Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Hussein Obama’s offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to media reports.

The appointment, subject to Senate confirmation, has not been announced, but officials said the job is not set for the South Dakota Democrat.

Daschle was a close adviser on health issues, like international pandemics like SARS and other health policies, to Obama throughout the former Illinois senator’s White House campaign. Recently, he wrote a book on his proposals to improve health care, and he is working with former Senate colleagues on his recommendations to improve the system.

Organizations seeking to create socialized medicine in the U.S. were enthused about the selection.

“Sen. Daschle has a deep commitment to securing high-quality, affordable health care for everyone in our nation,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. “His new leadership position confirms that the incoming Obama administration has made health care reform a top and early priority for action in 2009.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

For more information, contact: http://familiesusa.org/issues/uninsured/coverage/

 

Daschle lost his Senate seat in 2004 when President Bush won re-election, and the GOP increased its hold on Congress.

Posted: November 19th, 2008 under SARS.
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The altruistic arm of Internet search engine pioneer Google, Inc. this week said it had given grants of more than $14 million to support physicians working in Southeast Asia and Africa to prevent the next pandemic.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google.org’s Predict and Prevent initiative is supporting efforts to identify “hot spots” where infectious diseases may emerge, discover new pathogens in animal and human populations, and react to outbreaks before they become global crises.

New lethal infectious diseases crop up every year, Google said, including variants of HIV/AIDS, bird flu and SARS, as well as drug-resistant strains of ancient scourges malaria and tuberculosis.

Google said three-quarters of new diseases are “zoonoses, meaning they’ve jumped from animals to humans.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Posted: October 21st, 2008 under Avian Flu, Clostridium difficile, Developing Diseases, EV71, Ebola Virus, Flesh-Eating Bacteria, HPV, Hendra Virus, Impaired Immunity, Legionnaires' Disease, MRSA, SARS, West Nile Virus.
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A new study by researchers at Yale School of Medicine explains why the cold and flu virus symptoms that are often transient in non-smokers, but seriously sicken smokers. The research also pinpointed the mechanism through which viruses and cigarette smoke interact to “increase lung inflammation and damage.”Scientists historically haven’t been able to explain why smokers have more exaggerated responses to viral infections. Those who smoke cigarettes have been more likely than non-smokers to die during previous influenza epidemics and are more susceptible to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). What’s more, kids who are exposed to second-hand smoke get sicker, faster, when infected with respiratory synctial virus.

The conventional wisdom has been that cigarette smoke decreases anti-viral responses. But the Yale researchers— Dr. Jack A. Elias, MD, the Waldermar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine and chair of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine, and Dr. Min-Jong Kang, MD, associate research scientist—found the exact opposite to be true.

Their studies showed that the immune systems of mice exposed to cigarette smoke from as little as two cigarettes a day for two weeks overreacted when they were also exposed to a mimic of the flu virus. The rodent’s immune systems cleared the virus normally but the exaggerated inflammation caused dramatically increased levels of tissue damage.

“The anti-viral responses in the cigarette smoke exposed mice were not only not defective, but were hyperactive,” said Elias. “These findings suggest that smokers do not get in trouble because they can’t clear or fight off the virus; they get in trouble because they overreact.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Smokers more prone to viral infections than non-smokers.

Posted: August 5th, 2008 under Avian Flu, Developing Diseases, Diseases, Impaired Immunity, Influenza, SARS, The Common Cold.
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A $198 million medical building at Boston University is raising concern among residents in the neighborhoods near the school.  Microorganisms that cause Ebola, SARS, and the bubonic plague are among viruses and bacteria that scientists are stockpiling at a biosafety lab there for the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Court challenges have been launched by South End and Roxbury residents, who reckon airborne germs may escape the lab and cause illness or death to their kin.

Boston University believes the lab will be safe, yield important research, and help the school, city, and region by adding jobs and an estimated $72 million a year in research contracts. The school is likely to prevail because of the lab’s potential benefits to society, said Arthur Caplan, an ethicist who follows health-policy clashes.

