New light on our common African history

The results suggest that all modern humans can trace their origin to a population that lived near the border between South Africa and Namibia – although Tishkoff stresses that these people may have moved into the area from elsewhere. As expected, the study also places the exit point for humanity's great "out of Africa" migration near to the Red Sea.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17057-huge-gene-study-shines-new-light-on-african-history.html

The horror that is Smithfield ~ Rolling stone

Smithfield Foods actually faces a more difficult task than transmogrifying the populations of America's thirty-two largest cities into edible packages of meat. Hogs produce three times more excrement than human beings do. The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The best estimates put Smithfield's total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year. That would fill four Yankee Stadiums. Even when divided among the many small pig production units that surround the company's slaughterhouses, that is not a containable amount.

Smithfield estimates that its total sales will reach $11.4 billion this year. So prodigious is its fecal waste, however, that if the company treated its effluvia as big-city governments do -- even if it came marginally close to that standard -- it would lose money. So many of its contractors allow great volumes of waste to run out of their slope-floored barns and sit blithely in the open, untreated, where the elements break it down and gravity pulls it into groundwater and river systems. Although the company proclaims a culture of environmental responsibility, ostentatious pollution is a linchpin of Smithfield's business model.

A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. The reason it is so toxic is Smithfield's efficiency. The company produces 6 billion pounds of packaged pork each year. That's a remarkable achievement, a prolificacy unimagined only two decades ago, and the only way to do it is to raise pigs in astonishing, unprecedented concentrations.

Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs -- anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.

The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.

From Smithfield's point of view, the problem with this lifestyle is immunological. Taken together, the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines, and are doused with insecticides. Without these compounds -- oxytetracycline, draxxin, ceftiofur, tiamulin -- diseases would likely kill them. Thus factory-farm pigs remain in a state of dying until they're slaughtered. When a pig nearly ready to be slaughtered grows ill, workers sometimes shoot it up with as many drugs as necessary to get it to the slaughterhouse under its own power. As long as the pig remains ambulatory, it can be legally killed and sold as meat.

The drugs Smithfield administers to its pigs, of course, exit its hog houses in pig shit. Industrial pig waste also contains a host of other toxic substances: ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals. In addition, the waste nurses more than 100 microbial pathogens that can cause illness in humans, including salmonella, cryptosporidium, streptocolli and girardia. Each gram of hog shit can contain as much as 100 million fecal coliform bacteria.

Smithfield's holding ponds -- the company calls them lagoons -- cover as much as 120,000 square feet. The area around a single slaughterhouse can contain hundreds of lagoons, some of which run thirty feet deep. The liquid in them is not brown. The interactions between the bacteria and blood and afterbirths and stillborn piglets and urine and excrement and chemicals and drugs turn the lagoons pink.

More at rolling stone

Economic Stress and swine flu..

Some researchers speculate that in 1918 immune systems were weakened by malnourishment and the stresses of life. The lower socioeconomic groups of Mexico had been very stressed by a collapse in the oil price and hence economic activity generally, the US recession in contruction, which has lead to vastly decreased remittances from family members working in the US.

CDC officials expect to see more severe cases in the U.S. as well - and as better epidemiological work is done in Mexico, we'll probably hear about more mild cases there too.

The true severity of the H1N1 swine flu virus is an open question. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic began with a fairly mild wave of infections in the spring, but the virus returned a few months later in a far more virulent form. That could happen with the current swine flu as well. "It's quite possible for this virus to evolve," said Fukuda. "When viruses evolve, clearly they can become more dangerous to people."

Advice ignored: 65m hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities.

Six years ago, Science dedicated a major story to evidence that "after years of stability, the North American swine flu virus has jumped onto an evolutionary fasttrack".

Since its identification during the Great Depression, H1N1 swine flu had only drifted slightly from its original genome. Then in 1998 a highly pathogenic strain began to decimate sows on a farm in North Carolina and new, more virulent versions began to appear almost yearly, including a variant of H1N1 that contained the internal genes of H3N2 (the other type-A flu circulating among humans).

Researchers interviewed by Science worried that one of these hybrids might become a human flu (both the 1957 and 1968 pandemics are believed to have originated from the mixing of bird and human viruses inside pigs), and urged the creation of an official surveillance system for swine flu: an admonition, of course, that went unheeded in a Washington prepared to throw away billions on bioterrorism fantasies.

But what caused this acceleration of swine flu evolution? Virologists have long believed that the intensive agricultural system of southern China is the principal engine of influenza mutation: both seasonal "drift" and episodic genomic "shift". But the corporate industrialisation of livestock production has broken China's natural monopoly on influenza evolution. Animal husbandry in recent decades has been transformed into something that more closely resembles the petrochemical industry than the happy family farm depicted in school readers.

In 1965, for instance, there were 53m US hogs on more than 1m farms; today, 65m hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities. This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates.


Last year a commission convened by the Pew Research Center issued a report on "industrial farm animal production" that underscored the acute danger that "the continual cycling of viruses … in large herds or flocks [will] increase opportunities for the generation of novel virus through mutation or recombinant events that could result in more efficient human to human transmission." The commission also warned that promiscuous antibiotic use in hog factories (cheaper than humane environments) was sponsoring the rise of resistant staph infections, while sewage spills were producing outbreaks of E coli and pfiesteria (the protozoan that has killed 1bn fish in Carolina estuaries and made ill dozens of fishermen).

Any amelioration of this new pathogen ecology would have to confront the monstrous power of livestock conglomerates such as Smithfield Farms (pork and beef) and Tyson (chickens). The commission reported systemic obstruction of their investigation by corporations, including blatant threats to withhold funding from cooperative researchers .

This is a highly globalised industry with global political clout. Just as Bangkok-based chicken giant Charoen Pokphand was able to suppress enquiries into its role in the spread of bird flu in southeast Asia, so it is likely that the forensic epidemiology of the swine flu outbreak will pound its head against the corporate stonewall of the pork industry.

This is not to say that a smoking gun will never be found: there is already gossip in the Mexican press about an influenza epicentre around a huge Smithfield subsidiary in Veracruz state. But what matters more (especially given the continued threat of H5N1) is the larger configuration: the WHO's failed pandemic strategy, the further decline of world public health, the stranglehold of big pharma over lifeline medicines, and the planetary catastrophe of industrialised and ecologically unhinged livestock production.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/27/swine-flu-mexico-health

Two little pigs cooked up disaster ~ Swine Flu

according to wired...

The deadly H1N1 influenza virus that’s fueling fears of a global pandemic appears to be a hybrid of two common pig flu strains, scientists who have studied the disease told Wired.com Tuesday. Earlier reports called it a combination of pig, human and avian influenza strains.

The findings may resolve some uncertainty about the nature of the virus, but much is still unknown about its origins and effects.

“This is what we call a reassortment between two currently circulating pig flu viruses,” said Andrew Rambaut, a University of Edinborough viral geneticist. “Why it’s emerged in humans is anyone’s guess. It hasn’t been seen before in pigs as far as I know.”

Rambaut analyzed the gene sequences of viral samples taken from two infected California children. The samples were collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and made available to researchers through an international database of flu genomes.

His conclusions were echoed by Eddie Holmes, a virus evolution specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, and Steven Salzberg, a University of Maryland bioinformaticist. Both have looked at the CDC-provided sequences. The CDC could not be reached for comment, but a document released to scientists and obtained by Wired.com affirms their analysis.

Researchers believe the samples from California represent the same viral strain as one that is believed to have killed as many as 150 of an estimated 1,600 hospitalized Mexicans, and caused hundreds more infections worldwide, including at least 64 in the United States. However, as samples from Mexico have not yet been sequenced, the similarity is not conclusive.

The two strains whose genes are found in the California samples belong to influenza families known generally as North American and Eurasian pig flu. The former was first described in the 1930s, and the latter in 1979. The Eurasian strain is generally found in Europe and Asia, rather than North America.

Neither of the strains have ever proven contagious in humans. One of the genes inherited from the Eurasian strain has reportedly never been seen in humans. It codes for the neuraminidase enzyme — the N1 in H1N1 — which controls the expansion of the virus from infected cells.

“The new neuraminidase gene that came in from Eurasian swine is one we’ve never before seen circulating in humans,” said Rambaut. “That’s one of the reasons it’s spreading rapidly. Very few people will have any immunity to this particular combination, which is what gives the concern that this will be a pandemic rather than just a normal seasonal flu outbreak. It remains to be seen how much and to what extent there is existing immunity.”

