Speaker 1: Yeah, Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Alexon Madermer Science Center at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, signed writer at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Yeah. Have you ever had
Speaker 1: the flu? Boy? Have I ever had the flu? Um?
Speaker 1: Tell me about it? Tell us about it? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: last year, Uh, my wife and I came back from Thailand, Yes,
Speaker 1: and it was. It was an amazing trip and it's
Speaker 1: amazing country. And got back, you know, ready to get
Speaker 1: back to work, you know, hot back in the seat
Speaker 1: and start writing some articles. I'm sure you were. I was, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but as it turns out, missed how stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Didn't you know? We thought about us constantly. Well some
Speaker 1: of the time, I mean I definitely. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like you can't go anywhere working here and not sort
Speaker 1: of piece together, you know, something, you know, science related
Speaker 1: when you get back. But but when I got back,
Speaker 1: I was growing steadily, um sicker, and so like the
Speaker 1: monday that I was supposed to go back to work,
Speaker 1: I was instead. And this was like in October in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: So it's it's still pretty warm out um, but I
Speaker 1: was just burning up, just like just completely yeah, burn yeah.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly I was freezing and I would like,
Speaker 1: you know, like had to drive myself to the to
Speaker 1: the doctor and um, you know, wrapping myself up. And
Speaker 1: it was in in like blankets in the car with
Speaker 1: the heater on even though it was you know, hot out.
Speaker 1: And at one point I was like laying on the
Speaker 1: couch and I was like just freezing with this flu
Speaker 1: going on, just kind of delirious, and I like wrapped
Speaker 1: up in the blanket and then the cat got on
Speaker 1: top of me, and I was like, oh, that's great,
Speaker 1: you know because the cat is warm and I needed
Speaker 1: warmth like crazy to stay alive. And then the cat
Speaker 1: starts acting like she's gonna vomit on me, and like
Speaker 1: that was that was the low point of my my
Speaker 1: illness there. But then they don't know, injected a lot
Speaker 1: of liquids into me and gave me some medicine. I
Speaker 1: got better and it wasn't bird flu, but it was hard.
Speaker 1: Was it swine flu? No, it wasn't swine flu either.
Speaker 1: It was just some unknown Asian flu. Well I'm glad you,
Speaker 1: uh you stayed home with that for several days because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people going around the office
Speaker 1: as I'm sure they're going around yours or your schools
Speaker 1: or what have you, sneezing and coughing up a storm
Speaker 1: like crazy. The man in the corner office, I sent
Speaker 1: him an email because in times fifty, because I swear
Speaker 1: he must have sneezed like in innumerable times. Yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 1: I have so many um um in interviews that I've
Speaker 1: recorded with people over the phone that have like different
Speaker 1: people coughing and changing in the background. The other funny
Speaker 1: thing is that Discovery sponsors a wellness fair in which
Speaker 1: you can get a flu shot. Here, so a bunch
Speaker 1: of us had our flu shots. I did get one. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. She missed my arm when she put
Speaker 1: the band aid on. Oh okay, but not the needle. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: she the needle hit the band aid missed, so I
Speaker 1: bled on my shirt. I mean she does this all day,
Speaker 1: but she us is the spot where she put the
Speaker 1: needle in. Huh. I feel like that's a job requirement.
Speaker 1: Little accuracy when it comes to the band aid and
Speaker 1: they needle, Well, don't keep it in suspense. What color
Speaker 1: was the shirt? That was turqoise. It was like a nice,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty spring turquoise. Yeah. I think it'll come
Speaker 1: out that blood spattery. Yeah, bloods battery. Really, so thinking
Speaker 1: about all this flu led me no wonder. You know,
Speaker 1: we have taken measures, public health has taken measures against
Speaker 1: various diseases, stamping out disease. Why haven't they ever tried
Speaker 1: to eradicate influenza? Or have they tried to eradicate influenza?
