revere | October 3, 2006Here's a solicitation for reader input.
A medical conference in the UK last week was told that the Government's faith in antivirals as the key to combatting a pandemic is misplaced. There was the usual handwringing about the havoc that a pandemic would bring and dueling views as to whether British society could cope with it without breaking down. I'll put my bets on British society. And American society. And French society. And, etc.
But I'm not a betting man, so some real planning and preparation is obviously in order. We've known this all along, said it all along and even done some of it,…
revere | October 2, 2006A couple of days ago Bloomberg's John Lauerman had an interesting story about guests leaving viruses behind in their hotel rooms.
During an overnight hotel stay, people with colds left viruses on telephones, light switches, television remotes, and even ice buckets, researchers said today at an infectious disease conference in San Francisco.
Infectious disease specialists caution people to wash their hands and avoid touching their noses and faces to avoid catching colds that infect about 60 million people in the U.S. annually.
[snip]
"When you touch surfaces a day later, the virus may still be…
revere | October 2, 2006Does the Bush administration always have to blame someone else? Does a bear shit in the woods? The Washington Post asks the second question and answers it with the first (hat tip Lindsay at Majikthise).
Here's the alleged problem. Some major rivers in the DC area, like the Anacostia and Potomac, don't meet EPA standards to be clean enough to swim in. Now work from Virginia Tech reveals that a lot of the enteric bacteria in these rivers that contribute to their non-attainment status come from local wild life, like deer, geese and raccoons, our co-habiting species in the modern suburb. Who is…
revere | October 1, 2006Now there appears to be another frontline flu antiviral on the horizon, a neuraminidase inhibitor like Tamiflu and Relenza. It's generic name is peramivir, being developed by Alabama-based BioCryst Pharmaceuticals. Tamiflu can be taken orally. Relenza must be inhaled. So far, peramivir has to be given intravenously or via injection. Much of the optimistic information that has come out in the last two days is from BioCryst, so we don't know how much is real and how much is hype. Information from researchers said to be independent of the company (what this means exactly we don't know) were…
revere | October 1, 2006I wasn't going to read Sam Harris's new book, Letter to a Christian Nation because I thought I wouldn't learn anything and it wouldn't change my mind. I've got a huge stack of books to read. This wouldn't be at the top. But I picked it up idly at the bookstore this afternoon and was hooked from the first paragraph:
Since the publication of my first book, The End of Faith, thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the…
revere | September 30, 2006There are reasonable and plausible suggestions that there may be other reservoirs for H5N1 than poultry. We have discussed it here numerous times, but we don't know although I certainly wouldn't rule it out. But the poultry reservoir is gigantic and probably the source of most human contact with the virus. Consider Indonesia, with its estimated 300 million poultry:
Bird flu may have infected a quarter of backyard fowl in some of Indonesia's most densely populated areas, the country's top veterinary official said, risking human lives and increasing the threat of a pandemic.
Random tests…
revere | September 30, 2006The Rockefeller Foundation's conference center in Bellagio, Italy on Lake Como is a lovely place (digression: so I'm told by people I know who have spent time there. I haven't -- yet. This is a big hint to the Foundation that I am available to take a week there and tell you what I think. Or you can find out for nothing here. But I'd rather tell you in person.).
In June Ruth Faden, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins convened a group of experts there to talk about ways to soften the impact of a flu pandemic on the world's most vulnerable:
"Within countries rich and poor, the burden will be felt…
revere | September 29, 2006We've now had a chance to take a look at a new paper in Nature (advance online publication 27 September 2006 | doi:10.1038/nature05181) on increased host immune and cell death responses in mice infected with the reconstructed 1918 virus compared to other viruses with only some of the 1918 gene segments. It is a very interesting paper.
The authors (Kash et al.) infected mice intranasally (through the nose) with four viruses, one a currently circulating human H1N1 virus, A/Texas/36/91, dubbed Tx91 for short, and three others, two produced by replacing first two of the eight gene segments of…
revere | September 29, 2006With over 150 blog posts from around the world now registered (Declan's Connotea tally here) and the full length documentary, Injection online for free (trailer here, complete streaming video here, time to catch our breath.
Declan tells us the US Center for Nursing Advocacy received over 150 letters of support because of the blog campaign, even though they were not a contact target. They send their deep appreciation to all who are helping on this campaign for justice for five nurses and a doctor. If you are a nurse or want to support nurses you can get find a guide to their letter writing…
revere | September 28, 2006I'm with Lindsay of Majikthise (and many others) on this one in telling Senator Reid that Republican legislation that would allow torture and allow George Bush to define the Geneva Convention to suit himself is beyond the pale. Even worse, the same legislation essentially abrogates habeas corpus, a writ for which is "a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody." (LectLaw).