In medical terms, the genetic origins of the virus may not matter. Whether it come solely from pigs rather than a mix of pigs, birds and humans doesn’t change its immunological novelty.

However, understanding the origins could eventually help scientists determine how the virus evolved and where it originally emerged.

The earliest cases occurred in the town of La Gloria in the Mexican state of Veracruz, not far from a large and notoriously unsanitary hog farm operated by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of giant American food company Smithfield Foods.

Vercruz residents and some journalists have alleged that the virus could have evolved in the farm’s pigs, then passed into humans through water or insects tainted by infected waste. Many researchers, including the authors of a report issued last year by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, have warned that unsanitary conditions at industrial hog farms could prove a breeding ground for new forms of influenza.

The World Health Organization has sent inspectors to the Granjas Carroll farm. The results of the investigation have not been announced. Smithfield issued a press release on Saturday stating that “it has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza in the company’s swine herd or its employees at its joint ventures in Mexico.” The company declined further comment, though CEO Larry Pope told USA Today that “(The term) swine flu is a misnomer.”

Rambaut, Holmes and Salzberg declined to speculate on whether the new H1N1 virus evolved on a hog farm or specifically in the Granjas Carroll facility.

However, it seems likely that pigs were the original host.

“That’s a logical conclusion,” said Salzberger. “It was probably two different pigs, or one who got co-infected from others. The two strains mixed, and now you have a brand-new strain.”

“Presumably somewhere there was a pig infected with both forms. We don’t know where or when. It could have been circulating in this form for a while,” said Rambaut.

What comes next is anyone’s guess.

“Influenza virus mutates remarkably rapidly so there is no doubt that the virus will mutate and evolve in humans,” said Holmes. “Quite what this evolution will result in is difficult to tell.”

http://tinyurl.com/d8jf4w

Swine Infuenza Q and A from TED ~ Nathan Wolfe, Q&A, TED2009

.

SARS, avian flu, swine flu ... what's going on here? Why are we suddenly seeing so many more outbreaks of viruses from animals?

Viruses have always passed from humans to animals. In fact, the vast majority of human diseases have animal origins. But the human population is different from what it once was. For most of our history, we lived in geographically disparate populations. So viruses could enter from animals into humans, spread locally and go extinct. But the human population has gone through a connectivity explosion. All humans on the planet are now connected to each other spatially and temporally in a way that's unprecedented in the history of vertebrate biology. Humans -- as well as our domestic animals and wild animals we trade -- move around the planet at biological warp speed. This provides new opportunities for viruses that would have gone extinct locally to have the population density fuel they need to establish themselves and spread globally.

We've created a "perfect storm" for viruses. And we'll continue to see -- as we have in the past few years -- a whole range of new animal diseases as outbreaks in human populations. But we have to stop being surprised by them. Right now, global public health is like cardiology in the '50s -- just waiting for the heart attack, without understanding why they occur or the many ways to monitor for them, detect them early and ultimately prevent them. Swine flu is not an anomaly. We know that swine flu -- like the vast majority of new outbreaks -- comes from animals. We should be monitoring those animals and the humans that come into contact with them, so we can catch these viruses early, before they infect major cities and spread throughout the world.

Can we stop swine flu? Or is it too late?
If you catch one of these outbreaks early on, there may be the potential to do what we call containment, where you limit the outbreak to a particular site. But the reality is: By the time swine flu got on the radar screen of global public health, it had already spread. It was already in the States, it was in Mexico, it was in New Zealand. By the time it reaches that point, you've lost the ability to contain it. There are ways to decrease the spread of the pandemic, but by that point, it can't be contained. (Editor's note: See Larry Brilliant's 2006 TEDTalk for more on the importance of early containment.)

The more fundamental question is: How do we prevent these pandemics from occurring? There are commonalities among all the pandemics that occur, and we can learn from them. One commonality is that they all come from animals. And the other commonality is that we wait too long.

At the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, our approach is to take it a step back. If we can contain and monitor animal viruses at an earlier stage -- when they're first entering human populations, preferably before they've had a chance to become human-adapted, certainly before they've had a chance to spread -- we can head off pandemics altogether.

Swine flu may or may not end up being an important human pandemic. But it's a perfect illustration of the need for a paradigm shift in the way we approach global disease control.

In your TEDTalk, you lay out plans for monitoring humans who have close contact with animals in African jungles and Asian "wet markets." Should you be monitoring pig farms as well?

Absolutely. What we do is all of the above. We monitor people with contact with wild animals as well as domestic animals. Chickens, ducks, pigs, monkeys ... wherever people have contact with animals, that's where we want to be, so we can catch potential pandemics at the moment that they're born.

The good news is: For a variety of reasons, the percentage of the human population that's in direct contact with animals is decreasing. So that gives us the potential to put a substantive percentage of that population into regular monitoring. Maybe we won't catch everything, but we can create a much more substantive safety net for capturing these things before they go international or global.


READ MORE: Nathan Wolfe talks about why swine flu victims are dying in Mexico but not yet in the US; how swine flu is a "cosmopolitan virus"; and more ...

Your Global Viral Forecasting Initiative is expanding worldwide, but mainly in Asia and Africa. If you were in Mexico, how might things have gone differently?

In this case, we would have hoped to catch and contain swine flu when there were just dozens -- instead of hundreds or thousands -- of cases in Mexico, and before it spread globally.

GVFI's objective is to monitor the portal of entry for new diseases into human populations -- that means looking at the point at which humans and animals interface. We work with people who have high exposure to animals throughout the world, whether that means exposure to domestic animals -- as with farm workers -- or wild animals, as with people who hunt bushmeat in Africa or people who work in live animal markets in Asia. The minute we see new viruses that are entering into humans, we make this information available for the public health community, so we can develop drugs and diagnostics and potentially vaccines based on them.

When we see new diseases spreading in local communities, we monitor them very closely. If we were working in Mexico -- and we were doing our jobs correctly -- we would have caught this thing, perhaps in rural villages, before it made it to a site like Mexico City, and before it went international.

How do we understand the difference between the cases reported in Mexico, where many have died, and those in the US, which seem very mild?

There is a striking anomoly between what appears to be a very low rate of mortality and illness among the American cases and what appears, on the surface, to be a higher rate of illness among the Mexican cases. It could, of course, be the result of a difference in the viruses, although that doesn't necessarily appear to be the case. It could be a difference in host populations, although again, that's difficult to explain.

One possibility is that because we've looked more carefully for cases in the States, we're more likely to see individuals who are mildly ill. We might find that if we looked more comprehensively in Mexico, we'd see the same number of people who were very ill -- because they're easy to find -- and a much larger number of people who were mildly ill. That would reduce the actual rate of mortality to a much lower number, and that may be more compatible with what we would see if the number increased in the American epidemic.

As the number of cases climb worldwide, many people are comparing this swine flu outbreak to the 1918 flu pandemic. Is that an apt comparison?

Well, they both represent novel introductions of influenza into human populations that were capable of spreading substantively. The 1918 flu was notable in the sense that it spread comprehensively, globally, and it had a very high rate of mortality -- affecting not only the very old or very young (who have weak immune systems) but also people in the prime of their lives, who are overcome by their body's own immune response.

Whether or not this happens with swine flu remains to be seen. Initially, it does not appear to have the level of deadliness that the 1918 flu had.

I love bacon. Am I at risk?

Go ahead and have that BLT. It's not a problem. You can't get swine flu from eating pork. You'd have to have close contact with a living, breathing, infected pig to get this virus -- or rather, in order to have contracted the original pig virus. The interesting and important thing about this "pig flu" is that it's now spreading from human to human. It's become a human virus.

So people should take the usual precautions: Stay away from individuals who are sick. Wash your hands frequently. And the less you touch your face, nose and eyes, the better.

Take us back a step or two: How did swine flu enter into the human population?

Swine flu has been known since at least the early part of the 20th century, since the 1930s. It was originally a virus of bird origin -- all influenza viruses were originally bird viruses -- and it probably spread to humans before it was in pigs.

Now, we still haven't received definitive information on the underlying genetics of this particular virus. But initial reports suggest that it may be what's known as a "mosaic virus," which includes components of swine influenzas, bird influenzas and human influenzas. A cosmopolitan virus like that wouldn't be unprecedented. (Editor's Note: see Joe DeRisi's 2006 TEDTalk for more on state-of-the-art virus detection.)

