public health
tsmith | August 9, 2006The name "dengue" means "breakbone fever" due to the extreme bone pain it causes. The virus is a member of the flavivirus family, which includes the virus that causes yellow fever. Both viruses are arboviruses--viruses that are transmitted by arthropods. In the case of dengue and YF, the arthropod in question is the mosquito; specifically, the Aedes aegypti, an urban mosquito that lives in close contact with humans.
Dengue infections cause an enormous amount of morbidity and mortality in areas where the virus is endemic. It's estimated to infect 50-100 million people each year. Though…
tsmith | August 2, 2006 I mentioned just last month the dearth of research into what really makes an influenza virus easily transmissible from host to host, noting:
If we had a better handle on the factors that caused an avian strain of influenza virus to be more efficiently transmitted among humans, then we could better focus our resources and know when to really sound the alarm--unlike now, when we're flying blind in many ways.
A new paper in PNAS has started to do just that, and the research findings have prompted such headlines as Bird Flu Pandemic may not develop (via Effect Measure). Revere has already…
mikethemadbiologist | August 2, 2006Because that's what it will come to if the medical establishment fails to confront the hospital-acquired infection problem head on.
In 2004, 90,000 in the U.S. died from hospital-acquired infections, and two million had a hospital-acquired infection--and in my opinion, those are conservative estimates (the reporting issues are very complex, but the short version is that many infections are simply never reported).
At some point, a clever class-action attorney is going to figure this out, and then everything will go sideways. You do not want the courts creating public health policy (they did…
scientificactivist | August 1, 2006Yesterday, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee released a report entitled Drug Classification: Making a Hash of It?, which challenges the logic behind current drug classifications in the UK, especially when tied to legal penalities. The report discusses specific cases where drugs were misclassified or their classifications were changed for political, rather than scientific, reasons. The report is particularly critical of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for not doing enough to push for a more scientifically based drug classification system.
The…
tsmith | July 31, 2006Good timing. Just Friday we were discussing limits on biological knowledge, particularly in regard to bioterrorism and the potential for information to fall into the wrong hands (or be used for the "wrong" purposes). Today, msnbc.com has an article discussing this exact issue:
Eckard Wimmer knows of a shortcut terrorists could someday use to get their hands on the lethal viruses that cause Ebola and smallpox. He knows it exceptionally well, because he discovered it himself.
In 2002, the German-born molecular geneticist startled the scientific world by creating the first live, fully…
tsmith | July 31, 2006I was busy over the weekend (and disgusted by the hot, nasty weather that will not die), so I don't have a lot on tap for today. Luckily, though, there's some interesting stuff elsewhere that's already written up--thoughtfully saving me some of the trouble.
I discuss the link between infectious and "chronic" disease with some regularity on this site. I think it's a fascinating area; perhaps oversold by some, perhaps over-criticized by others, but certainly a hot topic and an interesting direction for research in microbiology. This weekend's New York Times had a new story that touched on…
mikethemadbiologist | July 30, 2006
And if a lot of people actually take charlatan Kevin Trudeau seriously, we'll be seeing a lot of dead people. Stupid, dead people. Christopher Wanjek and Orac take down the fraud Kevin Trudeau's new book More Natural Cures Revealed. Writes Wanjek:
Bacteria and viruses don't cause disease, which is why you don't "catch" cancer or diabetes; disease is caused by an imbalance of vital energy. Here Trudeau mixes the concept of communicable and non-communicable disease. First, Trudeau needs to visit Uganda with his balanced vital energy and avoid malaria. This denial of pathogens as the cause…
mikethemadbiologist | July 29, 2006While the main reason to use antibiotics only when needed is to preserve their effectiveness, it's always nice to have an economic incentive coupled with proper use of these important drugs. From the Guernsey Press and Star:
The States prescribing support unit is claiming success in a campaign to encourage islanders to think more carefully about their need for the drugs.
Prescriptions fell by 983 courses - a reduction of 3.3% on the previous year - between October 2005 and March 2006, reducing costs to the States by £30,000.
'That is a significant reduction in what is the peak season for…
tsmith | July 28, 2006Chuck Darwin posed a very good question here that I'm spinning off into a new discussion.
The work Taubenberger and others are doing on the evolution of influenza a century ago is fascinating and could very well be pertinent to prediciting future influenza virus genetic drift/shift, host-virus interactions, etc. However, I ask myself if the benefits of this work for future public health, as well as for general scientific interest, is worth the risks when it comes to biosecurity. With reverse genetics methods introduced a few years ago, any influenza virus can be generated through relatively…
mikethemadbiologist | July 28, 2006From the archives, comes this post about the health crisis no one cares about (except for the Mad Biologist. We are very caring): the 90,000 deaths per year from infections people get while in the hospital. And this number is probably an underestimate.