“It could easily bring in grants in the tens of millions of dollars,” Caplan, 58, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told the media. “It is not fair to say that it is money versus ethics, but that at the end of the day the benefits overwhelm the concerns about the risk.”

The U.S. has six similar labs, none in Massachusetts. Long overshadowed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nearby Cambridge, Boston University, hopes to move past those schools as places where infectious germs and vaccines can be studied.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, MA, Editorial Director

Boston residents fear that their neighborhoods may be plagued by deadly infectious diseases.

Posted: June 27th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus, SARS.
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The U.S. government has offered to assist China in its battle against a viral infection that has killed 34 children, and afflicted thousands of others.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is making a trip to Beijing next week and plans to discuss health issues with Chinese officials, with the outbreaks of “hand, foot, and mouth disease expected to feature prominently,” U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, Susan Stevenson, says.

The scope of infections brings to mind the SARS epidemic of 2003, when China was criticized internationally for trying to conceal the emergence of the disease. American health experts have previously helped study and control infectious diseases like SARS in China.

The most recent deaths happened in the central province of Anhui, where 22 children have died of hand, foot, and mouth disease, the provincial health bureau said on its Internet site.

The government said serious cases, however, were on the decline in Fuyang city, the site of the most infections and where the first wave of outbreaks was reported.

As of late Thursday, the number of reported cases countrywide jumped to 24,932, the official Xinhua News Agency said — up 25 percent from 19,962 a day earlier.  New cases have popped up from Guangdong province in the south to Jilin province in the northeast, along with major cities like Shanghai and Beijing.

– by The Editors

A positive staining of EV71.

Posted: May 9th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, EV71, Impaired Immunity, SARS.
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Chinese health officials this week tried to pacify public fears, saying that a virus that has killed at least 20 children does “not resemble” 2003’s SARS epidemic. Government health authorities also claimed there was no cover-up of facts surrounding the disease.

Simple hygiene steps will prevent the spread of enterovirus 71, or EV71, which began spreading in Fuyang in the eastern province of Anhui in early March.

“You can’t talk about EV71 and SARS in the same breath. SARS was a new infectious disease, and anyone could be infected. SARS was also very deadly,” Yang Weizhong, deputy chief of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters.

An initial cover-up of the SARS epidemic led to the sacking of Beijing’s mayor and the health minister, and some in the Chinese media speculated that the same could happen again in Fuyang.

Yang, however, said the reason for the delay in this case was because medical teams were trying to “work out” what the illness was.

“In the initial stages of the probe a lot of effort was expended, to rule out some serious infectious diseases like SARS, bird flu, and meningitis,” says Yang.

Chen Xianyi, head of the Ministry of Health’s emergency response department, said that the epidemic had been reported to the central authorities properly.

“The confirming of the cause of this illness, the raising of the treatment rate and clear improvement in preventative measures all came from the hard work of the central government, province, city, and county. So I think it was reported in time,” he indicated.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, MA, Editorial Director

Chinese press is speculating that there is a new, SARS-like epidemic emerging.

Posted: April 30th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, SARS.
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An infectious diseases expert is saying that five years after the deadly SARS outbreaks, governments around the globe are still not prepared for a reprise of the killer infection, according to a news report.

“We have not been good at early recognition of new diseases,” said Dr. Andrew Simor, chief of microbiology and infectious diseases at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Simor runs a national system of labs in 48 hospitals tracking superbugs and hospital-acquired infections.

Health officials scrambled to identify and learn how to take precautions against SARS, which left 44 dead in Ontario plus hundreds ill and quarantined in 2003.

“Are we good enough? Probably not,” Simor added. “I have a feeling it could be easily missed again.”

What needs to be done to remedy the situation?

* A surveillance system needs to be built.
* An agency needs to be assigned to handle policy.
* Public health professionals need to be recruited to staff the system.

For example, the Health Minister of Ontario George Smitherman, said Ontario’s public health labs have hired 10 disease-tracking experts since SARS – up from one at the time of the first outbreak. But experts say it is “impossible” to cover every possibility.

“How can we be prepared for the future? It’s hard to predict because we don’t know what the future is going to bring us,” he said.

