What The Fucks Going On Blog

Is D225G mutation of the H1N1 virus the "Pneumonic Plague"--"Spanish Flu II" or worse?

The emergence of the D225G strain of the H1N1 Swine flu virus and its striking similarities to the Spanish Flu leave scientists and governments wondering: Is this rogue amino acid the key to the "Pneumonic Plague, "Spanish Flu II," or worse?

 
The D225G mutation in the H1N1 virus, which appears to be the most lethal strain, attaches to the same "link" on the amino acid "chain" and affects the virus in the same way as the same mutation in the Spanish Flu of 1918. 

The question is: Will this mutated strain be transmitted via human-to-human like the 1918 mutated virus?

 
The biggest concern at this time is the severity of illness the mutated version of H1N1 causes. The primary cause of death in the Ukraine D225G mutation has been bleeding in the lungs, leading to total destruction of the lung tissue. Similar findings were seen in the 1918 pandemic. The infection gets deep into the bases of the lungs and causes a catastrophic cascading chemical reaction. 

The D225G mutant strain acts in the host as it did in 1918 and we also know that the 1918 flu started off mild and few deaths and ended with severe symptoms and millions of death. So far the 2009 pandemic has started off slow and there have been few deaths.

Does the H1N1 virus mutate inside the human host, where the amino acid "link" switches to D225G?

Can the H1N1 virus mutate outside the human host, where the amino acid "link" switches to D225G?

Can the H1N1/D225D virus be transmitted easily, or does it require intimate contact?

A clue to the last question may be found in a recent case in Texas:

It has been reported that 2 oil workers from Nacogdoches County Texas have died from severe complications due H1N1 infection 24 hours apart. They were roommates on the oil rigs and both were in there mid 50’s. There hasn’t been a postmortem report made available at this time, so it’s hard to say if these individuals have the mutant D225G strain.

What is interesting is that these gentlemen were roommates and they died within 24 hours of the same infection. We know the H1N1 virus is highly contagious and we know people have died from complications from an H1N1 infection. However most H1N1 infections have been mild and when you have this type of event occur it is very likely that these men contracted a lethal contagious form of H1N1, perhaps the D225G strain.  The Texas case seems to mimic the cases in Norway and the Ukraine, where the  D225G mutant strain also caused rapid symptoms, flooding of the lungs with blood and  and death.

 

Killer Mutation--worse than 1918 Spanish Flu--now possible in China: H1N1 swine flu + H5N1 bird flu

A lethal hybrid--worse than the Spanish Flu--could now emege in China—with the

 "H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”

according to the World Health Organization 

The danger of a Super Bug was verfied by Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China’s southern Guangdong province.

“China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster." Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.

Even the WHO admits: “The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”

“This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent." Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.

Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.

The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.

Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.

“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”--WHO

The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.

“First, it places those in direct contact with birds — usually rural folk and farm workers — at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of “reassortment” with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain,” it said.

“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”

 

Each time you get "RE-INFECTED" by H1N1, it hits you harder; 2nd-3rd generation viruses dangerous to uninfected people

Just when you thought you could get the flu and then be "immune" to it for life, you find out that you can get a more severe (2nd generation) version of the same virus, making you sicker this time; then, you worry that the third time you get it (3rd genration) it could kill you.

If you pass the 2nd or 3rd generation version to someone who has not been infected by the virus yet, it could kill them.

 
"I came down with the flu in August, it was mild, 5 days of relative discomfort but the classic symptoms of h1n1 ie., dropping from head directly into lungs. This past week another bout with the same flu only it is triple in it’s effects and has really laid me low. I haven’t had a cold or flu for over 30 years and this really really sucks. I hope that there isn’t a tertiary infection because anything stronger than what I have now will land me in the hospital."(shocked and awed Says: November 25th, 2009 at 7:16 am)

When exposed to generation 2 (v 1.2) or 3 (v 1.2) H1N1 viruses, previously health young adults develop more serious symptoms, leading to an increase in hospitalizations and deaths.  The higher viral load, especially when combined with receptor binding domain changes such as D225G can lead to the type of cases seen in Ukraine, where a high percentage of young adults develop infections that destroy both lungsin a matter of  a few days.

