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POPSGoogle can accurately estimate flu activity faster than CDC? "We've found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems. " Fascinating! I knew that data from Where's George? has been useful to epidemiologists. And now Google, too.
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POPSGoogle Flu Trends ~ How does this work?
used by CDC. Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Our system is still very experimental, so anything is possible, but we're hoping to see similar correlations in the coming year. The doctors keep track of the percentage of their patients who have an influenza-like illness, also known as an "ILI percentage". CDC and state health departments collect and aggregate this data each week, providing a good indicator of overall flu activity across the United States. So why bother with estimates from aggregated search queries? It turns out that traditional flu surveillance systems take 1-2 weeks to collect and release surveillance data, but Google search queries can be automatically counted very quickly. By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza. This is an exciting development, because early detection of a disease outbreak can reduce the number of people affected.
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POPSFlu Shots Do Not Prevent Getting the Flu If you think they do here is why you are mistaken. But of course your local and MSM news parrot whatever the CDC says while this is a multi-million dollar industry that cannot prevent you from getting the flu. The logic in this article is plain enough. Notice the emotionally charged, fear-mongering messages and ads used to press people into lining up, including many messages that say "they could save your life, or the life of your children or loved one". What absolute hype that plays on fear, when the shot cannot prevent getting the flu! To see how profitable an industry this is read about Donald Rumsfeld and Tamiflu. People feel safer with their placebo-type flu shot that cannot and will not prevent them from contracting the flu. The statements made by government and media on the subject are irresponsible hype and absolutely misleading about its effectiveness.
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POPSTheStreet.com: Homeland Security Requires Gardasil Shots For Immigrants TheStreet.com has a really nice piece about a rather strange decision by the Department of Homeland Security to require immigrants to get a Gardasil shot -- although not the complete course required for full immunity. In the story, Gardasil maker Merck says it is not aware of the department's policies. Click the link for more.
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POPSSpanish Flu Never Happened Well - it did happen... it just was not really the flu at all. See - the CDC records statistics for ever disease and sickness. Problem is that Pneumonia and Influenza cases are reported as one figure, when they are 2 separate things altogether. Influenza symptoms are just early onset bacterial infection, not ever proven to be a "Virus" at all. In fact the word "Virus" is not even correct for the original discovery is now called an "exosome".
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POPSIs Sex Information the Federal Government's Business? They were however forced to make sexual choices without information about how to reduce the risk of disease and pregnancy, not to mention how to manage the panoply of emotions that accompany sex. A recent CDC study estimates that one in four (26 percent) young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States - or 3.2 million teenage girls - is infected with at least one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. The study also found that Black teenage girls were most severely affected. Nearly half of the young Black women surveyed (48 percent) were infected with an STD. Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, said. "Today's data demonstrate the significant health risk STDs pose to millions of young women in this country every year." High STD infection rates among young women are clear signs that we must demand that young people have access to comprehensive sex and HIV/AIDS education.
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POPSMeasles Are Back- Worldwide The debate will be inflamed again. Measles vaccines and autism- again there is no correlation. More outbreaks are on the rise and kids are getting very sick. What will the answer be?
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POPSPreventing AIDS with a Gift Card With $1 million in funding from the CDC, North Carolina health officials went to gay nightclubs in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro and recruited men who were well-liked and socially influential... CDC's numbers on HIV: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/incidence.htm
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POPSGreat Message, But Be Careful with the Wording The statistics presented in this article are startling, especially the comparisons of the number of black people in the US with HIV, with those in some of the hardest hit countries in Africa. However, I have to disagree with Phill Wilson when he says "AIDS in America today is a black disease." Just as saying HIV is a gay disease, saying HIV is a "black disease" sends the wrong message. It makes people who aren't black (or gay) feel like HIV doesn't apply to them. HIV can hit anyone, and all it takes are some precautionary measures to significantly reduce your risk of catching it. While the statistics about black people with HIV/AIDS is alarming, we need to focus on HIV education and prevention for all ages, races, genders, and sexual orientations in this country.
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