Researchers Reconstruct 1918 Flu Virus 321
Gnpatton writes "CNN is running a story on how researchers have recreated the gene sequence for the 1918 virus which claimed 50 million lives. The mapping for the gene sequence was found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost. From the article: 'Using a technique called reverse genetics, the Mount Sinai researchers used the genetic coding to create microscopic, virus-like strings of genes, called plasmids.'" Researchers are hoping that reconstructing a virus like this will help them to better understand similar problems. The structure was originally determined earlier this year.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Interesting)
ah! (Score:3, Interesting)
B.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2, Interesting)
Army of the Twelve Monkeys? (Score:3, Interesting)
Garlic, the geek's friend. (Score:5, Interesting)
>
> One hundred forty-six volunteers were randomized to receive a placebo or an allicin-containing garlic supplement [
Ah, Garlic. Best vegetable ever. The antisocial geek's friend.
I prefer my garlic the old-fashioned way. One head of garlic (peel, squeeze through garlic press or otherwise grind it into mush), raw, whipped into one stick (1/4 lb) of butter. Spread over bread (cheese optional), toast, eat. Throw a teaspoon or two into a bowl of piping hot pasta (and grate some real Parmigiana Reggiano over it, none of that powdered cheese in a can crap). As a side dish, slug down a glass or two of red wine.
Take another head of garlic, peel it, and toss 3/4 of the cloves into a whole raw chicken. Slip the rest of the cloves between the skin and the meat. Roast tha mothaplucka. Good eatin' again.
(Whenever you roast a chicken, just throw another head of garlic into the oven next to the chicken. When the chicken's done, squeeze the now-mushy cooked garlic into a small jar. Dip a hunk of fresh artisan bread into the garlic mush, and then into some extra virgin olive oil. Yet more good eatin'!)
Some people think I eat too much garlic. Not true. Only once have I eaten so much garlic in a single sitting that I've been able to smell garlic on my farts for the next three days.
People at the office tend to avoid me. In fact, if I eat enough of the stuff (see above), even people whose noses are stuffed up with the flu tend to avoid me.
Haven't had a cold in two years. Funny how things works out. Must be the garlic.
Damn, I love garlic.
Bird flu/swine flu...Here we go again (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Why isn't the current president ordering vaccinations for everyone? The technology of making flu vaccines is pretty routine, even if the flue is alleged to be unusually lethal. Instead, President Bush is talking about imposing martial law and using the military to quarantine those portions of the country where the bird flu strikes.
2) Why is the 1976 vaccine that was allegedly protective against the '1918 flu' not being resuscitated and updated to be used in 2005?
Re:Plasmids (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course garlic prevents colds (Score:5, Interesting)
People catch colds when it's cold out, not because of the temperature, but because they tend to stay indoors and socialize more. Colds spread by being in close contact with others with colds.
So garlic helps keep people from being in close contact with each other, and therefore prevents colds.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Interesting)
According to Dr Tumpey, "We felt we had to recreate the virus and run these experiments to understand the biological properties that made the 1918 virus so exceptionally deadly. We wanted to identify the specific genes responsible for its virulence, with the hope of designing antivirals or other interventions that would work against virulent pandemic or epidemic influenza viruses."
Since we get hit with flu pandemics every 30 years or so, and this is viewed as inevitable, it makes sense to me that we want to understand what are their more dangerous aspects, especially in their earliest incarnation.
CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding said, "Today's human flu viruses are all descendants of the 1918 flu, which means people have some immunity to them. What is frightening about H5N1 is that people do not have any immunity to it."
Is fear mongering such as the grandparent post really appropriate here? Don't we expect scientists to try to do something about the avian flu after so many warnings? Tumpey says that after 3 years of scientific reviews and approvals, the public health risk is believed to be minimal. Of course, if someone here can authoritatively speak to why it will break out of level 3 containment at a single CDC center and be more harmful than expected, then by all means reply to this post....and contact the CDC directly too. Maybe they don't read
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Interesting)
The mortality rate was estimated at 2.5% to 5% of the population, not those that were infected. Only 20% of the population was infected, making the mortality rate closer to 14% to 28% of those infected. Basically, if you got it, you more than 1 in 5 chance of dying.