Bacterial infections aren't sexy: no one walks, bikes, hops, pogo sticks for the cure. There are no ribbons, no bumper stickers, and no hot celebrities (damn!). Yet, according to the CDC, bacterial infections acquired in hospitals kill at least 90,000 people per year in the U.S. Granted some of those who died would have died from something…
tsmith | July 27, 2006Somehow I missed this story in the June issue of Science:
...Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, D.C., said that RNA found in tissue samples from pneumonia patients who died in 1915 shows that the virus's hemagglutinin--an all-important coat protein--is a subtype called H3. If confirmed, "that's tremendously exciting," says molecular biologist Ian Wilson of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California. Knowing the virus's entire genetic makeup--which Taubenberger believes is possible--would shed fresh light on where the 1918 killer…
mikethemadbiologist | July 27, 2006Lest you think corporate interference in public health policy is solely a U.S. problem, New Zealand is suffering a brain drain in the area of antibiotic resistance research due to political pressure hindering research on the effects of antbiotic use in agriculture. Worldwide, antibiotics are widely used in poultry production, but in the U.S., there was a successful attempt to ban the use of enrofloxacin (a ciprofloxacin analogue commonly known as "Cipro") in poultry production (enrofloxacin is already banned in other forms of meat production).
From the Sunday Star Times:
Scientists say…
tsmith | July 26, 2006I've not commented on the whole stem cell controversy. Though I follow the literature (and the news), others are much better-versed in the science (and the politics) than I am, so I've left it to them to comment on both aspects of the unfolding story. However, I saw this comment over at Framing Science, and thought it was worthy of a post itself:
I'm one of the people who believes strongly in supporting science, ESCR [embryonic stem cell research] in particular, but is opposed to public funding for ESCR. Why? Because that's what's required to consistently hold to the traditional liberal…
mikethemadbiologist | July 26, 2006The American Medical Association has called for a temporary ban on all direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs. Sounds 'elitist'? Well, so are professional sports. But only an idiot would trust Madison Avenue over his or her doctor. (an aside: I'm not an MD. I just have the occassional good sense to listen to people who know what they are talking about).
From ScripNews (subscription only):
The American Medical Association is calling for a temporary ban on direct-to-consumer advertising for newly approved prescription drugs, with the length of the ban to be determined on a…
tsmith | July 25, 2006 I've mentioned previously the potential role that mild or asymptomatic infections with influenza may play in transmission and evolution of the virus. Right now, most of our reports of H5N1 have been due to serious infections that caused a patient to seek medical care. These cases are the tip of the iceberg in a normal influenza outbreak, when most of us don't have physician-diagnosed influenza. Instead, we recognize the signs and symptoms, and stay at home to ride it out. Is this happening in Indonesia, Thailand, and elsewhere? For every person who shows symptoms of H5N1 infection, are…
scientificactivist | July 25, 2006From the archives:
(18 April 2006) If Massachusetts were a physician, I'd have mixed feelings about visiting him or her. Sure, Dr. Massachusetts would be incredibly persistent and would do its best to make sure I left its office feeling better than when I arrived, but on the other hand if I had any sort of serious condition, I'm skeptical about how far Dr. Mass. would go to treat the underlying causes, rather than just the immediate symptoms. Massachusetts would probably be an adept surgeon, but maybe not a great family doctor.
Last week, amid great fanfare, Massachusetts governor Mitt…
scientificactivist | July 24, 2006From the archives:
(21 January 2006) I had a great trip to the doctor the other day. I showed up for my appointment (one I had made only one day before), waited a few minutes, saw the doctor, and then I left. There was no paperwork, no long wait, no money exchanged, and no stress. Basically, there was nothing standing in the way of what I had come there for--medical care.
And, no, I don't live in some fantasy world.
I live in England.
I love universal health care, and for me it's because of the small things. I never had any major problems with my health insurance in the U.S., but I still…
mikethemadbiologist | July 20, 2006This is a modified post from the old digs, moved over here to the new site.
Stem cell research has always been a very personal issue for me: a close family relative is a type I diabetic (this is an autoimmune form of diabetes caused by the body's destruction of the pancreatic cells that produce insulin, and is not related to diet). Over the years, I have watched this relative, despite her best efforts, suffer various side effects, ranging from heart disease (despite no family history and an excellent diet) to a detached retina (another common side effect of type I diabetes). And in one way,…
tsmith | July 19, 2006 I wrote here that pili--long, filamentous surface molecules involved in adhesion and bacterial "sex"--had recently been discovered in gram positive organisms; pecifically, in group A and B streptococci (Streptococcus pyogenes and Streptococcus agalactiae, respectively), using a genomics approach. Though this publication is quite recent, this is a fast-moving area of research, as evidenced by two new papers which extend this earlier research into pili in the group B streptococcus (GBS).
A new study published in Molecular Microbiology further analyzes the role of pili in GBS. This is a…
tsmith | July 19, 2006Despite the fact that abortion is a public health issue, I don't write on it much. It's so emotionally charged, and I can only handle so many trolls at one time. However, regardless of one's position on abortion, we should be in agreement that women shouldn't be lied to at such a trying time--but it would seem that's the case:
Women who consult with pregnancy resource centers often get misleading information about the health risks associated with having an abortion, according to a report issued Monday by Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee.
Congressional aides, posing as…