Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, do you remember a few weeks ago when we talked to Daniel Pink about the science of perfect timing? What if I said no, like, would you be concerned about that? That? Maybe a little bit concerned because this was just a few weeks ago, but especially because it was a super interesting episode and conversation and just all of that talk about how timing matters in so many ways that we don't stop and
think about. You know, one of the things we talked about was how much timing matters when it comes to medical treatments, like when not to have a surgery or when to go to the doctor. But you know, one of the things we didn't talk about were the strange findings around the time of day and getting vaccinations and other specific medical treatments wait at the time of day
matters from vaccinations. Yeah, So there was this really interesting story about this in Scientific American and everything from cancer treatments to flu shots can trigger slightly different responses in our bodies depending on the time of day that we get them. So with flu shots, a few studies have actually found that those who got flu shots before eleven a m produced more antibodies than those who got them
later in the afternoon, which is so strange. It really is, and it's yet another reminder of just how much we have to learn about our body clocks and the way they work. But back to the flu. I mean, we wanted to focus today's episode on answering some of the many questions people have, like why are some flu seasons worse than others, how do scientists know when some seasons will be particularly bad, and what goes into deciding what this year's vaccine is going to look like. Those are
just a few of the questions we're answering today. So let's dive in Y today their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest ticket and on the other side of the soundproof glass offering complimentary flu shots. I think, yeah, that's what the sign says to anybody brave enough to take him on it. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I mean, it is a nice gesture,
don't you think, Mango. Yeah, although probably an illegal one too, I'm guessing. Well, either way, he's getting a lot of side eye glances from people around the office today. But I can't say I blame the guy for wanting to take some precautions. I mean, you know, personally vaccinating all your coworkers might be an extreme reaction. But yeah, there's no denying that this year's flu season is a pretty
rough one. For example, I was looking at some of the stats and the latest flu update from January nineteenth, the CDC reports that thirty two states plus New York City in Puerto Rico are currently experiencing what's considered high flu activity, and things aren't much better in other states. In fact, Hawaii is actually the only U. S state that's not experiencing widespread flu activity. Yeah, but I mean, it's all sad to deal with false alarms around missile strikes,
so it's it's a bit of a trade off. I guess. Yeah, that's a fair point. But you know, as you might have guessed, today's show is all about influenza or is it's better known just the flu, And we're gonna talk a little bit about what the illness is and how it spreads, as well as some of the clever ways analysts have found to track flu activity. But we also want to debunk some of the popular misconceptions around the flu.
And you know, since I just brought up the severity of this year's flu season, I do want to make
sure we put some of that hype in perspective. Yeah, I mean, you don't want to give the flu a bad name or anything, right, I mean, you know, people talk, but seriously, you know, while there have been close to nine thousand influence of related hospitalization since October of last year, the overall hospitalization rate is actually down from the two thousand fourteen two thousand fifteen season, which was considered a very high severity season. So all, this year's flu season
is a bad one. It is an unprecedented and we've actually dealt with worse in recent years. Yeah. It's also worth keeping in mind that the CDC announced on January twelve that flu activity has likely peaked for the season, which is a good thing. Although even if the worst is over, officials say there's still about three months to go until the illness is gone for the season. Oh wow, so it is still a good idea to get that
flu shot. Just I don't know, maybe not from TRISCA. Right. Well, while we're setting to the record straight about the flu. We should probably address one of the biggest myths about it, which is that you can use antibiotics to treat it. And this is something a lot of people swear by, but the truth is that antibiotics only respond to illness is caused by bacteria, and since the flu is born from virus, not bacteria, antibiotics actually don't have any effect
on it. Yeah, you know, and this is something I think many of our listeners probably already know. But it is surprising when you read survey after survey of people misunderstanding this. So so why do you think it trips up so many people. Well, part of it is that a viral infection of the nose thrown lungs can sometimes
lead to bacterial illnesses like bronchitis. Like antibiotics do have an effect on this kind of secondary bacterial infection, so sometimes as people credit them for helping with both kinds of illness. And that kind of confusion was especially common a few decades ago when it was really popular with doctors to preemptively prescribe antibiotics to flu patients. This was kind of a way to ward off the bacterial complications. And you know, once the patients began to feel better,
they had mistakenly attribute the recovery to these trusty antibiotics. Yeah, and I think the other confusion is around the stomach flu though, too. I mean, I think antibotics typically do help with that, right, Yeah they do. I mean that's only because the stomach flu isn't a real thing, or at least it's not actually influenza. So remember, the flu is of respiratory illness caused by viruses. It has nothing
to do with the gastro intestinal system. But people associate the general feeling of awfulness they get from stomach sickness with that of having, you know, a nasty case of the flu. So any kind of stomach bug or food born illness just gets labeled the flu. Well, and you know, since antibotics would actually help with the kind of bacteria you deal with in food poisoning, that's I don't know, maybe another reason for this whole myth about that helping
