Adbusters: Ten Jobs For Out Of Work Environmentalists … by gimleteye

So Politifact rates the Lie of the Year in 2014: Exaggerations about Ebola. Interesting. If you live in Sierra Leone and you met the Tampa Bay Times staff who wrote this, you might be tempted to drown him or her in a sewage ditch. But we don't have sewage ditches here (unless you count, Big Sugar's runoff into the Everglades) and we don't have Ebola.

Those of us living on borrowed time (we are all living on borrowed time) and have the interest or time to ponder might consider the Tampa Bay Times counting its chickens before the eggs hatched.

I'm not going sermonize on Ebola or anything else. I woke up cranky this morning at 3:30 in the morning, the way one worry leads to another, then the next and next. As one gets older, it's harder to stop the hamster wheel whirring.

But as we approach the end of 2014, there are lots of questions aren't there?

I would not be tempted to call Ebola, "the lie of the year". It doesn't do service to all the little and big lies, we pass along the way to New Year's Eve. We do spend a lot of time and energy at Eye On Miami on these. For example, the notion that Jeb Bush is a "moderate", or, the climate change isn't real -- a position embraced by Senator Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott. Or that we can keep putting sand on beaches, indefinitely, to keep our beach-oriented, coastal tourism afloat.

I recall, about thirty years ago now, the first time I was called a "Chicken Little" for warning about the demise of fisheries I had loved so much starting in the early 1970s. I was shocked. How do you measure the risk of losing what sustains us against the short-term thinking that robs us of options for the future?

The reason people react so viscerally to Ebola or bird flu (that hasn't manifested yet as a global threat) is that we are surrounded by slow moving catastrophes we choose to ignore. Why? Do we ignore them, because we can afford to or because it holds no profit to us personally or fails to impact our day-to-day lives?

The question rests. As for Ebola being "the lie of the year"? Emphatically, no.

I just came across the following from Adbusters. The story is nearly a year old, but it does resonate all the way from Vancouver, BC where Adbusters is based to Miami, Florida: the low lying state where Florida Power and Light wants to build two new nuclear reactors in wetlands.

Top 10 jobs for out-of-work Environmentalists
How to survive the ecologically disrupted century to come.
Erik Assadourian 03 February 2014

Now that the nonprofit environmental sector has for the most part gone bust—it was, after all, supported primarily by surplus wealth held by rich individuals and foundations (much of which vanished as the Ponzi-esque global stock market crashed)—many of us “professional” environmentalists are now looking for work. Might I suggest considering the following jobs, as they all have significant growth potential in the years ahead:

US Senator Marco Rubio nurses self-inflicted political wounds as a climate change accelerates while ordinary Floridians grapple with the reality of being poorly served by elected representatives … by gimleteye

We've been on the MERS story the past few weeks. MERS is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, and in the past month it has been accelerating an infectious route toward the World Health Organization's alarm bell. What this has to do with our climate change-denier-in chief Marco Rubio, Florida's junior US Senator, is economics 101. But every good economics course needs an interesting lead-in, and what better lead-in for a discourse on the economic costs of climate change than a disease that is killing about 30 percent of the people it infects?

MERS has been the lead story on NBC Nightly News for a few days running, with reports that an Orlando health care worker -- recently returned from Saudi Arabia -- has been diagnosed with the dangerous virus.

That the infection is in Florida should draw attention to US Senator Marco Rubio's lame performance last weekend, when he stated that we can't do anything about climate change because it would cost too much.

There are many ways to measure Senator Rubio's small mindedness against the real economic carnage from climate change.

Last night's news clip showed teams of health care workers at a computer center at the Center of Disease Control, resembling a war room. Think for a minute how much skill and organization it takes to identify each and every person an infected traveler from Saudi Arabia came in contact with.

Now, overlay the chaos of climate change on a future scenario involving health care surveillance, monitoring, treatment and quarantine.

In Florida we have a good sample of economic disruption: hurricanes. After 48 hours without basic services, people go bat-shit. Climate change forecasts that daily life will be disrupted on so many levels. And again, we don't need science fiction or great imaginations: there are big pockets of the Mideast where violence is so dangerous that rare and once dormant viruses have re-emerged. Polio, for example, in Syria.

The point is this: viruses are opportunistic. They can and will adapt to spread to as many hosts as possible. A virulent virus has the potential to cripple the world economy. We are keeping the worst bugs at bay, because stable economies provide the tools for disaster response like the US is mobilizing now. Climate change, if we don't get it under control soon, will create conditions within our own economy that are so disruptive we won't be able to marshall the kinds of resources we can watch today on NBC Nightly News.

If you think we can't afford the costs of protecting against these existential threats, well … you are not qualified to serve in public office.

