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Google Can Predict the Flu
An anonymous reader mentions Google Flu Trends, a newly unveiled initiative of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm. The claim is that this Web service, which aggregates search data to track outbreaks of influenza, can spot disease trends up to 2 weeks before Centers for Disease Control data can. The NYTimes writeup begins: "What if Google knew before anyone else that a fast-spreading flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick? And what if it could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in? That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends, a new Web tool ... unveiled on Tuesday, right at the start of flu season in the US. Google Flu Trends is based on the simple idea that people who are feeling sick will tend to turn to the Web for information, typing things like 'flu symptoms; or 'muscle aches' into Google. The service tracks such queries and charts their ebb and flow, broken down by regions and states."
Thats a seriously great idea ...
It totally sidesteps the problem of early symptoms not typically getting people to the doctor where it can potentially be reported/tracked.
There's probably a lot of trends that can be detected the same way beyond just disease.
1. Invest in Tamiflu (the leading medication to treat flu symptoms)
2. Organize a massive effort to do web searches for "flu symptoms"
3. Wait for Google to sound the flu alarm
4. Profit!
or else!
5-10 years ago I had a somewhat similar idea:
We all know that animals act odd, hours or days before things like earthquakes. The morning before a 6.8 quake in Washington State in 2001, my neighbors dog that normally will do anything to force it's way out of the front door and run for hours when the door is opened the slightest bit, wouldn't even get close to the door when the neighbor opened it. By itself, 1 animal acting weird means nothing, but a large group of animals over a localized area acting weird at the same time would point to something about to happen. The problem is that it is always after the "catastrophe" that people say, "You know sparky was acting odd this morning". If there was an online database that you could quickly go to and report that at your address your pet is acting weird at this moment, you might be able to predict the event by looking for groups of "odd acting" pets. I know it seems like a weird & far fetched idea, but tell me why it wouldn't work.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Yes, but not without violating the privacy of the users of google. We don't ask for their personal information from the clinic because it's a privacy violation, but we apparently have no moral objections to using their browser histories to get pretty much the same data.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
You're TOTALLY wrong. WHO-recommended flu vaccines are very effective
You're correct, for the majority. There are those of us though who end up having immune system reactions for a good month to 6 weeks following a flu shot every single time.
I specifically do NOT get a flu shot for this reason, but if one does not have this kind of reaction then you're exactly correct. I may not be a carrier with the vaccine but i cannot risk being guaranteed under the weather for almost 10% of the year as opposed to the risk of possibly contracting the flu during the winter myself.
The following is more of a way the hell out there probability:
There is the other side of the coin that we have yet to get a long term enough sample set to verify. Imagine a world where humanity has been vaccinating for a few generations and suddenly due to one event or another, the supply of vaccines is no longer available.
I hope those practice runs on the vaccines is enough to keep our immune systems able to cope. The chances of vaccination having a negative effect on us being naturally able to cope with new strains is a non-zero to keep an eye on if nothing else. Not saying OMG FLU SHOTS EVIL EACH INNOCULATION KILLS A KITTEN or anything, but theres a lot of outliers like this that many people avoid considering. Personally i think it has a lot to do with the years of grooming patients to accept a doctor as god as opposed to another human, with all the possible error conditions that applies, who happens to know a shitload about medicine and biology.
Buy stock in companies that sell treatments for Beri-Beri, Trench Foot, and Jungle Rot, and then have your botnet look them on on google.
I had thoughts along the same line, but in a different direction after reading this quote FTFA:
"And internally [Google] has tested the use of search data to reach conclusions about economic, marketing and entertainment trends."
If Google can correlate search terms with movements in stock or commodities markets, they might be able to attain that precious first mover advantage
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Just an aside.
How the hell does WHO predict Flu strains for immunization? I am honestly ignorant and would like to know.
This is fascinating, but it does make me wonder what else they could be predicting.
For example, if they're correlating searches from at-work employees, I bet they could turn up all manner of interesting things - predicting layoffs or other adverse business conditions, see who HR is googling (are they interviewing Google employees?).
Or keeping tabs on start-ups that are doing research into areas that Google is looking to make acquisitions. (Imagine when you're trying to sell your company to Google, they pull your employees' search history to see how long you've really been working on your flux capacitor.)
While the healthy won't die or have any serious consequences, they can still pass it on the others, who may be a greater risk.
I posted models of it almost three years ago.
http://www.realmeme.com/Main/dailymeme/2005/Aug/coughcoldDejanews.png
Web searches are co-incidental indicators.
Want to see something that Google hasn't shown you?
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=sars_versus_avian_flu_meme
It's quite likely that the Internet retains knowledge and alters its behavior over time. Compare the group reaction time between the SARS and avian flu viruses.
What a ridiculous statement. Yes, viruses and bacteria mutate, but a vaccine is a good way of fighting it. Small pox didn't suddenly get worse when everyone got vaccinated, on the contrary, it was pretty much eradicated, save for lab samples. Vaccines have made a number of diseases practically unknown to the modern world thanks to their incredible effectiveness (polio anyone?), and here you are spreading completely wrong information about vaccination.
A realistic assessment of the flu vaccine can pretty easily show its value- it's around 60-70% effective, according to the sheet they gave me when I got vaccinated this year. If a majority of the people you come in contact with are vaccinated, it clearly reduces the probability of infection. This becomes especially important if you plan to visit anyone in a nursing home or hospital, in terms of protecting them as well as yourself from the flu.
So stop trying to out-think the logic of vaccination just to be different and go get vaccinated. It won't hurt you, it doesn't cause autism, and you won't turn into a zombie (and even if you do, brains may just be pretty tasty)
So, if people start relying on google warnings, two things will result: Increased searches for "flu symptoms" after a google warning (increasing the size and scope of a warning), and almost no searches for "flu symptoms" when no warnings are issued (reducing the frequency of the warnings).
Influenza (the flu), originates in China pretty much every year. Different strains of RNA viruses arise (mutations in antigens, the process is called antigenic drift), in pigs. These are different enough to be able to get past the immune system (which is resistant to last year's strain, but unable to recognize recombined (new) antigens).
Pigs share a common receptor with people which is hijacked by these RNA viruses; this allows the virus to jump from pigs to humans. (Aside: they also share a different receptor with birds, which is why we're so paranoid about avian influenza: it could jump to pigs, mutate to our receptor, and then jump to humans.)
Every year you'll have dozens of different strains of influenza arising in pigs; only and handful of these use the common receptor and are able to jump to people. From there, only a handful of these are spread (through migration) to other parts of the world. IIRC, the flu spreads west with the climate, eventually encountering a city where it's able to hitch a ride to America (and the rest of the world) on a boat or an airplane.
WHO relies on being able to look at previous strains which reached epidemic and pandemic proportions, and on being able to artificially recombine antigens to create this years major strains. Sometimes they miss a few critical ones (2003-2004), but they're remarkably good about predicting which strains will mutate.
Basically, there are only a few different antigens, and we rely on creating the same new set that nature will create (there's a finite number of viable recombinant strains, after all). I doubt they look at pigs in China; there's simply too many in areas that are too remote.
If there's an epidemiologist reading this, he can probably give you a more detailed answer.
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