revere
Posts by this author
February 13, 2008
If avian influenza comes to North America one likely route is through importation or smuggling of infected birds. To protect ourselves, we need good border controls and to do that the US Department of Agriculture needs to know where in the world outbreaks are occurring. A USDA Inspector General's…
February 12, 2008
Researchers at Purdue University's Ingestive Behavior Research Center fed two groups of otherwise similar rats yogurt with Sweet 'N Low (an artificial sweetener containing saccharin) or yogurt sweetened with glucose ( "A Role for Sweet Taste: Calorie Predictive Relations in Energy Regulation by…
February 12, 2008
A recently published Commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) raises some interesting and serious questions about conventional efforts for pandemic flu preparedness. The author is John Middaugh of the Florida State Health Department, a long time public health…
February 11, 2008
In the 1960s, as the US biomedical research establishment was starting to rev its engines, bioethicists called attention to a dark side to research, the abuse of human beings as subjects of research studies. The poster child for this was the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male…
February 11, 2008
I clipped something from AP Pakistan last week but didn't use it because of interruptions. It turns out that Crof at H5N1 noted it at the time but I have a few observations to add, even at this late date. First, here's the gist:
Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Prince Esa Jan…
February 10, 2008
There is so much crap written in US media about alleged fatal flaws of the Canadian system of universal health care that it could be used to fertilize the crops of US agribusiness for a year. One apparent myth is that Canadians hate their system and that it results in long waits and unsatisfactory…
February 10, 2008
Every preacher knows that a Sermon goes down better with a little humor before one gets to the serious stuff. I usually choose between the two. Combining them often gives me indigestion. So the question for me this week was, will it be the ridiculous or the really serious? I contemplated the really…
February 9, 2008
Late yesterday afternoon, a Friday and classic time to release news you don't want anyone to read, I got the following email [excerpted] from David Schwartz, on leave as Director of the National Institute of Health Sciences (NIEHS), the main public health-oriented NIH institute and the subject of…
February 8, 2008
The President's budget was announced on Monday (see our post here), and as many people know (including us), it is Dead on Arrival. But it is still a significant for its symbolism. This is what the Bush administration wants. They know they won't get it but they are making a statement. Some statement…
February 8, 2008
We've discussed this already, but now CIDRAP News also has a story (which they got from AP) that this year's flu vaccine is not perfectly matched to the all the circulating viruses (of course we had it first, but hey, who's keeping track?). The data that are used to prepare vaccines for the next…
February 7, 2008
I'm glad the FDA has gotten serious about people knowingly importing and selling tainted food from China. They have indicted two Chinese nationals living in the US and an executive of an American company. It would be nice if they did this for foods that threaten human beings, but for the next 347…
February 7, 2008
Because he's too fat. Broiler chickens (the ones raised for meat) are essentially a cash crop, grown much like wheat or corn. When the chicken is ripe it's harvested. The Grim Reaper. We admit to not knowing much about poultry science and the business it supports, but because of our interest in…
February 6, 2008
There are a few issues where Progressives and Conservatives agree on and one is the importance of privacy. It's a core American value. Congress understands this and required the Bush administration to set up a Board to insure the alleged "War on Terror" wouldn't be an all purpose excuse for…
February 6, 2008
Bird flu is all over the Indian state of West Bengal and the country that borders it on the east, Bangladesh. The Ganges River flows through West Bengal, dividing in two, with one branch headed into Bangladesh. The Gangetic alluvium and delta region also has another unhappy claim to fame: it is the…
February 5, 2008
Today is a big day for American Presidential politics, the so-called Super Tuesday when citizens in 24 states vote or caucus with their fellows to help select the candidates of the two main political parties. I live in one of those 24 states and Mrs. R. and I vote regular as clockwork. We never…
