…it takes about 25 kilobits — 3.2 kbytes — of data to code for a virus that has a non-trivial chance of killing a human. This is more efficient than a computer virus, such as MyDoom, which rings in at around 22 kbytes… It’s humbling that I could be killed by 3.2 kbytes of genetic data. Then again, with 850 Mbytes of data in my genome, there’s bound to be an exploit or two.

Swine flu continues to spread, with 1799 deaths in 177 countries as at 9 August. The deaths are predominantly in the Americas – 1579 of the total. Clearly the seasonal pattern in the chart below is something new, and in retrospect the timing was fortunate as it didn’t fall into the season where conditions for flu are optimal.

There was underlying disease in at least half of the fatal cases. Two risk factors seem of particular importance: pregnancy and metabolic condition (including obesity which has not been considered as risk factor in previous pandemics or seasonal influenza)… Swine flu has killed 165 people in Argentina, more than any nation with the exception of the U.S… Northern hemisphere countries have so far ordered more than one billion doses of swine flu vaccine… indigenous peoples appear to be at increased risk of severe disease…

The new H1N1 influenza virus bears a disturbing resemblance to the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, with a greater ability to infect the lungs than common seasonal flu viruses… the new swine flu strain can spread beyond the upper respiratory tract to go deep into the lungs — making it more likely to cause pneumonia… people who survived the 1918 pandemic seem to have extra immune protection against the virus…

A form of ebola virus has been detected in pigs for the first time, raising concerns it could mutate and threaten humans… Reston ebolavirus has only been seen in monkeys and humans previously…

More data on traces of drugs in city water supplies. Schneier points out that sampling sewage could track the drug use back to individual houses.

Scientists from Oregon State University, the University of Washington and McGill University partnered with city workers in 96 communities, including Pendleton, Hermiston and Umatilla, to gather samples on one day, March 4, 2008. The scientists then tested the samples for evidence of methamphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy, or MDMA… every one of the 96 cities — representing 65 percent of Oregon’s population — had a quantifiable level of methamphetamine in its wastewater.

A government test of fish pulled from nearly 300 streams in the USA found every one of them contaminated with some level of mercury… 27% of the fish had mercury levels high enough to exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for those who eat fish twice a week.

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence…

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person…

Good essay by a Canadian doctor on what can be learned from the natural experiment in healthcare that arose when the US and Canada parted ways 40 years ago. Telling.

Our countries are joined at the hip. We peacefully share a continent, a British heritage of representative government and now ownership of GM. And, until 50 years ago, we had similar health systems, healthcare costs and vital statistics. Canada spends 10% of its economy on healthcare; the U.S. spends 16%… we now live nearly three years longer, and our infant mortality is 20% lower… Compounding the confusion is traditional American ignorance of what happens north of the border, which makes it easy to mislead people. Boilerplate anti-government rhetoric does the same.

Scientists have created the first genetically modified monkeys that can pass their new genetic attributes to their offspring… The researchers modified a lentivirus to carry a jellyfish gene known as GFP (green fluorescent protein) into the genetic material of the marmosets’ cells… that caused the animals to glow green under an ultraviolet light… Most important, eggs from one of the females and sperm from one of the males had the gene, and the researchers reported that the male’s sperm was used to produce at least one second-generation offspring with the gene — a male named Kouichi whose skin glowed green under the light… because the work marks the first time members of a species so closely related to humans have had their genetic makeup permanently altered, the research set off alarms that it marked a troubling step toward applying such techniques to people… In humans, researchers have tried to correct genetic defects in individual patients, but there has always been a strict prohibition against making changes that would be passed on…

More evidence emerges that restricting caloric intake to the point of malnutrition does prolong life… Articles in Science:

Each [rhesus monkey] in the experimental group was observed for up to six months to find out how much it ate when food was freely available. It then had the calorific value of this baseline diet cut, in three monthly tranches, until it had been reduced by a total of 30%… [Over 20 years,] 14 of the 38 control animals have died of age-related illnesses such as type II (late onset) diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Only five of the experimental animals so succumbed…

and Nature:

Dr Harrison and his colleagues picked a different molecule that has been seen to work on invertebrates: rapamycin. This substance, isolated originally from a strain of bacterium found on Easter Island—or Rapa Nui as it is known to the locals—acts by suppressing a particular signalling mechanism inside cells, called the TOR pathway. The TOR pathway, in turn, promotes protein production and inhibits the active destruction of parts of cells that are no longer needed… [lab mice experienced] a 38% increase in life expectancy for females and 28% for males.

Andy Kessler doesn’t think it is technology that has been holding back digitising records in the medical industry, but rather an unwillingness to be exposed to auditing of health care costs.

The truth is that these folks could have digitized the whole industry ages ago… The reason lies neither with cost nor with inadequate technology. Rather, the health-care industry’s reluctance to digitize its records is rooted in a desire to keep medicine’s lucrative business model hidden… With easy access to this kind of information, wasteful spending could be identified more readily, allowing payers, whether Medicare or private insurers, to stop reimbursing for expensive but unnecessary tests and procedures… With widespread use of electronic health records, it would be easier to expand preventive medicine, not only by educating patients about lifestyle changes but also by conducting mass screenings… As valuable as electronic health records are for streamlining costs, their biggest contribution will lie in moving medicine toward early detection.

Australian researchers claim success with novel tumour treatment.

The EnGeneIC method uses minicells to deliver a variety of agents to tumor cells, including both anticancer toxins and mechanisms for suppressing the genes that make tumors resistant to toxins… The minicells can be coated with an antibody that recognizes this receptor, so they are more likely to attach themselves to tumors than to the normal cells of the body. The tumor cells engulf and destroy the minicells, a standard defense against bacteria, and in doing so are exposed to whatever cargo the minicells carry… Though the minicells can be varied to attack different receptors and to import any gene of interest on elements called plasmids, the method still has several hurdles to jump.

