Hong Kong confirms first case of H7N9 bird flu
 

Hong Kong confirms first case of H7N9 bird flu

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-25181387

"Hong Kong has confirmed its first case of the new strain of the H7N9 bird flu in a domestic worker from Indonesia.

The worker, 36, recently travelled to Shenzhen in the mainland and came into contact with live poultry. She is in critical condition, officials say.

H7N9 has infected more than 100 people since it emerged earlier this year.

The case in Hong Kong is a sign that the virus may be spreading beyond mainland China, where most infections have been reported, and Taiwan. ....."

Tamiflu is a waste of money

Good to know...too bad it isn't more effective.

Interesting! I haven't read the original report, but will. Timely, post too as I am participating as a debater at a symposium on Pandemic Preparedness tomorrow and Saturday. My POV is that, at least as it pertains to medical countermeasures, we are approaching the problem the wrong way. Stockpiling Tamiflu is an excellent example of this. Thanks for the post and I will post a briefing from the symposium next week. That's presuming of course that I don't get banned before it's over. :D

HERESY!!!!! You guys be careful, Big Pharma is probably already sending hit teams to take out anyone spreading these "baseless" rumors. Remember Copernicus and Galileo! (Well - they didn't get burned at the stake, but it did cost them serious ass-pain and it took centuries for the Catholic Church to "rehabilitate" them.)

Nice!

Richard and Peregrino thank you for your concern, but honestly I say bring it! Been in the weeds for 10+ years gathering intel, snoopin & poopin, building assets (including former SF that are very well experienced and are properly placed, one or two that still operate in the shadows, and a non-QP member here), doing the heavy lifting, and am now preparing to engage. :lifter

Well, I can say with confidence that preparedness is a sham. The Tamiflu report is a case in point. I have pulled the two original clinical trial reports and have attached an editorial summary of these written by the editors of BMJ - a well respected peer reviewed medical journal. I summarize the key points that I found most disturbing and that validate my position:

(1) This class of drug (neuramidase inhibitors) have only a slight benefit in the relief of flu symptoms when compared to a placebo.

(2) When compared to other relief drugs (e.g. advil cold and flu) there is no difference.

(3) The course of disease is unaltered

(4) Patients are still infective

(5) No benefit in the prevention of complications such as pneumonia.

(6) No change in the morbidity/mortality as a result of treatment.

(7) A full 60% of the clinical data was withheld from the FDA during the approval process.

That governments are spending Billions of $s thinking that we are protected is a very, very dangerous false hope.

One of the 3 presenters at the symposium whom I will debate is the Senior Science Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (HHS). I have read his position paper. Most of his points will address the issues of surveillance and containment. These are excellent. The other two presenters are two academics that IMO (reading their position papers) are just fluff. Nowhere, is the issue of medical countermeasures addressed. That is our Achille's heal and the Tamiflu case study makes that point very nicely.

Moreover, the entire symposium presupposes 'natural' pandemic occurrence. A far more likely scenario is intentional pandemic occurrence. Such an event will not only circumvent surveillance measures, it will neutralize containment measures. This leaves us dependent upon medical countermeasures and, as I pointed out, they are non-existent.

My "Spidey-sense" is telling me that this symposium is a road-show to convince gullible academics that the government is doing the right things and that although there are risks, the gubment has things under control. Hah....that's BS!

Could be a couple of interesting days. :D

Sounds like you're going trolling for big fish. IF you feel you have everything "locked and cocked" may I suggest some light entertainment for your down time? Check out: http://www.amazon.com/Under-Graveyar.../dp/1451639198. I found it entertaining (in fairness, I know John and would read at least the first book of any series he writes) and it dovetails nicely with your "intentional" concerns. Otherwise - have fun at the convention (after all - isn't that what conventions are for? :D).

Peregrino, I wouldn't say that everything is "locked and cocked" just yet. Still prepping the battlefield and this is just a little "recon by fire" op. Just love throwing a grenade or two inside the enemy perimeter to see what happens. :D I'll know the effect in a few weeks from the assets inside the wire.

Ringo's book looks like fun. I hope we can prevent that scenario. Still time, but we'll see. :munchin

Pleasently Surprised
 

Just got back from 2 days of intensive discussion/debate at Ursinis College. The conference was sponsored and run by the Institute on Science for Global Policy (ISGP) entitled "Emerging and Persistent Infectious Disease: Focus on Pandemic Preparedness" and was conducted in accordance with Chatham House Rules. The conference was moderated by George H. Atkinson, Executive Director of ISGP and former Science and Technology Adviser to Secretaries Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell.

