H1N1

[Winstonm]

I saw a headline yesterday that said 4,000 US deaths to H1N1 so far. Doesn't seem like much of a 'demic, pan or otherwise. <shrug>

Maybe a flash in the pan-demic?

[Al_U_Card]

So, less than 10% of the deaths caused by automobile accidents (or you can pick any other cause of death).

 

People die, safer cars, communicable diseases notwithstanding. I guess driver ed. is mandatory......oh yeah, the only negative side-effect of that is...errrr....ummmm......guess there aren't any... :blink:

[irdoz]

1. Conspiracy theories are always fun to read.

 

2. We've been through flu season here (Australia). H1N1 wasn't particularly nastier than a normal flu season - but the lack of 'herd' immunity in people under 50 means the potential for H1N1 to recombine with more virulent flu viruses is always there. Population wide vaccines were offered and promoted 'free' here (after flu season was over) and and as far as I know an evaluation of the vaccination program hasn't been published yet.

 

3. There's a myth promulgated in the opening post that vaccines make 'billions of dollars'. In fact it is hard to get capital investment in vaccine development because usually prevention vaccines do not make billions of dollars (unlike pharmaceutical treatments for chronic illnesses - which may increasingly include therapeutic vaccines). Successful vaccines tend to be only used once or repeated years apart. There is also a quite reasonable expectation that successful vaccines for important communicable diseases will be implemented worldwide - and such programs tend to cost billions rather than make billions. A lot of vaccine development occurs in big government scientific organisations because there is often a lack of private enterprise interest. If it wasn't for organisations like the Gates Foundation (abbrev.) then there would be currently a lot less vaccine development than there is.

 

4. When I started medicine the era we were in was described as 'the age of molecular biology and the discovery of the human genome'. So far, it has resulted in a huge explosion of knowledge but not all that much in terms of useful therapies. There's a lot of informed guessing that suggests that's about to change - with a reasonable chance for broad spectrum antivirals and big improvements in cancer treatment over the next decade(s). Here's a link from New Scientist discussing the prospects for broad spectrum antivirals - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2032....html?full=true. (grr which you now have to subscribe to and I guess I'd be breaching copywrite if I posted it here). The company that looks like having the first broad spectrum antiviral to market received a huge chunk of funding from the US Department of Defense because of the potential use of viruses as agents of biological warfare... . Anyway it's quite possible that fears about flu pandemics may recede over the next decade.