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January 18, 2007
As a frequent traveler I am all for measures to keep me safe. Someday maybe I'll see some at the airport. While I dutifully stand in line with the other sheep, taking off my shoes, emptying my pockets, taking my laptop out of my briefcase and putting it in a separate tray (why?), taking my jacket…
January 18, 2007
It may not be the most comforting headline, but it certainly is of interest to flu watchers: Rebuilt 1918 Flu Infects Monkeys, May Assist Research (John Lauerman, Bloomberg). It's also a pretty accurate headline. Nice to see. So what's it all about?
Most people who come here know that the 1918 "…
January 17, 2007
If you are an abstainer, you can abstain from this post. Likewise if you are svelte and always struggling to keep your weight up. For the rest of us, the University of Rochester has an interesting compilation of the caloric value (and alcohol content) of about 50 brands of beer, domestic and…
January 17, 2007
Two news reports in recent days added another dimension to the already worrisome seasonal resurgence of H5N1. First, there is little doubt that the current spate of human cases is just what we expect to see at this time of year, based on past experience. This doesn't mean that the increase is "just…
January 16, 2007
It almost got by us, but we noticed it just in time. Nominations for the 2006 Koufax Awards are now open over at Wampum. For those on the Port (left) side of the blogosphere, the Koufax Awards are the most important credit we can obtain. We have been nominated all of our blog years and were a…
January 16, 2007
It's January and once again the bird flu news is unsettling. Reports from Indonesia suggest a new cluster there and one of the isolation wards to be used for suspected bird flu cases is reported to be overwhelmed, although the small number of beds in these facilities doesn't mean huge numbers.…
January 15, 2007
Today is a holiday in the United States. It commemorates Martin Luther King, Jr., a martyr of the American struggle for civil rights. But there were many more. During the "Freedom Summer" of 1964 three civil rights workers, James Chaney a 21 year old black man from Mississippi and Andrew goodman…
January 15, 2007
Michael Fumento is piqued because nobody paid any attention to his ludicrous and childish dare to us, DemFromCT at DailyKos and Tim Lambert and MadMike here at SciBlogs:
Okay guys, put your bucks where your blogs are! Ten to one odds for each of you; each gets to pick the amount in question. I say…
January 14, 2007
Six days ago when commenting on the first human case in Indonesia for 6 weeks, we noted that flu season was upon us and to expect more. That's seems to be the way it is working. The virus continues to spread in poultry in Vietnam and outbreaks have been confirmed in Nigeria, Japan and South Korea.…
January 14, 2007
The arguments over atheism are getting pretty raucous. It's not coming just from the religious right. It's also on the secular left (examples here and here, or here on Science blogs here and here). Apparently there is supposed to be a new kind of atheist, the fundamentalist atheist: intolerant,…
January 13, 2007
OK, folks. Voting ends tomorrow night, January 14 at midnight PST. We're doing pretty well, although everyone in both the categories we were nominated in is being crushed by the NHS Blog. Still we wouldn't mind coming in second or third, so if you have an inclination, give us your vote.
Voting is…
January 13, 2007
There's bird flu in Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, China, Nigeria, Egypt. You can read about that stuff anywhere. But it's Saturday, so you'll get this, my apology to Homeland Security. Because good manners are always timely.
I confess I've been openly skeptical about the efficacy of the…
January 12, 2007
Two kinds of good news for anyone interested in safeguarding the public's health. Let's divide it between the message and the messenger.
The message: The National Research Council (one of the four constituent parts of the National Academies of Science) just issued a major smackdown of one of the…
January 12, 2007
There once was a nice tidy story about why avian influenza viruses infected birds and human influenza viruses infected humans and pigs were the "mixing vessel" that brought them together so they could reassort their genetic innards. It went something like this. The avian virus can only attach to…
January 11, 2007
Missouri's nickname is the "The Show Me State." If you live anywhere near the state capital in Jefferson City, it isn't too late to be shown an exhibit in the Capitol Rotunda on "The Industry of Death." Today and tomorrow.
