influenza
oracknows | January 10, 2014I realize that everyone, is looking forward to my deconstruction of Mike Adams' quacktacular attempt at being a real scientist (well, some of you, anyway). I must confess, though. I was a bit disappointed. And, being like Dug the Dog (a comparison I so frequently make), my attention was easily distracted. I'm sure I'll get back to Mikey eventually, but he really did show such a lack of imagination in his "big announcement" that I'm actually having a hard time motivating myself to apply any "Insolence" to it. It just doesn't seem worthy of the effort it would take, at least not right now.
In…
tsmith | December 19, 2013Part I: the microbiology of zombies
Part II: ineffective treatments and how not to survive the apocalypse
Part III: “We’re all infected”
Part IV: hidden infections
Part V: beware the bite?
oracknows | December 13, 2013Thanks, Daily Kos.
Well, not really. You'll see why in a minute, but first here's the background. There's a general impression out there that the political right is associated with the antiscience that includes anthropogenic global warming denialism, denial of evolution, and denial of aspects of reproductive biology that don't jibe with their religious beliefs, and that consensus while the political left's brand of antiscience includes antivaccine beliefs and fear mongering about genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Of course, as I've discussed many times before, it's more complicated than…
cmonforton | December 9, 2013I spent Sunday morning in the ER of my local community hospital in Hays County, Texas. While my husband lay on the gurney having an IV line inserted, I distracted his attention by conversing with the nurse. I can’t recall what prompted it, but the nurse, Elizabeth, offered her experience with this year’s influenza season.
“I’ve been an ER nurse for 10 years. When it comes to the flu, this year was a lot different. We’ve only seen a handful of cases.”
Like many U.S. hospitals, it's used by the community for primary care.
I asked Elizabeth if she had any ideas to explain why they're not seeing…
oracknows | November 26, 2013As I noted a few days ago, the antivaccine fringe suffered a major setback in the House of Representatives when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, canceled a previously promised hearing about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, even after it had reached the stage of representatives from the antivaccine Canary Party giving a briefing featuring a boatload of misinformation about the NVICP and the Vaccine Court. Never let it be said, however, that the antivaccine movement can't pivot on a dime to latch onto the latest bit of…
tsmith | November 5, 2013(As previously, spoilers abound)
So on this week's Walking Dead soap opera, we find that Daryl/Michonne's group is still out and about searching for medical supplies. Back at the prison, the food situation is dire (apparently all the food stores were in the cell block where the infection broke out), so Rick and Carol head out to look for both medicines and food from the local 'burbs. During their outing, discussion ensues of Carol's attempt to stop the prison's apparent influenza outbreak by killing two people who, at that point, were the only ones showing symptoms of disease. Rick decides he…
tsmith | October 28, 2013(Spoilers. And things.)
After the start of season 4 of the Walking Dead and the introduction of a new nemesis: a fast-spreading, deadly infectious disease that seems to be a strain of influenza, I was looking forward to the plot arc of this season.
And then episode 3, "Isolation", happened. From an infectious disease standpoint, I say, bah.
At the end of the previous episode, "Infected", the group had decided to lock up anyone who was showing signs of the infectious disease within the death row cellblock, so that they would not further spread the disease, and to put the children and elderly (…
tsmith | October 23, 2013(Spoilers below!)
For Walking Dead fans and readers of this blog, you probably know why I was all excited about some of the plot elements that have been included thus far this season: possible zoonotic disease, and in particular, a potential influenza outbreak that may have originated in pigs. I muse about this and other infections in an article for Slate.com, and will have additional thoughts about zombies and infectious disease more generally in the coming days.
See also:
Part II: ineffective treatments and how not to survive the apocalypse
Part III: "We're all infected"
Part IV: hidden…
tsmith | June 21, 2013Student guest post by Sean McCaul
Image Source: http://www.cejournal.net/?p=1934
The next time somebody in your office or household has the flu, you might want to consider keeping your distance. A new study published this month in Nature Communications suggests that about half of the transmission of influenza A results from inhalation of microscopic infectious droplets created by the coughing and sneezing of people infected with the flu. The flu virus hitches a ride in these droplets, and may infect nearby susceptible people who breathe them in.1
The influenza A virus generally causes…
tsmith | June 19, 2013Student guest post by Julia Wiederholt
I don’t think there is a single person that can claim to have never had the joyous experience (sarcasm intended) of suffering from the influenza. We all recognize the common symptoms that accompany this infectious little virus taking up residence in our bodies: the chills accompanying a fever, the total body ache, the nausea, and overall feeling of malaise. Typically this virus comes and goes within a week without serious side effects. When novel strains of the influenza pop up however, there can be more serious complications as your body lacks a…
tsmith | April 27, 2013It's time for this year's second installment of student guest posts for my class on infectious causes of chronic disease. Fifth one this year is by Nai-Chung Chang.
