Students away from home for the first time could use a hand in their – hopefully clean – kitchens
Students away from home for the first time could use a hand in their – hopefully clean – kitchens Parents, don’t panic. Put away those visions of scurvy. Quell your fears of massive student debt from expensive takeout. Terrific food is actually possible on a student budget. Read more on Toronto Sun
Why We Cannot Depend on a Vaccine to Save Us From Bird Flu
With current vaccine technology a vaccine cannot save us from a pandemic of contagious bird flu. Although criticized as fearmongering, the ABC made for TV movie First Contact: Bird Flu in America was overly optimistic. Neither us nor the French nor anybody else is going to development and manufacture a vaccine within two months using the technology of the past 50 years. First, work on a highly targeted vaccine against a specific strain of contagious bird flu cannot even begin until that specific strain of bird flu comes into existence. Researchers are working on vaccines against current strains of H5N1, and these may have some effect on curbing a contagious strain, because they’d be similar, but not the same. After getting samples of the contagious form of H5N1, the virus makers begin creating the vaccine from dead viruses. It must be tested for safety and approved for use in humans. This takes time. After the vaccine is ready, doses of it must be produced. Each dose of the vaccine is grown inside one egg. The entire process takes 6 to 8 months to produce ordinary winter flu shots. And we know from 2004 that sometimes batches of vaccine are contaminated, [...]
How a Little-Known Science Can Protect You From Bird Flu
You can use a little-known branch of science to help protect yourself and your loved ones from the bird flu pandemic. It’s called evolutionary epidemiology. Basically, it means that microorganisms evolve in ways that encourage the survival and spread of their species. How this works in each human disease, depends on the nature of how the disease spreads. The common cold irritates but does not kill us — so we feel well enough to go to work and sneeze and cough on other people, thus spreading the virus. Malaria is a killer because sick malarial patients allow more mosquitoes to suck up their blood and then infect other people. There’s currently a scientific debate going on about what this means in connection with bird flu. Some scientists say that bird flu will not evolve into a highly contagious killer such as the 1918 virus because there is no World War I going on in Europe. Trench warfare conditions made that flu evolve into a fast killer, because the fast transmission of diseases causes them to evolve into virulent forms. Other scientists say that the A/H5N1 virus could still mutate or re-assort into a highly contagious and highly mortal killer of [...]
Advaxis provides update on survival information from ADXS11-001 phase 1 trial in cervix cancer
Advaxis provides update on survival information from ADXS11-001 phase 1 trial in cervix cancer Advaxis, Inc., the live, attenuated Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) immunotherapy company, has updated the survival information from its phase 1 trial of ADXS11-001 which assessed the safety of this agent in advanced, metastatic, progressive cervix cancer in women whose disease progressed subsequent to treatment with cytotoxic therapy. Read more on News-Medical-Net
Lessons learned from H1N1
Lessons learned from H1N1 Health officer says more needs to be done to prepare for pandemics Read more on Sequim Gazette
How to Protect Your Family From Bird Flu — What Your Government Isn’t Telling You
If you want to trust you and your family’s health to the government — you deserve what happens to you. The United States Homeland Security Council in early May 2006 released a 233 page report called the Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan. In many ways, it’s very comprehensive — and it’s a great foundation for protecting ourselves, our families, our nation and our world. But it leaves out a huge portion of the solution to bird flu — “alternative” medicine. There are substances which could greatly increase the virus-zapping power of immune systems of people around the world — at a small fraction of the cost of expensive vaccines and Tamiflu. They could be easily administered by patients and family members. They could easily be distributed and used by everybody from wealthy countries to poor rural farmers. They are not magic bullet, 100% guaranteed cure-alls — but neither are vaccines or Tamiflu. They are not the only useful alternative medicine weapons against bird flu — not by a long shot — but some powerful substances could not be produced or grown in the mass quantities needed to take care of billions of people around the world. I’m not saying [...]
Swine flu absent from disease statistics
Swine flu experts linked to big pharma Trio of scientists who urged stockpiling had previously been paid, says report Scientists who drew up the key World Health Organisation guidelines advising governments to stockpile drugs in the event of a flu pandemic had previously been paid by drug companies which stood to profit, according to a report out today. An investigation by the British Medical Journal and the Bureau of Investigative … Read more on Guardian Unlimited Swine flu absent from disease statistics South Canterbury is swine flu-free. Read more on Timaru Herald
How to Protect Your Money from the Bird Flu Pandemic
I wanted to title this article, “How to Make Money From the Bird Flu Pandemic,” but the more I think about it, the more I think trying to outguess events will just be too risky. I’m sure that some people and companies will make a bird flu bet that pays off. They’ll buy stock in Roche or the companies that just got contracts from the United States government to make bird flu vaccines or in medical supplies or in some other way will make a killing. But I think there’re too many unknown factors. Will the virus ever become contagious to people? If so, will it retain its high mortality rate? Will it be quickly contained or will it spread? Prices of goods and services rise and fall in relation to supply and demand. That’s basic economics. The trouble is, depending on the answers to those questions and a host of other factors there will be numerous possibilities. Commodities rose in price during the 1918 flu pandemic. Possibly scared Americans would rush to buy oranges in the mistaken belief they contain enough Vitamin C to protect them from bird flu. Or maybe they’ll be smarter. Coffee is likely to be [...]
How to Protect Yourself From Bird Flu and Other Infections by Washing Your Hands — the Right Way
OK, so I sound like your mother — I accept that. Only I’m worse than your mother, because I want you to wash your hands more often than your mother did. And for a longer time and more thoroughly. If and when bird flu mutates into a virus that’s contagious between people, we can expect it to spread as easily as ordinary influenza, and the same way ordinary flu does Ordinary flu (and colds too) spreads primarily in two ways: contact spread and airborne spread. Airborne spread means that somebody sheds virus by coughing or sneezing, and the small droplets containing the virus hang in the air, and you breath them in. They can hang there for fifteen minutes or more before drifting to the ground. Experts disagree about whether contact spread or airborne spread causes more new infections of colds and flu. It’s a fact that you can dramatically reduce your chances of catching bird flu, ordinary flu, colds and other commons infections such as caliciviruses which causes nausea (stomach flu) by washing your hands to eliminate the risk of contact spread. It’s true washing your hands won’t help you if a bird flu patient sneezes into your face, [...]