SARS Epidemic May Reemerge, CDC Director Warns

Reuters ^ | 6-18-03

[CobaltBlue]

My understanding is that Dr. Niman started a company which became Ligand, a biotech company.
http://www.ligand.com/

It appears that he sold his stake to the new company, because he doesn't appear in SEC filings.
http://www.edgar-online.com/brand/yahoo/people/companypeople.asp?cik=886163

The company started up circa 1994.
http://www.edgar-online.com/brand/yahoo/search/default.asp?dpos=140&sort=T&sym=LGND&date=1994

Who knows, maybe he made so much money he doesn't need to work, and this is all a hobby for him?

[Betty Jo]

Hey, whats a few SARS cases here and there?

Flu A, Flu B, Mcoplasma who knows what else?

Oh, what a joke I just made...who knows...WHO knows,CDC knows ....

Nobody knows nothing,thats my story and I'm stickin to it.

[TaxRelief]

I once asked The Great Satan if he was Clinton's a Rapist.

What did he say??

[CobaltBlue]

I see Dr. Niman also tried to startup a financial style website, NetCognizance, but that went under.

Oh, well, such was life in the go-go 1990's.

[TaxRelief]

I've noticed tons of posts by him pushingthe stock of Ligand and PROGENX in Google Groups.

[Betty Jo]

Well, he is saying he is :

Surgery instructor,Harvard Med School,or

Surgery instructor, (bioengineering department)Shriner Burn Hospial,Boston.

I just think its strange that there are no hits for those , just him yakking about anthrax and SARS.

I'm going back to the library and try for any more recent papers by him.

Thanks for your efforts.

[blam]

(Let's go ahead and post this one.)

120 new SARS cases does not mean a new outbreak, say health officials

HELEN BRANSWELL
Canadian Press
Thursday, June 19, 2003

TORONTO (CP) - Public health officials were quick to ease fears Thursday that there could be a simmering new SARS cluster after revelations that 120 people are under review to determine if they had the disease in the early days of its arrival in Canada.

"They do not represent a new outbreak or a new cluster of SARS cases," Dr. James Young, Ontario's public safety commissioner, told a news conference. "These people are not a new group and there is good evidence that they did not spread the disease in any way."

The 120 aren't on the list of Canada's probable or suspect SARS cases, but may actually have had the disease back in March, testing done by Health Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory has shown.

Experts said earlier this week that it's crucial to find the individuals and figure out whether they actually had SARS in March and whether they have spread it to others.

The Winnipeg lab, in conjunction with Ontario officials and public health authorities in the locations where the individuals live, has begun a study to track down the people, their doctors and their contacts to ensure that other SARS cases aren't percolating, undetected, in Toronto and other southern Ontario communities.

Young said the people in question had a variety of symptoms in the very early days of the province's first SARS outbreak, when public health officials still weren't certain exactly what they were dealing with.

"This disease is very difficult because it starts just like everything else," Young said.

"What their symptoms were at the time, what their symtoms are now - we're trying to learn as much as we can because it might contribute to the overall understanding of SARS."

Public health officials are now being extremely vigilant, he said, after three months of the "new normal" of dealing with SARS.

"We continue to treat anyone with SARS-like symptoms as SARS unless proven otherwise," Young said.

One of the puzzling positive test results that the Winnipeg lab has turned up was for a woman from Belleville, about two-hours drive east of Toronto. Another was for a man from the Grey Bruce area, north of Toronto, who had been listed as a suspect SARS case in March.

The man, who had been believed to have contracted SARS in Singapore, was eventually struck from the list when it was found he had influenza B, which could have caused his symptoms.

But the Winnipeg lab recently informed his local medical officer of health that the man probably had SARS as well.

© Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press

[Domestic Church]

" It goes on to say that TGS works in a bio lab and is the anthrax killer."

ROFLOL! Thank God I didn't have a beverage in hand.
TGS, it seems you've been googled in your spongebob underwear.

[jacquej]

A good thread today... and thanks for the info. I will be watching to see if anyone comes up with anything substantive on Niman.

[TaxRelief]

Is the medline Niman HL the same guy? 'Cause I found reference to a microbiologist named Helga Niman in some '80's articles.

[TaxRelief]

It appears that Canada is studying this in much greater depth and over a broader range of individuals than the CDC is.

