In a hot lab in the center of Lyon, space-suited virologists want to create a superflu as contagious as H1N1 and as lethal as H5N1. Why? So nature doesn't get there first.
posted by drdanger on Nov 15, 2009 - 51 comments

In 2010, Obama will have a miserable year, NATO may lose in Afghanistan, the UK gets a regime change, China needs to chill, India's factories will overtake its farms, Europe risks becoming an irrelevant museum, the stimulus will need an exit strategy, the G20 will see a challenge from the "G2", African football will unite Korea, conflict over natural resources will grow, Sarkozy will be unloved and unrivalled, the kids will come together to solve the world's problems (because their elders are unable), technology will grow ever more ubiquitous, we'll all charge our phones via USB, MBAs will be uncool, the Space Shuttle will be put to rest, and Somalia will be the worst country in the world. And so the Tens begin.

The Economist: The World in 2010. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 14, 2009 - 60 comments

In Does the Vaccine Matter?, Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer discuss the history of vaccines and explore why "some flu experts are challenging the medical orthodoxy and arguing that for those most in need of protection, flu shots and antiviral drugs may provide little to none." In a related story (which condenses and provides a point-by-point summary of the original (with obvious bias)): "Flu vaccines revealed as the greatest quackery ever pushed in the history of medicine."
posted by torquemaniac on Oct 14, 2009 - 90 comments

WHO declares global flu pandemic. "The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," [WHO Chief Margaret ]Chan told reporters. "The (swine flu) virus is now unstoppable." [more inside]
posted by empath on Jun 11, 2009 - 84 comments

He's Behind You, He's Got Swine Flu. New video from The Streets: stupid fun, or smart commentary on social panic?
posted by jon_hansen on May 10, 2009 - 49 comments

The flu craze might be reason to stay inside, but it's not stopping Mexicans from going out in style. It might even be the next fad north of the border, thanks to radio morning show DJs in cities such as Chicago. If you act now, you can submit your own design here just in time for Cinco de Mayo. But what do you know, some fashion designers already had the new fad planned out. But they can't ultimately claim the credit, for the Japanese have been putting their masks on for a long time.
posted by inkyroom on May 4, 2009 - 34 comments

Question... What has killed more people than have died in the First World War... No, not another War, But a Pandemic, The Influenza Pandemic of 1918. [more inside]
posted by hadjiboy on May 2, 2009 - 97 comments

Is Swine Flu Captain Trips? Probably not. But Mother Abigail's following is growing all the same.
posted by tylerfulltilt on Apr 28, 2009 - 84 comments

Get your swine flu shot! (Circa 1976)
posted by miss lynnster on Apr 27, 2009 - 40 comments

Experts at WHO and elsewhere believe that the world is now closer to another influenza pandemic than at any time since 1968. WHO uses a series of six phases of pandemic alert... The world is presently in phase 3: a new influenza virus subtype is causing disease in humans, but is not yet spreading efficiently and sustainably among humans. The outbreak of a variant of swine flu led federal officials to close Mexico City-area schools indefinitely - the first such shutdown since a devastating 1985 earthquake. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu on Apr 25, 2009 - 297 comments

Celebrate flu season with Phage Wars. (Flash sick-in-bed Tuesday)
posted by LordSludge on Dec 2, 2008 - 10 comments

Google Flu Trends brings us epidemiology through search analytics. The prevalence of certain search terms seems to be a good predictor of CDC flu reports a couple of weeks later. The New York Times has a story on this project.
posted by grouse on Nov 11, 2008 - 21 comments

Running Like Wildfire — Imagine a national disaster that stopped 99% of American transportation in its tracks; shut down the country; halted shipping and trade; hobbled counter-insurgency operations, and helped Boston burn down. It spread from Canada southward to Cuba and westward to the Pacific, crippling all that Americans took for granted: their cities and towns; their supplies of food and consumer goods; their jobs, businesses, and the national economy. Such was the Great Epizootic of 1872.
posted by cenoxo on Oct 18, 2008 - 24 comments

Inspired by an episode of the short-lived TV series Medical Investigation, researchers have found that survivors of the 1918 influenza pandemic continue to make antibodies against the virus.
posted by Knappster on Aug 18, 2008 - 12 comments

The UK's national risk register is made public. It is kept updated by the secret squirrels in the Cabinet Office, and was previously kept under wraps. Pandemic flu and flooding beat out terrorism as the major risks facing the UK at the moment. Both are seen as less likely than a terrorist attack, but more devastating. The full pdf has a chart on page 7 showing the main risks on a grid.
posted by athenian on Aug 8, 2008 - 18 comments

A British TV crew have been accused of spreading flu to a remote Peruvian tribe of 250 members, leading to 4 deaths. [more inside]
posted by roofus on Mar 27, 2008 - 17 comments

Don't want the flu? Wash your hands! Washing your hands is not the only way to prevent the flu, but it's clearly important. [more inside]
posted by tarheelcoxn on Nov 14, 2007 - 44 comments

