Slashdot Mirror

The production of products using raw milk is not illegal in the EU. They are authorized with some very reasonable stipulations concerning the health of the animals producing the raw milk, labeling the product and making sure the conformity of the milk is consistent.

References:
http://www.eurosurveillance.or...
http://slowfood.com/slowcheese...

Whilst a comment above says that E-Cigs don't use water vapor, what about humidifiers that atomize instead of boil the water? I have an expensive one for when my children have colds or the flu.

I'm thinking I might boil the water first...

Its probab ly possible, but insignificant compared to the risk of legionaries disease

Best article I've found on this topic (they are estimating between 77000 and 278000 cases by the end of the year):

http://www.eurosurveillance.or...

And the wikipedia page on the outbreak is also quite good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

This is an extremely scary situation. We have a 77% fatal virus with the caseload doubling roughly every three weeks. We might get lucky and this might burn itself out before it goes airborne or global some other way. Then again we might not.

My concern is what we are sending to Africa is probably not going to be nearly enough. And by the time it all gets there we might be looking at 10000 or 30000 cases, not the few thousand we have today. I also agree that it is very likely that the official figures substantially understate the number of infected.

It depends on where you are http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=20183... it is a lot like recycling. (I have the high authority of being an acquaintance who works in that field in the EU.) If you tell someone in Germany that it's the rule, then goddamn, it will be done -- it's the rule. If you tell someone in Italy or Greece that it's the rule -- fuck you, nobody tells me what to do!

USians pay for their medicine so they most likely are not prescribed as many by their doctors.

I don't think that is the case. Doctors might find it harder to say "just go home and take asprin" if someone is paying for the consultation. I can't find figures but my feeling is that its just as bad - the European report was issued because most emphasis up to now has been in the USA. I know that multi-resistant TB occurred in the USA and then spread to Europe, not that one example shows much. In all likelihood it actually occurred first in a third-world country with endemic TB and antibiotics available over the counter but tests found it first in te USA.

Quarantine, quarantine, quarantine. The Dutch have used a "Search & Destroy" method and have effectively kept MRSA contained.

I recall reading a story somewhere - might have been slashdot, I don't remember - where some country greatly reduced its cases of MRSA by no longer prescribing antibiotics unless they were really needed. I think it was The Netherlands?

America has the lowest rate of TB infection because we manage the disease differently than the rest of the world.

The rest of the world gives the ineffective TB vaccine, while the US doesn't. The TB vaccine is known not to work, and it ruins the best test we have to screen for infection - the ppd (TB skin test).

In America, we treat everyone that converts their skin test and we don't administer the TB vaccine. Our public health officials deserve a big pat on the back for this decision.

1. The CDC (U.S. center for disease control) inTrends in Tuberculosis --- United States, 1998--2003 states

   "During 2003, a total of 14,871 tuberculosis (TB) cases (5.1 cases per 100,000 population) were reported in the United States."

   While Eurosurveillance in 2002 reports on data (which may have been gathered in 2000) at Tuberculosis control in Europe needs expanded DOTS, linked HIV/TB control, and improved surveillance reports:

   "In most countries of western Europe, reported TB incidence is below 15 per 100 000 and continues to decrease slowly. In central Europe, reported TB incidence ranges from 20 to 40 per 100 000 and is decreasing in most countries. TB incidence is much higher in Bosnia-Herzegovina (65/100 000) and Romania (124/100 000), where it has increased significantly in recent years. In eastern Europe, a further increase in reported incidence was observed in 2000 to an overall 89/100 000, a 56% increase since 1995. In countries providing representative data, the overall levels of drug resistance at the beginning of treatment remained low both in Western and Central Europe (less than 1% of patients never previously treated had primary multidrug resistance) and remained extremely high in the Baltic states (9-12%)."

   So the U.S. may have a lower rate of TB than western europe, and definitely has a lower rate than central or eastern Europe. However, I was not able to find a supporting reference for the U.S. having the lowest Rate of infection.

2. Khaled Mohammed Abu Khadra's thesis abstract (Ph.D. thesis?) (the thesis itself was not directly linked), but the abstract gave hard numbers of preventive vaccination (vaccination prior to exposure) for the BCG vaccine in Jordan. The last paragraph of the abstract reads:

   "The overall vaccine effectiveness was 88% ; 85% for pulmonary TB and 95% for Extra-pulmonary TB. The vaccine was more effective (92%) when given shortly after birth, compared to 62% when given at school age."

3. However, vaccines appear to become less effective after widespread usage (try googling on Ineffective TB vaccine), so they may be ineffective after all (a BBC Article gives 70% effectiveness ratings).
4. Potential Public Health Impact of New Tuberculosis Vaccines by Ziv E, Daley CL and Blower, S. describes the outcome of a mathematical epidemiological model of Tuberculosis, which appears to indicate that vaccination AFTER exposure (post exposure) is likely to be more effective than pre-exposure vaccination at preventing disease (the authors make an interesting point that disease prevention is more important than preventing infection).