February 5, 2008
Bangladesh is a country with more than its share of woes. Now there is H5N1 galloping through its poultry. Bangladesh needs all the help it can get. Which also means it needs to help others, too. How can a resource poor country like Bangladesh help other nations? They can start by sharing the…
February 4, 2008
Most Americans think the Afghanistan mistake was the Right Thing to Do. While we are on record (here and here) as of another opinion, the conventional view is that getting rid of the Taliban was Good (they were Bad, which is true) and anyway it was payback for 9/11 (even though the Afghans didn't…
February 4, 2008
Blogging can be exhausting. A blogger who wants to be read (not all do) has a hungry mouth, a mouth best fed daily. This one gets fed twice (once on Saturday), seven days a week, 365 days a year. The Reveres have been shoveling stuff into this ravenous maw for over three years. So we sympathize and…
February 3, 2008
After our recent rant on the necessity of supporting the public health and social services infrastructure instead of cutting taxes, President Bush has replied. He is cutting the infrastructure:
President Bush's $3 trillion budget for next year slashes mental health funding and rural health care…
February 3, 2008
It's the US Presidential election silly season and major voting to help determine who will be the candidates for the two major parties is on Tuesday. We've got one candidate assuring crowds he has worshipped Jesus in a Christian Church for the last 20 years (translation he isn't a Muslim), a…
February 2, 2008
Last week we brought you the Kinoki Footpad and the TV ad that drives me crazy. Not all infomercials are so stupid. Some sell products with genuine health benefits. I spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer (like at this moment) so I don't get enough exercise. And my abs? Forget it (bad…
February 2, 2008
There's a world out there I hardly know, although apparently I am part of it. The sandwich world:
High saturation in the US sandwich market will force manufacturers to focus on niche age and ethnic markets in order to boost market share, predicts a new Mintel report.
According to estimations made…
February 1, 2008
I'm an environmental epidemiologist with a special interest in surveillance. So it would be nice to say that epidemiological investigations and surveillance systems were responsible for discovering most of the workplace diseases we see nowadays. But the simple truth seems to be that most…
February 1, 2008
The AP's Margie Mason is a pretty good flu reporter and she has a story on the wires today whose title encapsulates the bird flu history of the last four years: Bird flu continues march 4 years later. The number of human deaths is still not large -- a few hundred -- just a day at the office in Iraq…
January 31, 2008
There is a class of legal cases that are so blatant lawyers call them Oh My God cases, you know, the kind when you see the facts you say, "Oh my God" (NB: don't give me grief because I'm an atheist. I'm allowed to use colloquial phrases that have their origins in myth and superstition).
Back to…
January 31, 2008
The number of deaths in Indonesia from bird flu just shot past the 100 mark without even pausing -- 101 was recorded right afterward. Tibet announced an outbreak and the disease continued to march through the Indian subcontinent, although the UN flu czar, Dr. David Nabarro said he thought the…
January 30, 2008
Americans are very generous. Consider they have just given away access to 3 million acres (5000 square miles) of wilderness to logging, mining and road building companies to use as they see fit. Very generous indeed:
The Bush administration plan for the [Tongass] forest, the largest in the US at…
January 30, 2008
OK, they're not cities, they are states. Or cities in states. Whatever. But when it comes to flu shots they are quite different. First benighted Mississippi:
The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) reports 27 laboratory-confirmed influenza cases in counties throughout Mississippi. The…
January 29, 2008
This isn't a contest, exactly, but more a question to the huddled masses. Mrs. R., who is Italian, was asking me the other day what the Yiddish word Mitvah meant. It turns out it isn't a Yiddish word (it's Hebrew) and while it has some kind of religious meaning about fulfilling commandments, I'm…
January 29, 2008
Since the antiviral agent oseltamivir (Tamiflu) has been touted as the global savior should a bird flu pandemic materialize the idea has been haunted by the specter of Tamiflu resistance. What if H5N1 becomes resistant to the drug? Is all lost? Now it is being reported in the media that the…