Flu – avoid the aspirin
I wouldn't usually visit a doctor for flu treatment I'd just suffer at home with the cold remedies and/or over-the-counter fever reducing drugs. I guess a lot of people will be doing that in the near future, but make sure you are using the right drugs….
Geophagy – eating soil for healing or health supplementation
As I screened a journal called Elements for the CAB Abstracts database the other day, I came across an interesting article entitled ‘Bentonite, bandaids and borborygmi’ (1), which is all about the practice of eating clay for gastrointestinal ailments and applying clay topically as a dressing or bandaids for skin infections. Apparently it is a…
H1N1 influenza research- free papers!
It is cheering to see that a growing list of publishers including CABI is making influenza related research papers and databases freely available to help the global anti-influenza effort. I'm gathering those I hear about on CABI's free H1N1 'dashboard'. Below is what I have found so far. The list will be growing I'm sure…..
Man Flu Really Exists, New Study Shows
Man flu is considered by large segments of society to be the psychological condition of men with colds. It is often said that when men have a cold they think it is a flu and as a consequence they moan more than women and stay longer in bed until they feel better. Man flu is…
Pandemic influenza: the worst economic scenario
The threat of an influenza pandemic has disappeared from headlines again lately, at least in the UK where a political scandal around MPs expenses has driven everything else off the news. But that doesn't mean that the outbreak has died down yet. In fact, just over 1000 new cases have been confirmed worldwide in the…
The curious research of Mark Button
I thought the hand picked readers might want a little distraction from A/H1N1 virus flu (the flu previously known as swine flu), so I thought how about a blog on toenails for a change? Well, it’s about a research paper I came across recently, which used toenail clippings to detect human exposure to arsenic (As).…
‘Swine flu’ travel response: pandering to stupidity?
We have been featuring H1N1 influenza heavily here on 'Hand picked' lately, in line with the worldwide headlines the virus has been making since the emergence of an outbreak in Mexico. From the daily travel news alerts which hit my inbox, the virus has not only hit tourism in Mexico severely, but has also raised…
I have a flu – how do I know it isn’t swine flu (H1N1 virus flu)?
Well, I don’t! And I probably will never know. Read on to find out why…
Masks or Handwashing?
In Mexico and South East Asia, face mask wearing to prevent spread of respiratory diseases SARS and swine flu is popular with the public and encouraged but the World Health Organisation and national health agencies seem to be recommending masks for healthcare settings only. Whats the evidence that they work?
Health systems: fuzzy or not?
Despite swine influenza calling world experts home to advise their governments, it was business as usual here on Tuesday April 28 at the World Congress for Public Health in Istanbul. Tuesday was the first full day with 9 concurrent sessions. I sought out those which addressed health systems, as this is an area finally recognised as…