influenza
tsmith | June 19, 2006[From the archives; originally posted November 28, 2005]
Have you ever wondered how Kevin Bacon and the lights of fireflies related to malaria and power grids? I know it's something that's kept me up many a sleepless night. One word: interconnections.
Many of you have probably heard of the "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon"game. This is based on the work of Stanley Milgram beginning in the 1960s, and brought up again more recently in a 1998 Nature paper, "Collective Dynamics of 'Small-World' Networks," by mathematicians Watts and Strogatz. Milgram conducted a number of studies using his "lost…
tsmith | June 5, 2006Yesterday, the New York Times op-ed by John Moore and Nicoli Nattrass discussing denial of HIV. They also featured an article suggesting that more human-to-human transmission of H5N1 has occurred than previously thought.
tsmith | June 5, 2006Liam Scheff has now turned his attention from HIV to avian influenza, with predictable results. Analysis below...
Scheff's self-stated goal is to "...review some of the bright and shiny inconsistencies that have come into view on the bird flu." However, he's not exactly consistent himself, ranging from minor errors to total contradictions of his own words. He starts off discussing "stray cats and Chinamen:"
In March, 2006, The Associated Press reported: "In Austria, state authorities said Monday that three cats have tested positive for the deadly strain of bird flu in the country's…
tsmith | May 31, 2006I'm dealing with my own little epidemic (daughter managed to catch the stomach bug that's been going around her school, meaning she has to miss her last day as a kindergartener, poor thing). I found one post in the queue that I forgot to publish earlier in the month, so today won't be completely dead. In the meantime, allow me to point you to some excellent flu posts by DemFromCT at the Daily Kos:
Flu Basics: Science And Threats (a nice introductory primer).
Flu Basics II: Politics and Players.
H5N1: A Teachable Moment, And An Open Letter. This is a very good post overall, but the most…
tsmith | May 26, 2006As pointed out yesterday, flu blogging has been light this month, even though there have been interesting developments. As such, to catch up a bit, I'm posting an overview of the current Indonesian cluster and some other thoughts below the jump...
As always, I point anyone who wants to keep up-to-date on the latest news over to Effect Measure for excellent analysis of what it all means, or to H5N1 for news from around the world on the topic. Obviously, the biggest news of the moment is the Indonesian family cluster, which appears to not only be an example of human-to-human transmission, but…
tsmith | May 24, 2006Are we always sticking swabs up animals' asses? Why, yes we are.
(More below the fold)
My colleagues teach a summer course on zoonotic diseases. Since influenza is something we study, today we watched (and a few participated in) some wildfowl swabbing and banding. Above is the former: taking a cloacal swab from a duck. Though these were just for demonstration, this is one way to collect circulating avian influenza viruses.
We also headed out to some marshes to round up and band geese.
This one had 4 adults and I think there were 8 juveniles. We surrounded the pond; the goal was…
tsmith | May 17, 2006Blogger reveals China's migratory goose farms near site of flu outbreak
The hypothesis that migratory birds are responsible for spreading avian flu over long distances has taken another knock. Last year, an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain in thousands of migratory birds at Qinghai Lake in western China provided what seemed the first firm evidence for the idea. Because the lake is so remote, experts assumed infected birds had flown up from southern China.
But it has now emerged that, since 2003, one of the key migratory species affected, the bar-headed goose, has been artificially reared…
tsmith | May 4, 2006Cheyenne shelter dogs to be euthanized
All 70 to 80 dogs at the Cheyenne Animal Shelter will be euthanized because of an outbreak of canine influenza that has closed the shelter for more than two weeks, shelter officials announced.
Shelter officials said there was no way to test for the virus quickly and thus no way to tell which dogs were infected. Shelter director Alan Cohen said that unless all the dogs were killed, he couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't re-infect themselves and other animals.
"If I do not euthanize these animals, how can I let them loose knowing they might spread it to…
tsmith | April 26, 2006Novel Swine Influenza Virus Subtype H3N1, United States
In several of my influenza posts, I've discussed ways that the viruses can evolve. These are termed "antigenic drift," where the virus accumulates small mutations in the RNA genome; and antigenic shift, where large sections of the genome are swapped, generally in their entirety. While it was long thought that the latter was the most likely type of mutation to cause a pandemic, we now know that even the right kind of antigenic drift may be enough to allow a novel influenza virus to enter the human population, which seems to have…
tsmith | April 22, 2006Again, I never get to discuss all the topics I find interesting. So to keep you busy over the weekend, check out a few that I didn't have time to emphasize this week:
Neurotopia on the zombies among us.
Orac's series on medicine and evolution:
Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 4a
New studies suggesting that mercury fillings aren't harmful.
Can you name that virus over at Buridan's ass?
Professional societies spurning women editors? (More here from Evolgen).
Ewen on the science behind the recent monoclonal antibody drug trial gone bad.
