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June 2006
A $900 million mutation?
The Associated Press reports that the Indonesian bird flu cluster did have a mutation, but it “did not increase the possibility of a human pandemic.”
The exact nature of the mutation is not described.
The virus apparently mutated in a 10-year-old boy, who then passed it to his father, according to a copy of the WHO report that was leaked to the Associated Press. The mutation appears to have reached a dead-end in the family, the AP says.
The WHO still has not made the report on the mutation available to the public or the scientific community. But according to AP, the Indonesian government is saying that it needs $900 million over three years to fight the virus’ spread.
To read the entire Associated Press account, continue reading:
By MARGIE MASON| |AP Medical Writer| JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A World Health Organization investigation showed that the H5N1 virus mutated slightly in an Indonesian family cluster on Sumatra island, but bird flu experts insisted Friday it did not increase the possibility of a human pandemic.
The virus that infected eight members of a family last month — killing seven of them — appears to have slightly mutated in a 10-year-old boy, who is then suspected of passing the virus to his father, the WHO investigative report said.
It is the first evidence indicating that a person caught the virus from a human and then passed it on to another person, said Tim Uyeki, an epidemiologist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the H5N1 virus died with the father and did not pass outside the family.
‘‘It stopped. It was dead end at that point,’’ he said, stressing that viruses are always slightly changing and there was no reason to raise alarm.
Dr. William Schaffner, a bird flu expert at the Vanderbilt University, called the mutation ‘‘noteworthy but not worrisome.’’ Generally it takes a series of mutations in a bird flu virus to raise the danger of a pandemic in humans, he said in a telephone interview.
Schaffner said it is remarkable that scientists were able to discover a mutation that occurred in a remote village in Indonesia. That’s the result of intense surveillance linked with ‘‘21st-century laboratory virology,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s awesome.’’
The findings appeared in a report obtained by The Associated Press that was distributed at a closed meeting in Jakarta attended by some of the world’s top bird flu experts.
The three-day session that wrapped up Friday was convened after Indonesia asked for international help. The country has experienced an explosion of human bird flu cases this year and is on pace to become the world’s hardest-hit nation with 39 deaths.
The government said it needed $900 million over the next three years to fight the virus, which is ravaging poultry stocks across the archipelago. Health experts urged full implementation and funding of its national bird flu plan. ‘‘Human cases and clusters are expected to continue to occur in Indonesia as long as avian influenza in poultry persists,’’ said Bayu Krisnamurthi, Indonesia’s national bird flu coordinator. But Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie said the virus has shown no sign of changing in any way that would allow it to spread easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.
So far, the H5N1 virus remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds. WHO concluded in its report that human-to-human transmission likely occurred among seven relatives infected with the H5N1 virus. An eighth family member who was buried before specimens could be taken is believed to have been infected by poultry, the report said.
Despite the virus’ slight mutation, Uyeki insisted that an analysis suggested there was ‘‘nothing remarkable about these viruses.’’ Bird flu has killed at least 130 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003. Indonesia trails on Vietnam, where 42 people have died, in human bird flu deaths. ——— Associated Press reporter Zakki Hakim in Jakarta, Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.
Bird Flu Secrecy May Lift
Has the H5N1 bird flu developed a mutation that makes it more easily transmitted between humans? Stay tuned — we may finally have an answer later this week.
A few weeks ago, the British scientific journal Nature suggested that the Indonesian government was making it difficult for the global community to learn what has killed most members of a single family in the Kubu Simbelang village of North Sumatra.
In almost every case, bird flu has been caught directly from birds. But it appeared that in the case of this one family, the members might have caught it from each other.
An unidentified source told Nature that a mutation to H5N1 has appeared which could make the virus better able to survive in the cooler nasal passages, possibly enabling its spread from person to person. If that’s the variant that had sickened the Indonesian family, it would be a key indicator that H5N1 was making the shift from outbreak to pandemic in humans.
Neither Indonesia nor the World Health Organization would confirm whether that mutation was involved in the family cluster.