But in any case, this is a virus that appears to come from pigs, and pigs in close proximity spread the flu in much the same way that humans do -- coughing, sneezing, and so on. The virus probably initially entered into human populations through people who work with livestock.

Is swine flu here to stay?

Whether this particular virus will sustain itself and become a permanent part of the human landscape is unclear, but that's certainly what we're watching for. As it is, the virus may just disappear because of the weather; summers aren't good for flu viruses.

So this heat wave is working in our favor?

It might be. The virus has had a good start, from the flu perspective, considering that this is really the end of the season. But the unseasonably hot weather may bode poorly for this virus' potential to establish itself definitively and cause a pandemic. Had this happened in September or October, it would be much more concerning.

Having said that, it's not impossible that a virus like this might "go into hiding" -- in the southern hemisphere or the tropics -- and might come to light again next year. So there will be a lot of discussion about expanding the fall flu vaccine to try to control it next cycle.

Is it really possible for us to prevent future outbreaks like this?

Yes, I believe it is. We spend tons of money trying to predict complex phenomena like tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes. There's no reason to believe that a pandemic is harder to predict than a tsunami. And we'd be foolish not to include forecasting and prevention as part of our overall portfolio to fight these pandemics.

Swine flu and Industrial scale pig farms ~ western owned

The boy’s hometown, La Gloria, is also close to a pig farm that raises almost 1 million animals a year. The facility, Granjas Carroll de Mexico, is partly owned by Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based US company and the world’s largest producer and processor of pork products. Residents of La Gloria have long complained about the clouds of flies that are drawn the so-called “manure lagoons” created by such mega-farms, known in the agriculture business as Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
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It is now known that there was a widespread outbreak of a powerful respiratory disease in the La Gloria area earlier this month, with some of the town’s residents falling ill in February. Health workers soon intervened, sealing off the town and spraying chemicals to kill the flies that were reportedly swarming through people’s homes.

A spokeswoman for Smithfield, Keira Ullrich, said that the company had found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza in its swine herd or its employees working at its joint ventures anywhere in Mexico. Meanwhile, Mexico’s National Organisation of Pig Production and Producers released its own statement, saying: “We deny completely that the influenza virus affecting Mexico originated in pigs because it has been scientifically demonstrated that this is not possible.”

According reports gathered on the website of James Wilson, a founding member of the Biosurveillance Indication and Warning Analysis Community (BIWAC), about 60 per cent of La Gloria’s 3,000-strong population have sought medical assistance since February.

“Residents claimed that three pediatric cases, all under two years of age, died from the outbreak,” wrote Mr Wilson. “However, officials stated that there was no direct link between the pediatric deaths and the outbreak; they said the three fatal cases were isolated and not related to each other.”

The case of the four-year-old boy was announced yesterday by Mexico’s Health Minister, Jose Angel Cordova, at a press conference that was briefly interrupted by an earthquake. “We are at the most critical moment of the epidemic. The number of cases will keep rising so we have to reinforce preventive measures,” he said, adding that in addition to the 149 deaths another 2,000 had been hospitalised with “grave pneumonia”, although at least half of that number had since made a full recovery.

Is swine flu a bioterrorist virus? No, but it is man made, so its a bioidiot virus

Cross post from New Scientist Blog by Michael Le Page, biology features editor..

Already, the conspiracy theorists are claiming the swine flu virus spreading around the world was genetically engineered by bioterrorists. The truth is more prosaic: the virus is far more likely to be a product of our lust for bacon than of a hatred for humanity.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the new virus is a mixture of four different viruses: North American swine flu, North American avian flu, human H1N1 flu and a swine flu strain found in Asia and Europe.

The claim of the conspiracy theorists is that this new combination could not have occurred naturally, but this is not true. Flu viruses consisting of a mixture of human, swine and bird strains have been found before. However, there is a sense in which the virus could be regarded as man-made.

Flu viruses contain 8 strands of RNA, which code for 10 proteins. If two flu viruses infect a cell at the same time, new viruses budding from that cell can contain a mixture of RNA strands from the two original viruses - a phenomenon called reassortment. Recombination - "cutting and pasting" - can also produce mixing within RNA strands.

It is unusual to be infected by two flu viruses at the same time, and even rarer for one of those viruses to come from another species. But it does happen, especially in pigs, which are susceptible to both human and bird flu viruses. Repeated reassortments can produce mixtures like that found in the swine flu virus now spreading worldwide.

There was reassortment between bird and human flu viruses in pigs in Italy during the 1980s, for instance, while in the 1990s a H1N2 swine flu circulating in pigs in the UK was found to be a mixture of swine, human and bird flu strains resulting from multiple reassortments.

It is not yet clear exactly when and how Mexican swine flu strain evolved, but it could certainly have happened without the help of genetic engineers. Despite this, the swine flu could still be regarded as man-made.

There are now over 6 billion people on the planet, and each year we raise more than a billion pigs and perhaps as many as 70 billion chickens. The result is a paradise for influenza viruses.

As New Scientist's flu correspondent Debora MacKenzie has reported over the years, the problem is not just the sheer number of potential hosts. The conditions in which animals are kept can favour the evolution of new and deadlier strains.

For instance, in the wild nasty flu strains that make animals too ill to walk or fly are unlikely to spread far. On crowded factory farms, they can spread like wildfire, helped by the global trade in animals and animal products.

The interaction of farm workers with animals, especially on small-holdings where pigs, ducks, chickens and children all happily intermingle, also provides plenty of opportunities for viruses to jump species.

Animal vaccines might seem like the answer, but vaccines that do not provide 100% protection can actually make things worse. When there is widespread vaccination, viruses can spread without any visible disease. Ineffective vaccines also create strong selective pressure driving the evolution of new strains that can dodge the immune attack provoked by the vaccine.

Already, attention is turning to the big pig farms in Mexico, and the role they may have played in creating this new strain of swine flu.

The fact is that we still know so little about flu, and what makes it capable of spreading from human to human, means that deliberately engineering a virus of this kind would be a huge challenge. Yes, it's possible that this virus was created by a mistake at a research laboratory or a vaccine factory.

But by far the most plausible explanation is that this monster is the long-predicted product of our farming system

The comments are good, apart from the eternally paranoid.

Vitamin D hope in prostate cancer

By Emma Wilkinson
BBC News health reporter


Prostate cancer is a major killer


Vitamin D is an effective treatment for prostate cancer in some patients, a UK study suggests.

A once daily dose reduced PSA level - an indicator of severity of disease - by as much as half in 20% of patients.

There has been much interest in vitamin D in prostate cancer after studies linking risk of the disease to sunlight exposure, the researchers said.

One expert agreed the findings were encouraging but said it needed to be tested in a bigger population.


Professor Jonathan Waxman, said the example had prompted him to assess the effects in a wider group of patients.

Out of 26 men with recurrent prostate cancer, who took a daily dose of vitamin D2 bought from the chemist, five responded to the treatment.

In two the PSA level, fell by more than half, in two by 25-50% and in one man it fell by less than 25%.

The effects in one man were sustained for 36 months.

Welcome addition

Study leader Professor Jonathan Waxman, from Imperial College London, said vitamin D therapy was effective and well-tolerated.

"It's very interesting - there has been no significant trial of vitamin D.

"This is a treatment which is unlikely to have significant toxicity and is a welcome addition to the therapeutic options for patients with prostate cancer."

He agreed that a further trial in a larger number of patients, comparing vitamin D with a dummy pill was warranted.

One theory is that vitamin D interferes with the effect of the androgen receptor, which is stimulated by hormones such as testosterone and implicated in prostate cancer.

John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, said it was not the first study looking at vitamin D in the disease but a consensus on the benefits had not been reached.

"This small scale study investigating the use of vitamin D as a 'stand alone' treatment for men with progressive prostate cancer provides a valuable additional perspective.

"Many men with prostate cancer may wonder whether they should take vitamin D supplements to control their disease.

"This study does not answer that question, but maintaining a good level of vitamin D is recommended as part of a generally healthy lifestyle.

"The role of supplements in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer is an area which deserves a greater level of research attention."

Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK prostate cancer expert based at Cardiff University agreed the results were encouraging but more evidence was needed.

"We advise men with prostate cancer to consult their doctor before taking vitamin D supplements."

