From Arizona State University where I really don’t think they understand that warmer winters aren’t necessarily a product of “climate change” but are mostly weather pattern and ocean cycle pattern driven. Then there’s the recent study about waste heat where the researchers found:
“…the extra heat given off by Northern Hemisphere urban areas causes as much as 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) of warming in winter.”
So, color me unconvinced that “climate change” is the real driver here. It is more like a convenient scapegoat.
Study shows climate change could affect onset and severity of flu seasons
The American public can expect to add earlier and more severe flu seasons to the fallout from climate change, according to a research study published online Jan. 28 in PLOS Currents: Influenza.
A team of scientists led by Sherry Towers, research professor in the Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center at Arizona State University, studied waves of influenza and climate patterns in the U.S. from the 1997-1998 season to the present.
The team’s analysis, which used Centers for Disease Control data, indicates a pattern for both A and B strains: warm winters are usually followed by heavy flu seasons.
“It appears that fewer people contract influenza during warm winters, and this causes a major portion of the population to remain vulnerable into the next season, causing an early and strong emergence,” says Towers. “And when a flu season begins exceptionally early, much of the population has not had a chance to get vaccinated, potentially making that flu season even worse.”
The current flu season, which is still in high gear in parts of the nation, began early and fiercely. It followed a relatively light 2011 season, which saw the lowest peak of flu since tracking efforts went into effect, and coincided with the fourth warmest winter on record. According to previous studies, flu transmission decreases in warm or humid conditions.
If global warming continues, warm winters will become more common, and the impact of flu will likely be more heavily felt, say the study’s authors.
Mathematical epidemiologist Gerardo Chowell-Puente, an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, adds that the findings could inform preparedness efforts following mild winters: “The expedited manufacture and distribution of vaccines and aggressive vaccination programs could significantly diminish the severity of future influenza epidemics.”
This study was partially supported by the Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study, overseen by the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center. Other team members are Rasheed Hameed, Matthew Jastrebski, Maryam Khan, Jonathan Meeks, Anuj Mubayi and George Harris of Northeastern Illinois University. The goal of the overarching study is to better grasp the character and trajectory of influenza in all its forms.
Nerd says:
January 29, 2013 at 4:01 am
Gail Combs says:
January 29, 2013 at 2:37 am
You might want to take a closer look at wide spread vitamin D deficiency during the winter for cold and flu….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I make sure I get my vitamin D, but this winter I finally figured out my ‘Coughing never get over’ that I get every winter responded very very well to a simple tray of water in the bedroom sitting on one of these. (we no longer use the central heat)
This is the point I was trying to make.
So what happens when massive solar plants are built in deserts, the energy converted to electricity, and then back to heat in areas where radiation isn’t reflected back into the atmosphere as readily?
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918,
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as “Spanish Flu” or “La Grippe” the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global.
1918 Rather Wet. A Cool Summer and Autumn.
In the year that an estimated 25 million people died in the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic, Russia switched from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar and moved it’s Capital from Petrograd to Moscow; and World War One ended with an agreement signed in a railway carriage near Compiegne (France).
Weather Notes:-
17th May – Severe thunderstorms, with heavy hail, affected the Midlands and parts of eastern England. Several places had over 50mm of rain in one hour. An area north of Luton (Bedfordshire) was particularly badly hit.
16th/17th July – Severe thunderstorms over Surrey and parts of south London produced hailstones the size of pigeon eggs near Kenley (Surrey), and Bermondsey (Southeast London) had nearly 53mm of rain in 30 minutes.
15th September – In this exceptionally wet month, Douglas (Isle of Man) recorded over 120mm on this day.
http://www.london-weather.eu/article.58.html
RE Gail Combs: Another thing about the air being dry, which effects chronic hand-washers, is that skin gets chapped, which means there are tiny cracks in the defensive wall created by our skin. So hand-lotion is wise, as well as keeping the air in your house moist. (We always keep a kettle on our wood stove.)
If the air is cold and dry to begin with, and you heat that air from below freezing to room temperature, its humidity can drop as low as 10 percent, or even lower, which is hard to match even in summer deserts. Therefore it is likely unnatural to be in air so dry, and you are wise to recommend humidifying.
