medicine
jstemwedel | May 1, 2009In a chat with a colleague today, I learned the following:
1. My colleague thinks the media coverage of swine flu is very overblown.
2. My colleague has already stocked up on face-masks.
Hmmmmm.
ejohnson | May 1, 2009
With the recent addition of Patricia Fitzgerald to The Huffington Post's editorial staff as "Wellness" editor, ScienceBloggers are ripping apart the medical articles pushed through to the public eye by HuffPo and Fitzgerald--whose biography states is a "licensed acupuncturist, certified clinical nutritionist, and a homeopath"--with all the force of a black hole. Writes ScienceBlogger PalMD, "In the fight for truth and honesty in journalism, I propose the following more accurate titles for the HuffPo medical writers who are commonly referred to as "Dr": Patricia Fitzgerald, Doctor of…
oracknows | May 1, 2009I've been complaining about the antivaccine lunacy at The Huffington Post for a very long time--since a mere two or three weeks after The Huffington Post first came into existence, when it had already become apparent that, in terms of health coverage, HuffPo was nothing more than Arianna's Happy Home for Loony Antivaccinationists. Lately, I've become even more disturbed by the appearance of outright quackery, such as recommending colon cleanses and "detox" to fight infectious diseases and the boosting of homeopathy and the quackery that is the Beck Protocol as treatments for swine flu and…
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…
oracknows | May 1, 2009Ever since I started this little vanity bit known as Your Friday Dose of Woo, lo, these nearly three years ago, when I introduced the waiting blogosphere to the woo-tastic quantum homeopathic stylings of Lionel Milgrom, I've occasionally wondered if I had started out with too much woo. I mean, Milgrom is a really hard act to follow, so densely does he blend together the most amazing hard core homeopathic woo combined with quantum pseudoscientific posturings that put Deepak Chopra to shame, all tied together with the most awesomely dense, yet ultimately meaningless, equations that look like…
scientificactivist | May 1, 2009On Wednesday, the CDC reported that influenza A H1N1 viruses from 13 patients with confirmed diagnoses of swine flu had been tested for resistance to a variety of antiviral drugs. The good news was that all of the isolates were susceptible to the antiviral drugs oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza). However, all 13 were resistant to adamantane-based drugs (amantadine and rimantadine). Resistance to adamantane drugs (which were developed first) has actually become quite widespread among flu viruses in general, so oseltamivir and zanamivir are commonly the drugs of choice.
The…
palmd | April 30, 2009Physicist Matt Springer might not know much about borborygmi, shifting dullness, or a succussion splash, but the man knows his science.
You've got to read his piece on poop. You won't regret it.
jstemwedel | April 30, 2009In an earlier post, I pointed you toward the preliminary report (PDF here) issued by the Minnesota Pandemic Ethics Project this January. This report sets out a plan for the state of Minnesota to ration vital resources in the event of a severe influenza pandemic.
Now, a rationing plan devised by an ethics project is striving for fairness. Rationed resources are those scarce enough that there isn't enough to go around to everyone who might want or need them. If someone will be left out, what's a fair way to decide who?
Let's have a look at the rationing strategies discussed in the draft…
palmd | April 30, 2009The time is now. The gauntlet of idiocy rests at our feet. Shall we turn and walk away, or shall we bend down, pick it up, and accept the challenge? What? What's that you say? Turn from the forces of darkness?
ARE WE NOT WO/MEN?!?
We must not turn from the task before us. The Huffington Post has spit in the eye of reason, and worse, has aided in the proliferation of horridly deceptive health news, thinly-disguised infomercials, and frankly dangerous lies.
We have nothing left but our honor, and our honor demands vendetta.
Now, before you start sharpening your knives, I'm actually asking…
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,…
oracknows | April 30, 2009I apologize to my readers.
I apologize for continually blogging about the pseudoscience at The Huffington Post. Of late, it seems that I can't go more than a day or two without some new atrocity against science being tossed out from Arianna's happy home for antivaccinationists and quacks. Be it antivaccine lunacy, Deepak Chopra's "quantum" woo, or the latest quack stylings of Kim Evans, no woo is too woo-ey, no quackery too quacky, no pseudoscience too far out for HuffPo. In any case, HuffPo is a lot like blogging about the antivaccine movement. As I've characterized it again and again, it's…
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%…
oracknows | April 29, 2009Sometimes I wonder just how people can be so messed up. I know, I know. I spend considerable time writing about fools and charlatans, but this is a different kind of messed up, in which hatefulness is added to the ignorance. Consider this story, sent to me by a reader:
"I'm 4 years old," he said, "and I have a sister named Olivia, and I ride my bike all day long."
He lives in a piece of suburbia that seems picturesque: the Venzano development in San Marcos. His parents, Gary and Marla Trussle, moved the family here five months ago.
"I thought it would be good for the children," Marla Trussle…
palmd | April 29, 2009Pursuant to my policies, I am reprinting an email, with identifying details redacted. I thought it would make for a nice conversation.
A few comments first. The tone and intent of the letter is, I would say, very nice. The content, however suffers from all kinds of being wrong, and contains great examples of common logical fallacies (don't forget to point them out!). Still, thank you very much for writing.
http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2009/04/naturopath_challen…
I don't expect any kind of acknowledgement, actually I frankly expect you'll just hit the delete key with the…
ddobbs | April 29, 2009Amid my flu frenzy I missed Vaughn Bell's excellent consideration of CIA psychology through the declassified memos:
I've been reading the recently released CIA memos on the interrogation of 'war on terror' detainees. The memos make clear that the psychological impact of the process is the most important aim of interrogation, from the moment the detainee is captured through the various phases of interrogation.
Although disturbing, they're interesting for what they reveal about the CIA's psychologists and their approach to interrogation.
As Vaughn notes,
A couple of the memos note that the…
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.
.
The Vancouver Sun finds a sunny angle on the 1918 flu.
Nature provides a timeline.
j7uy5 | April 29, 2009Just to let everyone know, if they don't already: freebooks4doctors has a downloadable text, Influenza Report 2006. It is a 225-page, 2.7 MB PDF. Being from 2006, it does not specifically cover the current situation. Rather, it focuses a bit on avian influenza. Still, it is a reasonably good source of information. If you want, you can buy a hard copy for 25 Euros, but anyone can download the free copy.
Influenza Report
ISBN 3-924774-51-X
Influenza Report is a medical textbook that provides a comprehensive overview of epidemic and pandemic influenza. Influenza Report has also been…
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…