Tag Archives: CDC

How Effective Is the Flu Shot?

By Peter Lipson, Contributor My patients often ask me how good the flu shot is.  Sometimes they  just tell me. “It’s only 62% effective, Doc.” That’s true, as far as it goes, but what does it really mean? This season influenza hit early, giving epidemiologists a unique opportunity to give us an early estimate of how “good” this year’s flu shot is. The number “62%” refers to a very specific kind of effectiveness. At the beginning of the season, the CDC sought out patients with symptoms such as cough, sore throat, flu-like symptoms. They then tested the patients for flu, and asked them if they had received a flu vaccine.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Obama Executive Orders Designed To Ban Owners, Not Guns

By Doug Book

Realizing that a shooting war with American citizens would not bode well for an Obama legacy which will already require a blanket guarantee of willful amnesia on the part of historians, the president’s handlers on Wednesday decided it best to propose an Executive ban on gun owners rather than on the guns they own.

If fact, nowhere in the list of 23 executive actions recommended by Obama will the American public find the words, “these weapons will be banned” or “confiscation will begin on…” The president wisely left the heavy lifting of “assault weapons” bans and other unconstitutional offensives on the 2nd Amendment to congress, placing lawmakers in a rock-and-a-hard-spot position for which any existing red state Democrats are no doubt less than grateful. (1)

But the scheme Obama did choose is far more insidious than any direct attack on the weapons of choice of American gun owners. For the president is seeking to disqualify by federal fiat the 2nd Amendment rights of gun owners themselves. How will it be accomplished? It’s all about the massive expansion of shared state and federal background check information currently unavailable to bureaucracies so as to protect the privacy—and liberty– of the American public.

First on Obama’s list is his promise to “issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.” In fact five of the 23 executive actions the president claims will “reduce gun violence” involve a new federal reliance on the sharing of information gleaned from background checks. Three others actions feature an emphasis on information concerning mental health. And twice Obama links the safety of the public to ObamaCare and the necessity that doctors question patients about gun ownership. (2)

In short, the left is seeking to turn gun ownership into an issue of public health. “A lot of people buy guns every year, and it’s a health concern,” claims a University of Pennsylvania social policy professor. “Doctors ask patients about illegal drug use, disease history and sexual habits, So, Why not guns?” (2)

Why not guns? Suppose your father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, moves into your home. As 8 of Obama’s executive action pledges on gun control involve medical or mental health, the new bureaucracy of shared patient information will inform the Center for Disease Control of this move. A letter will then be sent to your attention from the CDC, the ATF or the DOJ demanding your home immediately be cleared of the weapons known to exist there thanks to an ObamaCare initiated, doctor-patient interview in which you participated 2 years earlier! After all, an Alzheimer patient poses a particular danger where guns are readily available! (2)

If this sounds far-fetched, you don’t know the contempt in which the Regime holds the gun owning public.

MAKE NO MISTAKE, Obama is indeed coming for the guns of the American people. But rather than decide which guns we’ll not be permitted to own, the left will simply tell us that we’re not allowed to own ANY!

Americans have spent years preparing for a shootout with would-be tyrants. Well, we’ll certainly have it. Just a bit later, perhaps, than originally expected.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

CDC: 11 biolab workers infected from 2004-10

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 11 workers at U.S. biological laboratories were reportedly infected with dangerous pathogens from 2004 to 2010.

The agency released the report Tuesday. It was published in the January issue of Applied Biosafety.

The report is the CDC‘s first analysis of reporting requirements implemented after the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks to track incidents of lost, stolen or released pathogens.

None of the infected lab workers died. The agency says the infection rate was far lower than the rate of general occupational illnesses in scientific research and development facilities.