On the other hand, nature seems to want kids to ingest germs and build up their immune systems. Watch a small child some time, and see how often they bring their hands up to their mouths. Around once every 5-10 seconds. (Some adults aren’t much better.) Dealing with kids exposes me to so many germs I seldom get sick at all, because I’d be dead as a doorknob without an immune system like Fort Knox
We are actually under attack by germs from all sides and angles. So eat wisely, sleep wisely, live wisely, and cross your fingers.
So people in Atlanta are more susceptible to influenza than people in Chicago? More in Paris than in Helsinki? Sounds like BS to me.
In Salisbury UK there was a cold and flu research place but it was closed to save money! how much has been scammed since by the agw crowd! to me adequate ventilation helps, adequate moisture helps and when I lived by the sea and often walked the dog with sea spray in the air I seldom had colds or flu, so common sense is the answer! as to warmer winters there might be many reasons, not warm enough to have the windows open but huddled together! does breathing cold air destroy any virus in your nasal tract? does it kill any you breathe out?
Synopsis of the “study”:
We know how to get grants.
6 words.
New Look at 1918/1919 El Niño Suggests Link to 1918 Flu Pandemic.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2009BAMS2903.1
This year is going to blow their whole idea out of the water with the almost 2 week long cold snap in AZ (coldest 5 day strech in N. AZ since 1990) coinciding with a resurfacing of the influenza virus that had mutated to the point at which the vaccine was not very effective at all.
I generally call these “me too!” studies, since they don’t require anyone to understand anything about climate science. These get done by scientists who would work in obscurity, but get a little publicity by jumping on the bandwagon. They also get an easy route to publication by simply applying some basic knowledge from their field to one of the projected (but never observed) effects of climate change.
Someone pays for these studies, and they’re an unbelievable waste of money. If they were really serious about staving off a global calamity they could use the resources that are devoted to useless studies like this one, and instead provide food, water or shelter for people who are dying now. Even if climate change is real, does anyone really need to know that the cold and flu season might be a little worse in 100 years? (Is there anyone who thinks that influenza will still be a problem 100 years from now?)
Funny that I love science, but I’m really starting to despise scientists.
John H, you wrote, “I generally call these “me too!” studies, since they don’t require anyone to understand anything about climate science.”
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that climate science in unique in this regard. In my own area of study I see this sort of thing all the time. After Stan Glantz’s highly headlined “Miracle of Helena” study (a 2003 conference/press-release study claiming a 60% instant reduction in heart attacks after a smoking ban — and then a pop-up back to normal rates when the ban ended after six months) over a dozen, probably more like two or three dozen “copycat studies” were done along the same lines. They’re all amazingly flawed and I’ll be examining a number of them in some depth in a sequel to Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains.
I’ve also seen exactly the same in the “Air Pollution Drops In Bars After Smoking Bans!” studies. Again, copycats in dozens of cities, sometimes getting up to $75,000 to simply “discover” that there’s 77, 83, or even 92% less smoke in the air when no one is smoking. Seriously. All the same methodology, pretty much all the same simple little sniffer equipment and results… and tons of publications and grants.
Just as with what you’ve seen here with climate science, the constant repetition of “New Study Findings!” creates a generalized public belief/attitude/expectation that then allows the activist-researchers to claim “All legitimate researchers agree” and “The science is settled.” and “Anyone who disagrees is in the same category as a Holocaust Denier.” Since people simply remember that they’ve seen dozens of mentions of different studies on the news and in talk shows, ALL of which came up with the same sort of results, they’ll believe those statements to be fact.
Only the people with the time, attention, and some level of expertise to examine and evaluate the research itself or criticisms of it are going to be open to giving a fair hearing to “the other side.” The Internet currently offers at least some degree of a “level playing field” for these discussions, but we’ll have to wait and see how long that lasts. The Free Choice movement is threatened by the shadow of being thrown into .xxx bucket along with porno as a means of censorship. I think they’ll have a harder time with the climate discussion though — heh, are they going to claim you’re “corrupting children” or “normalizing skepticism”? Still, be on guard: the Internet “window” is under attack from a lot of folks who are unhappy with it.
– MJM
Ron Sinclair says:
January 28, 2013 at 9:10 pm
These guys should be researching why the vacine worked so poorly this year. A 50% success rate is not worth getting the needle for. Like flipping a coin. I speak as one, of several I know, who got the needle, but to no avail. Most years, it has worked well for me.
