revere
Posts by this author
August 23, 2009
A pandemic is an outbreak that's world wide. Usually it's a single strain of some pathogen. But it doesn't have to be. There can be multiple strains, each intent on reproducing itself but adapted to its own niche:
August 22, 2009
Infection with norovirus is something to which the adjective "unpleasant" hardly applies. While it's a self-limiting affliction, if you've ever had it, it's hard to imagine anyone subjecting themselves to norovirus willingly. But if anything illustrates the principle that people will do anything…
August 21, 2009
The current pandemic with swine H1N1 remains sensitive to the oral neuriminidase inhibitor, oseltamivir (Tamiflu), an antivial. How long that will last isn't clear, and neither drug in this category (Tamiflu or zanamivir/Relenza) is very effective, although they appear to work to some extent…
August 20, 2009
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is the ranking Republican on health insurance reform and has also been a dogged critic of conflicts of interest in academic medicine. We've commented before that Grassley is a gold plated hypocrite because he himself reads ghostwritten talking points from the insurance…
August 19, 2009
The original post was called, "Timing is everything." That's a truism. But it could have been called, "Elections do matter."
"Timing is everything" was posted the April before the 2006 mid term elections and it highlights blogger extraordinaire Jordan Barab and the importance of OSHA. Now it's 2009…
August 18, 2009
We hear rumors the Obama FDA is not like the Bush FDA. We'll see. We don't expect to agree with everything they do. But if the question is, how are they doing?, one response might be, "compared to what?": "Tough guys at the FDA (sarcasm alert)"
August 17, 2009
Still "fishin' " but back at the bait shop we left this note.
Over the years we've written a lot about the basic science of influenza. Much of it centered on avian influenza H5N1 ("bird flu"), an extremely nasty and worrisome virus that is bubbling away in a rich stew of humans and livestock on…
August 16, 2009
Here's some more while we fish. Some things are worth repeating and some people worth celebrating. Quiet Heroes of Public Health was a 2005 post which included a bow to the Environmental Research Foundation's Peter Montague, whose last (and 1000th) issue of Rachel's News was in February of this…
August 16, 2009
We may be on vacation, but flying Rabbis with trumpets deserve a day of their own and because it's swine flu related there is no escaping this delectable item. PZ over at Pharyngula even had a link to a video which is something to behold. But first, for those of you who haven't heard the latest in…
August 15, 2009
If the Reveres fished, they'd put up a sign that says, "Gone fishin'". But we don't fish, so that wouldn't be true. By now everyone probably knows the Reveres are at the beach, allegedly on vacation. Since only one Revere writes at a time, I will use the first person here (it's easier), but I am…
August 14, 2009
If you are a paranoid hypochondriacal person with young children who lives in a suburb, you've come to the right/wrong place (take your pick). Because now you get to hear about Baylisascaris procyonis. What's that, you ask? The procyon part should be the tip-off, but I suppose not that many people…
August 13, 2009
Science Based Medicine is a site we highly recommend with experienced scientists and practitioners in charge. In other words, it's run by adults. But scientists often disagree about things. This is apparently a secret to non-scientists and many reporters who assume that when two scientists disagree…
August 12, 2009
The Reveres are at the beach. It's not our natural habitat, but the generic Mrs. R. loves the beach so here we are. We often write in the morning (after emerging from our small flat in Hilbert space) but today we were otherwise occupied and then went to the beach and baked our brains out. Then we…
August 11, 2009
Yesterday (today as I am writing this) the British Medical Journal published another Cochrane meta-analysis on the efficacy of neurimminidase inhibitor antivirals (the only two in use now, being oseltamivir [Tamiflu] and zanimivir [Relenza]). Their conclusions have made the news, so I guess I…
August 10, 2009
Things have been quiet at CDC but apparently they have been changing. First, Dr. Richard Besser, who acquitted himself ably as Acting Director after January 20 until early June when Obama's new appointment, Dr. Thomas Frieden took over, has decided to leave CDC for television. Yes, television. Many…
August 9, 2009