Swine flu in Canada is mild

Swine flu confirmed in Canada
Unlike deadly outbreak in Mexico, the cases in Nova Scotia and B.C. were mild and didn't require hospitalization
April 26, 2009

Comments on this story (36)
STAR STAFF AND WIRE SERVICES

OTTAWA—Canadian health officials are rushing to contain the spread of swine flu through human contact after at least a half-dozen cases were confirmed in Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

Cases in both provinces were linked to Mexican travel — but unlike the deadly outbreak in that country, the illnesses in Nova Scotia and B.C. patients were so mild that none required hospitalization.

“This indicates that — yes — swine influenza is present in Canada,” said Danuta Skowronski, of B.C.’s Centre for Disease Control.

“What we can say so far is that, in the United States and Canada, we’re not picking up those signals of severe respiratory illness that Mexico has been grappling with. . .

“This swine influenza virus does not automatically mean hospitalization and death. It may have just the typical influenza-type presentation and symptoms . . . This is not necessarily scary monsters.”

But she warned that Canadian experts expect more cases in this country and that the public-health system remains on high alert.

Skowronski said the two people on the B.C. Lower Mainland who have contracted the flu have been asked to “self-isolate” but have not been quarantined.

She advised anyone developing flu-like symptoms to stay home and not go to work. If their symptoms are serious enough to see a doctor, she said, they should advise their physician in advance that they intend to pay a visit.

Four students from King’s-Edgehill School, a private high school in Windsor, N.S., have been placed in isolation. Two of them recently travelled to Mexico. Health authorities in Nova Scotia say their symptoms are mild.

The illness has proven itself to be potentially deadly. Mexico’s health minister says the disease has killed up to 86 people and likely sickened up to 1,400 since April 13.

Health authorities in Nova Scotia said Sunday the students reported fatigue, muscle aches and coughing, but nothing out of the ordinary for people who suffer from the flu.

Nova Scotia’s chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said the four “very mild” cases of swine flu were detected in students ranging in age from 12 to 17 or 18. All are recovering, he said.

“It was acquired in Mexico, brought home and spread,” Strang said.

Health officials urged anyone who thinks they might be ill with flu-like symptoms to stay away from work or school, wash their hands and avoid coughing into their hands.

Although four students at the school have reported getting sick, only two of them went on a school trip to Mexico between April 1 and 8.

Health officials say between 20 and 23 students were on the trip.

“We have to keep things in perspective — it is a mild illness,” Strang said.

Although health officials say four students have tested positive for swine flu, 11 of 17 students they have contacted so far who were on the trip to Mexico did get ill.

Because swine flu is so new, most laboratories don’t have tests to identify them, and they show up as untypeable influenza A when tests are run.

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon told CTV the federal cabinet has set up an operations committee and has been monitoring the swine flu situation closely.

Foreign Affairs has posted information on its website on the health situation in Mexico but is not telling Canadians to stay away from the country.

Although no cases of the flu strain have been confirmed in Ontario, 11 cases are being "looked at," said Steve Erwin, spokesperson for Ontario Minister of Health and Long-term Care David Caplan.

But that does not mean all those cases will be investigated or tested, he said.

The number of cases being looked at can change hourly, depending on when people seek medical advice.

He said the ministry would be issuing an update at about 5 p.m. today.

Although the situation is changing hour by hour, a Toronto expert cautioned against panic, noting that the latest confirmed cases in Nova Scotia were mild with none of the infected individuals requiring hospital care.

Around the world, countries from New Zealand to Spain reported suspected cases of swine flu and some warned citizens against travel to North America while others planned quarantines, tightened rules on pork imports and tested airline passengers for fevers.

Mexico, the United Satates and Canada were the only countries with confirmed human cases of swine flu Sunday as global health officials considered whether to raise the global pandemic alert level.

The news follows the World Health Organization’s decision Saturday to declare the outbreak first detected in Mexico and the United States a “public health emergency of international concern.”

U.S. officials say the virus has been found in New York, California, Texas, Kansas and Ohio, but so far no fatalities have been reported.

Governments including China, Russia and Taiwan began planning to put anyone with symptoms of the deadly virus under quarantine

Others were increasing their screening of pigs and pork imports from the Americas or banning them outright despite health officials’ reassurances that it was safe to eat thoroughly cooked pork.

Some nations issued travel warnings for Mexico and the United States.

WHO’s emergency committee is still trying to determine exactly how the virus has spread.

New Zealand said that 10 students who took a school trip to Mexico “likely” had swine flu. Israel said a man who had recently visited Mexico had been hospitalized while authorities try to determine whether he had the disease. French Health Ministry officials investigated four possible cases of swine flu, but three were later found to be negative.

Spanish authorities said a total of seven suspected cases were under observation.

Hong Kong and Taiwan said visitors who came back from flu-affected areas with fevers would be quarantined. China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arrival from an affected area had to report to authorities. A Russian health agency said any passenger from North America running a fever would be quarantined until the cause of the fever is determined.

Tokyo’s Narita airport installed a device to test the temperatures of passengers arriving from Mexico.

Indonesia increased surveillance at all entry points for travellers with flu-like symptoms — using devices at airports that were put in place years ago to monitor for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and bird flu. It said it was ready to quarantine suspected victims if necessary.

Hong Kong and South Korea warned against travel to the Mexican capital and three affected provinces. Italy, Poland and Venezuela also advised their citizens to postpone travel to affected areas of Mexico and the United States.

Russia banned the import of meat products from Mexico, California, Texas and Kansas. South Korea said it would increase the number of its influenza virus checks on pork products from Mexico and the U.S.

thestar.com

Swine Flu may have reached New Zealand

LATEST An Auckland school group is being tested for swine flu after returning from Mexico with flu-like symptoms.

More than 80 people in Mexico are believed to have died and over 1300 are sick as a result of catching swine flu. Cases have also been reported in New York, California and Kansas and a British Airways pilot has been hospitalised in London with flu symptoms after returning from Mexico.

Three teachers and 22 senior students at Rangitoto College, New Zealand's largest secondary school, on Auckland's North Shore, yesterday returned to Auckland on a flight from Los Angeles, after a three week trip to Mexico.

Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) said today some had symptoms of an influenza-like illness and were remaining in home isolation as a precaution while tests to exclude or confirm swine influenza were carried out.

One student was believed to be in hospital.

Ministry of Health spokesman Michael Flyger said the results of tests were expected this evening.

He said at this stage other passengers on the flight were not being sought and the next step would depend on what the tests showed.

"We don't believe at this point that there is a need for that.

"We might get no positives, we might get one, we might get all of them. It's a pretty big step to be taking (and) it's something that would be considered."

In the meantime the students and teachers had been told to stay at home in isolation and ARPHS was briefing their families and the school on infection control precautions.

While the virus' spread was considered serious enough for WHO declare a health emergency, Mr Flyger said it had proven responsive to drugs.

"It is concerning for sure. You've just got to look at the WHO's advice on this, but it has shown it reacts to treatment so it's not as bad as it could be.

"We're not looking at (the horror film) 28 Days Later."

The ARPHS had advised their families about infection control precautions.

The service was advising the school's principal and the Ministry of Education.

"We are taking this very seriously and doing everything necessary to manage this situation in Auckland," ARPHS clinical director Dr Julia Peters said.

"The Ministry of Health is managing the response to this issue at a national level."

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned the current situation with swine flu could start a global epidemic.

The flu has led to the closure of schools in Mexico City.

Dr Peters said anyone returning from Mexico or other places affected with the flu who had symptoms should visit a doctor before returning to work or school.

If symptoms were severe seek urgent medical attention.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has also issued a travel notice for people returning from Mexico, California and Texas. Anyone developing flu-like symptoms was advised to seek medical attention immediately.

The best things people could do to stop the spread of influenza were:

- stay at home and away from others if you are sick

- cover your coughs and sneezes with a tissue

- put used tissues into a rubbish bin

- avoid spreading germs by touching your eyes, nose or mouth to spread

- wash and dry hands frequently, even when you start feeling better.

WHO Cites Potential for Swine Flu Pandemic

WHO Cites Potential for Swine Flu Pandemic
Mexico's Leader Orders Sweeping Measures As Cases Exceed 1,000

By Joshua Partlow and Rob Stein
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 26, 2009


MEXICO CITY, April 25 -- The World Health Organization rushed to convene an emergency meeting Saturday to develop a response to the "pandemic potential" of a new swine flu virus that has sparked a deadly outbreak in Mexico and spread to disparate parts of the United States.

