Terry Jones at Fluidinfo has some ringside commentary on the current flu coming in from Mexico. Not on the inside, but not in the cheap seats, either; just what appears to be well-informed, well-connected, knowledgeable gossip.
One of the most interesting things about this article is the commentary on the major players, most of whom you will never hear of.
I’m going to quote some of the most arresting stuff here, but if you are at all interested in what you read here, you must — must — read the whole thing for balance and the appropriate caveats.
Rumors and misinformation are probably at least as dangerous as the virus itself. It’s unfortunate that the politics will keep the informed mouths closed while ignorant politicians will speak freely, either to placate or to grab power through fear.
I also feel it’s good for someone like me to comment because I’m outside the flu world and the people inside it will be unlikely to say much. Flu is a highly political issue, to put it mildly. People working in the flu research community will be reluctant to speak up. So I should make it very clear that the comments below are just my opinions, and don’t represent anyone else’s thoughts.
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History dictates that you should probably not believe anything any politician says about pandemic influenza. There has been a strong tendency to downplay risks. All sorts of factors are at work in communicating with the public. You can be sure that everything officially said by the WHO or CDC has been very carefully vetted and considered. There’s no particular reason to believe anything else you hear, either[My emphasis-- djm ]
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The influenza people at the CDC and the other international labs are an amazing team of experts. They’ve been at this game for a very long time and they work extremely hard and generally get a bad rap. It’s no wonder flu is such a political issue, the responsibility is high and the tendency towards opaqueness is understandable.
About the virus itself:
Apart from the details of the actual virus, the social side of a potential pandemic is extraordinarily interesting. Very few people will have really concrete information, and those that do will still only be making their best guesses.
In a pandemic, or something that looks like it might be one, wild rumors sweep through the population. That will happen on an unprecedented scale this time round.
The virus has, as far as we know, not spent much time in humans yet. Once it does, it will begin to adapt itself in unpredictable ways. It may become more virulent, or less virulent. It may develop resistance to the antivirals that are currently effective. Antiviral resistance has been a topic of great concern for at least a couple of years. The current virus is already known to be resistant to both amantadine and rimantadine, though oseltamivir is still effective.
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The new virus has been popping up in various places in the US in the last days. I expect it will go global in the next couple of days, maximum. What’s to stop it? The virus has been isolated in several diverse areas and in many cases is genetically identical. The 1918 virus also popped up, in many cases inexplicably, across the US. The book America’s Forgotten Pandemic is worth a read.There were 3 waves of the 1918/19 pandemic. The first was in summer of 1918 – very unusual, as influenza normally falls to extremely low rates during summer. Note that the current outbreak is also highly unseasonal.
The 1918 pandemic killed with a very unusual age pattern. Instead of peaks in just the very young and the very old, there was a W shape, with a huge number of young and healthy people who would not normally die from influenza. There are various conjectures as to the cause of this. The current virus is also killing young and healthy adults.
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I don’t think anyone knows how the balance between vastly increased medical knowledge and vastly increased national and international travel will play out. If this virus is not popping up all over the world within a week’s time, I’ll be surprised. Airports are already screening people arriving from Mexico, but I imagine it’s too late and it’s certainly not being done globally.
Tags: epidemic, flu, fluidinfo, influenza, Mexican flu, pandemic