In the mean time, WHO scientists have quarantined those in contact with the unfortunate family, and put them on the antiviral drug Tamiflu. They found evidence that sickened birds had been slaughtered by a woman in one of the households. No one else in contact with that group has fallen ill since the last person died on May 22. None of the hospital care givers in contact with them became ill with the strain. All signs that the family members might have been uniquely susceptible to the disease — genetically unlucky.
Meanwhile, though, the bird flu body count in Indonesia rises. A 13-year-old boy from South Jakarta became ill June 9 after helping slaughter chickens. Five days later he died. It brings the number of dead in Indonesia to 39 out of 51 confirmed cases. Globally, there have been 228 confirmed cases and 130 deaths.
In its latest update, issued on Tuesday, June 20, The World Health Organization said the Indonesian government was now working more closely with the international community, and had asked for a meeting with global bird flu experts. That meeting will begin Wednesday, June 21, and continue through June 23. At the end of that consultation, key information about the family cluster will be shared with the rest of us.
The health organization said its scientists have isolated viruses from seven members of the family. They have sequenced the genetic material from those viruses, and will present the information to the Indonesian officials. Then, and only then, it will release the information to the rest of us.
Surely there must be valid geopolitical reasons for keeping this information close to the vest. What do you think of the WHO’s kid-glove treatment of the situation? Smart tactics, or dangerous delays?
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The Disaster You Didn’t Expect
You wake up one day, and notice the compass on your Swiss Army watch points south.
Tap tap. Must be broken, right?
Thwak! A disoriented pigeon slams into your picture window. Strange. You turn on the Today Show, and they’re speaking about the orbiting space shuttle. Its navigation system has just gone out, NASA is scrambling, and…the power goes out.
Ah well, might as well go out for your morning run. But when you approach the beach, you see crowds gathering. Along the sand, exhausted sea turtles are washing ashore, and people are trying to rescue them. You run your hand over your face. You’ve only been outside a few minutes, and yet your face feels burned, as if you’d been outside for hours. Such a strange day.
There’s a cry for help. One of the turtle rescuers has collapsed. “His pacemaker has stopped,” the man’s wife screams, as she lifts her head from his chest.
You reach for your cell phone, to call for an ambulance. But the phone won’t work. The phone company’s satellites are down.
It turns out, your south-pointing compass was right. The Earth’s magnetic polarity has flipped.
Cool scenario for a disaster movie, huh? (It’s been done, sort-of, in “The Core.”)
But the Earth’s magnetic poles couldn’t really flip. Could they?
Credits: M. A. Shea, Geophysics Directorate, Philips Laboratory
Scientists say the Earth’s magnetic polarity has shifted many times in geological history, and we are, in fact, overdue for another flip. Some think that evidence of magnetic holes in the South Atlantic indicates that it has already started.
Given the importance of magnetism to navigation, animal migrations and atmospheric conditions, the European Space Agency has plans to launch a cluster of satellites four years from now, called SWARM, which will begin monitoring changes in Earth’s magnetic field.
Swarm satellite illustration credit: European Space Agency
What is magnetism?
Magnetism is a force that’s created by the movement of charged electrons. It can be an attractive force or a repellent force. The Earth’s magnetism is created by the turbulent movement of molten iron within its outer core.
Writing in Science on June 16, 2000, Chicago geophysicist Bruce Bennett describes how it works:
“Earth evolved into a layered body early in its history. Molten metal (mainly iron) descended to form the present-day core, while silicates and oxides were confined to a thick shell called the mantle. The innermost part of the core is now solid, whereas the outer portion is liquid.”
Benett says the inner core is hot — about 5,000 degrees Celsius — but cooling. The outer core, under enormous pressure from the weight atop it, is likewise incredibly hot, churning like liquid water. The constant movement of this iron, propelled by convection, is what creates the magnetic field. Scientists call it a geodynamo.
Earth cutaway credit: Created by Jeremy Kemp. Based on elements of an illustration by USGS.
