Poverty of Aspect

As I was diligently working at my “day job” today I had a google alert come into my email notifying me another piece on H5N1 had “hit the net”.  Being somewhat a strange mix of ADD/OCD of course I opened it up even while assuming it was just another “re-publish” of some minor news item.  Imagine my surprise when the blurb indicated it could be found at Salon.com.  

Needless to say I had to follow the link, eye-bleeding spreadsheet begging to be completed be damned.  To my great displeasure I encountered a serious piece sympathetically addressing Hammond’s [sensationalist and inaccurate] essay on the supposed uncovering of the CDC patenting Indonesian H5N1 genes, or to use Mr. Hammond’s own words, “the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and US National Institutes of Health claim ownership of Indonesian influenza genes.”  

Before I quite knew what I was doing I had looked up the phone number for the US CDC and was ringing up Media Relations.

My simple, even if somewhat inarticulate question: Are the claims of Mr. Hammond correct?  Of course I knew they were not but I wanted to hear it out right and “from the source”.   Before an hour had elapsed I received an email response…

Response to Query on the recent Edward Hammond Blog, “WHO-linked centre lays patent claim on bird flu virus”

Unfortunately, this blog is not correct and offers misinformation.

The National Institutes of Health has filed for a patent; a CDC scientist is listed on this patent application.

The patent is for a prime boost vaccine strategy where you receive two vaccines; the first is a prime which contains a DNA vaccine for the HA sequence of the influenza virus only, the second is a boost vaccine with a protein. The two together are intended to offer amplified and focused protection against the influenza virus.

So the patent is, in principle, for a method of vaccination and is definitely not specific to H5.

It is definitely not a patent on a virus from Indonesia.

[my emphasis]

As Jay S. commented on the previous post: 

As much as I bristle at Mr. Hammond’s misleading statements and the potential to do harm to the integrity of Flublogia and especially these fine agencies maligned in his report, I am more angered at these news media that lend platforms for these types of “drive by” reporting without due diligence on their part for accuracy thereof.

[my emphasis]

On my drive home this evening I thought about a little quip Craig Ferguson often says on The Late Late Show on CBS.  ”If it’s on the internet it must be true“, said with exaggerated emphasis on the “true“.  How the World Works seems to think so in this case.  The truly stunning and sad thing is the essay even links the actual patent filing that Mr. Hammond is on about in his inaccurate and sensationalist essay, or “scoop”, as it is called on How the World Works, and yet the essay belies any apparent “fact checking” having been done.

Winston Churchill, paraphrasing an old adage, once said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on” and that was even before the internet.  Be that as it may, the age of the internet allows each of us to vet information we are served up, Craig Ferguson notwithstanding, and we who comment, even if only in our “private citizen platforms” have a certain responsibility to make sure we are not spreading falsehoods that have the potential to do real harm to real people.

Is it really so simple a thing as to self-label as an “expert” and no matter the drivel you espouse your information is not vetted?  Or is it that many of us want to believe the US government, and those employed by it, are blatantly stupid, ignorant, and ignoble?

Sometimes people, even government employees, make bad decisions, after all, no one is perfect, no matter how hard we might try.  When people who are in positions of authority or responsibility make a mistake, bad decision, or act in ways that are decidedly not in our best interest it’s important and a good thing that we have those who are ever watchful for them and who will alert the wider world to a “bad thing”. However, when one spreads lies about an organization and the important work they are doing for nothing more than the furtherance of a personal agenda [anti-genetic engineering] then everyone is ill-served.

To be well served:

• We need open and honest debate.
• We need insightful and inspired research.
• We need dedicated and ethical scientists.
• We need adequate funding for basic public health.
• We need technology and knowledge transfer to developing countries.
• We need open access biological samples and research findings.  
• We need answers to our antiquated vaccine manufacturing process.
• We don’t need someone spoon feeding us lies. 

Lies such as those spread by Mr. Hammond directly undermine all of what we do need.

Today Crof and Fla_Medic each covered an editorial from The Australian, Australia unprepared for epidemic, their excellent offerings notwithstanding, I would also like to comment.

[snip]

Given the magnitude of international air travel and the likely length of the asymptomatic incubation period of any new influenza virus, which would certainly exceed the time taken to fly between any two points on the earth’s surface, it is highly likely that the entry of a new virus into Australia is almost unstoppable.

Professor Peter Curson of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney has recently highlighted the difficulties facing traditional quarantine measures in an age of mass air travel.

If, however, the first case arriving in Australia is detected and isolated in time, there is still a chance that an epidemic on our continent can be prevented.

The current H5N1 virus has been known so far to have infected at least 385 people around the world, mostly in Asia, and the death rate — despite all modern available treatment, including all the currently available vaccines and antivirals — is approximately 63 per cent.

If and when a pandemic next occurs, if the new virus retains the same pathogenicity of the current avian influenza virus, we can expect about 4 billion people to die in the world over a six-month period. And that is how long it will take for a truly protective new vaccine to be developed and produced.

And the virus will be no respecter of wealth or class or education or intellect. In fact, if it behaves like past influenza viruses, it will not spare any age group. Even physical fitness will provide little or no protection.

I have frequently bemoaned the inability of many to understand and admit, or just to understand, that a pandemic from an genetically avian A/H5N1, but adapted to enable sustained human-to-human transmission, does not have to behave as 1918’s H1N1 pandemic strain.  I have bemoaned it so often that recently I created a brand new category, [Poverty of aspect], to tuck these frequent moans into.

I am going to be somewhat lazy, actually not lazy per se, but bone weary from a blisteringly stressful week at my “day job”, and point those who have not seen my brief comment on Crof’s post to two of my previous posts.  They lay out some of why I believe Dr. John Graham, the Australian editorialist, might be closer to a correct assumption than those who believe 1918’s pandemic is as bad as it could possibly ever be.  Please note: “Closer to correct” doesn’t mean I’m saying he IS correct, only possibly closer to the measure.

Vindication-of sorts, and Vindication-of sorts II.

No one knows what the next pandemic will offer humanity, whether it will be a relatively “non-event” such as 1968’s or whether it will be a beast beyond our current imagination, we just don’t know.  Dr. Graham doesn’t know, our officials don’t know, our most renowned and well-respected virologists don’t know, and I certainly don’t know.

We can only attempt to understand the future by what we DO know, even though that is pitifully lacking.  And, what we DO know at this point in time, and A/H5N1’s epidemiological profile, is that it is a DIFFERENT beast, the likes of which we have never seen before.

Interestingly, at least to me, is our collective willingness to believe, without question, assumptions based on a past event, an event that is for the most part only understood via assumptions and empirical data, over data coming out of our current labs underpinned with our greater scientific and continually evolving understanding.

If we heard about the full range of potentials for an H5N1 pandemic Dr. Graham’s editorial wouldn’t be so shocking to our sense of reality, instead, we could judge his words and opinions on what he bases them on, the science as we know it at this moment in time.  That “science” says it may, just may, be possible that billions would die.

SZ