incredulous

The fact of the matter is, swine flu has been hopping from pigs to humans for decades, sometimes causing disease, sometimes not. According to a study done by the Centers for Disease Control, 76% of swine exhibitors at a 1988 county fair had antibodies in their bloodstream indicating a prior swine flu infection, even though the exhibitors showed no signs of illness. There was also an outbreak of swine flu among military recruits in Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1976, causing severe illness in 13 soldiers and one death. With this current swine flu outbreak, we simply don’t know what to expect. There’s been no reliable pattern. Some people have gotten mildly ill, and some have died. Some have probably been transiently infected and didn’t even notice.

But I don’t think we need to worry about this pandemic too much, because there’s one thing to keep in mind when news of a unique flu strain breaks: perspective. As of this writing, 80 people in Mexico have succumbed to swine flu. By comparison, the CDC estimates that 36,000 people in the United States die each year of influenza-related illnesses. And in spite of this, we in the medical community still have a hard time convincing people to get their flu shots. If you’re not afraid of influenza, then you shouldn’t be afraid of the swine flu. Even in the event that someone gets infected with swine flu, we have medications with demonstrated effectiveness against the strain that’s currently active.

via Medical Marginalia » Blog Archive » Swine flu: nothing new » A True/Slant Contributor.

Common sense would suggest that air pollution in the form of microscopic particles that obstruct the Sun’s rays — a phenomenon called “global dimming” — would hamper this process, but the new study shows the opposite is true.

“Surprisingly, the effects of atmospheric pollution seem to have enhanced global plant productivity by as much as a quarter from 1960 to 1999,” said Linda Mercado, a researcher at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Britain, and the study’s lead author.

“This resulted in a net ten percent increase in the amount of carbon stored by the land,” she said in a statement.

via Air pollution helps plants blunt climate change: study.