Medicine

State backs down on mandatory H1N1 shots

​New York State is no longer requiring healthcare workers to take the H1N1 vaccine or risk firing, but only because they don't have enough of it.

Swine Flu Vaccine PANIC: Do We Have Enough, and Will It Kill Us?

Swine flu vaccines will be in New York schools next week -- unless they run out: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius admits there's not enough to go around at present. "Demand is ahead of the yield," she says; Senator Joe Lieberman says there are 30 million doses available, as oppo ... More >>

Obama DOJ Goes Easy on Medical Marijuana

The Department of Justice will not go after medical marijuana users and suppliers who are following state laws which allow them to operate, according to new DOJ guidelines examined by the Washington Post. This would seem to reverse the policy of the previous Administration, which continued to send D ... More >>

NYS healthcare workers get a restraining order against mandatory flu shots

​The State Supreme Court granted a restraining order to a public employee's union on Friday blocking an emergency regulation mandating seasonal and H1N1 (swine) flu shots for nurses, doctors, aides, and non-medical personnel who have patient contact. The Public Employees Federation represents ... More >>

Council Ban on Flavored Smokes Expectedly Passes

​As we expected, the city council went ahead and passed that ban on flavored tobacco products, which "improves" the FDA action against the yum smokes by including flavored cigars, chewing tobacco, and cigarillos in the order. The Mayor is expected to sign it. "That looks like a lip gloss," s ... More >>

Flavored Tobacco Ban, Stronger Than FDA's, Gets Council Vote Today

The city council is going to vote today on a bill that will ban all kinds of flavored tobacco products in the city -- with a big exception made for the biggest category of flavored tobacco, menthol and wintergreen cigarettes. It's the latest in a round of bad news for smokers, who are already bann ... More >>

Q&A: Marisa Acocella Marchetto on Cancer Vixen, Her Fund, and FREE Mammograms This Friday

​ The Cancer Vixen herself. Photo by Jeremy Balderston. When graphic novelist Marisa Acocella Marchetto was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, she didn't have health insurance. But she had supportive friends and doctors, a good strong will -- and a creative outlet that also helped get her ... More >>

What's Happening This Week: A Festival of Lights; An Absinthe Tasting

As many of you know, our weekly dining and drinking newsletter features all the coolest epicurean events in the city. Sign up for it here! Diwali Brick Lane Curry House various dates Celebrate Diwali, the Indian festival of lights with Chef Karthik Kumar, who is running a special menu this week an ... More >>

Post's Peyser Goes Pro-Gestapo in Park Smoking Ban Column

by Steven Thrasher. ​Is the Post's Andrea Peyser pro-Gestapo or anti-Gestapo, or does she just "milk" the word like a newborn infant? A couple of years ago, Peyser was definitely anti-Gestapo. In a prequel to the Post's recent War Against Nudity, Peyser lashed out against the "Breast Feed Ge ... More >>

Council Candidate: Latino Blood is Better Than Non-Latino Blood, Which "Has Problems"

The Grand Council of Guardians, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Alliance, and the Corona branch of the NAACP will hold a press conference today at which they will discuss controversial remarks made by Eduardo Giraldo, a candidate for the 21st district city council seat in Queens. The remarks in q ... More >>

Rightbloggers Scour Kennedy Funeral for Anti-Obamacare Ammo

After a plane crash killed liberal Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife and daughter, and several staff members in 2002, his friends and family held a memorial at the University of Minnesota attended by 15,000 people. The theme was "Stand up, keep fighting" for Wellstone's beliefs, and the expected D ... More >>

Inside the Heads of Obama's Health Care Town-Hall Rowdies

Get Ready for Swine Flu 2 with Dangerous Vaccines, Video Game

​Those of us who remember the Swine Flu PANIC of '09 may be interested to learn from the Associated Press that "NYC schools prepare for 2nd outbreak of swine flu." These epidemics historically come in pairs, and the second is usually worse. AP mainly notes anecdotal portents -- "Sharing water ... More >>

Smokers Fight, Kill for Rights in Turkey

​Apparently smokers are way more protective of their rights in Turkey than they are here in New York. A fight broke out when a restaurant owner in Southwest Turkey ordered a group of customers to extinguish their cigarettes following a national indoor smoking ban, leaving the owner dead and h ... More >>

West Nile Found in Bronx Mosquitoes; Staten Island Safe So Far

The Department of Health has detected West Nile virus in Bronx mosquitoes. The infected mosquitoes were collected at Ferry Point Park, and are the first West Nile carriers detected in the city this year. The DOH attributes 162 cases and 20 deaths to West Nile since 1999, when 62 cases of encephali ... More >>

New York Will Pay $10,000 for Your Eggs; It's for Science

Well, Christine Quinn did say we were going after biotech: New York is going to pay women for their eggs, not to create an army of Mike Bloombergs but to be used in stem cell research. The Empire State Stem Cell Board is empowered to pay women up to $10,000 for ova, which puts us a leg up on every ... More >>

