Public Service Announcement: Beware of Flu

Hi Kari:

Since both of us have some association with people in the health care professions, I think it would be good usage of our blog space to do a "public service announcement" about the dangers of flu. I would suspect that our readership being internet savvy is pretty in the know about current events so maybe this PSA isn't so crucial. However, we, as bloggers, have a platform and so using a little bandwidth for this is probably pretty reasonable.

With all the wonders of modern medicine, it is easy to think of flu epidemics as something from our less medically sophisticated past. For instance in 1918, 20 million people died worldwide from the flu. Though we have not had a pandemic on that order since then, flu typically kills 30,000 Americans annually.

This year's flu season appears to have arrived early and the stain appears to be more dangerous than usual as reported here and here.

For a complete FAQ, check out the CDC web site.

And lastly, Kari and dear readers, if you haven't got your flu vaccine shot yet, please do if at all possible.

Sincerely,
Rene