Students in the Ursinis College program at the Center for Science and the Common Good. Also debating were the Physician General of the Commonwealth of PA (Carrie DeLone, MD), Jane Weida, MD (President of the Board of Trustees, American Academy of Family Physicians), and Joseph H. Melrose, Jr (Retired Ambassador of the United States).

The presenters were George Korch (Senior Science Advisor to the Asst. Secretary for Preparedness HHS), Stephen Morse (Global Co-Director, USAID Predict Project and Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University), and K. Viswanath (Professor, Harvard University School of Public Health).

At the conclusion of the debates (day 1) we broke into caucus groups (day 2) to develop consensus statements and actionable items. These were discussed and debated to develop combined consensus statements and action items during the afternoon of the 2nd day. These will be published along with the conference proceedings.

One of the most surprising and encouraging outcomes to me was how well prepared the students were and how thoughtful and pertinent their questions were. The students had obviously been trained in the development of critical thinking skills. This was a pretty much universal opinion of those of us outside the academic circles or from other institutions. This singular point gives this FOG hope for the future. It was also surprising to me how conservative/libertarian leaning these students were on issues. Could that be a direct consequence of sharpened critical thinking skills? :D This was not at all what I was expecting from a small liberal arts college. I did have the opportunity to point that out to the President of Ursinis College and thank him and his faculty on a job well done.

Right out of the gate I began to lob grenades: (1) Given that efficacy of flu vaccines are nominally 60% - 70% effective and that public compliance with flu vaccine programs is at best 20%, aren't we fooling ourselves by thinking that vaccine development programs will provide any significant protection from a Pandemic? (2) Given that we have NEVER been able to predict an emergent flu strain that results in Pandemic, why do we think that trying to develop vaccines that are either not effective or that people won't take is a viable strategy for Pandemic preparedness? (3) Given that flu vaccine development programs are very costly to industry and have the lowest margins of profitability among the products in market or in the PhRMA pipeline, what incentive is there for PhRMA to develop vaccines that are ineffective and that people wont take? (4) Are we asking PhRMA to bank on the hope that a market may emerge at some point in the future for which we have historically not been able to predict in the first place?
(5) Does this not put the governments of world in a position of needing to spend Billions of $s stockpiling vaccines and replacing these stockpiles every few years in the false hope that they will provide protection in the event of a Pandemic?

I went on to challenge the conventional planning to point out that after $80 B in expenditures we essentially have (1) no vaccines and (2) no effective medical countermeasures to the identified threats. Could it be that we are just simply looking at the problem and therefore the solutions in the wrong way? Why would we continue to do the same thing, albeit faster and more efficiently, and expect a different result? And another thing, what is wrong with a system that stockpiles $1.3 B worth of palliative drug (Tamiflu) that is no more effective than Advil Cold and Flu?

What makes us think that the next Pandemic will occur by a natural means of transmission? If an intentional release of an agent that caused a pandemic were to occur (I believe that it will) this would circumvent all surveillance measures and would make all containment measures ineffective and the only response would be therapeutic medical countermeasures for which we have none. In short the Emperor has no clothes!

Well, the second surprise was that I met with no resistance or push-back on these issues although there was some obfuscating and excuse pandering - but I quickly called that BS. What did happen is that I found allies in part because the presenters and moderator had some common ground in the human assets I have acquired during the years of the preparation phase and with whom we had mutual respect. So it all boiled down to relationships in common.

Follow on action steps will be to (1) at the request of the Science Advisor for Preparedness, bring this message inside HHS and (2) have direct input to the editing the final consensus statement and action items that will appear in the published proceedings. When these are available I will post them here.

All in all a good 2 days and time well spent. Much follow up work to do.:lifter

Common sense ain't so.

No truer words spoken!

A few months back I finished reading David Kilcullen's new book "Out of the Mountains".

Actually a pretty good read, but nothing new to most on this forum.

It covers four major megatrends and their implications for local/regional/global security:

population growth
urbanization
littoralization
connectivity

But upon reflection, there's an almost complete lack of inclusion regarding the public health security facet in the book(beyond a rather scary mention of the 1 toilet per 600+ people in Mumbai).

When you factor in the "self governed spaces" aspect as termed by a QP over at Small Wars Journal visualized in megaslum favela form along with the specific targeting of public health workers in places like Pakistan(polio immunization NGO workers) the public health security threat seems both enormous and inevitable.

I'm surprised the fast growing 3rd world poor public health petri dish connected to the 1st world aspect wasn't worth the coverage.

Thanks very much for the insight. Of all the CBRNE horsemen, the "B" is the scariest.

It was, I just didn't mention it here, and it will be in the published proceedings.