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- Janet

It has been a real learning curve over the last few weeks figuring out the natural rhythms of TrackerNews: How often should the story list update? Is there enough balance in the mix of health, humanitarian and tech? What adds meaning and real value to a grouping of stories?

The idea for TrackerNews grew out of series of conversations bemoaning the “silos of expertise” that make it difficult to see the bigger picture, identify opportunities or develop collaborative relationships across disciplines. The hope is that a sparky enough story mix would eventually begin to draw an equally sparky mix of readers.

I am often asked about metrics. Good question. In the coming months we will no doubt be obsessing over clicks and click-through’s, but to me the most important metrics are intangible. Did someone see a story or a grouping on stories on TrackerNews that started a conversation, sparked a new line of thought or perhaps even began a chain of events leading to a collaboration? (extra credit for something cross-disciplinary…)

A part of me wonders whether people are secretly so comfortable in their oft-decried silos, they will find TrackerNews’ format more overwhelming than enlightening. We purposely decided not to segregate stories by subject, or create a typical news site with a standard navigational structure. TrackerNews is as broad as you can imagine and one page deep. Stories, or groups of stories, cycle through the columns, just as one moment follows another. The only hard-wired hierarchy is the green bar banner where one suite of stories gets special focus for a limited time.

The Haiku Challenge

In these first few “learning to walk” weeks, one of the biggest issues has been figuring out how to cover breaking news, such as hurricanes or the rumblings of war. It makes no sense to duplicate what other, much larger news organizations are doing. If the weather is going kerflooey, tune into Weather Channel, or check the wires, fergoshsakes. Rather, I have tried combining links to those larger news services, with links that  provide background (research and/or older news stories) or tools (e.g., streaming audio from Congo’s only national radio station, Radio Okapi). If another website does a better job aggregating information, TrackerNews links to them (hats off to Andy Carvin’s work at the Hurricane Information Center and Hurricanwiki.org for coverage of Gustav and Ike).

The minimalist nature of TrackerNews’ links makes the selection of those links that much more critical.  Much like syllables in a haiku, the limitations become a strength and a challenge. And, as I am fast learning, there is an art to it, too…

One Pill Fits All

The current quartet of “Green Bar” stories about statins is a case in point:

The video link is breaking news about a new study showing statins can prevent heart attacks in people with low cholesterol. Many expect millions more people will be put on long-term statin use as a result.

The next link is a story in the India Times about a big multinational study testing out a “polypill,” an inexpensive combo drug with aspirin, a statin and a couple of blood pressure medicines. It is designed to cheaply treat people with heart disease both in the West and in the developing world. According to the article, “17 million people die of heart disease and strokes every year and 80% of these deaths are in developing countries.”

The next link is BusinessWeek cover story from last January about “numbers needed to treat” (NNT) data for statins. Here’s the nut:

The second crucial point is hiding in plain sight in Pfizer’s own Lipitor newspaper ad. The dramatic 36% figure has an asterisk. Read the smaller type. It says: “That means in a large clinical study, 3% of patients taking a sugar pill or placebo had a heart attack compared to 2% of patients taking Lipitor.”

Now do some simple math. The numbers in that sentence mean that for every 100 people in the trial, which lasted 3 1/3 years, three people on placebos and two people on Lipitor had heart attacks. The difference credited to the drug? One fewer heart attack per 100 people. So to spare one person a heart attack, 100 people had to take Lipitor for more than three years. The other 99 got no measurable benefit. Or to put it in terms of a little-known but useful statistic, the number needed to treat (or NNT) for one person to benefit is 100.

Compare that with, say, today’s standard antibiotic therapy to eradicate ulcer-causing H. pylori stomach bacteria. The NNT is 1.1. Give the drugs to 11 people, and 10 will be cured.

Finally, I linked to a post on “germtales,” a blog I started a few years ago and for which I still write occasionally.  I have a deep interest in animal health and had written about statins used as a contraceptive for wildlife. It makes sense: Eggs have cholesterol for reason. Remove it and you don’t have a viable eggs. Weirdly, statins work as a contraceptive for both boys and girls. While animals were given higher doses, they were also given fewer doses. Nobody knows what long-term low-dose use might do. Of course, humans taking statins are mostly past child-bearing age, but this is a real flag about the global effects of drugs. Even aspirin acts as both a pain reliever and a blood thinner. Before we start putting statins in the water, like fluoride, as some have suggested, it is important to consider it from all angles.

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And now I’ve done it again — written a ghastly long post. I promise in the future to work on my “pithy”. If TrackerNews can do headlines as haikus, surely I can whittle down words, too.