Florida is poorly served by a US Senator, Marco Rubio, who is as ignorant on the matter of economic costs as he is on the science of climate change. Rubio, who EOM archives reveal has refused to even meet with climate change scientists, has earned derisive editorials from Florida's major newspapers for his latest performance.

Listen to Dr. Harold Wanless on Jim Defede's Sunday program, "Facing South Florida". I hope Senator Rubio does, nursing deep and self-inflicted political wounds.

Fear The Camel: MERS update and climate change … by gimleteye

The battle to contain the spread of a new virus called MERS bears comparison with past events that successfully limited SARS and has so far stopped the spread of dangerous viruses transmitted to humans by exposure to il chickens and pigs.

Scientists believe that camels in the Mideast -- in Saudi Arabia, in particular -- are a reservoir for MERS.

The application of mass culling techniques used to limit the spread of other highly contagious viruses is not available in the case of camels, because they are revered in the Mideast.

So we can't kill the camels, and the annual Muslim Hajj -- the pilgrimage through which millions from different parts of the world will converge on Saudi Arabia -- is about to begin. If that's not worrisome enough, there is more.

Consider emergent viruses in light of climate change: right now we know from news reports that health care workers in the Mideast are being overwhelmed by MERS. Parts of the world that are already struggling with the impacts of global warming are becoming incubators for deadly viruses.

If we can't adapt and reverse C02 emissions quickly, the ensuing economic chaos will not just jeopardize critical food supply, wider and wider parts of the world -- because the financial resources and political will have vanished -- will be open to our viral predators.

People who are watching the shorelines, to count the inches of sea level rise, may be watching the wrong thing. (for "Fear the Camel" by flu tracker Helen Branswell, click 'read more'. For an update on the Indiana MERS patient and the CDC / state response that appears to have successfully contained the only case in the US so far, the LA Times has an excellent report.)

Eye On Miami: your source for news on MERS … by gimleteye

This week, EOM wrote on MERS; the virus that had been mostly dormant in Saudi Arabia until it began to spike in April. On Friday, news of the first case to appear in the United States made nightly news. A patient in Indiana contracted the virus while on a visit to Saudi Arabia and became ill with symptoms when he returned last week.

No reason to be alarmed because the virus is not easily transmissible between humans, offered a physician to nightly news audience. Reassured.

It will be worth paying attention to what steps the CDC is taking to track passengers who traveled on the same planes and bus ride with the ill victim.

This, from today's Washington Post: "“MERS is now in our heartland,” said Anne Schuchat, assistant surgeon general and director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases, during a briefing Friday. But she stressed that the viral disease does not appear to be easily transmittable. “It represents a very low risk to the broader general public.”

And then? Everything above the surface calmly moves as dancers in a water ballet, but under the surface the action is roiling.
"It’s a very active investigation," (Schuchat) said. "This situation is very fluid."

Very active investigation means that the CDC is tracking down every person the Indiana victim may have come into contact with on the long trip home from Saudi Arabia. Interesting. We'll post the latest updates so keep checking back.

MERS in Saudi Arabia … by gimleteye

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)

There has been heightened public awareness about virulent viral epidemics since SARS alarmed the world in 2002 and then the scare about the H1N5 virus called bird flu. Why am I writing about this? I just returned from Japan with a family sitting behind me who all were coughing and hacking through the 10 hour flight. It is no surprise that airports are vectors for easily transmissible diseases. On that count alone, Miami needs to pay attention.

SARS, a decade ago, and outbreaks of flu in chicken processing plants and markets -- again, mostly in Asia -- have sharpened the expertise of WHO epidemiologists who track highly infectious diseases, especially those that shows signs of becoming easily transmissible between humans.

Now there is a nasty virus called MERS has been percolating in Saudi Arabia. It is believed to have originated in bats or camels and can infect people. There is evidence the virus is now transmissible between people.

On April 29, the Wall Street Journal reported, "Thirty new cases in the kingdom since Saturday—at least 11 of them among health workers—brought Saudi Arabia's total confirmed instances of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, to 345, with 105 fatalities, since the disease was identified in September 2012. Egypt became the latest of five countries—including Malaysia, the Philippines, Greece and Yemen—to confirm its first cases in April, all in travelers from the Gulf."

Distribution of confirmed cases of MERS-Cov by month of onset and probable place of infection (Source: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control)

Helen Branswell, the Canadian journalist who has done outstanding reporting on the science and on-the-ground policy makers on emerging viruses, writes that -- so far -- the MERS virus has not gone through the genetic changes that make easy human-to-human transmission.

But her most recent report was qualified, since the entire genomic sequence of the virus had not yet been untangled to compare to earlier versions. Moreover, Branswell notes that the late April spike in viral cases in Saudi Arabia, including many health care workers tending to the ill, was uncharacteristic of what had been to that point in time a relatively slow spread of MERS. The geographical distribution of cases has widened. This obviously puts a stressed medical response effort at risk as well.