Add to this picture plate tectonics and planetary spin, and you have a system complex enough to inspire development of models and predictive maps, like some sort of geological weather forecasts.
If you think about macaroni in a rapidly boiling pot of water, you can imagine how this outer core churns. But given its size and its rate of movement, the good news is, most scientists think an outright flip could take thousands of years to mature, meaning the earth’s creatures would have time to adapt to a reversal of magnetic polarity.
There’s interesting evidence to support the theory that the magnetic field is changing. Writing in Scientific American in April 2005, Gary Glatzman and Peter Olson pointed to mineral evidence which suggest a polarity switch has not happened in 780,000 years. Yet that same evidence suggests that the average span between shifts has been about 250,000 years.
Add to that evidence from satellite observations.
“When measured at the surface, the dominant structure of this field is called the dipole, which most of the time is roughly aligned with the earth’s axis of rotation. Like a simple bar magnet, this field’s primary magnetic flux is directed out from the core in the Southern Hemisphere and down toward the core in the Northern Hemisphere. (Compass needles point to the earth’s north geographic pole because the dipole’s south magnetic pole lies near it.)
But the satellite missions revealed that the flux is not distributed evenly across the globe. Instead most of the dipole field’s overall intensity originates beneath North America, Siberia and the coast of Antarctica.”
“Evidence from the geologic record shows that past reversals occurred over relatively short periods, approximately 4,000 to 10,000 years. It would take the dipole nearly 100,000 years to disappear on its own if the geodynamo were to shut down. Such a quick transition implies that some kind of instability destroys the original polarity while generating the new polarity.
In the case of individual reversals, this mysterious instability is probably some kind of chaotic change in the structure of the flow that only occasionally succeeds in reversing the global dipole.”
The addition of the SWARM satellite data should provide better information. The satelites will be launched in 2010.
If the magnetic poles really did switch, compasses would indeed point south. Migratory animals like birds, bees, sea turtles, whales and some fish would be forced to adapt. The magnetic shield that prevents some radiation from reaching the Earth would be weakened in places, affecting satellites, power grids and communications. Cancer rates would rise. Crop yields would fall.
But if indeed it happens, it won’t happen overnight. Would it still qualify as a disaster?
Fast Food Fight
If you can’t eat them…sue them?
The war against trans fats is moving to the courts after the Center for Science in the Public Interest filed suit today (6/13) against KFC for using partially hydrogenated oils in its pot pies, fried chicken, biscuits and other menu items.
The center claims that partially hydrogenated oils, laden with trans fats, are responsible for the deaths of 50,000 Americans a year.
According to CSPI:
“Just one Extra Crispy breast has 4.5 grams of trans fat. A large order of Popcorn Chicken has 7 grams of trans fat, and KFC’s Pot Pie contains 14 grams of trans. A typical 3-piece Extra Crispy combo meal, with a drumstick, two thighs, potato wedges, and a biscuit has a staggering 15 grams of trans fat—more trans fat than an individual should consume in a week.”
Items in your grocery store now have nutrition labels that show trans fat content. That policy change prompted many food makers to change their ingredients for the better. But restaurants continue to stick to the artery-clogging trans fats.
KFC is owned by YUM, which also owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. They haven’t commented on their web site.
But my laugh of the day came in the form of a blistering press release from a group concocted by the PR industry which calls itself the Center for Consumer Freedom.
Here’s what they have to say about the KFC lawsuit:
“Throughout the 1980’s CSPI demanded that restaurants end their use of beef fat and palm oil to fry foods.
Instead, CSPI endorsed the idea that restaurants switch to partially hydrogenated oils, which naturally contain higher trans fat levels. CSPI defended trans fats in its newsletter saying, “all told, the charges against trans fat just don’t stand up.�
Now, incredibly, CSPI has completely reversed course.