The National Science Foundation website is up for a…
tsmith | April 21, 2006Skeptics warn bird flu fears are overblown
Doomsday predictions about bird flu seem to be spreading faster than the virus itself. But a small group of skeptics say the bird flu hype is overblown and ultimately harmful to the public's health.
There's no guarantee bird flu will become a pandemic, and if it does there's no guarantee it will kill millions of people. The real trouble, these skeptics say, is that bird flu hysteria is sapping money and attention away from more important health threats.
While I agree with some points the so-called "skeptics" make (we don't know if H5N1 will become…
tsmith | April 20, 2006I've discussed preparedness issues previously (like here, here, here, here, and here, for instance), and noted that we're still sorely unprepared for an outbreak of pandemic influenza. It's also been a frequent topic at Effect Measure, and of course at the flu wiki. What's largely been discussed, however, is preparedness at the personal level, and at the federal level. Discussed less frequently has been preparedness at the local/community level (though again, I should note this definitely has been a concern and emphasis of the flu wiki folks, and is specifically included on this page of…
tsmith | April 19, 2006This is too good to be lost in the comments. Letterman's Top Ten list for April 17th was "Top Ten Features Of President Bush's Bird Flu Pandemic Plan." The list is below the fold.
10. Hang "Mission Accomplished" sign in every Kentucky Fried Chicken
9. Torture some Perdue employees until they talk
8. Scare birds away with giant radioactive kitties
7. Be on the lookout for any bird which looks "fluey"
6. Build wall along border so birds can't walk in from Mexico
5. Never leave the house, avoid human contact -- like Letterman
4. Tax cuts for the rich
3. C'mon, it's a Bush plan -- you…
tsmith | April 15, 2006I don't know how other bloggers decide what to post. For me, everytime I run across a "oh, that would be so cool to discuss" topic/link/story etc., I copy the topic/link/story etc. into a new entry here, hoping to have time to elaborate on it at a later date. Some of them I get to--some of them just drift slowly to the bottom of the pile, untouched. But they're still interesting topics, so here are a few more that I didn't have time to write about, and as new topics come up, probably won't be able to get to in the immediate future:
A recent CNN story referring to the hygiene hypothesis.…
tsmith | April 7, 2006 For the final post of the series, I want to discuss yet another outbreak, this one a bit closer to home: that of monkeypox in the United States in 2003.
First, I should note that "monkeypox" is a bit of a misnomer. Though the virus--a relative of smallpox and cowpox--can infect monkeys (and humans), the reservoir host is likely a rodent. Previously, monkeypox had been found mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, in forested regions. 2 clades of the virus had been identified. One was common in West Africa, and generally didn't cause severe disease when humans became infected with it. The other…
tsmith | April 6, 2006 Again on the zoonoses topic, today's BBC news has an article about cats and "bird flu" (referencing this article in Nature).
The first report of domestic cats dying of the H5N1 virus emerged in Thailand in 2004 when 14 out of 15 cats in a household near Bangkok fell ill and died.
One had eaten a chicken carcass on a farm where there was an outbreak of the virus.
Post-mortem examinations on three of the cats confirmed the presence of H5N1.
Since then, there have been deaths among cats in Indonesia, Thailand and Iraq, where H5N1 appears to be prevalent among poultry.
And the disease is…
tsmith | April 4, 2006In addition to all the science of H5N1, several presentations were given discussing communication between scientists and the public (or those who more often communicate with the public--science journalists). As I've written on here before, it's not an easy dance to figure out, for a variety of reasons discussed below.
As anyone who follows science reporting in the mass media knows, it can seem at times that each new study contradicts the last. Something is good for you; yesterday it was bad for you. Something is the new treatment of tomorrow based on early studies; but sorry, it was…
tsmith | April 3, 2006 As conferences covering both emerging infectious diseases and emerging zoonoses, influenza H5N1 was obviously a prominent topic of discussion. The big question wasn't really answered--what is the most important mechanism of spread from country-to-country: wild birds, or domestic poultry? The only thing that was clear is that the answer, well, isn't. I know grrlscientist has written extensively about the evidence against wild birds as a vector (using search word "influenza" here brings up many of them; more on her old site), and there certainly was a lot of discussion about farming and…
tsmith | April 3, 2006Occasionally when discussing HIV and folks like Duesberg, etc., I'll get a question along the lines of, "do these people deny the entire germ theory of disease?" Certainly Duesberg has written that he doesn't believe HPV causes cervical cancer, or prions cause kuru, for example, and many of the arguments they make (expecting 100% attack rate in people who are HIV-positive, meeting Koch's postulates as initially outlined, even though no infectious agent does, etc.) would, if applied universally, not allow us to attribute causation to any infectious agent, not just HIV. A recent paper by…
tsmith | March 28, 2006Just FYI, yesterday's New York Times has a piece by Denise Grady and Gina Kolata on avian influenza: How Serious Is the Risk?