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SUNDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- People who lived through the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million worldwide are still producing antibodies to the virus 90 years later, researchers report. "Most people have a notion that elderly people have very weak immunity or they have lost immunity," said lead researcher Dr. James E. Crowe Jr., a professor of pediatrics, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University. "This study shows that extremely elderly people have retained memory of being infected with the 1918 flu, even 90 years later," Crowe said. This is the first evidence that shows that people developed significant...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antibodies from survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic, the worst in human memory, still protect against the highly deadly virus, researchers reported on Sunday. The findings by a team of influenza and immune system experts suggest new and better ways to fight viruses -- especially new pandemic strains that emerge and spread before a vaccine can be formulated. These survivors, now aged 91 to 101, all lived through the pandemic as children. Their immune systems still carry a memory of that virus and can produce proteins called antibodies that kill the 1918 flu strain with surprising efficiency,...

Plan for long life, without pandemic NANCY STANCILL Should doctors let people older than 85 die in a flu pandemic? A Monday news story saying a U.S. task force recommends denying lifesaving care in a pandemic or other disaster to some folks -- including healthy people above 85 -- was unsettling. They're talking about my mother, soon to be 86. My friend Karen's father, who is 92. Another friend's grandmother, 102. These people live life joyfully, with their minds and hearts intact. My mother relishes foreign travel. Karen's father loves bird watching. The 102-year-old grandmother plays a mean hand of...

The Aids scare was one of the most distorted, duplicitous and cynical public health panics of the last 30 yearsFinally we have a high-level admission that there is no threat of a global Aids pandemic among heterosexuals. After 25 years of official scaremongering about western societies being ravaged by the disease – with salacious, tombstone-illustrated government propaganda warning people to wear a condom or "die of ignorance" – the head of the World Health Organisation's HIV/Aids department says there is no need for heterosexuals to fret. Kevin de Cock, who has headed the global battle against Aids, said at the...

What horses can tell us now about the coming human flu pandemicApril 23, 2008A computer-generated three-dimensional model of the molecular structure of the H7 influenza virus coat protein (hemagglutinin or HA, for short), the molecule responsible for enabling the influenza virus to recognize the host's cell and invade it. Stored safely in a freezer at Cornell's James A. Baker Institute for Animal Health are samples of the virus thought to be most like the one public health experts expect someday to afflict record numbers of the world's population. The virus was collected in 1973 during an outbreak of equine influenza...

A Hong Kong primary school was closed Tuesday after a seven-year-old pupil died in hospital and 38 other students fell sick with flu. Law Ho-ming was admitted to hospital with fever and flu symptoms and discharged, only to return two days later on Saturday. He fell into a coma and died Tuesday morning. Thirty-eight fellow pupils at the Ho Yat Tung Primary School have fallen ill with flu and the school was Tuesday afternoon told by the government to close a week early for its Easter holiday because of the outbreak. Law was readmitted to hospital on Saturday just 48...

Spread Of 1918 Flu Pandemic ExplainedThis transmission electron micrograph of an ultra-thin specimen revealed some of the ultra-structural morphologic features seen in 1918 influenza virus virions. The prominent surface projections on the virions are composed of either the hemagglutinin, or neuraminidase type of glycoproteins. (Credit: Cynthia Goldsmith) ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2008) — MIT researchers have explained why two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu virus were critical for viral transmission in humans during the 1918 pandemic outbreak that killed at least 50 million people. The team showed that the 1918 influenza strain developed two mutations in a surface molecule called...

Officials in the Indian state of West Bengal say that the bird flu epidemic has spread to two more of the state's 19 districts, taking the total to nine. They say that the spread of the H5N1 virus means that even more chicken and duck will have to be killed than was originally estimated. On Monday officials said that around 2m birds would need to be culled - a figure that will now rise. Health experts have warned that the outbreak could get out of control.