Few are aware of the intense, dangerous work by policy makers, health care professionals and law enforcement -- really a miracle of modern technology and heroic, individual initiatives -- to contain the SARS epidemic in 2002. SARS was highly contagious with tragic consequences mostly in Asia, although the disease did spread to Canada before it was contained. MERS is also proving to be lethal, with fatalities reported in about 30 percent of reported cases.

With MERS, the World Health Organization and its dedicated first responders have not had any easy time in the secretive Saudi kingdom. According to Branswell, the Saudi government is gradually elevating the MERS problem to a public health emergency requiring significant international cooperation.

The world needs full transparency because there will be very little time to react, if a virulent virus like MERS does become easily transmittable.

Distribution of confirmed cases of MERS-CoV by reporting country, March 2012 - April 2014 (Source: European Cenre for Disease Prevention and Control)

With world economies and industrial supply lines dependent on uninterrupted flow of goods and services across national boundaries, think of the impacts of a tornado or hurricane but on a global scale.

The best course for people is to stay informed. It would also help, if people would do a better job of separating paranoia about our enemies, founded or unfounded, from the need for real cooperation between all nations to protect peoples' health from dangerous viruses, wherever and whenever they pop up. Today, for example, polio has re-emerged in Syria and Pakistan because military conflicts, intransigent generals and political officials are preventing doctors from administering to the ill and providing easily available vaccines.

To paraphrase, people are entitled to their own politics, but they are not entitled to stupidity when it comes to dealing with a killer virus.

Another morning walking the dog ... by gimleteye

In other parts of the country, August is the dog day of summer. Or month. Walking my dog in the pre-morning dark, the humidity reminded me that in Miami the dog days of summer are October. A film of sweat covered me before I was halfway home. I was thinking about the 1960's as I tried not to slip on the sidewalk coated with a fine algae. The flu has been the lead story in the evening news for four days running, briefly set back to number two by the deaths of American troops in Afghanistan.

I was fourteen-- 1968-- when I came down with what was later called the Hong Kong flu. Even today I have vivid memory of being ill, throwing up and sweating, dozing in and out of delirium until the fever broke. Then it was over and done with. It was the same year I came of age, politically speaking; fervently hoping Eugene McCarthy would be elected president and end a terrible war against an enemy dug into their jungles with as much determination as Afghani warriors on steep, dusty terrain slippery with scree. We are told that the Afghani people want us to succeed, that they hate the Taliban. The same was said of the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong lead by cyphers-- mysterious Asians who we knew nothing about--, until the people could no longer stand the corruption of the South Vietnamese government we supported.

A big difference with the 1960’s was brought home to me in the most recent episode of “Mad Men”. The lead-- an advertising executive, Don Draper-- is called to Rome to look at one of Conrad Hilton’s star properties, the Rome Hilton. His wife, Betty, goes along for the ride. In the summer of 1968 I was lucky to visit Rome and stayed at the Hilton Hotel with my parents. It was the best hotel in Rome, quiet, refined and new compared to the commerce and chaos on bustling Via Veneto. The Hilton was a triumphant symbol of an effervescent, youthful American culture; a point I expressed later that night on the lawn overlooking Rome with a teenage girl from Missouri I had introduced myself to, at the Hilton swimming pool earlier in the day.

“Mad Men” captures that moment of arrival. When Betty Draper nudges her husband for leaving the bell boy a tip almost handsome as he is, she says, “He probably doesn’t make two dollars a week.” And there is the difference, notwithstanding I am forty years older. Simply put, we are fighting all our wars—for health care, for national security, for economic and environmental security—on a dollar that feels more and more like the old lira, then.

I watched on TV, liberal Bill Maher ask the question, the other night, of Nobel Prize winning, NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, a writer I normally agree with on all points. In frustration, Maher asked: “Where are we going to get the money to pay for all this shit?” Krugman assured him: we are still a very wealthy nation. We still can generate a lot of wealth. I’m not so sure. Not so sure at all.

The question of the day, economically speaking, is whether we are in a “V” or a “W” recovery from this nasty Great Recession or Little Depression. But to me, most of the conversation and chatter seems to revolve around economic signals that have nothing to do with the real economy that people experience every day. How do we pay for all this shit?

This is what I was thinking as I was finishing my morning walk in the dark with my Chesapeake Bay retriever. We do it with debt and with fraud. There is nothing wrong with debt, per se. But it depends on the ability to repay. It is hard to be complacent when so many conservative standards of honest accounting have been jimmy'd and fixed. In the 1960's, the US economy was still grounded in manufacturing; making things of value that generated wealth. Now it seems we are surrounded by scams. The only fool was the one who wasn't in on the scamming.

