PAST PANDEMICS PROVIDE CLUES TO CURRENT KILLER
POLLY WANT A CRACKER?
It was a classic medical scare story: Parrots died. A few people got sick. Newspapers went wild. Then, well after the outbreak of "parrot fever" was declared dormant, researchers who dealt with the birds began to mysteriously die themselves. Historian Jill Lepore talks to host Jacki Lyden about the great parrot fever outbreak of 1929. Lepore chronicles the episode in the June 1 issue of The New Yorker magazine. Listen on NPR.
ONE LITTLE PIGGY
Like hurricane watchers, public health officials must try to predict the velocity and course of the influenza A virus causing the swine flu outbreak, a novel H1N1, because they have to make complicated and expensive decisions about how aggressively they should pursue vaccines, antivirals, and mitigation strategies like school closings.
For additional breaking news search H1N1 on Technorati.com
Given the fuzziness of the data about this new virus's behavior, researchers are looking to the past for clues about the seasonality and geography of pandemic flu, the relationship between the new viruses and existing ones, and the behavior of this new H1N1's parent viruses in swine.
Read the full story on Science Magazine's website.
It was a classic medical scare story: Parrots died. A few people got sick. Newspapers went wild. Then, well after the outbreak of "parrot fever" was declared dormant, researchers who dealt with the birds began to mysteriously die themselves. Historian Jill Lepore talks to host Jacki Lyden about the great parrot fever outbreak of 1929. Lepore chronicles the episode in the June 1 issue of The New Yorker magazine. Listen on NPR.
ONE LITTLE PIGGY
Like hurricane watchers, public health officials must try to predict the velocity and course of the influenza A virus causing the swine flu outbreak, a novel H1N1, because they have to make complicated and expensive decisions about how aggressively they should pursue vaccines, antivirals, and mitigation strategies like school closings.
For additional breaking news search H1N1 on Technorati.com
Given the fuzziness of the data about this new virus's behavior, researchers are looking to the past for clues about the seasonality and geography of pandemic flu, the relationship between the new viruses and existing ones, and the behavior of this new H1N1's parent viruses in swine.
Read the full story on Science Magazine's website.
