public health
tsmith | October 16, 2007Revere weighs in regarding the Ferrell case. He also mentions one ironic point regarding bioterrorism history and one of the bacteria used, Serretia marcescens, that I hadn't thought to mention.
j7uy5 | October 16, 2007The Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS)
is a
major NIH-sponsored study of the treatment of adolescents with
depression, in which
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoxetine" rel="tag">fluoxetine-only,
rel="tag">cognitive-behavioral therapy
only, combination treatment, and placebo are compared. The
study
is expected to generate a number of papers. One was published
a
few days ago in the Archives of General Psychiatry. The paper
is
not yet open-access. The study team, however, has a
href="https://trialweb.dcri.duke.edu/tads/index.html">website
with…
tsmith | October 15, 2007Being a microbiologist can be a dangerous business. Some of us work out in the field, exposed to weather, animals, and pathogens of all different forms. Some do research in countries with unstable governments, collecting samples and tracking down infected individuals in the midst of strife, poverty, and warfare. Some remain in the lab, but share it with agents that can be handled only under high levels of containment, and may need special labs and permits just to do their research. We all realize our job contains some level of risk, and do what we can to minimize that.
However, as much…
tsmith | October 15, 2007A few stories elsewhere on vaccines, zoonotic disease, a new Gates initiative, and the environment that deserve your attention:
Paul Howard on what we need to do about vaccines. Like Greta's article, Howard notes the short memories of many vaccine opponents, and also discusses the effect litigation has had on the vaccine industry--and what needs to be done to repair it.
Bill Gates once again: now he's funding $100 million worth of grants, up to $100K apiece, to include high-risk projects and non-traditional scientists:
Scientists, who need not have specific degrees or qualifications, will…
terrasig | October 12, 2007The Southland is all abuzz today following yesterday's Charlotte Observer article by Lisa Zagaroli that members of the US House Homeland Security Committee were advised to get vaccinations (for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza) before traveling to car races in Concord, NC, and Taladega, AL.
Neither NASCAR fans or local politicians were pleased with the insinuations:
Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, took umbrage when he heard about it.
"I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and as the representative for Concord, N.C., I feel compelled…
tsmith | October 10, 2007A reader passed along a link to this post on Short memories: AIDS denialism and vaccine resistance. The author learned that a friend had dated an AIDS denialist:
This was absolutely the wrong thing to say to our friend, who had been an AIDS activist since the early days of the epidemic, had nursed several beloved friends through the illness, had seen way too many of those friends die... and had seen others come back from the brink of death when the protease inhibitors and combination therapies finally came out.
So Ingrid and I were talking, not only about how ignorant AIDS denialism is…
j7uy5 | October 10, 2007The Journal of the American Medical Association
has a sort-of-surprising article on the subject of peak oil.
"Peak
Oil" is a catchphrase that denotes the phenomenon of
declining oil production that is anticipated to occur in a matter of
some years. The "some" part of that is hotly debated.
There are well-informed people who think we already are
there; others project a peak around 2030.
The point of the article is that health care delivery will be
profoundly impacted by any decline in the supply of oil. This
presents a number of challenges, which the authors discuss.
Unfortunately, the…
mikethemadbiologist | October 4, 2007Driftglass, in a post about Janice Shaw Crouse of the Beverly LaHaye Institute (yes, of the "Left Behind" tract series):
Regardless of motive (and we have long since moved past the point where I care much about why the lunatics have a knife to the throat of the Enlightenment, and on to the part where we have to get the knife away from these people and make sure they are never, ever allowed to play with sharp objects again), denying people honest and accurate information about disease and pregnancy prevention because Jebus said they shouldna oughtna is the moral equivalent of....
...designing…
scientificactivist | October 3, 2007As promised, Bush vetoed the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) earlier today. As the AP notes (in an article with a glaring typo in its title), "The White House sought as little attention as possible, with the president wielding his veto behind closed doors without any fanfare or news coverage."
Yeah. Duh. This is one of the more hardheaded and heartless things that the Administration has done yet, so it's not surprising that Bush would try to slip it in under the radar. Just tell that, though, to the 3.3 million kids who would have been added to SCHIP…
mikethemadbiologist | October 1, 2007We're getting worse at washing our hands according to the Baltimore Sun. One thing I've said many times before, but it bears repeating: the best way to avoid getting sick is to limit contact with someone else who is sick. While that sounds obvious, one very good way to do that is handwashing. Handwashing breaks the 'transmission network' and essentially isolates the sick person. If you view preventing infectious disease as a question of how can I protect myself from disease, then we've already lost. The best measures (vaccination and handwashing) aren't just about protecting yourself,…
tsmith | September 30, 2007Over at Respectful Insolence, Orac discusses an article where a scientist has spent his days shut away, slaving endlessly over a data set--of pictures of topless models. Why? To produce the perfect boob job, of course--or as the article puts it, "to help Hollywood look even more perfect."