WHO will probably revise its pandemic warning system to consider both extent and severity after the experience of swine flu – which should be the highest level based on its rapid and widespread transmission but is causing relatively few deaths.

Argentina is experiencing an unusual number of swine flu deaths.

With 1,587 confirmed cases and 43 deaths, one in every 37 confirmed swine flu cases – 2.71 per cent – in Argentina has been fatal.

First case of Tamiflu resistant swine flu. Responded to Relenza.

Danish health officials on Monday reported the first case of resistance in a patient treated with Tamiflu, an antiviral drug that is one of the key influenza treatments recommended by the World Health Organization… The patient was given another type of medication, Relenza, made by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Transportation accidents are by far the leading underlying cause of deaths of U.S. service members, and more people die from traffic accidents than from malaria each year in the developing world but the problem of road safety is being ignored by aid groups and international institutions… “Make Roads Safe: A Decade of Action for Road Safety,” concluded that $300 million spent globally on improving roads, campaigns to raise public awareness, and more traffic police could save 5 million lives between 2010 and 2020.

As of 07:30 GMT, 10 May 2009, 29 countries have officially reported 4379 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection.

Unintended consequences. Helmet laws reduce net health.

A model is developed which permits the quantitative evaluation of the benefit of bicycle helmet laws. The efficacy of the law is evaluated in terms of the percentage drop in bicycling, the percentage increase in the cost of an accident when not wearing a helmet… The approach balances the health benefits of increased safety against the health costs due to decreased cycling. Using estimates suggested in the literature of the health benefits of cycling, accident rates and reductions in cycling, suggest helmets laws are counterproductive in terms of net health.

Animal trials showing a new human antibody effective against flu.

In a development that could create new tools to prevent and treat seasonal and pandemic influenza, researchers have identified and tested human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that can neutralize influenza A viruses, including lethal H5N1 avian influenza. The findings raise hopes for a universal flu vaccine and shed light on new options for preventing and treating influenza infections… A team from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, scanned billions of mAbs produced in bacteriophages and found 10 that were active against the four major H5N1 virus subtypes…

North America was populated by a single band of humans according to DNA evidence, supporting mitochondrial studies.

…researchers concluded that the most straightforward explanation for the distribution of the 9-repeat allele was that all modern Native Americans, Greenlanders and western Beringians descend from a common founding population. Furthermore, the fact that the allele was absent in other Asian populations most likely meant that America’s ancestral founders had been isolated from the rest of Asia for thousands of years before they moved into the New World

The presence of two chemical byproducts of tobacco in urine turns out to be a good indicator of cancer.

Smokers with high levels of a byproduct called NNAL — a known carcinogen in lab animals — had twice the risk of getting lung cancer compared with smokers who had low levels… People with high urine levels of cotinine, a nicotine byproduct, had three times the risk of those with low levels. Smokers with high levels of both NNAL and cotinine were 8.5 times more likely to get lung cancer than comparable smokers who had low levels of both chemicals… The two chemicals appeared to be independent risk factors for lung cancer, even after adjusting for daily pack usage and the number of years of smoking reported by study participants…

A researcher infected with Ebola is surviving due to previously untested vaccine, or maybe she never caught it.

A scientist accidentally pricked her finger with a needle used to inject the deadly Ebola virus into lab mice… Less than 24 hours later, an experimental vaccine — never before tried on humans — was on its way to Germany from a lab in Canada. And within 48 hours of the March 12 accident, the at-risk scientist, a 45-year-old woman whose identity has not been revealed, was injected with the vaccine… tests so far show the scientist is healthy and free of the virus… It’s not entirely clear the researcher was actually infected with the virus. At the time of the accident, she was wearing three layers of protective gloves, and though the needle stuck her, the plunger of the syringe was not pushed so it’s not certain the virus entered her bloodstream.

Antibody tests might normally reveal that the researcher was exposed to the virus, but standard tests look for antibodies against Ebola’s glycoprotein, which is the same in the virus and the vaccine. That means that even if these antibodies are found, scientists can’t be sure whether they were triggered by the virus itself or by the vaccine.

Synthetic blood.

Scientists in Britain plan to become the first in the world to produce unlimited amounts of synthetic human blood from embryonic stem cells for emergency infection-free transfusions… The multimillion-pound deal involving NHS Blood and Transplant, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and the Wellcome Trust, the world’s biggest medical research charity, means Britain will take centre stage in the global race to develop blood made from embryonic stem cells. The researchers will test human embryos left over from IVF treatment to find those that are genetically programmed to develop into the “O-negative” blood group, which is the universal donor group whose blood can be transfused into anyone without fear of tissue rejection… The aim is to stimulate embryonic stem cells to develop into mature, oxygen-carrying red blood cells for emergency transfusions. Such blood would have the benefit of not being at risk of being infected with viruses such as HIV and hepatitis, or the human form of “mad cow” disease.

New antibiotics.

American medical researchers are using a breakthrough by a New Zealand state science company to develop a new generation of antibiotics that do not provoke bacterial resistance. Industrial Research Ltd’s (IRL) carbohydrate chemistry team discovered that a specific enzyme interfered with “quorum sensing” – the process by which bacteria communicate with each other by producing and detecting signalling molecules known as “auto-inducers”. These molecules coordinate bacterial gene expression and regulate processes — including virulence – and studies have shown bacterial strains defective in quorum sensing cause less-serious infections.

Uwe Reinhardt – Economic Trends in US Health Care: Implications for Investors (pdf) via Willem Buiter’s site at NBER. Ideas: pharma & devices a good USD hedge; US private medical insurers are going to implode if a viable medical insurance program passes Congress.