Comment:  Has the whooping cough vaccine now been approved for adolescent use?

►December 2003 - For coughs, colds and SARS, wear a mask - journal article (Paediatrics & Child Health)

►December 20, 2003 - Is US flu worse than usual? - At least 40 per cent of the children who died had other medical conditions that made them vulnerable, such as asthma or cerebral palsy - www.itv.com

►December 16, 2003 - Vaccines -- How They are Made, Supplied, and Monitored for the Health and Safety of our Children - (registration required) - www.medscape.com

►December 22, 2003 - Aventis Submits Application for FDA Approval of Menactra(TM), First Candidate Quadrivalent Conjugate Meningococcal Vaccine - Aventis on Track to Submit Four New Products for Approval In 2003 - PRNewswire-First Call via Yahoo!

►December 22, 2003 - Tracking Autism - West Virginia's registry of patients, the nation's first, will aid in research - AP via www.indystar.com

►December 22, 2003 - Judges Halt Forced Military Anthrax Shots - AP via Newsday - "The Pentagon must stop forcing servicemen and women to take the anthrax vaccination against their will, unless President Bush signs a special order, a judge ruled Monday...Millions of shots have been given and hundreds of service members have been punished for refusing them since the mandatory vaccinations started in 1998...The judge ruled that the anthrax vaccinations fell under a 1998 law prohibiting the use of certain experimental drugs unless people being given the drug consent or the president waives the consent requirement."

Comment: !!!!!!!

►December 21, 2003 - Fighting the Flu in Hand-to-Hand Combat - Officials Urge the Public to Limit Physical Contact and Wash, Wash, Wash - Washington Post

►December 22, 2003 - Stress Found to Weaken Resistance to Illness - Washington Post - "Scientists are gaining new insights into the role of temperament in making some people vulnerable to physical disease through studies exploring how stress influences the immune system, weakening disease-fighting cells and creating fertile environments for pathogens...Although the connection between emotion and disease has long been suspected -- physicians as early as the 2nd century A.D. observed a link between "melancholy" and physical illness -- researchers are finally pinpointing networks of biological systems that connect temperament with the progression of illness."