As the nation prepares for a massive vaccination campaign to protect the most vulnerable people from the swine flu virus, scientists are preparing to combat public fears over the vaccine. Scientists worry that the public (or at least the activists who are convinced, against all scientific evidence, that vaccines cause autism and other diseases) will misinterpret coincidental deaths as side effects of the vaccine.
As soon as swine flu vaccinations start next month, some people getting them will drop dead of heart attacks or strokes, some children will have seizures and some pregnant women will miscarry…. “There are about 2,400 miscarriages a day in the U.S…. You’ll see things that would have happened anyway. But the vaccine doesn’t cause miscarriages. It also doesn’t cause auto accidents, but they happen” [The New York Times], says Jay Butler of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC is particularly focused on convincing pregnant women of the vaccine’s safety. A recent study in The Lancet reported strikingly high rates of death and of complications like pneumonia in pregnant women with H1N1 influenza. Pregnancy meant a fourfold risk of hospitalization, sometimes with a tragic outcome [The New York Times]. Experts note that pregnant women often avoid medications out of fear of harming the fetus, but say that these women should be among the first to get vaccinated for swine flu, and should swiftly start antiviral medications if they come down with the virus. To date, the virus has killed 28 pregnant women in the United States.
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The first scientific autopsy on an ancient Egyptian mummy, performed back in 1825, might have botched the cause of death. The original ruling was that the mummified woman, Irtyersenu, died of ovarian cancer, but a new study strongly suggests she died of tuberculosis [BBC News]. The original autopsy was performed by one Dr. Augustus Bozzi Granville, a surgeon and a gynecologist (and apparently a fan of infectious diseases; he personally overcame bouts with malaria, bubonic plague and yellow fever).
Irtyersenu is a remarkable specimen in that she was mummified with her organs intact. Most mummies have their organs removed or dissolved inside their bodies prior to mummification. Dr. Granville was correct in detecting that the mummified woman had an ovarian tumor—but later studies determined it was benign. Granville studied her pelvic bone and also determined the woman to be an overweight mother between the ages of 50-55 when she died.
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Now that the first vaccines against swine flu are about to become available, scientists are busy working out the details of how the vaccines can best be administered. Researchers already knew that a single dose was sufficient to protect adults, and they’ve now found that one shot works for teenagers and children over the age of 10. But young children who have never had the flu or a flu shot, however, need two doses, they said…. Children 6 months to 9 years old received some protection from one shot, but not enough, so health officials will recommend that they get two shots 21 days apart [The New York Times].
At least 6 million doses of vaccine will be available the first week of October, federal health officials announced today, and this first batch is in the form of a nasal spray called FluMist. The intranasal vaccine has not been approved for children younger than 2, adults older than 49 or pregnant women, so it may go primarily to healthcare providers [Los Angeles Times]. Injectable vaccines should make it to doctors’ offices a week or two later.
New York State has taken the drastic step of requiring that all hospital, home health and hospice workers get the swine flu vaccine. Experts say the mandatory vaccination will protect not just the workers, but also their patients. But some workers are upset by the edict. Health workers’ union official Joel Shufro says the unions do not oppose vaccination “but we oppose a mandatory program,” he said. “This is: ‘You don’t get the shot, you’re fired’” [The New York Times].
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Two HIV vaccines on trial in Thailand have shown some limited success in protecting people from the virus that causes AIDS. And in the hard-fought world of HIV research, that qualifies as a major breakthrough. Says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: “For more than 20 years now, vaccine trials have essentially been failures…. Now it’s like we were groping down an unlit path, and a door has been opened. We can start asking some very important questions” [The New York Times].
The Thailand trial studied two vaccines that had already proven ineffective on their own. But people who received both vaccines were 31 percent less likely to get HIV, compared to people who received a placebo. This partial protection is a good step, but it’s also a puzzle to scientists who don’t understand why the vaccines only worked for some people.
In the trial, more than 8,000 volunteers received the vaccines, and an equal number received placebos. After three years, 51 people from the vaccinated group had been infected, compared to 74 people in the placebo group. While the numbers are small, researchers say they’re statistically significant.
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The big news in swine flu this week: Vaccines from four drugmakers have been approved for use in the United States, and with the companies’ production lines cranking there will be plenty to go around. Clinical trials have also shown that a single shot is enough to create a strong immune response, which means stockpiles will go twice as far as they would have if two shots were necessary. Said U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: “There will be vaccines for everyone.” … The first doses should be available within the next four weeks, according to the FDA [Reuters].
But as flu season is already ramping up, some people are wondering what they can do to protect themselves until the vaccine is available. One enterprising reporter decided to find out what her daily routine would be like if she wore a paper jumpsuit, mask, goggles, and gloves provided by a company called Flu Armor. But experts are reminding the public that face masks, which became a symbol of the initial outbreak in Mexico last spring, are really designed to stop the spread of droplets from the person wearing the mask, not to protect the wearer from viruses [Los Angeles Times].