U.S. policy in preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic is veering dangerously toward a heavy-handed law-enforcement approach, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday. The group, which advocates for individuals' legal rights based on the U.S. Constitution, said federal government pandemic plans were confusing and could emphasize a police and military approach to outbreaks of disease, instead of a more sensible public health approach. "Rather than focusing on well-established measures for protecting the lives and health of Americans, policymakers have recently embraced an approach that views public health policy through the prism of national security and law enforcement,"...

Key To Avian Flu In Humans Discovered ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2008) — MIT researchers have uncovered a critical difference between flu viruses that infect birds and humans, a discovery that could help scientists monitor the evolution of avian flu strains and aid in the development of vaccines against a deadly flu pandemic.This transmission electron micrograph (TEM), taken at a magnification of 150,000x, revealed the ultrastructural details of an avian influenza A (H5N1) virion, a type of bird flu virus which is a subtype of avian influenza A. At this magnification, one may note the stippled appearance of the roughened surface...

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – When Rick Warren takes on a problem, the scale often seems limited only by the size of the planet. Five years ago, his wife, Kay, responded to a sobering magazine article about the plight of 12 million AIDS orphans in Africa, and now their 22,000-strong Saddleback Church in upscale Orange County, California, has completed its third annual "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church," drawing figures such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, United Nations officials and President Bush's global AIDS coordinator to unite against the pandemic. Warren says the problem of AIDS, with an estimated 33 million...

When the SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic broke out in 2002, Israeli scientist Dorit Arad was alarmed. She was living in the US at the time, and had to fly frequently for her work, exposing herself to risk. During the outbreak, which lasted from November 2002 to July 2003, 774 people died of the highly contagious respiratory disease - a mortality rate of 9.6 percent. "I was panicked," admits Arad. "I even started wearing a mask." It gave her an idea, however. One of the problems with this pneumonia-like disease, was diagnosis, which was expensive, slow, and had a...

It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos - President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon - finalized and released the "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza." The "Plan" - that's what they call it, with a capital P - is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats. This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005,...

Black Death casts a genetic shadow over England 12:26 01 August 2007 NewScientist.com news service Colin BarrasBlack Death as illustrated in a 15th century bible The Black Death continues to cast a shadow across England. Although the modern English population is more cosmopolitan than ever, the plagues known as the Black Death killed so many people in the Middle Ages that, to this day, genetic diversity is lower in England than it was in the 11th century, according to a new analysis. Rus Hoelzel at the University of Durham, UK and his colleagues looked at the mitochondrial DNA from human...

Schneier on pandemic planning: Why bother? By Robert L. Mitchell on Tue, 07/17/2007 - 12:02pmSecurity expert Bruce Schneier has special advice for businesses thinking about pandemic planning: Don’t bother. In a Computerworld story this week, Schneier, chief technology officer at BT Counterpane in Mountain View, Calif. stated that if a pandemic hits the scope of the disaster would be so large that contingency planning by businesses would be useless. The comments were made in the context of a Computerworld story that focused on the results of a study from Ipsos showing that while the risk of pandemic remains, public concern...

Flu could hitch a ride on banknotes 16:02 22 June 2007 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie, Toronto The flu virus persists so well on banknotes that money could help spread the next pandemic, researchers say. Yves Thomas and colleagues at the University Hospitals of Geneva in Switzerland dripped various strains of flu virus – including some that were circulating during winter 2007 – onto Swiss banknotes and left them at room temperature for varying amounts of time before testing for live virus. "We wanted to assess the survival of human flu on banknotes, knowing that billions of them are exchanged...

Public Health investigation seeks people who may have been exposed to extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) infected person. WHO: Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director, CDC Dr. Martin Cetron, Director, CDC Division of Global Migration and Quarantine Dr. Kenneth Castro, Director, CDC Division of Tuberculosis Elimination WHAT: Release of information about the action and steps that CDC is taking in response to a case of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) in a U.S. citizen who undertook international travel. XDR TB is a recently defined subtype of multi-drug resistant TB and can cause severe illness and death. WHY: Like all forms of...