At the time however, the H1N1 virus was evolving slowly, reflecting an ease of infection of a naïve population.  The jump from swine H1N1 into humans allows for infections with low doses of virus.  Low concentration of virus produces a mild infection and a weak antibody response.  The rapid spread creates widespread antibody, but the low level allows for re-infection from individuals with a higher viral load.  A higher viral load can be created in a school environment, where some students could be infected multiple times because of frequent contact with infected students.

Thus, the increased viral load could overcome the weak immune-response and re-infect those infected earlier, leading to a second wave.  However, the higher viral load leads to more serious infections, especially for these not infected in the first wave. 

The following comments from Recombinomics on lab confirmed re-infection of two family members occured two months apart by swine H1N1.  These confirmations are supported by many anecdotal reports of similar re-infections.  The timing of these infections allowed for easy identification, because at the time there was no seasonal flu, so identification of infections was straight-forward.  Moreover, such infections in school aged children and parents are common because H1N1 infections exploded when school began.

Recombinomics
Wednesday, Nov 25th, 2009

Dr. Debra Parsons, a pediatrician at Kid Care West in Cross Lanes, was met with reactions of doubt from local health officials last month when she said two flu tests had come back positive for H1N1, or swine flu.

Parsons first came down with the virus, complete with all the telltale symptoms, in August.

Her son became ill at the same time with the same symptoms. Figuring they had the same bug, Parsons tested herself to see what it was.

The test came back positive for Influenza A, so the lab at Charleston Area Medical Center sent it to be sub-typed. Parsons was positive for H1N1.

Parsons and her son recovered, but in October they started having the same symptoms, but they became much worse.

They were both tested this time, and the results were the same — they were positive for Influenza A and then H1N1.

“It was swine flu both times,” Parsons said.

STUDY: emotion-like behaviors, regulated by dopamine; implications for ADHD, learning deficits

Findings, which may be relevant to the relationship between the neurotransmitter dopamine and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), are described in the December issue of the journal Neuron.

 
Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have uncovered evidence of a primitive emotion-like behavior in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

These results "suggested that dopamine actively inhibits the hyperactivity response," Lebestky says.

 
This observation suggested a possible link to ADHD, a behavioral disorder characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and short attention span. Humans with the disorder often take drugs, such as Ritalin, that increase levels of brain dopamine in order to reduce hyperactivity.

The Drosophila brain contains only about 20,000 neurons and has long been considered a powerful system with which to study the genetic basis of behaviors such as learning and courtship, as well as memory and circadian rhythms. What hasn't been clear is whether the Drosophila brain also could be used to study the genetic basis of "emotional" behaviors.

"Such studies are important," says David Anderson, Caltech's Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, "because it's believed that abnormalities in these types of behaviors may underlie many psychiatric disorders."

Most of the genes found in the fruit fly—more accurately referred to as the vinegar fly—are found in humans as well, including those neurons that produce brain chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, which have been implicated in psychiatric disorders.

In their Neuron paper, the Caltech team—led by postdoctoral fellow Tim Lebestky—found that a series of brief but brisk air puffs, delivered in rapid succession, caused flies to run around their test chamber in what Anderson calls a "frantic manner." This behavior persisted for several minutes after the last of the puffs.

"Even after the flies had 'calmed down,'" he adds, "they remained hypersensitive to a single air puff."

To quantify the flies' behavior, Anderson's group collaborated with Pietro Perona, the Allen E. Puckett Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. Together with his students, Perona developed an automated machine-vision-based system to track the movement of the flies, and derived a simple mathematical model to fit the movement data and to extract metrics that described various aspects of the flies' responses under different conditions.

The researchers used this test to search for flies with an abnormally exaggerated hyperactivity response; genetic studies of these flies revealed that a mutation in a dopamine receptor (a mutation that eliminates the receptor) produced the aberrant behavior. Flies with this dopamine-receptor mutation were hypersensitive to the air puffs, and took much longer to calm down than did "normal" flies without the mutation.

What is surprising about this result, notes Lebestky, "is that previous studies in both flies and vertebrates had suggested that dopamine promotes activity, but our experiments uncovered a function of dopamine in the opposite direction." Because removing the receptor causes hypersensitivity to the air puffs, these results "suggested that dopamine actively inhibits the hyperactivity response," Lebestky says.

This observation suggested a possible link to ADHD, a behavioral disorder characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and short attention span. Humans with the disorder often take drugs, such as Ritalin, that increase levels of brain dopamine in order to reduce hyperactivity.

