revere | October 12, 2006The Federal government's flu plan is in it final stages of recapitulation -- sorry, I mean, the final stages of preparation. The headline of the AP news story says it all: U.S. Pandemic Flu Plan: Hole up at Home. Jeez.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pitching the plan at medical meetings and aims to send it out for review by the end of the year. State and local governments have asked for unusually detailed and specific advice on such matters as closing schools and canceling public events, one CDC official said.
This week, CDC awarded $5.2 million in grants related…
revere | October 12, 2006One of the headlines made by Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush administration, State of Denial, is that the violence in Iraq is much worse than we have been told. Told by the Bush administration, anyway. In fact we have been on notice for two years that the level of violence in Iraq is horrendus. In 2004 researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Columbia and in Iraq produced the best evidence up to that time of the death toll from the 2003 US invasion. The study was published in the British medical journal, The Lancet. Its publication was expedited so it could appear…
revere | October 11, 2006Here's a cautionary tale. Many readers know that H5N1 infection is capable of causing a sudden over activity of the immune system, manifested in a so-called cytokine storm. Over active immune systems have been implicated in many other diseases, as well, although the type of "over activity" isn't the same. Autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus erythematosus are caused by the body making antibodies to its own tissues. As in cytokine storm, an immune system that normally functions to protect us, makes us sick. To damp down the inappropriate activity, drugs like steroids are…
revere | October 11, 2006Bird flu popped up in poultry in Egypt in February of this year and within months the north African country registered more human cases (14) than any other outside of Asia. The last human case was in May and with the warm summer months detections in poultry waned as well. Then at the end of September birds again were shown infected in a village near Aswan, at the southern end of the Nile Valley.
WHO spokesman Hassan el-Bushra told IRIN that the infected animals, raised in the backyard of a house in the town of Edfu, have now been culled. Ministry of Health officials have "instigated the WHO-…
revere | October 10, 2006Not even dinner is safe in Iraq. Reports seem to agree on is that there was a mass food poisoning of Iraqi policemen on Sunday, although whether 11 died and hundreds fell ill or 7 died and hundreds fell ill or no one died but over a thousand became ill is still unclear.
Authorities are saying it could have been from "spoiled food," but this is highly unlikely. The victims reportedly became ill immediately upon finishing their meals:
Some collapsed as soon as they stood up from the meal, others fell "one after the other" as they headed out to the yard in the base to line up in formation, Mr al…
revere | October 10, 2006Pandemic Flu Awareness Week registers its first success. The Onion Radio News (audio clip) provides evidence bird flu awareness has reached the average American.
revere | October 9, 2006Today marks the second Pandemic Flu Awareness Week, launched by my colleagues over at The Flu Wiki. The good news is that in the year since the first effort to raise the awareness of the blogosphere, much has happened in the way of increased recognition of the pandemic threat. Communities around the world have started to plan for the possibility of a pandemic and the planning process will pay dividends. More good news is that a pandemic strain of H5N1, the leading candidate for a disastrous flu pandemic, has yet to come into the open. The bad news is that there is much, much more that needs…
revere | October 9, 2006The hubbub over the Republican congressional leadership's blatant failure to protect the minors under their custodial care in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal should be (but isn't) just the opening shot in a larger story of the hypocrisy of right wing (aka, conservative) politicians about "protecting our children."
At any moment, state inspectors can step uninvited into one of the three child care centers that Ethel White runs in Auburn, Ala., to make sure they meet state requirements intended to ensure that the children are safe. There must be continuing training for the staff. Her…
revere | October 8, 2006The Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, is taking sides in the battle for new Director General of the World Health Organization:
Mexico Health Minister Julio Frenk should be favored among 13 candidates to head the World Health Organization because of his technical and administrative skills, said Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal Lancet.
Frenk, 52, is the only contender for the agency's top job with a "high level" of experience in global health, policy- making and health-system management in a low- to middle-income country, Horton said. France's nominee, Bernard…
revere | October 8, 2006It is now a week since the terrible happenings in the Amish community in Pennsylvania. That community's desire for privacy has spared us the usual voyeuristic and intrusive media frenzy. Not even photos of the dead little ones. The depth and privacy of their mourning is theirs alone and I for one am glad. At the same time few of us remained untouched by this, especially those of us with little girls of our own (even though mine isn't little any more, she remains my little girl). I don't romanticize the Amish. They are a closed community that has set themselves apart and can be guilty of…
revere | October 7, 2006Today The Jakarta Post is saying a study by the Indonesian Environment Information Center (PILI) in Yogyakarta has shown feral cats have become infected with H5N1 through "contact" with infected poultry at markets. There is no additional information on the nature of the contact, although eating the bird would seem likely but not the only possibility. PILI is also concluding the literature shows migratory birds are not vectors, blaming the poultry trade for movement of the virus. PILI is currently studying the migratory bird problem in Indonesia.
