►February 20, 2004 - Mild Strain of Bird Flu Found in Texas - Reuters

►February 20, 2004 - WHO Sees No New Threat from Bird Flu in Cats - Reuters - "Confirmation that bird flu has jumped the species barrier and killed two cats in Thailand should not signify any increased danger to humans from the killer disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday...Furthermore, there was no reason that this would help trigger a feared mutation in the virus making it more of a threat to people, it added.

►February 20, 2004 - Aspirin-Induced Asthma More Common Than Thought - HealthDay via Atlanta Journal-Constitution

►February 20, 2004 - Journal regrets running MMR study - The medical journal that published a controversial study linking MMR to autism says, with hindsight, it would not have published the paper. - BBC

►February 20, 2004 - Bird flu kills house cats, raising fears infected pets could pass it to owners - Canadian Press via www.canada.com

►February 20, 2004 - Are pigs carrying flu superbug? - The Avian flu that has claimed 22 lives in the Far East has now been found in pigs. Because the animals are vulnerable to both bird and human flu, scientists fear the virus could mutate inside them into a superstrain like the one that killed up to a fifth of the world's population in 1918 - Times Online, UK

►February 20, 2004 - Drug effective against avian flu - A drug used to treat flu has been shown to be effective against the avian strain of the disease sweeping Asia. - BBC

►February 20, 2004 - Vaccine 'could block lung cancer' - Experts have developed a vaccine which could be used to block the progress of lung cancer. - BBC

►February 20, 2004 - FDA Adds Potent Strain to New Flu Vaccine (requires registration) The Los Angeles Times

►February 20, 2004 - Pocket of resistance - The Engineer via www.e4engineering.com - "The solution to HIV diagnosis in the third world could be provided by a portable protein detector powered by a nine volt battery...The cost-effective Pocket uses a combination of silver-based chemistry, a diagnostic chip, and an optical sensor to do the same job as bulky, expensive and resource-hungry hospital machinery - at a fraction of the time and cost. "

►February 18, 2004 - Delivering Small Babies Raises Future Stillbirth Risk - HealthDay via Yahoo! - "Women whose first baby was small, especially if it was delivered early, have a higher risk of having a stillborn baby on subsequent deliveries...Even among these high-risk women, however, the odds of a stillbirth were low. 'Ninety-eight times out of 100, the next pregnancy had a live-born baby,' says Dr. Mark A. Klebanoff a researcher at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. 'The absolute risk is not horribly high. It's not so high that somebody should necessarily be discouraged.'"

►February 20, 2004 - Home cooked food is the best answer to autism - Indo-Asian News Service via Hindustan Times

►February 19, 2004 - Heart deaths analyzed - Georgia high in fatalities before the age of 65 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

►February 20, 2004 - Why MS Patients Experience Fatigue - Archives of Neurology via Ivanhoe - "New research shows nerve fiber damage may help explain why many patients with multiple sclerosis suffer from fatigue...MS is a chronic disease of the central nervous system that is characterized by abnormal sensation, tremors, slurred speech, difficulty moving, and pain. Up to 87 percent of MS patients suffer from fatigue. According to researchers, fatigue is a major reason many MS patients are forced to give up working."

►February 19, 2004 - Avian influenza strains vary, but all pose potential risk to human health - Canadian Press via www.canada.com - "The discovery of avian influenza in a B.C. chicken flock is no reason to push the panic button, but it does require quick action to protect poultry stocks and human health, experts say...The H7 strain found at the farm on B.C.'s Lower Mainland is 'leaps and bounds different from H5N1, where there's high lethality, not only in chickens but also in humans,' influenza expert Dr. Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control said Thursday. The H5N1 strain has swept through Asia..."But what we want to do - always, whenever there's an avian outbreak - is contain it and minimize human exposure.''

►February 19, 2004 - British team develops ‘Black Death’ vaccine - The Times, UK - "BRITISH scientists have made a crucial breakthrough in the war on terrorism by developing a vaccine to counter bubonic plague, the bacteria that caused the Black Death...A vaccine for the bubonic plague, which killed millions in the Middle Ages and is now one of the deadliest bio-terrorism agents, may be available within a year as a result of a breakthrough at the Ministry of Defence’s laboratory at Porton Down.

Comment:  Antibiotics are effective against the plague if given within 24 hours of the first symptoms, according to the CDC.  (Although there apparently is some concern about growing resistance of the plague to antibiotics.)

►February 19, 2004 - Local activists attend legislative hearing on Lyme disease - According to one of its co-founders, the Greater Hartford Lyme Disease Support and Action Group is the only such group in the country - one that not only advocates, but makes a concrete effort to put a brighter spotlight on the tick-borne disease from which they all claim to suffer. - Farmington Valley Post via www.zwire.com

►February 20, 2004 - Birdflu vaccine seen top priority to stop pandemic - Reuters AlertNet

Comment:  But what if concerns raised in New Scientist are true, that vaccinations may be what is at least partly responsible for the current flu problem?

►February 20, 2004 - Vaccine 'boosts cancer survival' - Scientists have developed a vaccine which could protect kidney cancer patients against the disease returning. - BBC

►2004 - Jab alert as city's mumps cases soar - Glasgow is at the centre of an alarming rise in mumps among teenagers. - Evening Times

►February 19, 2004 - Yamaguchi bird flu virus capable of infecting humans: Japanese institute - The bird flu virus that killed chickens in Japan's Yamaguchi Prefecture is capable of infecting humans, but its virulence is weak, the Japanese National Institute of Animal Health said Thursday - People's Daily

►February 19, 2004 - Nigeria: Muslim suspicion of polio vaccine lingers on - UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs via www.irinnews.org

►February 19, 2004 - Those who obstruct immunisation will be punished - GNA via www.ghanaweb.com

►February 20, 2004 - Bird Flu Found in Cats in Asia; Canada on Alert - Reuters - "Two domestic cats in Thailand have died of the same bird flu that has killed at least 22 people in Asia, a veterinarian said on Friday, a day after Canada announced its first case of a different strain of the virus...The discoveries have alarmed scientists who now fear the disease can spread as easily between species as it has between countries."

Comment:  That's all well and good.  But what if having immunity to HIV doesn't really mean much?  What if HIV has nothing to do with AIDS, as some believe?