Friday, March 5, 2010
Breath Test Proving Effective for Detection of Pulmonary Tuberculosis
Menssana Research, Inc is touting results from a trial testing its Breathscanner for diagnosing patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis. Menssana has developed technology that may bring breath testing for a variety of conditions, including the already FDA approved breath test for heart transplant rejection.
Some details about the technology from Menssana:
The Mycobacteria that cause pulmonary TB generate a very distinctive pattern of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) when grown in the laboratory. If these VOCs could also be detected in the breath of infected patients, it might provide a new method for detecting active infection with pulmonary TB. The National Institutes of Health (NIAID) awarded Menssana Research a Phase I SBIR grant to test the feasibility of this idea. We analyzed breath VOCs in hospitalized patients who were being screened for pulmonary TB at New York University Medical Center, New York. We also analyzed the VOCs manufactured by Mycobacteria grown in the laboratory at Saint Vincents Medical Center, New York.We found that breath biomarkers of oxidative stress clearly distinguished between the "sick" hospitalized patients and normal controls. Also, breath VOCs accurately identified the patients whose sputum samples grew Mycobacteria - the VOC biomarkers in breath and in sputum cultures were very similar (see pdf).
Based on these encouraging findings, NIH/NIAID awarded Menssana Research a Phase II SBIR grant to validate the breath test for pulmonary TB in a larger multicenter international study performed in San Diego, London, and two sites in the Philippines and Mexico. The results, soon to be published in the journal Tuberculosis showed that the breath test identified active pulmonary TB with 85% accuracy.
The US Air Force is currently funding a new study of a point-of-care breath test for active pulmonary TB that delivers results in minutes.
Abstract in journal Tuberculosis: Breath biomarkers of active pulmonary tuberculosis
Link: Menssaba breath test for pulmonary tuberculosis...
Press release: Breath Test for Pulmonary Tuberculosis ...
Flashback: The Breathscanner 1.0...
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Friday, February 26, 2010
Molecular Venus Flytrap Grabs and Holds Onto Cesium Ions
Researchers from Northwestern University and Argonne National Lab have developed a material that can grab and encapsulate radioactive cesium isotopes, much like a Venus Flytrap does with flies. Cesium is an abundant byproduct of nuclear waste and has been difficult to concentrate/separate when cleaning up superfund sites polluted with the substance.
The new material, a rigid frame composed of metal sulfides, has a negative charge. Its pores, therefore, attract positively charged ions. This makes it a good candidate for ion exchange—when immersed in a solution with other positive ions, the ions tucked inside the pores switch places with the ions outside.Sodium ions do this dance freely, switching as many times as they're immersed. However, when the team filled the material with cesium ions, they refused to move out of the material.
To find out why the material trapped cesium but not sodium, Kanatzidis [Mercouri Kanatzidis, Argonne] and Ding [Nan Ding, Northwestern] had to come up with an image of the material's crystalline structure itself. They found that sodium bonded strongly to the water in the solution, which prevented it from becoming trapped by the framework; but a cesium ion doesn't form strong bonds with water molecules, so it has less protection. The ion binds to several sulfur atoms in the rings of the framework, causing the rings to change shape, and the hole is sealed shut.
Press release: New material traps radioactive ions using "Venus flytrap" method ...
Abstract in Nature Chemistry: Selective incarceration of caesium ions by Venus flytrap action of a flexible framework sulfide
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Monday, February 1, 2010
Situational Awareness Helps Make Disaster Recovery Run Smoother in Haiti
10 News, an ABC affiliate in South California, had a short segment profiling the work undertaken at San Diego State University to map the disaster in Haiti using available aerial imagery. Since there are hundreds of different humanitarian organizations in the country, coordination is key to effectively get to everyone needing medical attention. To that effect, the US military has made public imagery taken from overflights by P3 Orion aircraft, and the SDSU visualization lab has been analyzing and annotating the data for practical use by teams on the ground.
(hat tip: Vizworld)
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Monday, January 25, 2010
The Challenge of Establishing a Field Hospital in Haiti
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has deployed its mobile hospital system in Haiti that the organization designed in-house to meet the challenges of operating in a post disaster environment. Boing Boing interviewed Doctors Without Borders representatives in Haiti and New York to give us a better idea of how things are going and what doctors have to work on before seeing their first patients.
Here's a video from Doctos Without Borders of the setup process:
A snippet from the interview:
Boing Boing: What does one of these inflatable hospital kits consist of?Laurent Dedieu, MSF, New York: 9 tents, 100 beds, including hospitalization and ICU and recovery beds. A triage and emergency tent, and two operations theatres. The idea is that within the tent we have a complete kit we can deploy including energy supply, water supply, all the sanitation, and all medical equipment inside the tent. In Haiti, everything needed to run a hospital including beds and biomedical equipment is included.
We want to be as autonomous as possible with regard to energy. In this case we have one 30 KV generator and one 60 KV generator. Plus an electrical board, and equipment to ensure electrical safety. And then you have all the electrical wire you need to set up lights inside the ward, and set up plugs for the medical equipment.