Now, add the fact that we are entirely more mobile, and it would be devistating. We have not had a disease that spreads this quick since then, and if it was gotten lose, it would likely expose 2/3 of the population of the planet before we knew what hit us. Fortunately, we have better medicine now, but even if we reduced the mortality by 75%, you are looking at:
~20% of exposed died in 1918 vs 5% now
360mil exposed in 1918 vs. 4 billion now.
50,000 died in 1918 vs 200 million now.
200 million dead, potentially. Not guaranteed, not high, not low, just realistic potential.
Yea, I say we be really freaking careful how we handle this virus. Obviously, this is more easily spread than SARS or anything else we have seen since 1918, and even if the fatality rate was wrong by a full factor, and just
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Interesting)
This goes back a bit on a different disease. Polio, one of the ones that the US has greatly worked on eradicating (along with smallpox and some others). Polio is the disease that you get a check for in gym class in elementary to this day. Back when it was more common, people that could afford to would send their children out of the cities to the country side to get them away from the cities. Most of the people that caught polio were in the cities. My grandfather was one of them, President FDR is believed to have been another. That was a "mere" 60 years ago. Ask your parents/grandparents about polio for more details.
For today? I don't know if people could get there kids far enough away. Not many people live or have relatives who live on farms. One of the advantages of mechanization has been that we can have (at this point) under 2 % of the population feed the other 99% as opposed to the way it used to be of 95% needed to feed the other 5%. So I think it might be quite hard to do that.
The same strain of flu can't travel as easily due to two major advancements in medical knowlege. The first being anti-biotics. Most people don't die of the flu (or pneumonia or a few others). They die of secondary infections that can surface when you have a weakend immune system. The second is this. We know about how to defend against airborne viruses (such as the flu). Back in 1918 people would cover their mouthes, but not their noses. I remember one program on the 1918 flu where they showed an old recording of a nurse "Correcting" another nurses mouth covering so that it did not cover her nose. The 1918 flu sitll had the problem of lungs filling up with water. Not sure if that was due to the flu itself or one of the secondary infections. Hopefully we can deal with that with todays technolgy. Either way, it won't spread as quickly once people start taking precautions. However, before we take precatuions it will probably spread faster due to air travle and the higher amount of travel in general today compared to 1918.
As for what might happen if we had an epidemic of those proportions or larger that we can't contain? Check with the CDC (Center for Disease Control) to make sure, but the following is my theory. First thing would be that Hawaii and Alaska would try to isolate themselves as much as possible from the rest of the country. The borders would probably close with no one allowed in or out. (And if we were serious we'd station a batalion on each of the borders to enforce this.) Regional areas would probably try to quarantine themselves with restrictions on travel and movement put in place to try to keep the disease from spreading. Interesting enough, Stargate SG-1 on the season ender just had one where we had a plague get loose in the general populace. "Long" incubation period of a few days where people were carriers/spreaders prior to symptons showing and death not long after. I think they had large cities in the US infected in under 4 days after symptoms started showing. There has been a lot of studying on how quickly a viruse can spread depending on mortality rate, incubation time and a few other things. So far, most of it aint pretty.
What H5N1 is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Currently the virus can spread from bird to bird and from bird to human. However it does NOT spread from human to human
When the virus infects humans there is a very high fatality rate, and a brutal morbidity(needing hospitilization) rate. This is the first strain (N1) of its type (H5) that we have encountered, so vaccines can't be produced. There is a fear that this "bird flu" H5N1 will mutate into a strain that can jump from human to human. This is a very real fear, as flu is known to make these jumps. Even conservative estimates place the death toll in the millions if a Human to Human H5N1 flu emerges.
Tamiflu and Releenza are anti-virals that have been suggested as treatments for H5N1, however there are some reports that these treatments have been inneffective, with only mild attenuation of viral load. However Tamiflu and Releenza are the only available known treatments available, and these drugs are in short supply.
Hope this helps
Storm
Re:ReGenesis again? (Score:4, Interesting)
They simply read Robin Cook's "Contagion", which was released back in 1996.
In the story (minor spoiler),
A hospital has recurring internal infection problems with exotic disesases, including plague and Spanish flu.
(major spoiler)
Certain parties that enjoyed collecting and cultivating viruses come across specimens in the yukon permafrost frozen to death, infected with Spanish flu. These parties eventually become involved in a plot to discredit a hospital by planting viruses to cause internal infections, and use the Spanish flu to cause panic (and unknowlingly threaten an epidemic).