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In light of this glorious Swine ’09 epidemic, I encourage you all to take a good, long, hard look at your doorknobs. They’re not as clean as you think.
—Dino
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.
48 Comments
Substitute “doorknobs” for “children” and that’s where the real H1N1 is.
Yeah let’s just sterilize fucking everything. That will do wonders to our immune system.
Cover the kids with a thin layer of plastic. Obviously leave a couple air holes.
Kids have poor secretion control. I saw this kid in the elevator yesterday touch all the buttons, lick their fingers and then touch all the buttons again.
I took a hard long, look at my door knobs. Then I decided to drink my coffee. Then I had some soup. Then I looked at the doorknob again. Purel is overrated.
Purel, unfortunately kills the good bacteria along with the bad. Some of these good bacteria help keep you healthy and fight the bad germs.
I’ve used hand sanitizer like…maybe 3 or 4 times in the past year and I *knock on wood* haven’t been sick with so much as a cold since 2008. I just wash my hands regularly. That’s it. Meanwhile I’ve had a few friends who are purel freaks and use it constantly who have been sick multiple times already this year. While it’s not a scientific study, I think I’ll take my chances.
Also: does hand sanitizer even kill viruses?
wash your hands before you eat, prepare food or touch your face. if you can’t, then use purel. Personally, I have very sensitive skin and purel gives me a lovely rash (which is, incidently, a great way for viruses and bacteria to get into my system) so I steer clear of it.
Agreed PK… The whole antibacterial wave is gonna catch up to us all… Once the bacteria adapts, we’re all screwed…
Nothing kills virusus with the exception of an Antiviral medication which is terrible for your system, and I mean terrible!! One round of antiviral meds leaves permanant damage on your liver!!! Scarry shit!!!
That’s why they say “It’s viral, go home and rest and take tylenol overy 4 hours and drink plenty of fluids”
Frenchie – If you think antiviral drugs are bad for you liver, you should see what acetaminophen does to it. I was told by a medical doctor that a single dose of 13 Tylenol is enough to shut down your liver in 3 days.
It’s also wise to be cautious of public doorknobs as well as private ones. Then there’s debit, banking and telephone keypads, money, touchscreens, keyboards and other public bacteria and virus transfer stations. That being said, I did disinfect all the doorknobs at home when I recently had the flu. Appears to have worked as I was not successful in sharing the illness with others in the household.
Hand sanitizer may kill certain viruses, but only in perfect conditions, as well as perfect usage. It’s like saying the “pull out” method is effective 90% of the time. I’m sure there’s plenty of skanky high school mothers out there willing to tell you otherwise. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s only effective in killing bacteria for a relatively short period of time, as they re-populate very quickly. I use it primarily in high-risk public areas, i.e.: public washrooms, where hand washing is never enough, and you risk catching more then just the flu.
Buy all the purel you want, you can’t use on the air you breathe in in public spaces.
Actually, aside from the fact that it’s highly flammable, the fragrances added to Purell can wreak havoc on folks with environmental sensitivites…
I used to work in a place where they banned it because we had a “fragrance-free” environment, and according to the ingredient sheets it didn’t conform to the Lung Associations list of “OK’d” products for fragrance-free workplaces…
I personally prefer Purel with 7 up rather than coke, it tastes a lot smoother, oh you’re not supposed to drink it?
I did quite a bit of research on this so called new H1N1 Swine strain and it’s not so new.
The same exact virus exploded in Europe in 1918 infecting more than a million people. It actually killed 1% of the people infected globally. There were several outbreaks since 1918. One was in 1970’s in the U.S. The vaccine already existed and it was tested on humans in the past. I have no idea why you guys are believing this garbage on TV. Here’s a useful link.
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/bio/factsh…
randomness, i already touched on the fact that they have been using the vaccine in europe for years. The H1N1 virus did not just APPEAR out of thin air. it has been around in europe for years. and you are correct about the 1918 virus as well…this “novel” virus has just changed its habits by mutation. funny how there were really no major epidemics of flu for years and yet we got along just fine without purel before that. my immune system is quite robust without purel. makes me wonder if the country actually strives on panic…otherwise their lives would be boring right?