Health officials reported that at least eight students at a private high school in New York City had "probable" swine flu. They also confirmed three new cases -- two in Kansas and one in California -- bringing the total number of confirmed U.S. cases to 11. The president of Mexico, where the outbreak has killed as many as 81 people, issued an order granting his government broad powers to isolate patients and question travelers.

"This is a serious moment for the nation," President Felipe Calderón said Saturday. "And we are confronting it with seriousness, with all the pertinent measures."

The director general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, said the "situation is evolving quickly."

"We do not yet have a complete picture of the epidemiology or the risk, including possible spread beyond the currently affected areas," said Chan, who cut short a trip to the United States so she could rush back to the WHO's headquarters in Geneva to convene an emergency meeting of expert advisers to formulate a response to the virus. It is the first time the committee has been called upon since it was created two years ago to help handle disease outbreaks after the SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, epidemic.

"In the assessment of the WHO, this is a serious situation that must be watched very carefully," she said. "It has pandemic potential."

The virus, for which there is no vaccine for humans, has nearly brought Mexico City to a halt. Normally congested downtown streets in this city of 20 million were almost empty Saturday, and of the few people who ventured outside, many said they did so only out of necessity. Soldiers posted at subway stations handed out face masks to passersby from the back of armored vehicles. Some pedestrians covered their mouths and noses with scarves and rags.

"We can't escape the air," said Antonio Gonzáles, 56, who wore a surgical mask outside a public hospital. "If it was something in the food, we'd have a chance."

The Mexican government reported more than 1,300 suspected cases of the virus, which mixes animal and human strains of flu. Bars and nightclubs, schools, gallery openings and sporting events were cancelled until further notice. Authorities advised people to wash their hands regularly and avoid the customary greeting of kissing on the cheek. The government issued a decree giving the Health Ministry power to enter people's homes, close public events, isolate patients, and inspect travelers and their baggage.

The Associated Press reported that 24 new cases of the flu emerged Saturday in Mexico.

Worry and uncertainty seemed contagious. Many people had heard inconsistent reports on how many people were sick or dead, how the flu would manifest itself and which areas, if any, were safe.

"The people are disoriented. I think the government doesn't know what they are confronting," said Gonzalo Sariñana, 40, a university official from the northern city of Monterrey who was in Mexico City. "We are just guarding ourselves, waiting to hear what the government tells us to do."

Outside the General Hospital of the 32nd Zone, dozens of people wearing medical masks waited for word about relatives, some of whom had symptoms they suspected could be swine flu.

On Friday around 6 p.m., after returning from her job at the airport with Mexicana Airlines, Monserrat Montoya, 22, developed a fever, headache, aching bones and a cough, said her mother, Lourdes Resendes.

Montoya was taken to the hospital early Saturday and was put in isolation. Waiting outside the emergency room, Resendes did not know whether her daughter had tested positive for swine flu.

"This is very serious, more than anything because this hospital is not prepared for something like this," Resendes said. "There were people here from 11 at night that weren't attended to until 9 in the morning."

In remarks at a hospital opening in the southern state of Oaxaca, Calderón stressed that the flu was curable and that Mexico had sufficient supplies of antiviral medicine to deal with the situation.

The Mexico deaths are of particular concern to authorities because the victims have tended to be young, healthy adults, whereas ordinary flu mostly kills infants and the elderly.

In New York City, about 200 of the 2,700 students attending St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens had missed school earlier in the week because of flulike symptoms, prompting school officials to notify the health department.

A preliminary analysis of viral samples obtained from nose and throat swabs from nine students found that eight tested positive for influenza A. Because none matched the known H1 and H3 subtypes of human flu, they were considered "probable" cases of swine flu, said Thomas R. Frieden, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

"We're concerned," Frieden said. "When we see the serious cases in Mexico, and we see it spreading fairly rapidly in one school, it's a situation that has to be monitored very carefully."

The St. Francis students had just returned from spring break, during which some may have traveled to Mexico, he said.

The WHO, after the committee met for about two hours, described the outbreak as a "public health emergency of international concern" and recommended that countries intensify their efforts to identify "unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia."

The committee concluded that it needed more information about the outbreak before any decision could be made about raising the pandemic alert status, which is currently Level 3, meaning very limited spread of virus from person to person.

Chan stressed that a pandemic was not yet underway or inevitable, and she noted that no outbreaks had been reported elsewhere.

All of the confirmed cases in the southwestern United States -- seven in California and two in Texas -- have been relatively mild. Only one patient has been hospitalized, and no one has died, giving officials hope that the situation may not be as dire as in Mexico.

Late Saturday, state health officials in Kansas said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed two cases of swine flu that involved two adults who lived in the same house. Neither was hospitalized, but one was still ill and undergoing treatment, officials said. One had recently traveled to Mexico, they said.

The CDC has dispatched teams to Southern California to help state and local officials and plans to send a team to Texas. The agency is also analyzing samples from other suspected cases and taking steps that would be needed to produce a vaccine if necessary.

"We're trying to take action early before things get worse," said Anne Schuchat, the CDC's interim deputy director for science and public health. "We are worried, and because we're worried, we're acting aggressively on a number of fronts."

Stein reported from Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042503128_pf.html

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records obtained by environmental groups.

Throughout the 1990s, when the coalition conducted a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign challenging the merits of an international agreement, policy makers and pundits were fiercely debating whether humans could dangerously warm the planet. Today, with general agreement on the basics of warming, the debate has largely moved on to the question of how extensively to respond to rising temperatures.

Environmentalists have long maintained that industry knew early on that the scientific evidence supported a human influence on rising temperatures, but that the evidence was ignored for the sake of companies’ fight against curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

George Monbiot, a British environmental activist and writer, said that by promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had.

“They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Mr. Monbiot said, “only to cause as much confusion as possible.”

William O’Keefe, at the time a leader of the Global Climate Coalition, said in a telephone interview that the group’s leadership had not been aware of a gap between the public campaign and the advisers’ views. Mr. O’Keefe said the coalition’s leaders had felt that the scientific uncertainty justified a cautious approach to addressing cuts in greenhouse gases.

The coalition disbanded in 2002, but some members, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute, continue to lobby against any law or treaty that would sharply curb emissions. Others, like Exxon Mobil, now recognize a human contribution to global warming and have largely dropped financial support to groups challenging the science.

Documents drawn up by the coalition’s advisers were provided to lawyers by the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a coalition member, during the discovery process in a lawsuit that the auto industry filed in 2007 against the State of California’s efforts to limit vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions. The documents included drafts of a primer written for the coalition by its technical advisory committee, as well as minutes of the advisers’ meetings.

The documents were recently sent to The New York Times by a lawyer for environmental groups that sided with the state. The lawyer, eager to maintain a cordial relationship with the court, insisted on anonymity because the litigation is continuing.

The advisory committee was led by Leonard S. Bernstein, a chemical engineer and climate expert then at the Mobil Corporation. At the time the committee’s primer was drawn up, policy makers in the United States and abroad were arguing over the scope of the international climate-change agreement that in 1997 became the Kyoto Protocol.

The primer rejected the idea that mounting evidence already suggested that human activities were warming the climate, as a 1995 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had concluded. (In a report in 2007, the panel concluded with near certainty that most recent warming had been caused by humans.)

Yet the primer also found unpersuasive the arguments being used by skeptics, including the possibility that temperatures were only appearing to rise because of flawed climate records.

“The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change,” the advisory committee said in the 17-page primer.

According to the minutes of an advisory committee meeting that are among the disclosed documents, the primer was approved by the coalition’s operating committee early in 1996. But the approval came only after the operating committee had asked the advisers to omit the section that rebutted the contrarian arguments.

“This idea was accepted,” the minutes said, “and that portion of the paper will be dropped.”

The primer itself was never publicly distributed.

Mr. O’Keefe, who was then chairman of the Global Climate Coalition and a senior official of the American Petroleum Institute, the lobby for oil companies, said in the phone interview that he recalled seeing parts of the primer.

But he said he was not aware of the dropped sections when a copy of the approved final draft was sent to him. He said a change of that kind would have been made by the staff before the document was brought to the board for final consideration.

