influenza
gregladen | January 11, 2013It is Influenza Season in the Northern Hemisphere. So, this is a good time to talk about the flu. Three years ago we had an unusual flu season, with a nasty variant about that seemed to be threatening a pandemic, and that's the year Huxley was born (in November) so we faced the problem of getting an off season flu shot and not being a member of a Fortune 500 company. We also faced the problem of varying levels of understanding of the flu, and varying odd beliefs about it, among people to whom newborn Huxley might be exposed. This year, my S-I-L is expecting to produce an offspring some…
sa smith | June 29, 2012Family Guy, S07E02 'I Dream of Jesus':
Peter: Brian, can I see that paper for a sec?
(Brian gives Peter the paper. Peter peruses the paper.)
Peter: Huh... that's odd... I thought that would big news.
Brian: You thought what would be big news?
Peter: Well there seems to be an absence of a certain ornithological piece: a headline regarding mass awareness of a certain avian variety.
Brian: What are you talking about?
Peter: Oh have you not heard? It was my understanding that everyone had heard...
Brian: Heard what?
Stewie: Brian Don't!
Peter: OH WELL THE BIRD, BIRD, BIRD, BIRD BIRD IS THE WORD.…
kbonham | May 12, 2012No technology is inherently good or evil, it's the use of that technology that determines its value. A blade can be used in surgery to save a life, or as a weapon to take one. The ballistics that enable missiles to destroy enemies also enables the launch of communication satellites and exploration of other worlds. For quite a while, I've been reading +Jeff Jarvis' commentary on these issues in the realm of the internet. His principal argument is that regulation that aims to block technology in order to keep people safe will also block the innovation and potential benefits of that technology…
sa smith | April 30, 2012February 2009--
Republican senators, led by a Susan Collins (R-ME) stripped Obamas stimulous package for funding to the CDC and pandemic flu preparedness:
"Everybody in the room is concerned about a pandemic flu, but does it belong in this bill? Should we have 870 million dollars in this bill? No, we should not."
Stimulus bill headed for passage minus pandemic funds
The sums removed included $420 million for pandemic flu and $430 million for biomedical advanced research and development, he reported.
March 2009--
Swine flu is born in La Gloria, Mexico. It quickly travels to the US, with…
sa smith | April 2, 2012There has been a 'fun' story going around the scientific and pop-culture media circles for the past couple of months.
Apparently, a couple of labs worked together to make a 'bird flu' a 'mammal/people flu', and somehow terrorists are going to use this information to kill everyone on planet earth, and this research must be stopped or kept a secret and buried at the bottom of the ocean in a lead box or something (thats why James Cameron went to the bottom of the ocean, right?).
Ugh.
*sigh*
Where to start-- Okay, there are different kinds of influenza. Bird flu, swine flu, people flu-- Part of…
sa smith | March 27, 2012The technology we have available to us today in the lab is both a boon and a bafflement. Example: The screens we have for RNA expression in cells is so sensitive we can see tiny changes in RNA expression levels in healthy/diseased/drug treated/etc cells. YAY! More information! More observations! More new ideas for research!... Except, the screens we have for RNA expression in cells is so sensitive, we can see tiny changes in RNA expression levels that dont really mean anything.
Example: The techniques we have for identifying viral RNA/DNA in cells is so sensitive... that we can pick up…
tsmith | February 28, 2012Typically when we think of flying things and influenza viruses, the first images that come to mind are wild waterfowl. Waterbirds are reservoirs for an enormous diversity of influenza viruses, and are the ultimate origin of all known flu viruses. In birds, the virus replicates in the intestinal tract, and can be spread to other animals (including humans) via fecal material.
However, a new paper expands a chapter on another family of flying animals within the influenza story: bats.
I've written previously about the enormous diversity of microbes that bats possess. This shouldn't be…
milhayser | December 19, 2011
On The Pump Handle, Liz Borkowski examines the ethical dilemma of testing the anthrax vaccine in children. If a widespread attack were to occur, we would want to know the safety and efficacy of the vaccine beforehand. But is an attack likely enough to warrant testing the vaccine on children? On ERV, Abbie Smith explains how vaccines are made: "Sometimes we use dead viruses. Sometimes we use crippled viruses. Sometimes we dont need to use whole viruses at all—little chunks of the virus are fine. Sometimes we just need chunks of the virus, but we keep them dressed up in hollow membranes."…
sa smith | August 8, 2011EMAIL! (technically, a paraphrased really great question from someone at FreeOK!)
Dear ERV--
Is there any reason why I, a young healthy adult, really *need* to get the flu shot every year? Even if I do get the flu, wont that just make my immune system stronger?
Blech. Flu shots. Every damn year people are bugging us to get the flu shot. But no one likes shots. They cost like $10-$20. Have to take off work or run to get one in between classes. And then your arm hurts allllll daaaaay and you might get a headache or a little fever. UUUUUUUGH WHYYYYY????? WHYYYY????
