What has Flublogia accomplished?
Flublogia has existed for over 4 years, so it is worth considering what this community has accomplished. This is not a question asked by most online communities because most just exchange information on a topic of common interest - beanie babies, crotchet, sports teams, etc. But the consideration of a virus that could kill over a billion people if it goes pandemic at its current CFR raises the question: Are we ready for it? And of course, the answer is no. The next question is: Why aren’t we ready? Is it because it is just too huge of a task? Partly. No matter what we do, we are unlikely to ever be completely ready for a high CFR pandemic. But we must also ask, are TPTB doing everything they should to prepare for such an event? Sadly, many of us have come to the conclusion that they are not. What, then, is the proper response to this failure? The initial response by many was disbelief, eventually followed by anger. This anger was expressed in many ways on many forums and continues to be expressed today. Some have dismissed this anger as useless whining by people too lazy to do anything constructive. They could not be more wrong.
In authoritarian countries, like China, there is no free speech. If you criticize the government in any way, you can be immediately killed, as recently occurred to a blogger documenting unjust activities on the part of government authorities. People in free countries, OTOH, can, and frequently do, criticise their governments. Indeed, it is our ability to criticise our governments that is fundamental to the continued exercise of our freedoms. It is not simply our right to criticise our government’s failures, it is our duty as citizens to do so. Many have died so that we could exercise these freedoms.
Benjamin Franklin responded to a question about what kind of government the US would have in this way:
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
What he meant by this is that our ability to keep our republic free requires constant vigilance on the part of its citizens. There is no democracy gene that occurs only in Americans. We produce the most vile psychopaths with the same frequency that the Chinese do. What distinguishes us is not the quality of our people, but rather, our system. We have the right to identify the evil and the incompetent in our government and call them by their proper name. It is only be doing so that we avoid sinking into an authoritarian government run by evil and/or incompetent people. Beware any attempts to limit your right to criticise TPTB in your own country or anywhere else. That path leads to darkness.
Pandemic influenza is a complicated topic with many different facets. These include virology, epidemiology, international relations, economics, infrastructure and many others. In my journey through this world, I have come to appreciate how interconnected these are. For example, without sequence information, we cannot know how H5N1 is evolving. These sequences may be withheld for a variety of reasons including fear of being scooped by individual researchers and geopolitical maneuvering. In order for us to be effective in improving our state of preparedness, we must deal with all of these factors. This requires a multi-pronged approach. A big order. but Flublogia has demonstrated that it is up to the challenge.
Warning. I’m going to embarrass a few people by naming them. For this I apologize, but it is important that others know what you have done. There are some people who have made important contributions that have asked that their activities not be linked to them; I will respect that wish.
One of the perennial issues of Flublogia is sequences. That is because they provide a wide variety of useful information including how H5N1 is spreading and whether it is evolving into a pandemic virus.
Dr. Niman has been complaining about the secretive practices of the WHO and others since at least 2005 at Recombinomics and on the various flu forums. His complaining inspired me, and many others, to look more closely at this issue.
On March 3, 2006, Ilaria Capua, an Italian scientist, called for the release of sequences by the WHO - As H5N1 Keeps Spreading, a Call to Release More Data
In this thread at the old FluWiki forum, some of us had a conversation with Alan Douglas who had worked at Mill Hill in the UK, one of the centers involved in sequencing H5N1 samples. We learned some valuable information about who was withholding the Turkish sequences as a result of the interaction. This discussion starts with his post on March 19, 2006.
Would he have divulged this information on a flu forum if he hadn’t read our complaints? I think not.
The anger that was generated as more and more people understood the importance of the sequences, and the reasons why they were being withheld, built up within Flublogia until one of us, Theresa42, decided to take action.
She started this petition addressed to the WHO, CDC, St. Jude's, Weybridge, Mt. Sinai, U.S. Congress, other national governments in June 2006. The goal of this petition was to get researchers to release H5N1 sequences that they had withheld. As Theresa42 put it in a thread announcing this petition at Flu Clinic:
“Got tired of b*tching to the walls. Suddenly occurred to me that that might not help too much.”
