Scott McPherson's Web Presence

A 23-month toddler has died in Texas of swine H1N1.  First reports indicate the child is Mexican, and was brought to the US for treatment.

Reports are very fluid right now, but the death is attributed to the time spent traveling to the US to seek treatment, rather than the actual severity of the virus. 

I mention that the child is Mexican because this is not, apparently, the case of an American dying of an infection in, say, Cleveland.  This is a person of Mexican nationality who was brought across the border in the mistaken belief that treatment in America was a better decision than staying in Mexico.  This decision doomed this child much more than the severity of the virus.

One reason why I am an information technology professional is that I could not "do biology." Sure, I could dissect frogs with the best of them, but I just was not emotionally equipped to be a biologist.

Same thing with astronomy: When I found out you had to actually do math to be an astronomer, I was so disappointed.

Nonetheless, over the past three years, I have tried to stay in the same room with biologists and geneticists who unravel the mysteries of cleavage points (and I tell you I have an entirely different definition of that!), genetic sequencing and etc.

That is one big reason why I appreciate the reports that come out of Harvard's proMED email updates. And one today casts a big shadow over the data we have been fed regarding the genetic background of Mexican Swine Flu.

Who here can remember who originally said this thing was an avian/human/swine hybrid? According to Dr. Raul Rabadan of Columbia University, that information is wrong wrong WRONG. I quote from his proMED report:

The preliminary analysis using all the sequences in public databases

(NCBI) suggests that all segments are of swine origin. NA and MP seem related to Asian/European swine and the rest to North American swine

(H1N2 and H3N2 swine viruses isolated since 1998). There is also interesting substratification between these groups, suggesting a multiple reassortment.

We are puzzled about sources of information that affirm that the virus is a reassortment of avian, human and swine viruses. It is true that the H3N2 swine virus from 1998 and 1999 is a triple reassortant, but all the related isolates are found since then in swine.

All-RIGHTY then!   A scientific dust-up!  FIGHT! FIGHT!  It does beg the question of what this virus is, and how did apparently erroneous content get pushed out to the general public as gospel?

My recollection was that the source was attributed to be the CDC.  Maybe the WHO.  What this also tells me is that this virus is even more novel than novel.  A novel virus with human genes, depending on which gene segment they are located, also tells us if there is any shred of hope that humanity might have an immunity to this virus.  For example, some human genes on the hemagglutinin strand HA would give us some hope that some humans would be immune to the virus' cleavage point (God how I love to say "cleavage point" and not get slapped in the face for it!).

Anyway, I got sidetracked.  Sorry.  Back to the virus:  NA represents neuraminidase, the "escape artist" that allows the virus' clones to escape the hijacked cell.  MP refers to the surface protein that holds the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase spikes.

There had to be a genetic change that allowed for this virus to stop infecting pigs and start infecting humans big time.  I don't think anyone has found it yet.  But I sense that when they do, they will have unlocked quite a mystery whose dividends will be felt long after this virus has gone away.

You Twitterheads, or whatever you people call yourselves, can now get my comments and links on the 140-character social networking site.  I'm something like "@scottwmcpherson" or something like that.

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You'll get a lot of updates during the business day.  At night, I'm a normal human being again, reading Marvel comics, zombie novels or watching Fringe with the wife.  Isn't that what normal people do?  Well, we also watch American Idol (Adam's gonna win it) and Dancing with the Stars (Gilles/Lil' Kim tossup) so I'm not completely out there.....

Hurm.

The Los Angeles Times and the AP are both reporting that there are two deaths being attributed to swine influenza.  This is a MAJOR BREAKING STORY and everyone should stay tuned.

FoxNews is reporting that a Mexican citizen who came to Orlando to visit Disney World has been hospitalized with suspected swine flu. The mexican resident has been in the Greater Orlando area for a couple of days.

There is no word yet as to what park or parks the visitor frequented.

http://www.wftv.com/news/19311020/detail.html