revere | December 2, 2007It's Sunday but, alas, no rest for me. I'm off on a jet plane (I hope I know when I'll be back again). But it's still important to preach my Sermonette. Too many of you already know the classic George Carlin rant on religion as bullshit (if you don't, you can watch it on YouTube here), but there's another Carlin favorite not as well known. The Ten Commandments on a diet. Enjoy:
revere | December 1, 2007Dr. Margaret Chan, a Hong Kong native, has been at the helm of the World Health Organization (WHO) now for almost a year. The Associated Press (no by-line) has an interesting sketch of her, which includes her penchant for using song as an ice-breaking device in contentious settings. We brought you Ed Hammond's report that she burst into "Getting to know you" at a critical point in the recent tense summit over sharing of bird flu virus in Geneva. AP also reports this event, but remember you heard it here first. IN any event, here is some more of their limning of Chan:
Since the karaoke-loving…
revere | November 30, 2007If you are like most people you probably aren't alarmed about the dangers of nanotechnology. In fact if you are like most people you probably don't even know what nanotechnology is. I'll resist the temptation to say general knowledge of the emerging technology of the very small is even smaller. Despite the fact most of us have no clue, there is a surprising amount of nano products already in the marketplace, incorporated in products from food containers to golf clubs. But there remain doubts about safety. Nanoparticles are so small they don't act in ways we understand, either physically or…
revere | November 30, 2007Another report, another story: the world is not ready for a pandemic. Before you click away (you've heard it before) I'll be saying something more about it than just reiterating the dire prognosis if we don't shape up. But first the message, from the UN and the World Bank:
The world remains unprepared to cope with a pandemic in humans arising from bird flu, a UN and World Bank report released Thursday found.
"Although a massive global effort to control highly pathogenic Avian Influenza (or severe bird flu) has led to improved responses to outbreaks in poultry in many countries during the last…
revere | November 29, 2007It is not news that the Atlanta lawyer who had/didn't have Extremely Drug Resistant TB early in the year didn't infect anyone when he flew -- against advice or was it against orders? -- from Europe back to the US via Canada and through New York despite a no fly (or not?) order from CDC (or DHS?). Everything about this case was cocked up -- the diagnosis, the communication with the patient, the communication with the public, the communication between federal agencies, state agencies and local health agencies (see our posts here). The fact that no one who sat close to him or further from him or…
revere | November 29, 2007Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are in the news again. Yesterday was the dust up over Howard Markel and colleagues' JAMA article from last August that appeared in CIDRAP News calling into question some of the historical data on the effectiveness of isolation and quarantine and now it's an article in British Medical Journal that purports to show that some kinds of physical interventions like masks, gowns and handwashing might be better bets than vaccines and antivirals should a pandemic come our way:
Face masks and regular hand-washing are more likely to halt the spread of a deadly flu…
revere | November 28, 2007China's insatiable energy needs have made headlines. One of its worst consequences is an increase in the burning of dirty coal. (This is not to imply there is clean coal; there isn't. Clean coal is just a coal industry marketing term.). Coal is said to supply 70% of China's energy needs compared to 25% in the US. So if the Chinese don't choke themselves to death first, they may help drown the rest of us by their contribution to global CO2.
But China is also doing something the US isn't: putting substantial money into the search for and development of clean energy:
China is leaving the US in…
revere | November 28, 2007A Commentary by John Barry (author of The Great Influenza) in CIDRAP News and accompanying meta-commentary by CIDRAP Director Mike Osterholm highlight an interesting controversy about a JAMA article by Michigan's Howard Markel and colleagues. Markel's article was a detailed compilation of public health responses to the 1918 influenza pandemic in 43 cities in the US with the aim of telling whether any was associated with better community outcomes. The Markel paper bore the following conclusion:
These findings demonstrate a strong association between early, sustained, and layered application of…
revere | November 27, 2007Three times we have posted on the arcane topic of manhole covers. On the first it was to ask why manhole covers are round. On the second it was to elaborate on the theme of the first post, with reader assistance, and exhibit a stunning examples of manhole cover art with links to others. On the third it was to wonder how it was possible for a person or a dog to get shocked from a metal cover that is literally grounded. All of the posts concerned, at least in part, safety issues.
Jordan Barab, former blogmeister of Confined Space, sends us another important public health aspect of manhole…
revere | November 27, 2007A week ago we defended a colleague against attacks from overzealous anti-smoking crusaders when he criticized their patently absurd claim that breathing 30 minutes of second hand smoke in a public place was equivalent heart attack risk to that of a smoker. Some interpreted this as our saying second hand smoke was not as bad as alleged. I suppose the question here is "alleged by whom," but we don't have to play those games. Second hand smoke is bad for the health of those exposed to it for any length of time, as a new study shows graphically -- literally:
It's not a smoking gun, but it's…
revere | November 26, 2007What's the big deal about putting a few bad guys into "stressful" positions (assuming you know for sure they really are bad guys)? You call that torture? Waterboarding maybe is torture (we aren't sure about that yet; requires some study***), but stressful positions and a love tap or two? Give me a break:
Source: Waiting for the Guards, Amnesty International
So what's the big deal? This was straight out of the CIA interrogation manual. No pretense we don't do it.