Boing Boing: What is the total weight of these portable hospitals you're shipping by cargo plane?
Laurent Dedieu, MSF, New York: The total weight is around 41 metric tons for the nine tents and all of the logistics equipment, like air conditioners, and electricity. That doesn't include the medical equipment, just the logistical part of the hospital.
Read on at Boing Boing: Haiti: HOWTO set up a plug-and-play hospital - Doctors Without Borders...
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Friday, January 8, 2010
Global Warming Beliefs and The Hippocratic Oath: How BMJ Leadership Fails on Both
After two years, it's time we took another look at the practices and preachings of British Medical Journal's globe-trotting Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Fiona Godlee.
You may know of Dr. Godlee from her work editing one of our favorite journals (their recent Christmas issue is another gem). Or, you may know her from her outspoken activism regarding global warming. Indeed, she has used the pages of BMJ as a bully pulpit, even as she describes herself as a "climate criminal."
You can hit up the flashbacks at the bottom of this post to review our past interactions with Dr. Godlee (from those exchanges we created a page that updates her Carbon Footprint).
Recently, however, Dr. Godlee and her staff upped the ante, and we feel it's time to once again inquire into the discrepancies between what this woman and her company advocates, and what they do. In September 2009, BMJ together with Lancet has published an editorial proclaiming that if international leaders meeting for UN talks in Copenhagen do not agree to radical reductions in carbon emissions, the world will face an inevitable "global health catastrophe". In addition, in June 2009, BMJ has published yet another editorial that calls for suspension of medical conferences to combat the Global Warming (the opinion piece, "Are international medical conferences an outdated luxury the planet can't afford? Yes," by Dr. Malcolm Green, professor emeritus of respiratory medicine from Imperial College, is reminiscent of the original editorial by Dr. Fiona Godlee, that has asked all clinicians, back in 2007, to suspend travels to medical conferences to save the planet from carbon dioxide).
We must point this out: If Dr. Godlee and BMJ believe that Anthropomorphic Global Warming constitutes the number one threat to the health of humanity, she and her coworkers are actively engaged into practices that directly contradict their own opinions and, even the Hippocratic Oath itself.
Back in 2007, in response to prior statements on her own blog, in articles, in multiple international conferences, and even on our own website, we wrote an open letter to Dr. Godlee and the rest of BMJ leadership to demonstrate concrete actions to reduce the carbon footprint of the publication. Those calls for the last two years went unanswered:
1. BMJ continues to chop and reprocess trees. BMJ Group still distributes its pulp publication all over the world, via trucks, ships, planes, trains, and other modes of transportation.
2. Dr. Godlee and other BMJ editors continue to travel the world over. In the last two years, she and her colleagues have attended conferences in the following places (all documented attendances): Vancouver, BC, Canada, Castro Brothers' Havana, Cuba, African country of Mali (if you want to know where Mali is and what she did there, check out her blog post), Singapore, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Georgia, Oxford, UK, Birmingham, UK, Glasgow, Scotland, Paris, France, Vienna, Austria, Gastein, Austria, Verona, Italy, Boston, Massachusetts, Copenhagen, Denmark and more. To view the full extend of documented BMJ leadership's sightings, check out the interactive map here.
3. While the journal is touting to others to "lead by example," and to abstain from meetings, BMJ is keeping its medical conferences business strong. A quick online search reveals a large number of upcoming medical conferences, all sponsored or organized by BMJ Group, including the conference in Nice, France and many BMJ Masterclasses slated all over the UK. Furthermore, while its editors preach restraint to the rest of us, BMJ Group continues to proselytize its conferences business in a special webpage.
Now it's 2010. We don't want to debate the details of Anthropomorphic Global Warming, but we can accept and appreciate that BMJ's own editorial has stated global warming "leaves no room for complacency." The doctors at BMJ believe that global warming is a threat to health, and CO2, in essence, is a poison. They demand action, from all of us.
Yet they continue to travel extensively, and unnecessarily, generating patient-killing poisons as a byproduct of their business.
We cannot help but recall the Third Tenet of the Hippocratic Oath: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.".
BMJ's leadership, and specifically Dr. Godlee, really must take the following steps to reduce and eliminate the company's carbon footprint:
1. BMJ has to stop production and distribution of all its print publications in Europe, North America, Australia, and other parts of the world that have broad internet penetration.
2. BMJ has to curtail world wide travels of all of its leaders, at least of those who believe in the Anthropomorphic Global Warming and its effect on health, and vigorously promote teleconferencing.
3. If the company leadership is asking other clinicians to abstain from the medical conference travels, BMJ should close its conference business, and transition its educational arm to an online format.
4. To be responsible, BMJ should provide the medical community with a transparent and detailed plan on how the company will tackle the transition to a minimal carbon footprint.
Before BMJ and its leadership asks the medical community (again) to make sacrifices, a journal with their reputation should "lead by example," take its own words seriously, and properly protect our patients -- the planet's people.
