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Casey Finnerty

An Old Disease Returns: Dengue Is in Florida and May Be Heading North | Wired Science |... - 0 views

www.wired.com/...dengue-returns-us

DHV Dengue virology microbiology

shared by Casey Finnerty on 29 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Casey Finnerty on 29 Jan 13
     
    "series on pandemics"
Casey Finnerty

Reassessing Flu Shots as the Season Draws Near - NYTimes.com - 3 views

well.blogs.nytimes.com/...shots-as-the-season-draws-near

virology microbiology influenza vaccination

shared by Casey Finnerty on 06 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • “I say, ‘Use this vaccine,’ ” he said. “The safety profile is actually quite good. But we have oversold it. Use it — but just know it’s not going to work nearly as well as everyone says.”
  • “Not having evidence doesn’t prove it doesn’t work; we just don’t know,” said Dr. Roger Thomas, a Cochrane Collaboration coordinator for the University of Calgary in Alberta, who was an author of both of the reviews. “The intelligent decision would be to have large, publicly funded independent trials.”
  • “Does it work as well as the measles vaccine? No, and it’s not likely to. But the vaccine works,” Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of epidemiology and prevention in the C.D.C.’s influenza division, said. And research is advancing to improve the effectiveness of the vaccine.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Another option for those who want to reduce their risk of influenza and flulike infections may be simply this: Wash your hands more often. There is good evidence this works.
    • Sarah Muncy
      Sarah Muncy on 15 Nov 12
       
      Whaaa? Wait, what? That's like selling elephant insurance. Sure, we can't PROVE it's working, but that doesn't mean it's NOT. Is this true? I never imagined data wasn't there to show vaccines work to this degree- I'm so confused.
  • “It does not protect as promoted. It’s all a sales job: it’s all public relations.”
Casey Finnerty

Flu Deaths Reach Epidemic Level, but May Be at Peak - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...levels-but-may-be-peaking.html

virology influenza microbiology

shared by Casey Finnerty on 13 Jan 13 - Cached
  • Although the report supported getting flu shots, it said that new vaccines offering lifelong protection against all flu strains, instead of annual partial protection against a mix-and-match set, must be created.
  • “Vaccine effectiveness” is a very different metric from vaccine-virus match, which is done in a lab. Vaccine efficacy is measured by interviewing hundreds of sick or recovering patients who had positive flu tests and asking whether and when they had received shots.
  • During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, many elderly Americans had natural protection, presumably from flus they caught in the 1930s or ’40s.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • “Think about that,” Dr. Osterholm said. “Even though they were old, they were still protected. We’ve got to figure out how to capture that kind of immunity — which current vaccines do not.”
  • Dr. Bresee acknowledged the difficulties, saying: “If I had the perfect answer as to how to make a better flu vaccine, I’d probably get a Nobel Prize.”
  • a preliminary study rated this year’s vaccine as 62 percent effective, even though it is a good match for the most worrisome virus circulating.
  • urged Americans to keep getting flu shots.
  • Even though deaths stepped — barely — into epidemic territory for the first time last Saturday, the C.D.C. officials expressed no alarm, and said it was possible that new flu infections were peaking in some parts of the country.
  • Epidemiologists count how many death certificates are filed in a flu year, compare the number with normal years, and estimate what percentage were probably flu-related.
  • The C.D.C.’s vaccine effectiveness study bore out the point of view of a report released last year by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. It said that the shot’s effectiveness had been “overpromoted and overhyped,” said Michael T. Osterholm, the center’s director.
  • At the same time, he praised the C.D.C. for measuring vaccine effectiveness in midseason. “We’re the only ones in the world who have data like that,” he said.
  • “To get a vaccine across the ‘Valley of Death’ is likely to cost $1 billion,”
  • the metric means the shot “reduces by 62 percent your chance of getting a flu so bad that you have to go to a doctor or hospital.”
  • “far from perfect, but by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza.”
  • Most vaccinations given in childhood for threats like measles and diphtheria are 90 percent effective or better. But flu viruses mutate so fast that they must be remade annually.
Casey Finnerty

