United States

Family Fights to Block Deportation of Comatose Exchange Student

A Pakistani exchange student, in a coma since a November car accident, faces possible deportation next week as his visa expires and the Minnesota hospital caring for him seeks to send him home amid mounting, unpaid medical bills, claims the man’s family.

The immigration status of Shahzaib Bajwa, 20, has gained the U.S. State Department’s attention, while near his bed at Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, his family wages a strained battle with the hospital to keep Bajwa at that facility, off an airplane, and in the United States. He was in a one-semester program at the University of Wisconsin-Superior before a car in which he was a passenger struck a deer.

“They asked us to sign a consent form to take him back to Pakistan in this condition. We just want what’s best for my brother, to stay here, to be treated in the United States,” said the student’s brother, Shahraiz Bajwa.

“There is one doctor at this hospital who has put a lot of effort in sending my brother back, and he must be very heartbroken that we are still here. He is doing it because my brother is costing them money,” Bajwa said. “In his condition, it would be a big risk. It would be 24 hours to get there. And they do not have the same medicines in Pakistan.”

The young man’s family is in the U.S. on visitors’ visas. His travel insurance plan was capped at $100,000 for emergency medical care.

Hospital spokeswoman Maureen Talarico said patient-privacy laws prevent her from addressing the family’s claims and allow her to report only that Shahzaib Bajwa is in fair condition.

“We are working collaboratively with Mr. Bajwa’s family and caregivers along with the U.S. and Pakistani governments to reach the best possible outcome for the patient and for his family,” Talarico said.

His family is watching both the calendar and the clock.

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Bajwa has slowly regained the ability to open his eyes, wiggle his toes, and squeeze his mother’s hand – although inconsistently, and he remains unable to speak, his brother said, adding: “We don’t know what’s going on in his mind.” Based on a common neurological scale, Bajwa may be emerging from his coma.

While the ensuing months of bedside vigil may be many, the family sees the hours dwindling before his student visa expires Feb. 28.

“When we asked the hospital to convert his student visa into a medical visa, first they said they would help us. Then they took that offer from the table,” Shahraiz Bajwa said. His brother’s medical expenses, he confirmed, exceed $350,000, adding the family – visiting from Pakistan – does not have the money or medical insurance to cover to those bills.

Now, federal agencies are examining the issue.

During a Feb. 13 briefing, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf was asked if the agency had decided not to extend Bajwa’s student visa while he remains in a coma.

“No, that’s not true,” Harf said. “… The State Department is continuing to work with the hospital, with the student program sponsors. He is in the United States on a State Department-sponsored J-1 (student) exchange program …

“… It’s not accurate to say that the State Department isn’t extending the visa. That’s just not how the process works, right? So we’re working with his family as they decide on treatment options and we’ll help them maintain flexibility in terms of his status,” Harf said.

Minneapolis-based immigration attorney Saiko McIvor, working on behalf of the Bajwa family, said the State Department seems not to favor extending Bajwa’s student visa. She’s in talks with the local branch of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“We are working to get things resolved so that he would stay in legal status in the United States beyond Feb. 28. But trying to get a J-1 extended may be very difficult because that would require U.S. State Department’s cooperation and I don’t think they might be willing to do that,” McIvor said.

Source: NBC news

 

Number of test-tube babies born in U.S. hits record percentage

More test-tube babies were born in the United States in 2012 than ever before, and they constituted a higher percentage of total births than at any time since the technology was introduced in the 1980s, according to a report released on Monday.

The annual report was from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), an organization of medical professionals.

SART’s 379 member clinics, which represent more than 90 percent of the infertility clinics in the country, reported that in 2012 they performed 165,172 procedures involving in vitro fertilization (IVF), in which an egg from the mother-to-be or a donor is fertilized in a lab dish. They resulted in the birth of 61,740 babies.

That was about 2,000 more IVF babies than in 2011. With about 3.9 million babies born in the United States in 2012, the IVF newborns accounted for just over 1.5 percent of the total, more than ever before.

The growing percentage reflects, in part, the increasing average age at which women give birth for the first time, since fertility problems become more common as people age. The average age of first-time mothers is now about 26 years; it was 21.4 years in 1970.

Although the rising number of test-tube babies suggests that the technology has become mainstream, critics of IVF point out that the numbers, particularly the success rates, mask wide disparities.

