When I was younger, my grandmother gave me two books, and I don’t think she realized they ended up shaping my career. After reading Outbreak (by Robin Cook) and Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC (by Joseph McCormick and Susan Fisher-Hoch), I was hooked on working in public health. After learning more about what [...]
The news is true… Arizona continues to top the country in reports of influenza-like illness for the fourth week in a row. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Arizona has more people sick with flu than anywhere else in the country (not all flu cases get reported to public health departments), it does mean that [...]
Lately it seems like there are a lot of people sick with a cold or the flu. Respiratory viruses often circulate in the wintertime, and this winter is no exception. But when your aunt skips out on a family dinner because she has the flu, is that really what’s making her sick, or does she [...]
Influenza has been steadily spreading in Arizona over the last few weeks and this week we hit the Widespread Influenza threshold. In fact, the number of cases increased by 50% this week- and several Arizona emergency departments are backed up with substantial wait times. CDC’s report is due to come out Friday… but I’d guess that most states will [...]
I know that some of you out there are going to attend the Winter Olympics - so I put together the blog post below over the weekend for folks that might be going. Here goes in case you’re interested: Let’s start with the good news first- then the health tips… Sochi Games to be Smoke Free- Russians [...]
Flu Near You is a free tool that’s been made to help in the fight against flu. The way it works is that people like you and I anonymously report each week on whether we had symptoms or flu shots. The information is used to place a dot on a map of the community so [...]
Investigators of a new study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association discovered another reason that some people may benefit from getting the flu shot. The study found that getting an annual flu vaccine puts the person at lower risk of having a heart attack, stroke, heart failure, or death [...]
During the 2009- 2010 influenza pandemic, we saw how influenza can be unpredictable in terms of who it affects most, when it occurs, and what strains will circulate. This season is no exception. While the circulating strains are exactly what we predicted, the peak of the flu season is hitting earlier than usual (now) and it's [...]
We're off to an early start with the flu and RSV season this year with more cases reported in November than in previous seasons. Respiratory syncytial virus (or RSV) is a respiratory virus that mainly affects little kids and circulates during the winter. There’s no vaccine for RSV- but for those babies that are at highest [...]
Until last week, influenza vaccine makers were limited to producing flu vaccines using a 40-year-old technology that depends on using fertilized chicken eggs to grow virus strains- meaning that it takes several months to make an influenza vaccine. Makers needed to organize sterile egg supplies and incubate the virus in them before the vaccine could [...]