On the web: Carbon Footprint of Dr. Fiona Godlee, Editor of the British Medical Journal...
Flashbacks: BMJ Urges Others, Fails to "Lead by Example" on Climate Change; Fionagate: An Illustrated, Interactive Website; Feet to the Fire: Responding to Dr. Godlee ; Carbon Footprint, or How to Spot Other People's Garbage
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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Mathematics Used to Optimize Vaccine Effectiveness, Distribution
Optimizing vaccine distribution for an epidemic can be a tricky business because if done incorrectly, the effort may result in an increased incidence of side effects and other untoward consequences. Now researchers from Michigan State University, East Lansing and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel propose a new mathematical model to more precisely calculate when and how much of the vaccine to administer.
The Physics arXiv Blog explains:
What Khasin [Michael Khasin at Michigan State University] and co have done is show that the optimal vaccination protocol is a series of vaccine spikes and that this approach is model independent; ie it should work for any disease.One problem, however, is that the effect depends strongly on the period of the vaccination pulses. Get this right and the extinction rate of the disease rises exponentially. Khasin and co say there is a kind of resonance effect when the vaccine pulse sequence is close to the characteristic period of oscillations of the disease itself.
But this works both ways. Get the period wrong and you can actually reduce the disease extinction rate. In that case, you can worsen the outbreak.
Nevertheless, this is potentially important work. Vaccines are often in short supply, perhaps because they are expensive, dangerous to store in large amounts, as in the case of anthrax, or have a limited shelf life because the infectious agent regularly mutates as it does for flu.
Chart info: The most probable trajectories in the stochastic SIR model on the plane of the numbers of susceptibles and infected, X1 and X2, respectively, rescaled by N, xi = Xi/N. The dashed line shows a deterministic trajectory toward the endemic state, and the solid line shows the most probable trajectory followed during the fluctuation-induced disease extinction.
More from Physics arXiv Blog: How to Halt Disease with Limited Amounts of Vaccine...
Abstract in arXiv Quantitative Biology: Speeding up disease extinction with a limited amount of vaccine
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
SMS for Life Helps Fight Malaria in Africa
Long distances and remote places can create difficulties in logistics for organizations and governments to distribute and keep a stable stock of much needed medications. Now a collaboration between IBM, Novartis, and Vodafone has developed a mobile phone messaging/distribution system that helps automate the process. The SMS for Life project is currently being used in Tanzania across 135 villages and it covers more than a million people to help deliver Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) drugs and Quinine injectables for malaria treatment.
Vodafone, together with its technology partner MatsSoft, developed a system in which healthcare staff at each facility receives automated SMS messages, which prompt them to check the remaining stock of anti-malarial drugs each week. Using toll-free numbers, staff reply with an SMS to a central database system hosted in the United Kingdom, providing details of stock levels, and deliveries can be made before supplies run out at local health centres.During the first few weeks of the pilot, the number of health facilities with stock-outs in one district alone, was reduced by over 75 percent. The early success of the SMS for Life pilot project has the Tanzanian authorities interested in implementing the solution across the rest of the country. Tanzania has around 5,000 clinics, hospitals and dispensaries, but at any one time, as many as half could potentially be out of stock of anti-malarial drugs.
IBM press release: Saving Lives with SMS for Life
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Monday, December 14, 2009
Pandemic Planning Tool Helps Officials Coordinate Effective Response
Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a software planning tool to help plan response strategies during disease outbreaks. The software allows regional public health officials to test various scenarios to find which response strategies work best, what bottlenecks may arise, and which people may need backups if they themselves become ill.
[O]fficials could assess closing schools to decrease disease spread, initiate preventative media campaigns, or evaluate distributing antiviral medications to easily evaluate potential mitigation approaches.In late September, PNNL demonstrated an early prototype of the tool during a Walla Walla County, Wash., Pandemic Influenza emergency exercise. Officials simulated an H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak and used the tool to predict resource needs and shortfalls, such as the loss of critical staff and lack of hospital beds.
"The tool illustrated how essential services can fail when critical employees became ill," said Gay Ernst, director of emergency management in Walla Walla County. "Visualizing possible disease progression enables us to consider how many critical personnel may be unavailable at one time and plan accordingly."
To help users also understand and visualize the effects of potential scenarios, PNNL teamed with Purdue University to add a visual analytic element to the toolkit called PanViz. It allows decision makers to visually track a simulation of spreading influenza on a video monitor. Users can toggle on and off various decision measures and visually see and examine the impact of those modifications and how they may alter the spread of the outbreak over time across counties in a state.
Press release: Pandemic toolkit offers flu with a view...
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
Safe Life A400: A New Look for an N95 Respirator
Safe Life Corporation (San Diego, CA) recently released a new respirator that looks and feels more like a traditional surgical face mask. We received a copy of the A400 respirator for review and spent about a half hour wearing it to see how it feels.