The Next Frontier of the Stem Cell Debate

"Snowflake" babies, embryo "adoption," and being pre-born again

Times Reveals Ambition, Dyslexia of Ari Emanuel, Brother of Rahm and Charlie Rose

The Times' front page story on actual liberal Hollywood elite Ari Emanuel -- super agent to the stars, brother to Rahm (and black sheep/bioethicist Ezekiel), and nothing to do with Obama we swear middle America -- is laudable for its omission of the words "Entourage," "Jeremy," and "Piven." Too bad ... More >>

A Cookoff With Balls

Is it just us or is everyone tasting testicles lately? If you're a fan of balls, you might want to get yourself to Serbia this summer. The World Testicle & Aphrodisiac Cooking Championship will be held in August in Gornji Milanovac. The event is meant to promote "testicle specialities [sic] as well ... More >>

Dead Toddler Appears Free of Swine Flu, But PANIC Persists

New York officials are saying that the 18-month-old whose death triggered a new round of swine flu PANIC, Jonathan Zamora of Queens, did not have swine flu, at least as determined by analysis of nasal swabs. To be extra sure they are sending tissue samples to the CDC. amNY reports that this announc ... More >>

Swine Flu in Queens, Elsewhere in U.S.; Mexico Death Toll Over 100

A sickness that people get from having direct contact with pigs has now spread to kids in New York. Yesterday the Centers for Disease Control confirmed that eight children at a Queens prep school have contracted swine flu, a strain of flu common in pigs and extremely rare in humans. Only twelve tota ... More >>

New York Swine Flu Cases Up to 28; More Mexican Deaths

The CDC now has New York's new swine flu cases at 28. The Mayor confirms the news. The U.S. total is now 40. The outbreak is said to be affecting the stock market. The Times is taking reader questions about the virus, to be answered later by their health reporter Pam Belluck. Michigan may be added ... More >>

Smokes Top $9 a Pack Tomorrow

Smokers, get yourself to the bodega. Starting tomorrow, cigs sold in the city will top $9 dollars a pack. The Health Department reports that the 62-cent tax increase will push the cost of cigarettes here -- already the most expensive in the nation since last June -- to more than $250 a month for tho ... More >>

Bloomberg Turns Over His Next Campaign to Blagojevich's Ex-Deputy

Alomar Ex Says He Has AIDS

Roberto Alomar has AIDS, his ex-girlfriend says, and she's brought a $15 million lawsuit against the former Mets star, reports the Daily News. The girlfriend, Ilya Dali, claims that in her time with him Alomar was diagnosed by Mets doctors with thrombocytopenia purpura, often a presenting symptom o ... More >>

Gillibrand Learned How to Defend Tobacco's Dirtiest Secrets as a Young Lawyer

The new senator's from Marlboro County

Daschle Out at HHS

While new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner owed $34,000 in taxes, he had an excuse, if not a good one, in his confusion over his salary arrangements with the World Bank, and it's not like a Treasury Secretary has that much to do with finance anyway. But Tom Daschle, Senate lion and proposed Health a ... More >>

Valentine's Spending Predicted Down; AAD Suggests Romantic Mole Check

Though U.S. spending on holidays has been climbing in recent years, the National Retail Foundation has a more modest prediction for Valentine's Day: "Consumers Opt for Quality Time with Loved Ones over Traditional Gifts." They still predict an average consumer spend of $122.98, though. The analyst ... More >>

Hapless Subject Illustrates Increased STD Risk from Heavy Drinking

We can only imagine how Michelangelo Franqui feels this morning. The Queens man admitted to amNY that one time "My friends had to drag me up the stairs because I was passed out" from strong drink," and when told of a city health department report that shows that people who get that drunk stand a gre ... More >>

Undertaker Gets Cremated

A Newark funeral director has lost his license after being caught in a scheme to harvest the body parts of his clients and sell them to organ tissue banks. Stephen K. Finley, who owns Berardinelli Forest Hill Memorial Home, Cremation at a Low Cost, and Funeraria Santa Cruz, all located in Newark, ha ... More >>

HIV Man Faked HIV Test to Get Sex, Is Under Arrest

Second Marathon Casualty Named

Gotbaum Rates the STD Clinics: Chelsea's the Worst

New York Has Higher HIV Rates, Best Drinking Water

We Are Together: Wincing Through Tears

A hackneyed doc on a heartbreaking subject

Clip Job: Saloon Society Update

Survey: One in Four New Yorkers Has Genital Herpes

Baghdad Boils

Friends Bid Farewell to Bob Kohler, 'A Grand Old Fag'

Bob Kohler, Gay Rights Pioneer, 1926-2007

Children Exposed to 9/11 Air More Likely to Develop Asthma

'Superbug' Hits NYU

HIV on the Rise Among Young Gay Men

The Perfect Summer Meal -- With a Side of Epi-Pen

Syphilis Cases Double Thus Far in '07

Live: Jesus and Mary Chain at Webster Hall, 05.21.07

More Beenie Man Shutdown

The Case for Plan B

Morning Report 12/5/05
The Gloves Are Off

Daddy Bush's Gulf War Still Makes People Sick