Well, this explains a lot: The Center for Disease Control and Protection says this year's flu shot is only good for 40% of the flu bugs going around. Thanks a lot, new strains of flu viruses that are kicking people's butts! Every year, health departments around the country recommend people get flu shots, starting in the fall and continuing to remind people who haven't for many months. Usually, the flu vaccine tends to be good......

A state disciplinary board fined Dr. Mark Nesselson $10,000 and ruled that the pediatrician could only work under supervision from now on. Nesselson filled out fake paperwork for parents who did not want their children to receive required immunizations before attending school, which is required by law. The doctor was caught when he moved to Hawaii and handed off patient records indicating that he had never actually immunized some children to another doctor, who reported......

The man with a highly drug-resistant strain of TB, who decamped to Italy aboard a commercial airline for his honeymoon against the CDC's advisement, and then eluded authorities when told that he would be quarantined abroad and banned from returning to the U.S., before smuggling himself back to the states via Canada, is sorry for putting everyone out. Andrew Speaker, who was initially not named by the press because of the stigma associated with being......

A man being treated for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis and who was advised by the Centers for Disease Control not to travel was briefly quarantined at Bellevue Hospital after he sneaked back into the U.S. in an effort to evade a travel embargo. He is now being detained under armed guard in an Atlanta hospital. The patient, who was in consultation with the CDC prior to traveling to Europe and scheduled to receive advanced......

Yesterday afternoon, a Continental flight from Hong Kong landed at Newark Liberty International Airport but passengers were held because some were feeling ill. In a reassuring piece of news, apparently seven passengers had "signs of fever and reported vomiting" even before the flight took off. We thought that Hong Kong's airport had those post-avian bird flu scanners that shows if a passenger has a higher body temperature than usual - and stop people who are......

Okay, Gothamist totally gets that Homeland Security's funding for urban areas was cut overall. And we know - and appreciate - that NYC got lots of money in the first few years of the program. But reading this explanation of why NYC's bid for funding led to a 40% decrease in money is rich:Homeland Assistant Secretary Tracy Henke, a former GOP Senate aide, told NEWSWEEK that, in the Feds' assessment, the Empire State Building......

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygience and the Center for Disease Control says that a nurse with "infectious tuberculosis" exposed around 1,500 patients to the TB. And what's more, she was a maternity ward nurse, so babies were also at risk. According to the NY Times, four babies definitely got TB (they are now healthy), but 1,000 of the patients could not be found. The nurse worked at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, was was contagious......

Growing up in New York, we've never liked pigeons (or flying rats as we like to call them), but with all this avian flu talk, we'll be sure to avoid them a little more. Sure, it's in Asian birds right now, but we're wary nonetheless. The threat of the bird flu has caused plenty of concern around the world, with world leaders meeting to discuss what can be done to prevent a pandemic. Right now,......

Being a corporate monkey for the past two years is beginning to stunt my sense of individuality, and I've found myself considering getting another piercing to hide under all of this Business Casual. If I were back in my hometown, I'd hit up the neighborhood joint where all the girls got their bellybuttons done and call it a day, but the variety of options in New York is daunting, and not really something I can......

My company, a big Wall Street firm, is going ahead with their annual free flu shot program despite the vaccine shortage this year. In fact, we recently got an e-mail encouraging us to get one when a nurse comes into the office next week. It seems a little selfish since the worst that would probably happen to anyone here if they got sick is that they'd miss a few days of work. Knowing what......

U.S. and Canadian scientists say they have identified the genetic structure of SARS, but "We need to go to China [where the outbreak began] and really do the shoe-leather detective work to find out who were the first cases, where did they go, what did they do," and with what animals might they have been in contact, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. Today the......