revere
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October 17, 2006
Bird flu has claimed 55 people in Indonesia, with the death of a 67 year old woman. The world's fourth most populous nation (after China, India and the U.S.), Indonesia has had 72 cases since June 2005 and the most deaths (WHO). Only Vietnam has registered more cases (93 cases), but fewer deaths (…
October 16, 2006
The Onion Radio News (audio clip) carries a story about sharing research results, a matter that has received quite a lot of attention on this site. We think their version is just about right.
October 16, 2006
This story ("Scientists close to neutralizing all flu types") continues to circulate and frankly, I don't understand why.
British scientists believe they are close to finding a way to stop all flu viruses --including the deadly H5N1 virus, known as the bird flu.
Researchers at Warwick University…
October 15, 2006
Our Flu Wiki partner, DemFromCT, has an important post up at DailyKos today. In June of 2005, Dem (The Next Hurrah), Melanie Mattson (Just a Bump in the Beltway) and The Reveres joined forces in an experiment in community public health planning we called The Flu Wiki. We were joined by our tech…
October 15, 2006
Here it's Sunday and you are sinning! At least according to Kevin D. Denee of the Restored Church of God's Ambassador Youth magazine (h/t Cruel Site of the Day). God hates blogs:
In the last five years, a new phenomenon has developed. The Internet has given birth to a world within a world. Now…
October 14, 2006
The Campaign to free the Tripoli Six is entering a new and dangerous phase. On October 31 their trial resumes, with a death sentence again looming. For those not familiar with the case, The New York Times today summarized the situation in a strongly worded editorial:
Five Bulgarian nurses and a…
October 14, 2006
We have been asked on many occasions why a public health blog spends so much time discussing war. The implication is that war is "off-topic." There are many reasons why we disagree. Here is one.
A Coroner in Oxford, England has officially ruled that a British journalist who died in Iraq in 2003 was…
October 13, 2006
Instead of putting this as an Addendum to today's post, I'll let it stand by its ignominious self. Thanks, Canada.
Background:
The Rotterdam Convention is a multilateral environmental agreement designed by a United Nations agency to protect vulnerable populations by ensuring that hazardous…
October 13, 2006
A paper to be presented today at the annual meetings of the Infectious Disease Society of America, but following a familiar pattern the results have been presented in a press release. The news is modestly good, but the emphasis should be on modestly.
The paper reports work that took advantage of a…
October 13, 2006
Many years ago I received a call on a Sunday morning from Canadian Broadcasting asking if I would be on their live weekend radio show. They were scheduled to interview the Canadian Minister of Mines (or some such title, I forget what) about continued Canadian exports of asbestos. One of the things…
October 12, 2006
The Federal government's flu plan is in it final stages of recapitulation -- sorry, I mean, the final stages of preparation. The headline of the AP news story says it all: U.S. Pandemic Flu Plan: Hole up at Home. Jeez.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pitching the plan at…
October 12, 2006
One of the headlines made by Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush administration, State of Denial, is that the violence in Iraq is much worse than we have been told. Told by the Bush administration, anyway. In fact we have been on notice for two years that the level of violence in Iraq is horrendus…
October 11, 2006
Here's a cautionary tale. Many readers know that H5N1 infection is capable of causing a sudden over activity of the immune system, manifested in a so-called cytokine storm. Over active immune systems have been implicated in many other diseases, as well, although the type of "over activity" isn't…
October 11, 2006
Bird flu popped up in poultry in Egypt in February of this year and within months the north African country registered more human cases (14) than any other outside of Asia. The last human case was in May and with the warm summer months detections in poultry waned as well. Then at the end of…
October 10, 2006
Not even dinner is safe in Iraq. Reports seem to agree on is that there was a mass food poisoning of Iraqi policemen on Sunday, although whether 11 died and hundreds fell ill or 7 died and hundreds fell ill or no one died but over a thousand became ill is still unclear.
Authorities are saying it…
October 10, 2006
Pandemic Flu Awareness Week registers its first success. The Onion Radio News (audio clip) provides evidence bird flu awareness has reached the average American.
October 9, 2006
Today marks the second Pandemic Flu Awareness Week, launched by my colleagues over at The Flu Wiki. The good news is that in the year since the first effort to raise the awareness of the blogosphere, much has happened in the way of increased recognition of the pandemic threat. Communities around…
October 9, 2006
The hubbub over the Republican congressional leadership's blatant failure to protect the minors under their custodial care in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal should be (but isn't) just the opening shot in a larger story of the hypocrisy of right wing (aka, conservative) politicians about "…
October 8, 2006
The Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, is taking sides in the battle for new Director General of the World Health Organization:
Mexico Health Minister Julio Frenk should be favored among 13 candidates to head the World Health Organization because of his technical and…
October 8, 2006
It is now a week since the terrible happenings in the Amish community in Pennsylvania. That community's desire for privacy has spared us the usual voyeuristic and intrusive media frenzy. Not even photos of the dead little ones. The depth and privacy of their mourning is theirs alone and I for one…
October 7, 2006
Today The Jakarta Post is saying a study by the Indonesian Environment Information Center (PILI) in Yogyakarta has shown feral cats have become infected with H5N1 through "contact" with infected poultry at markets. There is no additional information on the nature of the contact, although eating the…
October 7, 2006
I'm always a little suspicious of nutritional epidemiology. It's a prejudice, I admit. But trying to figure out how past diet affects present health is difficult. How many people remember with any accuracy what they ate years ago? Still. some things seem easier to remember, like how much cola you…
October 7, 2006
If you haven't gotten your flu vaccine yet or you don't plan to get one you are in the majority. Of course if you read this site you are in a small minority, so I'm guessing many of you plan to get a flu shot. Which is good. I'd also ask for pneumovax, too, a vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia…
October 6, 2006
We've not said anything about the North Korean nuclear issue before but we are doing so now, joining with Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in expressing our concern over the spread of nuclear weapons and the apparent failure of the Bush administration to address it effectively. PSR was…
October 6, 2006
I'm still trying to figure out if the statement by Ambassador John Lange, the US State Department's special representative on avian and pandemic influenza, that this country is close to "state-of-the-art" in its preparations for a pandemic of H5N1 and its biosecurity measures is some kind of dark…
October 5, 2006
In China, "sudden events" like disease outbreaks or chemical spills are state secrets. That's not good for China's health or the health of the world. I'm glad that's not US policy. Not yet, at any rate. But a new bill introduced by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel is a step in that direction.
S. 3898…
October 5, 2006
Lindsay at Majikthise raises in interesting point about a new Spanish law that requires fashion models to attain a certain Body Mass Index before being allowed to take to the catwalk. The intent is to project a healthier image for young girls who emulate the newest fashion modes and ideal bodies.…
October 4, 2006
Some drugs that seem to have remarkable abilities to affect a wide range of biological systems in useful ways. The classic case is aspirin, used for pain relief, anti-inflammatory effects, anti-clotting abilities, and much else. Now another drug seems to be in this category, the family of statin…
October 4, 2006
A couple of months ago we posted on the great Avastin versus Lucentis competition, two drugs for treating age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is the major cause of blindness in the elderly. The interesting thing is that there is about a 100-fold difference in cost between the two drugs and…
October 3, 2006
A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the strange disappearance of the already invisible Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Richard Carmona. One day, July 29, he was there. The next day, July 30, gone. Appointment not renewed. Did he jump or was he pushed? We don't know. Lots of commenters…