This new paper somehow avoids saying the most important thing it could say: Santa Claus, like everyone else, ought to be diligent about getting an annual flu shot. The study is: “What would happen if Santa Claus was sick? His impact on communicable disease transmission,” Yuki Furuse, The Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 211, no. […]
Tag: flu
Chicken soup, colds, and the therapeutic armamentarium – maybe Grandma was right
“Traditional chicken soup was prepared according to a family recipe, which will be referred to as ‘Grandma’s soup’ (C. Fleischer; personal communication; 1970). This recipe is as follows: • 1 5- to 6-lb stewing hen or baking chicken; • 1 package of chicken wings; • 3 large onions; • 1 large sweet potato; • 3 […]
Meth is Nothing to Sneeze At: A Possible Anti-Influenza Agent
Drugs almost always have more than one effect on the body. Witness this new study: “Methamphetamine Reduces Human Influenza A Virus Replication,” Yun-Hsiang Chen, Kuang-Lun Wu, Chia-Hsiang Chen [pictured here], PLoS ONE 7(11): e48335. (Thanks to investigator Ron Josephson for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the National Health Research Institutes in Zhunan, […]
Going Anti-Viral: Jesus Flu Retraction
The Retraction Watch blog reports the course of a fever: The shroud of retraction: Virology Journal withdraws paper about whether Christ cured a woman with flu It takes decades, and even centuries, to overturn the Catholic canon of law, but medical journals move much more quickly: Just three weeks after the Virology Journal published a […]
Sanitizer study: Even docs ignore instructions
Even in a medical building, despite fears of the flu, most patients—and most medical personnel, too—disregard instructions to use a hand-sanitizer station. A new study [click on the image or click here to download a PDF] to be published in the Annals of Improbable Research, examined the hand-sanitizing behavior of patients and doctors who entered […]
Uncertainty and principles (and swine flu)
Nice essay (by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer, in The Atlantic magazine) on the uncertainty — pro and con — in using a new medicine before there are good studies that reveal whether it is effective: … All of which leaves open the question of what people should do when faced with a decision about whether […]
Mexican precautions: UK necktie vector study
The newest Mexican tactic against the spread of swine flu — going necktie-less — is justified if the results of a 2000 British study are accurate. That study looked at the spread of infection within hospitals: “Neck Ties as Vectors for Nosocomial Infection,” M. Dixon, Intensive Care Medicine, vol. 26, no. 2, February 2000, p. […]