influenza
tsmith | March 27, 2006Part One: Introduction to Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses
Part Two: Introduction to Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses continued
Part Three: Bushmeat
Part Four: War and Disease
Part Five: Chikungunya
Part Six: Avian influenza
Part Seven: Reporting on emerging diseases
Part Eight: Disease and Domesticated Animals
Part Nine: The Emergence of Nipah Virus
Part Ten: Monkeypox
Part Eleven: Streptococcus suis
Part Twelve: Salmonella and fish
Part Thirteen: new swine influenza virus detected
Part Fourteen: dog flu strikes Wyoming.
Part Fifteen: Clostridium species.
Part Sixteen:…
tsmith | March 24, 2006Actually being at a conference soaking up so much of this stuff means, alas, not nearly as much time as I usually spend during the week actually reading the new literature in many of the areas I write about. Over at Effect Measure, as usual, they help to make up for that, by commenting on two new papers in Science and Nature that give one potential reason why human-to-human transmission isn't occurring yet--but Revere notes it's not quite that simple.
(More after the jump)
The reason, the researchers propose, is that the cells bearing the type of receptor the avian virus is known to favor…
tsmith | March 11, 2006DarkSyde has a new interview up with Barbara Forrest, discussing the history of intelligent design, "the wedge," and how she became involved in all of it.
You may also want to check out DemfromCT's post on what we don't know about "bird flu."
What we don't know about H5N1 can fill a library. So when folks come on here and claim there's fearmongering going on whenever the virus is simply discussed, understand that knowledge is power and preparation is prudence, not fear.
Well said.
tsmith | March 10, 2006Or, y'know, the Mike Brown disaster? Think again.
We don't need none o' that fancy learnin'! We'll just repeat our mistakes until people stop noticing. Besides, who needs someone actually qualified in a boring department like Homeland Security?
tsmith | March 8, 2006Not the Batman kind--the influenza kind.
I received a questionnaire yesterday from ABC news. Apparently, they're doing a story on pandemic influenza preparation. Included were questions like, "What would you recommend to those individuals who are trying to obtain antiviral medications for their own personal preparedness? When should they start taking them?" and "What would you recommend to individuals who are trying to obtain face masks for their own personal preparedness? When should they start wearing them?", as well as questions about food and water stockpiling and going to work/school…
tsmith | March 1, 2006Wall of Distrust in Nigeria Bird Flu Fight
The peasant farm hands were deeply suspicious as they watched the police marksmen trying to control bird flu kill 168 ostriches the farm had reared over eight years. Days later, when the 160 workers were invited for tests to see if they, too, were infected, nearly everyone fled.
"Most of them feared they would end up like the ostriches, to be shot dead for having the virus," said one of the more enlightened of the Sambawa Farms workers, Ibrahim Hassan, who turned up promptly for medical checks.
"Nearly everyone fled." This is pretty much a worst-…
tsmith | February 15, 2006It's been about a week since my last "bird flu" post--and I know that many people, including myself, tend to get burned out on the same ol' thing, but there's some interesting news out that I wanted to share. First, two posts from Effect Measure. Here, Revere discusses the newest reports of H5N1 spread: swans in Austria, Germany, and Iran. Revere also discusses one of GrrlScientist's favorite topics, spread of the virus caused by wild birds vs. domestic poultry. I agree with his conclusion (and not just because he linked my "small world" post):
Another (and in our view more likely)…
tsmith | February 9, 2006This question was discussed yesterday in the comments to this post. An article in yesterday's New Scientist offers some ideas:
But New Scientist can reveal that the location of Africa's first reported outbreak should not come as a surprise. The region affected is right beside a major wintering ground for two relatively common species of duck. Those ducks shared breeding grounds in Siberia last summer with birds that winter in Turkey and around the Black Sea, where the virus also appeared recently.
Furthermore, Kano is near the Hadejia-Nguru inland river delta, which is a major wintering…
tsmith | February 8, 2006So far, just in poultry.
PARIS -- A "highly pathogenic" strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in poultry stocks in Nigeria-- the first reported case of the disease in Africa, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health said Wednesday.
Nigeria reported the outbreak in Jaji, a village in the northern Kaduna state, according to the organization known by the acronym OIE. OIE spokeswoman Maria Zampaglione said the outbreak was the first reported case of H5N1 in Africa.
A laboratory in Padova, Italy, identified "a highly pathogenic H5N1" and has further analyzed its genetic…
tsmith | February 2, 2006Quarantines were briefly discussed in the comments on this thread. A recent study in the journal "Health Affairs" carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard and the CDC determined attitudes about quarantine in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the U.S.