The CDC says no thefts were reported. It says there was one incident in which a shipment of the fungus responsible for potentially deadly Rift Valley fever was destroyed by a shipping company.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Progressives’ Ridiculous Gun Control Argument

By Susan Stamper Brown

second amendment SC Progressives Ridiculous Gun Control Argument

Once again, Conservatives have latched onto the bait tossed out by Progressives in their never-ending campaign to grab guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens. Gun control is just one aspect of the Progressive agenda; in essence, they want control of everyone and everything any way they can.

Toward this end, they will tell you anything to get what they want. For example, they say they are multiculturalists, right up until election season when cultures become pawns to move around the political battlefield. All non-compliant free-thinkers are dealt with accordingly.

Consider the war on women last year contrived to convince women the Democrat Party is the place for them. In the end, they made women look more like sex objects best left in the bedroom. It was demeaning to listen to all the noise made about free birth control at the DNC last summer; I fully expected to see birth control pills and NuvaRings rain down from the ceiling at convention’s close. And how about President Obama’s new near estrogen-free cabinet? The party for women? Hah.

So now they say we urgently need gun control. And, they are exploiting children the same way they exploit minorities and women to get it. The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre is a means to an end. On MSNBC recently, guest Patricia Maisch said that “It’s a shame we had to get to the 20 little martyrs” at Sandy Hook to take action regarding gun control. Little martyrs? Martyrs for what? The religion of gun control?

The time has come for Progressives to come clean about gun control. Drop the word “gun” and we’ll be a little closer to having an honest conversation. But since they won’t, please let me help. I recently visited one of my favorite Progressive websites, where I ran across an article claiming gun control measures would do little to change anything because Americans at large are too evil and violent. It’s hard to reconcile all the America-loathing out there, but there is a simple solution: Renounce your citizenship and purchase a one-way plane ticket.

The article failed to present an honest assessment of facts and figures, most likely to incite an emotional, rather than rational, response, hence inspiring me to go fact digging, which led me to the FBI’s Expanded Homicide Data Table number 8.

According to the FBI, in 2010, there were 8,775 gun homicides. Of those, 6009 were from handguns, 358 from rifles, 373 from shotguns, 96 by “other” guns, and 1939 “not specified.” This breakdown doesn’t bode well for those promoting re-regulation of assault weapons. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, most mass murders are committed with “firearms that would not be restricted by an assault weapons ban.”

The same FBI report disclosed that knives and cutting instrument deaths (1704) quadrupled rifle deaths; and 540 people died from blunt objects, similar to the Golden Globe award Anne Hathaway just received and labeled as a “lovely blunt object that I will forevermore use as a weapon against self-doubt.” Knock yourself out, Anne. Anyway, I digress. If one applied the same twisted logic as Vice President Biden, who recently said “If only one life is saved, it’s worth it,” then I suppose we need to ban big shiny club-like award objects. Or maybe we need to ban the use of appendages, since almost twice the amount of people who died from shotgun wounds were killed by hands, fists, or feet. While we’re at it, we need to do something about falling because, according to the CDC, 24,792 people died as a result in 2009.

Progressives’ logic on this issue is ridiculous. And it is ridiculous for Conservatives to participate because in the end, Progressives may not get everything they want, but will get more than they should. In reality, according to the aforementioned FBI report, firearm murders dropped significantly from 2006 to 2010; while, according to Bloomberg Business, gun sales have exploded since 2009, meaning the real answer to less gun deaths is more guns.

Photo credit: Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL) (Creative Commons)

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Biden Eyes 19 Executive Actions on Gun Control

By Matt Cantor As the White House gears up for a battle over gun control, Joe Biden has presented 19 moves the administration could take on its own. Speaking to House Dems yesterday, he outlined an array of executive actions, including boosting enforcement of current laws, empowering the CDC to research guns, and…
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home

5 online tools to track the flu

Forty seven states reported widespread Influenza activity last week, up from 41 the week before, according to the CDC. The good news is that several websites offer useful—or at least interesting—information regarding the season’s outbreak.

Google.org Flu Trends is a good place to start.

