H1N1 or swine flu - why the hype?

I am often asked by patients and just received a message from a wonderful high school friend about the Swine Flu or the H1N1 virus and why the media and CDC are making such a big deal about the virus and should we be scared. Below is her message to me and my response follows.

"Okay, so you're a very intelligent doctor...what do you say about the stupid Swine Flu? I just read the CDC site and that with all the media hype is freakin me out! Seriously, I need some answers from someone who knows-not a cardiologist, etc, is it something we should really be scared about?"

Well, thanks for the kind words. I haven't read all of the most recent hype but understand that apparently an advisory board to the President discussed a planning proposal (and not a prediction) that included a large number of infected and/or deaths this fall relating to the H1N1 flu virus. There is a valid (although frustrating) reason that the media and the CDC are elevating the H1N1 flu situation. It is primarily from a public health point of view to raise and maintain awareness and thus vigilance regarding containment or reduction of the potential spread of the virus this fall during the traditional flu season. Understanding the history of influenza will help you realize why the media and CDC are creating the hype.

The history of the flu (or influenza) involves some serious pandemics with terrible numbers of deaths (usually around 1 million worldwide each time with the exception of the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed somewhere between 20 and 100 million). Each year the flu virus undergoes mutagenic drift and thus we may get sick but our bodies' antibodies recognize and destroy the virus after a few days of feeling sick. Every 30 years throughout history over at least the past 120 years or so we have experienced a mutagenic shift that creates a virus strain that our bodies' current antibodies cannot recognize. These can be the deadly ones as those who are susceptible die before they can create antibodies to fight off the infection. We are about 20 years overdue for a serious pandemic and thus the media does not want to miss something this potentially dangerous. Keyword is "potentially" dangerous. We already made it through the initial phase of spread of the H1N1 virus and it failed to be as dangerous as expected. Here is another fact for perspective: The "regular" flu kills 36,000 Americans each year and the H1N1 flu has killed 522 in the US so far.

So now the media wants everyone to be aggressive this fall with hand washing, coughing into covered hands or tissue, and staying home when sick with flu-like symptoms. Do not worry (remember Matthew 6:25-27) but just be wise as above.

jxibalba

apple's iphoto vs google's picassa

This is more of a personal reflection that a true review of these two very fine photo management programs. Until I switched from Windows to Mac as my operating system of choice in August 2008 I would without a doubt say that Google's Picasa is the only photo management program worth using. However, once I fell in complete love with Mac OSX, I had to give iPhoto the opportunity to challenge my love for Picasa. Initially, I was not very impressed with iPhoto 08 and actually would use my windows PC to manage photos until Google released a Mac version of Picasa around January 2009. For the next several months I attempted to throw my complete support and time into using Picasa and it worked quite well - even interfacing with my iPhone with ease.

However, I was still not completely satisfied but unsure exactly why as there were not any particular features that I was yearning for or that I felt missing from Picasa for Mac. In fact, I have always preferred the way that photos can be scrolled within the Picasa program versus any other photo management program. But once I began using iPhoto 09 regularly, I thoroughly enjoyed how well Faces and Places worked but especially liked the easy sharing features for MobileMe, Facebook, and Flickr. Sharing your photos is just as important as organizing them and so I have now "comitted" to iPhoto 09. And once I better learned how to use events and albums, I felt that iPhoto 09 was definitely where I should be - for now...

jxibalba

airport computer problems

While we actually had a great experience with our flights home from the Florida vacation (much different than the flight cancellation and significant re-routing to get there), I did get an amusing opportunity. Apparently, the flight monitors at the Memphis Airport are managed by Microsoft Windows and when Internet Explorer crashes, it takes the system with it (as viewed in above photo). This monitor, as well as many others, were frozen due to an error in iexplore.exe that crashed it all. Now I fully understand that Microsoft Windows holds quite an extensive market portion compared to other operating systems and that there is not as much software available for the other more powerful, robust, and stable systems like Mac and Linux. However, I would hope that upon review of a "black box" from a crashed plane, it would not have a blue screen error or memory dump listed as the cause for all those fatalities.

jxibalba

Destin, FL Travels

I am sitting in the Memphis Airport waiting for the connection flight to bring us home from a wonderful trip to Destin, FL to spend time with my family. We packed a lot into a short trip and had a great time on the beach and in the resort pools as well as some neat excursions to Baytowne Wharf and Seaside, FL - which is the original "Urbanist" community and filming location for the 1998 Jim Carey movie "The Truman Show." The photos above and below were taken from the resort balcony with my iPhone. There will be more photos to share and more details of the trip revealed upon return home.



jxibalba

- mobile blogging posted from iPhone