Doctors tracking the pandemic say they see a pattern in hospital reports from Glasgow to Melbourne and from Santiago to New York. People infected with the bug who have a body mass index greater than 40, deemed morbidly obese, suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal....Drugmaker Roche Holding AG is combing through studies to determine whether heavier people should get bigger doses of its Tamiflu antiviral.... In Canada's Manitoba province, three out of five people treated for the new flu strain in intensive care units are obese, said Ethan Rubenstein, head of infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.... Scotland, where deep-fried foods such as Mars bars and pizzas contribute to the highest obesity rate in Europe, reported the continent's first two deaths from H1N1 and has experienced a fifth of the region's fatalities..... No deaths or severely ill patients have been recorded from among the 2,146 laboratory-confirmed cases in Japan, said Yasuyuki Abe, a health ministry spokesman in Tokyo. Only 1.6 percent of adults in Japan are obese, according to the WHO.... Some patients are showing up at hospitals with viral pneumonia so severe they are suffocating. The first two people to die from the bug in Peru -- a 38- year-old woman and a 4-year-old girl from impoverished areas on the outskirts of Lima -- were both obese, El Peruano newspaper reported on July 6. ... Of the first 32 people who died from swine flu in New York City, three-quarters had one or more underlying medical conditions, most often diabetes and heart disease, said Isaac B. Weisfuse, deputy commissioner of disease control at the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Of seven with no known medical condition, at least four were reported to be obese, Weisfuse said.
In Canada's Manitoba province, three out of five people treated for the new flu strain in intensive care units are obese, said Ethan Rubenstein, head of infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg....
Scotland, where deep-fried foods such as Mars bars and pizzas contribute to the highest obesity rate in Europe, reported the continent's first two deaths from H1N1 and has experienced a fifth of the region's fatalities.....
No deaths or severely ill patients have been recorded from among the 2,146 laboratory-confirmed cases in Japan, said Yasuyuki Abe, a health ministry spokesman in Tokyo. Only 1.6 percent of adults in Japan are obese, according to the WHO....
Some patients are showing up at hospitals with viral pneumonia so severe they are suffocating. The first two people to die from the bug in Peru -- a 38- year-old woman and a 4-year-old girl from impoverished areas on the outskirts of Lima -- were both obese, El Peruano newspaper reported on July 6. ...
Of the first 32 people who died from swine flu in New York City, three-quarters had one or more underlying medical conditions, most often diabetes and heart disease, said Isaac B. Weisfuse, deputy commissioner of disease control at the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Of seven with no known medical condition, at least four were reported to be obese, Weisfuse said.
"It's the first time that the prominence of obesity has been noticed among severely ill flu sufferers, Fauci said in an interview yesterday. "It's very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks," he said.
fishing expedition Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
The morbidly obese are known to have impaired respiratory function.
Normally the seasonal flu kills the elderly, those with preexisting respiratory conditions, etc. And so, those are the people who get vaccinated in preference.
In this case, if it is true that serious flu cases seem to belong to the 20-45 age bracket you don't have to vaccinate the elderly as you do in seasonal flu: you'd have to vaccinate the 20-45 age group.
Similarly, if it turns out that the mortality rate (given infection) is higher in obese people, you would consider vaccinating the obese in preference to other groups.
And so on.
So, yes, you would have to consider a gamut of risk factors both influencing susceptibility to infection and the severity of the disease. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
The bug is reported [country distribution page links to WHO map] to have killed 429 people worldwide since its discovery in the U.S. and Mexico in April. The infection, which has now spread as far as New Zealand and Norway, causes little more than a fever and cough in most cases. The majority of those who died were pregnant, had asthma, diabetes or other chronic diseases, according to the WHO.
... and you get in effect (almighty cost-basis) a formula for indiscriminate vaccination in countries where >50% of the total population exhibit one or more of these "risk factors" in addition to age, BMI. The US ($1.85B) and UK, f'r instance where (purportedly it is NOT true "serious flu cases seem to belong to the 20-45 age bracket") chronic flatulence may constitute unacceptable infection risk at some indeterminate point in time.
