June 2013 Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Committee (SPI-M): subgroup on modelling
This SPI-M modelling summary represents their consensus view. It is a
working document, updated after each meeting of the subgroup, to record
the group’s advice in a form that can be immediately used to assist in
the formulation of policy.
Modelling summary
Department of Health - publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - June 24, 2013 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Library Service Tags: Local authorities, public health and health inequalities Source Type: blogs
Dangerous Vaccines Found to Cause Symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome
Conclusion
There are many papers that state that children have died within weeks, if not days, of receiving multiple vaccinations. Many of these children have been misdiagnosed as suffering from Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Shaken Baby Syndrome is a hypothesis — a theory — as it has never been conclusively proven that a baby has been shaken to death. I have yet to find concrete evidence of someone physically shaking a baby so hard that the baby has later died solely from the “triad” of injuries. There are, however, a number of biomechanical studies stating that it is not physically possible to manually sha...
Source: vactruth.com - June 22, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Christina England Tags: Christina England Top Stories encephalitis Meningitis Reid Technique Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) vaccine injury Vaccine Safety Source Type: blogs
A single amino acid change switches avian influenza H5N1 and H7N9 viruses to human receptors
Two back-to-back papers were published last week that provide a detailed analysis of what it would take for avian influenza H5N1 and H7N9 viruses to switch to human receptors.
Influenza virus initiates infection by attaching to the cell surface, a process mediated by binding of the viral hemagglutinin protein (HA) to sialic acid. This sugar is found on glycoproteins, which are polypeptide chains decorated with chains of sugars. The way that sialic acid is linked to the next sugar molecule determines what kind of influenza viruses will bind. Human influenza viruses prefer to attach to sialic acids linked to the second sugar...
Source: virology blog - June 11, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information avian influenza evolution H5N1 h7n9 mutation pandemic receptor binding site sialic acid viral virus Source Type: blogs
Inefficient influenza H7N9 virus aerosol transmission among ferrets
There have been 131 confirmed human infections with avian influenza H7N9 virus in China, but so far there is little evidence for human to human transmission. Three out of four patients report exposure to animals, ‘mostly chickens‘, suggesting that most of the infections are zoonoses. Whether or not the virus will evolve to transmit among humans is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile it has been found that one of the H7N9 virus isolates from Shanghai can transmit by aerosol among ferrets, albeit inefficiently.
Ferrets were inoculated intranasally with influenza A/Shanghai/02/2013 virus or A/California/07/2009, the 2...
Source: virology blog - May 23, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information aerosol transmission avian influenza H7N9 ferret fouchier H1N1 kawaoka pathogenesis viral virus Source Type: blogs
Update on influenza H7N9 virus at ASM in Denver
At the 2013 ASM meeting in Denver, Colorado, Stanley Maloy discussed human infections with avian influenza H7N9 virus with Ronald Atlas, Ph.D., University of Louisville, KY; Robert Webster; St. Jude’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN; Albert Osterhaus; Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; and Carole Heilman, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, MD. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - May 22, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information Albert Osterhaus avian influenza H7N9 Carole Heilman China H2N9 H5N1 pandemic Robert Webster Ron Atlas Stan Maloy viral virus Source Type: blogs
Further defense of the Chinese H1N1 – H5N1 study
Robert Herriman of The Global Dispatch interviewed me this week on the H1N1 – H5N1 reassortant study that has been in the headlines:
There was much written concerning the research published earlier this month in Science, where researchers from China’s Harbin Veterinary Research Institute reported creating an avian H5N1 (highly pathogenic) and pandemic 2009 H1N1 (easily transmissible) hybrid, that according to them, achieved airborne spread between guinea pigs.
Read the rest of the article at The Global Dispatch. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - May 17, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information aerosol transmission avian influenza H5N1 ferret guinea pig H1N1 reassortant viral virus Source Type: blogs
Ferreting out the truth on Science Sunday Hangout on Air
I joined Buddhini Samarasinghe, Scott Lewis, Tommy Leung, and William McEwan for a discussion of the avian influenza H5N1 virus transmission experiments done in ferrets.
(Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - May 14, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information aerosol transmission avian influenza H5N1 bioterrorism ferret fouchier kawaoka pandemic viral virus Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, May 14, 2013
Brought to you by MedPage Today.
1. Adult-Observed ADHD Reflects True Rate in Kids. Parent- and teacher-reported rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder do not appear to overestimate the true prevalence of the condition.
2. H7N9 Pandemic? Not Yet but Still Worrisome. The H7N9 avian influenza now circulating in China has two of the three characteristics of a pandemic virus.
3. If Job Stress Mounts, Healthy Living May Be Lifesaver. A handful of studies have suggested that high stress work environments are bad for the heart, but some of the job-related risk may be reduced by avoiding a quartet of known lifestyle ris...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 14, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: News Infectious disease Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Bringing trial data out of the shadows
All sectors have their own mood music, unobtrusive much of the time, but occasionally brought to startling effect into the foreground, dominating all else. The pharmaceutical industry is no different, and at present there is one insistent theme: transparency.And if there is one area of this debate behind which chords are starting to swell loudly it is the availability of clinical trial data. Unflattering or disappointing trial outcomes have been routinely unpublished, pharma's critics claim, which means patients taking part in trials can be exposed to ineffective or even dangerous products because previous negative researc...
Source: PharmaGossip - May 13, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Influenza H5N1 x H1N1 reassortants: ignore the headlines, it’s good science
Those of you with an interest in virology, or perhaps simply sensationalism, have probably seen the recent headlines proclaiming another laboratory-made killer influenza virus. From The Independent: ‘Appalling irresponsibility: Senior scientists attack Chinese researchers for creating new strains of influenza virus’; and from InSing.com: ‘Made-in-China killer flu virus’. It’s unfortunate that the comments of several scientists have tainted what is a very well done set of experiments. Let’s deconstruct the situation with an analysis of the science that was done.
It is known that avian inf...
Source: virology blog - May 8, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Commentary Information aerosol transmission avian H5N1 ferret guinea pig H1N1 Hualan Chen hybrid virus influenza reassortant viral Source Type: blogs
Candidate Sepsis Drug Could Prevent Flu Deaths
The 1918 Spanish flu killed up to 40 million people. The swine flu pandemic in 2009 killed an estimated 284,000. Now, scientists have discovered a substance that could help doctors save lives during future influenza pandemics. Eritoran, a compound under investigation as a sepsis drug, dramatically reduces deaths from influenza in mice. At the moment, [...] (Source: Biosingularity)
Source: Biosingularity - May 5, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Derya Tags: Biotechnology Source Type: blogs
Candidate Sepsis Drug Could Prevent Flu Deaths
The 1918 Spanish flu killed up to 40 million people. The swine flu pandemic in 2009 killed an estimated 284,000. Now, scientists have discovered a substance that could help doctors save lives during future influenza pandemics. Eritoran, a compound under investigation as a sepsis drug, dramatically reduces deaths from influenza in mice. At the moment, […] (Source: Biosingularity)
Source: Biosingularity - May 5, 2013 Category: Research Authors: Derya Tags: Biotechnology Source Type: blogs
Human infections with avian influenza H7N9 virus from wet market poultry
Results of a study of four patients in Zhejiang, China, who developed influenza H7N9 virus infection suggests sporadic poultry-to-human transmission:
We diagnosed avian influenza A H7N9 in all four patients (who were epidemiologically unlinked), two of whom died and two of whom were recovering at the time of writing. All patients had histories of occupational or wet market exposure to poultry. The genes of the H7N9 virus in patient 3′s isolate were phylogenetically clustered with those of the epidemiologically linked wet market chicken H7N9 isolate. These findings suggest sporadic poultry-to-person transmission.
The...
Source: virology blog - April 26, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information avian influenza H7N9 China pandemic poultry transmission viral virus Zhejiang Source Type: blogs
H7N9 influenza: the next pandemic?
(Source: Notes from Dr. RW)
Source: Notes from Dr. RW - April 26, 2013 Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Tags: infectious disease Source Type: blogs