Here's what Lindsay said:
Senate Minority Leader…
revere | September 28, 2006If you demolish two gigantic buildings full of hazardous materials like asbestos and acrid concrete products it isn't a surprise you would produce a hazardous environment. So it was no surprise the air around the World Trade Center was dangerous to breathe after 9/11, although we were told otherwise while officials knew better. Officials like then EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman (see post here).
We now can document it wasn't just Whitman who made the decision to "re-open" the Wall Street and financial districts adjacent to the WTC attacks after 9/11. The decision came all the way…
revere | September 27, 2006When we first began to cover the bird flu problem -- back in 2004 -- it wasn't being discussed much anywhere, including the blogs. We started talking about it for two main reasons. First, it seemed to us, as it seemed to many informed public health scientists, that this was a possible freight train coming down the tracks. We didn't know then (nor we know now) how far the train was, whether it would get all the way to us or how fast it would be going if it did get to us. But we could feel the vibrations on the tracks and we knew enough about train wrecks of the past to worry. That was the…
revere | September 26, 2006The City of Boston is now soliciting volunteers for a new Boston Medical Reserve Corps Program, designed to help the city prepare for disasters:
"I want everyone in Boston to consider joining the Boston Medical Reserve Corps; people in our medical, health and business communities, our residents, our college students, retirees -- anyone who wants to help," said Mayor Menino in announcing the recruitment drive. "We're looking for everyday heroes to help make Boston safer and more prepared."
Following many disasters, large numbers of people often come forward to help. Many of those well-…
revere | September 26, 2006Many readers here know that WHO has a pandemic phasing arrangement, and there has been much confusion and consternation about why they have or have not "called" phase 4. In a characteristically informative article, Helen Branswell of Canadian Press gives some of the details, including the names of some of those who will advise WHO on whether to change the warning level.
In short, WHO has established a committee of experts to help them determine the phasing. Branswell says the committee has about 20 experts, including some stalwarts of the influenza science establishment:
The list of 20 or so…
revere | September 25, 2006The campaign in the blogosphere to gain justice for the Tripoli 6 (see here, here and here) has gained another powerful resource for those wishing to know more and particularly, to see its human face. In 2003 film maker Mickey Grant of Dallas made a stunning documentary, Infection whose trailer we linked on an earlier post. He has now made the entire 1 hour 22 minute film available entirely free via streaming video (note: there is a 30 second test pattern at the beginning and some titles; this is a raw upload, but the link works. Give it a minute). Nature senior correspondent Declan Butler…
revere | September 25, 2006Back-to-school season, time to learn good habits. It's also high season for the condom industry:
"If you look at condom sales, there are different peaks," said Jim Daniels, the vice president for marketing at Trojan, which dominates the United States condom market. He cited New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day and even the Fourth of July, but said the back-to-school season is a particularly good opportunity for recruiting young customers.
"A third of condoms are purchased by college-age students," Mr. Daniels said. "Therefore it's a very important target. Very often people become sexually active…
revere | September 25, 2006DemFromCT has a great post on The Next Hurrah (TNH) (cross-posted on the frontpage of DailyKos) about the new intelligence assessment that reports the obvious (instead of the false):
An intelligence assessment that the war in Iraq increased Islamic radicalism, worsening the terror threat, set off a sharp debate today among American political officials over credit and blame for the war and the broader fight against terrorism. (New York Times via TNH)
This isn't really news, because anyone with more than a couple of neurons in working order (and not using them just to breathe and defecate) can…
revere | September 24, 2006An amazing thing is happening. There are now more than 60 70 80 posts about the travesty of the five nurses and a doctor imprisoned in Libya and under threat of death by firing squad (see our posts here and here and Declan Butler's running Connotea list). Thanks to the many of you that have taken a little time to contact your reps and the government of Libya and whoever else you think needs to know. Full list of contacts and links here .
The number of posts is impressive and let me say how proud I am of science bloggers and especially my colleagues here at scienceblogs.com who have…
revere | September 24, 2006Muslims have shown their displeasure with what Pope Ratzinger (professional name, Benedict XVI) said about Islam, but not many people have noticed what he said about atheists. I guess there are more Muslims than atheists. Too bad. The world would be a lot better off with more atheists and fewer Muslims, Jews and Christians. At least atheists don't fight each other over whose God is the right one. But never mind.
Earlier the same day as the speech that drew the ire of Muslims, this supposedly nuanced and brilliant theologian gave his diagnosis for the cause of atheism:
The [infamous…
revere | September 23, 2006The Bush US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has done just what we have come to expect them to do: wimped out on keeping Americans truly safe. Oh, you expected them to protect your health? Yes, they will. In partnership with the Easter Bunny. The Tooth Fairy had enough and decamped to the Democrats.
What's this about?
When I first looked at air pollution epidemiology, the measurements of particulate matter in the air was in pretty crude terms, Total Suspended Particulates. You measured TSPs by sucking a measured volume of air through a filter, weighing the filter and then expressing it…