HeroRAT

I knew I’d seen that face before. Those cheeks. Those whiskers. That long, long tail. The giant African pouched rat – a.k.a., the giant Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus)  – was all over the headlines five years ago, fingered as the likely culprit in a first-ever outbreak in the U.S. of monkeypox (a smallpox relative).

Shift continents and the villain becomes a hero. In fact, a “HeroRAT,” with a genius for sniffing out landmines and diagnosing TB.

Bart Weetjens, an engineer with Apopo, a Belgian organization focused on “vapour detection technology,” with a emphasis on land mines and disease detection, hit upon the idea of using pouched rats about 10 years ago. The rats are smart, thrive on repetitive tasks, have a top-notch sense of smell, are cheaper to train than dogs ($3,000 to $5,000 vs. $40,000+) and literally work for peanuts. Despite its giant-by-rat-standards size (a pouched rat can weigh as much as 9 lbs), it’s too light to trip off a mine. In any case, as one journalist noted, “(t)he bonds between rats and humans are looser.”

Maybe. But on the HeroRAT website, you can read all about Allan, Chosen One, Kim and Ziko, and even Adopt-a-Rat. In their own little pouchy way, they’ve got Ratatouille charisma. Jane Goodall’s a big fan.

They’re pretty efficient, too. In 30 minutes, a rat can sniff out an area that otherwise would take a couple of days to clear. And they’re just as good at detecting plastic mines as metal ones.

There are an estimated 100 million landmines in over 90 countries, so the scale of the problem is beyond daunting. Using existing technology, it would take centuries to remove all the mines. In the meantime, dozens of people are maimed and killed each day, while social fabric fractures when people are kept from their homes and farmland is kept out of production.

The Pox

"Easy to raise and breed"

Still, as I read about interest in using HeroRats beyond their native Africa, my thoughts went back to 2003 and a sick little girl in Wisconsin who sparked a bioterror scare.

Giant Gambian pouched rats had become popular pets, a development that would, no doubt, have amazed and amused Africans who generally see them as pests, or possibly dinner.

The disease chain was convoluted, but for those tracking zoonotic diseases (illnesses that affect humans and other animals) and concerned about the largely unregulated “exotic” pet trade, it was all too predictable.

It started when a shipment from Ghana of 800 animals (9 species), including some clinically-healthy but infected pouched rats, was delivered to an outfit in Texas. The rats were then sold to a vendor in Iowa, who sold them to a dealer in Illinois, who also stocked prairie dogs. The rats infected the prairie dogs, which were then shipped to at least a dozen other states. The prairie dogs began falling ill (a rodent replay of what happened to American Indians after exposure to the smallpox virus carried by Europeans). At least one sick “doggie” ended up at a swap meet in Wisconsin, where a little girl bought it, was promptly scratched and became ill. The specter of monkeypox made the West Nile virus outbreak look like child’s play. Fear drove speculation: Was it bioterrorism? Would the virus infect wildlife and become endemic?  What about person-to-person spread? Were sick patients a risk to doctors and nurses?

Thanks to some phenomenal epidemiological legwork and some lucky breaks (no person-to-person transmission), the outbreak was contained and panic faded. Monkeypox devolved into a harmless punchline on late night talk shows.

Imports of giant African pouched rats were, of course, quickly banned, but hundreds, if not thousands, were already here. Escaped rats had begun to roam wild and multiply all over Grassy Key, Florida – Jimmy Buffet territory.  Last year, the Florida Depart of Natural Resources mounted what was supposed to be a final campaign to eradicate them. It didn’t work. A native Grassy Keysian I spoke with today reported seeing a rat on her driveway recently that was so big, she thought it was a cat at first. They are so big, actual cats won’t take them on.

Naturalists worry the rats will eventually find their way into the Everglades, with devastating implications. Whether as a carrier of an invasive disease, or as an invasive species infecting an ecosystem, giant African pouched rats pose a significant biothreat. That’s an important consideration for HeroRATS deployed outside of Africa.

Lab Rats: “That’s ‘Dr. Rat’ to You”

Still, as long as they’re here, perhaps we should put them to work. HeroRATS are also being trained at the Apopo lab in Tanzania to sniff for the tell-tale scent of tuberculosis in human sputum.

HeroRAT Sniffing for TB

The standard microscope test is both time-consuming and pricey. A rat can zip through 40 samples in 10 minutes with an 85+% accuracy rate, according to early tests. It would take a lab tech at least a day to do the same. Rats have even correctly diagnosed samples missed by microscopy. Considering that nearly 30% of all new TB cases are in Africa, a local, scalable solution for cheap rapid diagnostics is clear winner.

The Skoll Foundation thinks so, too, and gave Apopo a $1 million grant for social entrepreneurship last August. With funding now secure, hordes of HeroRATS will be trained to sniff for all sorts of trouble. Imagine that: Saved by rats.