question 4 u.
the letters H and N in the ''H5N1'' bird flu name
stand for hemagglutinin (of which there are 15 types) and
neuraminidase (of which there are 9 types)?
We once told readers what SARS
stood for, why don't we tell them what H5N1stands for?
dan in bird flu country...
=============================but see the:
THE REBUTTAL: "We told readers what SARS stands for, and because each of the words is English, there's a chance they will remember them. Few people besides biologists are going to remember what the H and the N stand for, or care. I'd be surprised if any significant portion of the general public even remembers H5N1 after putting the paper down..............................................
....
.....How many reporters know what AM and FM radio stand for? VHS? USA culture is replete with acronyms that most people can't spell out. It is a waste of trees to try and "educate" them to the extent that they can rattle off terms used only by gene researchers.
Hi,
Good question. Actually, there are now 16 known H types.
I think, really, that it's a bit too confusing to address that in every article about avian flu. There are several lengthy general review-type articles that go into a bit of the biology of flu viruses which do discuss what the H and N mean, but for the most part, IMO, it's not essential for the public to know about them. (Not that it wouldn't be nice!)
Too many people see "hard" biology and zone out.
For me, it's a case of, "keep it simple, stupid"--relaying what I see is the most critical information, and trying to keep too much of the "high" level stuff out of it when I can.
Here's my IDEA, a news story like this:
China seeks help to verify bird flu cases
By Alexa Olesen,
Associated Press |
November 7, 2005
BEIJING -- China said yesterday it had asked for outside help to test
three possible cases of bird flu in people, while scientists and
government representatives prepared for a strategy session in Geneva
amid fears of a possible worldwide flu pandemic among humans.
China said it asked the World Health Organization to help determine
whether the virus caused the death of a 12-year-old girl and infected
her 9-year-old brother as well as a 36-year-old middle school teacher
in Wantang, a village in central Hunan Province.
Chinese specialists ''cannot rule out the possibility of human
transmission of H5N1 bird flu" in the cases of the three, who came
down with pneumonia last month after a bird flu outbreak among poultry
in their village, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The girl's
brother and the teacher recovered..
China has had four outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 (hemagglutinin 5 and
neuraminidase 1) strain of bird flu among poultry in the past three
weeks, but there have been no confirmed human deaths. The virus has
killed at least 62 people across Southeast Asia.
Since late 2003, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has ravaged poultry
stocks across Asia and jumped from birds to humans. Most of the human
deaths have been linked to close contact with infected birds, but
specialists fear the virus could mutate into a form easily passed
among humans.
A series of meetings throughout the world are culminating in a
three-day strategy session starting today in Geneva. More than 300
scientists, public health specialists, veterinarians, and government
officials are expected to share what they have learned and plan the
next steps.
(c) Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
Ewald is I suppose an academic and as an academic he has a significant stake in his theory being right. As a theorist he has no choice but to bet, and with few gamblers to whom to compare his performance, he has little to lose and everything to gain by betting everything on a long shot. Fun to watch such folks, but not necessarily prudent to follow them.
Hey now...I'm an academic. *glares*
But even so, people revise their theories all the time. Every little minute detail doesn't have to be right, as long as the core of it remains intact. And by being so inflexible, it really makes it *worse* for you in the long run, IMO.
I dunno, maybe he'll just be right and this will all be for naught.
Some of my best friends are academics. 
This is one reply i got from a top reporter at a major US newspaper:
"SARS was an acronym that required definition, but we do not customarily
explain the etymology of virus names unless we need to do so. We and others
have explained the H and N in some stories, but feel no need to insert an
explanation in every story at the expense of reporting news."
Another poster told me:
"Another factor may be that so far the bird flu has not killed that many
humans; as soon as it starts knocking them off like SARS did, I think that
you will find more on what it means.
You gotta have a body count man!"
I tend to side with Ewald. Public Health people have tremendous stake in the next big plague. They get on TV. Cute reporters pretend that they're interesting. They get grants.
First, AIDS was going to kill us all. Then hantavirus, then Ebola, now bird flue. If they want me to be scared when they make scary "predictions" they have to be right sometimes.
I tend to side with Ewald. Public Health people have tremendous stake in the next big plague. They get on TV. Cute reporters pretend that they're interesting. They get grants.
Actually, many people in public health aren't thrilled about this, because for every emphasis on "we can't predict this with certainty," there comes a story that screams, "we're all going to die!!!" or some other overkill on the "imminent threat" angle. We're not asking for panic; we're asking for preparation. And actually, this kind of publicity can hurt us. Look at what happened with the bioterrorism money--instead of having research dollars spent on general preparedness and basic research on pathogens that do a lot of damage every year (say, something fairly vanilla like Salmonella), millions of dollars got diverted to tularemia and other minor killers that could be used as BW agents. Big mistake, IMO, even though bioterrorism is a big interest of mine.
First, AIDS was going to kill us all. Then hantavirus, then Ebola, now bird flue. If they want me to be scared when they make scary "predictions" they have to be right sometimes.
First, AIDS *is* a major killer, world-wide. Hantavirus and Ebola are lesser so, but certainly established threats, and the press about hanta at least made people aware of the problem, so that they could exercise caution when dealing with rodent excreta. And as I've mentioned before, just regular flu kills 36,000 Americans *every year.* If we finally get some new vaccine technology out of this, it will benefit us all immensely, even if a pandemic doesn't strike for 5, 10, or more years down the line.
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