The new Safe Life A400 N95 Respirator can filter 95 percent of the airborne particles that can carry viruses, bacteria and other pathogens, while looking and feeling similar to a normal face mask. It's light, durable and easy to use. Safe Life made this respirator by infusing iodine into a polymer, making it safe for wearing while oxidizing microorganisms to death.
The disposable mask comes in two sizes (S/M and M/L) and is said to be cost effective, though there is no information about the price.
Doing activities around the house with the Safe Life N95 Respirator was fine, until 30 minutes after wearing the mask it became slightly uncomfortable as the neck straps are quite tight and pull the unit firmly onto the face. Another marginal issue was with the padded metal band that creates a seal around the nose area. It was a bit rough and could use softer support padding.
Other than the mask being slightly irritating, the Safe Life N95 Respirator does the job, and it's been certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to be a true N95 class respirator.
Overall, we can say that Safe Life created an innovative product that does what the mask was supposed to do. It comes in a small package, it is relatively comfortable, and is a bit less conspicuous than traditional respirators.
Press release: Safe Life Introduces First Comfortable, Breathable N95 Respirator with Antimicrobial Protection ...
Product page: Safe Life N95 Respirators ...
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Monday, November 16, 2009
A New Form Factor for Personal Water Filtration
Korean designers Woo sik Kim and Duck soo Choi have a new idea for a 
water filtration system to be used by people living in remote environments. The "happy basin" is placed onto unclean water and, as it's pushed down, filters the water to create a contagion free source for drinking and washing up.
From the designers (forgive the broken English):
To help this serious problem, what we've done is breaking the stereotypical box of basin.Based on general belief, it's difficult to imagine that 'basin with holes' because it cannot store the clean water properly. Here is the Question, "What if there's no clean water for storage?"
This is the spot of innovation. We need the totally different type of product. [sic]
Link @ Yanko Design: happy basin...
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
Google Flu Shot Finder Goes Live
Google has released a new tool to help Americans find local pharmacies and clinics offering seasonal and H1N1 flu shots. So far the database is far from complete and Google hopes providers will share information about availability once they get word of the service.
From the Official Google Blog:
At the moment we have data for locations of flu vaccine directly from 20 states and counting. We are also continuing to add information from chain pharmacies and other providers in all 50 states; today, you'll find results from chains such as Walgreens, CVS and PDX participants, such as Kmart, Duane Reade, WinnDixie and Giant Eagle.
Link: Flu Shot Finder...
More from the Official Google Blog...
Flashback: Google Joins Nanny State to Monitor Flu?
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Monday, November 9, 2009
Ford's Inflatable Airbags to Bring Extra Safety Up Close
Ford is going ahead with seatbelt airbags in the next generation Ford Explorer. The system uses compressed gas which, for safety, inflates the seatbelt at a slower speed than traditional airbags using chemical explosives. Apparently, Lexus is planning to release a similar system in its higher end vehicles next year.
Press release: Ford Introduces Industry's First Inflatable Seat Belts to Enhance Rear Seat Safety ...
(hat tip: Engadget)
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Camera Phone Microscope Uses Holographic Processing to View Cells
Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor at University of California, Los Angeles, has developed an attachment for camera phones that turns these devices into microscopes useful for histological and microbiological analysis. Interestingly, the device uses no additional optics but relies on processing the interference patterns of light coming from the samples to recreate the image.
A snippet from the New York Times:
For this electronic system of magnification, inexpensive light-emitting diodes added to the basic cellphone shine their light on a sample slide placed over the phone’s camera chip. Some of the light waves hit the cells suspended in the sample, scattering off the cells and interfering with the other light waves.“When the waves interfere,” Dr. Brady said, “they create a pattern called a hologram.” The detector in the camera records that hologram or interference pattern as a series of pixels.
The holograms are rich in information, Dr. Ozcan said. “We can learn a lot in seconds,” he said. “We can process the information mathematically and reconstruct images like those you would see with a microscope.”
More from the New York Times...
(hat tip: Engadget)
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Friday, November 6, 2009
Delivery Method for Iomai's Transcutaneous Vaccine
We've previously covered Iomai Corp's (now part of Intercell) transcutaneous vaccination technology, with the idea being that if you're able to vaccinate patients through their skin, you can take advantage of the high density of Langerhans cells in the epidermis to activate an amplified immune response. Also, since transcutaneous vaccination does not involve systemic exposure, you're able to use more potent immune stimulants. These factors, in addition to it being needle-less, make transcutaneous vaccination an appealing option because you need less vaccine for an equal immune response. Additionally, having the vaccine in this dry, patch form also allows it to last much longer without refrigeration (possibly up to six months).
Application of the vaccine, however, first requires you to scrape off some of the keratinized epithelium to gain access to the Langerhans cells. This abrasion needs to be consistent, painless, and easy enough that it could be self-administered. At TEDMED, we've heard from IDEO's CEO Tim Brown, whose design firm was hired to develop the application technique for the transcutaneous vaccine patches. IDEO came up with a band aid looking device with a bulls eye and an attached tab. Pressing at the center and pulling the tab draws an abrasive strip across the skin, as well as leaves an ink mark to show where the vaccine patch should be placed. The application device and patch is also made using only standard processes and materials so they'd be easily manufactured in developing countries.