“It’s important for people to understand that women over 35 have the highest percentage of failures,” said Miriam Zoll, author of the 2013 book “Cracked Open: Liberty, Fertility and the Pursuit of High Tech Babies.”

Earlier data from SART showed that the percentage of attempts that result in live births is 10 times higher in women under 35 than in women over 42. And in the older women fewer than half the IVF pregnancies result in a live birth.

Zoll added, “these treatments have consistently failed two-thirds of the time since 1978,” when the first test tube baby was born, in England.

After years in which IVF physicians were criticized for transferring multiple embryos to increase the odds of pregnancy – because that sometimes resulted in the birth of triplets and even higher multiples, often with dangerously low birthweights and other health risks – infertility clinics transferred fewer embryos per cycle in 2012 than 2011. As a result, the number of twin and triplet births were both down.

Source: Reuters

Fewer U.S. children dying in car crashes: CDC

Fewer U.S. children are dying in car crashes, with death rates falling by 43 percent from 2002 to 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

But one in three of the children who died in a car crash in 2011 was not using a seat belt or child safety seat, suggesting many more deaths could be prevented, the CDC said. The results were based on a study in the Morbidity and Mortality report, the agency’s weekly report on death and disease.

According to the report, more than 9,000 children age 12 and younger died in a car crash from 2002 to 2011.

“The good news is motor vehicle deaths decreased by 43 percent over the past decade for children age 12 and younger. The tragic news is still with that decrease, more than 9,000 kids were killed on the road in this period,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden told reporters in a telephone news conference.

“Thousands of children are at risk on the road because they are not buckled up,” he said.

The study found that of the children who died between 2009 to 2010, a much higher proportion of black and Hispanic children were not buckled, compared with white kids.

“The difference was nearly half (45 percent for blacks and 46 percent for Hispanics) versus a quarter (26 percent) for white kids,” Frieden said.

The study did not investigate why racial differences played such a big role in seat belt use, but it did suggest socio-economic factors may play a role.

For the study, CDC researchers analyzed data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to find the number of deaths among occupants in cars from 2002 to 2011 for all children aged up to the age of 12.

Overall, 9,182 children died in car crashes during the period. But deaths dropped sharply, from 2.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2002, to 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2011, a 43 percent decline.

According to the report, seat belt use increased from 88 percent in 2002 to 91 percent in 2011 among all children age 7 and under. The study also confirmed earlier findings that older children are less likely to be wearing seat belts than younger children.

To prevent future deaths from car crashes, Frieden said parents should make sure their children use appropriate-sized car seats, booster seats and seat belts on every trip.

The CDC recommends that children from birth to age 2 should be in a rear-facing car seat.

Starting at age 2, children should be in a forward-facing car seat until at least age 5, or when they reach the upper weight or height limit of that seat.

Children age 5 and older should use a booster seat until the adult seat belt fits them properly, generally when the lap belt lays across the upper thighs and the shoulder belt slays across the chest, but not the neck.

More information on proper use of child safety seats can be found at www.safekids.org or other websites.

Source: Reuters

As U.S. waistlines expand, seatbelt use falls

Obese drivers may be at a strikingly higher risk of dying in car crashes than normal-weight drivers because they frequently fail to buckle up, a new study finds.

Based on analysis of a U.S. database of nearly 200,000 fatal passenger vehicle crashes, researchers found that normal-weight Americans involved in those accidents were 66 percent more likely to have been wearing a seatbelt than those who were severely obese.

“Cars should be designed so it’s easier to put a seatbelt on if you’re obese,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Dietrich Jehle, told Reuters Health.

“It’s very important to increase seatbelt use in heavier individuals to best prevent deaths on the highways,” said Jehle, who is director of emergency services at Erie County Medical Center and vice chairman of Emergency Medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Federal safety standards set in the 1960s, when Americans tended to be lighter, require seatbelts to accommodate men up to 215 pounds. Some automakers provide larger belts or extenders, Jehle said, but heavier people frequently struggle to fasten their belts, feel squeezed once strapped in and drive unbelted.

An earlier study found that individuals considered morbidly obese were 56 percent more likely to die in vehicle crashes than people of normal weight.

Other research has shown that combined lap and shoulder belts reduce crash deaths by 45 percent, Jehle and his colleagues point out.

To see whether weight is linked to seatbelt use, Jehle’s group examined nearly 194,120 drivers involved in auto crashes in which there was at least one fatality between 2003 and 2009.