“I have no idea why the section on the contrarians would have been deleted,” said Mr. O’Keefe, now chief executive of the Marshall Institute, a nonprofit research group that opposes a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

“One thing I’m absolutely certain of,” he said, “is that no member of the board of the Global Climate Coalition said, ‘We have to suppress this.’ ”

Benjamin D. Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory whose work for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was challenged by the Global Climate Coalition and allied groups, said the coalition was “engaging in a full-court press at the time, trying to cast doubt on the bottom-line conclusion of the I.P.C.C.” That panel concluded in 1995 that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

“I’m amazed and astonished,” Dr. Santer said, “that the Global Climate Coalition had in their possession scientific information that substantiated our cautious findings and then chose to suppress that information.”For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.
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Interactive Feature
Document File: Advisers to Industry Group Weigh In on Warming

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records obtained by environmental groups.

Throughout the 1990s, when the coalition conducted a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign challenging the merits of an international agreement, policy makers and pundits were fiercely debating whether humans could dangerously warm the planet. Today, with general agreement on the basics of warming, the debate has largely moved on to the question of how extensively to respond to rising temperatures.

Environmentalists have long maintained that industry knew early on that the scientific evidence supported a human influence on rising temperatures, but that the evidence was ignored for the sake of companies’ fight against curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

George Monbiot, a British environmental activist and writer, said that by promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had.

“They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Mr. Monbiot said, “only to cause as much confusion as possible.”

William O’Keefe, at the time a leader of the Global Climate Coalition, said in a telephone interview that the group’s leadership had not been aware of a gap between the public campaign and the advisers’ views. Mr. O’Keefe said the coalition’s leaders had felt that the scientific uncertainty justified a cautious approach to addressing cuts in greenhouse gases.

The coalition disbanded in 2002, but some members, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute, continue to lobby against any law or treaty that would sharply curb emissions. Others, like Exxon Mobil, now recognize a human contribution to global warming and have largely dropped financial support to groups challenging the science.

Documents drawn up by the coalition’s advisers were provided to lawyers by the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a coalition member, during the discovery process in a lawsuit that the auto industry filed in 2007 against the State of California’s efforts to limit vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions. The documents included drafts of a primer written for the coalition by its technical advisory committee, as well as minutes of the advisers’ meetings.

The documents were recently sent to The New York Times by a lawyer for environmental groups that sided with the state. The lawyer, eager to maintain a cordial relationship with the court, insisted on anonymity because the litigation is continuing.

The advisory committee was led by Leonard S. Bernstein, a chemical engineer and climate expert then at the Mobil Corporation. At the time the committee’s primer was drawn up, policy makers in the United States and abroad were arguing over the scope of the international climate-change agreement that in 1997 became the Kyoto Protocol.

The primer rejected the idea that mounting evidence already suggested that human activities were warming the climate, as a 1995 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had concluded. (In a report in 2007, the panel concluded with near certainty that most recent warming had been caused by humans.)

Yet the primer also found unpersuasive the arguments being used by skeptics, including the possibility that temperatures were only appearing to rise because of flawed climate records.

“The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change,” the advisory committee said in the 17-page primer.

According to the minutes of an advisory committee meeting that are among the disclosed documents, the primer was approved by the coalition’s operating committee early in 1996. But the approval came only after the operating committee had asked the advisers to omit the section that rebutted the contrarian arguments.

“This idea was accepted,” the minutes said, “and that portion of the paper will be dropped.”

The primer itself was never publicly distributed.

Mr. O’Keefe, who was then chairman of the Global Climate Coalition and a senior official of the American Petroleum Institute, the lobby for oil companies, said in the phone interview that he recalled seeing parts of the primer.

But he said he was not aware of the dropped sections when a copy of the approved final draft was sent to him. He said a change of that kind would have been made by the staff before the document was brought to the board for final consideration.

“I have no idea why the section on the contrarians would have been deleted,” said Mr. O’Keefe, now chief executive of the Marshall Institute, a nonprofit research group that opposes a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

“One thing I’m absolutely certain of,” he said, “is that no member of the board of the Global Climate Coalition said, ‘We have to suppress this.’ ”

Benjamin D. Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory whose work for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was challenged by the Global Climate Coalition and allied groups, said the coalition was “engaging in a full-court press at the time, trying to cast doubt on the bottom-line conclusion of the I.P.C.C.” That panel concluded in 1995 that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

“I’m amazed and astonished,” Dr. Santer said, “that the Global Climate Coalition had in their possession scientific information that substantiated our cautious findings and then chose to suppress that information.”

83-year-old granny Yoga master

83-year-old Yoga instructor, Bette Calman, performs Yoga moves in Melbourne, Wednesday April 22, 2009. Bette moved to Melbourne to retire 8 years ago, only to find herself back in action again after her daughter Susie, who is also a Yoga instructor, was pestering for fill-in teachers. Despite her senior age, Bette is still practicing and teaching Yoga, teaching up to 11 classes a week. Bette has been practicing Yoga for over 40 years, and has no intention on stopping anytime soon.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-04/24/content_7712913.htm

Swine Flu has a characteristic seen in 20th Century pandemic ~ A cytokine storm

The issue with this new swine flu is that it kills those with really effective immune systems..as did the 1918 pandemic.

The influenza strain was unusual in that this pandemic killed many young adults and otherwise healthy victims – wiki

When the immune system is fighting pathogens, cytokines signal immune cells such as T-cells and macrophages to travel to the site of infection. In addition, cytokines activate those cells, stimulating them to produce more cytokines. Normally, this feedback loop is kept in check by the body. However, in some instances, the reaction becomes uncontrolled, and too many immune cells are activated in a single place. The precise reason for this is not entirely understood but may be caused by an exaggerated response when the immune system encounters a new and highly pathogenic invader. Cytokine storms have potential to do significant damage to body tissues and organs.[citation needed] If a cytokine storm occurs in the lungs, for example, fluids and immune cells such as macrophages may accumulate and eventually block off the airways, potentially resulting in death.[citation needed]

The cytokine storm (hypercytokinemia) is the systemic expression of a healthy and vigorous immune system resulting in the release of more than 150 inflammatory mediators (cytokines, oxygen free radicals, and coagulation factors).[citation needed] Both pro-inflammatory cytokines (such as Tumor necrosis factor-alpha, Interleukin-1, and Interleukin-6) and anti-inflammatory cytokines (such as interleukin 10 and interleukin 1 receptor antagonist) are elevated in the serum of patients experiencing a cytokine storm.[citation needed]

Cytokine storms can occur in a number of infectious and non-infectious diseases including graft versus host disease (GVHD), adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis, avian influenza, smallpox, and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS).[2]

The first reference to the term cytokine storm in the published medical literature appears to be by Ferrara et al.[3] in GVHD in February 1993.


It is believed that cytokine storms were responsible for many of the deaths during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed a disproportionate number of young adults.[1] In this case, a healthy immune system may have been a liability rather than an asset. Preliminary research results from Hong Kong also indicated this as the probable reason for many deaths during the SARS epidemic in 2003.[citation needed] Human deaths from the bird flu H5N1 usually involve cytokine storms as well.

"About 80 per cent of the virus is highly related to a North American body of swine flu that's been around for a number of years, but about 20 per cent of it comes from an Eurasian variety of swine flu first seen in Thailand, so it's recombined to create something totally new."

"Hartl also said 12 of 18 samples taken from victims in Mexico showed the virus had a genetic structure identical to that of the virus found in California earlier this week. But he said the agency needs more information before it changes its pandemic alert level, which currently stands at three on a scale of one to six.

The virus was first reported earlier this week as U.S. health officials scrambled to deal with the diagnoses of seven people with the never-before-seen strain in Texas and California. The states share a border with Mexico not far from a town where two deaths were reported.

Hartl said health officials are dealing with three separate events in Mexico, with most of the cases in and around the capital, Mexico City.

Most of the cases have occurred in healthy young adults, he added."

refs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic#History

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N23355101.htm

From New scientist and moved up from comments......

The World Health Organization is calling an emergency meeting to decide whether to declare the possible onset of a flu pandemic.

Ironically, after years of concern about H5N1 bird flu, the new flu causing concern is a pig virus, of a family known as H1N1.

Flu viruses are named after the two main proteins on their surfaces, abbreviated H and N. They are also differentiated by what animal they usually infect. The H in the new virus comes from pigs, but some of its other genes come from bird and human flu viruses, a mixture that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "very unusual".