them with the flu. Yeah, that's right. I mean people just hone in on the time antibiotics help them kick the stomach flu. Yeah. Well, you know, another misconception about the flu is how it's spread. You know, most people know the illness can be spread by others through these droplets of fluid that we expel when we cough or sneeze or even just talk. And these droplets can be launched as far as six feet, which makes it easy
for them to land in people's mouths or noses. It's just nasty to think about it, but you know they're inhaling them into their lungs as well, so it's it's pretty easy to spread that. It's so gross to think about. Yeah, but you know, the other way to spread the flu is through contact with contaminated objects, and this is where some folks get mixed up. Again, many of our listeners probably already know this, but it is something that comes
up time and again people not understanding it is. And that's that the flu is not transferred through the skin. So you're not going to get sick by just touching a contaminated door knob or shaking hands with somebody who has the flu. So I mean we should talk about why it's to keep washing your hands during the flu season though, well, because with the fluid goes back to the nose and the mouth, so if you touch something coated with the virus and then you touch your nose
or mouth, that's when the infection occurs. And of course this is why you definitely don't want to share dishes or utensils with somebody who has the flu either. I mean, I don't want to share those things with anyone period. But that's definitely good advice. So one crazy statistic I found while researching is that approximately one third of families with schoolish children are actually infected with the flu each year.
A third. I mean, that's insane, And I think one reason that's the case is that spreading the flu might be even easier than we think. And how's that. Well, according to a new study from the University of Maryland, breathing alone is enough to spread the flu virus, never
mind sneezing or coughing. So what happened was researchers gathered bread samples from a hundred forty two people who were confirmed to have the flu, and after testing those samples, it was found that nearly half of the fine aerosol droplets collected during normal breathing contained viral r n A. Alright, so so just exhaling can cause the virus to spread.
You know, it's still something like sneezing. It seems like that has to be way worse, right, Like, I think a lot more of the what did you call them, the aerosol droplets, It seems like more of those would be pushed out with a sneeze than just your normal breathing, right, Yeah, I mean you think so. But sneezing happens a lot less often than breathing, so it isn't as big a
contributor as you guess. In fact, when participants in UMD study provided sneeze samples, there wasn't much viral RNA and those aerosol droplets, So really, sneezing isn't the big factor as big a factor in spreading the flu virus as coughing or even just breathing normally. All right, So I think we need to pause just to figure out whether there's an upside to this research or is this really only good for making me even more paranoid about being
around people with the flu? Well, I mean, it's suggests a new ways to help fight the spread of the flu, such as improving ventilation in schools or offices or even subway cars. But probably the biggest upside is that the fine things might actually make public health initiatives more accurate at tracking the risk of flu epidemics and also controlling
the outbreaks. So having a better sense of how the virus spreads through the air will go a long way towards improving the computer models we used for that kind of work. Yeah, you know, and I'm glad you mentioned the effort to track these and predict the flu outbreaks, because there's a new model for this that I do
want to talk about. So back in two thousand thirteen, the CDC kicked off this official it was called the Predict the Influence the Season Challenge on the exciting but you know, it was this way of encouraging researchers to find ways of using social media to predict and track the flu. And so you had researchers from all over the country competing in this kind of thing, and even
companies like Google getting involved. But one of the most interesting results of the challenge came from Northeastern University in Boston. So last year, a team they're collected location data from over fifty million tweets. And we've talked a little bit before about the use of like mass data in order to try to predict certain things, but they were just
grabbing content willy nilly. Instead, they restricted their research to messages that contain flu related words like coughing and vomiting, and then all this data help them form this picture of early flu activity all over the country. And they did this like a full six weeks before the flu season officially began, which is kind of amazing, right, six
weeks before the season. But what's the practical application for like that kind of mapping, Well, it helps these health organizations predict the amount of flu cases to expect that season, you know, as well as how the virus might peak and when it might peak, and whether it may be more or less contagious than previous years. And it heads up of this kind of stuff can help when the
illness hits in full force. In any given years, somewhere between five and of the US population comes down with the flu, So knowing where we might fall on that scale definitely helps with preparations and helps to make sure there are enough flu vaccines available to meet the demand for the year, which makes sense, right, Like a little four warning counts for a lot when you're dealing with a matter of life and death and the flu is
most certainly that. In fact, according to the World Health the Organization and the CDC, the flu is responsible for somewhere between three hundred thousand and seven hundred thousand deaths worldwide each year, and between two thousand and two thousand sixteen flu related deaths in the U. S branch from about ten thousand to sixty annually. Wow. I mean, that's that's a lot of people, and it's pretty frightening to think about that. But you know, I've I've always wondered, like,
what is a flu related death? I mean, obviously understand the basic concept, but but how exactly does the flu kill somebody? Yeah, I was curious about that too, so I looked into it, and there are actually a few ways the flu can take us out. So first, it helps to know that once the flu virus enters your body, it immediately sets to work. It hijacks human cells in the nose and throat and converts them into copies of itself.
