It’s Darwin Awards Time!
“What is the physics of the breakup telling us in terms of droplet size distribution, and the resulting prediction of the downstream range of contamination?”
Understanding how sneezing disperses droplets can help researchers map the spread of infections through the environment, as well as identify individuals who may be “super spreaders.”
This line of work is opening the way for us to gain insights into the variability between human subjects, and to determine to what extent the breakup process of mucosalivary fluid gives us information on the inner physiology of the host.
The smaller droplets that emerge in a cough or sneeze may travel five to 200 times further than they would if those droplets simply moved as groups of unconnected particles — which is what previous estimates had assumed.
The tendency of these droplets to stay airborne, resuspended by gas clouds, means that ventilation systems may be more prone to transmitting potentially infectious particles than had been suspected."
“What is the physics of the breakup telling us in terms of droplet size distribution, and the resulting prediction of the downstream range of contamination?”
Understanding how sneezing disperses droplets can help researchers map the spread of infections through the environment, as well as identify individuals who may be “super spreaders.”
This line of work is opening the way for us to gain insights into the variability between human subjects, and to determine to what extent the breakup process of mucosalivary fluid gives us information on the inner physiology of the host.
The smaller droplets that emerge in a cough or sneeze may travel five to 200 times further than they would if those droplets simply moved as groups of unconnected particles — which is what previous estimates had assumed.
The tendency of these droplets to stay airborne, resuspended by gas clouds, means that ventilation systems may be more prone to transmitting potentially infectious particles than had been suspected."
Filtering out the Vitriol, 80% of pharmaceutical sourcing and of the other 20% (India, France) contains 80% excipients that are China sourced.
They have repeatedly demonstrated disregard for quality control as evidenced by continual recalls of blood thinners, ACE inhibitors, H2 Agonists, antibiotics, heparin, and more. In particular a study by MIT and Harvard showed an unusually high number of allergic contaminants in over 70% of prescription medications, mostly due to poor and contaminated fillers and other excipients.
In an article in Xinhua, the state-run media agency that’s largely considered the mouthpiece of the party, Beijing bragged about its handling of COVID-19, a virus that originated in the city of Wuhan and has spread quickly around the world, killing nearly 5,000 people and infecting thousands more. The article also claimed that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge America into “the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
Though the US and Europe are the global leaders in research, much of the manufacturing of life-saving drugs has moved overseas. The last American manufacturing plant to make a key component in penicillin shuttered in 2004. Since then, Chinese pharmaceuticals companies have moved in and taken over, supplying between 80 percent and 90 percent of antibiotics, 70 percent of acetaminophen and about 40 percent of heparin.
“China doesn’t have anything like the consumer protection laws and product liability laws like the United States does,” said Rosemary Gibson, a health care expert at the Hastings Center who wrote a book titled “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.” "Food has been used as a weapon of war. Our medicines can be used like that, too,” she said.
“It’s a major national security risk for us in two ways," said Mike Osterholm on Ufust of 1998, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and an expert on biosecurity. "We are very concerned about the quality of these drugs. Now we are caught up in an economic war in the sense of tariffs,” Osterholm added in an interview. “If we were ever in an international incident with China, they would literally have their hands around our necks in terms of critical drugs. They wouldn’t even have to fire a shot.”
Time for a 250% tariff and mandated 100% inspectiin compliance, traceability on all excipients, and purity lot sampling on all pharmaceuticals manufactured in China or with Chinese excipients.
NEJM/SUMMARY AND COMMENT | GASTROENTEROLOGY, INFECTIOUS DISEASES, GENERAL MEDICINE
April 9, 2020
-An abundance of studies now describe clinical experiences with COVID-19. Gastroenterologists and other clinicians should be cognizant that GI symptoms are common (and can be the presenting manifestation) and that stool viral shedding occurs throughout disease course (and may persist beyond it). Thus, attention to preventing fecal-oral transmission of COVID-19 is crucial.