[jacquej]

found another post by Niman, and found his HarvardMedSchool email address...

believe that the latest Canadian data is PCR data and further clarifies reports in April (and described at the time in the NY Times). Initially, PCR results were positive for 40% of patients with probable SARS, 35% of patients with suspect SARS, and 20% of patients with symptoms who failed to meet the case definition for suspect or probable SARS. The initial data was on 250 patient, so 50 were positive for the virus even though they did not meet the case definition for suspect or probable SARS. Now it appears that the number has grown to 120 cases.
However, comments on the reliability of the PCR tests are still showing up in the media, as noted below.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1052251873615&call_pageid=968332188492

Frank Plummer earlier had indicated that the test they used employed probes provided by the CDC and the CDC has only detected 2 cases positive by PCR (one from a patient who traveled to Hong Kong in March and the most recent being the North Carolina index case who visited Toronto before he became ill - one of his co-workers has died and the death is still under investigation).

The PCR test being used in Toronto does NOT routinely produce false positives. It is quite specific for the SARS coronavirus and it is hard to believe that the Canadian National Labs in Winnipeg could come up with 50 positives which were initially called "weird results" and then come up with 70 more due to poor lab technique (if the results from the 50 were false positives, then the protocol would have been modified to avoid coming up with 70 more false positives - false PCR positives are usually do to carry over from sample to sample and are due to poor lab technique).

The positives should be tested for antibody and their contacts should be interviewed and tested (as should contacts of positive contacts). The time for blaming the test has long since past. The problem is the case definition which requires a contact, not the test that CONFIRMS the presence of the SARS coronavirus.

[jacquej]

and another comment by Niman, and I found his HarvardMEsSchool email address, which I am not posting for the obvious reasons, when I clicked on his name on the Agonist site:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2999400.stm

The possibility that the source may be another animal still exists.  The likelihood that the civets were infected by humans is almost zero.  I'm surprised that WHO is still putting out that story.  The civet sequences have the 29 nt seen in GZ01.  All other 17 published human isolates of SARS CoV are lacking those sequences which has a significant effect on the encoded proteins.  Instead of one protein of 122 aa, the delection creates two proteins of 39 aa (orf10) and 84 aa (orf 11).  The 122 makes sense biologically and structurally.  The decapitated protein made via the 29 nt delection does not.

[TaxRelief]

Lexis-Nexis shows only one house for him and it is in a little town near Pittsburgh. How does that factor in?

[aristeides]

Guidelines on SARS should be refined.

[aristeides]

From that article:

In a second study at the same hospital, researchers found abnormal blood cell counts in patients with SARS. For instance, of 157 patients assessed, 98% developed lymphopenia (a decrease in numbers of lymphocytes in the blood), and 55% developed thrombocytopenia (a decrease in the number of blood platelets).

Studies of the effect of SARS on various body systems are crucial to the understanding of this disease, say the authors, and further studies to evaluate the mechanisms of these changes are needed.

Sounds significant. Could be connected with the immune system acting up.

[aristeides]

WHO: Sars tests not good enough so far With outbreak under control, focus now is on perfecting tests and developing vaccines; experts optimistic about overcoming difficulties .

[Betty Jo]

Well , well,
High strangeness and Henry L Niman.

He is/was a "cancer researcher at Harvard"

He is/was "a biochemist who currently works on a consulting basis with the University of Pittsburgh(1998)

He is /was "President of Pittsburgh based Netcognance,Inc"

He is/was "instructor of surgery at Harvard Med School"

He is/was "instructor of surgery at Mass General Hospital"

He is/was "in the Deapartment of Bioengineering at the Shriners Burn Hospital in Boston."

He uses "chips with human genes in his own research"

There are a ton of different emails for him.

I have called the only phone number I can find for him,from the Harvard Med School white pages for faculty .

It is at The Shriners Hspital.

I heard a voice on an "Audex" saying "Niman.

I hung up.

Has anyone ever seen a pix of him?

Has anyone ever spoken to him?

Has anyone emailed him?

I like whah he says about SARS, but there is a high strangeness about him!

[blam]

"I hung up. "

Why did you hang up?

[TaxRelief]

Helen (not Helga) Niman died in 1994. Helga Niman is in Ottawa, Canada. Helen was in PA. Social Security records... Scary what you can find out about people these days.