The end of influenza? New british vaccine may prevent ALL types of flu, savings thousands of lives (and sick days) each year.
posted by Kickstart70 on Dec 28, 2006 - 26 comments

Both Find a Flu Shot and Flu Clinic Locator will let you punch in a date & zip code and find a bunch of locations near you in the U.S. selling the vaccine. For the first time in three years there's plenty to go around. The CDC estimates that everyone who might want one will be able to get one. And you probably want one. According to wikipedia "36,000 people per year in the United States die from influenza, and 114,000 per year are admitted to a hospital as a result of influenza. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, between 250,000 and 500,000 die from influenza infection each year worldwide." That's 5 to 10 times as many civilian casualties as the Iraq conflict in 1/3 the time. [more inside]
posted by phearlez on Oct 5, 2006 - 46 comments

The "Bird flu dance" is "sweeping" Africa. Or at least the Ivory Coast. DJ Lewis created the dance (youtube warning) which was described in the BBC article as being "like a chicken with Parkinson's disease trying to dance to hip-hop". There are examples all over youtube (warning: here be lofi youtube videos).
posted by casconed on Jun 15, 2006 - 17 comments

Is H5N1 flu transitioning to a human-to-human illness? Recent reports of familial clusters suggest that it may be, though there are certainly other possible explanations, such as families living in environments contaminated by virus-laden bird feces. On the other hand, it would seem that epidemiologists are growing increasingly interested in the possibility that these clusters are indicative of human-to-human transmissions. Further, the virus may be inching towards being asymptomatic, which isn't as good as it sounds: if people can carry the virus and transmit it to others without showing symptoms, it will be very difficult to impossible to tell who is a vector and highly difficult to control any emerging epidemic.
posted by chakalakasp on Dec 2, 2005 - 23 comments

Dengue in Texas. If it ain't the flu, it's the haemorrhagic fever. Disease info from WHO, CDC, Wikipedia.
posted by Eothele on Oct 28, 2005 - 10 comments

Taiwan ignores drug patent - To save its people from a dangerous flu, Taiwan is synthesizing a vaccine without permission. This bears a striking resemblance to a classic moral dilemma of Kohlberg's stages of moral development. Kohlberg's theory is not without criticism, including gender bias, Western-centric thinking, and external validity. Simply knowing a person's decision doesn't tell you about their stage of development; you have to know the reasoning behind it, which is hard to come by in real world situations. Conversely, knowing a person's stage of moral development (even harder to come by in the real world) does not reliably predict their decision (moreso at the higher levels). Nor does Kohlberg's theory scale to what choices societies themselves make. Decision Making is a booming field of research, but how much research is being done on morality and group decision making? Not much. (initial article via /.)
posted by Eideteker on Oct 22, 2005 - 33 comments

Personal Pandemic Preparedness Plan.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 7, 2005 - 53 comments

October 3-9 is Pandemic Flu Awareness Week. "Like hurricanes, when a pandemic occurs can not be accurately predicted. Nonetheless, that which can be done in advance should be done, because eventually something will happen. Planning can only help, even if at the local level it can’t prevent." (Avian Flu previously discussed here, here, here and here.)
posted by grabbingsand on Oct 5, 2005 - 13 comments

Bush Considers Military Role in Flu Fight If the flu (say) breaks out in New Jersey, why not use the New Jersey National Guard. Just what is the guard for? Simply to be sent overseas for our bringing freedom to nations not having what we believe we have?
posted by Postroad on Oct 4, 2005 - 61 comments

Mystery respiratory outbreak in Toronto: 73 sick, 4 dead. Yesterday the media quickly snapped up assurances [video] that ruled out influenza or SARS. Said officials, "We can certainly reassure people that this is not SARS, um, there is no SARS in the world ... Can I give you a guarantee that it's not influenza, at this time not, in a few hours, probably ... as the day goes on the public health lab has more and more results." A day has passed with no word on these tests. Affected areas are reportedly quarantined, and some Internet communities are growing alarmed over the contradictions at yesterday's press conference.
posted by rolypolyman on Oct 2, 2005 - 24 comments

What is really going on?
posted by jeffburdges on Jul 25, 2005 - 57 comments

Over the past month, people in Qinghai province, China have been reporting that migratory birds in the mostly-rural region were dropping dead of an unknown disease, later diagnosed as a few hundred cases of "an isolated case" [sic] of influenza strain H5N1, a.k.a. bird flu. Three weeks later, the Chinese government admitted that actually about a thousand birds had died of bird flu in the province. Now there are reports saying that at least 8,000 animals--not just birds--have died from the flu, including not only breeds of fowl not previously known to be affected by the virus, but non-avian species, too.

