OPINION
January 22, 2013
Re "Flu's sticking point," Jan. 19 I read your article with great interest, looking forward to my fellow nurses explaining how important it is for people - healthcare workers in particular - to get their yearly flu shot. Instead, I learned that the very people responsible for educating their patients were themselves believers of false science. One nurse who tells postpartum mothers to get the flu shot for their newborns and themselves refused to get vaccinated herself. It surely wouldn't encourage me to vaccinate.
NEWS
January 21, 2013 | By S. Irene Virbila
My mother was cleaning out some drawers and found a family letter written from “somewhere in France ” in 1918. Addressed “Dear Folks,” Russell C. Jones, a farm boy from Nebraska, writes home. The war is over, he guesses, as the Armistice has just been signed. “I hope I get home in time to help with the spring work,” he writes, “but a fellow can't tell when he will get back.” True today, too, sadly. I'm struck by his lovely, careful handwriting. It's brown ink, or has it faded?
NEWS
January 21, 2013 | By Betty Hallock
Boozy ice cream for when you have the flu? Ohio-based small-batch ice cream maker Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams is making the news this flu season with one of its most popular winter flavors -- Influenza Sorbet, made with honey, ginger, orange and lemon juices, Maker's Mark bourbon and cayenne pepper. Influenza Sorbet is no flu cure, but owner Jeni Britton Bauer told ABC News that the ice cream flavor inspired by a drink her grandmother made...
BUSINESS
January 21, 2013 | By Alana Semuels
Among the long list of reasons the fearful give for reasons they're not getting a flu shot (hatred of needles, skepticism about vaccines, laziness), there's one that relates more closely to economics: cost. For while doctors urge everyone to get a flu shot, flu shots, like many other things in life, are not free. Stop by your local CVS or Walgreens and you'll shell out $30 or so for the pleasure of getting poked by a needle behind a suggestion of a curtain. So why aren't flu shots free, or nearly free?
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 18, 2013 | By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times
As a nurse at a Downey hospital, Darlene Andres spends her days caring for postpartum mothers and their newborn babies. Andres urges new moms to get the flu vaccine before leaving. But Andres, 36, decided not to get the flu shot herself. Andres - a self-proclaimed "germ freak" - said she just washes her hands instead. "I heard from a lot of co-workers on the floors that they were getting a lot of symptoms after getting the flu vaccine," she said. "I kind of got scared. " On Friday, public health officials warned that the flu wreaking havoc elsewhere has finally arrived in California and is now causing widespread hospitalizations across the state.
BUSINESS
January 15, 2013 | By David Lazarus
Finally ready for a flu shot? First of all, what took you so darn long? Second, you might need a little patience. CVS Caremark and Rite Aid say they're running out of flu vaccines in some states as the unusually severe flu season drives up demand. In California, at least, it still looks like there's plenty of vaccine to go around. Forty-seven states are now experiencing widespread flu. That has resulted in more people making a beeline to pharmacies and doctors' offices in search of a cure.