One thing to note: remember quarantine is for individuals who have been exposed, but are not showing signs of illness. Those who *are* sick would be put into isolation (likely at a hospital--if there are available beds). Just so no one gets those two confused...
U.S. perspective on compulsory quarantine. In the United States, compulsory…
tsmith | January 30, 2006Well, it's official. H5N1 has killed humans in Iraq. As usual, EffectMeasure has the scoop.
tsmith | January 30, 2006I wrote up a critique of an article DI mouthpiece Casey Luskin wrote regarding avian influenza back in October. I don't know whether Luskin ever read my post; at the time, trackbacks to the DI site weren't working. But I'd guess I'm not the only one who pointed out the abundant mistakes in his article, which advanced the thesis that avian influenza wasn't a good example of evolution. He has since written a response to critics here (warning: .pdf file), correcting one of his errors in the original article (and making a confusing mess out of things).
Luskin's original thesis was that…
tsmith | January 26, 2006This has already been written up by the MSM (such as this article), so I'll just quote a bit from them:
Circulation of money may predict pandemics
A popular U.S. Web site that tracks the geographical circulation of money could offer new insights into predicting the spread of infectious diseases like bird flu.
Money, like diseases, is carried by people around the world, so what better way to plot the spread of a potential influenza pandemic than to track the circulation of dollar bills, researchers reasoned.
Researchers in Germany and the United States did just that to develop a mathematical…
tsmith | January 26, 2006Okay, normally I would write this story (Christian Scientists Prepare to Battle Bird Flu With Prayer) off as just some wacky religious folks going about their business. Not my cup o' tea, but to each their own, I guess. But this part is chilling:
Then there is the question of what Christian Scientists would do if they were prohibited from going to church.
When the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting people from going to churches and movie theaters in 1918, a handful of Christian Scientists challenged the constitutionality of the law in court. The judge ruled in their…
tsmith | January 25, 2006Day 1: History of Pandemic Influenza.
Day 2: Our adventures with avian flu.
Day 3: Challenges to pandemic preparedness
Day 4: 1918 influenza virus reconstructed
Day 5: How ready are we, and what can YOU do?
Many more influenza posts can be found at this link.
tsmith | January 24, 2006So, like Kevin over at No Se Nada, this started out as a comment on his avian flu policymaking post but got rather wordy, so I'm spinning it off over here. For those keeping track, the initial volley was this post, but previous discussion was had over here as well (and this post discussed some of his comments from that one).
So, in response, I think we are talking past each other a bit. I see a lot of difference between "wolf-crying" and simple education. I'll re-post what I said in the comments here regarding that issue (in response to the question, "How do you inform people that this…
tsmith | January 23, 2006See, it's posts like this (and many of the comments that follow; hat tip to Mike) that make me worry about "bird flu." I'm more concerned about the inaccurate information and attacks on those who work in the field (and the effect this may have on public acceptance of real public health advice) than I am about the actual virus at the moment. Too many people think avian influenza is either just "media hype" or a government conspiracy (one commenter even cited the oft-refuted notion that HIV was a man-made virus. Aargh). They downplay it because it's killed relatively few people thus far,…
tsmith | January 19, 2006Radio Open Source, after a number of requests, has done a program on avian influenza. You can listen to the broadcast here. The guests on the program include:
William Karesh
Veterinarian
Head of the Field Veterinary Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society
David Swayne
Veterinarian
Director of the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Lab
Edward Dubovi
Microbiologist
Director of the Viral Section of the Diagnostic Lab at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine
Rubin Donis
Chief of Molecular Genetics at the Influenza Branch of the CDC
They also have a A Complete Guide to…
tsmith | January 12, 2006I mentioned this CBC "docudrama" yesterday. Just wanted to give a quick update, since they added a lot of info to their site since I checked it out yesterday morning (including a fictional blog!). So, some resources that might be interesting even to those of you who didn't catch it on TV:
Transcripts of interviews with experts. This is an excellent resource: extensive interviews with those at the top of the field, including Robert Webster, Jeffrey Taubenberger, John Barry, Mike Osterholm, and others.
An article on the 1918 pandemic.
Common H5N1/pandemic influenza questions and answers…
tsmith | January 10, 2006For those of you in Canada, check this out tonight at 9.BLACK DAWN: THE NEXT PANDEMIC
A fifth estate "What if..."
Wednesday, January 11th at 9:00 p.m. on CBC-TV
What would happen if the World Health Organization declared what has long been expected and feared: human-to-human transmission of the avian flu virus?
Black Dawn is a docudrama featuring leading epidemiologists, doctors and emergency planners who imagine the impact avian flu would have as it spreads around the globe. Some predict the coming pandemic will be more lethal than all of the world's previous plagues. Black Dawn combines…