The statement about cats was made during a…
revere | October 7, 2006I'm always a little suspicious of nutritional epidemiology. It's a prejudice, I admit. But trying to figure out how past diet affects present health is difficult. How many people remember with any accuracy what they ate years ago? Still. some things seem easier to remember, like how much cola you habitually drink. That's some data collected via questionnaire from 2500 women enrolled in an osteoporosis study. Their mean age was about 60 years old. The results have been reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, although I've only seen the press reports.
What they reveal (again…
revere | October 7, 2006If you haven't gotten your flu vaccine yet or you don't plan to get one you are in the majority. Of course if you read this site you are in a small minority, so I'm guessing many of you plan to get a flu shot. Which is good. I'd also ask for pneumovax, too, a vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia, a frequent secondary infection in influenza. But back to flu vaccine.
There is some evidence of cross-protection between seasonal influenza vaccination and H5N1 infection. Since one component of the seasonal vaccine, H1N1, shares a subtype N1 antigen with H5N1, this isn't implausible. More…
revere | October 6, 2006We've not said anything about the North Korean nuclear issue before but we are doing so now, joining with Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in expressing our concern over the spread of nuclear weapons and the apparent failure of the Bush administration to address it effectively. PSR was the deserved recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize for their decades long effort to end the threat of nuclear holocaust.
The North Korean threat highlights the issue once again. Nuclear weapons in the hands of any nation is a danger to all of us. The United States recognized this when it signed the…
revere | October 6, 2006I'm still trying to figure out if the statement by Ambassador John Lange, the US State Department's special representative on avian and pandemic influenza, that this country is close to "state-of-the-art" in its preparations for a pandemic of H5N1 and its biosecurity measures is some kind of dark humor about state-of-the-art in general or just an amazingly clueless assessment of where we are. I'm aware that a sense of humor doesn't usually characterize the official prnouncements of this administration, although some of them do produce hysterical laughter. I'm pretty sure he is either clueless…
revere | October 5, 2006In China, "sudden events" like disease outbreaks or chemical spills are state secrets. That's not good for China's health or the health of the world. I'm glad that's not US policy. Not yet, at any rate. But a new bill introduced by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel is a step in that direction.
S. 3898 was introduced on September 14 to little notice. It is a Bill to amend the Homeland Security Act "to provide for the health of Americans by implementing a system that detects and identifies in a timely manner diseases, conditions, and events that represent a threat to humans, animals, food…
revere | October 5, 2006Lindsay at Majikthise raises in interesting point about a new Spanish law that requires fashion models to attain a certain Body Mass Index before being allowed to take to the catwalk. The intent is to project a healthier image for young girls who emulate the newest fashion modes and ideal bodies. Lindsay raises the question whether such a rule is justified on these grounds. Amanda at Pandagon has raised this as an occupational health problem for women. The new requirement of a BMI of 18 are in line with a World Health Organization guideline for a minimum health weight.
Amanda's position:
At…
revere | October 4, 2006Some drugs that seem to have remarkable abilities to affect a wide range of biological systems in useful ways. The classic case is aspirin, used for pain relief, anti-inflammatory effects, anti-clotting abilities, and much else. Now another drug seems to be in this category, the family of statin drugs.
The statins are a group of drugs that are comptetitive inhibitors of an enzyme, 3 hydroxy 3 methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase). They are commonly used to treat high cholesterol, but they have a wide variety of other pharmacologic effects, including anti-inflammatory and…
revere | October 4, 2006A couple of months ago we posted on the great Avastin versus Lucentis competition, two drugs for treating age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is the major cause of blindness in the elderly. The interesting thing is that there is about a 100-fold difference in cost between the two drugs and both are made by the same company, Genentech.
Avastin is an anti-angiogenesis drug used to treat colon cancer. It works by inhibiting the new blood vessels the tumor needs to grow. New vessel growth (neovascularization) is also the pathologic process behind AMD. Several years ago an ophthalmologist…
revere | October 3, 2006A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the strange disappearance of the already invisible Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Richard Carmona. One day, July 29, he was there. The next day, July 30, gone. Appointment not renewed. Did he jump or was he pushed? We don't know. Lots of commenters here thought that now he was "out from under" the Bush administration, he would do what he didn't do as Surgeon General: say something.
Yesterday we found out where he went in an article in the Wall Street Journal and heard what he had to say. Inspiring:
Richard H. Carmona, who served as surgeon…