Center for Consumer Freedom research analyst J. Justin Wilson said: “It’s galling that the group largely responsible for harassing restaurants into switching to trans fats, would now sue those companies for bowing to its demands, especially when the science is still largely out on the subject. It’s just further evidence that CSPI has gone completely lawsuit happy.�
…Wilson continued, “This is a press conference lawsuit. CSPI and its trial lawyer partners want a big splash in the media for a case that likely won’t ever see the inside of a courtroom. Any judge unfortunate enough to be burdened with this court-clogging sham should have the good sense to throw CSPI out of court.â€? “
So where CAN we eat fast food without trans fats?
Ruby Tuesday’s
And what about McDonald’s? This from CSPI: “McDonald’s famously promised to reduce trans fat in cooking oil in 2002, though it quietly reneged on that promise in 2003. In 2004, California trial attorney Stephen Joseph filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s over its broken promise, which the company settled in 2005 by agreeing to pay $7 million to the American Heart Association. McDonald’s still has not changed its oil.”
So what do you think? Should KFC change its oil choice, or should the folks at CSPI stop picking on them?
Banish the Belly Fat
Time to clean out the fridge.
Those kill-joy researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have found out that the rounded “apple” shaped bodies we see everywhere (maybe in the mirror?) are probably linked to the fried foods we eat, not just how many calories we count.
Their experiment went like this: Two groups of monkeys were fed diets with an equal numbers of calories.
One group of monkeys got many of their calories from trans fats. Those are the fats found in most restaurants’ deep friers.
The other group was fed monounsaturated fat — more typically found in olive oil.
The results? Picture chunky monkeys…
Over six years, male monkeys fed a western-style diet that contains trans fat had a 7.2 percent increase in body weight, compared to a 1.8 percent increase in monkeys that ate monounsaturated fats, such as olive oil.
“We believed they couldn’t get obese because we did not give them enough calories to get fat,” said Lawrence L. Rudel, head of Wake Forest’s Lipid Sciences Research Program. “What it says is that trans fat is worse than anticipated.”
That extra weight went straight to the monkeys’ bellies. Keep in mind, belly fat is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. The study results were presented Monday at 66th annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in Washington, D.C.
Soooooooo yesterday:
McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets
French fries
Krispy Kreme donuts
Extra crispy KFC
Pilsbury crescent rolls dripping in margarine
Left over Betty Crocker chocolate frosting, eaten with a spoon, cold from the fridge
Hostess Twinkies, Ding-Dongs or Ho-Hos, with their cream filling sucked out
Packages of pre-made cookie dough
Ready-bake taco salad shells
Publix birthday cakes
All-you-can-eat fish and chips….
Having Trouble Falling Asleep?
At least you’re not alone.
The Vioxx scare caused people to think twice before taking pain relievers last year, data shows. But we didn’t let us keep us awake at night — we gulped down sleeping pills like never before.
A report by drug benefit manager Medco found that spending in the sleep/seditive category grew by 31.5 percent in 2005, driven mostly by sales of Ambien and the new sleep drug, Lunesta,.
Much of the growth was among young adults ages 20 to 44. Their use of sleeping pills popped 128 percent between 2000 and 2005, Medco’s 2006 Drug Trend Report said.
Use of pain relievers tanked. Spending on the COX-2 class took a dive of 65 percent, due mostly to the removal of Vioxx and Bextra from the market. Celebrex use also dropped.
Marketing may have had something to do with it. The makers of Ambien reportedly spent $130 million on ads in 2005.
But will sleeping pills’ rise continue? Or will unintended side effects continue making headlines?
In March, The New York Times exposed bizarre and sometimes dangerous side effects that it linked Ambien, such as binge eating, sleepwalking, and most frightening, driving while sleeping.
Have you tried Ambien? Did it work? Did you get the munchies? What about Lunesta? Are the prescription pills better than over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol PM?
The Times’ Stephanie Saul described some astonishing anecdotes about Ambien binge eating in her reports.
