revere
Posts by this author
April 23, 2007
If you travel at all, and I have to travel a fair amount, you know how brittle the air traffic system is. Last week I did an out-and-back one day affair of around 500 miles each way. Weather was good and I made it to my destination on time. The meeting went from 10 am to 1:45 pm. Then a dash to the…
April 22, 2007
A mashup, in online talk, is a site or application that combines content from several sources. Google Map is a favorite matrix for mashups and one of the most intriguing (for us) is one called "Who is Sick?" It's a voluntary geographically-based reporting system for sickness:
A new Google Maps…
April 22, 2007
I missed it in December when PZ alerted us to the challenge of an afterlifetime: The Blasphemy Challenge. The "challenge" (scare quotes here because some of us find this pretty easy) is to declare your lack of faith with a YouTube video. The only requirement is that at some point you must utter the…
April 21, 2007
If you have ever driven or lived in Boston you know that signage is not one of the city's strong points. In fact, it is almost impossible for an outsider to comprehend how bad the sign situation it is. Often you can only tell what street you are not on, because many main streets don't have street…
April 20, 2007
Recently we posted on the risks encountered by workers working in the tunnels beneath the nation's capitol. You heard it from me. Now you can hear it and see it from the workers themselves on this video. You will also see pictures of the tunnels and the conditions there and hear about their lack of…
April 20, 2007
Bird flu clinicians -- the handful of doctors that have actually treated human cases of bird flu -- met in Turkey last month, and upon comparing notes made new recommendations. Among them, don't use steroids:
Doctors caring for H5N1 patients should not treat them with corticosteroids, the World…
April 19, 2007
It's a common observation that kids don't have a good sense of their own mortality. Whether it's from a deficit of wisdom, a surfeit of impulsiveness or adventurousness or even evolutionary reasons has been debated. I have my own ideas.
I thought about them again in the wake of the melancholy…
April 19, 2007
An excellent article on the CIDRAP site by Maryn McKenna (late of the Atlanta Journal Constitution where she had the CDC beat) won't be news to readers here, but it is news that it is news. The subject is efforts by non public health types in preparing for pandemic influenza. McKenna notes that…
April 18, 2007
I wasn't going to post on the announcement yesterday by the US FDA that it had approved the Sanofi Pasteur H5N1 vaccine. We've discussed it before. It was pretty much a failure, requiring too much viral antigen, two doses, and resulting in putative protection of less than half of those who receive…
April 18, 2007
The jury is still out on the value of statins in H5N1 (see posts here and here). But these drugs seem to have many beneficial effects and are taken by a huge proportion of the at risk population to lower their cholesterol. But a new study suggests not as many are taking them as want to or might.…
April 17, 2007
Some of the most boring sounding parts of epidemiology are also the most important. Take the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), now in its tenth revision (ICD-10). This is a standard way to code disease diagnoses that has its origins as far back as the 1850s. It was taken over as an…
April 17, 2007
Some reporters are so good it just makes your head shake when you read them. In the flu world, the prize (always) goes to Helen Branswell of Canadian Press. She's not a stylish writer, just an exceptionally clear one. Her sources are the best and her reporting as reliable as her sources are good.…
April 16, 2007
There's a curious story in the UK newspaper, The Independent, on mobile phones and the collapse of bee colonies (hat tip Randy, aka MRK). I don't quite know what to make of it, although I am skeptical:
[Some scientists] are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and…
April 16, 2007
I admit it's a paradox, but I can't help myself. Whenever I hear that a high government official has debunked claims of a human case of bird flu, my first thought: "Oh, shit. Another case."