And this sudden influx of viral cells it triggers the immune system, which immediately responds by sending an army of white blood cells and antibodies to fight back the horde. Now, the good guy cells are victorious. In most cases, they destroyed the virus laden tissue and you start to feel better as a result within a few days or weeks.
But every now and then the immune system gets a little over eager with its defense efforts, and in these cases, so much tissue is destroyed that the lungs can no longer provide the blood with the amount of oxygen it needs, and this results in this deficiency of oxygen called hypoxia, which can be terminal. Another way the flu can be deadly is through those secondary bacterial infections that I mentioned earlier.
The immune system can exhaust itself fighting the flu, which leaves it open to attack by bacterial infections, which can then cause organ damage or even death. Wow, and and so which of these is actually more of a problem. Are there more flu related deaths due to the virus itself and what it does to the immune system, or you know, maybe to the bacterial infections that overwhelmness system. Yeah,
it really varies. So the viral strains that cause the flu are always changing from season to season, and it's typically the most virulent ones that collapse the immune system on their own. The bacterial related flu debts are more the result of a lack of cleanliness and the facilities where flu patients are housed. For example, some researchers think that during the infamous global flu pandemic of when cities were at their least hygienic, the majority of debts were
due to bacterial infections. Well, I know, there definitely is a lot more to say about the pandemic, and not all of that is going to be pretty So before we get into that, let's take a quick break. You're listening to part time Genius and we're talking about the ins and outs of influence, all right, so we definitely should talk a little bit about pandemics. But before we
do that, just a quick note on the terms. There so two words that crop up a lot when we discuss contagious diseases and illnesses, in these words epidemic and pandemic. So just to set the record straight, a flu epidemic is a sudden outbreak of the virus that spreads rapidly and of course affects a lot of people at once. In other words, flu epidemics happen every year and aren't
much of a cause for alarm on their own. Many of the cases that make up an epidemic are pretty mild, though of course there are always some that proved to be lethal, something that's unfortunately especially true for both very young and the elderly, who sadly account for the highest hospitalization rates during most flu seasons. On the other hand, a pandemic has caused for very much alarm, and there are two characteristics of pandemics that kind of explain why
this is. And the first is that the virus involved in the pandemic is always a new strain that's one that few people or or maybe even none at all have any kind of resistance too. And then the second is that a pandemic involves a virus that spread to more than one continent, and that basically means that this strain is gaining strength and claiming victims with no clear sign of slowing down. Yeah, flu pandemics have been re can havo pretty much since the illness came on the
scene in the late fifteen hundreds. That's when the first major flu pandemic on records swept through Asia and Europe and wiped out roughly ten percent of Rome's population in
just one week's time. It's crazy, right, And since then there have been more than a dozen confirmed flu pandemics, but the worst in modern history is undoubtedly the one from Well and this is the one that most people refer to as the Spanish Flu, right yeah, which really has been one of the most unfair misnomers in history, because the Spanish Flu definitely didn't come from Spain or the Spaniards. You know, I remember hearing that that was the case, but I can't remember why this nickname came
about in the first place. That do you know why this is? Well? World War One was nearing its end by the time the pandemic rolled around, and most countries involved were wary of letting their enemies know how badly they had been hit by the flu. So in places like Germany, France, Austria, UK US, even like all the major players, news outlets weren't allowed to report on the true extent of the crisis. But Spain, if you'll remember it, was neutral, like, they had no reason to hide the
flues impact. So when Spanish papers became the first report on the millions of flu related deaths in the country, many people got to fase impression that the country was disproportionately affected by the illness and that it must have also originated there. I would say, that's pretty much the definition of a bum round. But all right, so if Spain definitely wasn't the originator, who was. I mean, it's
still a matter of debate. Actually, some researchers think it originated in East Asia, some think it's in Europe, but others claim it started in Kansas, where U. S. Soldiers occupied this unsanitary military base before shipping off for the fighting Europe. But no matter where the pandemic virus began geographically, we now know that it adapted from an avian virus strain, so the bird flu exactly we should be pointing our fingers at birds. But you mentioned earlier that pandemics are
a result of new, unknown flu strains. Well, in the case of the nineteen eighteen pandemic, the new strain came from a bird based illness that mutated until the next scesary features to be transmitted to humans. And this was something that wasn't confirmed until many years later, But even at the time, there was talk that birds might be
to blame for the outbreak. In fact, these suspicions even inspired a creepy schoolyard rhyme kind of like the Pocket Full of Poses one that's supposedly based on the plague. All right, and I'm assuming you know how Yeah. Well, I'm not gonna sing it because I have a terrible singing voice, but supposedly it has the same tune as Ring around the Rosy. But the lyrics go, I had a little bird and its name was Enza. I opened the window and Influenza. You just made that? Is that real? Yeah?
