Flu shot doing poor job of protecting older people

ATLANTA (AP) ? It turns out this year's flu shot is doing a startlingly dismal job of protecting older people, the most vulnerable age group.

The vaccine is proving only 9 percent effective in those 65 and older against the harsh strain of the flu that is predominant this season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

Health officials are baffled as to why this is so. But the findings help explain why so many older people have been hospitalized with the flu this year.

Despite the findings, the CDC stood by its recommendation that everyone over 6 months get flu shots, the elderly included, because some protection is better than none, and because those who are vaccinated and still get sick may suffer less severe symptoms.

"Year in and year out, the vaccine is the best protection we have," said CDC flu expert Dr. Joseph Bresee.

Overall, across the age groups studied, the vaccine's effectiveness was found to be a moderate 56 percent, which means those who got a shot have a 56 percent lower chance of winding up at the doctor with the flu. That is somewhat worse than what has been seen in other years.

For those 65 and older, the vaccine was only 27 percent effective against the three strains it is designed to protect against, the worst level in about a decade. It did a particularly poor job against the tough strain that is causing more than three-quarters of the illnesses this year.

It is well known that flu vaccine tends to protect younger people better than older ones. Elderly people have weaker immune systems that don't respond as well to flu shots, and they are more vulnerable to the illness and its complications, including pneumonia.

But health officials said they don't know why this year's vaccine did so poorly in that age group.

One theory, as yet unproven, is that older people's immune systems were accustomed to strains from the last two years and had more trouble switching gears to handle this year's different, harsh strain.

The preliminary data for senior citizens is less than definitive. It is based on fewer than 300 people scattered among five states.

But it will no doubt surprise many people that the effectiveness is that low, said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious-disease expert who has tried to draw attention to the need for a more effective flu vaccine.

Among infectious diseases, flu is considered one of the nation's leading killers. On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

This flu season started in early December, a month earlier than usual, and peaked by the end of year. Hospitalization rates for people 65 and older have been some of the highest in a decade, at 146 per 100,000 people.

Flu viruses tend to mutate more quickly than others, so a new vaccine is formulated each year to target the strains expected to be the major threats. CDC officials have said that in formulating this year's vaccine, scientists accurately anticipated the strains that are circulating this season.

Because of the guesswork involved, scientists tend to set a lower bar for flu vaccine. While childhood vaccines against diseases like measles are expected to be 90 or 95 percent effective, a flu vaccine that's 60 to 70 percent effective in the U.S. is considered pretty good. By that standard, this year's vaccine is OK.

For senior citizens, a flu vaccine is considered pretty good if it's in the 30 to 40 percent range, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan flu expert.

A high-dose version of the flu shot was recently made available for those 65 and older, but the new study was too small to show whether that has made a difference.

The CDC estimates are based on about 2,700 people who got sick in December and January. The researchers traced back to see who had gotten shots and who hadn't. An earlier, smaller study put the vaccine's overall effectiveness at 62 percent, but other factors that might have influenced that figure weren't taken into account.

The CDC's Bresee said there is a danger in providing preliminary results because it may result in people doubting ? or skipping ? flu shots. But the figures were released to warn older people who got shots that they may still get sick and shouldn't ignore any serious flu-like symptoms, he said.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/flu-shot-doing-poor-job-protecting-older-people-232338537.html

Django Unchained iTunes Alfred Morris weight watchers fandango kobe bryant google play

Happy Valentine?s, Google ? see you in court

Payam Tamiz may not be a name very well known in Silicon Valley, or indeed much beyond his small hometown of Margate, a dilapidated coastal resort not far from London. But the wannabe politician has discovered a way to get the giants of the internet to sit up and take notice.

This week Tamiz made wave with an appeal against Google, which he was trying to sue over defamatory comments about him made on Blogger posting. In a case that goes back to 2011, Tamiz had argued that Google was effectively the publisher of a series of comments calling him, falsely, a thief and a drug dealer, and should have deleted them as soon as they were made aware of them. Google did delete the comments, but only after a five week gap.

Tamiz is familiar with online controversy: one reason he was a lightning rod for angry comments in the first place was because, he stepped down as a local election candidate in 2011 after calling Margate?s women ?sluts? on Facebook. And so, when he did not originally win his case ? the first judge ruling that Google was not the publisher of the comments ? he appealed to a higher court. There Google?s inaction was found to be troubling, though it did not actually overturn the libel ruling itself.

As the Financial Times reported:

Although Lord Justice Richards and Lord Justice Sullivan agreed with the original ruling that Google was not the primary or secondary publisher of the content it hosted, they said it was ?at least arguable that some point after notification Google became liable for continued publication of the material?.

