HED:
The Centers for Disease Control says that the much-awaited H1N1 vaccine is not intended to replace the regular flu shot you should get every year.
The agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices determined who should get (pardon the pun) the first shot at the vaccine.
On the CDC list are:
•    Pregnant women.
•    Those who live with or [...]

If all hell breaks loose in this fall’s flu pandemic, will the medics be there to help?
Only one out of six public health workers says he or she won’t roll out the firehouse door if the projected pandemic levels of H1N1 flu rolls across the country later this year.
According to a study funded by the [...]

A socially conscious physician I know sent me this link to a two-minute video by journalist Michele Mitchell of film@11.
If you want a quick but enjoyable explanation of the  misty world of phthalates, Mitchell is the woman to watch. She’s got some serious credentials and does a hell of a job on what could be [...]

Here are some stories that we came across that you might like to check out.
Vietnam vets and Agent Orange: A congressionally mandated study from the Institute of Medicine finds suggestive evidence that exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War is associated with an increased chance of developing ischemic heart disease [...]

While driving from Seattle to the Washington coast to do some interviews, we stopped for lunch at the Rusty Tractor in the town of Elma.
Who knew that the star of their menu was yak.  Yes, honest to God yak whose forefathers and, obviously, mothers also, came from the Himalayans of Tibet.
But according to our very [...]

An Italian prosecutor has charged that two executives of the Swiss construction company Eternit were responsible for the deaths of about 2,000 factory workers and residents from the town of Casale Monferrato, which is near Turin.   
Prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello told the Associated Press that the company, Eternit, spread asbestos fibers over wide areas by allowing [...]

Dr. Michael Harbut has diagnosed and treated thousands of workers suffering from disease caused by exposure to asbestos in Detroit’s automobile plants and to the taconite miners on the Iron Range of northern Michigan and Minnesota.
A couple of months ago he told me that medicine is a puzzle and a challenge, which can be both [...]

Some disease control experts live with an almost schizophrenic fear that the antiviral drugs they desperately need to control viruses like swine flu may halt the spread of the infection, but then may cause the virus to mutate into a strain resistant to the new wonder-drug-of-the-moment.
A group of scientists from two universities in Yokohama, Japan, [...]

Those of us who bought our fledgling tomato plants from big box or home improvement stores may be involved in spreading a highly contagious tomato-destroying fungus throughout the country.
Plant pathologists at Ag programs across the country are tracking the spread of the disease called “late blight,” as there are often small outbreaks late in the [...]

On rare occasions, I will run a guest posting on coldtruth.com. Often they will be from physicians and public health specialists. Sometimes they’ll be from people harmed by a flawed regulatory system.  Today’s guest writer is Bill Marler, a Seattle-based lawyer and international lecturer whose concern over food safety is obsessive and widely appreciated.
Lauren Beth [...]