5-day Vaccine Trial | Times | 12 July 2009
Regulators at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said the fast-tracked procedure has involved clinical trials of a "mock-up" vaccine similar [!!] to the one that will be used for the biggest mass vaccination programme in generations. It will be introduced into the general population while regulators continue to carry out simultaneous clinical trials. ... The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population. GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign.... He said although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups.... The Department of Health said it had still not finalised which groups would be vaccinated first, but children, frontline health workers, people with underlying illnesses and the elderly are likely to take priority.
The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population. GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign....
He said although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups....
The Department of Health said it had still not finalised which groups would be vaccinated first, but children, frontline health workers, people with underlying illnesses and the elderly are likely to take priority.
Lemme tell you something: We are not discussing reasonable public health policy. We are not evaluating evidence of 'pandemic' morbidity or even therapeutic relief. We're watching a movie in which my child is a captive, unnamed extra. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
(a) obesity is a requisite condition of influenza? (b) influenza is a requisite condition of obesity? (c) obesity is a requisite of influenza-related death? (d) none of the above
Otherwise, to what hypothesis and what dataset do you refer? Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
It was also determined that the strain contained genes from four different flu viruses: North American swine influenza, North American avian influenza, human influenza, and two swine influenza viruses typically found in Asia and Europe.... According to the researchers, movement of live pigs between Eurasia and North America* "seems to have facilitated the mixing of diverse swine influenza viruses, leading to the multiple reassortment events associated with the genesis of the (new H1N1) strain."... as of early June 2009, Schuchat reported "encouraging news" regarding any mutations to date, by announcing that samples of the virus from points around the globe are "genetically identical" to the strain found in the United States. "We have tested isolates from a wide geographic area, from the Americas, Europe, from Asia and New Zealand and we are not seeing variations in isolates from the genetic testing we do here."
According to the researchers, movement of live pigs between Eurasia and North America* "seems to have facilitated the mixing of diverse swine influenza viruses, leading to the multiple reassortment events associated with the genesis of the (new H1N1) strain."...
as of early June 2009, Schuchat reported "encouraging news" regarding any mutations to date, by announcing that samples of the virus from points around the globe are "genetically identical" to the strain found in the United States. "We have tested isolates from a wide geographic area, from the Americas, Europe, from Asia and New Zealand and we are not seeing variations in isolates from the genetic testing we do here."
----- *LIVESTOCK import/export
Choices,2005:"Since the implementation of CUSTA, Canadian exports of live hogs to the United States have grown from 1.1 million head in 1989 to 8.5 million head in 2004, accounting for all but a few hundred head of US hog imports (Figure 4). ...Most US hog exports to Mexico have been for slaughter, averaging 86% of the total since the implementation of NAFTA. In 1992, 1997, and 2002, slightly more than one half of US hog exports to Mexico were for breeding. US hog exports to Mexico during 2004 were 138,775 head and accounted for 80% of US exports. Other US hog exports, particularly those to China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea, are mainly breeding stock...."
AgMRC.org,2006:"Canada accounts for the majority of total U.S. pork imports. Live hog imports totaled 8.7 million head in 2006. USDA reports 66 percent of the live imports are typically feeder pigs. The remaining percent are slaughter-ready animals. The Foreign Ag Service claims the United States and Canadian pork markets are increasingly integrated in the movement of live pigs. Denmark comprises 10 percent of U.S. pork imports. ... Live hog exports from the United States have averaged less than 1 percent of total U.S. hog slaughter. In 2006, the United States exported 164,464 live hogs. More than 90 percent of the live exports go to Mexico with the balance being sold to Asian countries as breeding stock."