It is the largest investigation to date of a connection between seatbelt use and obesity, the researchers note in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Obesity is typically defined by body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height. People with a BMI between 18.5 and 25 are considered normal weight. A BMI between 25 and 30 is considered overweight, between 30 and 40 is obese, and above 40 is morbidly obese.

A 5-foot-10-inch tall man who weighed 300 pounds would have a BMI of 43, for example.

One-third of Americans are considered overweight and another third are considered obese, according to 2009 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new study relied on police reports and direct observations about whether drivers involved in fatal traffic accidents wore seatbelts.

Jehle’s team found that the closer to morbid obesity a person was, the less likely he or she was to have been wearing a seat belt.

Compared to the morbidly obese drivers, moderately obese people were 23 percent more likely to have been buckled up. The slightly obese were 39 percent more likely and the overweight were 60 percent more likely than the morbidly obese to have been wearing a seatbelt.

“Not buckling up is a deadly decision,” Jehle and his colleagues write. “Obese drivers are far less likely to wear seatbelts than are drivers of normal weight, which puts them at a greater risk of being subjected to higher impact forces and being ejected from the vehicle, both of which lead to more severe injury and/or death.”

Peggy Howell, a spokeswoman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, agreed that seatbelt use is important and told Reuters Health she obeys the seatbelt law despite difficulty.

“As a woman who’s busty, the seatbelt rides up and strangles me. But I wear my seatbelt, as does my sister, and we’re both clinically obese women,” said Howell, who described herself as close to 300 pounds.

Deb Burgard, California psychologist who specializes in eating disorders, praised the study for calling attention to the need for seatbelts that work for heavy drivers.

Burgard and Howell expressed concern, however, that the findings could shift blame for not wearing seatbelts to obese people.

“I’m just wondering if this is going to lead to insurance companies trying to charge fat people more,” Howell said. “Are police going to start profiling? What are the long-term ramifications of a study like this?”

Jehle said he would like the study to prompt car manufacturers to make longer belts and for safety regulators to use larger dummies in crash tests.

“A lot of the crash studies are done on dummies that do not fit in with our current population, which is one-third overweight and one-third obese,” he said. “When they sell you a vehicle, they should sell it with all the equipment you need to wear a seatbelt.”

Source; Reuters

Man dies after 8 hours in ER waiting room

Reports have emerged that a man died in a hospital waiting room in New York City more than eight hours after he sought emergency care.

According to multiple reports, 30-year-old John Verrier entered the emergency room of St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx at around 10 p.m. on Jan. 12 complaining about a rash. He was found dead in the waiting room about 6:40 a.m. the next day when a guard failed to wake him up.

St. Barnabas Hospital spokesperson Steve Clark confirmed the timeline around Verrier’s death.

“Probably this scenario in this shape and form has happened in any big hospital in New York City,” he said.

When Verrier arrived at St. Barnabas, he had his vitals taken in the triage area and was told to wait in the waiting room until his name was called to see a doctor, according to Clark. At 12:35 p.m., his name was called for the first time, but Verrier did not respond. That night, his name was called two more times to see the doctor, but the patient did not acknowledge his name was being called.

“People have personal responsibility when your name is called, you have to get up and see the doctor,” Clark said.

It was determined through employee accounts and security footage that Verrier was alive at least until 3:45 a.m. A security guard woke him up after he had fallen asleep, and he had been recorded walking around the waiting room.

The cause of death for Verrier has yet to be determined, pending a medical examiners report.

The case has been investigated internally, and the hospital said it was determined that officials had done everything according to protocol.

“This could have happened anywhere outside in the cold,” said Clark.

He couldn’t confirm the reason Verrier was asking to see a doctor, citing patient confidentiality laws. He did say that Verrier was called for as soon possible, after more pressing cases were attended to.

“It was a busy night, waiting 2 hours and 30 minutes is not that long a time considering what his complaint was,” Clark said.

He added that on many cold nights in New York City, many people use the hospital as shelter and stay in the waiting room to keep warm. People aren’t allowed to loiter or sleep in the facilities, however. In order to stay inside the hospital, the patients have to come in with a medical complaint. Many of the times, the issue they present with is just a ruse in order not to be kicked out, he said.

He emphasized that this scenario may or may not relate to Verrier’s case, but could explain why some people spend time sitting in a waiting room without entering the hospital, even if their name was called multiple times.