Apparently, the 1918 flu virus hit the world (including Nova Scotia), not just Europe:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/News/1150319.…
Randomness, just to clarify, the 1918 H1N1 is NOT the same as the current H1N1 nor is it the same as the H1N1-like strains included in the seasonal flu vaccines. The reference to the surface antigens (H1, H2, H3 etc and N1, N2, N3 etc) do little to tell you about the potency of the virus. There are several other genes encoded by the virus that can affect virulence so two virus strains with the exact same H and N genes (e.g. H1N1) could have widely different varieties of the other genes and therefore widely different pathogenic potential. Each viral gene is encoded on a physically separate RNA strand and these strands can mix and match when two or more different viruses infect the same cell. This is called genetic shift.
In addition, regions of the H and N proteins are very tolerant to mutation which leads to variability within the H1 and N1 serotypes and also the development of other serotypes (like H2, H3, etc). This is called genetic drift.
The combination of genetic shift and drift, as well as a wide host animal range, is how influenza viruses are able to stay one step ahead of our collective immune systems.
The current H1N1 virus has several gene variants that have not been seen in this combination before, including the 1918 H1N1 virus. Comparisons between this and other H1N1 flu outbreaks are often misinformed and misleading. Some H1N1 variants are more pathogenic than others and the only way to tell is to pay attention to what it’s doing in real populations.
Isn’t funny how people with absolutely no medical knowledge or training start making correlations about two completely unrelated Flu viruses?
Screw Purell, it’s all about Manorapid.
Manorapid rocks!
Soap and water work well too.
THE SKI IS FALLING,THE SKI IS FALLING,THE FUCKING SKI FELL LONG AGO.BIG DEAL,WE DIE OR DON’T, THE GOVERNMENT ARE USING US AS A GUINEA PIG, HENCE THE NAME.
Elaborate, LS.
LIFE SUCKS /
I know snowboarding is getting popular these days, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that skiing has fallen.
Frenchie, Antiviral meds do NOT kill virus. Anti-viral meds provide an RNA-like substance the virus likes but it does not have the RNA material the virus requires to replicate. Antiviral med’s slows a virus’ progression down. Anti-viral meds “cure” nothing.
Kay, not all antivirals act like the ones you are talking about (nucleotide analogues/chain terminators)…that is mostly used in anti-retroviral therapies and they prevent new DNA synthesis which is a necessary step in HIV replication.
Chain terminators would be ineffective against an RNA virus like influenza because stopping the production/replication of viral RNA would also stop the production of cellular RNA needed to make protein and maintain the cell.
The anti-retrovirals for influenza target the neurominadase (NA) protein (the N1 in H1N1) which is involved in entry and exit from the cell or the matrix protein which is involved in assembly of new virus and its entry into cells. These antivirals reduce or inhibit the spread of the virus allowing your immune system to catch up.
No antiviral will “kill” a virus, because viruses are not living organisms. For viruses with envelopes (membranes) derived from the host cells, like influenza, soap and alcohol (purell) are both effective at disrupting/solubilizing that membrane and destroying the virus particles.
You are now officially my go to guy, Miles. Lots of good info in your posts.
nevill, skiing, what has that got to do with the ski is falling? remember the chicken little story?
nevill, oh i see my mistake now, just had to reread it over, sorry folks, the fucking sky is falling. am i bad today, or just tired of hearing about this fucking pig flu?
lovinglife, 13 Tylonel in a single shot is called an overdose which of course will cause damage and possible death (depending on the amount ingested) to a body as with any other drug one overdoses on.
haha thats ok bud, thats the funniest tho… “nevill, skiing, what has that got to do with the ski is falling”
I just licked mine…
it tasted slightly salty, metallic.
I couldn’t taste any H1N1 germs at all !
I just looked out the window as I type this , & damn it, isn’t the sky still up there !!!
It doesn’t appear to be falling at all .
I wonder what’s stupider, the hype about this dud flu, or those who are falling for it ?
Bro Tim – the point of my post about the Tylenol was not to suggest people are ( or should be ) knocking back 13 of em when they get a headache, it was to point out how sensitive the liver can be since induced liver failure is a mere trip to the medicine cabinet away. The condescending tone is unnecessary.