There is Dorrin Rolle, Miami-Dade county commissioner from one of the poorest districts in the nation, enriching himself at the expense of constituents relying on the charity he headed. Voters keep returning him to office. His campaign war chest filled with money from developers and real estate interests outside his district, who need his simple vote to obtain their supermajority. There is the county commission, funding a lawsuit against the State of Florida in defense of a new Lowe’s Department Store that would be built outside the Urban Development Boundary in West Dade. The liars and thieves of the public interest need the Lowe’s to fuel more suburban sprawl outside the UDB. For Lowe's continuing to push is a minor, petty cost of doing business even if the business model has been crushed by economic reality.

A county lawsuit against the state for rejecting Lowe's is a total waste of taxpayer dollars, but it does serve to reinforce the pecking order at County Hall. Voters are clueless, or, simply assume that when times are fat, the thieves are fatter. When times are bad, the thieves are hungrier than they are, fat. It is not what voters want. Yet voters keep returning the same unreformable majority of the county commission to office.

Just yesterday, Mayor Carlos Alvarez sent the county commissioners a request to abandon continued expense and support of an application for a zoning change that the state has rejected. Good for him. And FPL still wants to build $20 billion in nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, surrounded by ghost suburbs and the detritus of the building boom and the worst politics in a century. Who will pay for that?

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

If your child or if you have the flu, how do you know if it is serious enough to require medical attention? The CDC answers, thanks to the NY Times: please click read more:


Warning Signs That Flu Is Serious

By DENISE GRADY
How do you know when swine flu has turned serious? Today, doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained what flu warning signs warrant urgent medical attention.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, the C.D.C.’s interim deputy director for science and public health, said that in the United States, 507 people have been hospitalized because of swine flu. She noted that people over 55 account for only 1 percent of cases, and 62 percent of the people getting sick are from 5 to 24 years old.

In children, warning signs to seek medical attention include:

Fast or troubled breathing.
Skin turning bluish or gray.
Persistent or severe vomiting.
Not drinking enough fluids.
Being unusually hard to wake up or not interacting.
Being so irritable that the child doesn’t want to be held
Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
In adults, serious warning signs include:

Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath.
Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen.
Persistent vomiting.
Sudden dizziness.
Confusion.
Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
Another serious worry in both adults and children is when a patient seems to improve but then takes a turn for the worse and develops a cough.

Dr. Schuchat said that so far, the “attack rate” of this new strain of flu — the proportion of people in the community who get sick — seems to be from 7 to 10 percent. About 20 percent of people who are exposed to a sick household member catch the virus. These figures are similar to the usual strain of seasonal flu.

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

Pandemic or not? Here is an excellent article from the Canadian Press by Helen Branswell on the question:

Swine flu a pandemic or pandemic-in-the-making?
By Helen Branswell, Medical Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS
May 20, 2009

TORONTO - Even among microbiologists and virologists, characterizing an influenza pandemic is a bit like, well, defining pornography.

"The old saying is: 'What's the definition of a pandemic strain?' 'Well, you can't really be sure but you'll know when you see one,"' says Dr. Walt Dowdle, a long-time head of the influenza laboratories at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, now retired from that post.

That may have seemed a truism at one point. But with the current outbreak of swine flu, it may not seem so anymore.

Though the global count of confirmed cases has crested 10,000 in more than 40 countries on five continents, some politicians say they don't see a pandemic in the offing.

Some argued at the World Health Assembly in Geneva over whether the World Health Organization should rewrite the definition of a pandemic in ways that would exclude this virus. A number - among them several affluent countries with antiviral stockpiles and pandemic vaccine contracts - insisted the lack of severity associated with this new strain of flu means it doesn't merit the name.

The job of defining what constitutes a pandemic belongs to scientists, not politicians. But even scientists have divergent views about what is unfolding with the new H1N1 virus.

"I think it is a pandemic already," says Dr. Allison McGeer, an influenza expert at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, which this week admitted two H1N1 patients. On Wednesday, Ontario's confirmed case count jumped 45 per cent, to 272 from 187.

But Dr. Peter Palese, head of microbiology at Manhattan's Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, offers a differing opinion.

"In the past we talked about a 1918 pandemic, a 1957 and a 1968. And if you use it in that sense, in the classical sense of serious pandemic, then obviously (with) the swine H1N1, the name is not justified."

After years of fearing the next pandemic would be triggered by the dangerous H5N1 avian flu virus with its 60 per cent case fatality rate, flu scientists were as taken aback as everyone else by the out-of-left-field emergence of this swine flu virus.

It's an H1N1 virus, meaning it bears hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) proteins on its surface that are distant relatives of those found on a human flu strain - also called H1N1 - that has been circulating for most of the last century.

It used to be thought that to cause a pandemic, a virus with a new hemagglutinin had to break out of nature.