The minister of information and communications, Frank Nweke Jnr., has debunked claims that there was any…
April 15, 2007
The last time we reported on the concern of five former CDC Directors that morale was going down the toilet at the agency was September 11, 2006. That was in a joint letter sent to Director Gerberding. Now it's 7 months later and the venue is more public, a symposium sponsored by the George…
April 15, 2007
I don't like getting involved in internecine warfare, least of all amongst my SciBlings. But a recent OpEd in WaPo by two fellow bloggers I admire, Matt Nisbet of Framing Science and Chris Mooney of The Intersection prompts me to set fingers to keyboard. It is Richard Dawkins that provoked it. Good…
April 14, 2007
When we consider the spread of bird flu, we often focus on the basic reproductive number, R0, the average number of new cases that a single infected individual would produce in a completely susceptible population. But individuals are not the only possible unit of analysis. One could consider…
April 13, 2007
In another post we pointed out that the number one cause of death in people aged 1 to 44 is unintentional injury. But some injuries are intentional, about half directed to other people and half self directed. Among people aged 15 to 44 intentional injury represents the second leading cause of death…
April 13, 2007
I admit to being prejudiced, here, but my experience living in Sweden (a long time ago, it is true), knowing a bit of the language and seeing what goes on there makes me think of the Swedes as one of the most rational people on earth. It's true most other peoples don't give them a lot of…
April 12, 2007
Asbestos is bad stuff. You don't have to see too many workers die from asbestos-caused disease to feel pretty strongly about it. So it is distressing to read of the plight of ten workers who have spent years under the nation's Capitol in tunnels strewn with friable asbestos containing materials.…
April 12, 2007
The newswires are on it again. This one has a good hook. A flu vaccine made in insect cells. So I read the paper. And in truth, it's pretty interesting.
Genetically engineered flu vaccine made from yellow striped caterpillars instead of hen eggs has been shown for the first time to keep people…
April 11, 2007
A political pundit recently likened the Bush administration to the refrigerator that was never cleaned under the Republican rubber stamp congress. Now that new housekeepers have moved in they are finding lots of gross and moldy half eaten meals in the back. The latest to stink the place up is…
April 11, 2007
The newswires are carrying a story that the journal, Chest, is about to publish a retrospective study of influenza mortality and statin use. As happens more and more frequently, press reports are appearing prior to the actual article, so I haven't read it yet. This is very irritating. The whole…
April 10, 2007
Soon, maybe as soon as the end of the month, the Libyan Supreme Court will hear the appeal of the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor, the "Tripoli 6" (here, here, here, here, here and here). As it approaches there is intense activity from the international scientific community. On…
April 10, 2007
Several readers have pointed me to an online piece on face masks and ultraviolet light as influenza control measures just published in the American Journal of Public Health. Both are presented as a Plan B in the (lkely) event Plan A's vaccine and sufficient or sensitive antivirals are unavailable.…
April 9, 2007
Too hilarious:
Engineers in the past week have huddled over blueprints in an underground complex that also can serve as a safe haven for visiting presidents in the event of an emergency and as a lookout point for government agents monitoring terrorist activity. (Denver Post)
The underground complex…
April 9, 2007
A trip with Mrs. R. to buy something for the kitchen doesn't seem to have much to do with influenza virology, but let me try to make the connection. We're at Williams Sonoma. I'm wandering around, idly looking at various pieces of kitchen equipment and thinking random food thoughts. I'm not looking…
April 8, 2007
To date, more than 90% of the bird flu victims have been under the age of 44. But what's the leading cause of death in people between the ages of 1 and 44 in the US? And the fifth leading cause of death (after heart disease, stroke, cancer and chronic respiratory disease) for overall? And largely…
April 8, 2007
It's Sunday -- Easter Sunday for Christians -- and time for Freethinker Sermonette, so you probably thought you'd get a day off from mathematical models. After all, we've just completed 18 posts on the subject and if you've read them all, you're exhausted. So it must be a day of rest, right? No…
April 7, 2007
For some reason the subject of masks evokes great emotion here. I'm not sure why. The idea that masks will help in a pandemic is a strongly held belief that might even be true. We don't know. I venture into mask territory knowing that, like gun control and atheism, I'll get a reaction. But a recent…