Speaker 1: And so before we get to that, let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about flu. I'm sure you guys know a
Speaker 1: lot of this, so chime in along with us. But
Speaker 1: flu is really just an infectious illness, right, and it's
Speaker 1: caused by a particular virus, an influenza virus, and it's
Speaker 1: going to affect your respiratory system. Yeah, you posted a
Speaker 1: photo of the virus on or not a photo image
Speaker 1: of the virus on the Facebook. Yeah, and the guy
Speaker 1: got it within the one guy that I got it within,
Speaker 1: you know, ten minutes or so. It looked kind of
Speaker 1: like an orange with a bunch of golf teeth stuck
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, that was not my impression at all.
Speaker 1: Golf balls do not golf golf teeese. Yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: do look like golf teeth, a little blue golf teeth,
Speaker 1: I mean blue and red. Wait, the blue ones I
Speaker 1: think were the neuraminidase. That such a tricky word to say,
Speaker 1: and the red were the the other. Well, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about these in a little bit. So symptoms. One of
Speaker 1: the symptoms, what are the symptoms of faint, Well, you
Speaker 1: kind of get a cough, you get a sore throat,
Speaker 1: running nose, you get the aky brakies. What are they breakies?
Speaker 1: It's like muscle. But you know, the only time I've
Speaker 1: ever heard a key breaking before this moment. You don't
Speaker 1: call him a breaking No, No, that's the only time
Speaker 1: I've ever heard that was in its song Akey Breaky Heart.
Speaker 1: I did not know that anyone else. You use that
Speaker 1: terminology for anything other than countries. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: he has a patent on that term, the breakies. So like,
Speaker 1: so if you have the achy breakies, that just means
Speaker 1: you have sore limbs and do you know anything kind
Speaker 1: of feel like hurts and you're really sensitive and it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel good. It's muscle like more catchy way of
Speaker 1: saying muscle like. I think, Okay, you're tired, you're extremely fatigued,
Speaker 1: and sometimes, like Robert was you, you get a fever,
Speaker 1: maybe a little vomiting to throw in there, mix it
Speaker 1: up and me and maybe some some diarrhea too, But
Speaker 1: just these latter two are mostly in kids. His kids
Speaker 1: are messy, so why not giving them a messy stuff? Anyway,
Speaker 1: So tip the bucket on all up. Did I ever
Speaker 1: tell you about my Christmas last year? No, but now
Speaker 1: I'm a little frightened to hear with that kind of leading.
Speaker 1: It's like kids are always vomiting and having diarrhea. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you about Christmas last year. Yeah, well it
Speaker 1: was kind of crazy because that was what happened. You
Speaker 1: need to make big plans. Maybe you're going to go
Speaker 1: to your family, going to have a big meal post presence,
Speaker 1: if you happen to sell at Christmas or whatever other
Speaker 1: holiday perhaps you celebrated around in that time of year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had all sorts of big plans, and you know,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden boom we had We had some
Speaker 1: vomiting multiple times. I mean, so the washer and the dryer,
Speaker 1: we're going all day, and then we had no backup plan.
Speaker 1: We obviously can't go to the house we're supposed to
Speaker 1: go to, because who wants a vomiting kid at their
Speaker 1: Christmas dinner? And then they have kids and they get sick.
Speaker 1: So we wound up staying home and we had no food.
Speaker 1: So we drive around to one of the local farmer
Speaker 1: members from targets that's supposed to be open three six
Speaker 1: five days a year. No, it is not open three
Speaker 1: So yeah, so the vomiting, Yeah, definitely happens in kids.
Speaker 1: This is very vomit heavy podcast. Actually, do you have
Speaker 1: a week's stomach? I think that maybe you do a
Speaker 1: little bit. I hope, well a little bit, but the
Speaker 1: vomit doesn't bother me as much. But let's just I
Speaker 1: hope my friend Becky is not listening because she gets
Speaker 1: freaked out by this. Sorry Becky. So how long? How
Speaker 1: long are you out? Down for the count? I was
Speaker 1: out for it was I felt tough for about a week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so a few days, and it might be as long
Speaker 1: as two weeks. But if you get some complications going on,
Speaker 1: and you know you're gonna get these in high risk groups,
Speaker 1: and who are the high risk group? People? Um, people
Speaker 1: like my parents, you people over sixty five pregnant ladies kids.