I mean it's a little punnier than the plague grind, but I guess I can imagine jumping rope to it. But you know, kids rhymes aside, It sounds like this was a super dangerous time to be alive. I mean, it's called the Great Pandemic for a reason. Absolutely the virus flared up all around the world, and every time it did more people died. In fact, it's estimated that as many as fifty million to a hundred million people died worldwide in the event, which was roughly five percent
of the world's population. It's just insane to think about. I mean, that's more than the number of people who died from actual combat during World War One. Wow. And I'm guessing that just about everybody who contracted the flu that year that actually died from it or is this not right? That's what I thought too, But but that's not the case. So, according to research from the CDC, about half a billion people who were infected with the flu in nineteen eighteen, but an overwhelming majority of them
managed to survive it. In fact, the national death rates for those infected really rose above But that said, the typical flu outbreak kills less than one percent of those affected, So a percent rate is off the charts. Yeah, no kidding. And you know one thing I don't understand. That was why the nineteen eighteen pandemic was so much more severe than the ones before it or since then. I mean,
what made that one so destructive? Well, we already mentioned the emergence of a brand new avian virus that most of the world just wasn't equipped to fight off. But another key factor was the unhygienic conditions of the time, especially among urban residents, and the millions of troops engaged
in trench warfare around the globe. And as writer as Katherine Paul's and Anthony Fauci put in their recent article for Scientific American quote, crowding and poor sanitation allowed for rampant disease transmission, especially in areas where access to healthcare was limited. Anti virals to treat influenza were not available in nineteen eighteen, and infections often were complicated by fatal
bacterial pneumonias, for which there were no effective antibodies. Further, protective vaccines, the cornerstone of modern influenza prevention, were still decades in the future. Yeah, I read up on how the flu vaccine eventually came about, and it really wasn't rolled out to the public until the mid nineteen forties, And it may seem like a late edition, but you do have to consider that it wasn't until the nineteen
thirties that scientists even figure this out. You know, that this was a virus causing this widespread illness, and that breakthrough came compliments of an American researcher named Dr Francis Jr. And you know what he used. He actually used erets to prove that the flu was purely a viral illness. Wait, why ferrets? Well, strangely enough, ferrets are the model organism for influenza research. Apparently, most animals can produce two kinds of ceolic acid, and that's the sugar that's crucial for
certain metabolic processes. But ferrets, much like humans, they can actually only make one kind. So what exactly does that have to do with the flu Well, flu strains bind to the ceolic acid and that causes the infection, But different strains have different preferences for which kind they actually adhere to. And since ferrets can only make the same type of sugar as humans, they're naturally susceptible to the
humanized strains of influenza. I mean, that's a raw deal for farrets, it might be, but it kind of gives the lab rates a break for the seriously, I mean, this year marks the anniversary of what's widely considered to be the most disastrous outbreak of an infectious illness in known history, And of course, the question that brings to mind for me is how much progress have we made since? Or to put it another way, how likely is it that we'll have to deal with a nightmare like that
sometime again? Well, I know the flu vaccine has lessened the sting of influenza and obviously saved countless lives in the process, But I also know that vaccines don't always work. Particularly with new pandemic strains, and it's possible that we're still pretty vulnerable. Well that's what I was afraid of. And we should talk a little bit more about how vaccines work and how the fight against the flu is going today. But before we do that, let's take a
quick break. Okay, Well, so let's do our part to help at another global health crisis. Tell me everything you know about the flu vaccine and flatter do you think might take might help prevent a help crisis. But you might be overstating how much I know by just a bit. But I did do some research and and one of the things that struck me was just how much work goes into developing these flu vaccines. And it is vaccines plural, because every year we have to develop a new one.
