Flu vaccination

A few days ago I got vaccinated against the flu for the first time in my life. This was the "regular" type A seasonal influenza vaccine, not H1:N1. Turns out, at least with my health insurance cooperative, that at my age I don't fall into the necessary risk category for H1:N1. This is between 6 and 25 or over 60 years old, or those at risk because of other predisposing health conditions.

So why haven't I been vaccinated in the past? I think it stems from one of my early microbiology classes as an undergraduate, during the 1976 swine flu epidemic. Shortly after mass vaccination started, there were reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome affecting a small fraction of those vaccinated (~4000 out of 46 million vaccinated, or 0.01%; "Reflections on the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccination Program"). In spite of the low risk, a professor teaching a virology class I was taking (a well respected virologist) suggested that the vaccine may not have been quite ready for mass immunization, and that was enough to dissuade me.

So even though I've been an active researcher in infectious disease and completely understand the risk/benefits of vaccination, until this week I resisted the flu vaccine. I've had just about every other recommended one and never blinked, and darn well made sure my kids had all of theirs. In fact it drives me crazy when i hear the myriad excuses people make for not getting their kids vaccinated for measles, pertussis, and other highly communicable infectious agents. Maybe I resisted because I think I've only had "real" influenza a few times in my life. Or maybe it's my faith in "herd immunity." However after seeing enough reports that HI:N1 appears to be especially hard on otherwise health young people, I called both of my kids (19 and 23) and made them promise to go get it. I'll be on their backs until they do. And I'll be getting annual flu shots myself from now on.

Research change of direction

Lately, for a variety of reasons, I've been moving much of the lab research away from single gene pathogenesis studies towards the application of bacterial genomics and metagenomics to studies of microbial ecology and adaptation to the environment. Of particular interest is to examine whether environmental (climate) change may be driving adaptation and selection of the microbial community, with a focus on adaptation that leads to increased virulence of specific pathogens. We are using a variety of genetic, genomic, and phylogenetic tools for this now, and soon we will be applying comparative whole genome strategies to get at the questions we want to answer. The overall goal is to develop better sensors, forecasting tools, or add additional data to risk models that can be used to improve human health (prevention of infectious disease) or as measurements of environmental health.

Over the years I've occasionally had trouble fitting my laboratory's microbiology research into the main research and resource management focus of my immediate line office. Overall, this newer direction now fits in well with the mission of my agency, in that the results of the basic research can be more easily shown to have direct applicability to products that should benefit resource and public health managers. (Some other time I may write about ecosystem services.)

This direction has necessitated some self 're-training' in the disciplines of genomics and bioinformatics, although I've been moving into this arena for some time now (recent publication). The challenge is stimulating and energizing, something I think many of us need time to time in this profession. I'm eager to get going.

First post

If I get my act together, this will be a place I use to gather thoughts about research I'm doing, discuss interesting science by others, or whatever else I feel like writing about, at least publicly. Sometimes warts and all.