Rumors of the blog's death are only slightly exaggerated

Yes, I vanished. Yes, I had a good reason: For the past few months, I've been neck-deep and sinking into a massive project for the infectious-disease website CIDRAP News, examining the search for a vaccine against pandemic influenza. Very short version of the many conclusions: Let's hope the pandemic takes a long time to arrive, because we are nowhere near ready, and the obstacles are both formidable and largely of our own making.

The entire project ran to seven installments. Read the first installment here. At the bottom, you'll find links to the other installments, and to the more-than-100 cite bibliography. The series has been well-received in the flu-blog world:

• "This is clearly one of the most important contributions CIDRAP has made to the H5N1 issue (and that is saying a lot)." H5N1
• "Ms. McKenna (author of Beating Back The Devil) proves, once again, why she is one of the best science writers in the business." Avian Flu Diary
• "Another excellent offering from Maryn McKenna." A Journey Through the World of Pandemic Influenza

Plus, a Very Important National Magazine has been in touch to, umm, suggest that it gave them some ideas.

Meanwhile, while I was away, there was a ton of news on the MRSA front. We'll be taking a look at some recent developments in the next few days.