WASHINGTON, May 29, 2007 – The Defense Department is preparing a pandemic flu guide for civilian managers and rank-and-file employees, a senior official said. The Defense Department released its Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan in April, Patricia S. Bradshaw, deputy undersecretary of defense for civilian personnel policy, said May 25 in an interview with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service. The department’s plan is part of the president’s initiative to prepare the nation for a potential mass outbreak of deadly flu virus. “And now, we’re going to top that off with a DoD civilian human resources guide with...

I have a feeling ecoli is only the beginning of what is to come for nation-wide illnesses. This just has to do with cleanliness...........

WASHINGTON — Military and civilian health facilities will be overwhelmed if a nationwide flu pandemic hits the United States, and the National Guard may have to be called out to provide medical help and even enforce a quarantine, the Defense Department warned in a report released Wednesday. As the Pentagon fights criticism from congressional Democrats that the war in Iraq is depleting the National Guard's ability to help out in domestic crises, the 86-page report says a possible pandemic could require National Guard assistance in supplying medical aid or isolating groups of people to minimize further spread of the disease....

Bird flu not only pandemic risk, U.S. experts warn Tue May 8, 2007 7:03PM EDT CHICAGO (Reuters) - While many health experts see the H5N1 bird flu virus as a likely cause for an influenza pandemic, another influenza virus could just as likely mutate into a global killer, U.S. health experts said on Tuesday. "You can not accurately predict if and when a given virus will become a pandemic virus," said Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci said too little is known about exactly how and when a virus will mutate. Focusing...

A virulent strain of tuberculosis resistant to most available drugs is surfacing around the globe, raising fears of a pandemic that could devastate efforts to contain TB and prove deadly to people with immune-deficiency diseases such as HIV-AIDS. Known formally as extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB, the strain has been detected in 37 countries. It arises when the bacterium that causes TB mutates because antibiotics used to combat it are carelessly administered by poorly trained doctors or patients don't take their full course of medication. Rather than being killed by the drugs, the microbe builds up resistance to them. At...

Many people live extraordinary lives. Many have extraordinary deaths. But very, very few can hope to save the world 90 years after they have passed away. One such man was the remarkably colourful Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, one of those larger-than-life Victorians who lived in an era when great men really could, and did, change the shape of the world. Sir Mark Sykes was a baronet, a diplomat, a father of six children, Tory MP, a senior general in the Army and a skilled negotiator. A close friend of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and Chaim Weizmann - who went...

New treatments for malaria were developed in response to a resurgence of the disease in the 1990s. Since then, funding for these treatments has increased significantly through bilateral and multilateral aid, corporate and private assistance, and national government programs in malarial countries. Yet problems in the drug purchase and delivery processes and threats to future treatments persist. These problems are relatively easy to solve, but the international community seems reluctant to tackle them, which means the funding is not being used as effectively as it should. In the mid-1960s, U.S. troops confined the peripatetic Vietcong (and many Vietnamese civilians) to...

Students too cool for surgical masks? ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 11 (UPI) -- A project at the University of Michigan has students wearing surgical masks to monitor possible flu outbreaks, but some students have been slacking off. The Chicago Tribune reported on the project, in which more than 800 students have volunteered to wear the surgical masks at all times except while eating and sleeping. The study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is one of numerous studies worldwide to evaluate the effectiveness of such measures in controlling a potentially deadly flu pandemic. But, the Tribune reported,...

Tuesday, February 20, 2007Grocery industry prepares for pandemic bird flu with little government oversight By TIMBERLY ROSS The Associated Press OMAHA, Neb. – Stocking up on food is as simple as a trip to the grocery store, a veritable land of plenty for Americans. ''It's so easy when you have three grocery stores in your vicinity,'' said Becky Jones of Omaha, who stocks up once a week for her family of three. ''You think: how could you possibly not get what you needed?'' But will fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, milk and other household staples still be available if...