“People come in with no desire to see the doctor,” he said.

An anonymous St. Barnabas Hospital emergency room employee told WABC that despite Verrier’s name being called three times, he had not been checked on personally. The employee added he or she believed Verrier died because there was “not enough staff to take care of the number of patients we see each day.”

Clark dismissed the comments, saying that the hospital did not think staff numbers played a role in this scenario.

“It is a tragedy that a young man died, yet following an internal review, it was concluded that all hospital guidelines were met,” the hospital said.

According to a ProPublica report, the average person in New York spends 2 hours and 35 minutes waiting in the emergency room to see a doctor, and about 1 percent leave without being seen. The report determined that St. Barnabas patients waited 5 hours and 6 minutes on average before seeing a doctor, and 18 percent left without being seen.

Source: fox news

Alcohol consumption – 80,000 yearly deaths in the Americas

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Alcohol consumption is the direct cause of nearly 80,000 deaths in the Americas each year, according to a new study.

Published in the journal Addiction, the study analyzed yearly mortality rates from 16 countries in North and Latin America. The researchers focused on deaths that were specifically attributed to alcohol, meaning death would not have occurred without some form of alcohol consumption.

“Our purpose was to obtain more detailed information about alcohol mortality from countries in the region,” study co-author Dr. Maristela Monteiro, senior advisor on alcohol and substance abuse for the Pan American Health Organization, told FoxNews.com. “There are statistics from all these countries, but very few regions have specific alcohol mortality data, meaning [the information] we used usually is not reported or not collected.”

After combing through each country’s death statistics, Monteiro and her co-author Dr. Vilma Gawryszewski found that, between 2007 and 2009, alcohol was a ‘necessary’ cause of death for an average of 79,456 cases each year in North and South America. The researchers found that the biggest causes of these deaths included liver disease and alcohol poisoning.

“One important thing we knew from the medical literature but we also found in our data is that alcohol consumption is a cause of premature mortality,” Gawryszewski said. “The highest rates are among people in early age [dying before] the life expectancy in their countries.”

The countries with the highest rates of alcohol-related deaths were mostly in Central America, including El Salvador (27.4 out of 100,000 deaths each year), Guatemala (22.3 out of 100,000) and Nicaragua (21.3 out of 100,000).

Overall, men accounted for 84 percent of alcohol-necessary deaths, though the male-to-female ratio varied from country to country. In El Salvador, the risk of a man dying from an alcohol-necessary cause was 27.8 times higher than that of a woman, while in the United States and Canada, the risk was 3.2 times higher.

There were also differences in age groups for alcohol mortality between countries. In Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica and the U.S., the highest mortality rates occurred in individuals between 50 and 69 years of age. In Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, the highest mortality rates were seen in individuals between 40 and 49 years of age.

While these statistics may seem concerning on their own, Monteiro and Gawryszewski maintain their findings reveal that the overconsumption of alcohol is an even bigger issue than previously thought.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Monteiro said. “Of course there are many more alcohol-related deaths from injuries, traffic accidents, violence, and also chronic conditions – where alcohol has a role but is not the only cause. But the data does not cover that. We’re only getting the most severe cases.”

With this in mind, the researchers argue that more needs to be done to control the amount of alcohol individuals consume in North and South America.

“We know how to reduce mortality – with population-based policies, controlling availability and increasing price,” Monteiro said. “We need to prevent people from getting to that stage where you have alcohol dependence or you die.”

Source: Fox news

H5N1 bird flu death confirmed in Alberta, 1st in North America

Alberta health officials have confirmed an isolated, fatal case of H5N1 or avian influenza, federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose said Wednesday.

But officials repeatedly emphasized that there is no risk of transmission between humans.

The infected person, an Alberta resident who recently travelled to Beijing, China, died Jan. 3.

The case was confirmed in a lab test last night. It’s the first such case in North America.

The person first showed symptoms of the flu on a Dec. 27 flight from Beijing to Vancouver aboard Air Canada flight 030. The passenger continued on to Edmonton on Air Canada flight 244, after spending a few hours in the Vancouver airport, and was admitted to hospital Jan. 1. The symptoms of fever, malaise and headache worsened and the patient died two days later. The Public Health Agency of Canada was notified Jan. 5.

There were no respiratory symptoms, said Dr. James Talbot, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health.