In it you will learn:
Twenty-five percent of psychiatrists sexually abuse…
January 11, 2007
Reader K (hat tip) sent along the link to a New Yorker cartoon which seems the ideal accompaniment to this small squib from the MSN financial column, Ahead of the Bell: Bird Flu:
NEW YORK (AP) - Bird flu concerns swooped back into the news Wednesday, bringing companies trying to find treatments for…
January 11, 2007
From yesterday's Jakarta Post:
No extraordinary measures against bird flu this year
JAKARTA (JP): Coordinating Minister for Social Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said Wednesday the government would not take any extraordinary measures against bird flu this year.
Aburizal said the current measures were…
January 10, 2007
I am powerfully affected by music. I've sung in countless demonstrations, concerts, benefits over the decades and through all those years, We Shall Overcome has been perhaps the most powerful anthem in the many struggles against affronts to dignity and the battle against hopelessness. It rang…
January 10, 2007
Yesterday Canada's Campbell commission released its report on the 2003 SARS outbreak in Toronto. SARS is most infectious in the latter part of its disease course, so it isn't surprising that 45% of the victims were health care workers. Two nurses and a doctor died. SARS was a deadly occupational…
January 9, 2007
If you are old enough to remember the War in Vietnam, you remember escalation. If you missed it, you'll get George Bush's version tomorrow night. So what could be more appropriate than to bring back the classic song about escalation, Pete Seeger's Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. Click here to see Pete…
January 9, 2007
I just returned from our University bird flu task force. We aren't ready. We aren't even close. The good news is that we know we aren't ready and we know we aren't even close. At least we're worried. This isn't some penny ante crowd of mid level managers, either. These are the top dogs at one of…
January 8, 2007
We have a lap dog. She is bred to be a companion to people and she excels at it. We were going to name her "EPA" after her function (lapdog), but chose a more human name instead. After all, she's a dog. Despite the fact that she doesn't get much exercise, she isn't fat. But obesity is a problem for…
January 8, 2007
The major H5N1 news over the weekend was the new Indonesian case, their first confirmed human case of 2007. The major H5N1 news of the end of the year was the absence of any human cases in Vietnam. The Indon case has been well covered on the newswires. It's a 14 year old boy, hospitalized on New…
January 7, 2007
The vexing problem of when to close schools in the event of an influenza pandemic and who will do it seems to be, well, still vexing. A brief communication in CDC's journal Emerging Infectious Diseases by Princeton's Laura Kahn makes clear the level of vagueness, if not confusion surrounding it in…
January 7, 2007
My curiosity over the epistemology of complaints about alternative medical claims aside, I have no doubt that there is a ton of quackery out there. Some is easy to identify (magnetic bracelets, etc.), some is officially sanctioned (health claims for vitamins, various over the counter…
January 6, 2007
My post on "Why are manhole covers round" was made in all innocence. I'm interested in sewers and long ago someone had mentioned this little factoid to me and I thought it was interesting. Little did I know.
Little did I know, what? First, that this is a notorious question. Allegedly it came to…
January 5, 2007
Effect Measure is pleased to say we have been nominated in two categories for a Medblog award. The good folks over at Medgadget have established these awards for the best of the medical blogosphere and we were nominated for Best Medical Weblog 2006 and Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog 2006. There…
January 5, 2007
Since I started cogitating on the apparent dominance of H1 subtypes this flu season instead of the more common H3, I've continued to look at some previous papers on the subject. The take home message I am getting is that there is quite a bit we don't know about this disease, influenza, despite its…
January 4, 2007
I have what some might think is an unhealthy interest in sewers. It's not really unhealthy, because, as I never tire of telling Mrs. R., I'm only interesting in theoretical sewerology, not the kind where I might actually visit a sewer (I tell her this whenever she wants me to do some plumbing…
January 4, 2007
One of the unanswered questions about the transmission of influenza H5N1 is the mode. We presume, probably correctly, that person to person spread is the main mode, mediated by coughing, breathing, sneezing. Whether the infective material is small enough to remain suspended in the air for long…