The ways the mutant flies respond to the air puffs is, moreover, "reminiscent of the way in which individuals with ADHD display hypersensitivity to environmental stimuli and are more easily aroused by such influences," says Anderson. Importantly, ADHD has been genetically linked to abnormalities of the dopamine system in humans, further strengthening the analogy between the mutant flies and this psychiatric disorder.

There is also another possible link: some individuals with ADHD display learning disabilities. Similarly, researchers from Pennsylvania State University—who collaborated on the Neuron study—have shown previously that flies with the same dopamine receptor mutation are unable to learn to associate a particular odor with an electric shock, and do not avoid the odor when subsequently tested. (Flies without the mutation quickly learn to make the association.)

It is often assumed that because individuals with ADHD are hyperactive and easily distracted, they have difficulty learning. The Caltech group showed, however, that hyperactivity and learning disabilities are not causally related in flies bearing the dopamine receptor mutation, thereby disproving the theory—at least in flies.

"We could separately 'rescue' the hyperactivity and learning deficits in a completely independent manner," says Anderson, "by genetically restoring the dopamine receptor to different regions of the fly's brain."

Thus, in dopamine-receptor-mutant flies, hyperactivity does not seem to cause learning deficits. Instead, these two "symptoms" reflect independent effects of the mutation that manifest themselves in distinct brain regions. "Being able to observe and manipulate the different neural substrates for learning and arousal will hopefully give us a unique method for identifying new molecular pathways that could be investigated and validated in higher organisms," says Lebestky.

This finding in flies, notes Anderson, raises the possibility that hyperactivity and learning deficits also may not be causally linked in humans with ADHD. If so, he says, it ultimately may prove more effective to develop drugs to treat these two symptoms separately, rather than trying to cure them both with the broad-spectrum pharmaceuticals currently available, which have many undesirable side effects.

"The finding that flies exhibit emotion-like behaviors that are controlled by some of the same brain chemicals as in humans opens up the possibility of applying the powerful genetics of this 'model organism' to understanding how these chemicals influence behavior through their actions on specific brain circuits," says Anderson. "While the specific details of where and how this occurs are likely to be different in flies and in humans, the basic principles are likely to be evolutionarily conserved, and may aid in our understanding of what goes wrong in disorders such as ADHD."

###

In addition to Lebestky, Anderson, and Perona, other researchers on the Neuron paper, "Two Different Forms of Arousal in Drosophila are Oppositely Regulated by the Dopamine D1 Receptor Ortholog DopR via Distinct Neural Circuits," are Jung-Sook Chang, Heiko Dankert, and Lihi Zelnik from Caltech; Young-Cho Kim and Kyung-An Han from Pennsylvania State University; and Fred Wolf from the University of California, San Francisco. Their work was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Visit the Caltech Media Relations website at http://media.caltech.edu.

No mouse, no keyboard, no game controller - you will communicate with your brainwaves

This technology was first developed for disabled people. The user wears a cap with wires implanted to communicate brain waves.  This will also be applied to Wii, your phone and other devices that can respond to your brainwaves. For those who will refuse an implant, there will be options to carry a chip to communicate; imagine one implanted in your eyeglasses or contact lenses, or your earrings.--Earl Nash

Computerworld - By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves.

Scientists at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people's brains.

The scientists say the plan is not a scene from a sci-fi movie -- Big Brother won't be planting chips in your brain against your will. Researchers expect that consumers will want the freedom they will gain by using the implant.

"I think human beings are remarkable adaptive," said Andrew Chien, vice president of research and director of future technologies research at Intel Labs. "If you told people 20 years ago that they would be carrying computers all the time, they would have said, 'I don't want that. I don't need that.' Now you can't get them to stop [carrying devices]. There are a lot of things that have to be done first but I think [implanting chips into human brains] is well within the scope of possibility."

Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau told Computerworld that users will soon tire of depending on a computer interface, and having to fish a device out of their pocket or bag to access it. He also predicted that users will tire of having to manipulate an interface with their fingers.

Instead, they'll simply manipulate their various devices with their brains.

"We're trying to prove you can do interesting things with brain waves," said Pomerleau. "Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts."

To get to that point Pomerleau and his research teammates from Intel, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, are currently working on decoding human brain activity.

Pomerleau said the team has used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts, he added.