“If the future brings us a pandemic that has a death rate of 10 per cent and is easily transmitted out in the community, no amount of preparation will ever be good enough.”

– by The Editors

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/309457

Posted: March 7th, 2008 under SARS.
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A new report released by the Ministry of Health indicates that there were more than 4.7 million cases of infectious diseases in China last year, up 2.95 percent from 2006. That’s nearly four in every 1,000 people.  The diseases killed 13,037 people, 2,311 more than the previous year.

According to the report, rabies was the “top killer” among the 37 leading diseases, claiming 2,873 lives last year.

Additionally, the report noted:

* Respiratory tract and blood-borne/sexually transmitted diseases rose by 3.55 and 6.96 percent, respectively.

* The number of HIV/AIDS cases reported increased 45 percent year-on-year.

* The number of hepatitis C cases was up 30 percent, and syphilis cases up 24 percent on last year, according to the report.

The report indicates that four human cases of bird flu were reported last year resulting in two deaths. In 2006, there were eight fatalities from 12 cases.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, director of scientific communications

For more information, go to,

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-02/23/content_6478813.htm

AIDS awareness poster — China.

Posted: February 29th, 2008 under Avian Flu, Feature Stories, HIV, Influenza, MRSA, Measles, Pneumonia, Rubella, SARS, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Tuberculosis, Whooping Cough.
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A team of scientists has demonstrated that the rate of growth of new infectious diseases — HIV, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile Virus and Ebola Virus – is indeed on the rise.

Analyzing a total 335 incidents of previous disease emergence beginning in 1940, the study has demonstrated that zoonoses — diseases that originate in pets and other animals — are the most important threat in causing these new diseases to emerge.

Most of the diseases, including SARS and the Ebola virus, originated in wildlife. Antibiotic drug resistance has been cited as another fiend, leading to diseases such as extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB).

The team was led by University of Georgia professor John Gittleman and scientists from the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, the Institute of Zoology (London) and Columbia University. The doctors published their findings in the learned journal Nature.

The scientists discovered that more new diseases emerged in the 1980s than any other decade, “likely due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which led to a range of other new diseases in people,” says Mark Levy, deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESN) at Columbia University.

To predict and prevent future attacks, new computer algorithms were used to design a global map of emerging disease hotspots.

“This is a seminal moment in how we study emerging diseases,” said Gittleman, dean of the Odum School of Ecology, who developed the approach used in analyzing the global database.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: February 20th, 2008 under Avian Flu, Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus, Feature Stories, Infection Protection, MRSA, Morgellons Disease, Pet Diseases, SARS, West Nile Virus.
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Scientists have discovered the biological process that contributes to the buildup of fibrous lung tissue in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The research indicates that a SARS viral protein actually fosters pulmonary fibrosis by “inhibiting the activity of the enzyme” that breaks down connective tissue in the lung.

The results offer up a new pathway to treat the pulmonary damage of SARS, and this research was recently published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Infection with the SARS virus leads to severe inflammation in the lungs, respiratory distress, fibrosis, and, quite often, lung failure. Ye-Guang Chen and colleagues tested the effect of a SARS viral protein, the nucleocapsid protein, on human lung cells and found that this protein can bind to a cellular protein called Smad3.

By associating with Smad3, the nucleocapsid protein accomplishes two things, researchers said:

* It prevents Smad3 from binding to its partner Smad4 and initiating cell suicide, allowing the virus to replicate longer.
* It stimulates a separate pathway that promotes the production of collagen and an inhibitor (PAI-1) of the plasminogen protein.

This then breaks down non-cell materials and other build-up in the body, leading to lung fibrosis. Thus, the SARS virus increases its short-term gain at the expense of long-term damage to its host.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Immunohistochemical staining of normal (on the left) and SARS-infected (on the right) lung tissue shows excess fibrous tissue buildup due to activation of plasminogen inhibitor PAI-1. (Image Source: The Journal of Biological Chemistry.)

Posted: February 5th, 2008 under Feature Stories, SARS.
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