, particularly. Religion, itself. All religions have done this. Enough is enough.
Two elite flu reporters, Helen Branswell (Canadian Press) and Declan Butler (Nature), both noted yesterday the dearth of clinic information on the serious and fatal swine flu cases. First Butler:
Clinical researchers have been slow to respond to the 2009 flu pandemic, lament researchers writing in…
Swine flu infection of health care workers (or as CDC refers to them, health care personnel or HCP) was of interest early in the pre-pandemic phase for at last two reasons. One was the obvious goal of estimating the risk to front line workers and devising best practices for their protection.…
We were among the first to bring you the full text of the leaked minutes of the secret meeting of the bisphenol-A (BPA) cabal at a posh private club in Washington, DC on May 28. It turns out those minutes may be almost as toxic to the cabal as their endocrine disrupting chemical is to humans. I…
I've been getting questions about whether it is safe to send sons and daughters to travel to places where there might be a lot of swine flu about. Many are from people in North America whose children are due to travel to Asia or Africa. The irony is that it is North America which is where most of…
No swine flu again today. At least no swine flu on this blog. There's a shit house full of swine flu in the world. But we are otherwise occupied and there is a bevy of terrific flu bloggers out there. And I was away from the keyboard all day yesterday, which causes serious withdrawal symptoms:…
One of the premier and earliest flu bloggers and co-founder of Flu Wiki, DemFromCT is also a doctor. Not a young doctor, either, although somewhat younger than I am (most people seem to be, these days). In our young professional days, the American Medical Association was a real political power.…
Swine flu is a depressing and worrying topic, but into each depressing and worrying topic a little sun must shine. Or an opportunity glimpsed. Or something like that:
The World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic Thursday, raising its pandemic warning from phase 5 to 6, making swine…
The easiest way for public officials to scare the crap out of people is to tell them "not to panic." A variant on this is, "It's not time to panic," implying that there will be such a time or that there is ever such a time. The first to panic are usually public officials because they feel powerless…
However this pandemic evolves, we are going to learn a lot about how pandemics evolve -- or maybe even start. A paper just published online in Nature sets out a bit more of what we know about this pandemic strain (yes, we can officially refer to it that way now) and makes some observations about…
WHO today declared we an influenza pandemic is underway (aka, phase 6), which is not news to anyone. This beast has been barreling long for at least 3 or 4 weeks and the reluctance to call it what it was was related to resistance from some of WHO's member states (the UK, China and Japan have been…
In William Osler's day (turn of the 20th century), pneumonia was called "the old man's friend," because it took the elderly away quietly and with relatively little fuss. It was most often caused by the pneumococcal organism, now called Streptococcus pneumoniae. When penicillin came on the scene in…
Listening to yesterday's press briefing with WHO's Dr. Keiji Fukuda (audio file here), several things seemed clear to me. The first is that everyone, WHO included, thinks a pandemic is well underway. Second, WHO's efforts to explain why they are not making it "official" by going to phase 6 are…