Yes, I know that everyone is already attuned to the threat of encroaching Islam and I haven't wanted to further frighten anyone. I am, however, rather obsessed with influenza, particularly the pandemics, which our species has been hit with at the rate of about two per century. The latest major outbreak (so far as we know, as it has been now revealed that the Chinese have been not exactly forthcoming on the subject) is in Indonesia. Indonesia has had 51 cases in humans from 2005-2006, 39 fatal. Indonesia also has had a recent earthquake (several, actually, but only the one in late May really caused devastation to the human population on Java), the eruption of Mt. Merapi, and a large number of people living in camps with no decent source of clean water in many cases.
The bomb really dropped regarding "bird flu" (actually, water fowl are the natural reservoir for the influenza virus, it just usually doesn't kill them unless strains mutate into deadly ones, as H5N1 has) in October 2005 with the publication of the genetic structure of the killer H1N1 strain that wrought havoc on mankind in 1918-1919. Jeffrey Taubenberger, Ann Reid et al. 's report was chilling to those flu obsessed like me. By reconstructing the 1918 strain (which still proved to be highly lethal, despite its descendents hitting us each year--highly lethal viruses tend to end up less lethal in order to survive once they are mamallian strains), Taubenberger's team discovered that the 1918 virus was in fact a "species jumper". It was almost completely avian, with just a few lethal mutations that proved disastrous to humans, who, like with the H5s had not been exposed to this type of flu. Since this report, the spread of H5N1 has been watched avidly by scientists both official (many with the W.H.O., World Health Org.) and not as official or privy to the knowledge that the officials have. The WHO has still kept many sequences under wraps, and there is currently a petition to have these released. Only one sequence from Indonesia has been posted at GenBank, for example.
There is currently a major outbreak in Northern China among birds, which is supposedly being contained. However, a report by three Chinese researchers (they tried to withdraw it, but were not successful) recently showed that at least one victim of SARS actually died of H5N1, predating any reports out of China and indicating that the situation there is not as secure as we would hope. The migratory birds that carried the virus around the world originated in China, as did a key mutation seen since an outbreak in Western China. Now there are dead birds from Prince Edward Island in Canada to Siberia.
Scientists already know what key mutations to look for, and many have since occured. Furthermore, the latest outbreaks in Indonesia (both in Java and Northern Sumatra) seem to indicate resistance to certain viral drugs, such as Tamiflu, according to researchers such as Henry Niman of www.recombinomics.com.
If this does not go pandemic any time soon, the history of Indonesia is still a bit troubling on this matter. Simon Winchester, in his book Krakatoa, tells of "The Rebellion of a Ruined People" during which trouble was stirred up by certain Indonesian men who traveled back to their island nation while living and learning newer ways of "expressing" their faith. The "Hajjis" (in Winchester's case he is referring to those who were living and studying in Mecca, not just those who had made the pilgrimage) brought back and fomented extreme violence in the more volatile Indonesians, who were at the time living under Dutch rule. In one case they attacked and slaughtered a Dutch family, even slitting the throats of the young daughters. We have seen the troubles in Aceh province and with militants throughout Indonesia more recently, but this happened as well in the 1880s. These colonized and destroyed people chose the path taught to them by scholars of Mecca, a path of killing the infidels. In the cases of the recent tragedies, will they once again "turn their eyes towards Mecca", as Winchester wrote of the 1880s?
OK, I am not going to write all I know of avian flu or I'd take up the whole page. But we should be attuned to all threats, whether they include Islam or not, and this one includes us all. I will list a few links for people interested in reading further, and will report back on this subject if people are interested.
Books: Gina Kolata's Flu
John Barry's The Great Influenza
Web:
http://www.curevents.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=40 (The Flu Clinic Forum)
http://www.fluwikie.com/ (Flu Wiki is probably the best starting place online)
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/ (these guys leave a bit out, but hey...)
http://www.recombinomics.com (one stop shopping really, but only if you like Dr. Niman's assessments and you basically
have to teach yourself plenty of the genetic structure of influenza, unless you're a scientist.
OK, so now you guys know what I'm up to when I'm not here and why my blog is not updated....heeheehee...told you guys I was a geek though, hoped you believed me....
4 comments:
Pim Girl, if you're interested in Generative Anthropology, try a site I write at with friends here in Vancouver, Canada. Look for Truepeers' work at http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/
Regards, Dag.
Thanks Dag, I will. I'm actually always trying to learn more about the genetics of viruses, and influenza is a rather simple one honestly. But if you didn't study biology or microbiology, it takes a while to get used to looking at the codons, as they really are written out in their RNA strand form for GenBank once sequences are released. I do have to depend on analysis of other scientists to fully understand these instead of being able to decipher them myself.
It is immensely fascinating to me nevertheless. A flu virus is comprised of only 8 strands of protein, and the mutations seem so very minor. Yet on just the PB2 strand, ONE minor amino acid mutation, now rather dominant in the virus as it circles the world, is wreaking havoc. And that is at one position, E627K. Not something anything but a trained scientist would catch. That one crucial change, in the 627 position in a string of letters, which has meant so much. From a detatched point of view, H5N1 is truly coming along nicely, actually.
Pim Girl, you might meet our friend Andrei Rublev at Jihadwatch sometime. He's got a ph.d. in biology a year ago, and is a very congenial guy. He has a philosophical turn of mind, and would probably be helpful if you needed further direction.
My ex-wife is a public health administrator somewhere on the east coast, Philidelphia or Washington, D.C. She's involved in flu epidemic studies of some sort. If you run into her, please tell her I'm rich, famous, and handsome, and she really blew it.
Oh, Dag, no doubt! I'll tell her anything you like. I'll check out your buddy, though he may be someone I know under another name from a flu forum. He'd probably enjoy some of them at any rate, especially as you can easily avoid the Y2K survivalist types and stick to the scientific threads.
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