First, it shows the regions in the world where the flu is most rampant, with North America being the hardest hit. You can also download animated flu trends for Google Earth that show a 3D model of the Earth, then you can drill down into various states to see how this year’s flu data compares with previous years. It also provides a link to Public Data Explorer, which lets you click on various countries or regions and compare flu search activity according to which of them are getting the most Google searches for the term “flu.”

FluNearYou.org is also worth checking out if you’re concerned about how many people near you have come down with the bug. You can sign in with Facebook or your email address, give the site your birthdate and zip code, and fill out a short survey to determine whether you’re experiencing any symptoms. In return, you get a Google Map peppered with little pins indicating others who have self-reported whether they have been sick. FluNearYou is also available as an Android and iOS app.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Incurable gonorrhea found in North America

Last August, researchers fretted that gonorrhea, a common STD, had become resistant to all but one class of antibiotic: the cephalosporins. But now, even those don't work for some people anymore.

Incurable gonorrhea has made its way to North America, a new study has found. More than six percent of patients with gonorrhea at a Toronto health clinic were found to have an incurable form of the infection, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More from GlobalPost: Superbug kills 7th person at Maryland hospital

A total of 133 gonorrhea patients at the Toronto clinic were treated with cephalosporins. Out of those, nine still had the disease after getting the drugs, which translates into one in 15 people, the Daily Mail reported. This study marks the first time that cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea has been found in humans in North America.

“Cephalosporin treatment failures have now been documented in North America,” Robert Kirkcaldy of the CDC wrote in an accompanying editorial. “Although this milestone was expected, its arrival is deeply troubling.” And lead researcher Vanessa Allen told US News & World report that “basically, the problem appears worse than we originally thought.”

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

2013 Flu Season: How to Protect Yourself

By Robert Glatter, MD, Contributor Based on recent reports from the CDC, the flu has arrived nearly 5 weeks early this year, with activity reported in over 41 states with18 deaths reported in children thus far. The predominant current flu strain that is being reported with widespread activity, H3N2 (Influenza A), appears to have good […]
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Report: CDC releases results of largest survey ever on drowsy driving

By Jeffrey N. Ross

Filed under: ,

Grizwald family asleep at the wheel

We all know that driving while texting or under the influence of drugs or alcohol is extremely dangerous, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just released a survey taken back in 2009 and 2010 by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) showing just how lethal drowsy driving can be. According to the survey, drowsy driving accounted for almost 730 fatal crashes and around 30,000 non-fatal crashes in 2009, and it shows that 4.2 percent of more than 147,000 respondents had fallen asleep behind the wheel at least once in a 30-day period before the survey was taken.

As frightening as that is, the survey was limited to just 19 states and the District of Columbia and did not include teen drivers under the age of 18, which means the number could be even higher. Back in November, we reported on a survey conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that indicated one in seven (around 14 percent) drivers between the ages of 16 and 24 admitted to falling asleep while driving compared to the overall average of 10 percent admitting to dozing off behind the wheel. The BRFSS survey showed that Oregon had the lowest percentage of drowsy drivers (2.5 percent) while Texas had the highest number (6.1 percent). The CDC points out that two major contributing factors to drowsy driving are snoring and getting less than six hours of sleep per day – both are symptoms of sleep apnea.

While accidents and fatalities as a result of drowsy driving are no laughing matter, we couldn’t help but think of the Grizwald family as they traveled to Walley World in National Lampoon’s Vacation (pictured above). Visit Sleep Education or the CDC for more information on this study.

CDC releases results of largest survey ever on drowsy driving originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog

The Flu Strikes Hard: Symptoms Come Earlier And More Severely This Year

By Alice G. Walton This year?s flu season is off to an early and ugly start. According to the CDC, and probably to the guy hacking next to you on the subway, this year?s flu has affected people sooner and more severely than in previous years. Over 2,250 people have already been hospitalized this season, and 18 pediatric deaths have been reported. And it?s only the beginning of January.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Health