This virus's hemagglutinin is not brand new - but it is new enough to a wide segment of society to be able to infect a lot of people, especially young people, quite easily. But there are hints that exposure to H1N1s that circulated before 1957 may have given people in their 60s and older some protection against this new virus.

That fact, combined with the mildness of most cases and the low number of deaths, has some scientists wondering if this really is a pandemic strain in the making.

However, the WHO's criteria for a pandemic deliberately don't take severity into account, focusing instead on spread of a new virus to which a large portion of the population has no immunity. Severity, the WHO says, will likely vary from place to place, depending on the vulnerabilities of different populations. As well, it could change over time as a new virus spreads in waves around the world.

By the WHO's definition, a virus crosses the pandemic threshold when there is evidence of spread in the community in two WHO regions. With the virus galloping through schools in Japan, many observers believe the call is imminent - if the WHO does not bow to pressure to change the rules.

Infectious diseases expert Dr. Michael Osterholm says the agency will hurt its own credibility if it bends scientific reality to political will.

"You know, you can decide not to call a house burning down a fire because it can only be a fire if it's so many acres big. But it's still a fire," says Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.

"I'm worried that if we get into this pandemic, not pandemic debate, we're only going to see WHO suffer miserably in terms of their scientific integrity. That's what I think would be really unfortunate. Because we need to have a strong international public health agency whose credibility rests on its scientific word."

To Osterholm's eyes, the situation is clear: The novel H1N1 virus is causing a pandemic.

He believes the WHO and public health leaders should be helping governments, companies and individuals understand they can scale back their pandemic plans to deal with a - blessedly - milder pandemic.

"They have a fait accompli approach that says: 'If we get to this point in the road, we have to pull the trigger,"' he says, referring to actions that organizations had planned to take when a pandemic is called.

"And I'm saying: 'No, you don't. We have new information. We have better information. And even if we hadn't planned this before, why are we locking ourselves into a system that we realize is inadequate to deal with today's problems?"'

One of the grand old men of flu agrees this virus will earn pandemic moniker, though he says swine flu will probably go down in the annals of pandemics as a minor event.

"My prediction would be that it's going to be further transmitted and will become pandemic in the sense of global in distribution," says Dr. Edwin D. Kilbourne, who played key roles in the responses to the 1968 pandemic and the 1976 swine flu incident.

"But it's not going to be a very important disease in terms of mortality," predicts Kilbourne, who lives in Madison, Conn. "And perhaps not even in terms of total morbidity."

Dr. Ian Gust, former director of the WHO's Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Australia, says this virus is unlikely to match most people's mental picture of a pandemic.

"The term pandemic as it's used in a popular sense relates to those occasions when there's an abnormal level of influenza activity around the world associated with significant additional illness and significant additional deaths and representing a major strain change," he says from Melbourne.

"I think that this is likely to be somewhat less than that. That it's likely to be pretty much like a regular flu season. More like (the mild pandemic of) '68 than anything else."

But again, the WHO's definition of pandemic doesn't demand severity. Nor do flu text books' or the dictionary's, says Dr. Malik Peiris, a noted influenza expert at the University of Hong Kong.

"Influenza continues to confound us even in semantics," Peiris says via email.

"When the (swine) H1N1 is confirmed to have spread globally, it is a pandemic. ... Severity is immaterial in that definition," he says, acknowledging, though, that for the public, a pandemic without severity may seen like a "why bother?" kind of event.

Peiris suggests the problem is one of communications, not science.

"I think this is really one for the communication experts," he says. "So I shall wait for the WHO to decide."

"Whichever way they go, we are redefining the meaning of the word pandemic."

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Follow Canadian Press Medical Writer Helen Branswell's flu updates on Twitter at CP-Branswell

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Experts divided on whether swine flu virus will hit pandemic mark

Some opinions and prognostications from experts on whether H1N1 swine flu will ultimately be seen as a pandemic strain:

"A pandemic doesn't have to mean that people die like flies. So even if you have a limited number of fatal cases, but still a virus causing disease and spreading around the world, you have a pandemic by definition." - Dr. Albert Osterhaus, director of the institute of virology at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

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"This current one actually sits somewhere between normal seasonal and normal pandemic - if there's any such thing as a normal pandemic. And ... we don't know exactly where it sits. Whether it's sort of half way in between or more towards the seasonal or leaning more towards the pandemic." - Dr. Alan Hampson, editor of the journal "Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses" and former deputy head of Australia's national influenza laboratory.

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"Should it be called a pandemic? I believe it probably should be, if not now, in the very near future if there's continued spread. Because it is a novel virus and it is spreading." - Dr. Lance Jennings, virologist, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand.

