Sex, lies and hyperbole

Calling for paragons of virtue. The vital issue is truth, not s-x, the Melbourne Sun Herald columnist Susie O’Brien told us this morning. Ms O’Brien must be that rare breed of person who never tells a lie as she thinks that politicians like South Australian Premier Mike Rann should never duck and weave or try and evade questions about their private life. Fortunately most voters do not have such an impossible standard when it comes to judging their elected representatives. If they did then Ms O’Brien would surely be the country’s dictator.

Scientists shouldn’t be human either. Scientists are another group that columnists this morning think should not possess the passions of ordinary people. The stolen emails getting Piers Akerman and Andrew Bolt so excited on their News Limited blog sites showed that even climate researchers can get a bit hot under the collar when talking about those that don’t agree with them. To which the response should be – so what? Instead we have some more of those amazing conspiracy theories that climate change doubters delight in.

Swine flu mutation. Perhaps it will be just in time to fill in the Australian summer news silly season: swine flu scares look like making a comeback. From China this morning comes the news that the same mutation of the H1N1 virus involved in two deaths in Norway has now turned up in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland. Not that the World Health Organisation is yet at panic stations although that is unlikely to inhibit tabloid editors when the emissions trading saga has moved on.

The WHO reported this week that the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has informed it of a mutation detected in three H1N1 viruses. The viruses were isolated from the first two fatal cases of pandemic influenza in the country and one patient with severe illness. Norwegian scientists have analysed samples from more than 70 patients with clinical illness and no further instances of this mutation have been detected. This finding suggests, says the WHO, that the mutation is not widespread in the country.

The significance of the mutation is being assessed by scientists in the WHO network of influenza laboratories. Changes in viruses at the genetic level need to be constantly monitored. However, the significance of these changes is difficult to assess. Many mutations do not alter any important features of the virus or the illness it causes. For this reason, WHO also uses clinical and epidemiological data when making risk assessments.

Although further investigation is under way, no evidence currently suggests that these mutations are leading to an unusual increase in the number of H1N1 infections or a greater number of severe or fatal cases.

The book review that matters. Last month I mentioned my reservations about the decision by the executors of the estate of A.A.Milne to have a new author and a new illustrator write another Winnie the Pooh volume. David Benedictus and Mark Burgess, it seemed to me, had a very difficult brief in not sullying Pooh’s reputation but I promised to withhold judgment until I gave the volume the reading test with the grand children. That verdict is now in.

“Return to the Hundred Acre Wood”, inspired by A.A.Milne and E.H.Shepherd, was given a rave review after enchanting a pair of boys. Their delight and enthusiasm was as great for this revival as it had been for the originals.

Exterminate, Exterminate! With due acknowledgments to the blog of Paul Krugman who drew my attention to this starting news:

We should be very afraid. The new European Foreign Secretary Catherine Ashton has a full size Dalek — a gift from her husband — in the corner of her bed room