On Wednesday, the CDC announced that routine surveillance had uncovered mild flu cases during late March and April, caused by a novel swine flu virus. Those affected, aged 9 to 54, live in and around San Diego, California, and San Antonio, Texas, near the Mexican border. None was severe. Symptoms were normal for flu, with more nausea and diarrhoea than usual.
Mongrelised mix

On Thursday, Canadian public health officials warned Canadians travelling to Mexico of clusters of severe flu-like illness there. Then on Friday the WHO in Geneva said in a statement there have been around 900 suspected cases of swine flu in Mexico City and two other regions of Mexico, with around 60 suspected deaths. Of those, 18 have been confirmed as H1N1 swine flu, says the WHO, and tests so far have shown that 12 of those are "genetically identical" to the California virus.

On Friday, Richard Besser, head of the CDC, confirmed that Mexican samples tested at CDC were also "similar" to the US virus. "From everything we know to date, this virus appears to be the same," he said.

To be declared a pandemic, Besser said, the virus must be new, cause severe disease, and transmit easily enough to be sustained.

It is new. Anne Schuchat, head of science and public health at the CDC, said that the US virus is an unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences from North American pigs, Eurasian pigs, birds and humans. The H protein on its surface, having hitherto circulated only in pigs, is one most human immune systems have never seen, the crucial requirement for a pandemic flu.

Too late to contain

The virus's severity will depend on how many people who catch it die. While suspect deaths in Mexico are being tested for H1N1, is not yet known how many mild cases of virus there may have been in the affected region that have gone untested. Both numbers are needed to calculate how deadly a case might be. One ominous sign, however, is that the Mexican cases are said to be mainly young adults, a hallmark of pandemic flu.

It can transmit among people. Those infected in the US had no known contact with pigs, and the three separate clusters of cases did not contact each other. This suggests, said Besser, that "this virus has already been transmitted from person to person, for several cycles", making it too late for emergency antiviral drugs to contain its spread to a limited area.
'High concern'

"Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus, and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern," the WHO said.

CDC scientists are now examining people with current and recent flu-like illnesses in the areas of California and Texas affected to see how many contacts of known cases have traces of the virus, or antibodies to it. That should show how many cases there may have been, how readily the virus spreads, and how likely it is to maintain transmission.

Another H1N1 flu jumped from pigs to people in 1976, and killed an army recruit in New Jersey. The US went on high alert and vaccinated thousands of people – but the virus did not spread readily enough to maintain an epidemic, and fizzled out.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17025-deadly-new-flu-virus-in-us-and-mexico-may-go-pandemic.html

Mind-reading headsets will change your brain

This week, engineer Adam Wilson made global headlines by updating Twitter using his brainwaves. "USING EEG TO SEND TWEET" he explained.

Wilson's achievement was actually pretty trivial. He used a system called BCI2000, found in hundreds of laboratories across the globe, that can do the job of a keyboard for any software program. But it was significant precisely because it was trivial: mind-reading tech is going to have a massive impact this year.

In the coming months, cheap headsets that let you control technology with the electrical signals generated by your firing neurons will go on sale to the general public. Our relationship with technology – and our brains – will never be the same again.
Escaping the lab

Researchers have developed systems that read brainwaves – in the form of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals – in order to help people suffering from disabilities or paralysis control wheelchairs, play games , or type on a computer. Now, two companies are preparing to market similar devices to mainstream consumers.

Australian outfit Emotiv will release a headset whose 16 sensors make it possible to direct 12 different movements in a computer game. Emotiv says the helmet can also detect emotions.

Compatible with any PC running Windows, it will ship later this year for $299 (see image). They have shown off a game where the player moves stones to rebuild Stonehenge using mind power alone (see video).

Californian company NeuroSky has also built a device that can detect emotions: the firm says it can tell whether you are focused, relaxed, afraid or anxious, for example.

Rather than selling it directly to the public, NeuroSky is licensing its set-up to other companies, including Mattel, Nokia and Sega. Mattel, for example, will soon sell a game which involves players levitating a ball using thought alone (see video).
Mind hacks

These devices are remarkably cheap, especially when compared to the price tags on research-grade EEGs, which can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Emotiv's headset will retail for $299, while Mattel's game will cost just $80. At such low prices, these dirt-cheap brain interfaces will likely be popular – and not just with people who want to play with them.

Consider what happened when the most revolutionary interface of recent years appeared – the wireless controller of Nintendo's Wii games console. Legions of hackers started experimenting; and millions of people have now seen how the interface can be repurposed to make an industrial robot play tennis (with video), track a person's head movements and make a normal TV display 3D images (video).

You can expect some similarly mind-blowing hacks to result once Emotiv and NeuroSky release their devices. That'll certainly help make for some compelling viewing on YouTube and accelerate the development of brain controllers.

But the most interesting consequence of the coming flood of brainware isn't technological at all. Parents, and anyone else whose schooldays are fading into memory, will be acutely aware that today's youngsters have a facility with interactive technology that can be acutely disorienting.

There's already speculation about how the internet, gaming and other interactive technology is changing the brains of the next generation – albeit not necessarily well-founded. But for the generation after that, it will be normal to control machines using thought alone. Given the awesome adaptability and plasticity of the human brain, how will our biological hardware and software will adapt?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17009-innovation-mindreading-headsets-will-change-your-brain.html

Global Warming Deniers Down Under Get Plimer Promotion

They include George Will, Rush Limbaugh, Robert Samuelson, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), and the aptly named Marc Morano, all of whom go about hacking schoolbooks, science and the thinking public’s sensibilities to extort the facts and figures they need to support their decidedly uninformed viewpoints.

Down under, in Australia, they have their own little coterie, and their dash to the rear is currently being led by Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University, whose newest book - Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science – is over 500 pages long and, according to reviewer Paul Sheehan, “a product of 40 years research”. Plimer, a geologist, says that 96 percent of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor.

Sheehan, a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, promotes “miracle water” cures for auto-immune diseases. In his book review, Sheehan cites an endorsement by Czech President Vaclav Klaus (printed on the back cover of Plimer’s book) as though this were a good thing.

Klaus is an economist who assumed EU presidency not through popularity but because of enforced rotation. He compares global warming activism to Communism, and freely admits he isn’t a climatologist, so has confined his global warming attacks to the economic effect they may have.

Klaus’s own global warming denial tome (Blue Planet in Green Shackles – a book one Czech reviewer describes as a single-minded rant by an all-knowing, self-appointed freedom fighter, reflects Klaus’s disputatious nature; on Feb. 19, Klaus told the European Union’s parliament that it was “an undemocratic and elitist project comparable to Soviet-era dictatorships”.

Klaus reportedly advocates the precautionary principle when dealing with the global effects of climate change, though clearly he doesn’t understand the term. The precautionary principle, by definition, recommends action “to protect the public from exposure to harm where scientific investigation discovers a risk, even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically”.

But back to Plimer, who is quoted as saying that the push behind global warming is a result of some UN scientists jumping on the global warming bandwagon to get themselves funded. Plimer himself is listed as an allied expert by the Natural Resource Stewardship Project, a non-profit that bills itself as a grassroots organization, though reliable sources confirm it is funded by the energy industry. Its founder, Tom Harris, refuses to divulge actual sources for funding. Can you say irony, Professor Plimer?

Plimer also ascribes global warming to volcanoes. In fact, studies show that, globally, volcanoes release a total of about 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while fossil fuel CO2 emissions in 2003 alone topped 26 billion tonnes.

Unfortunately, the damage done to global warming science from down under doesn’t stay down under. The opinions of Plimer, Sheehan, Dr. David Evans, John McLean and (more recently) Bob Carter spill north, like ocean debris following thermohaline circulatory patterns, polluting good science with speculation, hearsay and very bad science, and making it increasingly difficult to spot, refute or silence recycled denialism.

http://www.desmogblog.com/global-warming-deniers-down-under-get-pathetic-plimer-promotion

Increasing carbon dioxide and decreasing oxygen make it harder for deep-sea animals to 'breathe'

An oxygen free ocean will help sequester carbon in sediments.. Gaia responds. The critics never mention the problem of ocean acidity or runaway warming. I see the NFF has backed Plimer...