The administration device and patch are currently in phase two clinical trials for pandemic influenza.
Product page @ IDEO...
Flasback:Immunity That's More Than Skin Deep...
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Thursday, November 5, 2009
Quick and Easy Test for Pesticide Presence in Food and Drinks
Scientists from McMaster University in Canada have developed a dipstick that changes color when exposed to organophosphate pesticides. The test provides results in a matter of minutes, is reportedly inexpensive to produce, could be used for food testing, and perhaps might lead to a marketable product that one day could be found in food stores.
From the abstract in Analytical Chemistry:
A reagentless bioactive paper-based solid-phase biosensor was developed for detection of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors, including organophosphate pesticides. The assay strip is composed of a paper support (1 x 10 cm), onto which AChE and a chromogenic substrate, indophenyl acetate (IPA), were entrapped using biocompatible sol-gel derived silica inks in two different zones (e.g., sensing and substrate zones). The assay protocol involves first introducing the sample to the sensing zone via lateral flow of a pesticide-containing solution. Following an incubation period, the opposite end of the paper support is placed into distilled deionized water (ddH2O) to allow lateral flow in the opposite direction to move paper-bound IPA to the sensing area to initiate enzyme catalyzed hydrolysis of the substrate, causing a yellow-to-blue color change. The modified sensor is able to detect pesticides without the use of any external reagents with excellent detection limits (bendiocarb ~ 1 nM; carbaryl ~ 10 nM; paraoxon ~ 1 nM; malathion ~ 10 nM) and rapid response times (5 min). The sensor strip showed negligible matrix effects in detection of pesticides in spiked milk and apple juice samples. Bioactive paper-based assays on pesticide residues collected from food samples showed good agreement with a conventional mass spectrometric assay method.
Abstract in Analytical Chemistry: Reagentless Bidirectional Lateral Flow Bioactive Paper Sensors for Detection of Pesticides in Beverage and Food Samples
Statement by the American Chemical Society: An inexpensive 'dipstick' test for pesticides in foods ...
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Friday, October 23, 2009
AED Location Database Points to Nearest Life Saving Device
Automatic external defibrillators (AED's) are becoming more common in public places like airports, theaters, and sports stadiums. To be effective, you must quickly find the nearest AED while in an unfamiliar environment, a task that's not immediately obvious when seconds count. Bertalan Meskó at ScienceRoll is reporting that Lucien Engelen, a technologist at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in Holland, has a project to geolocate AEDs, and make the data available for mobile browsers. Additionally, you can use a location aware application like the Layar Reality Browser to pinpoint immediately where the AED is located in your vicinity.
Link: AED4EU...
Product page: Layar Reality Browser
(hat tip: ScienceRoll)
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Thursday, October 8, 2009
MedPageToday Unmasks the Surgical Mask
MedPageToday has published an interesting article that looks at the evidence of whether surgical masks, as well as tight seal respirators, such as N95, provide any protection to healthcare workers or patients. So what's the article's findings? The evidence that masks provide any meaningful respiratory shield is indeed quite slim, even for the operating room environment. Hence the conclusion:
"Masks and respirators should be considered the 'last line of defense' in a hierarchy of infection control measures."
Full story: Unmasking the Surgical Mask: Does It Really Work?...
Image credit Eneas @ Flickr...
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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Microsoft Unveils H1N1 Swine Flu Response Center
Today Microsoft in partnership with Emory University unveiled the H1N1 Flu Response Center to help people experiencing symptoms of sickness to triage themselves, thereby keeping ERs unclogged for those who might really need clinical help. We participated today in a conference call with David Cerino, General Manager, Microsoft Health Solutions Group and Dr. Arthur Kellermann, Professor of Emergency Medicine and Associate Dean at Emory School of Medicine about this free public health service.
The simple website poses a series of questions based on three levels of assessment developed by Emory with guidance from CDC recommendations. Using basic English, that just about anyone can understand and what a primary care physician would be asking, a series of questions is presented. First, the system identifies whether you meet the CDC criteria of flu. And if so, it proceeds to look for symptoms of potentially severe illness, immediately suggesting you to see a doc. If the illness is not severe enough, the questions then try to identify associated risk factors of becoming sick with the flu, finally leading to a recommendation of whether to seek professional help. Currently operational for people 12 years of age and older, the system should be functional to include children in the next few days. Additionally, Microsoft promises to soon include services from TelaDoc, linking patients with real physicians for further assessment of their condition.
Link: Microsoft H1N1 Flu Response Center...
