Chapters 1 through 4 now online
After a bout of wrestling with my page layout program InDesign, I’ve created the layout for my novel Viral Times. Chapter 1 has been available here for a few weeks. The 21 pages of these chapters introduce our main characters:
Dayton Winstead, Pultizer-winning reporter for the media outlet Viral Times
Jennifer Nation, an evangelical Nobel Laureate geneticist
Angie Consoli, former porn star turned naturopathic healer
The story begins about a decade from now, when flu viruses, HIV-5 and AIDS have driven people into virtual contact for much of their intimate lives. Secure Sex is possible through SimSuits, which transmit touch across networks. The country falls into a promiscuity that sparks Dr. Nation to create something to stop the godless, anonymous sex. Can love overcome the fear that’s driven by faith?
Read the pages from my PDF file, or follow the jump to read it here on the blog. Read the rest of this entry »
Viruses shape shift, says National Institute of Health
There’s nothing like discovering that a sub-microscopic organism is smarter than pharmaceutical science. TV news reported this week that the H1N1 virus is probably already evading the Swine Flu Vaccine (SFV) which the government has rushed to anxious, uninfected people in the US.
The SFV never had a chance of stopping the flu. Scientists are talking about antigenic drift, now that people are interested in how viruses evolve. The drift takes place as a virus moves through hosts (that’s you and me), changing its proteins to evade antibodies that could kill it. At least that’s what scientists think happens. They’re not sure.
“No one is sure exactly how the antigenic drift of flu viruses happens in people,” says Dr. Jonathan Yewdell. He wrote a paper with two other experts that was published in Science, but at the moment the only hard evidence comes from testing mice with a virus from 1934. The National Institute of Health reports on the leading theory at its Web site.
According to the prevailing theory, drift occurs as the virus is passed from person to person and is exposed to differing antibody attacks at each stop. With varying success, antibodies recognize one or more of the four antigenic regions in hemagglutinin, the major outer coat protein of the flu virus. Antibodies in person A, for example, may mount an attack in which antibodies focus on a single antigenic region. Mutant viruses that arise in person A can escape antibodies by replacing one critical amino acid in this antigen region. These mutant viruses survive, multiply and are passed to person B, where the process is repeated.
These escape artists have been drifting for thousands of years. Pharmaceutical research creates a flu vaccine every year before the drift occurs. If enough people catch and then transmit a flu, the virus is well on its way to changing its shape — so only your natural immunity can hope to neutralize an organism that makes you ill once you breathe it in.
Let’s blame it on the children
A story appeared on the NPR Web site this morning that reports pigs in Iowa might have caught H1N1 from schoolchildren. That’s right, pigs might have caught swine flu from people.
But the reporting is so bad, it’s as if some journalist looked up and saw the clock and thought, “Holy crap. I gotta file my daily swine flu story.” So we get the following:
Pigs in Minnesota may have tested positive for the H1N1 virus… officials cautioned that further tests are needed to confirm that the pigs have been infected with H1N1. The pigs did not exhibit signs of sickness and may have been infected by a group of children with the virus, they said. Officials said a group of children staying at dormitory near the Minnesota State Fair contracted the H1N1 virus at the same time that samples were taken from the pigs. However, officials said no direct link between the pigs and the outbreak among the children has been made.
This is just bad journalism. No test results, just a group of researchers from Iowa and Minnesota Universities “documenting instances of influenza viruses where humans and pigs regularly interact, such as state fairs.”
You can already guess who’s most worried about this. America’s pig farmers, with one more rumor to grind down their sales of pork products. This is how rumors grow: from stories about children staying in a “nearby” dorm who “might have” infected pigs. But we don’t know anything for certain until the test results come back from from the apparently-healthy pigs.
