A Lab Accident May Have Caused New Flu

An Australian scientist with a long history of serious research says the new A-H1N1 (Mexican swine) flu may be the result of an "oops" in a lab.

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- The World Health Organization is investigating an Australian researcher’s claim that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error.

Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu drug, said in an interview today that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said that he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus’s origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint.

Naturally, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Center for Disease Control says "there's no evidence" to support Gibbs' statement. I'm not sure this version of the CDC would know evidence if it bit 'em on the behind.

A researcher for the World Health Organization, Keiji Fukada, is reviewing Gibbs' study.

A virus that resulted from lab experimentation or vaccine production may indicate a greater need for security, Fukuda said.

You think?

Please Don't Rush Vaccine Decision

I don't pretend to be a scientist, but I am a thinker, and I think the Obama administration is in way too much of a hurry to declare A-H1N1 as Public Enemy No.1.

A report in the Wall Street Journal today details in the tough decision the Obamatons face in deciding whether to mass produce a vaccine for the Mexican swine flu.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is weeks away from a critical decision on whether to trigger mass production of swine-flu vaccine, which could affect the bottom lines of big vaccine makers as well as public health.

Besides determining whether a vaccine would be effective and safe, government officials and private laboratories will need to answer practical and financial questions: Does it make sense to order hundreds of millions of doses and organize a mass vaccination campaign for a virus that, so far, isn't widespread and doesn't seem particularly lethal?

Of 642 confirmed cases, and perhaps another 850 probable cases, there have been two deaths. Do you spend billions of dollars and interfere with the regular production of season flu vaccine, which you can count on to kill 500,000 a year world wide?

If swine-flu vaccine were manufactured in large quantities, officials would want it to be ready by fall, when flu season begins. Officials said they want test results on a potential vaccine before deciding whether it's needed. Another factor to be considered: The new flu strain, while it has caused few U.S. deaths so far, could come back in a more virulent form in the fall.

If that happened, the new vaccine might be next to worthless. Without sufficient testing, you might have a repeat of 1976, when a hastily concocted Swine Flu vaccine -- developed for an outbreak that killed just one person world-wide -- was administered to the American public and caused serious, permanent neurological damage in several who received it.

Slow down, O ye do-good'ers in Washington!

(By the way, I'll be taking my chances with increased doses of Vitamin D, healthy eating, and trust in God, regardless of Mr. Obama's decision.)

Another Cosmic Coincidence?

It could be a cosmic coincidence.

On Friday, April 24, the Mexican government officially announced it was dealing with the new "Swine" flu.

On April 24, 2007, abortion was official legalized in Mexico City.

I don't believe in coincidences.

You can believe what you wish.

A Natural Solution for New Flu Immunity?

Why do colds and the flu run through populations mostly in winter months but go quiet in the warmer, sunnier summer?

Dr. J.J. Cannel, a psychiatrist and former general practioner began asking that question in 2005 after watching influenza sweep through three out of four floors of a hospital where he worked. Why not the third floor, he wondered? The patients were essentially the same cross-section of the population, suffering from the same disorders. Was it a statistical oddity, or way there something different in their treatment?

As it happens, there was a difference. The men of the third floor were being given large doses of Vitamin D, much larger than that of the average American, and just a bit more than the government's suggested "upper limit," about 2,000 units. For comparison, you get about 100 units in an 8-oz. glass of milk (if it's fortified).

For more comparison, says Dr. Cannel, a 20-minute full sunlight exposure in the depth of summer will put 20,000 units of Vitamin D into your body. But we don't do that much anymore, do we?

Could vitamin D be the reason none of my patients got the flu? In the last several years, dozens of medical studies have called attention to worldwide vitamin D deficiency, especially among African Americans and the elderly, the two groups most likely to die from influenza. Cancer, heart disease, stroke, autoimmune disease, depression, chronic pain, depression, gum disease, diabetes, hypertension, and a number of other diseases have recently been associated with vitamin D deficiency. Was it possible that influenza was as well?

