Irony: at least four million years old

According to a new paper in today's Science, developing immunity to a retrovirus that was common among primates four million years ago may have left humans more susceptible to HIV now.

Traces of a virus called PtERV1 (Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus-1) were found in chimpanzee and gorilla genomes, but did not seem to have affected humans despite living in the same areas.

Tests on modified cat cells appeared to confirm that the human form of a protein called TRIM5α (tripartite motif 5 alpha) increased resistance to PtERV1, whereas other primates' versions of TRIM5α are known to reduce susceptibility to types of HIV markedly.

Further tests found that different primates' forms of TRIM5α were effective in restricting either PtERV1 or HIV, but never both.

In the words of Science writer Jon Cohen, 'locking out one virus appears to have opened the door for another'.

Kaiser SM, Malik HS, Emerman M. (2007) Restriction of an extinct retrovirus by the human TRIM5 antiviral protein. Science 316(5832): 1756-8. (abstract here)

Genuine oil, from real snakes

Sense About Science are collecting signatures against new UK regulations that allow homeopathic products to make medical claims without any evidence of their efficacy.

You may want to sign up if you agree with the following:

Evidence-based medicine has been a major public gain of the twentieth century

Homeopathy is not evidence-based medicine

The new regulations on homeopathic products compromise standards of evidence and clear labelling

The policy change is damaging to patients' best interests

Evidence-based medicine is essential to public health; the growth of the homeopathic industry does not contribute to public health

Rules for the regulation of medicines should not allow homeopathic products to make unsubstantiated health claims

The full statement of support for evidence-based medicine is available here (pdf).

Laugh? I nearly deconstructed...

See Ben's latest Bad Science post for a wee titter.

Notice your nuts

Everyman has launched an interesting new campaign called Notice Your Nuts promoting awareness of testicular cancer and encouraging men to check their balls.

The organisation's communications manager Alison Morgan says:

We realise that showing men with giant testicles is quite controversial, but the advert has been filmed in such a humorous way that we feel it will appeal to young men, which helps us to spread important messages to them."

As seen on Gay.com.

Hockey stick jollies

The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health and the Swiss Aids Federation have launched a fresh campaign promoting safer sex that features people playing potentially dangerous sports while naked with the line No action without protection.

You can view the TV-spot via the media section of the Love Life website.

My favourite image from the campaign website:

As reported by the BBC yesterday.

Sugar baby love

Last week, French HIV/AIDS organisation AIDeS launched a new safer sex campaign targeting gay men with a great animation featuring The Rubettes' Sugar Baby Love:

From YouTube.com, as seen on Pax Romano's Ramblings.

Angel-martyrs or useless ingrates?

Well okay, more probably somewhere between the two than either (aren't we all?) but an article in this week's Observer questions the received wisdom that nurses are always right no matter what their complaint or demand is.

In a follow up on the severe dressing down health minister Patricia Hewitt met with at the Royal College of Nursing conference last week, as reported in British Nursing News, it tries to compare the angry hecklers' claims with what goes on in their workplaces.

The resulting picture is one reminiscent of the episode of Yes Minister in which Jim Hacker tours a hospital held up as an example of efficiency and cleanliness, largely due to the fact that it has absolutely no patients to 'spoil' things.

Nursing is increasingly about an insistence on professional rights, rather than an insistence on a duty of care. Older nurses I speak to regularly tell me they are worried by the attitudes of younger nurses coming in who cannot do some of the basic tasks they were trained to do, but don't particularly want to learn.

One nurse in her fifties told me: 'Some of them don't even know how to spot a pressure sore. It's such a basic task, but they haven't been taught it. What I find hard to stomach is that quite a few have inflated opinions of themselves and see it as their job to challenge the doctors in everything they do.'"

Highly unlikely to be anything like the whole truth with regard to what may or may not be wrong with the UK's health care system, but a potentially useful source of perspective nonetheless...

A nurse's ideal place of work?

Image by Russell Weller via stock.xchng.

Medical research using animals

If you agree with the following three statements, you may consider signing an online petition:

• Medical research is essential for developing safe and effective medical and veterinary treatments, requiring some studies using animals;
• Where there is no alternative available, medical research using animals should continue in the UK; and
• People involved in medical research using animals have a right to work and live without fear of intimidation or attack.

From the site:

The People's Petition gives a voice to the silent majority of people in Britain who want to show their support for medical research using animals in the UK.

"It's a campaign for people who believe that this research, carried out under stringent animal welfare standards, is essential to the health and quality of life of humans and animals."

It was set up by the Coalition for Medical Progress, an alliance of research charities, drug companies and medical, veterinary and scientific organisations.

As reported today by BBC News, and in this Guardian article.

Bird flu defence: lengthen your trachea

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, research published yesterday suggests one reason the bird flu virus hasn't yet established itself sufficiently amongst people to mutate into a strain easily transmitted between us may be how far it needs to get into our respiratory tracts before finding cells it can enter.

Virologists found that only cells deep inside the human respiratory system have receptors the H5N1 virus is able to use. People might be less likely to become infected than birds because it's harder for the virus to reach this far.

The BBC quotes a Reading University professor as saying it could explain why children have been more vulnerable than adults; there's less distance the virus needs to cover before it gets to their lungs.

If true, isn't the banality of that last explanation grotesque?

WHO says laboratories have confirmed H5N1 infection in 103 cases of human death from flu worldwide.