revere
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November 17, 2006
Blog Carnivals are moderated link collections of the best of the blogosphere's postings on specific topics over the previous few weeks, or at least the best of those submitted to the carnival meister by the bloggers themselves or others. And they are almost always interesting and well written. We…
November 17, 2006
Another "big" science story on the mutations in H5N1 that will a make it a pandemic strain. Same ending as the other stories. Not exactly.
Some of the blame for this rests with the scientists who can't resist going beyond what's in the paper when talking to reporters. I understand. I've done it…
November 16, 2006
Why do all Bush Administration policies have Orwellian titles like the polluter written Clear Skies Act? Or this one: The AIDS Leadership Act. Of course it doesn't say what direction it is leading AIDS policies. You decide. If you are a non-profit and want government funding for anything, you have…
November 16, 2006
I will admit to admiring the people of Cuba and having respect for what their health care system has done for them against great odds and in the face of a vicious US embargo. I've seen it with my own eyes, and although things have fallen on hard times because of the embargo, it performs better than…
November 15, 2006
My Scibling, Orac, over at Respectful Insolence has a special thing about those he calls "alties." They make him crazy. For Orac alties represent a broad category of alternative medicine approaches. I more or less agree with him but I don't have the same passion about it he does. I'm also willing…
November 15, 2006
Over a year ago reports from Japan began to circulate that the influenza antiviral, Tamiflu, which is prescribed there often for uncomplicated seasonal influenza, was causing abnormal behavior, most worrisomely delirium and suicidal behavior in children. The drug is approved for adults and children…
November 14, 2006
The title in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS, or "penis" in the trade) doesn't sound like much: Human Opiorphin, a natural antinociceptive modulator of opioid-dependent pathways (abstract). The first couple of sentences in the abstract are even less enticing:
Mammalian zinc…
November 14, 2006
Today I got several emails, each asking for my views on a proposed change to the format for National Institutes of Health grant proposals. This may seem of only parochial interest except to those of us who make our living applying for NIH grants, but how health research is funded is of interest to…
November 13, 2006
One of the curious things about the response to Katrina was the relative invisibility of CDC Director Gerberding. She may be a catastrophically bad manager who likes to meddle in everything, but her great strength is as a superb communicator. Yet she appeared relatively little despite the many…
November 13, 2006
In this week's Science magazine Stephen Morse calls attention to what we have been saying here for a long time. We don't really know how influenza spreds from person to person. A recent review of the aerosol transmission route by Tellier in Emerging Infectious Diseases provides some additional…
November 12, 2006
As a sometime modeler myself it now makes my heart sink when I read about a "new" model that tells us that such and such is going to happen with avian influenza. Box's adage that all models are wrong but some models are useful is apt, but telling which ones are useful is becoming so difficult we'll…
November 12, 2006
It's the Sunday after the midterm elections in the United States. The American people have had enough of the Iraq War. Finally. So here are two poems, the first from Stephen Crane (1871-1900); the second, from Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956):
A Learned Man Came to Me Once (Stephen Crane)
A learned man…
November 11, 2006
Today is called Veterans Day in the United States, but everywhere else it is Remembrance Day. When we were young it celebrated the end of shooting and was still Armistice Day. Now it celebrates the melancholy fact that young people have again picked up guns, not that they were at last able to put…
November 10, 2006
In an example of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for," China's choice for WHO Director General, Dr. Margaret Chan, is already finding her reputation will be held hostage to the behavior of China itself, not an enviable position.
The new chief of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan of…
November 10, 2006
Someone should tell the US government: "Big Blogger is Watching You." Both CIDRAP and crof's blog H5N1 picked up a story that the US State Department was advising its diplomatic and consular personnel in in Hong Kong and Macao to prepare for a possible "shelter-in-place" event by laying in a…
November 9, 2006
The US midterm election is over and the Democratic party will take control of the US House of Representatives. For the most part this is a good thing. A very good thing. For the most part. But there is a fly or two in the ointment. There always seems to be.
With the change of parties we will be…
November 9, 2006
The Lancet has just published (NOvember 8, 2006, online publication) a major review of the scientific evidence suggesting developmental disorders in children traceable to chemicals in the environment is significant and largely overlooked. Authored by two internationally recognized scientists,…
November 8, 2006
The Tripoli 6 trial has ended without hearing the scientific evidence that could have exonerated the defendants, five Bulagarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of intentionally infecting over 426 children with HIV in a hospital in Benghazi, Libya. The verdict on the case will be announced…
November 8, 2006
The headlines are exciting: Chinese scientists identify deadly gene in H5N1. The story is also upbeat:
Chinese scientists have identified a gene in the H5N1 bird flu virus which they say is responsible for its virulence in poultry, opening the way for new vaccines.
[snip]
"We can now understand how…
November 8, 2006
The WHO Executive Board has selected Margaret Chan as the next Director General of the agency (via AP). Her name will go to the agency's governing body, the World Health Assembly, for approval tomorrow. Chan was strongly championed by China.
As we have made clear here, we didn't think Chan was the…
November 7, 2006
The Lancet is my favorite medical journal. Maybe it's because I've had the privilege of publishing there on occasion, but mainly because they have consistently taken a public health perspective despite the fact they are a medical journal. Often that perspective has been controversial and just as…
November 7, 2006
Nothing says more about the routinely nasty depths American politics than this story.
In Houston, the city health department got money from the Robert Wood Johnson and Amerigroup Foundations, two charities much involved in health care, to provide free flu shots near polling places in medically…
November 6, 2006
H5N1 bird flu is now in 55 countries, in each of which it has severe economic consequences on the poultry industry and carries with it an unknown but potentially catastrophic public health threat. Since it is s a disease of animals (primarily birds), much of the work has been done by veterinarians…
November 6, 2006
Currently estimated bird flu case fatality ratio remains catastrophically high, somewhere around 60%. This may or may not be an accurate estimate. Case fatality is the ratio of cases that die to the number of people diagnosed with H5N1 infection. If we are missing many cases then our estimates of…
November 5, 2006
Genes and bird flu are being talked about again. A WHO study is "stating" some kind of genetic factor may be at work, but it appears it is only an observation that in the notorious Indonesian Karo cluster of eight family members, only those "related by blood" were affected by the human-to-human…
November 5, 2006
Sunday and the day before the US midterm elections. Pundits are speculating on the role religious conservatives will play. We are now so inured to politicians invoking their faith it sounds strange to think it has been any other way. But it has been, and within my voting lifetime. Over a year ago…
November 4, 2006
The US midterm election will be held on November 7 and American politicians are busy doing what they do best: pointing fingers at each other and avoiding the issues. They are not the only ones campaigning for office next, week. The two days after the US elections the World Health Organization…
November 3, 2006
Well, not exactly. She's already been to college and is now a PhD candidate in neurosciences at the University of Michigan. More to the point, ScienceBlogs own Shelley Batts (maitresse of Retrospectacle) is one of the finalists for a $5000 Blogger scholarship and all she needs to win is for you all…
November 3, 2006
It is tiresome to report the same story over and over again (for a few previous posts see here, here, here, here and here), but sometimes necessary. It has been widely reported -- again -- that the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture is withholding isolates of H5N1 it promised to provide. Indeed, WHO's…
November 3, 2006
I'm currently at a meeting in Europe and listening to -- really looking at -- scientific papers. I say "looking at" because they all are using PowerPoint, the scourge of modern day lecturing.
Don't get me wrong. I use PowerPoint, too. Everyone uses PowerPoint. It is so easy to make nice looking…