Speaker 1: Of course, people with medical histories that have you know,
Speaker 1: full stuff like heart disease, asthma, diabetes, they're gonna get
Speaker 1: some complications going on that may eventually leave them to
Speaker 1: the hospital. You know, they may wind up with pneumonia,
Speaker 1: to may get signed us and ear infections, all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff. You know. I just want to go ahead
Speaker 1: and mentioned real quick. Um, this is something My mom's
Speaker 1: a kindergarten teacher, so she's always driving home. To cover
Speaker 1: your mouth when you cough and sneeze. So many adults
Speaker 1: do not do that. What like, can you name some
Speaker 1: people in our own I don't know about people in
Speaker 1: our office, but like every other person on the MARTA
Speaker 1: train in the morning, it's like, come on, enclosed space.
Speaker 1: Didn't your kindergarten teacher ever tell you cover your mouth
Speaker 1: and knows when you when you sneeze and cough, because
Speaker 1: that's how you spread this stuff, you know. Lately, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of a fan of sneezing in the crook of
Speaker 1: my elbow. Yeah. Yeah, that's like when you get your
Speaker 1: hands fill filled up with well, you know, if I
Speaker 1: don't have a tissue or something at the ready, the
Speaker 1: crook of the elbow, it kind of contains it. What
Speaker 1: do you really use the crook of your elbow for,
Speaker 1: you know, because otherwise you can't use it in food?
Speaker 1: Not so much, not unless I'm preparing that special cast role,
Speaker 1: you know, just kidding. No, I think the crook of
Speaker 1: the elbow is probably a good place for that to
Speaker 1: take place. Makes more sense in the hands, right indeed,
Speaker 1: So how does it get around town? All those droplets
Speaker 1: that's spring free, just floating in the air of the marta? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know the droplets spring free when someone's coughing, sneezing,
Speaker 1: or even talking. Yeah, so again, if you don't cover
Speaker 1: your head in your mouth and knows when you sneeze,
Speaker 1: think about that, Like every time somebody lets one go
Speaker 1: on the marta just sprays, Like I think we've all
Speaker 1: seen the videos before where they slow it down and
Speaker 1: they show just like how much of volume like leaves
Speaker 1: the human face during a sneeze. I think I saw
Speaker 1: something to the count of about forty droplets. Don't quote
Speaker 1: me on this, but it was just insane. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not just like a little drop, it's it's a lot
Speaker 1: of material being laid out there for the rest of
Speaker 1: the population, and even if you're not in the blast zone.
Speaker 1: I mean that stuff ends up landing on different surfaces
Speaker 1: like the Marta pole for example, on the Marta pole
Speaker 1: or just you know, on both Like apparently like libraries
Speaker 1: are pretty rough. Yeah, they always come out with studies.
Speaker 1: I feel like every week, you know, oh, we found
Speaker 1: this in the um in the sample cosmetics at X
Speaker 1: department store. Yeah, there are germs all over the place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm not really a germaphobe, are you. Um? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not not in the sense that I actually have
Speaker 1: a hardcore phobia about it. It doesn't like keep me
Speaker 1: from you know, you know, carrying on my life. But
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pretty uh, I feel like I'm pretty aware
Speaker 1: of it, especially when I'm on Marta. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: look at the surface that a million hands have touched.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know if I want to touch that.
Speaker 1: I think I'll. In fact, what I'll try and do
Speaker 1: is wrap my my arm around it some of the
Speaker 1: crook of my elbow. YEA an amazingly handy place, the
Speaker 1: dirtiest place on the human body, apparently, just because we're
Speaker 1: constantly sneezing into it and sticking it to the public martoples.
Speaker 1: I remember once bringing back a friend of mine when
Speaker 1: I lived in New York. She I think he'd come
Speaker 1: in on the train and we're taking the subway somewhere,
Speaker 1: and she had a bag of pretzels and she was
Speaker 1: really hungry. So I watched her opened the bag of pretzels,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're sort of just frozen. I just
Speaker 1: watched her in this morbid fascination, and she's grabbing the
Speaker 1: pole and then she's sticking her hands. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't say anything except just kind of my
Speaker 1: mouth had dropped open. It was like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Don't do though, well, that reminds that's exactly. Not exactly,
Speaker 1: but I saw a very similar case on Marta one.
