vaccination
mikethemadbiologist | January 2, 2007So Michael Fumento has issued a challenge to put 'odds' on avian influenza, thinking that somehow I've stated that an avian influenza pandemic is likely (he's also accused me, a scientist, of being "anti-scientist" and "alarmist"). Well, I'm not putting odds down because I've never said that a pandemic is likely. Then again, one should hardly be surprised when a professional conservative completely distorts what one says.
In fact, in the post, I wrote:
We can argue about public health priorities (avian flu isn't my top priority personally).
One would think that was clear, but I made the…
mikethemadbiologist | December 21, 2006Revere, over at Effect Measure, has a solid critique of Michael Fumento's opinion piece about avian flu. What the piece shows is just how ignorant of public health Fumento really is:
1) Many of the necessary steps involved in preparing for a flu pandemic, such as surge production capacity, can be used to produce 'ordinary' flu vaccines.
2) Once a surveillance system is developed, it can be 'repurposed' for other threats as needed. This has happened several times, in different countries.
3) As Revere notes, Fumento's real target is government spending. When will we see Fumento's column…
mikethemadbiologist | December 1, 2006One of the constant refrains I always hear is that diarrheal diseases, such as shigellosis, cholera, and other bacterial dysenteries, could be easily solved if there were adequate potable water and sanitation. That's completely correct. It's also completely unrealistic, as a recent editorial by Lorenz von Seidlein in Tropical Medicine & International Health argues.
The problem is that this 'ultimate' solution of massive infrastructure investment often means that foreign governments and NGOs are discouraged from effective, short-term solutions. One such solution is the oral cholera…
mikethemadbiologist | November 17, 2006Actually, the post title is unfair: Romney is quite capable of screwing over thousands of people at once. In order to further his Republican presidential bonafides by cutting spending, any spending, MA Governor Mitt Romney playing bookkeeping games so he could declare a fiscal state of emergency and unilaterally cut budget items.
During the 2006 election, what with all the fuss about Republican Sen. George "Macacawitz" Allen, I never got around to describing what first tipped me off to his being a complete asshole. When Allen was governor of VA, he vetoed all spending for Meals on Wheels…
mikethemadbiologist | November 5, 2006There is absolutely nothing the Republicans won't politicize. Now, they have launched the War on Vaccination. For a decade, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a foundation dedicated to improving public health, particularly among the poor and the elderly, has funded a "Vote and Vax" program at early voting facilities that serve poor neighborhoods in 24 cities. Basically, if you're over 50, you can get a vaccination at the polling location.
Thursday, in Houston, the Republicans filed a lawsuit to stop this program.
Nevermind that the program has been running for ten years. When the program…
mikethemadbiologist | November 4, 2006Occasionally, Congress does something right. In this case, they are making research to develop new antibiotics a priority:
A key Senate committee is supporting more antibiotic research and development and more research into the mechanisms of resistance at the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
As a result of the efforts of IDSA and others to raise awareness about the need for effective drugs to treat resistant infections, the Senate Appropriations Committee has included language in its report for the bill funding NIAID urging the agency to "move aggressively to…
mikethemadbiologist | October 19, 2006At least when it comes to killing young children in the developing world. A recent Lancet article describes the devastation pneumonia causes among children:
Pneumonia kills more children than any other illness, more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined... More than 2 million children under 5 years of age die from pneumonia each year, accounting for almost one in five under-5 deaths worldwide. Yet few headlines report the effect of pneumonia on children's lives.
The world's attention has under standably turned to other major public-health scourges, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and…
mikethemadbiologist | October 12, 2006
(from here)
Revere recently had an excellent post about why you should get a flu shot. Let me just add one more reason: the best way to avoid contracting influenza is to be around people who don't have it. While this sounds like something Yogi Berra might say, containing influenza is a group effort. This is a very serious public health problem: the 'ordinary' flu 'only' kills 37,000 people per year. That's right: for every person in the U.S. who dies from AIDS, there are two who die from influenza.
And getting enough people vaccinated, particularly those aged 5-18, could cut the number…
mikethemadbiologist | October 3, 2006Inspired by this excellent post by Revere about the evolution of influenza, I've delved deep into the archives of the Mad Biologist, and summoned up some evolutionary thoughts of my own about influenza:
I meant to post something about evolution and influenza before my travels up north, but I was swamped by work and couldn't get to it. Thankfully, two colleagues, Carl Bergstrom and Marc Lipsitch, have decided to deal with Wendy Orent's faith-based virology. Orent writes (italics mine):
Indeed, a strictly enforced quarantine could do more harm than good. Herding large numbers of possibly…
mikethemadbiologist | September 25, 2006Most microbiologists, you know, the experts , are not very thrilled with the emphasis being placed on bioterrorism. Inspired by Tara's post on the Bioshield initiative, I'm reposting this from the old site.
This week, leading microbiologists are sending an open letter to NIH stating that the politically-based emphasis on bioterrorism is starving other areas of research. For some time now, I've thought that we've been too concerned with bioterrorism, particularly when good ol' influenza regularly kills 32,000 37,000 people per year (that's one World Trade Center per month for those of you…
mikethemadbiologist | September 15, 2006From Kristine at Amused Muse:
People are always pointing at scientists and screaming, "Why don't you find a cure for cancer?" Well, now that scientists finally have, loopy-loo fundies deny the treatment for their daughters! Screw them. Not only should this vaccination be required for all young girls, any parent who seriously thinks that this "encourages immorality" should have his or her children taken away. They aren't fit to be parents.
Pregnancy as punishment, cancer as coercion. Welcome to Bush's America.
mikethemadbiologist | July 17, 2006The carnival o'the wee beasties known as Animalcules is up at Science Matters. I have a post about MRSA and drug use in this edition. There's also a good post about drug resistance in the HIV virus.
While I'm advertising things microbial, revere at Effect Measure has a good post on patenting microbes and other organisms. He's right: it's stupid.
mikethemadbiologist | July 7, 2006From the Boston Globe comes this disturbing report of the massive underdiagnosis of influenza in children:
Doctors fail to diagnose the flu in the vast majority of young children, depriving them of medicines that could shorten their illness and keep them from spreading it to others, a study suggests.
Flu infections were missed in four out of five preschoolers who were treated for flu symptoms at a doctor's office or emergency room and in about three-quarters of those who were hospitalized, researchers report.
"Many of the children did not have a test performed and few of the children were…
mikethemadbiologist | June 30, 2006This week, our benevolent Seed Overlords ask, "What are some unsung successes that have occurred as a result of using science to guide policy?" Well, I thunked, and thunked, and thunked. Then my head began to hurt. Then I thought of one unsung success.
Vaccination.
Think about it. Typically, vaccination policy is decided by experts, and politicians usually don't meddle in it. There are problems with our vaccination policy--we don't vaccinate enough people, and we vaccinate the wrong groups (most experts claim that the most effective strategy would be to vaccinate those under 18, since…