Posts by Simon Grigg
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From what I recall from The Scientist's coverage, jumping species is what creates the conditions for the virus to mutate.
Sure but eminent people seem to be rather unconcerned.
The pigs in Alberta were thought to be infected by a farm worker who returned from Mexico on April 12 and began working on the farm two days later. Officials noticed the pigs had flu-like symptoms April 24, Evans said.
Approximately 10% of the 2,200 pigs on the farm have been infected, Evans said.
Officials said the pigs were likely infected in the same manner as humans worldwide, and that the virus is acting no differently in the pigs than other swine flu viruses.
"Whatever virus these pigs were exposed to is behaving in that exact manner as those we regularly see circulating in North America and in swine herds in virtually every nation around the world," Evans said.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, studies have shown that swine flu is common throughout pig populations worldwide, with 25% of animals showing antibody evidence of infection.
The new virus has shown no signs of mutation when passing from human to pig, Evans said.
Maybe we need some differing eminent opinions to that we can ramp up the panic again
Sorry that was a bit snarky but I think there are going to be some questions asked in coming weeks of WHO's response and perhaps a revaluation of if and when the word pandemic, which, despite it's definition, carries rather stronger connotations to a jumpy public and a circulation hungry media, especially when one considers the way WHO and other supposedly eminent people have misused it in recent years
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Eminent person speaks to the public on April 26 when there were already question marks over what was coming out of Mexico:
The death toll of the H1N1 virus could reach 50million – as high as the Spanish Flu of 1918, according to John McCauley, of the National Institute For Medical Research.
He claimed the virus – a contagious respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza – is much more similar to the Spanish Flu than the feared H5N1 bird flu.
'It could be a similar death rate to back in 1918,' he said.
ohh, now that's not going to cause a mild panic, is it?
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Meanwhile, first cases of the virus spreading from humans to pigs, in Canada. Not that the eminent epidemiologists and virologists on this thread should feel any concern, naturally.
it seems the eminent epidemiologists and virologists anywhere seem rather unconcerned about this, so I'm not sure why we should be winding ourselves up again, although the latter is not unlikely given recent events.
Apparently it's rather common.
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The joy of hindsight
It has nothing whatsoever to do with hindsight. There were quite a number of educated voices urging caution from day one, but they were largely ignored. When it was clear within a day or so that the claims coming out of Mexico were suspect and perhaps rather overstated, still the clamour continued for the best part of two weeks with a snowball effect of increasing insanity. And WHO played an unfortunate role in that and, looking at that link I posted, still seem unable to let it go.
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The 'element of vaudeville' you describe has been centre stage for some time now.
But nowhere more than with Indonesia's Health minister whose statements here are pretty firm evidence that, in this country at least, intellect is not a prerequisite for higher office.
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If somebody has been crying wolf it's the WHO, and a bunch of the world's leading virologists, and I doubt they did that either.
If not crying wolf I can't help feeling that they are playing to this as much as anyone. The governmental pressure, coming from public panic must be immense.
Then we get things like this:
THE World Health Organisation is poised to declare a global swine flu pandemic, despite suggestions by scientists that the H1N1 virus may be no more dangerous than the average seasonal flu and confidence in Mexico that the outbreak is easing.
So they push the panic levels wee bit higher, just in case. Because further down that same page we are told:
"This might not be any more virulent than normal seasonal flu infections. We feel reassured that if this develops into a pandemic, it might not be a particularly severe one," Mr Hay said.
Scientists are encouraged by analyses of the DNA sequence of the virus, which has found it lacks the traits that led to the death of nearly 50 million people in the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak.
A senior consultant who has been treating swine flu victims said: "The way they are talking, you would think our culture is collapsing. This time last week, we were all incredibly worried because the reports from Mexico were that hospitals were full and people were dying all over the place. Actually, it doesn't seem to be that severe. The symptoms are unpleasant -- fevers, shivering, aches -- but no worse than normal seasonal flu."
WHO medical health officer Nikki Shindo said the biggest concern was that the virus could mutate and become resistant to Tamiflu. The US Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, says 98 per cent of existing H1 flu strains were resistant to Tamiflu in the last flu season.
So it's no worse than the flu we've all learned to live with, but we''ll keep on ramping it anyway. It might mutate (or it might not). And we need to be vigilant. Agreed.
Myself, I'd like to see how it got this far without the evidence to support the conclusions that seemed to have been drawn by people we trust to know better. Surely someone should've, given the dire over projections of the past few year from WHO and their directors, asked for a little more than what we now know were clearly inconclusive results from Mexico.
Oh, and in 1918 we flew in these and if we needed surgery this is where (a very fortunate few) would've found ourselves. Even in much of the third world medical science has advanced quite somewhat over the best part of a century ago.
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And billions spent on preparedness and prevention of bird flu and swine flu are most emphatically *not* wasted even from a second and third world perspective. They are everybody's insurance policy
I'm not necessarily taking issue with much of what you say but panics like bird flu and this current fuss (and yes, panic), which has generated untold billions of bytes in the past week (which is about all it is...it seems like endless months) do take money and emphasis away from the things that really do matter to those that most need them right now....vanity research doesn't in that it's mostly private. The threat of bird flu was an interesting one..those most likely to be heavily impacted by it were less concerned than those who weren't...simply because once you left the research labs of the developed world it became increasingly obvious that it was a very low immediate risk.
Education programmes funded by WHO here in Indonesia moved their focus from teaching folks to wash their hands and destroying mosquitos to warning them to watch out for their chickens. There is only so much money and time go around and these panics cause a re-prioritising to suit our Western feelings.
I'd like to think that Swine and Bird flu have put a little more of magnifier on the plagues that swirl through Mexico and South Asia but I'm thinking that as this thing leaves the twitter and google hot lists, nothing much will change.
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So it doesn't actually do those people any service at all to dismiss this event like a media beat-up.
Not quite true. It takes the focus one step further away from the real problems facing people day to day in the developing and still to be developing world. Dengue (which goes from human to human via a mosquitio and fits pretty tightly the description of a pandemic in the part of the world I'm living in) is a massive issue and a day to day one for billions of people, but is largely assailable..if we could be bothered. It kills tens of thousands a year and is growing.
And it's mostly ignored because it doesn't really hit the non third world nations. The frustration felt in the third world over the Western panic over bird flu was another. While some huge percentage of the Western world paniced and spent billions on bird flu, the real story in this part of the world was how bloody hard it was to get. People in Asia live and just about sleep withtheir fowl and in real terms absolutely nobody caught it. At the same time millions succumed to very preventable scourges as they do every year but these are largely ignored it they dont impact ús'.
I'm very glad the world is wary of the possible dangers of the various mutations of influenza, as we swell know the threat they may pose, but find myself a little nauseated that it takes a, so far, mild, threat to our comfort zone before we actually care.
Unless of course someone can point me in the direction of an NZ Herald front page story about the 200,000 kids in South Asia who died of waterborn diseases in 2007. No, I thought not.
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"Zwines Flu" for NZ Music Month
before it gets positively "Mainstreet"you, son, are showing yer age.
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Also: don't text and drive! Sheesh, kids these days.
I was almost taken out yesterday by some woman on a motorbike with three kids who was txting whilst pulling out into traffic without a glance in either direction. Then again, it's not that unusual.....