Great. Just what we need.
According to the researcher, the ideal breast "...is a 45 to 55 per cent proportion - that is the nipple sits not at the half-way mark down the breast, but at least 45 per cent from the top." Like it wasn't enough before to worry about them being too perky, or too saggy, or…
tsmith | September 29, 2007In another case of TV shows being prescient, abuzz here at other Scienceblogs is this story, which sounds like a bad B movie: " 6 die from brain-eating amoeba in lakes." The amoeba in question is a species of naegleria, which was featured on the medical drama House last year. According to the article:
Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose -- say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water -- the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve.
The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up…
tsmith | September 27, 2007Via PZ, I see that yet another Catholic bishop in Africa is claiming that condoms are laced with HIV:
The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.
Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".
His answer to AIDS is, of course, marriage, fidelity, and abstinence...which is all well and good, but not always possible or realistic. (Not to mention, what about an HIV-infected spouse?) WWJD?
[ETA: ERV has a…
tsmith | September 27, 2007 I asked yesterday what readers considered the most important diseases in history. This was prompted by a new ASM Press book, Twelve Diseases that Changed Our World, written by Irwin Sherman.
As I mentioned, Sherman included many diseases readers expected--plague, cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox, syphilis, malaria, influenza, yellow fever, and AIDS. He didn't include a few that popped up repeatedly in the comments--leprosy, measles, and typhoid (or typhus, for that matter). While I think a study of these could have been illuminating (especially leprosy, since much of the stigma…
tsmith | September 26, 2007I'll have a review up tomorrow of a new ASM press book, Twelve Diseases that Changed Our World. However, I'm interested first in what readers would nominate as the most important diseases in history. Sure, some are "gimmies," but the author, Irwin Sherman, makes a few choices I'd not have considered. What would you include on your list?
scientificactivist | September 26, 2007Yesterday, the House passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion by a vote of 265-159. The bill enjoyed some bipartisan support, although Republicans accounted for only 45 of the votes in favor and almost all of the votes against. Unfortunately, this is a bit short of the supermajority needed to override President Bush's promised veto. According to Roll Call (subscription required), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) claims that this 2/3 majority can be achieved if just 12 additional Republicans cross party lines (although this assumes that the entire…
j7uy5 | September 25, 2007The long-awaited details of the Hillary Clinton health care
finance
plan have been revealed. The plan has received lukewarm
support
from columnists at NYT (
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/opinion/21krugman.html?hp">Paul
Krugman) and
href="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9833354"
rel="tag">The Economist.
It has been criticized by
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney" rel="tag">Mitt
Romney, oddly, as it is
href="http://colorado.mediamatters.org/items/200709200002">quite
similar to the plan he enacted while governor of…
scientificactivist | September 22, 2007Congress appears to be on track for another major standoff with President Bush. The Washington Post reports today that the House and Senate have reconciled their differing versions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP or CHIP) expansion and will be voting on it this coming week (Tuesday in the House, Thursday in the Senate). Predictably, President Bush still promises a veto of this bipartisan compromise legislation, a position he took long before the bill was voted on in either chamber.
The current bill, which calls for a $35 billion expansion of SCHIP over the next five…
tsmith | September 20, 2007One of the organisms I work with is the group B streptococcus, Streptococcus agalactiae ("GBS"). This is a relative of the bacterium that causes strep throat. Typically, GBS causes disease in the very young and older age groups; it's one of the most common causes of meningitis in newborns, for instance. This has dropped some in recent years, as obstetricians have implemented procedures to screen expectant mothers to see if they're carrying GBS (as about a quarter of healthy adults do), and then provide antibiotics to carriers during labor (thereby preventing infection of the baby during…
tsmith | September 20, 2007Facebook, for anyone unfamiliar, is a social networking site, a more organized and less gaudy version of MySpace. Originally started for college students, Facebook opened up to anyone with an email address earlier this year. You can post a mini biography, let others know what you're up to, keep in contact with friends, upload pictures. Of course, not just any pictures will do; Facebook has a user agreement that includes a ban on "pornographic" pictures from their site.
This clause recently got Karen Speed, a Canadian mom, in trouble. Facebook originally took down photos it deemed "…