Today in Science History March 24th
by Greg on Mar.24, 2009, under Science Life History
The first event courtesy of Todayinsci.com is an interesting reminder of the possible dangers of policy formed by incorrect science. I am very curious how the researchers made such extreme claims during a time period devoid of such basic molecular biological tools like electrophoretic sequencing gels (1977) and PCR (1984):
In 1976, following advice from medical experts, President Ford called for the U.S. to give swine flu vaccinations, a $135 million program of mass inoculation of the entire population. No comparable vaccination effort had ever been attempted in the U.S. before. The nationwide vaccination effort began as a result of a novel virus that was first identified at Fort Dix, N.J., and labeled a “killer flu.” Experts compared it to the Spanish flu of 1918 and sounded the alarm of a possible major pandemic. In fact, the virus never moved outside the Fort Dix area. Later research showed it would probably have been much less deadly than the Spanish flu.
from wikipedia:
The vaccination program was plagued by delays and public relations problems, but about 24% of the population was vaccinated by the time the program was cancelled. [10] There is “enough evidence to suggest that” about 500 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome resulting in death from severe pulmonary complications for 25 people was caused by an immunopathological reaction to the vaccine in some people.[10] Other influenza vaccines have not been linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome.
And a bonus seminal moment in disease knowledge:
In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced to the Berlin Physiological Society that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis. Three weeks later, on April 10, he published an article entitled The Etiology of Tuberculosis. In 1884, in a second paper with the same title, he first expounded “Koch’s postulates,” which have since become basic to studies of all infectious diseases. He had observed the bacillus in association with all cases of the disease, had grown the organism outside the body of the host, and had reproduced the disease in a susceptible host inoculated with a pure culture of the isolated organism. Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1905. He died in 1910.
I wrote a post yesterday about raw milk, and how i still do not understand the movement. This little bit of history makes it even more confusing:
Koch did not believe that bovine (cattle) and human tuberculosis were similar, which delayed the recognition of infected milk as a source of infection. Later, this source was eliminated by the pasteurization process.
:swine flu, tuberculosis
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Nasa's Image of the Day
Little Galaxy With a Tail
This infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, reveals stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. T The image shows the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is comprised of the "bar" and "wing" on the left and the "tail" extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. The tail contains only gas, dust and newly formed stars. Spitzer data has confirmed that the tail region was recently torn off the main body of the galaxy. Two of the tail clusters, which are still embedded in their birth clouds, can be seen as red dots. The data in this image are being used by astronomers to study the lifecycle of dust in the entire galaxy: from the formation in stellar atmospheres, to the reservoir containing the present day interstellar medium, and the dust consumed in forming new stars. The dust being formed in old, evolved stars (blue stars with a red tinge) is measured using mid-infrared wavelengths. The present day interstellar dust is weighed by measuring the intensity and color of emission at longer infrared wavelengths. The rate at which the raw material is being consumed is determined by studying ionized gas regions and the younger stars (yellow/red extended regions). The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its companion galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, are the two galaxies where this type of study is possible. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI
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