An 11-year-old girl who attended a Brooklyn school has died after becoming infected with the swine flu virus, classmates and school officials said on Thursday.
It's also a reminder that this flu hits a younger age group than seasonal flu. And communication is never without controversy.
Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. of Queens said the public should be told if those who die after contracting the virus have pre-existing illnesses. Health officials have said that virtually all of those who have died had a condition that made them more susceptible to the flu. But the officials have not specified those conditions, and the list of high-risk factors is so long — including heart disease, obesity and being older than 65 — that as many as one in three New Yorkers may have at least one.
Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. of Queens said the public should be told if those who die after contracting the virus have pre-existing illnesses. Health officials have said that virtually all of those who have died had a condition that made them more susceptible to the flu.
But the officials have not specified those conditions, and the list of high-risk factors is so long — including heart disease, obesity and being older than 65 — that as many as one in three New Yorkers may have at least one.
There's also a privacy vs public interest issue.
Despite a looming brawl over key details, the Democratic majority is expected to pass a bill that will make ordinary Americans the ultimate stakeholders who must live with the system, adjust to changes and -- one way or another -- absorb the costs.
They're saying that you're either with health reform, or you're against it. And if you're against it, you can't expect to be taken care of in the final legislation. They're not going to save your seat at the table while you're trying to burn down the room. And the AMA, it seems, got the message.
Demand for health care (especially expensive care) does not begin with stepping into a doctor's office or filling a prescription. It comes from people needing care in the first place because they are acutely or chronically ill.
Douglas W. Elmendorf has toiled for much of his career in the anonymous bowels of the nation's economic superstructure, shuttling among various Washington agencies and the Federal Reserve. So it came as a bit of a shock, friends say, when a powerful senior senator recently felt obliged to inform him that he "is not God."