So instead of worrying about the children, let’s blame it on the children. Or their parents. Gad, what half-baked work passes for news now. The headline on the NPR site is “H1N1 Flu Claiming a Rising Toll.” 86 dead so far, twice the number in a usual year. This news influences the spread of the flu; worry and dread reduce the immunity in your body. What might be healthier: reading an article in the Atlantic Monthly that will have you questioning every “flu killed that child” statistic used in such poor reporting.
Glaxo Smith-Kline goes behind the viral mask
The British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline has created an anti-virus face mask, new to the world markets this year. The FDA approved the masks, called ActiProtect, for sale to US health care workers as an “occupational use” product. GSK claims in its testing that ActiProtect kills 99.99 of viruses that make contact with the mask, dead within one minute. GSK uses the term “inactivated” for the virus particles. By most measures, viruses are not alive until they latch onto a host’s tissue.
Although H1N1 is among the viruses listed that ActiProtect’s coating kills, the 2009 strain hasn’t been included among those vulnerable to the mask. ActiProtect doesn’t include a drug in its manufacture, simply an antiviral inactivation coating on the surface of the FFP2 mask. The mask is a coated version of a protection mask that’s been in use in industry for years. GSK has a patent pending on ViruCoat, which covers the outer surface of the mask.
You can’t buy one of these unless you’re in the healthcare business today. GSK would like to change that to expand its sales, but the US FDA ruling stands in the way. You wouldn’t consider the masks attractive, but they might be effective. Or not, depending on how many flu viruses particles are in the air. Fashion? You may have wait awhile. In the world of Viral Times, the society wears SafeMasks designed by Hugo Boss and Cole Haan.
For a 2009 modeling session, you can watch an entertaining YouTube video of the ActiProtect masks. Somehow, a British voice doing the explanation and narration makes it all seem less dire.
Natural remedies to outlast pharma cures
My wife and I get our primary care from Central Family Practice here in Austin. It’s a remarkable medical group because it gives equal emphasis to Western and traditional medicine. They’re just as likely to give you Chinese herbs as a prescription to fill. Whatever remedy works best, they’ll offer it.
Tamiflu is not big on their list, and with good reason. It’s an all-purpose drug aimed (poorly) at specific viruses. Instead, they advise you use something natural. Viruses can be reined in better with natural remedies than with pharma cures — the natural medicine doesn’t spark a virus to mutate like a pharma drug does.
Central Family Practice sent this Facebook message tonight:
Oscillococcinum, the remedy you don’t have to be able to pronounce for it to work. Oscillococcinum is a natural flu remedy. CFP has it in stock.
If you’re in Austin, they’re at 801 W. 34th Street. Call them at (512) 371-9260.
Virus vaccine up the nose until age 50
The CDC is answering questions about use of the nasal-spray vaccine for H1N1, the sensational virus of the season. CDC says that the nasal spray is designed for people under age 50.
But don’t be getting too ardent about inhaling this vaccine and the regular, seasonal flu mist. CDC says “the seasonal nasal spray vaccine and the 2009 H1N1 nasal spray vaccine should not be given at the same time.”
Plenty of details on inhaled virus vaccines — built with live viruses — at the CDC Web site.
More than Swine Flu to avoid this season
The Wall Street Journal has an article today that tells us H1N1 virus
dread is not the only thing to avoid this coming flu season.
Along with the new H1N1 swine-flu virus, officials are keeping a close eye on some nasty seasonal strains. One is widely resistant to oseltamivir, the popular antiviral drug marketed as tamiflu. And an emerging variant of another virus known for hitting the elderly hard isn’t fully covered by this year’s seasonal flu vaccine.
“This season is going to be crazier than ever,” said William Schaffner, an infectious-disease expert at Vanderbilt University.
I started my novel Viral Times in the first years of this decade. I imagined a time when multiple virus outbreaks would be like chasing terrorist groups. Too much of it is coming true. Now it looks like even if H1N1 won’t threaten seniors, the flu shots being sold now will leave them at risk. I recommend Viral Immunity by J.E. Williams if you want to take a proactive, natural medicine approach to staying healthy.
