Swine flu: the long view
Here's a book I located in Global Health Archive on what happened in 1976, when swine flu caused an outbreak in man in the USA. This outbreak was dealt with using a mass vaccination campaign. The political fallout was huge however because the vaccine produced cases of paralysis. It illustrates public health dilemmas when considering…
Flu pandemic?
WHO alerted the world last week of a flu outbreak in Mexico that is caused by a new swine virus. The 'swine flu' has caused >80 deaths since March this year. The same strain is confirmed to have caused cases in California and now some ill people have travelled by air internationally, so cases are…
Swine flu: can it be stopped at the border?
Anyone looking at the news in the last couple of days can be of no doubt as to the leading story of the moment (well, at least it makes a change from the credit crunch). Over 100 deaths from swine flu in Mexico, confirmed cases in the USA, Canada and now Spain, and suspected cases…
Express Yourself Genetically: Say It With Flowers
Is it a plant or is it animal? Is it an artwork or is it a science project? Is it a profound statement or just messing about? These are just some of the questions unlikely to be answered by Edunia, a transgenic flower with artist Eduardo Kac's own DNA expressed in the red veins. …
Joined at the hip
2 news items this morning on BBC Radio 4 struck home: secondary school canteen providers are up in arms declaring that meeting the new food quality regulations for the meals they deliver, will reduce variety and the children will go elsewhere. [Over a 3 week period school meals will have to reach a certain level…
How fast should you walk?
Here at CABI, we are fortunate that our offices are situated in the countryside, among fields and just a few minutes away from the River Thames. So on a sunny spring day like today, there is a mass exodus at lunchtimes as the CABI staff drag themselves away from their computers to get some fresh…
Ticks in a changing climate
My first venture into the world of blogging, nearly two years ago now, discussed tickborne diseases in the UK, and mentioned that as ticks flourish in warm wet climates, climate change might increase the risk of such diseases. A colleague recently drew my attention to a review article1 about the effects of climate change on…
Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!
Over 200,000 people have paid the ultimate 21st century homage to Charles Darwin by signing up on social networking site facebook to wish him a happy birthday. Facebook itself is celebrating its fifth birthday and appears to be winning the struggle for survival of the fittest (or coolest, or most addictive) against other social networking…
So that’s what a Guinea worm looks like
As part of CABI's work on the UK Department for International Development's Research for Development portal, I recently found that one of the projects to which DFID had contributed provided links to some television programmes about malaria, available on the website of Rockhopper TV. I then discovered that the same site contained well over 100…
Review of 2008
On behalf of all the authors of the blog, and CABI, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and thank all of our readers for the comments supplied throughout the year. I hope these will continue and flourish onwards during 2009. Sorry for the delay in this post, but its finally…