The Lords Justice likened the situation to a 1930s court case in which a golf club was held responsible for defamatory material left on its noticeboard because it failed to remove it after it was notified.

Cue the shrill sound of the press screeching into action. ?Blogger.com libel case opens door for internet giant being required to monitor users? posts?, squealed the Daily Mail with barely contained delight. Except, as it outlines in the story, the headline is essentially trolling ? Tamiz was denied his libel claim and asked to pay 50 percent of Google?s legal costs: likely to be a tidy sum. And it?s a stretch to suggest, as much commentary does, that this is another step towards internet regulation ? asking a company to respond to notices of illegal content may not be popular (just see the DMCA) but it is reasonable to expect them to comply with local jurisdiction.

Still, Tamiz ? and the kerfuffle around his case ? does show the amount of energy being expended around online libel in Britain right now.

Defamation laws in the U.K. are notoriously harsh, in large part because they lean in favor of the plaintiff and put the burden of proof on the defendant: it?s a case of ?prove your comments were true? rather than ?prove their comments were false?.

And the precedent for defamation in online publishing stretches back 15 years, to the case of Godfrey v Demon Internet Service, in which a physics lecturer sued an ISP over comments made in a Usenet group it hosted: the ISP settled the case, because a pre-trial ruling intimated that it was potentially culpable since, despite knowledge of the situation, refused to act for 10 days. Although the award was small ? just ?15,000 in 1997, the equivalent of around $33,000 today?? it has laid the groundwork in Britain.

It?s one major reason many media companies employ battalions of comment moderators, and carefully police the comment threads on their own stories.

But remember, we are all media companies now. And that means that we are all open to the same set of rules. There have also been plenty of high-profile cases on Twitter and Facebook against individual users, but so far there has not been much success in taking on platform providers themselves. Just last week a judge in Northern Ireland ruled that while anonymous comments made on Facebook were defamatory, Facebook itself was not liable.

Still, with Godfrey in the background and more and more cases coming along, you can understand why people see Tamiz?s case as another push at a brick in the wall between platforms and publishing.

Yes, everyone?s a media company now: and eventually that will go for Google, Facebook, Twitter and the rest as much as it does you and me.

Source: http://gigaom.com/2013/02/17/happy-valentines-google-see-you-in-court/

Stephen Covey klimt bastille day breaking bad breaking bad food network star British Open 2012

GTA IV Addon - 2000 Ford Crown Victoria: HighWayPatrol Liberty City

Whenever you are in search for some new and fun change of scenery for within the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, you can try out the new 2000 Ford Crown Victoria: HighWayPatrol Liberty City mod.

After unpacking the archive, you must copy the content in the following path: Rockstar Games/GTA?IV/Models.

Requirements:

? Grand Theft Auto IV

Source: http://games.softpedia.com/get/Mods-Addons/GTA-IV-Addon-2000-Ford-Crown-Victoria-HighWayPatrol-Liberty-city.shtml

London 2012 Slalom Canoe Alex Morgan Misty May Treanor Lolo Jones Aly Raisman Marvin Hamlisch Megan Rossee

Yippee-Ki-Yay ...

Illustration by Deanna Staffo

The latest installment of the Die Hard franchise, A Good Day To Die Hard, opened in theaters this week. The reviews have been mostly negative: In her write-up, Slate film critic Dana Stevens calls the film ?sclerotic? while Stevens, Chris Wade, and Alice Tynan take turns panning the film in their Slate Spoiler Special. But to honor the franchise?s better days, we reprint Eric Lichetenfeld?s article from 2007, in which he celebrates one of the most memorable cinematic one-liners of all time.

On the city streets of America, buses have been displaying a strange ad. No art, just white print on black, a slogan stranded between English and gibberish: "Yippee Ki Yay Mo?." Although the line is not spelled the way it's pronounced, it's still recognizable as the first half of a well-known action-movie one-liner. The ad is teasing the June 27 release of Live Free or Die Hard. Since the Die Hard franchise, and its catchphrase, have been absent from the screen for 12 years, a question arises: do the words "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" still matter? And why did they resonate in the first place?

First heard in the original Die Hard in 1988, "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker," is one of the many one-liners that have graced the action film, a body of work not known for its strong verbal tradition. Indeed, the delivery of the one-liner ranks among the most cherished rites of this ritualistic genre. Whether a quip, catchphrase, or callback to an earlier installment in a franchise, one-liners, even at their corniest, provoke the same glee as the most pyrotastic action sequences.

