EXTRA!!!! NEWS ABOUT THE PANDEMIC INFLUENZA

This article is in full Spanish, but I found it quite interesting... please read it, comment it and it is up to you if you believe it or not... THIS IS NOT HOMEWORK, THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.

Astillero

• Tapabocas, un mito genial
• Porosos e ineficaces: Lezana
• Pánico, una manera de actuar

Julio Hernández López

Los tapabocas casi no sirven de nada en el caso específico de la influenza hoy en fase 5, pero fue la gente por sí misma la que demandó ponérselos para así sentirse más segura, según la desparpajada versión que ahora da un funcionario mexicano que para nada usa los famosos protectores faciales, ni más ni menos que la máxima autoridad burocrática en materia de esas enfermedades infecciosas, el doctor Miguel Ángel Lezana, director general de vigilancia epidemiológica y control de enfermedades de la Secretaría de Salud, que con desfachatez de la misma cepa reconoce que la alarma mundial creada fue una manera de actuar que buscó reducir el número de muertes.

Las esclarecedoras palabras del doctor Lezana no fueron arrancadas con profesionalismo crítico por los varios entrevistadores de radio y televisión que en estos días han tenido constantemente en sus estudios al destacado funcionario pero sólo para que junto con otros especialistas genere un continuo flujo de información técnica que hace a los escuchas fortalecer sus miedos (periodismo informativo de preguntitas médicas de consultorio, sin ir al fondo del asunto ni exigir verdades). Primero fue ante corresponsales extranjeros donde Lezana soltó la frase en la que acepta modalidades actorales. Inquietos porque las cifras mexicanas no cuadran por ningún lado que se les vea, los representantes de medios foráneos pidieron a la administración calderónica que alguna autoridad en la materia les explicara el enredo en el que conforme pasan los días son menos los muertos por el virus ahora pandémico pues, como en un programa televisivo de pastelazos, al estilo Capulina, el secretario Córdova anunció la noche del pasado martes que, luego de ajustes en los que nada habría tenido que ver el IFE, el número de fallecimientos técnicamente relacionados con la mencionada gripe mutante eran... siete. Para explicar los milagros aritméticos a los corresponsales extranjeros fue comisionado el médico Lezana y, según publicó en El País el reportero Pablo Ordaz, en una entrega intitulada Lo que México no responde, el funcionario así reaccionó cuando le hicieron ver que el propio Felipe Calderón había mencionado originalmente 159 muertes relacionadas con la influenza, y luego se había hablado de 20: “¿Y el resto? ‘El resto sólo huelen a influenza’, reconoció Lezana. ¿Podría pasar que, de las 159 muertes anunciadas, finalmente sólo fuesen atribuibles a la influenza 10 o 20? ‘Podría ser posible’. Entonces, le preguntaron los periodistas, toda esta alarma mundial… ‘Era la única manera de actuar, si no lo hubiésemos hecho así, en vez de 30 muertes podríamos haber tenido 3 mil’”. Producciones Calderón presenta, para fines benéficos, La alarma necesaria.

El mismo Ordaz consiguió luego una cita con el mencionado Lezana en sus oficinas. En las calles, todo mundo llevaba tapabocas, inclusive, escribió en su entrega de hoy en el citado diario hispano, “los soldados de un retén del Ejército dedicado, precisamente, a repartir mascarillas. La sorpresa llega cuando el periodista entra en la Secretaría de Salud. Nadie lleva mascarillas. Ni la recepcionista, ni nadie del servicio de limpieza, ni las secretarias, ni el jefe de Prensa ni, por supuesto, el doctor Lezana. Así que la primera pregunta no puede ser otra. ¿Por qué no llevan ustedes mascarillas? ‘Porque la porosidad que tienen permite fácilmente el paso de las partículas, y porque además es muy poco viable que el virus pueda transmitirse por el aire sin estar en contacto con ninguna superficie’. Y entonces –la siguiente pregunta también es obvia– ¿por qué han repartido millones de mascarillas? ‘Bueno, es más una demanda de la población. La gente se siente más segura llevándolas, más tranquila, y no les hace ningún daño’. La declaración del funcionario no deja de ser sorprendente, sobre todo porque, durante los primeros días del brote, la población asistió angustiada a la escasez de mascarillas, y los políticos en tropel –en vez de hacer el discurso de Lezana– se lanzaron a prometer mascarillas como si en ellas estuviera la salvación. Lezana explica entonces que el virus sólo es capaz de vivir en el aire cuestión de segundos, pero que donde sí se hace fuerte es sobre los objetos. ‘Por eso lo importante es lavarse mucho las manos, limpiar mucho los objetos que otras personas han tocado’”. También reveló el doctor Lezana que uno de los primeros brotes de los que se tuvo noticia fue el de la comunidad veracruzana La Gloria, el cual se inició el 9 de marzo y concluyó el 10 de abril y afectó a treinta por ciento de la población, pero sin defunciones. El funcionario no lo mencionó, pero la empresa acusada de provocar esos males es Granjas Carroll de México, la trasnacional de la que ayer se escribió aquí. La noticia de otro brote llegó el 12 de abril. Una mujer de 39 años, encuestadora de opinión, fue ingresada en un hospital y falleció al día siguiente, explicó Ordaz con base en las declaraciones de Lezana. Finalmente, el funcionario aceptó que la danza regresiva de número de muertos se debe a que tenemos un problema de comunicación.