Recombinomics and many of the flu boards posted links to this petition.
On August 23, 2006, the WHO clarified what was necessary to get the sequences released:
As we all know, this did not result in the release of all the H5N1 sequences, but it did increase the number released by quite a bit. How much did Flublogia contribute to the increased release of H5N1 sequences? Hard to know, but the timing and the participation of one of the principals in our discussion suggests that it may have been a major factor.
On March 26, 2006 (at 08:49) on this thread at the old Flu Wiki forum, I posted a letter that could be used to encourage our elected representatives to get the CDC to release all their flu sequences, both H5N1 and “normal” flu.
On April 25, 2006 I posted this Opinion on FluWiki.
I was informed that this opinion was sent (by someone who wishes to remain anonymous) to someone that the CDC could not easily ignore. My understanding is that a phone call was made.
On August 22, 2006, the CDC made this announcement:
The CDC now does release large numbers of influenza sequences. This has resulted in a greatly increased understanding of influenza evolution. It is hard to know how much effect our efforts in Flublogia had on this decision, but the timing again suggests that they were significant.
Why complain about Dr. Supari hiding H5N1 sequences? Because we have reason to believe this approach will work.
Why complain about Dr. Gerberding’s failure to obtain sequences from children with serious influenza illnesses? Because we have reason to believe this approach will work.
I wish we could just write these individuals nice letters pointing out the advantages of releasing sequences, but that doesn’t work, unfortunately. Being nice to bad actors among TPTB never got anyone in Flublogia anything except invitations to useless meetings. Everything useful we have gotten from these jokers, we got by complaining.
We else have we done? Here are a few examples. [My apologies to the many, many others who contributed but whom I have not mentioned by name, including all of the members of various flu forums].
Revere, Crawford Killian and many other bloggers have provided timely news and analysis related to pandemics.
DemFromCT has posted Flu Stories on the Daily Kos, a blog with a readership similar to the MSM thus bringing the preparedness message to large numbers of people.
Pixie ran for public office and became a member of her local school board. Only in a free country like the US could a concerned mom become an elected official who could then use their power to save the lives of their kids and all the kids in her town.
Goju has worked tirelessly in his town to encourage preparedness, using every resource at his disposal.
MiniGoju, Goju’s son, created Students Prep America an organization dedicated to getting College students nation-wide prepared.
The Indo newshounds have provided machine translations of Indonesian outbreaks oftentimes not reported by the MSM or even to the OIE. In addition, they provide a detailed analysis of these stories that could only be achieved by hours and hours of painstaking reading. These translations and analyses are read by many, including governments.
Canada Sue wrote a fictional scenario that convinced me and a lot other people to start prepping. Kathy in FL has continued this tradition and his written a fictional story that provides detailed information on how families can prepare and survive a pandemic. I’m sure this has been very helpful in getting a lot of people to prepare.
Dr. Dave wrote a pandemic preparedness guide that has inspired and provided useful information to a large number of people.
IdahoEM and other members of Flublogia have created a very useful preparedness site called Get Pandemic Ready.
ReadyMom has created an organization that has promoted preparedness at several national meetings and provides great tips on how to encourage preparedness locally. Members like Standingfirm have stood outside stores with displays increasing the number of preppers, one person at a time.
Most recently, History Lover has a started a petition to Senator Harkin to try to convince him that the US should mount a campaign to prepared individuals and families for a pandemic. Early signs are that this will be well received. It’s an excellent idea and demonstrates something concrete that those of us who live in free countries can do.
I’d say that’s a pretty good track record for a bunch of pissed off amateurs. I’m proud of what we have accomplished. In future blogs, I will write about why getting a national campaign to educate our citizens has been so difficult and what we can do to overcome this.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