This video is also not play acting:
In order to make the film, the directors put the actor into a stress position for six hours…
revere | November 26, 2007Indonesia's health minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has answered the question whether the recently concluded Geneva summit on sharing of influenza viruses had produced sufficient agreement to induce that country to begin sharing again. Her answer seems to be "no":
Indonesia's health minister reiterated Sunday that she would not send bird flu specimens to the World Health Organization, saying poor nations needed assurances that any pandemic vaccines developed from the virus would be affordable.
Siti Fadilah Supari made the comments on her return from Geneva, where the WHO held an…
revere | November 25, 2007Today is the third blogiversary of Effect Measure. We started it on blogger as a whim in 2004 while Mrs. R. was making a Thanksgiving dinner. Since then there have been posts under the Effect Measure name by the Reveres every day, 365 days a year for three years, some 2300 in all. Since our move to Scienceblogs in early June of 2006 we have averaged a bit over 1100 unique visits a day. In the process we have accumulated an interesting, engaged and idiosyncratic community of commenters: contributors, arguers, polemicists, the outraged, sometimes the appreciative, the hyperverbose, the laconic…
revere | November 24, 2007As you will see from the account below the fold, the flu summit was a contentious and complicated affair. Only time will tell if it was even a qualified success, but there are reasons to be hopeful. Tip of the hat to Ed Hammond, one of the NGO participants, who provided the public health community with his perspective at a time when no one else was talking. This involved late hours for him at the end of long days. We are grateful.
Here's his wrap-up:
Influenza Meeting Ends in Qualified Success
At the end of contentious meetings like the one on policies for sharing flu virus it is tempting to…
revere | November 24, 2007Yesterday was the fourth and final day of the important Geneva summit on sharing flu virus isolates. Like premature news of Mark Twain's death, the Reuters report the meeting had failed was exaggerated. On the contrary, the summit appeared to have moved things forward. We have the latest, below. You can find previous happenings and background here, here, here and here.
Status mid-day, Day 4 (3:26 pm Geneva time, November 23), as reported by Ed Hammond:
Some Things That Happened in the Night Session of Day 3 and Morning Session of Day 4
These sessions were the final negotiations before…
revere | November 23, 2007Rabia Balkhi Hospital (RBH) is an obstetrical hospital in Afghanistan that is one of the jewels in the crown of the US aid effort after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2002. Here's the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website boast:
HHS activities have had an enormous impact on the quality of care at RBH, have saved the lives of hundreds of women and newborns, and have improved significantly the skills and knowledge of the doctors, nurses and midwives at the hospital. We are continually adding new improvements that dramatically expand the hospital's life-saving capacity, such as…
revere | November 23, 2007The critical summit on sharing influenza viruses entered its third day (previous coverage here and links therein). The big media outlets covered the opening but not since. Fortunately, you can read about developments here (Day 2, here). Ed Hammond is there and is keeping us abreast of developments.
A participant's view at the start of Day 3 (5:30 am, Thursday, Geneva time):
Halfway Through and No New Ideas from the US and EU
To be sure, Indonesia has not been the most effective leader for its cause. Its multiple failures at this meeting (if not previous ones) to put forward clear language…
revere | November 22, 2007The Democrats are talking about universal health care. Good for them. Inevitably, though, their Party is accused of being big spenders. The contrast is always with the "fiscally conservative" Republicans. We all know (although some conveniently forget) that the Democrat, Clinton, left the country with a budget surplus (some of it accrued on the backs of the poor, unfortunately) and the Republican, Bush, has driven us into a catastrophic debt that will be paid by our grandchildren. An anomaly? Hardly:
Source: Intelligent Guess
Not only are Republicans profligate spenders, cutting taxes for…
revere | November 22, 2007We have an on-the-ground view of the critical influenza virus sharing summit, provided by Ed Hammond in Geneva. I am promoting his comment thread notes from earlier today and a fuller account from late in the evening on Wednesday (Geneva time) sent me by email. It is clear that the atmosphere is tense and not convivial.
First, if you haven't been following the issue here or elsewhere, here's a bit of background from an excellent piece at Intellectual Property Watch (h/t Agitant):
The politically explosive issue of ensuring everyone benefits from vaccines in the event of an influenza pandemic…