Then I thought of three mysteries that I first learned in medical school at the University of North Carolina: (1) although the influenza virus exists in the population year-round, influenza is a wintertime illnesses; (2) children with vitamin D deficient rickets are much more likely to suffer from respiratory infections; (3) the elderly in most countries are much more likely to die in the winter than the summer (excess wintertime mortality), and most of that excess mortality, although listed as cardiac, is, in fact, due to influenza.

Could vitamin D explain these three mysteries, mysteries that account for hundreds of thousands of deaths every year? Studies have found the influenza virus is present in the population year-around; why is it a wintertime illness? Even the common cold got its name because it is common in cold weather and rare in the summer. Vitamin D blood levels are at their highest in the summer but reach their lowest levels during the flu and cold season. Could such a simple explanation explain these mysteries?

[SNIP]

In 1918, when medical scientists did autopsies on some of the fifty million people who died during the 1918 flu pandemic, they were amazed to find destroyed respiratory tracts; sometimes these inflammatory cytokines had triggered the complete destruction of the normal epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract. It was as if the flu victims had been attacked and killed by their own immune systems. This is the severe inflammatory reaction that vitamin D has recently been found to prevent.

He makes a compelling case for his theory.

If he is correct, it would explain why flus go "underground" in warmer weather, and why this "New Flu," the A-H1N1 virus, will probably not reach its highest kill rate until it rebounds from the summer sun.

But if he is correct, it also could mean that we don't so much need manufactured flu vaccines as we need the natural steroidal precursor provided by Nature's God: Vitamin D.

You can get Vitamin D the old-fashioned way, by getting out in the sun for short durations during the day. Not enough to get your skin torched, but enough to start the natural process of Vitamin D input into your body.

We proposed that annual fluctuations in vitamin D levels explain the seasonality of influenza. The periodic seasonal fluctuations in 25-hydroxy-vitamin D levels, which cause recurrent and predictable wintertime vitamin D deficiency, predispose human populations to influenza epidemics. We raised the possibility that influenza is a symptom of vitamin D deficiency in the same way that an unusual form of pneumonia (pneumocystis carinii) is a symptom of AIDS. That is, we theorized that George Bernard Shaw was right when he said, "the characteristic microbe of a disease might be a symptom instead of a cause."

I highly recommend you read his entire article, think about it, and decide for yourself. Nearly everything about our modern lives keeps us from getting the sunshine, and Vitamin D, that we need to ward off colds, flus and respiratory infections.

Maybe it's time we reclaimed some of the old ways.

This New Flu May Be Californian

Speculation grows that the Mexican Swine Flu may not be Mexican after all. From the Wall Street Journal:

In California, Cases Suggest Border Origin

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Doctors tracking swine flu in this state are investigating a new theory: What if it didn't originate in Mexico but instead had been floating around the border region for months?

Growing evidence in California suggests that early flu cases had no apparent origin in Mexico. Many of the early California victims -- including the first two cases -- say they hadn't traveled to Mexico and had no contact with pigs. Some may have fallen ill before the first Mexicans did.

Those cases contradict the conventional understanding of how the strain originated. They could also offer important clues about the future trajectory of the disease. Other cases here and in other states, as well as abroad, have clear links with Mexico.

But the outbreak in California may have a separate origin. "This virus has been circulating around in the population for some time," said Gilberto Chavez, an epidemiologist with the California Department of Public Health. Its similar symptoms to a standard flu, he said, meant that "any cases that might have been around were probably seen, treated and diagnosed as regular flu."

The more I read, the less convinced I am that health officials, whether world or American, are going to be able to contain this thing. While I am generally a "tight border" believer, I don't think closing the border would have much of an impact, one way or the other, on the spread of this disease other than to prevent mass refugee movement if it gets worse in Mexico. Tightening the border would be the historically prudent response of this or any other nation, so I would expect the Obama administration to ignore it completely. (To be fair, I don't think the Bush administration would have done much either.)

But there is another way in which Americans have traditionally met adversity: with self-interested efforts designed to protect themselves and their families. How, you might ask, to do this?

Coming, in my next post: One doctor's theory on flu prevention.