The other day we did something we don't like to do when talking about flu, we made a prediction. We predicted a bad swine flu season in the fall in the northern hemisphere. The history of flu epidemiology is that making predictions is dangerous. Flu has the ability to make fools out of anyone,…
August 9, 2009
Sadako Sasaki was 2 years old on August 6, 1945 when an atomic bomb destroyed her city, Hiroshima. Three days later, 64 years ago today, a second atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki. The radiation exposure from the Hiroshima bomb initiated a malignant transformation of Sadako's blood cells and ten years…
August 8, 2009
We're communicating through the marvel of the internet, you and I. Obama figured out how to use it to advantage and McCain didn't. Maybe it's a generational thing. At any rate, at this moment in history, any party that doesn't learn from history is bound to be history. Any Party like the Republican…
August 7, 2009
We've been rather kind to Senator Charles (Chuck) Grassley in the past. Yes, he's a right wing Republican with some really odious ideas, ideas for which he deserves to be criticized. But he's also been a champion of the Federal False Claims Act which has encouraged and protected whistleblowers to…
August 6, 2009
Making predictions about something as unpredictable as flu is foolhardy. I rarely (if ever) do it, but I'm going to do it now. I am predicting a bad and early H1N1 swine flu season in the northern hemisphere next fall and winter. The reasons for this departure from our usual custom is a paper in…
August 5, 2009
I have a reflexive skepticism about some conventional flu wisdom. There's so much about flu we don't know and even more we think we know that we find out we're wrong about. But skepticism is an occupational hazard of epidemiologists. Our training and practice focusses on detecting subtle biases…
August 4, 2009
Of the three main modes of infection for flu -- transmission by large droplets, transmission by tiny suspended aerosols, transmission via inanimate objects (also called fomites) -- it is the last that is the least certain but garners the most attention in the form of hand hygiene, disinfectants and…
August 3, 2009
There's a swine flu pandemic well underway and efforts are being made to reconstruct how it started. But almost everyone who has been following this knows it's not the first time a swine flu virus has transmitted from person to person. In 1976 in Fort Dix, New Jersey there were a couple of hundred…
August 2, 2009
Somewhere around mile 500 of the Revere tribe's 1000 mile trek to the beach for an alleged vacation -- long digression that interrupts the clear meaning of the sentence: if I'm on vacation, what am I doing writing about it? That's what Mrs. R. asked, as she headed to the beach, leaving me in air…
August 2, 2009
I recently had a medical condition that is the only one I know of where the Literal Word of God actually is effective treatment. However, as an atheist I didn't have access to the Literal Word of God (the online version isn't effective) so I asked one of my colleagues, a licensed physician, to…
August 1, 2009
The Revere troop is still on the road (we arrive at our beach destination later today), and while WiFi in motels is convenient, it's not so easy to blog without the usual creature comforts (a library, good coffee, my own workspace and lots of unread/half read papers with great sounding titles that…
July 31, 2009
It's late-ish in the evening and this one of the Revere troop has pulled his/her/its new-ish car (funny, it doesn't look newish) into the Best Western parking lot and gotten online for the first time since this morning. First about the car. It isn't brand new. It's a couple of years old but we…
July 30, 2009
It seems our enthusiasm for Obama's nomination of epidemiologist David Michaels to be the next head of OSHA was noted over at the high profile Science Magazine blog, ScienceInsider by Jocelyn Kaiser. Ms. Kaiser is among an elite group of science reporters and she almost always gets things right.…
July 29, 2009
When the Bush Administration awarded a construction grant to put a Level 4 laboratory in Galveston, Texas to work on the most dangerous biological agents, a lot of people, including we here at Effect Measure, thought it was pretty stupid siting. Isn't Galveston open to Gulf hurricanes? Wasn't it…
July 28, 2009
Liz Borkowski at The Pump Handle has the scoop, but it's a win for every worker: our friend and epidemiologist colleague and member of the Pump Handle blogger team, Dr. David Michaels, has just been nominated by President Obama to be the next head of the Occupational Health and Safety…