H1N1 Novel Swine Flu
gregladen | December 4, 2009We brought Huxley in for his first doctor visit yesterday. Everything was fine. But since we were going to a clinic with an urgent care unit, I expected to see a lot of people with the flu in the waiting room. There is always a lot of messing around in the waiting room, with a two stage sign in process, a need to show ID, sign stuff, etc. etc. and then there would be a wait in the waiting room breathing in H1N1 kooties. My plan was to keep Huxley, who was in the nifty car seat-stroller thingie and well bundled against the elements, in the entrance way of the building or even in the…
gregladen | November 23, 2009The Free Market is a god-like powerful force that we can rely on to solve our problems, especially those of supply and demand. So if, as the WHO estimates, about 2% of the population is going to be covered by H1N1 Swine Flu vaccine then ... shall we assume that the other 98% of the world's population did something wrong and angered the Free Market?
Everyone has seen this [shortage] coming. But everyone also decided that we would have to rely on the "market" and the private sector to solve it. Well, not everyone. We have been calling for years for ten or a dozen international regional…
gregladen | November 20, 2009I have a few non-authoritative comments regarding recent and current medical developments. This concerns the flu (esp. the H1N1 Swine Pandemic Flu), and the two recent changes in screening recommendations, for breast and cervical cancer and related issues.
Regarding the flu, we are seeing more evidence that a peak has passed in the H1N1 outbreak. What you need to know if you are in the US is that as of today, the CDC has NOT declared that a peak has passed here. The number of states with "outbreak" level occurrences has dropped and the number of children who die per week has gone down a…
gregladen | November 9, 2009Have you seen the movie "Speed"? Great action flick if you haven't. One of my favorite scenes in that movie is this one (apologies for vagueness ... I have not seen the movie in quite some time): There is a bus running wild on the streets being followed by emergency vehicles. A group of girl scouts are crossing the street, but the bus is coming, and the horn is blaring, so they run out of he way. The bus speeds by. The troop of girl scouts is led by their leader across the street again. But now a police car, siren blaring, comes tearing down the street. The girl scout troop jumps out of…
gregladen | November 5, 2009Kids, before we watch the video, I have to tell you: I just got a flu shot the other day and it did not hurt even a tiny little bit. That's because the needle is very small and your neurons .... that feel the pain ... are far apart. So, many times the shot does not hurt, sometimes it does.
So you should get all your friends together and make a list of who's shot hurt, who's didn't, and then you can make an estimate of what the chances are that the needle hits the neuron. And if you think THAT sounds like fun, you are well on your way to being a total science geek.
OK, here's the latest…
gregladen | November 3, 2009We have an interesting conundrum. Our offspring (______) is due on November 20th. This places the likely date of birth just prior to Thanksgiving. This causes many people to get very excited because they get to see and play with the new baby. I wonder how mad at me all those people are going to get when they find out I might not let that happen?
I'm not entirely sure what we are going to do postpartum. I'm quite interested in advice, so please do make your suggestions below. I'd especially like the advice of the MD's and Public Health Scientists in the vicinity. Or anyone with relevant…
gregladen | November 1, 2009Athens, Ga. - Each year, the influenza virus evolves. And each year, public health officials try to predict what the new strain will be and how it will affect the population in order to best combat it.
A new study by an international team of researchers, led by assistant professor Andrew W. Park, who holds a joint appointment in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology and in the College of Veterinary Medicine, may make their task a little easier. The study breaks ground by working across scales and linking sub-molecular changes in the influenza virus to the likelihood of influenza…
gregladen | October 13, 2009So the other day, grandma was taken to the hospital with various medical issues, and treated in the ER. After she was stabilized, she was sent to the ICU, but was unable to get a bed at first because the "ICU was full of H1N1 patients." I'm was not sure what that means because the term "H1N1" does not distinguish between the two flu events we are currently having, but I later asked and found out that the person who said that meant "Swine Flu."*
I have no idea if the flu, whatever kind it was, was really the reason for the lack of a bed, and I'm not sure if the lack of space was the issue…
gregladen | October 12, 2009Effect Measure has an interesting take-down of a post on The Global Language Monitor (GLM), which brings up an interesting point or two.
The GLM is a very strange site which has, as Revere points out, declared itself to be an important go-to place to find out about language trends across the world. I have not decided what I think about this site except when I browse around it it I feel my guard going up, and up and up. In a recent post, the GLM lists cases of inappropriate political correctness. The GLM says "Once again, we are seeing that the attempt to remove all bias from language is…
gregladen | October 8, 2009There are several answers to this question. One was overheard the other day among a bunch of well educated people oriented towards science who were taking a break from their job.
Person 1: "So, how effective is the seasonal flu shot?"
Person 2: "I heard about 1%. If you get the flu shot, you'll have a 1% difference in if you get the flu."
Person 3: "That's crazy. I don't know where you are getting your data from. It can't be 1%, but I admit I don't know what the actual answer is, but it can't be that."
Persons 4 through 6: "Well, if YOU don't know, and HE says 1%, I'm going with the 1%.…
gregladen | October 4, 2009This idea has been knocking around for a a few days, and is regularly discussed by David Dobbs at his blog. This concerns me quite a bit, as my wife is 8 months pregnant, flu is a very serious risk for pregnant women and their babies, she teaches in a high school, and got her seasonal flu shot last week. It's called the Hoskins effect and it seems to happen now and then with viruses.
Here's the story: There is a study coming out of Canada, done in Canada, that seems to show that in Canada people who get the seasonal flu shot have an increased, perhaps doubled, chance of getting H1N1
The…
gregladen | September 23, 2009The H1N1 Rap was written, composed, produced, and performed by John D. Clarke, MD, FAAFP. This music video is a fun, highly educational, and entertaining way to learn about prevention of the H1N1 virus.
gregladen | September 21, 2009Good question. A recent paper in PLoS ONE looks at H1N1 in foreign travelers in order to estimate the incidence of this virus in Mexico.
When a new disease comes on the scene, it is easy to underestimate how widespread it is, and to overestimate its severity. This is because at first the sickest people are noticed by the system. SO, everybody known with the disease is sicker, on average, than everybody who actually has the disease, and the extrapolation from known clinical cases to the general population is likely to be a low-ball estimate.
In this paper, the researchers report an…
gregladen | July 29, 2009It is decided. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has met, ruminated, voted, and now decrees that pregnant women, health care workers, and children over six months old will be vaccinated first. The reason we even need to worry about this is that there will not be nearly enough flu vaccine to go around in the event of a real surge in the novel swine flu.
In the US, according to MSNBC,
The government estimates that about 120 million swine flu vaccine doses will be available to the public by late October. Nearly 160 million people are in the priority groups considered most…
gregladen | July 13, 2009... or is obesity simply Yet Another Risk Factor in severity of this illness?
Probably the latter, but health officials seem interested in the developing data.
From CTV:
... in a report released Friday, health officials detailed the cases of 10 Michigan patients who were very sick from swine flu in late May and early June and ended up at a specialized hospital in Ann Arbor. Three of them died.
Nine of the 10 were either obese or extremely obese. Only three of the 10 had other health problems. Two of the three that died had no other health conditions.
This hardly settles the question of…