Speaker 1: Are you going to talk about the chicken? Yes, it was.
Speaker 1: I may have already apologies listener if you've heard this before,
Speaker 1: but I saw a lady eating an entire rotisserie chicken
Speaker 1: on the on the Marta one day. It was like
Speaker 1: she'd eaten it down to just like the grays, you know,
Speaker 1: a little slivers, but she would like eat out of
Speaker 1: it with her fingers, and then she would touch the
Speaker 1: pole and then she would go back to eating them
Speaker 1: the chicken. It was oh yeah, good times. Well the
Speaker 1: other thing, okay, let's get back to the sick people,
Speaker 1: the people with the influenza virus. Yes, we've kind of
Speaker 1: gone off topic here, we have, indeed, but that's okay.
Speaker 1: Feel free to write us with your crazy stories about
Speaker 1: traveling on public transportation and the things you've witnessed. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I mean, a sick person we think
Speaker 1: of somebody coughing or sneezing or whatever. But you can
Speaker 1: be passing along. You can be shedding virus before you're
Speaker 1: showing symptoms, so, and you can be shedding virus for
Speaker 1: as many as like five to seven days after. Okay.
Speaker 1: So so even if if somebody is like follows all
Speaker 1: the rules and they start feeling sick, they stay home
Speaker 1: and then they come back to work after they're feeling better,
Speaker 1: they're still like they store likely infecting people along the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be could be incubating, hanging out. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: why does it occur in the winter. This is one
Speaker 1: that I feel like I have to just get out there.
Speaker 1: Virus digs a cole there, It's pretty much all there
Speaker 1: is to it. And I didn't think I had anything
Speaker 1: in common with the flip, but we both like the
Speaker 1: cooler weather and the cold, dry air specifically. So the
Speaker 1: one big one that you guys know is swine flu
Speaker 1: H one and one indeed, and that was responsible for
Speaker 1: the first pandemic. And that just means, you know, an
Speaker 1: epidemic that covers a big old area like the world,
Speaker 1: say that we've had more than forty years. And that's
Speaker 1: interesting too, is when I was researching this, pandemics occur
Speaker 1: about every forty years, so we just had one. Although
Speaker 1: it wasn't so bad. It wasn't like say, the pandemic
Speaker 1: of in which half of the world's population was infected,
Speaker 1: like whaty million people died and that thing. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: flows my mind. Half of the world's population was infected.
Speaker 1: I mean that's just crazy easy. That is a pandemic
Speaker 1: of pandemics. That is a highly successful organism. Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: So what are we talking when it comes to deaths?
Speaker 1: Um You know, in a normal year last year with
Speaker 1: swine flu, there are about twelve thousand ufs deaths attributed
Speaker 1: to H one N one. But in a severe flu season,
Speaker 1: you're going to see as many as like forty people
Speaker 1: dying in the United States and then take it to
Speaker 1: the global level and how many What are the numbers there,
Speaker 1: Robert between two and five hundred thousand deaths per year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's those are some pretty high numbers. So like
Speaker 1: even yea, even the normal numbers are pretty pretty big,
Speaker 1: Like we just kind of you know, they don't then
Speaker 1: make the headlines necessarily unless the slow news weaker or
Speaker 1: it really starts piling up. Yeah, a lot of us
Speaker 1: tend to dismiss the flu. You know, you're so what.
Speaker 1: I'm of a sicktic can watch a little daytime TV.