“Judie Evans, said she began taking Ambien while recovering from back surgery. At the time, she was in a full body cast and needed assistance to get out of bed. …It was not until her son came to spend several nights that Ms. Evans said she realized that despite the body cast, she was getting up to eat while she was asleep. …The first night her son was there, he found her standing in the kitchen, body cast and all, frying bacon and eggs. … Later that night her son arose to find her standing in the kitchen again. ‘I had turned the oven on,’ she recalled. ‘I store pots and pans in the oven and I had turned it to 500 degrees.’
Lunesta sells itself as a safe alternative for long-term use. But its patient insert includes warnings similar to Ambien’s, minus the eating disorder wording:
Lunesta should only be taken immediately before bedtime. Be sure you have at least eight hours to devote to sleep before becoming active. You should not engage in any activity after taking Lunesta that requires complete alertness, such as driving a car or operating machinery. You should use extreme care when engaging in these activities the morning after taking Lunesta. Do not use alcohol while taking any sleep medicine. Most sleep medicines carry some risk of dependency. Do not use sleep medicines for extended periods without first talking to your doctor. Side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, drowsiness and dizziness.
If you’ve tried both Ambien and Lunesta, tell us the difference.
Dangerous mutation to Bird Flu developing?
The British scientific journal Nature reports that a variant of the H5N1 bird flu has developed a mutation that may allow the virus to survive at lower temperatures, such as those in the human body’s nasal region.
Why does that matter? Because it may mean H5N1 is becoming somewhat easier for humans to catch.
Most of the bird flu that’s been studied so far multiplies in the deepest part of the lungs. That’s probably the main reason that since 1997, it has only infected 227 people worldwide (that we know of) and caused just 127 deaths.
But the recent outbreak in Indonesia requires a closer look.
On the northern part of the island of Sumatra, World Health Organization officials have put 54 people under home quarantine, and are giving them the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
A medical worker checks the health condition of Johannes Ginting, 25, a surviving member of an Indonesian family infected with bird flu, on Monday, May 29, 2006. The case has drawn much attention because the infections have not been linked to contact with birds. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
That’s because the people are relatives of eight family members in a village called Kubu Simbelang who have died from H5N1. (One case was never confirmed.) Most of those family members lived in houses next door to each other.
According to Nature’s Declan Butler: “What caused the suspected human-to-human transmission at Kubu Sembelang is still a mystery. Nature has learned that the cases differed from past Indonesia cases, in that they had much higher viral loads in the throat and nose.”
Let’s look for a moment at the makeup of the flu virus: It looks like a burr, a hollow ball of spikes, with eight genes in the middle. Once injected into a host cell, those genes take over so that eight proteins are made, and assembled into more viruses. Each of those viral proteins is made of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of amino acids.
According to Butler, an H5N1 sub-type found in Turkey has a substitution of a single amino acid in the flu’s polymerase protein.
“This mutation is thought to allow the virus to survive in the cooler nasal regions,” Butler writes.
In August 2005, he adds, that mutation also appeared in a sub-type that was found in Indonesia.
So that begs the question: Is that mutation the reason that the bird flu appears to have hopped from person to person in that family?
It would be helpful to know, but the World Health Organization isn’t saying.
“We will leave that to the government of Indonesia, the owner of the data,” Steven Bjorge, a WHO official based in Indonesia, told Nature.
What WHO is saying is the following:
“As of (May 31) no new cases suggestive of H5N1 infection have been detected since 22 May. This finding is important as it indicates that the virus has not spread beyond the members of this single extended family. No hospital staff involved in the care of patients, in some instances without adequate personal protective equipment, have developed the disease. The last person in the cluster, who developed symptoms on 15 May and died on 22 May, refused hospitalization. He moved between two villages while ill, accompanied by his wife. The wife is under surveillance and has not developed symptoms.
Despite multiple opportunities for the virus to spread to other family members, health care workers or into the general community, it has not, on present evidence, done so.”
If you want to stay aware of the bird flu situation, keep visiting www.who.int/ but also consider subscribing to Nature. It’s quickly becoming indispensable reading.
So what do you think? Will you trust the Indonesian government to tell us if they have a sub-type of bird flu that could be developing pandemic potential?
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