For instance, if two people think of the image of a bear or hear the word bear or even hear a bear growl, a neuroimage would show similar brain activity. Basically, there are standard patterns that show up in the brain for different words or images.

Pomerleau said researchers are close to gaining the ability to build brain sensing technology into a head set that culd be used to manipulate a computer. The next step is development of a tiny, far less cumbersome sensor that could be implanted inside the brain.

Such brain research isn't limited to Intel and its university partners.

Almost two years ago, scientists in the U.S. and Japan announced that a monkey's brain was used to to control a humanoid robot. Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University and lead researcher on the project, said that researchers were hoping its work would help paralyzed people walk again.

And a month before that, a scientist at the University of Arizona reported that he had successfully built a robot that is guided by the brain and eyes of a moth. Charles Higgins, an associate professor at the university, predicted that in 10 to 15 years people will be using "hybrid" computers running a combination of technology and living organic tissue.

Today, Intel's Pomerleau said various research facilities are developing technologies to sense activity from inside the skull.

"If we can get to the point where we can accurately detect specific words, you could mentally type," he added. "You could compose characters or words by thinking about letters flashing on the screen or typing whole words rather than their individual characters."

Pomerleau also noted that the more scientists figure out about the brain, it will help them design better microprocessors. He said, "If we can see how the brain does it, then we could build smarter computers."

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141180/Intel_Chips_in_brains_will_control_computers_by_2020?taxonomyId=11&pageNumber=2 

Japanese Carp Invasion of Great Lakes could devastate ecosystem, fishing industry

Fish that have the potential to devastate the Great Lakes ecosystem may be just a few miles from Lake Michigan.

Two carp species from Asia — the silver and the bighead — are invasive fish with huge appetites. If they enter the Great Lakes, they could overwhelm the native fish.

Federal officials are citing DNA evidence indicating that Asian carp may have circumvented an electronic barrier keeping them from the Great Lakes.

Army Corps of Engineers says that DNA from the invasive carp species has been found on the north side of the barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, indicating that perhaps the aggressive species has spread up into the waters.

The carp were originally brought to the United States to control nuisance algae — but they escaped and migrated to the Mississippi River basin, Lodge says.

He says he doesn't know the impact the carp can have on the Great Lakes "with certainty," but "there's lots of reasons to think they would be highly damaging."

The Mississippi and Illinois rivers serve as examples: 90 percent of what fishermen catch there are carp, and that has virtually destroyed commercial fisheries because carp has low commercial value, he says. What's more, silver carp have an "unusual habit" of jumping high out of the water — and have harmed people.

"They're like living missiles," he says. "And because they reach weights of up to 80 to 100 pounds, a fast-moving boat and a person sitting in it [colliding] with a fish is likely to come out much worse for the wear."

The plan has been to poison a 5- to 6-mile area near the canal to reduce the carp population below the electric barrier, Lodge says. He says it's important to go forward with that poisoning even though the new results show that the Asian carp are above the barrier.

"The game's not over; it's not time to give up," he says. "There are lots of examples of invasions that while [they] may initially look successful, may fail — or certainly be made to fail with effective management. We shouldn't give up at this point."

Jennifer Nalbone, director of Navigation and Invasive Species at Great Lakes United, said to The Detroit News:

“This means we have to take aggressive action now because an invasion is imminent. This is not the time for deliberation. This is the time for action.”

The carp, which can grow to be 4 feet long and over 100 lbs, escaped from Southern fish farms in the 1990s and have been moving upstream since. The fish have been known to knock boaters from boats, and have already wrought havoc in Mississippi after invading their waters. They have adversely affected both the environment and the economy, and as filter feeders, can quickly dominate a body of water and edge out the native fish.

The original barrier was erected in 2002 at a cost of $9m. Great Lakes water keeper organizations are requesting a state of emergency to battle the Asian carp and protect their waters.

Shocked by rapidly increasing icesheet melting, scientists revise sea estimate from 2 to 16 feet

Confronted with startling new evidence of the rapid rate of icesheet melting, scientists have increased their estimates of sea level rises from 2 to 16 feet.

 
Scientists were alarmed to discover that the East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tons of ice since 2006, and that the smaller but less stable West Antarctic icesheet is also shedding significant mass.