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Tuesday, September 1, 2009
"Outbreaks Near Me": Practical Epidemiology for The iPhone
For the last three years we've been covering HealthMap, an online tool that tracks the spread of infectious disease, as reported from a number of credible sources (see flashbacks below). Now researchers from Children's Hospital Boston in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab have combined the resources of HealthMap with the networking and geolocation abilities of the iPhone to create a portable application that can keep you aware of disease outbreaks around you. The app will even raise an alarm when it realizes you, for example, entered an area with a high rate of recent reports of H1N1.
The new application also features an option for users to submit an outbreak report. This will enable individuals in cities and countries around the world to interact with the HealthMap team and participate in the public health surveillance process. Users may take photos - of situations and scenarios of, and/or leading to, disease - with their iPhone and submit them to the HealthMap system for review and eventual posting as an alert on the worldwide map."This is grassroots, participatory epidemiology," says HealthMap co-founder Clark Freifeld, a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab and research software developer at CHIP. "In releasing this app we aim to empower citizens in the cause of public health, not only by providing ready access to real-time information, but also by encouraging them to contribute their own knowledge, expertise, and observations. In enabling participation in surveillance, we also expect to increase global coverage and identify outbreaks earlier."
Press release: New iPhone app "Outbreaks Near Me" locates H1N1 (swine flu), infectious diseases
Product page: Outbreaks Near Me
Flashbacks: Swine Flu As Spectator Sport; The Latest on HealthMap, an Online Disease-Mining System; BoingBoing Shamefully Ignores Valid Questions; More about User-Generated Content; HEALTHmap Global Disease Tracker
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» Meth Cooks Getting Big Brother Treatment (August 13, 2008)
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» Cavity-Fighting Herbal Lollipop (February 6, 2008)
» TruDefender FT for Chemical Identification (February 1, 2008)
» Neighborhood Pollen Watch (January 30, 2008)
» Nanovector Trojan Horses (NTH): Drug That May Prevent Radiation Injury (January 29, 2008)
» Aquaduct, The Three Wheeled Water Filter (January 18, 2008)
» Basic Tools for Public Health (January 15, 2008)
» Plague, Tularemia Tests Approved (January 14, 2008)
» HawkEye Inebriation Detection Tool for Police (January 10, 2008)
» iDead with iPod (January 10, 2008)
» Coming Soon: Kraft Programmable Food (January 7, 2008)
» One Vaccine To Rule Them All (January 7, 2008)
» Google Algorithm to Search Out Hospital Superbugs (January 7, 2008)
» Scientists Discover Fast-Acting Cyanide Antidote (December 27, 2007)
» Poodwaddle World Clock of Global Health Stats (December 17, 2007)
» Voodoo Medicine on YouTube (December 6, 2007)
» Another Nose on a Chip (November 2, 2007)
» Pulse Oximeter Outs Closet Smokers (October 24, 2007)
» The Impact Jacket for Fearful Daredevils (October 17, 2007)
» Nonstructural Components Simulator: San Francisco Hospital in a Nutshell (October 15, 2007)
» The RESCUE Project (October 12, 2007)
» mPedigree to Track Meds in Africa (October 5, 2007)
» Nano Biosensor Encoders for Food Borne Pathogens (October 4, 2007)
» Water-Harvesting Technology from Aqua Sciences (September 28, 2007)
» Portable Device Under Development for Biotoxin Detection (September 28, 2007)
» CD Players Now Used for Chemical Detection (September 25, 2007)
» Passive Millimeter-Wave Spectroscopy (PmmWS) for Chemical Detection (September 7, 2007)
» The Math of Donor Organ Matching (September 5, 2007)
» Drug Testing Entire Cities (August 22, 2007)
» Mobile Biosensor Sensitivity Increased (August 21, 2007)
» World of Warcraft Finally Used for Science (August 21, 2007)
» MySpace for Space Cadets (August 16, 2007)
» Italian Town to Pay Residents to Lose Weight (August 14, 2007)
» More Nissan Accident Prevention News (August 7, 2007)
» Don't Go Toward the Light (August 6, 2007)
» Hands off the Booty! (July 6, 2007)
» Odor-Reader Wins University of Bristol's New Enterprise Competition (July 5, 2007)
» Please Get Your Pets "Chipped" (July 3, 2007)
» MAKE: CDC-Disease Cards (June 28, 2007)