(PhysOrg.com) -- New calculations made by marine chemists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) suggest that low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean could expand significantly over the next century. These predictions are based on the fact that, as more and more carbon dioxide dissolves from the atmosphere into the ocean, marine animals will need more oxygen to survive.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide are increasing rapidly in the Earth's atmosphere, primarily because of human activities. About one third of the carbon dioxide that humans produce by burning fossil fuels is being absorbed by the world's oceans, gradually causing seawater to become more acidic.
However, such "ocean acidification" is not the only way that carbon dioxide can harm marine animals. In a "Perspective" published today in the journal Science,Peter Brewer and Edward Peltzer combine published data on rising levels of carbon dioxide and declining levels of oxygen in the ocean in a set of new and thermodynamically rigorous calculations. They show that increases in carbon dioxide can make marine animals more susceptible to low concentrations of oxygen, and thus exacerbate the effects of low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean.
Brewer and Peltzer's calculations also show that the partial pressure of dissolved carbon dioxide gas (pCO2) in low-oxygen zones will rise much higher than previously thought. This could have significant consequences for marine life in these zones.
For over a decade, Brewer and Peltzer have been working with marine biologists to study the effects of carbon dioxide on marine organisms. High concentrations of carbon dioxide make it harder for marine animals to respire (to extract oxygen from seawater). This, in turn, makes it harder for these animals to find food, avoid predators, and reproduce. Low concentrations of oxygen can have similar effects.
Currently, deep-sea life is threatened by a combination of increasing carbon dioxide and decreasing oxygen concentrations. The amount of dissolved carbon dioxide is increasing because the oceans are taking up more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. At the same time, ocean surface waters are warming and becoming more stable, which allows less oxygen to be carried from the surface down into the depths.
In trying to quantify the impacts of this "double whammy" on marine organisms, Brewer and Peltzer came up with the concept of a "respiration index." This index is based on the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide gas in a given sample of seawater. The lower the respiration index, the harder it is for marine animals to respire.
Brewer provides the following analogy, "Animals facing declining oxygen levels and rising CO2 levels will suffer in much the same way that humans in a damaged submarine would suffer, once the concentrations of these gasses reach critical levels. Our work helps define those critical levels for marine animals, and will enable the emerging risk to be quantified and mapped."
In the past, marine biologists have defined "dead zones" based solely on low concentrations of dissolved oxygen. Brewer and Peltzer hope that their respiration index will provide a more precise and quantitative way for oceanographers to identify such areas. Tracking changes in the respiration index could also help marine biologists understand and predict which ocean waters are at risk of becoming dead zones in the future.

To estimate such effects in the open ocean, the MBARI researchers calculated the respiration index at various ocean depths, for several different forecasted concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. They found that the most severe effects would take place in what are known as "oxygen minimum zones." These are depths, typically 300 to 1,000 meters below the surface, where oxygen concentrations are already quite low in many parts of the world's oceans.
Previously, marine biologists have assumed that the effects of increasing carbon dioxide in the oceans would be greatest at the sea surface, where most of the gas enters the ocean. Such studies have predicted a doubling of pCO2 (from about 280 to 560 micro-atmospheres) at the sea surface over the next 100 years. Brewer and Peltzer's calculations suggest that the partial pressure of carbon dioxide will increase even faster in the deep oxygen minimum zones, with pCO2 increasing by 2.5 times, from 1,000 to about 2,500 micro-atmospheres.
Previous studies have indicated that such oxygen minimum zones may expand over the next century. Brewer and Peltzer's research suggests that the effects of this expansion will be even more severe than previously forecast.
According to coauthor Peltzer, "The bottom line is that we think it's important to look at both oxygen and carbon dioxide in the oceans, rather than just one or the other." The impact of these chemical changes may be minimal in well-oxygenatedocean areas, but as the authors point out in their paper, "We may anticipate a very large expansion of the oceanic dead zones."
More information: P. G. Brewer, E. T. Peltzer. Limits to marine life. Science. 2009. Vol 324, Issue 5925. April 16, 2009
Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (news : web)
http://www.physorg.com/news159200016.html

Time travel cheat sheet

Coral Fossils Suggest That Sea Level Can Rise Rapidly

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Evidence from fossil coral reefs in Mexico underlines the potential for a sudden jump in sea levels because of global warming, scientists report in a new study.

The study, being published Thursday in the journal Nature, suggests that a sudden rise of 6.5 feet to 10 feet occurred within a span of 50 to 100 years about 121,000 years ago, at the end of the last warm interval between ice ages.

“The potential for sustained rapid ice loss and catastrophic sea-level rise in the near future is confirmed by our discovery of sea-level instability” in that period, the authors write.

Yet other experts on corals and climate are faulting the work, saying that big questions about coastal risks in a warming world remain unresolved.

Among the most momentous and enduring questions related to human-caused global warming are how fast and how high seas may rise. Studies of past climate shifts, particularly warm-ups at the ends of ice ages, show that fast-melting ice sheets have sometimes raised sea levels worldwide in bursts of up to several yards in a century.

A question facing scientists is whether such a rise can occur when the world has less polar ice and is already warm, as it is now, and getting warmer.

Citing the evidence from fossil coral reefs, the authors of the new study say with conviction that the answer is yes.

The study focuses on a set of fossil reef remains exposed in excavations for channels at a resort and water park, Xcaret, about 35 miles south of Cancún on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Paul Blanchon, the lead author of the study, said he sought a position as a research scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Institute of Marine Sciences in Puerto Morelos so he could focus on the unusual fossil reefs, visible for hundreds of yards where canals were cut into the rocky ground.

“I spent the last four years looking at those cross sections and piecing the story of those reefs together bit by bit like a jigsaw,” he said in a telephone interview.

With three co-authors from Germany, Dr. Blanchon calculated the ages of coral samples by measuring isotopes of thorium in the fossils. The team then confirmed the ages by comparing the Mexican reefs with coral reefs in the Bahamas whose ages had been thoroughly studied.

The team says it found that two Mexican reefs grew during the last “interglacial,” or warm interval between ice ages.

To determine the pace of sea-level rise in that period, Dr. Blanchon charted patterns of coral revealed in excavations at the resort. He said his work revealed a clear point where an existing reef died as the sea rose too quickly for coral organisms to build their foundation up toward the sea surface. Once the sea level stabilized again, the same group of corals grew once more, but farther inshore and up to 10 feet higher in elevation, a process known to geologists as backstepping.

Such an abrupt change from stable coral growth to death and a sudden upward and inshore shift of a reef could happen only because of a sudden change in sea level, he said.

But in interviews and e-mail messages, several researchers who focus on coral and climate said that although such a rapid rise in seas in that era could not be ruled out, the paper did not prove its case.

Daniel R. Muhs, a United States Geological Survey scientist who studies coasts for clues to past sea level, cited a lack of precise dating of the two reef sections. William Thompson, a coral specialist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, agreed, saying that given the importance of the conclusion, Dr. Blanchon interpreted the physical features without enough corroborating evidence.

But Dr. Blanchon maintains that the work will hold up, saying the signs of abrupt change are etched in the rock for everyone to examine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/science/earth/16coral.html?ref=science&pagewanted=print

gmail made easier.....

* If your first task of the day is typing www.gmail.com after opening your browser, then you must know that there are faster ways to reach Gmail. One of the easiest is to create a desktop shortcut that allows you to access Gmail with one click. Just go to Gmail Settings > Labs, and enable Offline Gmail. This will prompt you to install a programme called Google Gears and once that is done, go to Settings > Offline and click Create a Desktop Shortcut for Gmail.

* One of the best features of Gmail is a tool that archives emails. This feature allows you to keep emails you don’t want in your inbox. This way you can keep a clean inbox and yet keep all the data with you. To archive an email, look at the Archive button on the top panel of the inbox. Also on the panel below the inbox.

* If you want to be able to check your Gmail account using a dedicated application like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird, click the Settings tab found on the top bar of the webpage, go to the Setting page and select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP option. Then, enable either POP or IMAP (Internet standard protocols for email retrieval), save the settings, and start receiving mails through your listed mail clients.

* Ever subscribed to a mailing list where the current conversation has nothing to do with you? If you still don’t want to unsubscribe and yet don’t want to be disturbed by constant updates then stop the friendly spam with the Gmail Mute function. Select the email in the thread and hit the M key to auto-archive all incoming messages in the conversation. The thread will stay muted until you “unmute” it. Gmail also automatically unmute’s the message if your address appears in the “To” or the “CC” field.

* Google has also unveiled its experimental software called Gmail Autopilot which has a certain level of artificial intelligence such that when someone sends you an email, Gmail can automatically answer it depending on the keywords used in the letter. Gmail autopilot feature can also be used in the integrated Gmail Chat.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/gmail-made-easy/354877/