I am not even going to get into the semantics of “dose vs. over dose” vernacular with you. I am pretty sure most reasonable people who can tie their own shoes know that an amount of medication that overwhelms you system and causes harm would be considered an overdose.
would you be appeased if I wrote “13 Tylenol taken at once” rather than use the word dose?
The hype is stupider More. People aren’t so much “falling for it” as they are trying to do what they are being advised by Public Health officials. I think people would be better able to avoid the media hype if the government wasn’t taking this so seriously as well. Add the mixed and constantly changing messages received through the media and you have mass confusion and increased interest in the subject as people try to resolve that confusion. The people aren’t being stupid, they are worried and concerned. They are getting mixed messages from people they expect they can trust. The most accessible source for public information (i.e. the media) has failed everyone by choosing ratings over responsibility and they have undermined the ability to act effectively in the future should a more serious public health threat present itself.
If you removed the “hype” from the media the public health message would seem appropriate: “Be aware that H1N1 is around, is the dominant flu strain this season and poses increased risk to certain populations. As a result, we are ordering enough flu shots to inoculate everyone since H1N1 is not part of this season’s seasonal flu shot. We recommend that people get vaccinated to reduce the risk of contracting, spreading and suffering from this virus.”
I recent study was done comparing the germ-killing power of soap compared to other hand washing formulas. Soap failed miserably, while anti-bacterial soap with alcohol proved the most effective. Pick your poison folks…
“Germs” a pretty imprecise term. Bacteria and viruses come in many different flavours and soap will have different effectiveness depending on which type of viruses and bacteria you are considering. Also, soap is only as effective as the person’s skill at handwashing (are you lathering enough and for long enough folks?). Alcohol (isopropanol or ethanol) at >60% has a wider range of effectiveness and it’s harder to use ineffectively (“rub until dry” is harder to screw up). You also have to balance whether you want to eradicate every living thing from your hands or just keep them clean to minimize spread of infectious agents. Some of the comments here mentioned that and I agree…you want some of your normal, non-harmful bacteria around to crowd out the more opportunistic and pathogenic ones. Humans need to be clean, not sterile.
Any kind of soap is only effective if you wash long enough, which is basically singing the ABC’s all the way to ”now I know my abc’s…” and who’s going to do that except me.
Holy Shit! How did we make it into the 21st century?
I remember the time where you would scrape your knee, stung buy an insect/jellyfish, bitten by a dog, measles, chicken pox, mumps, and the list goes on and live to tell about it.
I’m surprised I made it this far. However there is cancer. But I’m not trying to think about that.
That was also a time when people scraped their knee and got tetanus. When people were stung by bees and died because there were no epi pens. When people were bitten by dogs and got rabies. They suffered through measles, chickenpox and mumps and many died as a result.
Life expectancies in the US went from 49 in 1900 to 77 in 2000…there’s something to be said for medicine, vaccines and hygiene.
hmmm i have had strep throat, mono and the flu at the same time(was quarantined) made it through that alright, while quarantined at my home. While staying at home i didnt infect anyone else. I have no allergies to speak of except for hayfever and its not bad. ive used a grand total of 6 sick days in 9 years. I know people who are “deathly sick” at least 3 days of every month…their children are “sensitive” to every single product/thing in the universe and they are being wiped/sprayed down with sanitizing products every fricking second by their germaphobe parents. Let the kid pick up the cat poop dammit…lol thats what we did when we found something in the sandbox in the 80’s…none of us turned out to be oversensitive to anything. SHEEESH. Listen folks, there are things out there that will kill us…and those that dont, our body tends to be stronger for it. Mono, strep throat and flu didnt kill me…
Miles, we don’t generally immunize against chicken pox… or do we now? I thought there was a big to-do a few years back about such low death rates and how vaccines throw your whole immune system for a loop taking years to recover. Given the high rate of survival don’t we just “poke the bear” or give cause for a virus to mutate by introducing such an immunization program? And aren’t we doing the same with flu vaccine, that is, providing an environmental cause for influenza to mutate?
Question… if a virus is not a living entity how come it can evolve? I can’t think of one other thing on the planet that can mutate in response to an unfavorable environment that is not plant nor animal. Animals, plants, birds, insects… they adapt or die and the same is true for virus, no? Why is it not considered a living entity?
