Word: viruses
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Wodarg notes that the agency declared the H1N1 pandemic based only on the new virus' transmissibility and did not take into consideration the severity of the strain. Wodarg blames the WHO for raising the alarm over a virus with little destructive potential, leading countries to embark on expensive mass-vaccination programs. He has organized a public parliamentary hearing on behalf of the Strasbourg-based human-rights group Council of Europe, titled "The Handling of the H1N1 Pandemic: More Transparency Needed?" The hearing, scheduled for Jan. 26, will explore the question of whether the WHO and governments overreacted to the threat...
Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's special adviser on pandemic influenza, who will head a delegation to the Strasbourg hearing, counters that the WHO's definition of influenza pandemics has always been based on transmissibility and has never had anything to do with the lethality of a virus; it was no different with H1N1. In response to accusations of overreaction to what has amounted to a mild disease, Fukuda says that once the 2009 H1N1 pandemic had been declared, "WHO consistently made it clear that it could not predict the future course of the pandemic but consistently provided sober, balanced...
...cells. In the 200 or so HIV-positive patients tested in the early trial, the compound was effective, but Tanox was worried about resistance. No matter how promising ARV drugs were, HIV inevitably found a way to evade them. So while the agent seemed to reduce the burden of virus in the blood up to 90% in patients with full-blown AIDS, no one knew how long the viral standoff would last. The company's leaders wanted Ho's opinion on whether the agent was worth developing further...
Looking at the numbers, Ho saw more than just another member of the growing arsenal of ARV cocktails. Each of the ARVs focuses on thwarting just one of several different steps in HIV's infection process. Ibalizumab works at the critical juncture where the virus meets a healthy CD4 cell - a critical component of the immune system - essentially interposing itself between the two and preventing infection. If ibalizumab was so good at tamping down HIV in AIDS patients who were already infected, then maybe it could be tweaked to prevent AIDS in the first place. In other words, maybe...
...other cells. Once attached to a CD4, HIV begins an intricate series of steps to gain entry into the cell. Ibalizumab is able to disrupt this intricate molecular choreography by binding to the CD4 and serving as an immunological snare. With the antibody stuck to the CD4 receptor, the virus is physically unable to complete the necessary contortions it must perform to slide into the cell and take over its genetic machinery to pump out more virus...