revere
Posts by this author
July 28, 2009
CDC wants us to get vaccinated for flu every year. Always for seasonal flu, and this year, if there is a vaccine available, for swine flu. They want us to get vaccinated because they think the vaccine works and they want to prevent people from getting influenza, always a dangerous and unpredictable…
July 27, 2009
CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recently rolled out their 2009 Recommendations. It's for seasonal flu, for which a vaccine exists, not for swine flu, for which there is (as yet) no vaccine. There is a lot to say on the subject of vaccines (see what we've said over the…
July 26, 2009
The Reveres have been around a long time and we know a lot of public health people in different states. Recently we were talking with a colleague about the problem of hospital surge capacity -- the ability to handle a sudden demand for services -- and she described her first job working for a state…
July 26, 2009
We rarely put up the same thing twice here. Part of the fun is finding new absurdities. But by accident we again ran across this classic from the Australian Chaser's War on Everything and I laughed all over again. I know we did it before (2007), but the YouTube video was taken down. Luckily we…
July 25, 2009
It's a Saturday morning, it's summer in the northern hemisphere, and in a few days The Reveres are off to the beach for a communal vacation. A Revere-fest (or infestation). A little time away from the pressure cooker is good for people our age, old enough to remember the proto-punk rock band The…
July 25, 2009
Yesterday CDC announced it would no longer report confirmed and probable swine flu cases. This will likely cause consternation in some quarters, but the reasons make sense. First, it should be said that the real pressure to stop counting is coming from the states, where resources are stretched so…
July 24, 2009
Yesterday CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) carried an a note about neurologic complications in children with swine flu. Central nervous system effects -- seizures, encephalitis, encephalopathy, Reye syndrome, and other neurologic disorders -- are known to occur with seasonal…
July 23, 2009
There have been three reported oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistant isolates of H1N1 swine flu (added: and now a fourth in Canada) but with those exceptions all others have been sensitive to this oral antiviral. This is in marked contrast to the other H1N1 strain, the seasonal variety which is almost…
July 22, 2009
The National Pork Producers Council didn't like swine flu being called swine flu. Bad for business. So we now call it 2009 H1N1 or some such thing. It's totally swine-origin, but hey, if Lord Agribusiness doesn't like it, that's that. Same thing with antibiotic resistant bacteria, like methicillin…
July 21, 2009
We are hoping that the infuriating failure of the Scienceblogs servers to keep up with traffic leading to submission timeouts (just as aggravating for bloggers as commenters) will be cured by a server upgrade which is to begin shortly. We have just been informed by our Seed Overlords (a.k.a. the…
July 21, 2009
The reaction to our post on Sunday about preparing for the ongoing flu pandemic was mixed. Some thought it was right on target while others expressed dismay over what was perceived as minimizing the possible effects, especially as we have been talking for well over four years about the potentially…
July 20, 2009
With flu season in the northern hemisphere looming and H1N1 cutting a nasty swath through good portions of the southern hemisphere's current flu season, attention is being turned to the non-existent but hoped-for vaccine against swine flu. Yesterday we discussed the problem of pinning pandemic…
July 19, 2009
We've been talking about the possibility of a flu pandemic here for four and a half years. The cliché during much of that time was that the right way to think of a flu pandemic was not "if," but "when." As long as no pandemic materialized, however, there was great scope for what it would look like…
July 19, 2009
People here tell me that I give too much time to knocking particular religions. I don't mean to. I mean to knock all of them. I mean, what's the alternative?
July 18, 2009
Back in May there were some stories on the wires and flublogia regarding a new study about arsenic exposure and risk of flu. I didn't write about it at the time for purely arbitrary reasons (I was writing about other things), but I noticed it and in fact I know the senior author and his work fairly…
July 17, 2009
Data from the Emerging Infections Program (EIP), one of the component parts of the CDC national influenza surveillance system, is showing that for some segments of its population the US did indeed experience a second flu season. The segment of particular concern are children between the ages of 5…
July 16, 2009
I spend a lot of time at a computer keyboard typing about biological viruses like influenza A, but computer networks are also subject to self-reproducing parasites of one kind or another and we continue to have a layperson's fascination with those organisms, too. I say "organisms" because try as I…
July 15, 2009
I hate to take off on the press. I do it every once in a while, but not often. The slow and agonizing demise of the main stream press has major consequences for keeping the public informed about issues both big and small. It's also a personal tragedy for many dedicated professional journalists.…
July 14, 2009
Yet another paper testing the current swine flu pandemic virus in animals appeared in Nature yesterday, covering much the same ground as two published July 2 in Science and with similar findings. All three of these papers show the pandemic virus more likely to infect tissues deeper in the lung than…
July 13, 2009
I am thinking out loud here. Since that's never a pretty sight, you might wish to avert your eyes. With that merest of advance warning, the school closure problem has gotten me to think more generally about social distancing. The term itself is a kind of oxymoron. "Social" emphasizes togetherness,…
July 12, 2009
Sunday and The Reveres have discharged their pastoral obligation to do a Freethinker Sermonette but there is other news on the religion front so we'll do a religious twofer. We've already discussed the nomination of Francis Collins to be NIH Director a couple of times (here, here and here; one post…
July 12, 2009
I don't think Noam Chomsky is a genius like Einstein or Newton but he is certainly the smartest person I've ever met. While I know him only casually, it is an acquaintanceship stretching over at least four decades. He once did me the great favor of teaching a class on the British Empiricists at my…
July 11, 2009
It's Saturday and it's summertime and Mrs. R. and I are still in the city. OK with me. I'm a city boy and find it easiest to maintain upright posture on asphalt, but my bride of 37 years likes the beach, so most summers we go off for a few weeks to the seashore (speaking littorally). It's down…
July 10, 2009
Had a busy day at work yesterday (the pesky day job problem) but did get a chance to see bits and pieces of the Flu Summit video streamed at Flu.gov. This was aimed at state and local folks, and the parts I saw didn't provide much new information if you have been following this for years. I'll bet…
July 9, 2009
I'll soon be at the end of my career, funding-wise, although I plan to continue as an active scientist for as long as my neurons will process information in a logical order. I mention this so you won't take this as special pleading. I'm not going to benefit from it. But if we want to continue to…
July 8, 2009
A risk factor for swine flu complications is pregnancy. Yet one of the few venues specifically for healthy people in modern health care facilities is for pregnant and postpartum women, the in and out patient portions of the obstetrics department. And what of the newborn whose mother gets the flu?…
July 7, 2009
I'm not qualified to say if science and health reporting has gotten worse in recent years. Maybe I'm just paying more attention to how bad it often is now. My impression is that some reporters today are as good or better than we've ever had but there are fewer of them on the beat. This is…
July 6, 2009
Flu virus is opportunistic. It takes advantage of any weakness. Seasonal flu picks on the very old and the very young, but pandemic flu has found us old folks tough and the younger amongst us quite tasty. No natural resistance seems to be a flavor enhancer. And pre-existing medical conditions?…
July 5, 2009
I have a lot of respect for civil servants. It's a noble task, nobler than what most of us do. But there are times when I just want to shake my head. The UK government has not exactly distinguished itself in the swine flu area, first putting pressure on WHO to hold off declaring a pandemic, then…
July 5, 2009
Turkey is supposedly a secular state but has been pitching toward theocracy in recent years. Whatever its military wants, much of its population is still fairly religious, so it's of interest that a bizarre new television game is about to debut there:
It sounds like the beginning of a joke: what do…