 |
A 26-year-old Thai woman who died of acute pneumonia on 20 September was a “probable” case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Thai Ministry of Public Health confirmed on Tuesday.
All 40 previously confirmed human cases of the virus since 2003 were apparently caught from sick birds. But the World Health Organization fears the virus could cause a lethal pandemic if it gains the ability to pass easily from person to person.
The Thai ministry's statement stressed that the probable case of human-to-human transmission followed prolonged, close contact between the woman and her sick daughter, who also died from bird flu. The virus did not show an ability to spread easily, as human flu does, which is required for a pandemic.
But research on the virus’s recent evolution shows it has become steadily better at replicating in mammals in the past few years. It may now be learning to spread between them.
|
BANGKOK :
Thailand's premier announced a month-long "war" on bird flu as tests continued to discover if an outbreak within a Thai family threatened a global pandemic.
Thailand confirmed Tuesday its first probable case of human-to-human infection of bird flu after a mother and daughter died but officials said it appeared the strain had not mutated into a more infectious form for humans.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra warned the disease was damaging Thailand's standing in the world and hinted that several ministers could lose their jobs unless the crisis was ended.
"The government will wage a war on bird flu during October because it is big problem that sparks fear both domestically and internationally," he told a meeting of officials in Bangkok.
"Confidence in Thai poultry, tourism and food safety will also be affected," he said, exhorting officials to greater efforts so the country could be declared bird flu free by October 31.
"Should there be a cabinet reshuffle, a few people including the deputy prime minister, agricultural minister and health minister... will be moved out."
A government spokesman in January admitted Thailand had "screwed-up" over its handling of bird flu after weeks of denials that it had any cases and said that officials could be sacked. However, there were no high-profile casualties.
Thaksin has sporadically declared "wars" on problems confronting the nation and the front against flu will coincide with a new war on corruption and a second round of a controversial war on drugs.
|
By Harry Cline
Commercial varieties of Roundup Ready alfalfa are expected to be available to California forage producers next year.
A team of University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisors have been evaluating this new technology for the past four years and two of those specialists, Fresno County farm advisor and weed specialists Kurt Hembree and Ron Vargas, his counterpart in Madera County, are convinced alfalfa tolerant to glyphosate will be a valuable new tool for forage growers.
The two farm advisors told a standing-room-only alfalfa field day at the UC Kearney Ag Center in Parlier that the only question remaining is the economic benefit—what will Monsanto and Forage Genetics International charge for this new technology. They have not tipped their hand to Vargas and Hembree.
Hembree and Vargas said there are stewardship issues with this new technology. However, those concerns can be managed for growers to apply glyphosate over the top of alfalfa to kill weeds without damaging the crop. It will be third major crop in the West with this technology. Corn and cotton varieties are the other two.
"Roundup Ready alfalfa will not be a panacea, but it will be a real good tool for alfalfa growers" in establishing alfalfa and producing quality hay for the life of a stand, said Hembree.
Hembree said it will be easier to establish a weed-free stand of alfalfa with the technology and it should remain weed free for its life span of three to five years in the central San Joaquin Valley.
|
By Harry Cline
The lies and distortion continue from the anti-biotech crowd traipsing through California hiding behind their anti-corporate, socialist, anti-human agenda in opposing agriculture biotechnology.
A news release from "Californians for GE-Free Agriculture" went out to the media promoting a series of seminars where "Midwestern Farmers Share Their Stories throughout California" about the horrors biotechnology.
The program lists as speakers three supposedly Midwest farmers and a California rice grower, Ron Lee, who produces conventional and organic rice.
Where is the California grower who produces biotech corn or cotton? There are more than 600,000 acres of biotech crops growing in California and this group could not find one producer willing to debate the issue? Where are the University of California scientists who have researched and evaluated this technology?
According to the news release, "This panel provides a rare opportunity to hear first-hand from farmers and farmer advocates who have been grappling with the impacts of this as yet unproven technology" read the news release.
Unproven! That is garbage.
Who are these Midwest Farmers?
Bill Wenzel was one of the speakers. He is executive director of Wisconsin Rural Development Center (WRDC) in Mt. Horeb, Wis. WRDC is a "nonprofit organization comprised of family farmers, environmentalists, church leaders, consumers, and rural activists. It promotes social and economic justice in rural Wisconsin; to protect rural natural resources; and to activate an effective voice for rural citizens." according to its Web site.
Sure sounds like a farmer who has something to lend to the biotechnology debate in California.
