Viruses, flu, & immunology
ddobbs | September 3, 2009The damage done resembles that found in bird flu as well as 'acute respiratory distress symptom,' reports Branswell - the latter being a condition that can rise from a number of causes, and which kills 30% of those who get it. (That is, get ARDS, not swine flu.)
Yet more signs that this is a strange strain.
ddobbs | September 2, 2009On the radar of late:
Neuroskeptic ponders reports that antidepressant use in the U.S. has doubled in the last decade. As he notes, perhaps the most troubling thing finding in the study is that
the number of Americans using an antipsychotic as well as an antidepressant increased by a factor of more than 3. This is, frankly, extremely troubling, since antipsychotics are by far the worst psychiatric drugs in terms of side effects. There is evidence that some antipsychotics can be of use in depression as an add-on to antidepressants, but there is better evidence for other alternatives, such as…
ddobbs | July 9, 2009Both Mind Hacks and Jonah Lehrer took interesting note -- Jonah's the longer, and a pretty nice summary itself -- of the fascinating NY Times piece on ultramarathoner Diane Van Deren, who began running long distances after brain surgery removed much of her right temporal lobe. This gave her a great advantage: the lack of memory of the run behind her, and thus of any dread of the punishment still to come. Downside: significant memory problems, and she can't read a map.
Speaking of memory ...
Newsweek has a good piece on unconscious plagiarism -- that is, how genuine lapses in "source memory…
ddobbs | July 2, 2009Helen Branswell delivers some sobering news:
Swine flu viruses are missing at least two key features seen in all flu viruses present and past that transmit well among people and yet the viruses are spreading quite efficiently, two new studies suggest.
The research groups which produced the work differ slightly in their views of the degree to which the novel H1N1 virus is spreading, with one finding transmission isn't yet as efficient as with human flu viruses while the other finding transmission rates are in lockstep with those of seasonal flu cousins.
There is no disputing the evidence,…
ddobbs | June 30, 2009
U.S. Cases of New Flu Hit a High This Week, notes the WS Journal. Or, as the BBC puts it, US passes million swine flu cases. Effect Measure, meanwhile, ponders the flu's course in South America, where Hospitals `Overwhelmedâ By Flu Cases In Argentina.
We have just 90 days till flu season resumes here. H5N1 considers how to get ready, including a handy hydration formula.
ddobbs | May 22, 2009
Having lived with fire ants, stepped in fire ants, laid down with fire ants, and been bit just about everywhere by fire ants, the news that parasitic flies turn fire ants them into zombies by eating their brains pleases me immensely.
Speaking of pleasure: Vaughn whacks the dopamine = pleasure meme.
Sharon Begley says Obama may get a lot done, but he can't erase stereotype threat (so far).
We may be dozing, but Europe is ordering its swine flu vaccine. D'oh! Update: We're getting a start too.
"Good night, sleep tight, I love you." Why consistent bedtime routines work.
Why the best…
ddobbs | May 7, 2009
I should just have a permanent pointer from here to Effect Measure. But as I've not figured out how to do that, here's some more sensible thinking from Revere:
No one on the public health side has over reacted. When an outbreak or pandemic is unfolding, you get only one chance. The window is a narrow one. CDC (and WHO) have acquitted themselves well, so far. CDC's daily briefings have been straightforward and informative. The public, understandably, has bounced back and forth from fear to relief and back again. I don't think either pole is avoidable. If the scientists are baffled and…
ddobbs | May 6, 2009I've noted several times here how more measured heads keep emphasizing that a) we're working on partial information in responding to the current swine flu outbreak and b) new developments may complicate things at any point along the line.
Here's a great example of what these folks (like Effect Measure, Crof, and Avian Flu Diary) are talking about.
From Reuters :
Second strain of flu may complicate picture-study
06 May 2009 15:02:09 GMT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) - A second strain of influenza, one of the seasonal strains, may have mutated and may…
ddobbs | May 6, 2009
While I'm at it, here are a few other recent posts about modulating our thinking about the swine flu outbreak that is a) so far less horrid than our worst fears and b) still working its way around the globe, as it may well be doing for some time to come.
Greg Laden notes that nothing has changed.
The Avian Flu Diary first considers, in the wonderfully titled post, "Before We Ride Down and Shoot the Survivors," the editorializing about "panic" ; and then ponders what might change as/if this flu works its work in the southern hemisphere over the coming months.