HOLTON, England -- Britain scrambled to contain its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu in domestic poultry yesterday after the virus was found at a farm run by Europe's biggest turkey producer. About 2,500 turkeys have died since Thursday at the Bernard Matthews farm near Lowestoft in eastern England. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said all 159,000 turkeys on the farm would be culled. "We're in new territory," National Farmers' Union Poultry Board Chairman Charles Bourns said. "We've every confidence in DEFRA, but until we know how this disease arrived,...

Doctors fear TB strain could cause a global pandemic if it is not controlled South Africa is considering forcibly detaining people who carry a deadly strain of tuberculosis that has already claimed hundreds of lives. The strain threatens to cause a global pandemic, but the planned move pits public protection against human rights. The country's health department says it has discussed with the World Health Organisation and South Africa's leading medical organisations the possibility of placing carriers of extreme drug resistant TB or XDR-TB under guard in isolation wards until they die, but has yet to reach a decision. More...

Questions raised over safety of revived microbe.Kerri Smith   Natural Museum of Health and Medicine The 1918 influenza virus, which killed some 50 million people worldwide, has proved fatal to macaques infected in a laboratory. The study follows Nature's controversial publication1 of the virus's sequence in 2005, alongside a paper in Science that described the recreation of the virus from a corpse and its potency in mice2. Some scientists question the wisdom of reconstructing such a deadly virus. Do the benefits outweigh the risks? Those who carried out the macaque study say yes, as a better understanding of how it...

HONG KONG -- Although fears of an avian-flu pandemic among humans have subsided, experts warn that the risk hasn't vanished. Less than a year ago, flocks of poultry, swans and wild birds were contracting the disease in Europe and Africa. The spread into the U.S. bird population seemed just a matter of time, and some people rushed to stockpile antiviral drugs. It has been relatively quiet since then, and some of the fears now seem overblown. Still, evidence continues to trickle in that the virus hasn't gone away. Birds continue to die from the disease in countries such as Vietnam...

As flu season arrives in North America, the media and their anointed health experts are squawking once again about how we could be blindsided by an avian flu pandemic that some have estimated could kill a billion persons worldwide. New books like The Coming Avian Flu Pandemic join last year's The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. A year ago I wrote in the Weekly Standard that it was time to stop running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Yet even as conservative commentator Mark Helprin has called for spending a massive 2.5 percent...

Flu fearmongers must be quite depressed these days. Seasonal flu is late. Bird flu -- despite all the headlines -- hasn't gained much traction among humans. And we haven't had pandemic flu in 36 years. (snip) A new study in the Dec. 23-30 British medical journal the Lancet estimates a global pandemic flu could kill 62 million worldwide, mostly in poor nations. (snip) ...while there's no sure-fire cure or preventative measure for the flu, modern medical care and public health practices have dramatically improved since 1918. So any flu epidemic is likely to be far less severe... (snip) There were......

NJ only partly prepared for expected flu pandemic By LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Published: Saturday, December 16, 2006 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - If New Jersey is hit by an anticipated influenza pandemic, more than 8,100 residents will die - and that's a conservative estimate from the state health department. Whether the pandemic is due to a flu strain mutated from birds or a human super flu, sick and panicked people will descend on hospitals for help: an estimated 250,000 of them over just a two-month wave. Some 40,000 patients would require ICU beds and 20,000 would need a...

Dec. 10, 2006, 11:50AMExperts ponder bird flu's disappearance By MARIA CHENG AP Medical Writer © 2006 The Associated PressWomen clean chickens to prepare them for a local hotel, in an outdoor market in Bamako, Mali Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006. Bird flu experts from across the globe are gathering Wednesday in this West African nation to mobilize support, with an estimated US$1.5 billion (euro 1.1 billion) funding needed over the next several years to fight a deadly strain of bird flu experts fear could start a human pandemic, the World Bank says. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) REBECCA BLACKWELL: AP LONDON — Earlier...