George Naylor of Churdan, Iowa was another speaker. He is a small farmer and a member of the National Family Farm Coalition. He does not like Freedom to Farm. He opposes "factory farms." He wants to go back to the days of high loan rates; non-recourse government loans and government storage of surplus commodities. He basically wants the government to support him, yet claims the government is inept at evaluating and regulating biotech crops.
|
VALDIVIENNE, France
About 15 people were injured in clashes on Saturday between French police and activists protesting against genetically modified (GMO) crops, police and protest organisers said. Police fired tear gas grenades at the activists, who were trying to stage their protest in a field of transgenic corn near Valdivienne in central France.
Among the injured was a freelance photographer working for Reuters, Georges Bartoli, who received injuries to his legs from the grenades. He and the others injured in the clashes were taken to hospital and later released.
Leading Greens party politician Noel Mamere, who was among the group of about 400 protesters, said the activists had wanted to demonstrate peacefully. The police also numbered about 400.
|
By KEITH BRADSHER and LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
BANGKOK, Sept. 29 - With Thai and international experts confirming the first probable human-to-human transmission of a virulent strain of avian influenza in this country, public health officials around the world are facing major hurdles as they try to prepare for a possible pandemic.
Scientists say they cannot predict how quickly, if at all, the strain may develop the ability to spread easily among people, and whether it will remain as lethal as it has proven so far.
The strain, A(H5N1), has killed 30 of the 42 Southeast Asians it infected in the past year, and millions of chickens and wild birds, across wide areas of Asia, and has infected some pigs, household cats and even zoo tigers. A handful of cases of human-to-human transmission may have occurred during bird flu outbreaks in Hong Kong in 1997 and in Europe a year ago, but neither resulted in a pandemic.
Still, public health experts say it would be irresponsible not to prepare for a worst-case situation. The so-called Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 to 1919 killed at least 20 million people, and that was before the development of the modern transportation system, with its fleets of jumbo jets linking remote areas of the world - and taking microbes with them. By comparison, AIDS has killed an estimated 22 million since 1981, according to the United Nations.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization held a meeting in Geneva of representatives of the drug industry to demand that they speed vaccine production. In the United States, scientists with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are racing to complete a genetic sequence of the virus from this case to determine if it has acquired any mammalian influenza genetic material, which could make it more transmissible, and the government has ordered two million doses of experimental vaccine.
Health officials would normally look to vaccines and antiviral drugs to control a pandemic, but in this case, those tools have yet to be fully developed and tested. Conventional flu vaccines are not believed to provide any protection against A(H5N1) avian influenza.
Human trials of the new vaccine ordered by the United States government are not expected to begin until the end of this year, at best.
|
JOCELYN KAISER
Hoping to allay ongoing controversy about industry consulting by its staff, National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials plan to impose a 1-year ban on all outside paid activities for companies. The proposed moratorium, announced to staff today in a memo from NIH Deputy Director Raynard Kington, will allow NIH to sort out questions about possible ethics lapses and devise a rigorous oversight system.
The proposed ban comes after months of scrutiny of NIH policies sparked by a Los Angeles Times story last December that reported that some high-ranking NIH scientists had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from industry. In June, a House committee raised questions about some 100 consulting activities reported by drug and biotech companies that did not show up in NIH's own records (Science, 2 July, p. 25) After finding that some of these deals "were probably not appropriately reviewed," NIH has decided it needs a 1-year pause to complete its review and make sure a new "system" is in place, Kington says. He says NIH will then determine whether to make the ban permanent or allow consulting on "a limited basis" under new restrictions that NIH Director Elias Zerhouni proposed this summer. "Clearly, we believe there's value in some of these relationships," Kington says. (However, top-level officials and those who oversee grants have already been barred from consulting.)
The moratorium is not a huge shock, say some NIH scientists, because ongoing outside activities had already been suspended early this year for a re-review. Those that were approved and new ones can continue until the ban takes effect, which probably won't be for a couple of months. (NIH says there are fewer than 100 active arrangements.) After that, scientists can still advise industry, but they can't make extra cash for the work. "The fact is, science will move forward," says Robert Desimone, intramural research director for the National Institute of Mental Health. Some scientists say the temporary ban will bring welcome clarity, because the rules are confusing now.
National Academy of Sciences president Bruce Alberts, who co-chaired a blue-ribbon panel earlier this year that advised NIH to continue to allow some industry consulting, says the moratorium is appropriate. However, he maintains that some consulting should still be allowed to allow for scientific exchanges and maintain NIH's ability to recruit. "I think it would be a mistake if this [the ban] were the long-term policy," Alberts says.
|