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"I've heard their (the WHO's) definition. But to me a pandemic is a global outbreak and this is not yet a global outbreak. It's an outbreak in the Northern Hemisphere. And my personal view is to wait and see what happens." - Dr. John Oxford, virologist, Barts and the London School of Medicine.

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"If we go by the dictionary definition, we are in a pandemic now. The question is the sustainability of human-to-human transmission and case severity. I think we have to assume in our planning that it will continue. Whether the severity of disease will increase is unknown." - Dr. David Sencer, who directed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control during the 1976 swine flu scare.

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"A new strain which spreads to all but one continent is by definition pandemic. But it's qualitatively different from what people have been thinking of as a pandemic." - Dr. Ian Gust, retired head of Australia's WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza.

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"To me, a novel virus that spreads globally is a pandemic, irrespective of mortality." - Dr. Malik Peiris, influenza expert, the University of Hong Kong.

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

The New York Times reports tonite that the WHO may raise its pandemic alert level to the highest level, given a surge in swine flu cases in Japan. For the most part, the health consequences of the new flu are similar to other flus; except that young people are more susceptible. A group of writers called "Revere" at the science blog, Effect Measure, are another good resource to follow, if you have the flu bug. Scientists are still puzzled why this strain of flu is moving at different rates through different populations. Of the timing of the recent outbreak Canadian medical journalist Helen Branswell writes, "The virus responsible for the Spanish flu pandemic, first spotted in some places in the spring of 1918, returned with a vengeance in late August and early September of that year on the east coast of North America. That was abnormally early for influenza. Though flu activity can start to pick up in late November, transmission typically takes off around Christmas and peaks sometime in January or February." Pray that this flu stays relatively mild.

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

The World Health Organization issued an informative and measured statement, yesterday: "Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response". It is well worth reading. Two observations: young and robust immune systems get hit hardest with a new virus like H1N1. Second, here is the paragraph chosen by the WHO to end its statement: "The fact that the H5N1 avian influenza virus is firmly established in poultry in some parts of the world is another cause for concern. No one can predict how the H5N1 virus will behave under the pressure of a pandemic. At present, H5N1 is an animal virus that does not spread easily to humans and only very rarely transmits directly from one person to another." Read: flu experts are very concerned this new virus, H1N1, could recombine with bird flu and form a new, more dangerous version that is easily transmittable. Watch what happens when H1N1 hits Indonesia, Vietnam, and Egypt: countries where bird flu is established.

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

Medical journalist Helen Branswell points to an excellent flu story on NPR this morning, to be broadcast on local public radio station WLRN. The speed with which scientists have been able to identify the possible agent of pandemic flu is unbelievable. Isn't it interesting to think how quickly we can mobilize science and incredible technologies to protect humanity from a microscopic virus for which we have no immunity, yet when it comes to violence we do to each other and the environment, we are still in the Stone Age.

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

Helen Branswell, the top medical reporter on flu, changed her Twitter address to here. I have been using the increase in her followers to measure public interest in the new influenza; partly tongue in cheek in mask, but also in part to draw attention to the medical journalist from Canada who consistently reports out on the important questions related to influenza. The Helen Branswell Twitter Meter is up 57 percent from my first flu blog. Here is the latest from Branswell.

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

The Helen Branswell twitter meter is slowing, only up 51%; a measure of increase of people following Branswell on Twitter . Branswell is the leading science journalist on flu. Over the weekend she had an astounding tweet: that the home belonging to the lead influenza official at the CDC had been struck and burned by lighting. Today we have news of confirmed cases in M-D schools. In a front page story, the New York Times: "The best way to track the spread of swine flu across the United States in the coming weeks may be to imagine it riding a dollar bill. The routes taken by millions of them are at the core of a computer model at Northwestern University that is predicting the epidemic’s future. Reassuringly, it foresees only about 2,000 cases by the end of this month, mostly in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Houston."

The point of quarantine efforts are to keep the number of cases down: the higher volume of transmissions, the more opportunity for the flu gene to mutate. The concern is that a new flu virus that is easily transmittable from human to human, albeit more like an ordinary flu in its effects, will meet up and recombine with the really nasty virus that is moving in some bird populations and really harmful when people are infected. Reducing the chance for that to occur is an excellent and worthy public health goal. No one knows if it is within our means to be successful, but whatever the costs, they are a lot cheaper than a bad flu pandemic.

Do you have the flu? Let us know, what's going on in your flu world. (click, 'read more')

Published: 2009-05-04
Flu movement between species raises concerns
More mutations of the virus possible, meaning it may become more virulent

By ALLISON JONES and HELEN BRANSWELL The Canadian Press


The discovery of the new swine flu in pigs on an Alberta farm raises a spectre that worries influenza experts: the possibility of the virus moving back and forth between humans and pigs, giving it more chances to mutate along the way.