How do you know it works, did you have flue on a regular basis prior to your jabs,
Both my wife and I suffered more with the jabs than without, we no longer have them.
I am seventy two years of age and in all those years I had the flu only once. That one experience of all the aches and pains and being laid up for about a week was enough to convince me that a flu shot is well worth the cost so I get one every year and have never been bothered with the flu since.
Why get excited about the flu? Spend a few buck; an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.
They should have consulted Charles the Second of England who, according to Samuel Pepys, ordered a one day holiday so everyone would go to church and pray for cold winter weather. They believed that warm winters were causing outbreaks of the plague. It didn’t work as the plague struck with ferocity in 1665.
The weather for several years was similar to today with increased meridional flow leading to extremes of temperature and precipitation. This is a pattern seen in the previous extensive plague outbreaks in the 1340s.
The convoluted abuse of logic needed to derive the mechanism of causality trumpeted by the reporting of this study makes my heard hurt. But what is frightening, is that so many public school puppies blindly fall for this nonsense, mindlessly being led to their doom. Marxism really does cause brain damage.
BTW, ASU, in the heart of Red State Arizona, has been dominated by Marxist since at least the early 70. I gave up on trying to get a degree there during the 80s because of the idiocy that was being crammed down my throat by everyone including the profs of the supposedly hard sciences. “Social Responsibility”, oy!
Mr O’Brien says:
January 29, 2013 at 7:44 am
“. . . all the aches and pains and being laid up for about a week . . .”
Reminds me that I’ve sensed a bit of “common cold” characteristics seeping into this set of comments. I’ve had flu. If I’m asked by someone how they can tell if they’ve got a flu or a cold, my response is “If you are capable of asking, it’s a cold.” Okay, maybe that’s a stretch, but flu puts you out of commission, so you have trouble getting out of bed and, if you manage that, standing.
Tom O says:
January 29, 2013 at 5:05 am
“. . . most of the people I know that DID get the flu shot also got the fl\u. Most fo the people that I know that did NOT getthe flu shot, likewise, did not get the flu.”
I will assume extreme reporting bias regarding the above phenomena. If a person gets a flu shot and then also gets flu, expect to hear about it. If they got a flu shot and did not get flu, expect to learn of this only if you ask directly. Finally, a majority of people do not get flu in any given year with or without a shot.
The 2013 ‘Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness’ ** [meaning: “laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infection”] was determined to be 62%. Who wouldn’t take such odds to Vegas? Along with the possibility that one might not be exposed to influenza, most people will not become ill with flu.
** http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6202a4.htm?s_cid=mm6202a4_w
and:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2012-2013.htm#still-get
I thought the whole basis for “The Flu Season” was that when it’s cold and dark people are indoors more, in close quarters, and therefore more prone to exchange of pathogens. The premise of the research group’s thesis falls apart immediately.
@ur momisugly Mike Jowsey says: January 28, 2013 at 8:53 pm
How can you have a debate when all the participants are of the same ilk ???
I haven’t had the flu or a cold in many years. I haven’t had the flu shot in many years. My 16 year old kid has never had a flu shot. The only time so far this winter their either of us have had what might have turned into either a cold or the flu, came after we took a carload of young people to see a movie in a town about an hour away. It kept us up many hours past our normal bedtime. When we got up the next day, we both were feeling sniffly and draggy. Rather than dose up on OTC meds, we took several generous doses of vitamin C and D and cod liver oil. We had plenty of liquids and some chicken soup that had been enhanced with generous amounts of hot spices. We also went to bed earlier that night. We did not need to do anything more to stave off the symptoms of cold/flu.
So in our experience, it appears that a lack of cold/flu “cures” (rest, nutritious food, and fluids) must have caused our symptoms.
I have noticed that colds/flu generally appear after the holidays when many sweets are consumed. They also seem to arise once we start using our heaters a lot. So we generally don’t overdo the sweets during the holidays, and we try to minimize the drying effect of our heater by not setting the thermostat so high. I also like to keep up our intake of vitamin D, in case depression has a part to play in development of colds/flu, since D is a known mood elevator.
Boy, I hope this press release is a misrepresentation. If not, the authors’ conclusions are absurd.