World unprepared for bird flu pandemic, warns expert By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:29am GMT 18/11/2006Vaccines are made by growing viruses in hen eggs" The world is unprepared for a bird-flu pandemic because it has not carried out enough research to create an effective vaccine, a leading specialist told The Daily Telegraph yesterday. For "at least one year" the global population would be vulnerable when the virus mutates into a super-flu that can spread among people, said Prof Albert Osterhaus, of Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, a world authority on viruses. "No country is sufficiently prepared at the moment,"...

Bird Flu Mutations Likely to Trigger Pandemic Identified Thursday, November 16, 2006 By Daniel J. DeNoon Either of two simple bird flu virus mutations could trigger a deadly pandemic, Japanese scientists warn. Both mutations already have popped up in humans infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. They've been seen in bird flu viruses isolated from two people in Azerbaijan and from one person in Iraq, according to the Japanese scientists. Neither mutation has been seen among the more than 600 H5N1 viruses isolated from birds. The two human mutations give the bird flu virus the ability to attach to...

SEOUL, Nov. 15 (Yonhap) -- Scarlet fever has been spreading fast in North Korea for nearly a month and is showing signs of becoming a full-blown pandemic despite efforts by North Korean authorities to contain the disease, a source close to the North said Wednesday. The disease first broke out in the communist state's northern Yanggang Province last month, but is quickly spreading to other parts of the country, the source told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity.

The So-Called "Bird Flu": Why is Concern So High?November 13, 2006 Seasonal (annual) flu is the flu that comes every year starting in the late fall and ending in the spring. There are a number of subtypes of this influenza virus circulating around the world, which is why the flu vaccines are a bit different each year. Most people have built up some immunity from exposure over the years. Although the seasonal flu is not usually a threat to healthy adults, it still kills some 36,000 Americans every year. Pandemic flu is a global disease outbreak. An influenza pandemic occurs...

Three million body bags may be stockpiled in disaster plans Last Updated: 1:17am GMT 06/11/2006 Secret plans to stockpile millions of body bags to be used in the event of a flu pandemic, terrorist attack or other disaster are being considered by the Government and health experts, according to a senior minister. The proposals reflect mounting concern at the lack of space to store bodies in morgues and bury them in the event of mass deaths. A senior member of the Government involved in policy planning for a flu pandemic told The Daily Telegraph that "various scenarios" involving hundreds of...

If bird flu virus becomes pandemic, high death rates possible: WHO report 12:30:01 EST Nov 2, 2006 Canadian Press: HELEN BRANSWELL (CP) - There's no guarantee the H5N1 avian flu virus would become less deadly to people if it triggers a pandemic, a new report from the World Health Organization warns. A group of eminent influenza scientists gathered by the WHO last month concluded there is no reason to believe that the virus, which kills roughly 60 per cent of people who become infected, would become any milder if it evolves to become a pandemic strain. The report, based on...

Bird flu take an increasing toll but the world escaped an immediate influenza pandemic, U.N. bird flu chief says The Associated Press Published: October 23, 2006 UNITED NATIONS More than 30 countries reported outbreaks of bird flu this year and the number of people dying every month is increasing, but the world escaped an immediate influenza pandemic possibly because of the energetic global response to warnings a year ago, the U.N. bird flu chief said Monday. Dr. David Nabarro said his warning last year that a mutation of the virulent H5N1 virus which has ravaged poultry stocks since late 2003...

For a group pretending not to exist, the Security and Prosperity of North America (SPP) (read North America Union) leaves a substantial paper trail. Tossed off as an "Internet conspiracy theory" by some Pooh-bahs in the know, the SPP will continue to remain off the radar screen as long as the mainstream media gives it a wide berth. Through Freedom of Information, Judicial Watch (www.judicialwatch.org) has been able to secure actual documents from the International Trade Administration of the US Department of Commerce--intriguing documents concerning SPP. Among information unearthed by Judicial Watch, is a "Discussion of the May Report of...