"Do I *have* to…
sa smith | July 11, 2011*heavy-sigh*
HIV Research World is infecting other fields:
A Highly Conserved Neutralizing Epitope on Group 2 Influenza A Viruses
Media coverage of referenced paper:
Discovery of Natural Antibody Brings a Universal Flu Vaccine a Step Closer
No, it doesnt. Unless if by 'universal flu vaccine' you actually mean 'gene therapy for everyone instead of flu shots'.
Look, heres what happens-- Scientists sift through thousands and thousands and thousands of B-cells, the cells that make antibodies, and ID ones that make antibodies that are really good at neutralizing lots of different kinds of…
cmonforton | June 28, 2011Within 15 minutes of my 6:00 am flight from Austin to Baltimore, I knew it was going to be a long, COLD, 3-hour trip. I'd already turned off the overhhad vents to stop the frigid air from blowing on me, and contorted myself into a ball on my seat trying to stay warm. As I visualized myself lounging in the hot sun, my light slumber was interrupted by a "DING!" coming from some seat ahead of me. Two rows up, a passenger had depressed the flight attendant call button to summon the Southwest Airlines crew member.
"May I get a blanket?" the woman passenger asked.
Like me, she must have felt the…
mikethemadbiologist | April 30, 2011Or at least, antivaxxer idiocy isn't correlated with political leanings. Last week, in response to a post by Chris Mooney I argued that liberals weren't more likely to refuse vaccination, despite the stereotype that vaccination denialism is more prevalent among the left (that's always struck me as a 'limousine liberal' type of canard). Kevin Drum, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, and Josh Rosenau all chimed in. Chris Mooney, with an assist from Brendan Nyhan, discusses two more polls that indicate political affiliation has little to do with vaccination denialism. First, the response to anti-…
tsmith | October 4, 2010This is great. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia has launched a site on The History of Vaccines. I've been poking around, and there's an incredible amount of stuff to check out. They have a nice FAQ, Top 20 questions about vaccination, as well as some great activities (herd immunity! learn about Koch's postulates! understand the relative risk of vaccination versus other events!) and a metric fuckton of articles and images. Looks to be a fantastic resource for students, and for anyone interested in understanding vaccination.
sa smith | September 27, 2010I dont understand people who view food as medicine.
Well, I mean, I guess I do. Theyre terrified of disease X/Y/Z (even if X/Y/Z is treatable/preventable with modern medicine), and they think a component of food helps treat/prevent disease X/Y/Z, so they religiously eat said food.
So I guess I mean to say "People who view food as medicine are being silly."
Obviously, consuming food and getting proper nutrition is important. If you dont get enough Vitamin C, you get scurvy. Dont get enough iron, you get anemia. Dont get enough folic acid, your child is at risk for birth defects. Dont get…
tsmith | August 10, 2010Via Bob O'H and Cath Ennis comes this truly bizarre article from the Virology Journal: "Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time".
Now, regular readers will know that I normally love this type of thing; digging back through history to look at Lincoln's smallpox; Cholera in Victorian London; potential causes of the Plague of Athens, the origin of syphilis, or whether Yersinia pestis really caused the Black Plague. I've even written a bit about the history of influenza. So analysis of a 2000-year old potential flu case? Bring…
sschoenbaum | July 9, 2010In this post I want to address disease control opportunities for EIS officers, many of which are detailed in "Inside the Outbreaks: One of the first things we learned about on joining the EIS was John Snow's determination that an outbreak of cholera in London was attributable to contamination of the water from the Broad St. pump and his stopping the epidemic by removing the pump handle. On reading "Inside the Outbreaks" one is struck with the number of EIS officers whose efforts have removed pump handles....
The efforts of Jeff Koplan, subsequently director of CDC, and Mark Rosenberg,…
sb admin | July 7, 2010Karen Starko writes: Several basic questions related to Reye's syndrome (RS) have come to me from readers of Mark's book, Inside the Outbreaks. These show the importance of continued education on health issues. (For example, some physicians thought that fever was essential to getting RS). Again, thanks to Mark Pendergrast for a wonderful addition to our public health knowledge.
Is an influenza or chickenpox infection necessary to acquire RS?
The answer is no. RS generally has two phases: the antecedent illness and usually, within a few days of this, the syndrome of vomiting and…
sb admin | July 6, 2010Liz Borkowski writes: I wrote last week about how federal agencies can solve the problems that create conditions for disease outbreaks - or fail to solve them, as is too often the case. This week, I wanted to focus on the role Congress plays in public health agencies' effectiveness, because that's another angle that crops up repeatedly in Inside the Outbreaks.
Congress's creation of federal agencies is clearly a huge achievement, and they've also periodically given new powers to already existing agencies. For instance, Mark Pendergrast tells the story of the Dalkon Shield, an IUD that turned…
sb admin | July 2, 2010Steve Schoenbaum writes: In his blog this week, Mark Pendergrast challenges someone/anyone to take on explaining the differences between case-control studies vs. cohort studies. As an EIS officer, back in late May/early June 1968, I did a case-control study as part of the investigation of a common source outbreak of hepatitis in Ogemaw County, Michigan, so I will try to pick up the challenge. I believe it was only the second time case-control methods were used in a CDC epidemic investigation. In using this method I learned about the power of comparison, not just that numerators need…