Peter Palese writes on why…
ddobbs | May 6, 2009In a post titled "Dead, Your Majesty," H5N1, Crof ponders why we scramble to deal with swine flu while ignoring other problems ranging from cancer to the 3000 children a day who die of malaria in Africa :
Most of us are comfortably settled in rich industrial countries where problems like TB and AIDS are rarely in the news. Zimbabwe, like our own homeless, is a deplorable problem...but not our problem. We'd prefer to focus, via high-speed internet connections, on a conjectural disaster instead of the many real disasters killing people somewhere else.
If a thousand people died in the US…
ddobbs | May 1, 2009Theme of the day (again, sort of): managing expectation, or Do I panic or just ignore this thing and scoff at those who express concern?
Neither, of course.
I'm personally provisionally encouraged at the aggregated news from yesterday -- meaning I was glad to see that though the virus is spreading, its pace doesn't seem to be wildly accelerating and, more important, there are some signs that it's not (at this point) horrifically virulent; some experts are saying it might not be much worse than a regular seasonal flu, and the warming weather is on our side.
Same time, it makes sense to take…
ddobbs | April 30, 2009Wanted to draw attention to this wonderful interview with CDC virologist Ruben Donis, chief of the molecular virology and vaccines branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from ScienceInsider. It's echoes nicely some of the themes I and others have been trying to hit in this swine flu coverage: the mystery about where this virus came from and where it is going; its weird novelty — and the temptations and difficulties in trying to explain that novelty; the huge advantage we have in spotting and studying it because of the "false alarms" from SARS and avian flu; and the…
ddobbs | April 30, 2009In his morning news roundup at Slate today, Daniel Politi hits what seems to me -- this morning, anyway -- about the right tone, which is that the events of the last 24 hours are encouraging. (Though I wouldn't throw out those flu masks just yet.)
The New York Times points out that while the WHO urged calm, Chan "at times spoke as if a pandemic had already begun." Speaking to reporters, Chan said: "The biggest question right now is this: How severe will the pandemic be?" The Los Angeles Times is by far the most optimistic and points out that experts seem to be coming to the conclusion that,…
ddobbs | April 30, 2009Nature's Declan Butler looks at how baffled virologists are as they examine this virus's DNA:
Researchers are scrambling to study the evolution and spread of the novel H1N1 strain of swine influenza whose leap to humans was officially confirmed last week....
The genetic make-up of this swine flu virus is unlike any that researchers have seen. It is an H1N1 strain that combines a triple assortment first identified in 1998 â including human, swine and avian influenza â with two new pig H3N2 virus genes from Eurasia, themselves of recent human origin.
"It has been mixing all over the place,…
ddobbs | April 29, 2009
It'd be nice to think otherwise. But even as WHO moves to Phase 5, recognizing that there is sustained human-to-human spread of this virus, we're still not sure how much punch it has. Which, as SophieZoe points out at A Pandemic Chronicle doesn't leave us with much :
Beyond the change in the official alert level we know no more today than we knew yesterday, which was pretty much nothing at all.
We do not yet know how the virus is going to behave in the general population and how severe or mild the disease will be on average. We do not even know if the virus will show %u201Csticking power%…
ddobbs | April 29, 2009Revere reminds us of how isolation and quarantine are not the same:
Both Avian Flu Diary and H5N1 look at how Mexico's 160+ "swine flu deaths" got knocked back to just 7.
Andre Picard (why do so many ace flu reporters come out of Canada?) argues we should Keep the fear-o-meter on low for now
ZDNet Healthcare chides the media for not doing so.
CIDRAP launches a breaking news tracker.
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The Vancouver Sun finds a sunny angle on the 1918 flu.
Nature provides a timeline.
ddobbs | April 29, 2009This swine flu business is moving fast now, with confirmed or reported cases popping up everywhere and the first reported death outside Mexico -- a 23-month-old child in Texas -- reported this morning. As Effect Measure notes
Some of the fear [generated in the U.S. by this deat] will be lessened by the new knowledge that the baby contracted the disease in another country. The empathy remains, as it should. Mexican babies are still babies, loved by their parents and grandparents even while being hostages to fortune like everyone.
As this outbreak moves forward we will be barraged by numbers…