Of the many health problems that everyone is bound to have at some point, influenza, or just “the flu,” is one of the most prominent. In fact, we call the time during which it is most prevalent the “flu season”. It has now become a regular occurrence in the U.S. to just get a shot before the flu season hits, and be free of it for the rest of the year. In some cases, like me, people just decide not to get the vaccine at all. I say…
milhayser | April 22, 2013A new strain of bird flu is circulating in China, and authorities are keeping a close eye on a potentially disastrous scenario. On Aetiology, Tara C. Smith writes that by now, "the microbe may have already become established in the population, adapting to humans stealthily before we were even aware of it." Greg Laden writes, unlike H1N1 in 2009, the new H7N9 doesn't sicken birds, making it more difficult to identify reservoirs of the virus. And according to the latest reports, it doesn't make all people sick either. Documented infections are widespread in a populous region, and of more…
tsmith | April 10, 2013I have a new article up today at Slate, examining the emergent H7N9 avian influenzas, and a bit of a review of "bird flu" in general:
While we were carefully watching H5N1 in Asia and Europe, another influenza virus—2009 H1N1—appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Ultimately traced back to swine, this virus was easily spread between people, but unlike H5N1, it wasn’t any more deadly than our normal yearly influenza viruses (which, it should be noted, still kill on the order of 36,000 Americans each year). And now, while we’re still working on understanding how H5N1 and H1N1 have jumped between…
sa smith | April 8, 2013There is another new bird flu.
H7N9 Bird Flu Cases Reach 21 In China; Death Total Unchanged At Six
More bird flu cases reported in China
New deadly bird flu virus infects at least 20 in China
The NPR article is quite good:
Human Cases Of Bird Flu In China Draw Scrutiny
This 'bird flu' is not that bird flu. But many of the same basic principles still apply (srsly, read that article).
There is no reason to freak out about this 'new' bird flu yet. It does not appear to be transmitting human-to-human, and as I said in the previous article, 'death rates' from infection in impoverished regions…
oracknows | January 25, 2013Three years ago, the influenza season was a really big deal. The reason, of course, is that the 2009-2010 flu season was dominated by fears of the H1N1 strain, so much so that it was a rare flu season that there were two recommended vaccines, one for the originally expected strains of flu and one for the H1N1 strain. Fortunately for all of us, the H1N1 fear mostly fizzled, but public health officials were in a bad place. Under-react, and if the pandemic turned out to be as bad as the worst case scenarios predicted before the pandemic, and they'd be crucified for not having done everything…
sa smith | January 24, 2013YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!
You know that 'killer bird flu' I talked about at FreeOK2? Last year some governments FREAKED OUT because scientists evolved a mammal-to-mammal transmissible bird flu in the lab, and the government officials were concerned that The Worlds Stupidest Terrorists would try to use it as a weapon. Somehow. For some reason.
Whatever.
Finally, despite stupid government officials stupid concerns, two papers were published that demonstrated the obvious benefits of performing this kind of research: knowledge about how a mammal transmissible could evolve, and what are the odds of this…
sa smith | January 18, 2013Crazy random happenstance considering the post earlier this week on 'religious' vegans refusing the influenza vaccine in hospitals:
Flublok, a Flu Vaccine, Wins F.D.A. Approval
The vaccine, developed by a small company called Protein Sciences, is made with a process that does not require the virus to be grown in chicken eggs, as is now generally done.
I had no idea this was in the works-- No insider info, just great news, for vegans, people with egg allergies, and YOU!
Some folks figured out a way to make The Flu Vaccine (a mix of three different influenza variants) in an insect cell line.…
milhayser | January 18, 2013Flu season is gearing up in the northern hemisphere, and this year's strains appear more virulent than usual. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control declared an epidemic on January 11; the CDC estimates that between 3,000 and 49,000 people die from influenza or its complications every year. By comparison, the infamous flu of 1918 may have killed 500,000 Americans. Although the very young, elderly, and diseased bear the highest risk of death, healthy adults still bear the responsibility of minimizing overall transmission of the virus. In other words, everyone should get…
kbonham | January 15, 2013There are a lot of reasons that posts to this blog sometimes don't happen for months at a time, but one of them is that I can often get sucked down the rabbit hole that is Reddit. If you don't know about reddit yet, you may not want to click that link, but if you do know (and you're reading this blog), you may know about one of the communities (subreddits) there - a place called r/askscience. It's a forum where people can ask questions of a scientific nature (anything from "Why are pigeons so successful as an urban animal?" to "What's so special about the speed of light?"), and then actual…
sa smith | January 11, 2013My boss and I are very busy people. Weve got big stuff going on. BIG STUFF. So we didnt have time to get the free flu shots the university offered like 500 times last fall.
About three weeks ago--
Bossman: Meh, Im feeling kinda sniffly. Im gonna go get pho for lunch.
Me: Cool! Im going to stay here and work through lunch like a good grad student *angel halo shines*
(about an hour later, Bossman is hacking and coughing)
Bossman: I still feel like crap. Im going home.
Me: Okay! Feel better!
Later that night--
Email from Bossman: Im not coming in tomorrow. 103 degree temp
Email from me: Okay…