The diagnosis at the time of death was an inflammation of the brain and the linings that cover the brain. “That is one of the ways that H5N1 patients die,” Talbot said.

It is not known how the patient contracted the disease. The patient did not leave Beijing, did not travel to farms and did not visit any markets.

“Virtually every case has a pretty strong link to a close contact with birds,” Talbot said, though he noted there are other settings in which a person might catch H5N1, such as a restaurant that kept live birds for slaughter.

Rare in humans

Dr. Gregory Taylor, deputy chief public health officer, said the avian form of influenza has been found in birds, mainly poultry, in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

There have been fewer than than 650 human cases of bird flu in 15 countries over the last decade, primarily among people who have spent time around infected birds, he said.

“The illness [H5N1] causes in humans is severe and kills about 60 per cent of those who are infected,” Taylor said.

“No other illnesses of this type have been identified in Canada since the traveller returned from China. This is an isolated case.”

The officials added that the patient was otherwise healthy and it’s not yet clear how the person contracted H5N1.

Speaking to Evan Solomon, host of CBC News Network’s Power & Politics, Taylor said the patient was relatively young.

“This was a relatively young — well, a young person compared to me, with no underlying health conditions,” he said. Taylor is 58.

Risk of getting H5N1 low

Officials emphasized that this is not a disease transmitted between humans.

There were two people travelling with the infected person, whom officials are following for 10 days to ensure they don’t have any symptoms. They are also going to notify the other passengers from the flights between Beijing and Edmonton, and are following a group of the patient’s “close contacts.”

Talbot said family members of the victim are being monitored and treated with medication, but noted that there’s no sign they are sick.

Officials created confusion by referring to the patient as “him” and “her” in order to avoid identifying anyone. Officials said that they would not identify the sex, age or occupation of the patient. They also refused to say whether the infected passenger was an Edmonton resident or whether the patient went to hospital in Edmonton, although the final leg of the flight ended there.

Talbot said reports that the patient was from Edmonton are erroneous.

Ambrose, who phoned into a news conference in Ottawa, said Canadian officials are working with Chinese authorities on the case, as well as the World Health Organization.

“The risk of getting H5N1 is very low. This is not the regular seasonal flu. This is an isolated case,” she said.

An Air Canada spokeswoman said in a statement the airline is co-operating with officials, but referred any questions on the matter to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Source: CBC news

As Schools Boost Access to EpiPens, Do Teachers Know How to Use Them?

Dr. Dave Stukus, a pediatric allergist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital says anyone with severe allergies knows that an epinephrine auto-injector can be the difference between life and death. With approximately two and a half million epinephrine auto-injectors (such as EpiPens and Auvi-Qs) in circulation, my colleagues and I at Nationwide Children’s Hospital want to ensure that people know how to administer them appropriately — you could save a life.

A new law signed by President Barack Obama on Nov. 13 last year provides states with financial incentives to pass laws that allow schools to stock epinephrine, and to treat children who do not have a prescription for the drug. As a result, more people will be administering auto-injectors for the first time.

It is not hard to use one, you just need to take action quickly. In fact, the most common reason associated with death from severe allergies is waiting too long to administer epinephrine.

The good news is that instructions are written and pictured on each auto-injector. One type of auto-injector even gives verbal instructions.

Here’s what you will need to know to correctly use an auto-injector:

1. Prepare the device

Pull off the safety cap. Make a fist around the syringe so the tip is pointing down. But there’s a warning: DO NOT PUT YOUR THUMB ON THE ORANGE TIP. The needle comes out of the orange tip.

2. Inject the medicine

While you do not need to apply excessive force, you will swing your arm a bit to inject the contents of an auto-injector (you need to provide enough force that the needle deploys from the auto-injector tip and delivers its contents directly into thigh muscle). First, hold the orange tip near the patient’s outer thigh to position the device at a 90-degree angle (needle-tip straight down), then swing the auto-injector against the patient’s outer thigh and press firmly against it until you hear a click. Hold the auto-injector against the thigh for 10 seconds. Then, remove the auto-injector from the thigh and massage the injection site for 10 seconds. You can leave the patient’s pants on if necessary; the device will work right through them.? [8 Strange Signs You’re Having an Allergic Reaction ]

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3. Get emergency medical help

Always call 9-1-1 after using epinephrine. The medicine may start to wear off or the reaction may come back. You can repeat the dose in 5 minutes if the child is not improving. Give the used epinephrine injector to a health care provider and ask for a refill right away if needed.