You’re my go-to guy AND hall monitor now too! Very impressive contributions here, Miles! Thanks!
Good Questions Kay.
There is a chicken pox vaccine now. It came out years ago…I heard about it on the news when I was at home WITH the chicken pox. Don’t know how standard it is though.
As for the poking the bear-mutationthing:
I don’t know how the chicken pox vaccine is made (live attenuated, ‘killed’ or pieces of the virus) so I can’t comment on that.
The flu vaccine is ‘killed’ virus. It’s genetic material is destroyed so it can’t replicate and can’t mutate. The immune response you build against it occurs just from seeing the virus particles and does not require a productive infection. There are other vaccines out there based on live attenuated virus. These use active virus that replicates more slowly and could be susceptible to mutation and/or picking up genes from a concurrent infection with fully functional virus. In theory at least. I don’t know about how likely that is in reality or if the attenuated virus is built to take that into account.
Viruses are not considered alive, but they do toe the line. They cannot generate their own energy and are completely dependent on their host for supplying metabolic energy (ATP) and other necessary proteins and genetic building blocks. Also, they do not divide (like living cells) but assemble their progeny, like a factory.
Viruses do have genetic material (either DNA or RNA) that encode all the proteins needed to make and assemble more virus particles. Typically, an infected cell can turn out over 100,000 ‘copies’ of the virus during infection. The machinery that copies the virus genetic material is more error prone than our own cellular machinery and so that leads to a high mutation rate. When you make 100,000 copies of yourself, you don’t have to be accurate and many of those 100,000 copies will have mutations that are detrimental to the virus. However, if even 10 or so copies contain mutations that give the virus a competitive advantage, then those 10 can go on to infect the next cell and make 1,000,000 copies of this ‘better’virus. So, natural selection works on viruses even though they are not technically alive.
Wow… cool! Thank you! You just saved me from scouring medical journals, Miles. You’re great! Do you have anything to add about the likelihood the flu shot might spur on mutation like we’ve observed in “super bug” infections and evolving pests? I’m concerned only some of the population being immune will provide those scary conditions down the road.
That’s actually a pretty good question too Kay. It’s actually a but of an involved answer and I don’t have time to get to it now…but check back later and I’ll see what I can come up with for you. My short answer now is maybe, but probably not.
So, Kay, here’s my thoughts on that, keeping in mind this is just based on my understanding of the field, not on any particular studies or anything.
Your question was, if I can paraphrase, if a vaccine campaign can result in an increased risk of more virulent virus stains by applying selective pressure, similar to what we see with over-use of antibiotics causing multi-drug resistant bacteria.
I have tried to answer this for you in a few different ways but it keeps getting too long and detailed and probably confusing. I’m going to give you a more succinct answer now, but feel free to ask for clarifications/elaborations if needed.
Vaccines can apply selective pressure on viruses like drugs do to bacteria, but the difference is that the pressure from vaccines only selects for viruses with mutations that help them evade the immunity provided by the vaccine. The mutations that allow the virus to resist the effects of the vaccine do not have to be mutations that make the virus any more able to cause disease or cause worse disease symptoms. In fact, our collective immune systems are constantly forcing viruses to mutate in such a way as to avoid our collective immunity against them. So, whether we vaccinate or not, viruses will be mutating to avoid our immune responses. Overall, the more collective immunity we have against a virus (enhanced by immunization campaigns) the less likely a virus is to survive in a population. The effectiveness of antiviral campaigns is best evident in the eradication of polio and smallpox. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the best adapted viruses do not cause significant disease in their natural hosts. Humans are not the natural hosts for influenza viruses (yet), birds are, and that’s why they can sometimes cause us so much trouble.
I hope that makes sense and answers your question somewhat.
Thank you Miles. I see one must choose their perspective in scale to entertain such a question and I really appreciate you sharing yours with me/us. I’m relieved to finally understand mutation doesn’t necessarily make a virus more deadly, only more adaptable for survival. The term “collective immunity” really sums it up for me and what got me thinking. I guess I imagine invaders favoring places where other bugs thrive and avoiding places where it’s difficult to thrive leaving the vast majority of people on the planet (3rd world nations) quite an attractive target but now I see it’s not necessarily so. Thank you.