Been a busy week since I study influenza as part of my job...

[MattH]

I'm in pharmaceutical research, and even before the current outbreak part of my work was analyzing data from influenza viruses.  As you might imagine, I have been very busy lately.  I cannot go into any detail about what I have been doing, but here are a few links to places on the web with interesting and high-quality information.  Do realize this is a new strain and flu epidemics in the past have been very unpredictable so it really is not possible to predict where this one will go.  The 1918 flu at first looked very mild, and only turned into a killer much later.  The 1970s swine flu at first looked like a major threat so the US vaccinated millions of people, but this virus fizzled out.  At the moment this latest virus does not look like a 1918 killer strain, but whether it ends up resembling ordinary seasonal flu or the 1968 Hong Kong flu or something else cannot be predicted yet.

Note that some of these may be fairly technical, but if you spend some time reading each of these with close attention you should have a better understanding of the science than do most news media science reporters.

http://www.virology.ws/

http://scienceblogs.com/digitalbio/2009/04/did_the_california_h1n1_swine.php

http://www.iayork.com/MysteryRays/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/swinefluupdate/

http://koppology.blogspot.com/2009/04/swine-flu-phylogeny-part-ii.html

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/04/exclusive-cdc-h.html

And for some humor

http://www.xkcd.com/574/

Message Edited by MattH on 05-02-2009 06:05 PM

[haulingthescoreup]

MattH, isn't it true that one of the reasons that it takes so long to react to a new strain is because the vaccine is grown in an egg medium, which takes a long, long time? I thought I remembered that there is an alternative medium, but I can't remember why it's not used --cost, maybe? I think I remember this from two years ago when all those doses of vaccine had to be destroyed.

[MattH]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:
MattH, isn't it true that one of the reasons that it takes so long to react to a new strain is because the vaccine is grown in an egg medium, which takes a long, long time? I thought I remembered that there is an alternative medium, but I can't remember why it's not used --cost, maybe? I think I remember this from two years ago when all those doses of vaccine had to be destroyed.

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Yes, they have to grow it in eggs, and some virus strains are easier to grow in eggs than others.  When a virus strain doesn't grow well in eggs they have to mutate the virus to make a strain that grows better in eggs while having the same antigen domains.  There are some ideas that have been floating around for years on possible ways to make a vaccine faster, but nobody has developed any of them to the point of being practical.

I think the main problem is, the vaccine business is not a very profitable business to be in and therefore not much biotech investment has gone into better ways of making vaccines.  Some of the reasons are:

• Vaccines are bought in large quantities by governments, so there is intense pressure to keep the cost per dose low
• Vaccines take a long time to develop, test, and manufacture
• Because flu viruses change rapidly, we need a new flu vaccine every year and therefore any doses not needed this year has to be thrown away
• Demand for flu shots fluctuates wildly from one year to the next depending how bad the early part of the flu season is

So if you look at it from the perspective of a biotech investor, vaccines are a lousy proposition.  You have to invest a lot up front to make enough vaccine in case it's a bad flu season, then sell the stuff to cost-conscious health departments, and half the time you end up tossing out much of your production unsold.

Public health experts have been bemoaning this situation for years, but without any commercial incentive to develop better ways of making flu vaccines we'd need to invest a lot of tax dollars to get any new vaccine technology into production.  Spending lots of money for something that might some day be needed but probably won't be needed before the next election cycle is not exactly an easy sell, until after reality slaps everybody in the face.  And even then, how well has the US done after Katrina (which was about as predictable a disaster as any in history) at preparing for the next bad hurricane to hit New Orleans?

Message Edited by MattH on 05-02-2009 08:02 PM

[MattH]

I've started seeing flu-related spam, so I assume everybody else has also.  I would recommend before ordering anything from anybody, especially some spammer, people do a little homework and check out reputable sources such as www.cdc.gov first!

[BungalowMo]

Hi Matt...While I'm certainly not on the scientific end of this epidemic/pandemic/or-other-demic, I do work at TSA & I know we've had teams onsite 24/7 for a week or so looking into outbreaks & how they have been affected by certain border closings & crossings & such.

Freaks me out cuz I just came down with a bad head cold...but my belly is fine! 

And finally...some flu humor!  

What's the difference between the bird flu & the swine flu???   About 300 lbs!!!