About 220 pigs in a herd of 2,200 began showing signs of the flu April 24, Canadian officials revealed over the weekend. A farmhand who travelled to Mexico and fell ill upon his return is believed to have infected the pigs with the H1N1 influenza virus.

While the development did not come as a surprise to the World Health Organization or other experts, they expressed concern.

"We expected that at some point since this virus has swine virus elements that we would find possibly the virus in swine pigs in the region where the virus is circulating," Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO food safety scientist, said Sunday from Geneva.

Measures should be taken to prevent further human exposure to sick animals because of a risk people around the pigs could become infected, Embarek said.

"It has happened in the past with classical swine influenza," he said.

Dr. Ruben Donis, head of the molecular genetics branch of the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said the movement of a virus from one species to another creates more opportunities for mutations.

While it isn’t a given that any changes in the virus would mean it becomes more virulent — causes more severe disease — that cannot be ruled out, he said.

"It’s possible," Donis said in an interview from Atlanta. "We have to consider all options."

Donis was especially concerned about the virus getting seeded in pig populations on small farms that don’t have the same level of biosecurity as larger operations.

Another worker on the Alberta farm subsequently fell ill, but it’s not yet known if that person caught the swine flu. The herd in central Alberta has been quarantined, and all of the pigs are recovering or have recovered. The farm worker has also recovered.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s health secretary declared the swine flu outbreak to be declining in his country, though health officials warned against complacency in combatting the spread of the disease.

In Egypt police and armoured cars charged into a crowd of a 1,000 irate pig farmers armed with stones and bottles Sunday.

Twelve people were injured as residents of a Cairo slum resisted government efforts to slaughter the nation’s pigs to guard against swine flu.

Dr. Christopher Olsen, a swine flu expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said having this H1N1 influenza A virus go back into swine creates opportunities for it to pick up genetic mutations or swap genes with other flu viruses. Canada’s swine flu caseload swelled Sunday to 101 after health officials in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia reported new confirmed cases. Worldwide the WHO confirmed 787 cases in 17 countries.

But even as the tally of people infected with swine flu continued to rise Sunday — at least six other countries reported new cases — Mexico’s health secretary said the swine flu epidemic in his country "is now in its declining phase."

Jose Angel Cordova said data suggest the epidemic peaked sometime between April 23 and April 28, and that drastic measures — closing the nation’s schools, shuttering most of its businesses and banning mass public gatherings — apparently have helped curb the flu’s spread.

But Gregory Hartl, the WHO spokesman for epidemic and pandemic diseases, cautioned against any premature declarations.

"That might be certainly what the current epidemiology is showing," he said from Geneva in response to Cordova’s comments.

"I also would like to remind people that in 1918 the Spanish flu showed a surge in the spring and then disappeared in the summer months, only to return in the autumn of 1918 with a vengeance."

’In 1918 the Spanish flu showed a surge in the spring and then disappeared in the summer months, only to return in the autumn of 1918 with a vengeance.’

GREGORY HARTLWHO spokesman
CLOSE WINDOW
© 2008 The Halifax Herald Limited

Daily flu thermometer ... by gimleteye

The Helen Branswell twitter meter is up 45%; a measure of increase of people following Branswell on Twitter from my first post on the subject. Branswell, who has been the best science journalist on flu in recent years, is quoted in an interesting St. Pete Times article, "Fast-paced flu keeps media on their toes". Yes, it really is hard to sort out what is happening. Right here in Miami, we could be in the middle of it and not know. I didn't have that much of a problem with Joe Biden's comments: anyone who flies commercial knows that airplanes days are filthy disgusting. I've picked up more colds traveling by plane than anywhere else. The airline industry's comment about great filtration systems on airplanes? Nonsense. So really, being cautious is the best course. It makes me wonder, btw, why gyms in Miami aren't asking members who are don't feel well, to stay home.

Fast-paced flu keeps media on their toes

By Eric Deggans, Times TV/Media Critic

Published Friday, May 1, 2009

Dr. Nancy Snyderman was waiting to appear on NBC's Today show to talk about swine flu Thursday when she noticed Vice President Joe Biden was about to speak on the issue.

In the time it took the network's chief medical editor to wonder why Biden was addressing a health emergency, he let loose the gaffe heard round the world — telling the morning show's audience he would advise his own family members to avoid airplanes and subways until the concern had passed.

...

"The problem for all of us is there's no quick answer here," said Helen Branswell, a medical reporter for the Canadian Press news service. "And journalists are like a bacterial swarm … there's so much of us, there's no way to keep this all in perspective."

Flu Scare Causes Run on Hand Sanitizers at Walgreens. By Geniusofdespair

Staff at my neighborhood Walgreens said they are out of waterless hand sanitizers because of the Swine Flu panic. They suggested to a woman that she buy alcohol swabs (they had two packages left). I wasn't looking for this product because I don't believe the hype (unlike the other poster on this blog). I was just doing research for you readers. I'll let you know when I get worried. I am having pork roast for dinner.