» Video Game Addiction: We Don't Care (June 28, 2007)
» Humans As Medgadgets: Chinese Edition (June 22, 2007)
» The MEDoctor System (June 7, 2007)
» Feral Children...No, Really! (June 5, 2007)
» CPR Teddy: Helpful or Creepy (June 4, 2007)
» Improved Radiation Detectors Developed by DoE (June 1, 2007)
» MedSignals Digital Pill Box (May 24, 2007)
» Personal Water Purifier: No Excuse for Drinking Dirty Water Now (May 21, 2007)
» You Know This One Came out of UCSF: Marijuana Vaporizing Device a Success (May 17, 2007)
» Treadmill-Desk Burns 100 Calories per Hour (May 16, 2007)
» Rotavirus Vaccine Goes Sublingual (May 15, 2007)
» Special Needs Population Planner Software (May 15, 2007)
» 3M™ Class 95 Particulate Respirators to Save the Nation (May 9, 2007)
» Squirrel, a Personal Air Pollution Monitor (May 7, 2007)
» Biosensor That Detects Thousands of Bioagents (May 1, 2007)
» Kids Fight Diabetes with Comic Book (May 1, 2007)
» News Flash: Medgadgets Sold on Infomercials Might be Scams (April 26, 2007)
» Pullit Condoms: The (2nd) Fastest Condom (April 26, 2007)
» Band of Life: USB Bracelet Carries Patients' Health Info (April 24, 2007)
» A New Frontier in Awkward: Do Your Own Pap-Smears (April 6, 2007)
» Risk of Nanomaterials Evaluated (March 27, 2007)
» Sulis Personal Water Purifier (March 22, 2007)
» Quartz Laser Photo-Acoustic Sensing of Chemical Weapons (March 20, 2007)
» Biosand Filter Reduces Diarrheal Diseases (March 20, 2007)
» Smoking 2.0: Smoke Free, Tar Free, Battery Powered = Healthy? (March 15, 2007)
» Copper Door Handles to Beat MRSA? (March 15, 2007)
» Asleep At the Wheel? (March 7, 2007)
» New UN Radiation Warning: Skull & Crossbones (February 21, 2007)
» Self-Charging Smoke Detector (January 25, 2007)
» Scientists Report Developing a Novel Water Filtration System (January 11, 2007)
» Toyota Develops Device to Detect Drunk Drivers (January 9, 2007)
» Ruminations on the Reprocessed Device Debate (December 21, 2006)
» Mosquitoes May Become Our Allies (December 21, 2006)
» Wi-Fi Debate Heats Up (December 14, 2006)
» Vagina's Molecular Armor (December 13, 2006)
» Microscopic Barcodes Identify Biological Weapons Quickly (December 1, 2006)
» Spray On Condom = Instant Lovin' (December 1, 2006)
» Mercedes Develops Anti-Microsleep System (November 29, 2006)
» Lasers Detect a Single Virus in 60 Seconds or Less (November 17, 2006)
» "A Survey of Current Practices in the Nanotechnology Workplace" (November 16, 2006)
» Paint-On Polymer Kills Influenza (November 15, 2006)
» A Concrete Step Toward Cleaner Air (November 14, 2006)
» Fizzy Drinks May Cause Pancreatic Cancer (November 13, 2006)
» Vaccination Prevents Lung Cancer (November 9, 2006)
» Using the Retina to Check for Malaria (November 7, 2006)
» Germophobia is Out of Control (November 6, 2006)
» Graphic Images on Cigarette Packages (November 2, 2006)
» Severe Micro-Cellulotamination (November 2, 2006)
» Obesity Epidemic Spurs Growth in Oversized Surgical Tools (November 2, 2006)
» Video Games to Help Spread HIV Education (November 1, 2006)
» STD Testing Online (October 27, 2006)
» General Flu Vaccines in the UK: Worth the Hassle? (October 27, 2006)
» HEALTHmap Global Disease Tracker (October 19, 2006)
» Counterfeit Glucose Test Strips Hit Market (October 16, 2006)
» Vocal Fire Alarm (October 9, 2006)
» Nanotechnology To Stop Weaponized Anthrax (October 5, 2006)
» Treatment to Offer "Instant Flu Protection" (October 4, 2006)
» Doctors Want "Recall" Dropped (October 2, 2006)
» Anthrax Spore Detector by Veritide (October 2, 2006)
» In the Works: Highly Sensitive E. coli Detector (September 26, 2006)
» Anti-smoking Message in a Cigarette (September 25, 2006)
» Shocking Into CPR (September 22, 2006)
» Anthrax Detector Hushed? (September 21, 2006)
» Biological Warning and Incident Characterization (BWIC) (September 18, 2006)
» Put Your Virus/Bacteria/Toxin Detecting Nanofiber Napkin Back in Your Lap! (September 15, 2006)
» Radilex™: Rx for Ionizing Radiation (August 31, 2006)
» Convalescent Plasma: Future H5N1 Treatment? (August 30, 2006)
» CDC: FluChip Performs Well (August 29, 2006)
» The TekSensor™ (August 28, 2006)
» OTC Sales as an Early Warning of Pandemic, Bioterrorism (August 25, 2006)
» The Ozone Forecaster (August 24, 2006)
» New Methods for Screening Nanoparticles; Prelim Results Obtained (August 22, 2006)
» Monoclonal Antibody Anthrax Detector (August 21, 2006)
» The Rapidly Deployable Chemical Detection System (August 17, 2006)