The most effective preventive measure is also a simple one: wash your hands with soap often, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Experts note that hand-to-face contact has a surprising impact on health. Germs can enter the body through breaks in the skin or through the membranes of the eyes, mouth and nose [The New York Times].
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Let’s start with the good news: Clinical trials of the swine flu vaccines currently under production are showing that a single shot may be enough to protect a person against the H1N1 virus, rather than the series of two shots that was thought to be necessary. That means the vaccine supplies rolling off the pharmaceutical companies’ assembly lines will cover twice as many people. Experts say it should be possible to vaccinate — well before the flu’s expected midwinter peak — all the 159 million people that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate are in the high-risk groups: pregnant women, people under 24 years old or caring for infants, people with high-risk medical conditions and health-care workers [The New York Times].
In China, vaccinations are already underway, still Chinese health official Liang Wannian says the virus may well sicken tens of millions in the coming months. “The situation we face is not optimistic,” Liang said, noting that the virus had been found in all of China’s 31 provinces and regions [AFP]. While most cases won’t be severe, Liang says the sick could overwhelm the country’s hospitals and clinics.
While Chinese officials have said that vaccinations would start with high-risk groups, they also disclosed that people participating in the festivities of National Day on October 1st, which marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of communist China, will be at the front of the line. There are at least 200,000 official participants, plus thousands of security police. According to the BBC’s China analyst, Shirong Chen, they have been pushed to the front of the queue not just because it is a huge public event that carries national pride, but because all the top leaders and dignitaries will be in Beijing. The authorities cannot afford the political risk of any infection there [BBC News]. However, this prioritizing may leave less vaccine available for children, pregnant women, and health care workers.
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Over the past four years, a controversy has erupted over whether to routinely give girls the new vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted virus that can cause genital warts and cervical cancer. Now we can have the debate all over again–but this time, with boys. An advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration has recommended that the vaccine be made available for boys as well. While boys are obviously not at risk for cervical cancer, HPV can give them genital warts and, in very rare cases, can lead to anal or penile cancer.
The pharmaceutical giant Merck makes the first HPV vaccine available in the United States, Gardasil, which is considered most effective when given to young people who aren’t yet sexually active and therefore haven’t yet encountered the virus. But analyst Tim Anderson says that the regime of three shots over six months may deter some customers. “You are asking a healthy teen to come to the doctor three times in six months,” Mr. Anderson said…. “Pretty much no healthy teen would ever do that, let alone to come back and get a shot” [The New York Times]. It may be a particularly hard sell because most cases of genital warts clear up naturally, and because anal and penile cancers are so rare–each year they’re diagnosed in about 2,100 and 1,300 American men respectively.
Related Content:DISCOVER: How We Got the Controversial HPV Vaccine
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Image: flickr / lu_lu
It’s possible that the most severe forms of prostate cancer are caused by a virus that might be sexually transmitted, according to a new study that will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. Researchers checked for the virus in more than 200 prostate cancer patients and found the virus in 27 percent of the men; those with the most aggressive tumors were most likely to have the virus. While the researchers haven’t proved causation, they note that viruses are known to cause a variety of human cancers. Hepatitis viruses, for example, cause liver cancer, while human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer in women and anal and penile cancer in men [Los Angeles Times].
The virus, known as XMRV, belongs to a family of viruses that has previously been shown to cause leukemia in lab animals. Like the HIV virus, XMRV is a retrovirus, a virus that gets incorporated into the genome of the cells it infects. It may trigger cancer by locating in the cell’s genome next to DNA that controls cell growth, and disrupting those genes in a way that allows cells to replicate uncontrollably [Bloomberg].
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Although researchers searching for an HIV vaccine have been down the path of optimism and disappointment many times before, a new finding has nevertheless brought fresh hope to the flagging effort. Researchers have discovered two antibodies that can effectively fight back most strains of the HIV virus, and say they’ll now try to make a vaccine that can teach the human body to produce these antibodies.
The weapons in question are called broadly neutralising antibodies…. These are antibodies that deactivate a wide range of HIV strains—which is particularly important for an effective vaccine, because HIV is so variable [The Economist]. Researchers found the two new antibodies after screening blood samples from 1,800 people around the world who were infected with HIV but hadn’t yet developed AIDS; the two antibodies both came from an African donor. Of these two potent antibodies, one neutralized 127 of 162 HIV strains and the other neutralized 119.
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The week began with the news that Colombian president Alvaro Uribe had come down with swine flu while meeting with other South American leaders in Argentina. But Uribe is making a full recovery, and experts note that cases of the H1N1 flu are starting to taper off along with the influenza season in the Southern Hemisphere…. “All countries report that after mid-July, disease activity in most parts of the country decreased,” [Reuters], according to a U.S. government report.
Meanwhile, schoolchildren and college students across the Northern Hemisphere are heading back to school, and health officials are bracing for swine flu, round two. It’s already cropping up where conditions are right. Just as the football season is getting under way, Duke, Texas Christian and Alabama have reported cases of swine flu or of players experiencing flulike symptoms…. The strain tends to spread most quickly among young adults, who have not built an immunity to flu strains. Because the athletes share dorm rooms, cafeterias and sometimes unsanitary locker rooms, “it’s kind of an ideal situation for the flu,” said Artealia Gilliard, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [The New York Times]. Outbreaks were also reported at some colleges where women are attending sorority rush events before the start of classes.