So why is that? Because flu viruses are constantly changing in these subtle ways. So they evolved through continuous genetic mutations or sometimes by swapping jeans with other flu strains, so by the time the next flu season rolls around, actually dealing with a slightly different kind of threat than
the one you faced in the year prior. Now, our current solution to this problem is to develop new vaccines each year, and this allows us to better target the specific viruses that are predicted to be active in the upcoming season. But unfortunately, even with these annual updates to flu vaccines, they're usually only about forty two sixty percent effective at best, and in some years, vaccine effectiveness is even lower than that. And I think that's what I've
been reading about is the case this year? But why is it lower than I thought? Vaccination was our best chance for ducting the flu? Well, it definitely is. But you know, sometimes new viral it's emerge in between the development and the deployment of a new vaccine. You know, so scientists could be prepping this year's new vaccine based on all the data they have from the current crop of viruses, and then you know, bam, suddenly a new strain comes out of nowhere and kind of blindsides them.
I know, this idea that your vaccine can't protect against this new virus that comes out. It's kind of tricky. Yeah, it is. And and in a case like that, it's still better to roll out the new vaccine than none at all. But you know, the vaccine's effectiveness will be much lower because it won't fully match the viruses it's up against, which always sounds like we need a new system. Yeah, and there are a lot of these national health organizations that would agree with you on this, and and there
are a lot of conversations going on around this. So just last year a few of them met with leading flu experts to discuss better ideas for you know, improved flu vaccines. Of course, the dream is to do away with all the guesswork that makes us need new vaccines and just have this one universal flu shot instead. So, for example, one idea is the design of vaccine that targets the parts of the virus that are common among all flu strains, in other parts that don't easily change
through mutation, which sounds promising. And this kind of just popped into my head, but it might sound a little random. What exactly is in a flu vaccine? Like, is it like with allergy shots where they inject you with whatever
you're allergic to? Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, flu vaccines are made of dead viruses, and when they're injected in the body, they trigger this defensive response from your immune system, and that kind of serves as a training for when the body is faced with the live viruses. So then wait, can't we make a universal vaccine by just sticking corpses of all the known viral strains into one injection, and that way the body would be primed
to take on all the new viruses. Well, it's a nice theory, and I appreciate your trying to solve all of this issue with just one big vaccine, But the reality is that the human immune system doesn't really have the capacity to effectively fight that many viruses at one time, and so the vaccine would just wind up making you sick.
But you know, I was reading about some new research from a joint team of US and Chinese scientists who think they may have found a workaround, and their solution is to boost the immune systems ability to deal with a variety of viruses by making a vaccine that elicits a strong response from the body's T cells. And those are the white blood cells that fight diseases. But don't
current vaccines stimulate those already? Well that's the thing, I mean, the current vaccines don't elicit a strong T cell response because they're made from dead viruses. Instead, they only trigger the development of anybodies, which are helpful in their own, right, I mean they bind to intruding flu cells and help prevent infection, but not as much as when they're working with T cells. Alright, So well, I think you're biases
showing what's so great about T cells. Well, in this case, the advantage of T cells is that they would be on alert for different features of the flu virus. You know, anybody's would be mostly keeping watch for the shape of the specific strain. So by using a live virus in the vaccine, you've got patients that would have both anybodies and T cells working on their side from the start, you know, rather than way for T cells to show up only after you already have the flu. So Kathleen
Sullivan are director at the Children's Hospital Philadelphia. She describes the benefit this way. She says, it has the magic of both great and a body response and inducing a strong T cell response that will be a safety net. So if a virus breaks through the first line of defense, you'll have T cells to make sure you don't get very sick. Which is pretty cool, But still injecting yourself with a live flu virus seems kind of dicey. I mean, does this work with just any vital strain that happens
to be lying around, well not exactly. I mean, see, the scientists basically took a part of flu virus in their lab, figured out what made it tick, and they kind of frankenstein a mutant flu strain that was perfectly suited for this new kind of vaccination. And what exactly makes it so suitable to be injected live into my body because I have to tell you I've avoided Tristan's injections here and I'm pretty picky about this kind of thing.