Many one-liners are bad, if treasured, puns (Arnold put his stamp on "You're fired" long before Donald did). Others display a wit that we might grudgingly concede ("Barbeque, huh? How do you like your ribs?"). The one-liner is also remarkably versatile. It spans the grandiose ("I'm going to show you God does exist"; "I'm your worst nightmare") to the minimalist ("Get off my plane"; "Whoah"). It ranges from the functional ("Dead or alive, you're coming with me") to the iconic ("Go ahead ? make my day"). And while some are uninspired ("It's time to die"), others are absurd ("I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass?and I'm all out of bubble gum"), self-referential ("No sequel for you"), and sardonic ("Go ahead ? I don't shop here").

The 1980s were the golden age of the one-liner, with the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, and Clint Eastwood, and the ascension of such screenwriters as Steven E. de Souza and Shane Black, who penned many of the decade's high-concept action and buddy movies (Die Hard, Commando, and Lethal Weapon chief among them). Yet, like many action film conventions, the one-liner has roots in other genres. In the landmark Western The Searchers (1956), John Wayne growled, "That'll be the day," prompting Buddy Holly to immortalize the catchphrase in a hit single the following year. And not only did the James Bond franchise give us "Bond?James Bond," but lines such as "Shocking! Positively shocking!"; "He had to fly"; and "He got the boot" prove that Bond also gave action films their penchant for punning. Throughout the series, Bond's cheeky dialogue defuses the emotion of a given scene, just as the one-liner does throughout the action genre.

Such glibness lays bare the action hero's core reticence. "I ain't got time to bleed," insists Predator's Jesse Ventura, who would repurpose the line for the title of his book, I Ain't Got Time To Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic From the Bottom Up.Less quoted but even more germane is the declaration by Road House's Patrick Swayze, "Pain don't hurt." A contradiction, yes, but one that defines both the action hero and, more literally, one of the genre's most iconic roles: the title character of The Terminator.

That 1984 movie inaugurated Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature, "I'll be back." In this case, the one-liner is funny only in hindsight, as the cyborg comes right back, fully armed and with a pickup-truck-of-mass-destruction to boot. Reversing the typical action-sequence structure, the quip is the set-up, the violence is the punch line. There is nothing especially remarkable about "I'll be back" (it is not, after all, Cobra's "You're the disease, and I'm the cure," a line noted by the press six months before the film's 1986 opening). Even so, "I'll be back" distills the action movie's ritualistic appeal. The pleasure of hearing it said from movie to movie is the same as hearing a story told time after time.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=22d91a375b194257c6f5cbd3f8f4f079

sledge hammer tax day freebies madison bumgarner wnba draft tax day april 17 boston marathon

Carnival Triumph to be Towed to Mexico, More than 4,000 On Board Are Safe

GULF OF MEXICO (WPMI) ? Sunday morning the cruise ship Carnival Triumph experienced an engine room fire while the vessel was sailing approximately 150 miles off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The ship?s automatic fire extinguishing systems activated and the fire was contained to the aft engine room. At this time, the fire is fully extinguished. There were no casualties or injuries to guests or crew. All appropriate authorities including U.S. Coast Guard have been notified.

The vessel is currently without propulsion and the ship is operating on emergency generator power. The ship's technical crew has determined the vessel will need to be towed to port. A tugboat is en route to the ship's location and will tow the vessel to Progreso, Mexico, which is the closest port to the ship?s current location. Guests will be able to disembark and get home as quickly as possible. The ship is expected to arrive in Progreso Wednesday afternoon and guests will be flown from there back to the U.S.

There are 3,143 guests and 1,086 crew on board. Guests are being provided with food and refreshments. Another Carnival ship, the Carnival Elation, is currently on scene and transferring additional food and beverage provisions to the Carnival Triumph.

Carnival Cruise Lines contacted the designated emergency contacts for all guests presently on board Carnival Triumph. Concerned family and loved ones of guests and crew may call 888.290.5095 or 305.406.5534.

All guests on the current Carnival Triumph voyage will receive a full refund of the cruise, along with transportation expenses. In addition, they will receive a future cruise credit equal to the amount paid for this voyage, as well as reimbursement of all shipboard purchases during the voyage, with the exception of gift shop and casino charges.

The next two voyages of Carnival Triumph, scheduled to depart Monday, February 11 and Saturday, February 16 are being canceled. Guests scheduled to sail on either of those voyages will receive a full refund, reimbursement for non-refundable travel expenses and a 25 percent discount on a future three to five-day cruise. Carnival is in contact with impacted guests to advise them of the situation.

