Vaccines

Meningitis Outbreak Accelerates in NYC Gay and Bi Communities

Department of Health calls for 100,000 vaccinations as fatalities climb in 2013

Getting The Meningitis Vaccine Wasn't Easy

With the warnings out about how every active gay man in NYC should get the meningitis vaccine, I assumed it would be a breeze to make this happen for myself. But my doctor didn't even have the vaccine for people my age. He had to call it into a pharmaceutical chain and wait for them to get it, sinc ... More >>

If You're A Man Who's Had Sex With A Man You Met On The Internet, You May Want A Meningitis Vaccine

If you're a man who's had "intimate contact with another man" whom you met on the Internet, the New York City Health Department recommends that you get a meningitis vaccination following a recent spike in the rare/potentially fatal disease.In addition to Internet rendezvous, the Health Department sa ... More >>

The Vaccines

The Anti-Vaccine Movement: A Brief History

A few days ago, we wrote about the U.S. whooping cough outbreak -- which is the worst in 50 years. Pertussis can prove deadly to infants and toddlers, but healthy adults aren't likely to succumb to this illness. (However, it's still a good idea to get a booster shot! Details here.) Whooping coug ... More >>

Are You Going To Die From Whooping Cough?

If you have been following the news, you are probably aware of the whooping cough outbreak, and probably wonder why there is an outbreak in the first place, considering there's been a vaccine for the disease for some 70 years. But you are probably also wondering: WTF is whooping cough and is it go ... More >>

As Whooping Cough Spreads, Schumer Demands Free Vaccinations

WebMD describes whooping cough as a "disease that causes very severe coughing that may last for months." It is a respiratory infection that can spread rapidly if untreated. And, in recent weeks, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that cases have been popping up across the co ... More >>

Queens Parents Sue City Over Mandatory Vaccinations

Today in "Religion vs. Medicine," two parents from Queens are asking a judge to overturn a rule that allows public schools to send unvaccinated children home when there are illnesses going around. While children are required to be vaccinated in order to attend public school, there is a legal except ... More >>

Rick Perry's Texas Fantasyland

Rick Perry's Texas is a job-makin', low-taxin' oasis of economic growth. It's also a fantasy.

Tomorrow, Tell Someone About Your Experience With HPV (Hashtag #HPVDay)

Zazzle​Yesterday, we proposed a plan. In an effort to increase communication about a virus most people don't know enough about -- and many women are too ashamed to talk about, even though pretty much every woman we know has dealt with it at some point in her life, maybe more than once, and eve ... More >>

We Would Like to Make a Motion to Institute 'Tweet That You Have Had HPV Day'

​HPV: Have you heard of it? You probably have, because in the last few days and weeks it's been talked about a lot -- often incorrectly -- by people like Michele Bachmann and, most recently, tweeted about by Ayelet Waldman, wife of novelist Michael Chabon. In Bachmann's case, she's using HPV v ... More >>

PLANET OF THE APES

Arctic Monkeys invade Central Park

Arctic Monkeys

Volunteer in an HIV Vaccine Study

​ Fucking around might be some people's idea of volunteering in an HIV study, but believe me, there are better ways. The other night at Lips, Peppermint and friends brought together an illustrious gang of club favorites to toast each other and to promote Project Achieve's vaccine study, which ... More >>

Oral Sex Is Causing Cancer. But, Wait, There's a Bright Side.

Not so cute in reality.​Scientists, who clearly do not want us to be happy, are again reminding us of a link between oral sex and BAD THINGS. This time, cancer. There's "strong evidence" linking oral sex to cancer, scientists have said, yet again. In fact, in the U.S., oral sex has surpassed t ... More >>

MEDICINE FOR THE MELANCHOLY

A punk quick fix

Autism Via Vaccine Study is an 'Elaborate Fraud'

Jenny McCarthy is wrong​A British study claiming that autism could be contracted from childhood vaccines, a cause championed most famously by actress Jenny McCarthy, has already been deemed a scientific mess full of errors, but a new report from a British medical journal contends that its inte ... More >>

Whooping Cough, There It Is: 2010's Big Epidemic.