Well that what they did was they created a strain that was strong enough to replicate efficiently, but actually weak enough so that our immune systems can easily control them. So once the mutant virus is injected into the vaccine, it triggers both in anybody response and a T cell response, you know, all while never posing that much of an
actual threat to the body. And not only that, but because T cell responses tend to provide longer term immunity, a vaccine like this could actually do away with the need for annual flu vaccinations. Well, I'm sure there's still a ways to go before a universal vaccine like that can go public, but I'll admit the prospect of not having to get a flu shot anymore is pretty appealing. And in the meantime, though, annual vaccinations are still the best chance to stay healthy, and not just for ourselves
but for all of society. I was bringing this article in Quanta magazine that pointed out how people who talk themselves out of getting flu shots because you know, they never get the flu, are sort of missing the point. And how's that. Well? The idea is that vaccination campaigns, whether for the flu or anything else, aren't merely a way of keeping yourself from getting sick. They're also a
way to boost our collective resistance. There's an idea that health experts throw around called herd immunity, which is basically the level of immunity that a population needs in order to prevent an outbreak of a disease. So when her immunity dips below a certain level, which varies from disease disease, that's when our epidemics occur. Yeah, that's definitely true, but I mean it's kind of painting this vaccinations as the
be all, end all to the flu protection. So we definitely need to think about the other preventative measures out there, like avoiding public spaces during flu season, or washing our hands more often, and you know all the analysis and predictive tracking that goes into planning for a flu season. So I mean all of this has to count for something, right, Yeah, it does, And every little bit helps when you're up against like an ageless, invisible enemy who's constantly changing his tactics.
But no matter how much you hate getting shots or how much you love washing your hands, it doesn't change the fact that vaccinations are any society's best option for
keeping epidemics at bay. So, as Tara Smith put it in her article for Quanta, knowing the factors that contribute to these outbreaks can AIDA's and stopping epidemics in their early stages, but to prevent them from happening in the first place, a population with a high level of immunity is mathematically our best bet for keeping disease at bay. All right, I think you sold me, so Tristan, get
over here, buddy. I think I finally worked up the nerve for the shut Okay, but before I have to take you to the e R, why don't we do our fact off? All right? That's probably a better idea anyway, So we talked a little earlier about the terrible Flu. Did you know that if Walt Disney himself hadn't gotten the flu during the pandemic, we might have missed out on the birth of Mickey Mouse entirely. So, towards the end of World War One, Disney was signed up to
work for the Red Cross Ambulance Corps. He was only sixteen at the time, and that might seem a little young, but it's because Disney lied about his age. But before heading out he actually got the flu, and by the time he was well and able to go, the war was over alright. Well, one day we may be getting our flu shots with a bit of frog slime in them, or at least scientists are trying to figure out why.
It appears that the slime from an Indian fungoid frog appears to have multiple peptides that are capable of killing the H one flu virus. So they tested the most effective of these peptides and this concoction that they gave to mice, and sure enough, it actually kept them from getting the flu and it seemed to produce no side effects. So the next step, of course, is figuring out whether this can be tested in people. Another interesting possible treatment estrogen.
So we've actually known for some time that estrogen seems to have some antiviral effect on ebola and hepatitis and HIV, so there have recently been more studies on its effects on the flu, and through a few studies they found that estrogen did in fact significantly slow the replication of the flu virus. It'll be interesting to see where this goes in terms of developing treatment. But I just thought
I was fascinating. Yeah, that is pretty interesting. Well, in terms of ways to prevent the spread of the flu beyond vaccines. The Wall Street Journal reported on a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, and it showed that paid sick days for employees would reduce the spread of the flu. And maybe that's not a huge surprise, but the numbers are pretty surprising. I mean, for those who did not get paid sick time, you know, they're of course more likely to go to work sick and
are therefore more likely to spread their illness. And of course this is something that can be abused to some extent, but when you consider the estimate that paid leave would reduce flu cases by six percent, it might just be worth it. You know, Mago, I gotta hand it to you. We've been talking about something which is not always the happiest topic, but you found something positive out of it. We have Mickey Mouse because of the flu, so I'm
gonna have to give you this week's fact Off Trophy. Congratulations. Thanks very much. Alright, listeners, if we forgot any facts you feel like we should know about, we'd love to hear from you. It's part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com. You can also call our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on book and Twitter. We love hearing from you, and thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Trista McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gabeluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the
show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe. And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review for us. Did you forget you? Jason? Who