A British TV crew have been accused of spreading flu to a remote Peruvian tribe of 250 members, leading to 4 deaths.
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Nov 14, 2007 - View this thread

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

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 on Oct 5, 2006 - View this thread

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 on Jun 15, 2006 - View this thread

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 on Dec 2, 2005 - View this thread

Dengue in Texas. If it ain't the flu, it's the haemorrhagic fever. Disease info from WHO, CDC, Wikipedia.
posted on Oct 28, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Oct 22, 2005 - View this thread

Personal Pandemic Preparedness Plan.
posted on Oct 7, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Oct 5, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Oct 4, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Oct 2, 2005 - View this thread

What is really going on?
posted on Jul 25, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Jun 5, 2005 - View this thread

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 on May 25, 2005 - View this thread

"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 on Feb 16, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Dec 1, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Nov 9, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Oct 19, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Oct 5, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Feb 1, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Oct 23, 2002 - View this thread

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 on Sep 4, 2002 - View this thread

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 on Aug 30, 2002 - View this thread

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 on Dec 18, 2001 - View this thread