Publications & Commentaries
Academic Commentaries
Future Virology – Invited Editorial - 2008
http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/pdf/10.2217/17460794.3.1.7
Internatonal J Epi June 2007 – more on methodology in epidemiology
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/dym084v1
New Scientist, November 8, 2008
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026815.500-flu-shots-save-fewer-lives-than-thought.html
Lone as visiting professor at GWU - on George Washington Univ website
http://www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/faculty/simonsen_lone.cfm
British Medical Journal commentary on how to estimate influenza mortality
Jan 2006
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/331/7529/1412#125778
International lectures and presentations:
Lone teaching in NIH-led workshops
http://origem.info/misms/program.php
Infectious Disease News
http://www.infectiousdiseasenews.com/200508/guested2.asp
Google Knol – an influenza chapter
http://knol.google.com/k/nima-afshar/influenza-flu/uMhKcsUKP/sjj611?locale=en#
Research Papers
Prioritization of Influenza Pandemic Vaccination to Minimize Years of Life Lost
The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2008;198:000-000
© 2008 by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved.
Mark A. Miller,1
Cecile Viboud,1
Donald R. Olson,2
Rebecca F. Grais,1
Maia A. Rabaa,1 and
Lone Simonsen3
1Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland; 2New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, New York; 3Department of Global Health, School of Public Health and Health Services, George Washington University, Washington, DC
Background. How to allocate limited vaccine supplies in the event of an influenza pandemic is currently under debate. Conventional vaccination strategies focus on those at highest risk for severe outcomes, including seniors, but do not consider (1) the signature pandemic pattern in which mortality risk is shifted to younger ages, (2) likely reduced vaccine response in seniors, and (3) differences in remaining years of life with age.
Pandemic Vaccine Priorities JID 2008
Seniors who get flu shots less likely to be hospitalized or die: study
Nature.com: Do flu vaccines work for the elderly?
Published online: 25 September 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070924-3
TORONTO - Seniors who get flu shots significantly reduce their risk of dying or needing hospitalization for pneumonia or influenza, a new study suggests.
Based on an analysis of 10 years worth of data, the study finds that elderly people who live in the community (as opposed to long-term care facilities) and who received flu shots were 27 per cent less likely to be hospitalized with flu or pneumonia and 48 per cent less likely to die than counterparts who didn't get vaccinated.
Flu vax and the elderly Fox 2007
Do flu vaccines work for the elderly?
Review suggests study is needed on influenza jabs and how they are used.
Matt Kaplan
How effective are flu vaccines at preventing death in the elderly? A review suggests that there isn't actually much proof that these jabs prevent influenza-related deaths in older people, stirring up controversy over this issue once more. The debate could influence both how the elderly are treated against flu, and how vaccines are distributed to try to prevent epidemics.
Study: Benefits of Flu Vaccine in the Elderly 'Overstated'
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:59:36 -0400
Subject: Fox News: Study: Benefits of Flu Vaccine in the Elderly 'Overstated'
The life-saving benefits of giving elderly people the flu vaccine have been "vastly overstated," according to the authors of a review published in October edition of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Flu vax and the elderly Fox 2007
Researchers Find Surprising Pattern of Influenza Spread in South America and Tropics
Posted on: 03/22/2007
www.infectioncontroltoday.com
Researchers studying influenza transmission patterns in the Southern Hemisphere and in tropical areas, specifically Brazil, uncovered the unexpected finding that each season influenza travels from low populated regions near the equator to the more populated centers. Their work, funded by the Fogarty International Center (NIH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), can improve planning for influenza control in tropical areas.
Researchers Find Surprising..ICT 2007
Flu virus trots globe during off season
The influenza A virus does not lie dormant during summer but migrates globally and mixes with other viral strains before returning to the Northern Hemisphere as a genetically different virus, according to biologists who say the finding settles a key debate on what the virus does during the summer off season when it is not infecting people.
The Penn State Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics is at http://www.cidd.psu.edu/
Fresh doubts, new support for flu shots for seniors
Robert Roos - News Editor
Oct 9, 2007 (CIDRAP News) - In quick succession, the view that influenza shots yield life-saving benefits for elderly people has come under serious attack and received fresh support in recent weeks.
One group of experts, writing in the October issue of Lancet Infectious Diseases, argued that the mortality benefits of flu shots for the elderly have been greatly exaggerated because of a subtle bias and other methodologic problems in many of the relevant studies.
Fresh doubts, new support for flu shots for seniors
Study uncovers cause of flu epidemics
The exchange of genetic material between two closely related strains of the influenza A virus may have caused the 1947 and 1951 human flu epidemics, according to biologists. The findings could help explain why some strains cause major pandemics and others lead to seasonal epidemics. Until now, it was believed that while reassortment - when human influenza viruses swap genes with influenza viruses that infect birds - causes severe pandemics, such as the 'Spanish' flu of 1918, the 'Asian' flu of 1957, and the 'Hong Kong' flu of 1968, while viral mutation leads to regular influenza epidemics. But it has been a mystery why there are sometimes very severe epidemics - like the ones in 1947 and 1951 - that look and act like pandemics, even though no human-bird viral reassortment event occurred.
Bethesda, MD 20814