A few other things to note: Inhalers, such as albuterol and antihistamines (such as Benadryl), are not enough to treat severe allergic reactions. They can be given after epinephrine is used, if available. When in doubt, give epinephrine!

Do not store an auto-injector in a refrigerator or a hot car. It should be kept at room temperature. The liquid medicine in the pen should be clear. If it is discolored or has floating specks, get a new pen.

Source: live science

Anti-smoking efforts have saved 8 million American lives

Anti-tobacco efforts have saved 8 million lives in the 50 years since the publication of a landmark Surgeon General report, “Smoking and Health,” a new analysis shows.

The 1964 report, which concluded that tobacco causes lung cancer, led to a sea change in American attitudes toward smoking. Smoking rates have plunged 59% since then, falling from 42% of adults in 1964 to 18% in 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By avoiding tobacco or quitting the habit, people have gained nearly two decades of life, according to the analysis, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

An American man’s life expectancy at age 40 has increased by an average of nearly eight years, and a woman’s by nearly 5½ years, since 1964. About one-third of those gains come from decreased tobacco use, the analysis says.

“Tobacco control has been described, accurately, as one of the great public health successes of the 20th century,” CDC director Thomas Frieden writes in an accompanying editorial.

Twenty-six states and Washington, D.C., now ban smoking in indoor public places. As smoking rates have declined, so have the incidence rates of many cancers. About 40% of the decline in men’s overall cancer death rates, in fact, is due to the drop in tobacco use, according to the American Cancer Society.

Tobacco damages virtually every part of the body, Frieden says, causing one-third of heart attacks. Smoking increases the risk of 14 kinds of cancer, including acute myeloid leukemia and tumors of the mouth, esophagus, stomach and pancreas, according to the American Cancer Society. About 443,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses every year.

Nearly 18 million Americans have died from tobacco just since the Surgeon General report was published, according to the new analysis, led by Theodore Holford of the Yale University School of Public Health.

Tobacco killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. If current trends continue, tobacco will kill an additional 1 billion in the 21st century, the group estimates.

Frieden notes that smoking remains a major health challenge. Nearly one-third of non-smokers are still exposed to secondhand smoke, either at home or at work. Images of smoking are still common on TV and in movies. Tobacco taxes are too low in many parts of the country, making cigarettes affordable for both adults and kids. And although most smokers say they want to quit, few of them receive proven treatment, such as counseling and medication, which together can double their odds of kicking the habit, he writes.

A spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company declined to comment.

David Sylvia, a spokesman for Altria, the parent company of tobacco giant Philip Morris USA, says his company’s goal today is simply to make current smokers aware of its brands, and it has no interest in attracting new smokers.

“Adults should have the ability to choose to purchase a legal product,” Sylvia says. “We want to make sure that when adult, current smokers are choosing their brand, they think about our brand.”

Source: USA Today

Seasonal flu widespread in the United States, CDC says

Nearly half of the United States is reporting widespread influenza activity, most of it attributed to the H1N1 virus that caused a worldwide pandemic in 2009, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.

Thousands of people die every year from flu, which peaks in the United States between October and March. The flu is spreading quickly this season, with 25 states already reporting cases, the CDC said.

“We are seeing a big uptick in disease in the past couple of weeks. The virus is all around the United States right now,” said Dr. Joe Bresee, chief of Epidemiology and Prevention in the CDC’s Influenza Division.

In 2009-2010, the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, spread from Central Mexico to 74 other countries, killing an estimated 284,000 people, according to the CDC.

While younger people were more susceptible to H1N1 in 2009, Bresee said it is too early to tell whether the same will be true this year.

This season’s virus has killed six children in the United States, according to CDC data. The agency does not track adult deaths, but dozens have been reported around the country.

“There is still a lot of season to come. If folks haven’t been vaccinated, we recommend they do it now,” Bresee said.

Texas has been one of the harder hits states, where at least 25 people have died this season from the flu, local health officials said.

The Texas Department of State Health Services issued an “influenza health alert” on December 20, advising clinicians to consider antiviral treatment, even if an initial rapid-flu test comes back negative. Texas health officials also encouraged people to get a flu vaccination.

“The flu is considered widespread in Texas,” Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the state’s health department, said.

Source: news.nom