An experiment to reconstruct the deadly 1918 flu virus has given a new insight into how the infection took hold. Scientists discovered a severe immune system reaction was triggered when mice were infected with the recreated virus. The US team believe the extreme immune response could have provoked the body to begin killing its own cells, making the flu even deadlier. The study, published in Nature, may aid the hunt for new treatments. The 1918 pandemic took about 50 million lives. The devastating infection, which is thought to have originated in birds, left young adults worst hit. Scientists in the...

State responds to potential pandemic should bird flu wing our way Leslie Newell Peacock Updated: 8/31/2006 A visit to the World Health Organization’s pandemic alert website on Aug. 14 found this news: Avian influenza — situation in Indonesia — update 26 The Ministry of Health in Indonesia has confirmed the country’s 57th case of human infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The case is a 17-year-old male from a remote village in Garut district, West Java Province. He developed symptoms on 26 July and was referred to hospital on 9 August. At the hospital, medical staff suspected H5N1 infection...

Science moves in mysterious ways, and sometimes what seems like the end of the story is really just the beginning. Or, at least, that is what some researchers are thinking as they scratch their heads over the weird genetic sequence of the 1918 flu virus. Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, a molecular pathologist at the Armed Forces Institute of Technology who led the research team that reconstructed the long-extinct virus, said that a few things seemed clear. The 1918 virus appears to be a bird-flu virus. But if it is from a bird, it is not a bird anyone has studied before....

Natural Selections: The Potential Pandemic You've Never Heard Of How the connections between pigs, bats, and people could threaten your health. By Mary C. Pearl DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 09 | September 2006 | Medicine Budding particles of Nipah virus assemble near the surface of a cell. The mystery began when pigs on large farms in Malaysia began hacking so loudly that their owners called it a "one-mile cough." Nerve damage was also cropping up in some of the animals. No one knew why. Up to 5 percent of pigs in affected herds were dying, and the illness was spreading...

BIRD FLU MOUNTING CONCERN OVER OUTBREAK There is mounting concern over the fourth round of bird flu to hit the country. A nine-year-old girl from Lop Buri province died from bird-flu like symptoms yesterday as the number of suspected human cases surged to 164 in 21 provinces. The girl was Lop Buri's first suspected bird flu case since the current outbreak was confirmed in Phichit on July 24, said Pranom Khamtiang, Lop Buri's chief public health officer. Results of laboratory tests on the girl's tissue to determine if she was infected with the H5N1 avian flu virus were due out...

GENEVA - June 30, 2006 - The risk of bird flu mutating into an form more easily spread between people is still high and there could be an upswing in human infections at the end of the year, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned………It said the pattern of infections was “reminiscent” of that seen during the 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic which killed 40 million to 50 million people worldwide. - ReutersThe above statement cast a worrisome shadow on a subject that has been covered often in the news over the last year. Citizens world wide have been closely following these...

Avian influenza, or influenza A (H5N1), has 3 of the 4 properties necessary to cause a serious pandemic: It can infect people, nearly all people are immunologically naive, and it is highly lethal. The Achilles heel of the virus is the lack of sustained human–human transmission. Fortunately, among the 124 cases reported through 30 May 2006, nearly all were acquired by direct contact with poultry. Unfortunately, the capability for efficient human–human transmission requires only a single mutation by a virus that is notoriously genetically unstable, hence the need for a new vaccine each year for seasonal influenza. Influenza A (H5N1)...

A bird flu pandemic among humans could cost upwards of 180 billion euros in lost economic output in the European Union in the year that it strikes, according to a study for the European Commission. The study, the first for the 25-country EU group, estimates that an avian influenza pandemic would reduce economic output by 1.6 percent because of a slump in overall hours worked as well as in travel and leisure activities. "The macroeconomic effects of a future pandemic as estimated here are roughly of the same size as those of a major recession," concluded the study, conducted by...