Factoring in this startling new data, scientists now worry that rising global temperatures will trigger a rapid disintegration of West Antarctica, which holds enough frozen water to push up the global ocean watermark by not just 2 feet, but about 16 feet.

 
In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicted sea levels would rise 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100, but this estimate did not factor in the potential impact of crumbling icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Today many of the same scientist say that even if heat-trapping CO2 emissions are curtailed, the ocean watermark is more likely to go up by nearly a metre, enough to render several small island nations unlivable and damage fertile deltas home to hundreds of millions.

(Florida after a 12 foot rise in sea level)

More than 190 nations gather in Copenhagen next month to hammer out a global climate deal to curb greenhouse gases and help poor countries cope with its consequences.

University of Texas professor Jianli Chen and colleagues analysed nearly seven years of data on ocean-icesheet interaction in Antarctica.

Covering the period up January 2009, the data was collected by the twin GRACE satellites, which detect mass flows in the ocean and polar regions by measuring changes in Earth's gravity field.

Consistent with earlier findings based on different methods, they found that West Antarctica dumped, on average, about 132 billion tonnes of ice into the sea each year, give or take 26 billion tonnes.

They also found for the first time that East Antarctica - on the Eastern Hemisphere side of the continent - is likewise losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of about 57 billion tonnes annually.

The margin or error, they cautioned, is almost as large as the estimate, meaning ice loss could be a little as a few billion tonnes or more than 100.

Up to now, scientists had thought that East Antarctica was in "balance," meaning that it accumulated as much mass and it gave off, perhaps a bit more.

"Acceleration of ice loss in recent years over the entire continent is thus indicated," the authors conclude. "Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea level rise."

 
Another study published last week in the journal Nature reported an upwardly-revised figure for Antarctic temperatures during prior "interglacials", warm periods such as our own that have occurred roughly every 100,000 years.

During the last interglacial which peaked some 128,000 years ago, called the Eemian Period, temperatures in the region were probably six degree Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today, which is about 3 C (5.4 C) above previous estimates, the study said.

The findings suggest that the region may be more sensitive than scientists thought to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere that were roughly equivalent to present day levels.

During the Eemian, sea levels were five-to-seven metres higher than today.

 

Link found between Swine flu mutation and 1918 Spanish Flu at receptor D225G

"The presence of the 1918 receptor binding domain change in an H1N1 swine virus that has  jumped to humans is cause for concern" since the D225G link announced by the WHO in tested samples DNA code provides a connection to sequences from samples from 1918 patients.  In 1918 the same change occured. 

Most samples had a D at position 225, while two samples had D225G (from 1918 and 1919). "WHO regional lab Mill Hill, there was clear evidence of an association of D225G with fatal cases.  Of the 10 sequences released, four were listed as deceased, and all four had D225G.  None of the six samples which came from patients that were labeled with age and gender but had no deceased designation had D225G. 

the D225G identified from Ukraine was in both of the hard hit areas, Ternopil and Lviv.  Two samples from each area were positive, indicating the change had spread.  Ukraine has already acknowledged over 350 dead patients and initial reports described hemorrhagic lungs that were totally destroyed.  This destruction was in multiple media reports as well as an agency report describing 90 fatal cases.

Moreover, the D225G identified from Ukraine was in both of the hard hit areas, Ternopil and Lviv.  Two samples from each area were positive, indicating the change had spread.  Ukraine has already acknowledged over 350 dead patients and initial reports described hemorrhagic lungs that were totally destroyed.  This destruction was in multiple media reports as well as an agency report describing 90 fatal cases.

Moreover, the evidence was not limited to Ukraine.  Earlier samples from lung tissues from deceased patients in Sao Paulo also had D225G, as did patients in multiple countries.  Most cases were not described in detail, but the case from China was from the first severe case in Zheijiang Province and although the patient survived, she was hospitalized for several weeks.

In addition, the presence of the same change on multiple backgrounds indicated the polymorphism was being acquired via recombination.  The sudden appearance of the same polymorphisms on multiple backgrounds has been described previously, including a silent change in H5N1 and H274Y in seasonal flu.  These changes allowed for the prediction of D225G in the Ukraine patients prior to release of the sequences.

The above comments were made after D225G was found in samples from deceased or severe cases in Norway, which provided further evidence of spread and association with lung samples.