Speaker 1: My partner doats on me. What's the big deal? But
Speaker 1: it is a darned big deal, So let's talk it.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, why don't we eradicate the flu? Why
Speaker 1: don't we get rid of this? I mean, if so
Speaker 1: many people are dying, and how would we do it? Yeah? Like, what,
Speaker 1: why don't we just come up with a vaccine? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: so we have a vaccine, right, They've been around since
Speaker 1: not what I mean, they're not as refined as they
Speaker 1: are now, but we've had them and in vaccine, in fact,
Speaker 1: we are would probably be our best bet when it
Speaker 1: comes to stamping out influenza, and it's they've certainly proven
Speaker 1: to be our best bets and stamping out other diseases
Speaker 1: like smallpox. You guys all know that smallpox has been eradicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: The last naturally occurring case of small pox was in
Speaker 1: Somalia in nineteen seventy seven, or according to the CDC. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the States, our last case of naturally occurring smallpox
Speaker 1: was in ninety nine. It's been decades. I find it
Speaker 1: nowadays you pretty much have to go to a laboratory
Speaker 1: and find like a stored sample of it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that's what eradication means. There's a pretty particular definition of
Speaker 1: it in the public health world, and that is no
Speaker 1: new cases in the world and no control measures are necessary.
Speaker 1: You don't have to vaccinate for it anymore. The other
Speaker 1: after the nine eleven scare, they did do some vaccinations, right,
Speaker 1: I believe so, Yeah, because there was there were some
Speaker 1: concerns they're about about the use as a bioweapon, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: So eradication is kind of the ultimate level and what
Speaker 1: you're aiming for as a public health professional. But you
Speaker 1: also hear them talk about a disease being eliminated. And
Speaker 1: what does that mean. Um, elimination just means that you've
Speaker 1: decreased the number of cases to a very low level,
Speaker 1: or a controlled level, right, And that's how the World
Speaker 1: Health organization is kind of that's what the World Health
Speaker 1: organizations is gonna tell you what's going on. And then
Speaker 1: you also hear people talk about disease being controlled, and
Speaker 1: that means, hey, folks were working on it. We got
Speaker 1: ongoing operations going here, We've got interventions plan, we're trying
Speaker 1: to reduce the number of new cases and the existing
Speaker 1: cases in a population. So the battle is underway and
Speaker 1: going well. Basically when it's when it's controlled and there's
Speaker 1: there's there's also this kind of holy grail status and
Speaker 1: that's extinction. And no infectious organisms have been declared extinct,
Speaker 1: and so this would be UM when an infectious agent
Speaker 1: is no longer in the wild or in the lab. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd have to really for that to take place. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of times you'd have to be talking
Speaker 1: about coextinction like you'd have to, you would. It would
Speaker 1: not just be a matter of eliminating like this particular flu,
Speaker 1: but everything the flu lives in. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: get to that. That is a very good point, have it,
Speaker 1: Hatten Food. It's just it's just too much, It's right, right,
Speaker 1: And that is that's definitely factors into the picture of
Speaker 1: ultimately why we can't eradicate the influence of IRUs. So
Speaker 1: another more broadly applicable one is that populations can be
Speaker 1: really tricky to reach, right. You get a war torn
Speaker 1: region thrown in there, you get poverty, you get location,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere who's living in a someone who's living
Speaker 1: in a particular remote place. Yeah, there's like poor infrastructure,
Speaker 1: poor communication, like in many places, just outright chaos, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's just not going to be very high on
Speaker 1: the um you know, on the list of things to
Speaker 1: do right. And then in industrialized countries you definitely have
Speaker 1: these concerns about the side effects of vaccines surfacing. So
Speaker 1: aside from that, you really can't make people be vaccinated,
Speaker 1: so people are going to opt out. And it's I mean,
Speaker 1: to have a disease eradicated, it is this major public
Speaker 1: health victory, and it just can't happen without you know,
Speaker 1: a crazy organizational fee. Yeah, like even if you did
Speaker 1: like a huge you know, expansive you know, vaccine effort,
Speaker 1: you know for something it's like you're like the one
Speaker 1: they did for small box, right, you're still you know,
Speaker 1: run the risk of getting you know, people at the
Speaker 1: top and the bottom who disagree with it and and
Speaker 1: you know some resulting chaos. There was actually, back when
Speaker 1: I was researching the bioweapons article for how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com that I wrote, I ran across this. I
Speaker 1: don't know that it was ever actually implemented, but there
Speaker 1: was a scheme to cre to create a like a
Speaker 1: bioweapon a and you know taylored jameara virus that would
Speaker 1: be pretty like you'd you would get ill with it,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't really become dangerous until it was treated
Speaker 1: with a vaccine. Oh. Interesting. So you'd have people that
Speaker 1: would say, oh, I feel sick, and then they'd go
Speaker 1: to their like the easter egg inside the right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But see the thing is they would go to their doctors,
Speaker 1: they go to their and their their government whatever, and
Speaker 1: they would and they would get to get shot with
Speaker 1: something and then they would get worse, which would just
Speaker 1: totally like screw up you know, trust and h and
Speaker 1: just lead to more like civil unrest is a pretty
Speaker 1: evil ingenious scheme. Only a human could come up with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no case, no known cases of that occurring on
Speaker 1: their No, no no, no, no, no, that's I think it
Speaker 1: was just purely in the in the ledgers of of
Speaker 1: these guys who were scheming all these biochemical weapons up.
