Comments on: Ferreting out swine flu – virus causes slightly more severe disease than seasonal flu

By: Ariel

Ariel — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:28:20 +0000

Hi Ed, Look at Vincent Racaniello Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology at Columbia University Medical Center critique at http://www.virology.ws/2009/07/15/is-the-2009-h1n1-influenza-virus-more-dangerous-than-we-think/.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:47:42 +0000

Paul – thanks for the correction, now reflected in the text

By: Drew Tyre

Drew Tyre — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:29:14 +0000

This would be a fascinating case to use Bayesian inference on – in both cases the response variable is binomial, and you have a prior expectation from other flu strains. Sample size is critical – the dutch study used only 4 pairs of ferrets, while the American study “used many more”. What is cool about a Bayesian inference approach is that you can combine all of this information into a single result.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:41:00 +0000

Nice summary Ed. I do have one small correction, it was the American group (Maines’s team) who showed that the pandemic virus sticks less efficiently to docking molecules on its target cells, a finding that was in agreement with their ferret experiment.
The paper by the Dutch team now has the DOI: 10.1126/science.1177127

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:35:25 +0000

Good job ferreting out these papers Ed – people could have weasely overlooked them, but you’ve stoatally brought them to our attention.
Ahem.