Spanish Flu: I am skeptical

[MetaKron]

The original flu killed about half a percent of the U.S. population. Is someone going to try to tell me that much less than 100 percent of the population got that flu? Of course a population of 7 or so macaques isn't going to be able to duplicate that effect. I don't know if there are other anomalies to consider, like the 15 percent increase in US population between 1910 and 1920 that would indicate a probable baby boom, babies being very vulnerable to dying that way.

We need valid models because we need to know if the Spanish flu was actually any more lethal than any other flu. How many more people died of that flu because of exposure to mustard gas, chlorine, mercury fulminate, sulfur dioxide, and many other chemicals that were introduced into the environment in thousand ton quantities around 1914-1918? Any chemical irritant seems likely to increase the lethality of a flu. WWI was when war gases were used extensively, including on the Kurds clear over in the area of Persia (Iraq). They were also manufactured in America, and it isn't much of a stretch to suspect that that was when mercury fulminate was spun off the military industry to use in common fireworks.

We're talking about an influenza that took half a percent of the U.S. population and between 2.5 percent and 5 percent of the rest at the time that factors existed that could have greatly enhanced the lethality of that influenza, or could have been mistaken for it.

I don't know why you have trouble with the idea that the animal model needs to be close to reality.

 

[invert_nexus]

I don't know why you have trouble with the idea that the animal model needs to be close to reality.

I don't know why you have a problem with the idea that this is just one set of experiments and has already been marked as not being entirely accurate because of the means of infection.

Also, I don't know why you can't understand that using controls the way they did allows them to determine somewhat better the differences between the two types of virus.

You're getting all riled up over nothing.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Anyway.
Why were they infecting monkeys again? Is this how immunologists get their jollies?

They first used it on mice as can be read from the method section of the paper. All biologists hate mice. A good day for us involves a bucket of mice and a bottle of CO2.

Determination of the lethal dose for the 1918 virus in mice

Isoflurane-anaesthetized 6-week-old female BALB/c mice were intranasally inoculated with 10-fold serial dilutions (five mice per dilution) of virus in 100 l of phosphate-buffered saline and monitored daily for disease symptoms and survival. The LD50 was calculated using the method of Reed and Muench27

.

 

[Roman]

They first used it on mice as can be read from the method section of the paper. All biologists hate mice. A good day for us involves a bucket of mice and a bottle of CO2.

.

Well hell, I think I'm going to change my major.

 

[MetaKron]

I don't know why you have a problem with the idea that this is just one set of experiments and has already been marked as not being entirely accurate because of the means of infection.

Also, I don't know why you can't understand that using controls the way they did allows them to determine somewhat better the differences between the two types of virus.

You're getting all riled up over nothing.

No, I am not getting riled up over nothing. Without a very careful and critical reading, the kind that even you seem to want to discourage, the article makes it sound like they've revived a demon virus that just burns right through a test animal's system. You have to read it carefully to find out that they saturated the animal with it.

This badly changes the way that doctors will treat suspected cases of that flu or a similar flu. It also creates a picture of influenza that will be in the minds of doctors. It will sell a lot of drugs. It will increase the chances that people will be forced to take drugs and vaccines. It will also increase the panic and economic disruption, which I can't afford.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

the article makes it sound like they've revived a demon virus that just burns right through a test animal's system. You have to read it carefully to find out that they saturated the animal with it.

You already admitted you never read the article. Just a news snippet.

 

[invert_nexus]

It's a pretty well known fact that popular news treatments of scientific papers are usually sensationalistic and completely miss the point.

I's a good thing that doctors and scientists don't get educated by MSNBC.

Without a very careful and critical reading,

The kind that scientists and doctors do when reading over journals or that responsible writers for scientific journals do when writing a review?
That kind of careful and critical reading, you mean?

the kind that even you seem to want to discourage,

I dare you to quote where I discourage any such thing.

This badly changes the way that doctors will treat suspected cases of that flu or a similar flu. It also creates a picture of influenza that will be in the minds of doctors. It will sell a lot of drugs. It will increase the chances that people will be forced to take drugs and vaccines. It will also increase the panic and economic disruption, which I can't afford.

You really should be a doctor.