Speaker 1: So even if you had the perfect influence of vaccine,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be really hard to vaccinate everyone who needs
Speaker 1: to be vaccinated. Yeah, you can vaccinate some of the
Speaker 1: people all the time, or all the people some of
Speaker 1: the time, right, I mean, consider this. I was reading
Speaker 1: a statistic that said, in two thousand seven, twenty percent
Speaker 1: of children don't receive the vaccines are scheduled for. And
Speaker 1: I was according to a massive report, massive awesome report,
Speaker 1: I should say that was jointly published by the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization, World Bank and un stuff that gave an
Speaker 1: update on the state of vaccinations and stuff going on.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a really good publication if you
Speaker 1: guys are at all interested in public health. Of course,
Speaker 1: the other thing about trying to eradicated diseases, it's pretty expensive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so just to give you some statistics to illuminate that picture,
Speaker 1: that expensive picture. It came across some numbers that said
Speaker 1: eradicating smallpox costs the US hundred million spread over ten years.
Speaker 1: The flip side, however, is pretty good. Yeah, so you're
Speaker 1: gonna say you're gonna have some savings. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: entreating and preventing costs after you know, you get rid
Speaker 1: of a disease. So some estimates put this at one
Speaker 1: point three billion a year. We are saving one point
Speaker 1: three billion a year. So we've more than made our
Speaker 1: money back on that one. Pretty good return on investment
Speaker 1: for eradication of smallpox. And then the trickier territory again,
Speaker 1: you know, we gotta do some easy ones the numbers,
Speaker 1: and then it just comes down to politicking, right yeah,
Speaker 1: and priority, like if you're going to wipe out one disease,
Speaker 1: like which one, which one has the most momentum, you know,
Speaker 1: which one has the most press which one is actually killing.
Speaker 1: If I'm a minister of health in a developing country,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm probably more liable to focus on something
Speaker 1: like AIDS or malaria, tuberculosis, the big three. You know,
Speaker 1: you have millions of people dying from these diseases every year.
Speaker 1: So I read one figure that factored in about four millions.
Speaker 1: That's per year attributable to either malaria, AIDS, or tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it co occur. Right. Yeah, so it's like flu,
Speaker 1: you know, flu. Yeah, I don't know if it's going
Speaker 1: to make the the number one flu rough los a killer.
Speaker 1: You know, we've we've said it already, but you know,
Speaker 1: compared to those three, it's not necessarily going to get
Speaker 1: the traction it needs. So really, we've talked about reasons
Speaker 1: so far that applied to a lot of widespread infectious disease,
Speaker 1: but let's talk about some more that are specific reasons
Speaker 1: for why we can't eradicate influenza and also for why
Speaker 1: it's a very successful organism too. Yeah. Yeah, so mutation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big one. It's huge. It is so huge.
Speaker 1: You think that you've you've figured out it's it's a
Speaker 1: strategy and you have a counter strategy. It changes its strategy.