The current Carnival Triumph voyage departed Galveston, Texas on Thursday, February 7 and was scheduled to return on Monday, Feb. 11.

Click here to read this story on www.local15tv.com

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50765256/ns/local_news-mobile_al/

ciaa love actually strikeforce davy jones deep impact miesha tate vs ronda rousey idiocracy

Almond Milk Benefits! | Gnet Health and Fitness

We all know good old fashioned milk can do us all the world of good but did you know? There is another type of milk actually much more beneficial in terms or properties? It may be a bit harder to find in the supermarket but well worth looking for a variety of great reasons.

It also tastes great! Well in this feature you?ll discover a lot more so read on and be prepared for some surprises along the way thanks to almond milk!

CHECK THIS OUT: www.darktube.org/watch/almond-health-benefits-http-www..

Why is Almond Milk More Beneficial than Ordinary Milk?

The simple fact is this type of milk actually contains many more nutrients due to its fat content. But before the word fat worries you we should reveal at this point it also carries less calories, meaning you can use it to help you lose weight as part of a dieting programme!

Still not impressed? Then keep reading! This milk substitute is produced by finely grinding almonds together with water. It has a long history as a popular food. Medieval European recipes frequently used almond milk. It has always been a popular beverage in the Middle East.

Ok So Impress Us With the Benefits?

Oh we can certainly do that by telling you almond milk can reduce cholesterol as well as clean your arteries, and is really great for people looking to lose weight or as part of an exercise programme. For those individuals who may be lactose tolerant or suffer from allergies then almond milk is much better than soy milk.

Almond milk can also help reduce the risk of both Alzheimer?s and osteoporosis, as it?s packed with vitamin D which can help in cell building! Almond milk is nutritious with little saturated fat or lactose, unlike cow?s milk. This is a wonderful thing if you?re lactose intolerant! Very low in calories it contains only 40 calories per serving, and it doesn?t have many carbs either with only two grams per serving.

The truth is almond milk contains about three grams of fat per eight ounce serving. Its fat content is equivalent to rice milk. Because it contains so many great natural things almond milk doesn?t need to be fortified. It?s perfect for either vegetarians or vegans.

YOU?LL FIND 50 PER CENT OF YOUR DAILY RECOMMENDED INTAKE OF VITAMIN A IN JUST A SINGLE SERVING OF ALMOND MILK. THIS CAN HELP IMPROVE EYE AND SKIN CARE!

Vitamin A helps your eyes ability to adjust to changes on light and improves the function of your eyes. Crucially it can help increase the health of your bones as it contains lots of calcium. Stronger bones can also mean the threat of Osteoporosis is greatly reduced as we get older, so this has to be a fantastic benefit!

Diabetics Will be Pleased!

Yes this is blood sugar friendly and an average serving will contain around 8 grams of carbohydrates, 7 of which are sugar. Sugars in this case have much less of an impact on our bodies unlike diary milk sugars stored as fat!

ALMOND MILK HAS A LOW GLYCEMIC NATURE SO THE SUGARS CAN BE FULLY DIGESTED AND THE BODY CAN USE THIS FOR ENERGY!

The Heart of the Matter!

Cholesterol is simply non-existent in a serving and with very little sodium in the mix but potassium in abundance then this will help keep body blood pressure normal and this in turn will keep your heart healthy! Many people love the taste as well so it?s easy and enjoyable to drink.

You can make almond milk at home by soaking almonds in a jar of water in the refrigerator for a day, then blending and straining the liquid to produce the final product!

Bodybuilding and Almond Milk!

The message here is clear and simple! Almond milk delivers muscle power in abundance as part of an organised dietary programme which is superb for bodybuilders and even athletes. Muscles will benefit greatly thanks to the riboflavin and protein resulting in increased vitamin B and iron!

Explosive power can be achieved thanks to the milk?s properties combined with a strong exercise regime, and in a very natural way. Just one serving will give you 4 per cent of your recommended intake of iron! This in itself can regulate the absorption of oxygen. Those muscles will be rippling in no time at all if you drink almond milk on a regular basis!

Did you know? Almonds contain manganese, vitamin E, magnesium, selenium, potassium, zinc, iron, phosphorous, calcium and fibre!

It seems very clear then the benefits of Almond milk can be very valuable to us all as part of a balanced diet and lifestyle. It?s certainly a gift from nature and doesn?t need any additives. But if you have any worries or concerns at all then ask your doctor or dietician who will give you the best advice!

Related posts:

Source: http://www.gnet.org/almond-milk-benefits/

republican debate lewis black kirkwood chris brown and rihanna nightline brady quinn brady quinn