QDIS Blog

Seems the FDA started podcasting in Feb 06 on drug safety. Only two have been made so far and they are very short (two minutes and seven minutes)

FDA Drug Safety Podcasts

While I find it refreshing that they would do these (and they also provide transcript by the way) it seems that only a few minutes is too short to convey any really useful information. Also, they have a lot to learn about how to do podcasting and making it successful.

It sounds unnatural and stilted. I’m sure they are just reading a script as there in no intonation or dynamics at all. They also need to learn proper mic technique to get rid of popping p’s and hissing s’s. I could barely get through the seven minutes without nodding off due to the monotone nature of the podcast.

While I find it promising they are taking advantage of a new technology, I certainly wish they would have done more to learn about it before putting together such as poorly produced product.

Technorati Tags: drug safety, FDA, podcast

Email Ed Vawter

Bookmark it with: | del.icio.us | Digg it | Furl | Simpy | Spurl | My Yahoo! |

Here are some article regarding flu pandemics in general and some on the bird flu that have come across my desk recently.

H5N1 bird flu outbreak confirmed on English farm - health - 03 February 2007

About a month ago there was an outbreak of Bird flu on a turkey farm in England. The interesting thing in this article is the timing of the outbreak. It occurred when birds are not migrating and so it was not immediately obvious how this started.

New ScientistPandemic flu may be only two mutations away - health - 01 February 2007 - New Scientist

Interesting article concerning work on how much change needs to occur for H5N1 to have the potential for creating a pandemic. The researchers compared the 1918 flu with the H5N1 bird flu and determined it may only take changes at two amino acids. Unfortunately, they don’t comment on the probabilities of each of these happening and I would note that you have to multiply the percentages to arrive at an overall probability. If one has a probability of 10% and the second also is 10% then the overall probability (assuming both are necessary) is 1%.

World moves closer to having bird flu vaccine: WHO | Top News | Reuters.com

Article about developing a vaccine for bird flu. Mentions CSL Ltd in Australia has developed a vaccine that brins about a strong immune response. Also mentions the GlaxoSmithKline is working on this as well as

World Crises | Reuters.co.uk

The above article concerns Baxter having an agreement with Indonesia and that the Indonesia is no longer sharing samples. They are interested in the IP rights surrounding the H5N1 strain.

PharmaLive: Baxter Continues Collaborations With Global Health Authorities to Advance Pandemic Preparedness

An article further clarifying the situation with regard to sharing samples of bird flu from humans.

Flu Preparedness Still Lags Globally - Forbes.com

Report about the World Health Organization report that the world as a whole is poorly prepared for dealing with any sort of word-wide flu pandemic.

Technorati Tags: bird flu, flu, flu pandemic, flu vaccine

Email Ed Vawter

Bookmark it with: | del.icio.us | Digg it | Furl | Simpy | Spurl | My Yahoo! |