Speaker 1: It how maneuvers you, It flanks you. Yeah. So humans
Speaker 1: are infected by two types of influence of virus, the
Speaker 1: a's and the bees. And it sounds simple, but it's
Speaker 1: not really, especially when they're constantly undergoing change, and those
Speaker 1: means of change, for one, are antigenic drift. Right, So
Speaker 1: this is virus is evolved. They change, but it's happening
Speaker 1: all the time. Basically, they just start collecting genetic mutations
Speaker 1: and they collect them at the critical site, the site
Speaker 1: where the antibody is that your immune system is sending
Speaker 1: out to fight the battle they like to find and
Speaker 1: the mutation, of course causes your immune system not to
Speaker 1: recognize the antigen. Yeah, and this is this is why
Speaker 1: we get that flu shot at work every year, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and why that's why they talk about the flu shot
Speaker 1: being a little bit of a guessing game. They're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what strands are prevalent and what strands
Speaker 1: they need to prepare for in the flu shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a It's like again, it's like a it's
Speaker 1: like a battle. It's like like like in a battlefield,
Speaker 1: you know, between two armies where we make a move
Speaker 1: thinking the enemy is going to be here, but they're
Speaker 1: maybe they're over here. We don't know exactly how it's
Speaker 1: gonna work out. We just know we're not going to
Speaker 1: defeat them completely. So in both of those types of
Speaker 1: viruses that infect humans, the A and the B influence
Speaker 1: of viruses, antigenic drift happens in both kinds, right, So
Speaker 1: that's bad news for us. Much worse, or it can
Speaker 1: be much worse, is antigenic shift. And this is like
Speaker 1: jaw dropping change. This is an abrupt process. You know,
Speaker 1: you think drift is bad, you haven't seen shift. And
Speaker 1: this is what led to uh H one N one
Speaker 1: virus in two thousand and nine, the spine flu that
Speaker 1: we were talking about before. It's like drift. It's like
Speaker 1: I might drift from like listening to like, say a
Speaker 1: person's listening to jazz, they might drift over into smooth jazz.
Speaker 1: But a shift would be if they like, if they
Speaker 1: they're listening to jazz and then suddenly they're listening to
Speaker 1: like drum and bass. You know, it's like the Slayer, Yes,
Speaker 1: that pantera. I don't know why I just thought of pantera.
Speaker 1: So this is a situation where like like like bird flute,
Speaker 1: where the big you know, the big fear is, Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, it's it's the fluids and birds, but it's
Speaker 1: gonna it could easily like crossover to humans who are
Speaker 1: in close proximity to these birds. The bottom line is
Speaker 1: that it leads to such a crazy new virus that
Speaker 1: we have no defenses against it. We have no immunity,
Speaker 1: and this is bad news for us. And this this
Speaker 1: one ties into when you start looking at the history
Speaker 1: of of epidemics. You know, it's like a lot of
Speaker 1: it ties back to when humans started living together in
Speaker 1: large settlements because a all these people can spread diseases
Speaker 1: back and forth, but they're also generally living there with
Speaker 1: their animals, with their cows, with their sheets, with their dogs,
Speaker 1: with their cats. Um, they're they're having all the circles
Speaker 1: of food that's being fed up on by by rats,
Speaker 1: by squirrels, by birds, et cetera, and uh and and
Speaker 1: and any and you have in in the midst of this,
Speaker 1: you have all these different viruses and they can jump
Speaker 1: from from rat to score all to human. You know,
Speaker 1: it's there there. They keep taking that shift, right, they
Speaker 1: can and they do jump absolutely. And so that's really
Speaker 1: the last point about why we're not going to win
Speaker 1: the battle against flu or. At least, we're not going
Speaker 1: to win the eradication battle against influenza because influenza has
Speaker 1: a vast reservoir and animals. And one of the most
Speaker 1: critical criteria when it comes to successful eradication is that
Speaker 1: humans are the only reservoir of disease, and it's not
Speaker 1: the case with influenza, so bear that in mind. Wash
Speaker 1: your hands a lot, sneeze into the crook of your elbow.