Flu shot time? Google Flu Trends predicts worst season on record. - Slate Magazine - 0 views

www.slate.com/...t_season_on_record.single.html

virology microbiology influenza

shared by Casey Finnerty on 15 Jan 13 - Cached
  • If you ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, this year’s flu season is looking “moderately severe.”
  • if you ask Google Flu Trends, we’re in the midst of an outbreak that is shaping up to be the most extensive on record.
  • CDC still drives the bulk of national media coverage
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The CDC’s current estimates aren’t all that current.
  • the numbers can tell us only how many people were suffering from the flu a couple weeks ago.
  • scans millions of Google searches from around the world to track flu activity in near real time.
  • CDC outpatient surveillance figure of an unprecedented 8.9 percent.
  • “Is it going to be a more severe season than last year? I think without question,” Jhung said. “Is it going to be a more severe season than a couple years ago, or the previous 10 years? We don’t know, and won’t know until the end of the season.”
  • the dominant strain so far this year is H3N2, not the novel “swine flu” strain of H1N1 that spooked the world.
  • the figure to which Google Flu Trends corresponds is the one that tells us what percentage of outpatient doctor visits are flu-related at the institutions in the CDC’s reporting network. But a separate PLOS One study from 2011 found that it doesn’t correlate quite as well with another CDC metric that’s based on the number of laboratory-confirmed cases of the flu.
Casey Finnerty

Flu shot time? Google Flu Trends predicts worst season on record. - Slate Magazine - 0 views

www.slate.com/...ts_worst_season_on_record.html

virology influenza microbiology

shared by Casey Finnerty on 10 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The CDC’s current estimates aren’t all that current.
  • That’s where Google comes in.
  • the numbers can tell us only how many people were suffering from the flu a couple weeks ago.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • According to a study published in Nature in February 2009, the system can detect outbreaks nearly two weeks before they show up in the official CDC reports.
  • won’t know until the end of the season.”
Casey Finnerty

An influenza primer, updated for 2012/13 | Ars Technica - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...enza-primer-updated-for-201213

virology microbiology influenza

shared by Casey Finnerty on 13 Jan 13 - No Cached
Casey Finnerty

Interim Guidance on Environmental Management of Pandemic Influenza Virus | Flu.gov - 0 views

www.flu.gov/...influenzaguidance.html

microbiology influenza virology

shared by Casey Finnerty on 09 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Influenza A and B viruses can persist on both nonporous and porous environmental surfaces for hours to days depending on a variety of human and environmental factors.
Sarah Muncy

Koala pandemic genetics: Viruses have inserted themselves into the human genome 31 time... - 1 views

www.slate.com/...themselves_into_the_human.html

shared by Sarah Muncy on 07 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • And in future generations, those genes will gradually mutate and lose their ability to make new viruses. Eventually, the koala retrovirus will become extinct. All that will remain will be its imprisoned DNA.
    • Sarah Muncy
      Sarah Muncy on 12 Dec 12
       
      Wow- they seem pretty confident in what will happen, what mutations will take place and what their effects will be. Hmm.
  • In many koalas, the virus’ genes aren’t present just in the immune cells. The koalas carry the virus genes in every cell of their bodies, from their vestigial tails to their snub noses and in every organ in between
    • Sarah Muncy
      Sarah Muncy on 12 Dec 12
       
      Wait, so if the virus can infect EVERY kind of cell, it must either have lots of receptors or a wide range of receptor specificity, right? If it's THAT much of a generalist, then surely it must be infectious to other organisms- or at least capable of entry. Does that mean it's at risk for spread in other mammals?
  • Koalas had long been known to have terrible health
    • Sarah Muncy
      Sarah Muncy on 12 Dec 12
       
      I've never heard of a wild animal population having "terrible health." That's something you hear about in pure-bred populations, such as with pure bred dogs. If they have notoriously poor health, why do they exist?
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