Colleges have put a number of contingency plans in place to deal with outbreaks, including swine flu buses to spirit away the sick to infirmaries and drive-up vaccination clinics that will open as soon as vaccines are available, probably in early October. City education departments are also kicking their preventive machinery into high gear. On Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that all primary school-age children in New York City will be offered free vaccines for seasonal and H1N1 flu this year [Reuters]. School officials in New York and elsewhere have said that they’re reluctant to close schools, as they did in the spring during the pandemic’s onset, because it disrupts parents’ work schedules and does little to halt the spread of the virus.
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Another day, another swine flu story: Amidst all the chatter, it can be hard to find the most reliable sources and relevant info. To keep you informed of the latest intelligence, 80beats will round up the news each week.
On Monday, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued an alarming report spelling out a “plausible scenario” for how the swine flu pandemic will play out during the coming flu season. The report estimated that the H1N1 virus could hospitalize 1.8 million Americans, potentially clogging emergency rooms and intensive care wards, and could kill up to 90,000 people in the United States. In a typical year, the seasonal flu virus kills about 35,000 Americans.
But on Tuesday, some public health officials walked back the report’s conclusions. One expert who helped prepare the report said that the numbers were probably on the high side, given that some weeks had passed since the calculations were finished in early August. “As more data has come out of the Southern Hemisphere, where it seems to be fading, it looks as if it’s going to be somewhat milder,” said the expert, Marc Lipsitch…. “If we were betting on the most likely number, I’d say it’s not 90,000 deaths; it’s lower” [The New York Times].
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Amidst concerns over the safety of DEET, scientists are on the lookout for a new mosquito repellent. Now they may have found a way to keep biting insects at bay–by blocking their olfactory sense, according to a paper published in Nature.
Mosquitoes sense the presence of humans and animals by detecting the carbon dioxide we exhale with each breath. Researchers have found two compounds, 2,3-butanedione and 1-hexanol, that could keep the biters at bay by blocking the insects’ ability to detect this gas. Using these compounds could be advantageous because the amount of chemical required is relatively small…. Further, the chemicals themselves are not complicated to manufacture and are available through conventional sources. “From both perspectives, this adds up to a viable tool in tackling the problems like that of malaria in Africa” [Scientific American], says study coauthor Anandasankar Ray. Considering the number of diseases spread by insects such as mosquitoes–for example, 250 million people contract malaria each year–there’s a lot more at stake here than a few itchy bug bites.
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Up to half of the U.S. population could contract swine flu this upcoming flu season, killing up to 90,000 people and hospitalizing 1.8 million, according to a report released by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Americans lack immunity to the swine flu, which gives the virus the potential to infect more people than the seasonal flu generally does. And although many people who contract the disease might not show symptoms, and most would not be hospitalized, the pandemic would put a strain on the U.S. health-care system … because those patients could occupy between 50% and 100% of available intensive-care beds at the peak of the epidemic in affected regions, while ICU units normally operate close to capacity. Seasonal flu normally causes about 200,000 hospitalizations a year [The Wall Street Journal].
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Saving Tasmanian devils from the infectious cancer that has quickly rendered the small marsupials an endangered species will be an even harder than we realized, according to a new study. The latest bad news from Tasmania: Researchers have found that devils are not solitary creatures with small social networks, but instead frequently interact with other devils, allowing for faster spread of the disease. The devastating cancer, known as devil facial tumor disease, is spread by biting, something the aggressive animals apparently do a lot of.
Investigating the social behaviour of devils, which are nocturnal, forest-dwelling and mate underground is tricky [ABC Science], notes lead researcher Rodrigo Hamede. To get around this difficulty, Hamede outfitted 46 wild devils in a disease-free area with radio collars that recorded every time one devil approached within 12 inches of another–close enough to bite. The scientists found that all 27 of the devils from which intact collars were recovered belong to a single large social group. Each animal is connected to all the others, either directly or through connections with other animals. The finding suggests that if any one of the animals becomes infected with the facial tumor disease, the cancer would spread to the entire network [Science News].
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One of the greatest musical geniuses the world has ever seen might have been struck down at the height of his powers by a bacterial infection that school nurses yawn at. A new analysis suggests that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have died of complications relating to strep throat.
Mozart died on December 5, 1791 in Vienna after abruptly taking ill about two weeks before. The cause of death for the 35-year-old man was recorded as “fever and rash,” which even in the 18th century were considered symptoms, not a disease. Many causes have been suggested over the centuries: syphilis, the effects of treatment with salts of mercury, rheumatic fever, vasculitis leading to renal failure, infection from a bloodletting procedure, trichinosis from eating undercooked pork chops [The New York Times]. As no autopsy was conducted at the time of death and the common grave that held Mozart’s remains was later dug up to make room for new graves, modern medical sleuths have little direct evidence to go on.
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