Emergence of H7N9 Avian Flu Hints at Broader Threat

By Beth Mole
The H7N9 influenza virus did not emerge alone. Researchers have traced the evolution of the deadly avian flu currently spreading in China, and have found evidence that it developed in parallel with a similar bird flu, H7N7, which can infect mammals.

Although there is no evidence that this H7N7 strain will infect humans, the authors of a study published today in Nature say that their finding reinforces the idea that H7 avian viruses are constantly mixing and exchanging genetic material - a process known as reassortment - in Asian poultry markets. This raises the threat that H7N7 will reassort and become able to spread to humans.

"H7 is out there in China and not just in the form of this H7N9," says Richard Webby, a co-author of the study and an influenza specialist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Ducks, in particular, act as living mixing bowls for avian viruses. Domestic species encounter a large catalog of wild-bird viruses, which swap genes to form versions that can spread to chickens and to humans.

Better surveillance of Chinese bird populations is needed to monitor the emergence of dangerous viruses such as H7N9, says lead author Yi Guan, an influenza specialist at the University of Hong Kong. In China, the virus has infected 135 people and resulted in 44 deaths since February. "This is a very different influenza ecosystem from other countries," says Guan.  

The Threat from Rampant Antibiotic Use on the Farm

By Donald Kennedy
When I was commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency's national advisory committee recommended in 1977 that we eliminate an agricultural practice that threatened human health. Routinely feeding low doses of antibiotics to healthy livestock, our scientific advisory committee warned, was breeding drug-resistant bacteria that could infect people. We scheduled hearings to begin the process of curtailing the use of penicillin and other antibiotics for this purpose, but Congress halted the effort before it started.

Today, the science is even clearer that antibiotic overuse in agriculture is dangerous - yet the same risks persist. Fortunately, the FDA appears poised to act by instituting a measure known as Guidance 213. This voluntary policy instructs pharmaceutical companies to stop marketing certain antibiotics for animal production purposes. Some public health advocates want the agency to make the restrictions mandatory, but voluntary guidance can work - if it is finalized. The agency issued a draft version of its policy in April 2012 and received public comments, as required, but the comment period closed about a year ago. Drugmakers have been left awaiting further instruction.

The new guidelines cannot come soon enough. More antibiotics were sold for use in food animal production in 2011, the last year for which complete data are available, than in any prior year. The FDA annually examines bacteria on retail meat and poultry, and each year the bugs show more resistance to antibiotics. Moreover, several new studies using genetic analysis demonstrate with great precision the evolution and transmission of resistant pathogens not traditionally linked to food. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus is a troublesome new source of livestock-associated infections, and the E. coli that cause drug-resistant urinary tract infections can also be transmitted to people via food.    

The Environmental Threat of Dental Mercury

By Dr. Mercola
Dental amalgams have been in use since the American Civil War. They are an anachronism that have been perpetuated by dental industry patents, and there's a conspiracy of silence that seeks to keep the 75 percent of Americans who are ignorant about the fact that amalgam fillings are actually 50 percent mercury.

Fortunately, in the last 10 years nearly half of dentists have recognized this and have stopped using them in their practice. However, 50 percent of all US dentists still use them, and that currently accounts for between 240-300 tons of mercury entering the market every year. In the United States, dental offices are the second largest user of mercury - and this mercury eventually ends up in our environment by one pathway or another.

Dental Mercury-A Major Source of Environmental Pollution

 Mercury from dental amalgam pollutes:

     Water via not only dental clinic releases and human waste (amalgam is by far the largest source of mercury in our wastewater)      Air via cremation, dental clinic emissions, sludge incineration, and respiration; and      Soil via landfills, burials, and fertilizer

Astroturf Libertarians are the Real Threat to Internet Democracy

They are the online equivalent of enclosure riots: the rick-burning, fence-toppling protests by English peasants losing their rights to the land. When MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and Amazon tried to shut WikiLeaks out of the cyber-commons, an army of hackers responded by trying to smash their way into these great estates and pull down their fences. In the WikiLeaks punch-up the commoners appear to have the upper hand. But it's just one battle. There's a wider cyberwar being fought, of which you hear much less. And in most cases the landlords, with the help of a mercenary army, are winning.

I'm not talking here about threats to net neutrality and the danger of a two-tier internet developing, though these are real. I'm talking about the daily attempts to control and influence content in the interests of the state and corporations: attempts in which money talks.

The weapon used by both state and corporate players is a technique known as astroturfing. An astroturf campaign is one that mimics spontaneous grassroots mobilisations but which has in reality been organised. Anyone writing a comment piece in Mandarin critical of the Chinese government, for instance, is likely to be bombarded with abuse by people purporting to be ordinary citizens, upset by the slurs against their country.

But many of them aren't upset: they are members of the 50 Cent Party, so-called because one Chinese government agency pays five mao (half a yuan) for every post its tame commenters write. Teams of these sock-puppets are hired by party leaders to drown out critical voices and derail intelligent debates.

I first came across online astroturfing in 2002, when the investigators Andy Rowell and Jonathan Matthews looked into a series of comments made by two people calling themselves Mary Murphy and Andura Smetacek. They had launched ferocious attacks, across several internet forums, against a scientist whose research suggested that Mexican corn had been widely contaminated by GM pollen.