Accepting all their premises, what they found boils down to:
– If winter A is warm, fewer people get the flu in winter A.
– Having not gotten the flu during A, they have fewer antibodies and are more susceptible to catching the flu during winter B than they would have been otherwise.
In a cyclical environment, that analysis is entirely plausible. It assumes, however, that winter B will be cooler than A on average (because of regression to the mean). Throw in the assumption of global warming, however, and winter B will on average be warmer than winter A. The extra “protection” of the warmer weather during winter B will offset the loss of protection from not catching the flu during A. It is not plausible that warmer winter in one year reduces the incidence of flu but warmer winters in two years will somehow increase it.
Dr. Chuck here….I’m an infectious disease epidemiologist who’s worked in the field for 30 years or so, presently with the University of Illinois School of Public Health. Posters are correct about the natural history & ecology of the virus (waterfowl migration patterns from Asia carry this virus), and this bit of news just floated & helps to explain why so many (but not all) outbreaks originate in China:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/swine-flu-chinese-gene-variant-h1n1_n_2574100.html
It is a fascinating virus, if you want to learn more, the CDC website has excellent materials. The H1N1 pandemic strain we had in 2009 emerged from some swine herd in Mexico, possibly one of the ConAgra herds I was working with in Veracruz, MX. Life is strange.
BTW, I’m highly trained in the H5N1 “bird flu” pandemic science and response principals, and this is at least as much of a scam as CAGW. The most likely way we (as a society) will contract H5N1 is when it escapes from a virology research lab, see:
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_28-1-2013-15-6-41
My peers are nuts….talk about playing with fire! Get your seasonal flu vaccine, one day there will be a universal flu vaccine that will be highly effective (next ten years or so). Wash your hands and be healthy, there is a nasty Norwalk agent (norovirus) spreading around.
Anthony, your attempt to summarize the research findings needs work to match Alan Mulally’s line in a tribute to a renowned Boeing engineer who was head of a union when Mulally ran the commercial airplane division. “I never had any difficulty diagraming his sentences.” IOW his point was always quite clear.
In BC the conventional wisdom is that influenza is spread by people spending more time in rooms with each other. Hence a push for good hygiene in elementary schools, as children contract the disease and bring it home. Hence the recommendation that individuals of aboriginal genetics get vaccinated, whether living on a reserve or off, because they are more likely to be in crowded conditions or visit into them. (A study in MB showed genetics is not a factor, crowding is.)
Why do we get more influenza in winter any way.
“warm winters are usually followed by heavy flu seasons” so summers should be worse?.
When it’s cold outside in the winter, I spend more time inside at work and home, with less air ventilation. There’s your correlationship.
Do yourself a favor, skip the flu shot and take vitamin D instead. Multiple studies have shown that vitamin D status has a dramatic impact on immune system efficiency and susceptibility to colds and flu. Studies have also shown that most Americans have low vitamin D status due to the fact we spend so much time indoors (our skin manufactures vitamin D from UV exposure). The overuse of sun blocks from skin cancer concerns has also contributed.
It’s no coincidence that flu season occurs in the Winter as was mentioned above. Shorter days, the lower sun angle, and cold weather keeping people indoors all lower UV exposure and subsequent vitamin D status. Vitamin D levels (as 25(OH)D) have been shown to drop dramatically in the Winter but can be raised by supplementation. Vitamin D status can easily be measured, a doctor can order it or it can be ordered online from several organizations. Blood 25(OH)D target levels should be 50-80 ng/mL. Lots of good info at the Vitamin D council, a non-profit research organization (they are not drug or supplement industry shills).
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org
As to the flu shot, the independent Cochrane Collaboration did a meta-analysis of the existing literature and concluded flu shots are largely ineffective. Surprise, surprise, they also found that studies conducted by the drug manufacturers show far greater efficacy for the flu shot than those conducted by independent groups. In interviews, the lead author Dr. Tom Jefferson suggested people skip the flu shot and wash their hands instead.
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults
Last of all, unless you specifically demand the flu shot from a single-dose vial, your shot will contain around 25 mcg of mercury as thimerosal. (Thimerosal is in all multi-dose vials as a preservative.) Single dose vials are in short supply and typically reserved for pregnant women and kids who request it, so the majority of adults will get the mercury with the shot whether they like it or not.