Speaker 1: Any other tips for our listeners. Oh and of course
Speaker 1: if you're sick, don't go to work. Yeah, don't go
Speaker 1: to work, and don't let your boss tell you to
Speaker 1: go to work if you're sick. Yeah, see home in
Speaker 1: your pajamas. Maybe watch a little daytime TV sprinkled in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah that. So do we have any listener mail? We do,
Speaker 1: And we had a listener mail from a Phoebe from Australia,
Speaker 1: so she's already dealt with this whole influence of thing.
Speaker 1: And by the way, listeners from Australia, thank you for
Speaker 1: dealing with this, uh this flu podcast, because you guys
Speaker 1: have already h your past. Her season's passed and the
Speaker 1: Northern hemisphere is all in the mix with influence of it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, here's Phoebe, hi alisand Robert. I was so
Speaker 1: happy to listen to your podcast, letting everyone know that
Speaker 1: bacteria are so much more than the often touted sack
Speaker 1: of enzymes. I spent my PhD studying bacterial cell division,
Speaker 1: and let me tell you that they are complicated little books.
Speaker 1: Did you know that we still don't understand exactly how
Speaker 1: they undergo the fundamental process of dividing for rawn shape
Speaker 1: bugs like E. Coli leva for a protein and she
Speaker 1: names the protein that forms it kind of built at
Speaker 1: exactly the middle which constricts and splits them into That
Speaker 1: sounds like it's a tough way to replicate. Well, they
Speaker 1: can handle it. Indeed they can, but how do they
Speaker 1: know where the middle is? Good point? And that's followed
Speaker 1: by three question marks a lot of outstanding questions in
Speaker 1: the world of bacterial research. I made movies fluorescently tagged
Speaker 1: into protein and watching them divide to find that it
Speaker 1: forms a helix first and then a ring. So now
Speaker 1: the question is how does the helix find the middle?
Speaker 1: As always in science, the answer raises more questions. And
Speaker 1: she gave us a link to some movies if we
Speaker 1: wanted to see the division action, which will post on Facebook.
Speaker 1: I love the show. Phoebe from Australia. Thanks Phoebe. We
Speaker 1: like bacteria too. And one final note for today, this
Speaker 1: is going to be my last podcast for Stuff from
Speaker 1: the Science Lab. Yeah, it's it's kind of a sad event.
Speaker 1: I mean I've had a lot of fun talking science
Speaker 1: with you across the table from me for all these episodes.
Speaker 1: I think we're almost something like a hundred and eleven.
Speaker 1: It like came out kind of spooky like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but maybe you guys haven't heard all of them because
Speaker 1: you know, we had some early learning curves here in
Speaker 1: the studio and probably thanks like all of them. But
Speaker 1: so I was looking at some of my favorite topics.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of them. We've we've covered a
Speaker 1: lot of We have covered a lot to a week
Speaker 1: for a while. Let me do the math eleven, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we've talked about snipers, we've talked about sci fi.
Speaker 1: I think that ranks as one of my all time
Speaker 1: favorites just because it was kind of a new topic area. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was forcing me to get into a lot of
Speaker 1: the literature and I really liked it and I've delved
Speaker 1: into it ever since. Yeah, that was that was a
Speaker 1: really fun one. You ended up reading too that at
Speaker 1: the Three Books? Yeah, another one, Um, you're an answer
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we still got to work on
Speaker 1: you with din that I don't know, may not be
Speaker 1: the one for you regardless. I thank you guys for
Speaker 1: sitting down each week with us and you know, talking
Speaker 1: science and listening science and writing in and telling your stories. Um,
Speaker 1: it's bitter sweet. I will be sad to say goodbye,
Speaker 1: but I will be continuing on here talking science on
Speaker 1: the blogs and on Facebook and Twitter. So if you
Speaker 1: want to check me down and ask me about the
Speaker 1: laws of entropy, you know where to find me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was not sailing off of the sunset. And if
Speaker 1: you're not, the just as We're going to continue to
Speaker 1: discuss science on the UM blogs and on Facebook and
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Uh. The podcast is not going anywhere. It
Speaker 1: will be back next week and I'm going to find
Speaker 1: some mystery podcaster to come in here with me. So
Speaker 1: keep tuning in and thanks guys for listening truly. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works,
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com home page.