Saint Nickanuck of the Tundra

I was recently interviewed by Philip and Lisa Mulford for this week’s episode of their audio show, Communication 360. From the episode description:

Every day [swine flu] is in the news, often with conflicting information. Even the medical community is inconsistent. So what do you do? And more importantly what is the best decision for your child? Having already experienced the H1N1 with both their boys, Philip & Lisa are joined by infectious disease specialist Dr. John Cmar to identify the fact from the myth and put the H1N1 back in perspective.

Communication 360 in general focuses on the different roles that communication has in relationships, understanding how it can break down, and ways to mediate it after it has. Given how much of the recent “swine flu” hysteria has been due to often poor communication from news media and medical authorities to the general public, I was eager to explore influenza from this perspective.

Our hour chat was fun, and ended up covering a lot of ground. We had a good discussion of how many aspects of talking about influenza – such as basic questions like “is this a bad flu season?” or “is there more than one H1N1?” – are not straightforward, and require a nuanced discussion that is often difficult to communicate to laypersons in limited time. There were many questions raised that I didn’t have a chance to discuss in detail, including some aspects of influenza vaccines and overhyped side effect possibilities. Now that some of the reactionary influenza coverage has died down a bit in the media at large, I’ll be taking a closer look at some of these issues in future posts.

Go here to listen to the program, and remember: wash your hands, people.

(Please note that I was accidentally credited as being an “infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins” early in the episode, but this was corrected later on in the program to reflect my infectious diseases and clinical work at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, and my teaching appointments through Johns Hopkins University.)

The latest episode of The Secret Lair is up, which is the first ever special episode of the show. Partially inspired by this set of musings, Overlords Miller and Johnson had me on as a guest to chat about various aspects of the novel H1N1 pandemic, including media hype, some of the science behind it, and prevention. Influenza this season is a sprawling topic, but we were able to hit on a few of the most important aspects, and incorporate some listener questions as well. I’ve done many influenza-related interviews this season, but I can say that this one was the best – the combination of intelligent and witty interviewers without a time limit or agenda resulted in the quite the meaningful and entertaining discussion. It was a blast to do, and hopefully we’ll be able to arrange more of these types of episodes in the future.

Go here and listen, else when the Overlords’ time comes, you will be the first into servitude.

• I am participating in How Not To Grow A Beard Month, which through the Beards4Boobs project is raising money for breast cancer research. I’ll have a more detailed post on this here tomorrow, but for now, enjoy the results of Day -1, Day 0, and Day 1.

• It turns out Kilroy 2.0 not only hacked this site, but also the GLF. Everything is back in working order now, and I congratulate J.C. Hutchins on the successful print launch of 7th Son: Descent!