FinalCall,2007:"The UN Food and Agriculture Organization recently released a study called "The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources," which found that an over-reliance on some breeds of livestock imported from the United States and Europe--including Holstein-Friesian cows, egg-laying White Leghorn chickens, and fast-growing large white pigs--is causing the loss of at least one indigenous livestock breed per month."
etc etc
I'll leave the trail of live poultry to you Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
New flu has been around for years in pigs - study | Reuters
WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - The new H1N1 virus, which has caused the first pandemic of the 21st century, appears to have been circulating undetected among pigs for years, researchers reported on Thursday. Although health officials have been watching for new influenza viruses in humans, animal health regulators have missed the opportunity to check swine, the researchers reported. Britons Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh and Oliver Pybus of Oxford University, and Yi Guan of the University of Hong Kong examined the genetic sequence of the new H1N1 swine flu virus. Like others who have done the same, they show it is a mixture of other viruses that had been circulating in pigs, one of which was itself a mixture including swine, human and avian-like genetic sequences. "We show that it was derived from several viruses circulating in swine, and that the initial transmission to humans occurred several months before recognition of the outbreak," they wrote. "Movement of live pigs between Eurasia and North America seems to have facilitated the mixing of diverse swine influenza viruses, leading to the multiple reassortment events associated with the genesis of the (new H1N1) strain," they added. "Yet despite widespread influenza surveillance in humans, the lack of systematic swine surveillance allowed for the undetected persistence and evolution of this potentially pandemic strain for many years." They said this new pandemic "provides further evidence of the role of domestic pigs in the ecosystem of influenza A."
Movement of live pigs between Eurasia and North America
My notes should be leading readers to the conclusion that (a) North America (Canada, USA) does not import live pigs (or poultry) from Eurasia; (b) North America exports livestock (cattle, swine, poultry) to all points south (e.g. Mexico) and east (e.g. China); and (c) breed of NA export livestock is limited by design to support mass marketing conditions and yield.
Asian producers are net importers of intermediate and finished meat products from NA.
This information is not controversial, but the 'epidemiologists' consulted imply bilateral trade parity contributes to H1N1 genetic anomaly, although distribution of reported H1N1 infection does not support that conclusion.
In other words, they are reluctant to attribute ideal H1N1 culture to NA livestock. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Therefore I'm a bit shocked to find th term in a Reuters headline. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
Or the venerable wiki footnotes: the assumption that H1N1 genome derives from livestock (not intermediate or finished goods) trade between Eurasia and North America is not supported by data in the PR. Why?
I search the interboobz for the phrases "US live hog imports","US livestock imports","US live hog imports from asia" and so forth. Aside from the trades (selected, above), yahoo! returned a butt-load of NM customs and USDA pages.I t's the end of the day though, so I don't download the pdf or zip data tables to mine two lines (hogs, poultry) out of cattle exports seven ways to Sunday in each of the past 20 years.
I've assembled sufficient information to posit a pathogenic origin of H1N1: US feed, breed "crops" and technical stock exports.
As opposed to morbid obesity.
I'm going to read that UN report in its entirety. How 'bout you? Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Did I posit morbid obesity as an origin for H1N1?
All I said is that I don't find it surprising that the morbidly obese might be more susceptible to the opportunistic infections that actually kill flu patients since their lungs are already under strain from all that extra fat. Therefore I asked whether obesity is a factor in seasonal flu mortality. If it isn't, then the link to obesity is specific to the new flu and therefore interesting.
The fact that current farm practices are conducive to breeding new disease strains should not be controversial. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
All I said is that I don't find it surprising ... If it isn't, then the link to obesity is specific to the new flu and therefore interesting.
So I gathered and retrieved a quote from the bloomberg article to illustrate a dimension of the experts' indifference to H1N1 pathogenesis. Obesity should be uninteresting to epidemiologists who purport to investigate the origin and propagation of communicable disease precisely because it is a pre-existing condition, characteristic, of morbidity per se.
Try to magine my dismay then as I read this ridiculous article.
The fact that current farm practices are conducive to breeding new disease strains should not be controversial.
Quite. But institutional medical PR avoids industrial analyses and prophylatic recommendations, preferring to promote palliatives case by case.
That is, in my book, a failure of public offices, made all the more disturbing and dismal by persisting communications to characterize H1N1 symptoms as a threat to humanity so far greater than obesity, diabetes, hypertension, HPV, CHF, COPD, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction, war, and of course life-style
as to warrant mandatory vaccination. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Drugmaker Roche Holding AG is combing through studies to determine whether heavier people should get bigger doses of its Tamiflu antiviral
hello? Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
