A new tool

First human gets new antibody aimed at rabies virus:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]

MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School today announced the beginning of a Phase 1 clinical trial, testing the safety and activity of a human monoclonal antibody (MAB) developed to neutralize the rabies virus.

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Rabies is essentially 100% fatal, with over 10 million people exposed worldwide and kills 55,000 people or so each year. Post-exposure treatment can be very effective. This usually includes a specific gamma globulin mixture to neutralize the virus.

However, this can be very expensive. So they have developed a monoclonal antibody that neutralizes the rabies virus, preventing it from having any deleterious effect.

If this is demonstrated to be effective and safe, it could make it much easier for countries such as India to deal with rabies exposure.

Technorati Tags: Health, Science

What to do?

Balko on Absolute Prosecutorial Immunity:
[Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars]

Balko has an article at Reason about a case the Supreme Court will hear this fall over what seems like a perfectly obvious question: Can a prosecutor be held personally liable for his actions if he intentionally falsifies testimony and/or evidence in a prosecution that puts an innocent person in prison for 25 years? If you think the answer should obviously be yes, you’re a sane, reasonable, decent human being.

If you think the answer should be no because prosecutors should be absolutely immune to any civil suits even if it can be proven that they deliberately violated the law and created fake evidence on which to convict an innocent person, then you must be a prosecutor. Or one of 27 state attorneys general. Or the Obama administration. They all filed briefs taking that heinous position.

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If a prosecutor knowingly falsifies evidence, and even creates it out of whole cloth, what is the penalty? If they have absolute immunity, they are shielded from civil suits but if they retire, it appears they are also free of any criminal suits.

So why wouldn’t they always manufacture evidence? The penalties for being found out seem awfully trivial. Perhaps the Supreme Court will feel similarly.

Technorati Tags: General

Cool parasitology on a dinosaur

by Diegosaurius Rex
Was mighty T. rex ‘Sue’ felled by a lowly parasite?:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]

When pondering the demise of a famous dinosaur such as ‘Sue,’ the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex whose fossilized remains are a star attraction of the Field Museum in Chicago, it is hard to avoid the image of clashing Cretaceous titans engaged in bloody, mortal combat.

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Wow. The lesions seen on the jaws of some dinosaurs matched quite well with similar lesions found in some modern birds. It is a very interesting hypothesis and would just be one more link in the chain between the similarity of birds and some dinosaurs.

I wonder what else they could do to show a connection? Would there be remnants of the parasite’s DNA? Can the lesions be seen in more recent ancestors of modern birds?

Technorati Tags: Science

Different numbers

Most would refuse emergency use H1N1 vaccine or additive:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]

A majority of Americans would not take an H1N1 flu vaccine or drug additive authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, according to a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and University of Georgia study. The study, available online today in Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, found that fewer than 10 percent of those surveyed said they would be willing to take such a vaccine or drug and nearly 30 percent remained undecided.

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Yeah, lots of people would refuse because they do not see a huge number of people dying. I’m sure the numbers would change if mortality was higher.

What was interesting is that most people really have little idea of what is likely to happen. 85 percent really do not feel that they will become sick, yet the rapidity of the spread of swine flu indicates that perhaps 80% of the American population will get sick. That is what some models are showing.

There is a big disconnect between what individuals project and what epidemiological models predict. I would imagine we will find out just which is more correct shortly.

Technorati Tags: Health