» Urgent Health Notice: Don't Put it in Your Mouth (August 16, 2006)
» Clinics Employ Secret Shoppers (August 15, 2006)
» FDA Nanotechnology Task Force (August 15, 2006)
» The Saga of the Finger Saving SawStop (August 15, 2006)
» Fire Tubes (August 9, 2006)
» Bacterial Nanoprocessing of Uranium (August 8, 2006)
» Inhaled Nanoparticles Take a Direct Route to Brain (August 7, 2006)
» BioBlower (August 3, 2006)
» MAKE: Super Cheap Water-Purifcation Straw (August 3, 2006)
» SenTAG Swim Alerts (June 22, 2006)
» The SmartSense System: Instantaneous Detection of Avian Flu (June 13, 2006)
» The Effort to Decriminalize Hypodermic Needle Sales in Massachusetts (June 9, 2006)
» Nuclear / Biological / Chemical Protection for Kids! (June 5, 2006)
» Siemens: Now and Forever (May 30, 2006)
» Cell Phone Usage Predicts Teen Depression? (May 25, 2006)
» Anti-Diarrheal Rice Makers Flushed Out of California, Straining to Take Root in North Carolina (May 22, 2006)
» Giant Medgadget: Mercedes Bus-Based Ambulance (May 18, 2006)
» Virginia Tech Applies Antimicrobial System to Athletics Facility (May 17, 2006)
» Air Putrifiers (May 10, 2006)
» New York's Diabetics Face Higher (Government) Pressure (April 19, 2006)
» Possible H5N1 Epidemic Modeled on Supercomputer (April 5, 2006)
» Saying Goodbye to the Guinea Worm (March 27, 2006)
» Better Living Through Bacon (March 27, 2006)
» Air Showers for Allergies (March 16, 2006)
» Full Force of Multimedia to Combat Meth Epidemic (February 27, 2006)
» Making Work More Work (February 24, 2006)
» Monitoring Grey Goo: From Nano to Human Scale (February 22, 2006)
» College: No More Reckless Experimentation (February 22, 2006)
» Reversible Microlenses for Fast Chemical Detection (February 16, 2006)
» New York City Offers Protection (February 16, 2006)
» Bottoms Up, Down Under (February 8, 2006)
» New Testing Method to Assess Health Risks of Grey Goo (February 6, 2006)
» Paranoia Runs Deep (February 1, 2006)
» A New Method to Detect Clusters of MRSA (January 27, 2006)
» FDA Panel Votes to Approve OTC Anti-Obesity Drug (January 24, 2006)
» Laughter Can Cure (January 19, 2006)
» Cracking Down on Employees Who Smoke (December 21, 2005)
» Gather 'Round the Fireplace and Share Medical History (December 21, 2005)
» The Mighty Mouse (December 16, 2005)
» Keep Fat In Mind (November 30, 2005)
» Government Pushes for Keychain Medical Records (November 21, 2005)
» Dogs Are Truly Man's Best Friend (November 16, 2005)
» FDA Audited in Rejection of "Morning After Pill" for OTC use (November 15, 2005)
» Breathe Easy: The US Government Has a Flu Website (November 8, 2005)
» Handheld HIV Test (November 7, 2005)
» Tobacco Tracking in Japan (November 2, 2005)
» Giant Microbes: Infectious Fun (November 2, 2005)
» Motorola Antibacterial Phone (November 2, 2005)
» NIAID Awards $47 Million in New Effort to Develop Medical Countermeasures Against Radiological and Nuclear Threats (October 13, 2005)
» Cell Phones vs. Brain Tissue: Nothing Stressful (October 12, 2005)
» Betting on the Flu (October 11, 2005)
» Genetically Manipulated Mosquito Species To Fight Malaria (October 11, 2005)
» MyPyramid for Kids (September 30, 2005)
» Infrared Detection of Meat Contamination (September 29, 2005)
» Cold War Provides Helpful New Forensic Tool (September 16, 2005)
» Sensicore 's WaterPoint for Rapid Purity Testing (September 1, 2005)
» Detecting Anthrax Proteins at Ultralow Concentrations (August 31, 2005)
» Computer Model Could Help Prevent Avian Flu Pandemic (August 4, 2005)
» Traffic Congestion, Lung Congestion (July 27, 2005)
» Using Wikipedia Entry for Pandemic Preparedness (June 15, 2005)
» Glucon: Blood Sugar Magic (June 2, 2005)
» LifeStraw™ (May 23, 2005)
» BROOM: A Contamination Area Management System (April 26, 2005)
» Inspector Raman™ (April 22, 2005)
» Portable High-Resolution NMR Sensor Demonstrated at Berkeley (April 13, 2005)
» Hospital Computer Keyboards: a Role in Nosocomial Transmission? (April 12, 2005)
» Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER) for PDA's (March 21, 2005)
» Nebraska Medical Center Unveils Biocontainment Unit (March 10, 2005)
» Insects, viruses could hold key for better human teamwork in disasters (March 2, 2005)
» A new epidemiologic method described (February 23, 2005)
» BioVeris M1M Analyzer (February 11, 2005)
» Electronic system for prescriptions sought (February 9, 2005)
» The electronic-submissions gateway to FDA (February 8, 2005)
» Anthrax 'Smoke Detector' (January 10, 2005)
» Vioxx Aftershocks (December 24, 2004)
