James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

H1N1 influenza documented cases in the U.S. are closing in on 7000 but the CDC is reporting fewer new cases.  Good news, but there are several caveats.

Usually you can multiply by 10 to get a reasonable estimate of the total actual cases since not all are reported and documented by the CDC.  My understanding locally is the health department is now only interested in documenting new cases which require hospitalization.

In the 1918 pandemic, which killed 500,000 in the U.S and 50 million worldwide, the first wave was mild and died down in the summer.  By fall it had mutated into a deadly virus.

The CDC will probably suggest getting the usual flu vaccine early this fall so you can get a second H1N1 immunization a few weeks later.

An interesting sideline is H1N1 has only infected a small percent of U.S. people over age 65.  Speculation is these seniors were infected by a distant H1N1 relative some time before 1957 and have a few antibodies left to fight off the current virus.

I only practice part-time but have not seen any swine flu cases.  Have any of you?

James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

If you have ever seen Steve Martin’s dentist protrayal in “Little Shop of Horrors”, or Lawrence Olivier asking Dustin Hoffman, “Is it safe?” in “Marithon Man”, you know my initial reaction of a dental appointment.  Once I get there, it is not nearly as bad and dentists are trying their best to make the visit comfortable if not downright please.

We asked dentists for their thoughts on trends and one is making the visit more enjoyable.  I never thought I would put spa and root canal in the same sentence, but see our article on The Modern Dentist.

By far our most popular web article has been the pros and cons of universal health care originally printed in our January/February 2008 print edition.  Now that we know a little more about what the Obama administration is planning, we asked the debaters to follow up with their thoughts.

by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Inflammation used to be easy to detect.  There was redness, pain and swelling.  Nowadays it’s not as easy.  It has been implicated as a major culprit in chronic diseases such as heart, cancer and stroke.  Read our newly posted article on why this is so, how to detect and treat it.

James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Is It Really Swine Flu?

The pork lobby has a good point in not calling the new H1N1 flu virus the swine flu.  It is not a strain that usually circulates in pigs.  Rather, it contains a combination of one gene usually found in birds (avian flu), two from pigs and one from humans.  This is why some are suspicious it was an experimental laboratory virus that got into the general public.

Another point is, you are absolutely not going to get this virus from eating pork.  Of course, this is true of any flu past or future.  It just doesn’t make scientific sense.

The fact is, however, this is a brand new strain and humans have no immunity. (more…)