Thus, there was and is ample evidence of D225G in severe and fatal cases.  Like 1918, it is not in all samples from fatal cases, and as with all infectious disease, not all infections are fatal.  If the initial dose is low, or the hosts mounts and effective early defense, the clinical course may be mild, as has been seen with virtually all influenza infections, including H5N1 infections such as those in Egypt.

Thus, the presence of the 1918 receptor binding domain change in an H1N1 swine virus that has jumped to humans is cause for concern, and a more comprehensive survey of lung samples is useful, as well as release of  new receptor binding data.

WHO comments on the receptor binding domain change D225G (cited as position 222 in some reports using H1 numbering) is curious.  Although WHO claimed that there were no significant changes in the sequences from Ukraine, none of the Ukraine situation updates excluded a receptor binding domain change, and when 10 HA sequences were published at GISAID by WHO regional lab Mill Hill, there was clear evidence of an association of D225G with fatal cases.  Of the 10 sequences released, four were listed as deceased, and all four had D225G.  None of the six samples which came from patients that were labeled with age and gender but had no deceased designation had D225G.  Moreover, three of the four samples from deceased patients were lung samples and all three lung samples had D225G.  The samples which had closely related sequences but lacking D225G were predominantly nasal washes, which also presented concerns that the swine H1N1 was differentially detected, due in part to changes in receptor binding specificity.

This concern was based on published data on sequences from samples from 1918 patients.  In 1918 the same change occurred.  Most samples had a D at position 225, while two samples had D225G (from 1918 and 1919).  The tested sample with D225G had a different binding specificity, which would be expected to show differential binding to various tissue types.

 

www.recombinomics.com

H1N1 mutation in IOWA? "wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them,"

"In the autopsy, what we're seeing is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them,"

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Iowa has officially recorded 21 H1N1 deaths, including seven in Polk County alone. But the county's medical examiner said he has performed autopsies on some residents who were never diagnosed with H1N1, but actually had it.

"In the autopsy, what we're seeing is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs,

 lungs with a lot of blood in them," said Dr. Gregory Schmunk.

He said the official count of seven H1N1 deaths is inaccurate, but patient rights laws prohibit him from giving specific numbers.

He said the cases he's seen in Polk County were all middle-aged adults with a few underlying health conditions.

 
He said there are two reasons for the discrepancy. First, not all sick patients get tests and second, the virus is difficult to detect. Some patients may be too sick to receive the most accurate H1N1 test.

"They're not always done and it can be hazardous to the patient if they're in a respiratory critical situation," Schmunk said.

He also said that some tests reveal a false negative.

"Because of our limitations on testing, sometimes the tests aren't positive," he said. "They do appear to fit clinically the course of a H1N1 viral-type pneumonia."

He said the cases he's seen in Polk County were all middle-aged adults with a few underlying health conditions.

"These may be the patients that are obese," Schmunk said. "Obesity restricts your ability to breathe and clear the virus from your upper respiratory."

He also said that some of the patients had diabetes.

Schmunk said his urging people to get the vaccine.

 He said there are two reasons for the discrepancy. First, not all sick patients get tests and second, the virus is difficult to detect. Some patients may be too sick to receive the most accurate H1N1 test.

"They're not always done and it can be hazardous to the patient if they're in a respiratory critical situation," Schmunk said.

"The thing that concerns me the most is, you still have people out there they believe that if I get the vaccine, the shot, then I'm going to get the flu," he said. "You can't get the flu from the shot."

He said that in the meantime, remember to wash your hands, sneeze into your sleeve and stay home if you're sick. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said one person who goes to work sick with the virus will infect 10 percent of his or her co-workers.

plague as a biological weapon, pneumonic plague can be sprayed through the air

Mayo Clinic's Definition of Pneumonic Plague

Plague is a life-threatening infection caused by the organism Yersinia pestis.

 
There are three types of plague.

Concern exists about the use of plague as a biological weapon. Plague bacteria could be put into a form that might be sprayed through the air, infecting anyone inhaling it and causing pneumonic plague.

 
This form affects your lungs and can spread from person to person.

Fortunately, when given promptly, antibiotics usually effectively treat plague.

Bubonic plague is the most common type in humans. Infected fleas transmit Y. pestis primarily among rodents. When an outbreak kills many rodents,

 
infected fleas can jump to other animals and humans, spreading the infection. Improved living conditions and health services have made human outbreaks uncommon, but occasional plague cases occur.