​While "Whooping Cough" sounds like something you catch on The Oregon Trail right before your oxen die of dysentery from trying to cross the river, it's actually a deadly cold that's currently killing babies in California right now at a rate not seen since 1955. Why's this happening, and how d ... More >>

Journalist Sued for Accurately Quoting Source Wins Case

​Last year freelance writer Amy Wallace wrote a story for Wired called "An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All" about anti-vaccination advocates. In the article, Dr. Paul Offit says of one such advocate, Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information ... More >>

'Dub War Present Instra:mental & Vaccine'

Health alert issued for mumps outbreak in Brooklyn

​The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has issued an alert (pdf) to healthcare providers in response to a record mumps outbreak in New York and New Jersey. The CDC traced the path of infection back to an asymptomatic 11-year-old boy who carried it from an epidemic in England to an ... More >>

Giant Lobsters, Courtesy of Climate Change; Does Organic Food Make You a Jerk?

​A new study suggests that people who buy local and organic foods -- i.e., "virtuous shoppers" -- are more likely to be immoral. Specifically, green shoppers were found to be more likely to cheat and steal. [Slate] According to recent research, higher levels of acidity in oceans, which result ... More >>

Free flu shots

​Saturday's free flu clinics were much more popular than the kids-only version last week, with city officials reporting that more people had been vaccinated by 1 pm than the total number vaccinated last weekend. Shots are available for anyone between 4 and 24, pregnant women, caregivers of in ... More >>

Low Turnout Means Plenty of Swine Flu Vaccine, Weekend Clinics

​When everyone was worried about swine flu vaccine shortages, the city concentrated on getting schoolchildren immunized and discouraged "healthy, non-elderly adults" from getting shots. But at the last weekend clinics, the Times reported unexpectedly low turnout. Now the city, awash in vaccin ... More >>

Weekend student vaccination centers open

​As part of Mayor Bloomberg's H1N1 flu plan for NYC, the Board of Health has opened vaccination centers this weekend in all five boroughs for middle school and high school students. Elementary school students above four years of age are also eligible for the free shots. Fifty private compani ... More >>

Swine Flu EMERGENCY PANIC Declared by Paterson

​Though the CDC has stopped collecting swine-flu-specific info from states, Governor Paterson has apparently seen enough, including 75 s-f deaths since this whole PANIC kicked off, and has declared a swine flu emergency. What does that mean? The state will start allowing less-qualified medica ... More >>

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 >>

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 >>

Daniel Craig at a New York Gay Club!

​Yes, he most surely was, as reported in this week's column [CLICK HERE], which is more packed with good stuff than a circuit queen's butt at the Black Party. Read this invigorating opus and you will also learn about:

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 >>

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

SERVE IT UP

Serena and Venus play the Garden

Shots in the Dark

New worries about HPV vaccine for kids—other than foes' warnings of promiscuity

The Slut Shot

Will the HPV vaccine encourage sexual freedom or right-wing lunatics?

Soldiers Fear the Needle

The Pentagon still fights for its anthrax vaccine

Daddy Bush's Gulf War Still Makes People Sick

Down With the Flu

Bush takes a shot at answering the big question about vaccine

Round Up the Unusual Suspects

A New Health-Emergency Law Raises Concerns for the Immune Compromised

Relying on Blind Faith

Media Assembles Fractured Picture of War

Letters

Injecting Big Brother

New Vaccines May Drug-Proof Kids

Harvard Mafia Lives!

Andersen Taps 'Spy' Lawyer for 'Inside'

Part 6: Ending the Epidemic

African Prostitutes May Play a Crucial Role in Developing an HIV Vaccine

Part 4: The Virus, Past and Future

There Are Two AIDS Epidemics—and More May Be Coming

Letters

Rise of the Vaccine Nation

'The New Yorker' Joins the Campaign for a Disease-Free America

Casualties of War

In Congo, civil strife allows polio to survive

Human Rights = Public Health

Remembering AIDS Pioneer Jonathan Mann

Unsung AIDS Advance

One Vaccine Breatkthrough Overshadows Another