Every national park and bird sanctuary in China has been closed for weeks, since the first reports surfaced of an outbreak. But today, disturbing photos started appearing on Chinese language news websites, supposedly taken at the closed Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve. They appear to show thousands of dead birds (warning, disturbing images - Engrish version via Babelfish here) on the island in the middle of Qinghai Lake, China's largest saltwater lake and a rest-stop for migratory birds from all across southeast Asia. Nervous pandemic-watchers are debating whether the photos are real or doctored, but compared to previous photos of the once-lively birding spot, something definitely seems to be wrong.
[ much more inside >> ]
posted by Asparagirl on Jun 5, 2005 - 42 comments

Nature starts a weblog about the flu pandemic.
Now the virus is in coastal cities on both sides of South America. It hit Europe two weeks ago, ripping through Paris in just 11 days. In the French capital alone, there were 2.5 million cases and 50,000 dead. That's par for the course — infection rate 25% and mortality 2%, similar to the 1918 pandemic. Extrapolate these numbers, and we're going to have over 30 million dead worldwide. In poor and densely populated countries like India, it could be worse.

Where's next, I asked. Based on passenger data — which had to be prised from the airlines — one epidemiologist was willing to make a guess. "Within two weeks, there." He traced his finger from San Diego to Los Angeles, up to San Francisco. Within another three to four weeks, it'll be the turn of the conurbations along the eastern seaboard.

It's fiction but it might become reality soon.
posted by kika on May 25, 2005 - 38 comments

"Fears growing that an H5 pandemic is likely" A followup to 37271 (Dec. 2004) - “It appears this virus is progressively adapting to an increasing range of mammals in which it can cause infection, and the range of disease in human beings is wide and clearly includes encephalitis.” The New England Journal of Medicine says "These cases suggest that the spectrum of influenza H5N1 is wider than previously thought." The WHO is encouraging the stockpiling of bird flu vaccines now. There is concern in Britain that they are not moving fast enough.
posted by spock on Feb 16, 2005 - 59 comments

Up to 100 million dead within weeks. A pandemic of biblical proportions according to the latest World Health Organization warning about the bird flu virus H5N1. It is so lethal that it kills most people it infects. Some experts are even warning that the WHO are being too conservative and that a death toll of 1 billion could be expected.
posted by Meridian on Dec 1, 2004 - 87 comments

Zicam is an amazing intranasal gel that shortens the duration and reduces the severity of the common cold. I've had four colds so far this fall (I've got a toddler) and all of them disappeared within a day. Problem is, now reports are saying that if you get this stuff too far up your nose, you could lose your sense of smell. Damn!
posted by fungible on Nov 9, 2004 - 15 comments

The National Flu Surveillance Network maps flu threats at the state and zipcode levels. They also have an animated map of previous seasons. The CDC also has a map of activity included in the weekly updates at their flu site.
posted by euphorb on Oct 19, 2004 - 18 comments

Another year, another flu vaccine shortage. Perhaps it just the first salvo of 2004's media Flu Frenzy! I think this winter I will retire the the TV, forget about my pharma portfolio and instead light a fire, swig some hot lemon and honey tea, and spice up my life.
posted by thedailygrowl on Oct 5, 2004 - 6 comments

James Tiptree's short story The Last Flight Of Dr. Ain has come to mind a number of times since the avian flu hit the news.
posted by y2karl on Feb 1, 2004 - 12 comments

Track down who gave you flu. Phylogenetic analysis will give you the power to point an accusing and probably infectious finger at your cold passing associate with scientific rigor. I look forward to the legal circus that will ensue as everyone on the planet sues everyone else for passing on a cold.
posted by srboisvert on Oct 23, 2002 - 8 comments

The Politics of Flu Vaccination. When the next deadly Flu pandemic sweeps the world, will you be able to get a vaccination? Are you an infant, elderly, or a nuclear power plant worker? Due to economics, the yearly flu vaccinations are unreliable.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy on Sep 4, 2002 - 17 comments

Is this the big one? With some 18,000 sick and over 700 people having died of the flu in a country the size of France over the past couple of months, I find it odd that the media seems obsesessed with the US / Iraq thing and missing children. The 1918 flu epidemic killed some 675,00 Americans alone, with a global tally in excess of 20 MILLION killed. Some of the photos taken back then are pretty grim. It seems the power of influenza is that it (ahhem) mutates and thats why it could once again be a big killer. Cynical as it might sound, as a race maybe we need something like this to teach us that we've got a lot more in common with each other than skin colour and religion might otherwise lead us to believe. ObDisclaimer: I'm unemployed right now, have maybe six months of canned goods in the flat; if this hits London, I ain't opening my door to nobody.
posted by Mutant on Aug 30, 2002 - 22 comments

Cure for the cold? Is this really worth it? If all it does is "make a runny nose completely clear up a day sooner than usual," it hardly seems worth burdening your system with another drug. Seems like a ridiculous waste or research effort to me. But I guess there is money to be made, even from inefficacious drugs.
posted by SteveS on Dec 18, 2001 - 2 comments