Gastrointestinal Manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Virus Load in Fecal Samples from the Hong Kong Cohort and Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Short title: GI manifestations of COVID-19
Although the predominant symptoms of COVID-19 are respiratory, gastrointestinal (GI) manifestations can occur and may be overlooked. Researchers in Hong Kong assessed clinical data from a cohort of patients with COVID-19 and conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 60 studies with data on GI symptoms (4243 patients) and 11 with data on stool viral RNA.
Among the 59 patients in the Hong Kong cohort (median age, 58), 25% had GI symptoms, most commonly diarrhea and abdominal pain. Although all patients with GI symptoms had fever, 54% did not have a cough. Stool viral RNA was positive in 15% of all 59 patients at presentation and in 9% of the 44 without GI symptoms.
In the meta-analysis, pooled prevalence of GI manifestations was 18%. The most common symptom was anorexia (27%), followed by diarrhea (12%), nausea and vomiting (10%), and abdominal pain (9%). Prevalence of GI symptoms was 17% in patients with severe disease compared with 12% in those with nonsevere disease and was similar among adults, children, and pregnant women.
The overall concomitant viral RNA positivity rate of stool and respiratory samples was 48%. In studies reporting serial testing, 70% of patients had persistently positive stool RNA even after respiratory tests had become negative.
There is a plethora of science and “learned” opinion coming out on Covid 19. Although I worry about those seeming to have time in the US for writing papers vs those roght now actually treating and learning on the front lines.
Journal Watch has published a large of mostly free papers for you to peruse for your edification.
Enjoy
ALLERGY ANTHEM! Everyone in our house is suffering.
More random photos
Your receptor hall of fame!!
Another random photo from the desktop
Time phased mediator release
In Case You Lost Track of what Day it is!
More random pics from the desktop
Mast Cell 101 IgE.reactions
Kids after the last Easter Egg with the prize.
Mast cells, angiogenesis, and tumour growth
Domenico Ribattia, Enrico Crivellato
The potential implication of MCs in tumour biology has stimulated the production of drugs or experimental procedures leading to MC depletion or inhibition of MC secretion. Indeed, MCs might act as a new target for the adjuvant treatment of tumours through the selective inhibition of angiogenesis, tissue remodelling and tumour-promoting molecules, permitting the secretion of cytotoxic cytokines and preventing MC-mediated immune suppression.
Preliminary studies using anti-c-kit antibodies, anti-TNF-α antibodies, or the MC stabilizer disodium cromoglycate (cromolyn) in mouse models have demonstrated promising results even if administered after the initiation of tumour development. Further studies will hopefully shed light on these important aspects of MC biology.
Are Mast Cells MASTers in Cancer?
Gilda Varricchi, Maria Rosaria Galdiero, et.al.
In several human and experimental tumors, mast cells and their mediators play a pro-tumorigenic role.
However, in other tumors and even in the same tumor, mast cells seem to play a protective role.
These apparently controversial results might reflect differences in stage, grade, and subtypes of tumors, different methods to identify mast cells (e.g., tryptase+, chymase+, toluidine blue, CD117+, Giemsa), or different microanatomical compartment (i.e., peritumoral vs intratumoral) analyzed in the various studies.
Whatever the mechanisms, there are many unanswered questions that need to be addressed before we understand whether mast cells are an ally, adversary, or innocent bystander in human cancers.
Good info for Medicare folks and others trying to get primary and secondary care in the current situation
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Be excellent to each other. If you comment, be nice, most all of us are ill and have challenges.
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Week 3 of Sheltering in Place
Mast cells: novel clinical perspectives from recent insights
Manfred Kneilling and Martin Rocken Department of Dermatology, Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen, Germany
It is now clear that mast cells are not only critical for effector functions of classic IgE-associated allergic disorders and pseudoallergies but also play an essential role in the host defense against parasites, bacteria and viruses, in contact hypersensitivity reactions (CHSR), and even influence the manifestation of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriasis or bullous pemphigoid (BP) (2,5,6,9,10,12–14). Especially disease models of severe inflammatory autoimmune diseases reveal that neutrophil infiltration into sites of local inflammation and tissue destruction are critically influenced by mast cells.