ESTORNUDOS INOPORTUNOS. Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, director del Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, estornudó tres veces durante una conferencia de prensaFoto Carlos Cisneros

Astillas

Esta columna ha recibido gran cantidad de cartas por Internet a las que invariablemente se da lectura pero a las que materialmente es imposible responder una por una. Además de comentarios e interpretaciones personales, han llegado opiniones técnicas y científicas, estudios y tesis que hablan del terrible abandono en que se ha tenido a la estructura pública de salud y de la oportuna denuncia que se ha hecho de los riesgos de una epidemia por influenza. Gracias a todos por escribir... Por cierto, en los comentarios a esta columna en la versión de Internet también se pueden leer textos interesantes y ciertos debates sabrosos... Y, mientras las protestas por el 1º de mayo también son sometidas al tapabocas, ¡hasta el próximo lunes, en esta sección que por razones de calendario laboral mañana no se publicará!

Fax: 5605-2099 • juliohdz@jornada.com.mx

1918 killer flu secrets revealed

Scientists have worked out how the virus which caused the world's worst flu epidemic infected man.

They believe the virus, which claimed the lives of up to 50m people around the world, jumped from birds to humans.

The breakthrough, published in Science, should help doctors identify which future bird viruses pose a threat to man at an earlier stage.

But the National Institute for Medical Research team warns viruses cannot be stopped from crossing between species.

They also say their work is unlikely to aid the current fight against avian flu in the Far East as knowing the structure of a virus is not enough to block its progress.

The key first stage of infection is for the flu virus to attach itself to the cells in which it will breed.

It does this by using spike-like molecules called Hemagglutinins (HA) that bind to particular receptors on the surface of cells in the body.

Human and bird virus HAs interact with different cell receptors and therefore bird viruses do not usually infect humans.

However, the NIMR team has studied the HA of the 1918 virus in close detail, and found that only minor changes in its structure were required for it to start to bind with human cells as well as bird cells.

This gave it the ability to pass from birds to humans, and then between humans - with devastating results.

3D structure

The researchers examined samples of the 1918 virus using a technique called X-ray crystallography. This enabled them to determine the three-dimensional structure of its HA.

It seems part of the reason that the 1918 virus wreaked such devastation was because the changes required to pose a threat to humans were so small - smaller than those which made similar species-jumping viruses deadly in 1957 and 1968.

Lead researcher Sir John Skehel said the findings would enable scientists to track and monitor the changes in flu viruses.

However, scientists would not be able to predict the form future versions of the virus would take or prevent their formation, he said.

Sir John told BBC News Online: "This research should help improve surveillance.

"If we find that the structure of a bird virus resembles that of the structure of the 1918 virus that we have determined, then we will know that it potentially poses a threat to man, and it will have to be kept under more active surveillance than usual.

"However, our research will not have an immediate impact on the situation currently unfolding in the Far East with the chicken flu known as H5, since, from our previous work, we know that the 1918 and the H5 Hemagglutinins are quite different."

Huge death toll

The 1918 "Spanish" flu pandemic is estimated to have infected up to one billion people - half the world's population at the time.

The virus killed more people than any other single outbreak of disease, surpassing even the Black Death of the Middle Ages.