Flu barometer ... by gimleteye

The Helen Branswell twitter meter is up 25 percent. That number is my daily measure of the increase in followers on Twitter of the Canadian journalist, Helen Branswell, who has been the most accurate journalist on the pandemic disease scene in recent years. Click 'read more', for her report on the flu timeline.

Good news: so far, the effects of the virus appear to be relatively mild in the US. That could change. Bad news: young people, with strong immune systems, appear to be more vulnerable to the effects, a response consistent with the emergence of a novel flu virus. I read an interesting article thanks to Jim Kunstler's blog that helps explain what the fuss is all about: Viral flu, earth's oldest Trojan Horse invaders. PS. If you don't know Jim Kunstler's blog, Clusterfuck Nation, I recommend it highly.

Swine flu: From nowhere to pandemic Phase 5 in less than a month
11 hours ago
TORONTO — Scientists have been anxiously watching H5N1 avian flu for more than a decade, fearing the virulent virus will take hold in humans and cause a pandemic.
But out of nowhere, a new virus has emerged and rocketed the world to within a hair of the first pandemic since 1968. Some important points on the timeline of H1N1 swine flu.
1998:
An H1N1 swine flu virus containing swine, avian and human genes is recognized in pig populations in North America. This virus will later be recognized as a parent of the new swine flu.
2009:
March 31 - A clinical trial designed to assess the efficacy of a new rapid diagnostic test for influenza finds an untypeable flu virus in a sample from a person from the San Diego area. Public health is alerted and the virus is sent for testing in Wisconsin and later to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
April 17 - The CDC informs the World Health Organization it has found a case where an H1N1 swine flu virus infected a person in California. The virus is similar to the triple reassortant but with two swapped genes. Human infection with animal flu viruses signals a pandemic threat and WHO alerts member states.
April 17 - The head of Mexico's national microbiology lab emails Dr. Frank Plummer, head of Canada's national lab in Winnipeg, asking for help figuring out what is behind outbreaks of severe respiratory disease in parts of Mexico. Plummer offers assistance.
April 20 - The Public Health Agency of Canada warns quarantine services to be on the lookout for sick travellers returning from Mexico.
April 21 - The CDC issues an advisory revealing it has found two human swine flu cases in California. The WHO says it is watching.
April 22 - Specimens from Mexico arrive at the Winnipeg lab shortly before lunch. Within 24 hours researchers there realize at least some of the Mexican cases are human infections with the H1N1 swine flu virus.
April 23 - The CDC says they've found seven swine flu infections, in California and Texas.
April 24 - Mexico informs the WHO the Winnipeg lab has confirmed H1N1 swine flu is causing disease in Mexico.
April 26 - Officials in Nova Scotia and British Columbia announce Canada's first swine flu cases.
April 27 - The WHO raises the pandemic alert level to Phase 4 for the first time since the scale was created. Five countries have cases.
April 29 - The WHO raises the pandemic alert level to Phase 5, one away from a pandemic. It says the virus is spreading from person to person in both Mexico and the United States.
Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Flu barometer ... by gimleteye

Followers of flu journalist Helen Branswell's twitter site: up 14% in last day. Her post two hours ago, "Gonna be a long day." 2:00PM: Branswell Twitterers are up another 4 percent. She is apparently at the WHO Emergency Meeting. Says that it is "very coy" about timing of the next pandemic warning upgrade.

Swine Flu and You ... by gimleteye

I wrote on pandemic influenza when bird flu popped up on my radar a few years ago. It was the effect of serial hurricanes that woke me up to the disruption that a serious pandemic could cause. And it woke a lot of other people up, too. The good news is that Miami-Dade County and municipalities have developed focus around the public health response to a pandemic.

The internet has an ocean of info on the flu. Let me share some ideas to make it easier for you to sort through: Wikipedia and the World Health Organization are good sources.

I find this website useful: The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Its director, Dr. Michael Osterholm, appears regularly on TV news sound bites. He has been like a Paul Revere on the threats of pandemic flu.

This flu site from The US Dept. of Health and Human Services has useful links.

A discussion forum that is a dream for OCD'ers is at CurEvents.com. It is populated by flu bugs and, yes, scientists and doctors and nurses. It is good for tracking the latest and has links to other discussion forums on how, practically, to take care of yourself and your family in the case of a pandemic flu.

By far and away, the most informed journalist on pandemic flu is Helen Branswell, a Canadian who broke the bird flu story a few years ago. If she writes it, it is good and she gets to the thorny questions that most mainstream media reports fail to capture. Google her. She's also on Twitter: diseasegeek. Be informed.