Although it probably originated in the Far East, it was dubbed "Spanish" flu because the press in Spain - not being involved in the Great War - were the first to report extensively on its impact.

The virus caused three waves of disease. The second of these, between September and December 1918, resulting in the heaviest loss of life.

It is thought that the virus may have played a role in ending the Great War as soldiers were too sick to fight, and by that stage more men on both sides died of flu than were killed by weapons.

Although most people who were infected with the virus recovered within a week following bed rest, some died within 24 hours of infection.

Source: BBC News

Cash for trash: Reuse stores make use of refuse

'Part of it is budget, and part of it is it's just the right thing to do'

BOISE - Artist Cathy Mansell wants your old thread spools, your empty yogurt containers, your unwanted vinyl LPs.

She knows that even if she has no use for the yarn remnants, wallpaper samples, button collections or irrigation pipe unearthed during closet cleanings, someone will need them for an art project. So she's turned her office full of odds and ends into one of hundreds of reuse centers around the country.

"It's common sense to get something for free," said Mansell, the art consultant for the Boise School District. "Part of it is budget, and part of it is it's just the right thing to do."

Some reuse centers operate as businesses that sell discards for a few dollars, but most are nonprofits that get by with grants, government support or income from sales. All are based on the idea that for almost every item, however humble, there is a need.

It's an idea that's catching on, in part because the environmental movement emphasizes reuse and recycling, and in part because of budget concerns.

"Dance companies love it when we get in fabric for their costumes, teachers get really excited when we get copy paper in," said Susan Springer Anderson, the education administrator at Materials for the Arts, a city-run reuse center in New York City.

Anderson's group, one of the largest reuse centers in the country, gets donations from fashion houses, television production companies and big-name corporations like Estee Lauder.

"Every single group finds something here that they are in desperate need of," Anderson said. "Sometimes they knew it and sometimes they didn't when they came in."

The reuse stores are popular for schools, too, particularly since many teachers supplement their classroom materials with items they purchase themselves, said Patrick Riccards, a spokesman for the National Association of Art Educators in Washington, D.C.

"When I go out to the schools, I'm seeing a lot more recycled art projects out there," Mansell said. "People are trying to highlight it with kids and help them understand that reused stuff can be beautiful and fun."

The former real estate boom and popularity of the environmental movement have been good for reuse centers, said Leslie Kirkland, who runs the Baltimore nonprofit Loading Dock and also operates the Reuse Development Organization, a trade association of sorts for reuse centers.

"In the past 10 years, more and more building reuse centers have been popping up," she said.

Reuse centers come in all shapes and sizes. Large ones like the Loading Dock specialize in lumber, cabinets, windows, and other construction salvage. The group takes almost anything, though it won't accept broken appliances.

Kirkland sold a set of cabinets without doors for $1 each; the buyer planned to use them as shelves. A 5-gallon bucket of paint is just $7. Loading Dock does a brisk business in conventional building materials and in unlikely finds like pastel-colored toilets from the 1970s.

"You find people who actually do want that lavender toilet because they're doing some kind of weird project, or they're using it as something other than a toilet, like a planter," said Kirkland. "We often wind up with truckloads of broken tile and people come in and use that for mosaics."

At the other end of the scale are smaller places like the Scrap Box, a reuse store in Ann Arbor, Mich., that sells automobile-related materials such as scraps of the rubber used to make gaskets and pieces of leather from car seat makers. A hot air balloon manufacturer regularly donates scraps of colorful ripstop nylon, said employee Sally Warn.

With the downtown in the car industry, those supplies are becoming more scarce, said Warn. But "in terms of customers, a lot of people are still coming in," she said. "We might even be up a little in business."

Reuse centers can be found online or through local municipal recycling offices, and usually list what materials they want on their Web sites.

Mansell will take almost anything. She uses irrigation pipe as rolling pins for young students working with clay. Old plastic containers serve as paint dishes; empty thread spools can be glued to foam and used as stamps.

And "our electricians all know when they have extra wire to just bring a box of it out here and we'll distribute it," said Mansell.

Those old LPs are highly prized as well, and not just by DJs.

"People ask for record albums all the time," said Mansell. "You can melt those with a very low heat; even a hairdryer makes them warp a little bit. We make bowls with them, and giant flowers."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.