Creating a healthy stockpile

You know that it is important to have an emergency stockpile of food in case an influenza pandemic or some other disaster hits your area. Ho...

Merry Christmas from Toyland

Yesterday I was caught rummaging around in a junk shop when I should have been doing my Christmas shopping. Lo and behold, I found a stash o...

Health officials keeping tabs on new virus strain

U.S. health officials are keeping their eyes on an emerging virus strain that has been linked to illnesses in four states. The Centers for D...

Winter a wonderland for the flu

Why is it that so many of us get the flu in the winter? Is it because we spend more time indoors and pass the virus to one another? Or becau...

Why you don't need to worry about mercury in your flu shot

Since it's flu season, it's a good time to clear up concerns people might have about mercury. This topic comes up as some parents in...

Silent Stars

A walk around my local churchyard on a frosty but bright morning revealed this slate gravestone. Of course in the early nineteenth century n...

Make your holidays flu free

Hoping to stay healthy for your holiday visit to Grandma's? While there's no foolproof plan to prevent you from getting sick during ...

Cardboard Dreams

A rainy morning, big water drops spattering against the window, blurring my view of sheep huddled-up under the trees. So I start rummaging a...

The Quiet Caravan

Gamekeepers leave some odd things lying around. Old oil drums and plastic dustbins for keeping feed in, mouldering timber sheds and somewher...

Pandemic flu vaccinations: No time for ‘cutsies’ in line

If a pandemic flu hits and there is a vaccine available, who will get vaccinated first? According to the federal government, people working...

Castles in the Cabbages

It must have seemed as though England woke up one morning in 1940 to find the countryside suddenly littered with anti-tank barricades, vehic...

This week in pandemic flu, emerging infectious disease: More bird flu outbreaks reported in poultry

More cases of H5N1 bird flu were reported in poultry around the world this week, with at least five countries experiencing new or reoccurrin...

Railway Echo No 5

A very evocative find out on the fens. An abandoned railway carriage sits at a deserted platform as if having collapsed on its final run up ...

Guest blog: Today is first-ever National Children’s Flu Vaccination Day

Today's blog entry is authored by Richard H. Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS, former U.S. surgeon general and chair of the Childhood Influenza Im...

It’s not too late to get your seasonal flu shot

Still haven't gotten your seasonal flu shot? Well, now's the perfect time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has named ...

Harbouring Thoughts

All the horrible stuff going on in a Margate back garden reminded me that I'd been there once. Veering away from Dreamland and the pleas...

Creaking Oars

Old boathouses are wonderfully evocative places. Once alive to the sound of laughter as the picnic baskets of house guests were loaded into ...

Sunday's End

Merchant Ivory films tend to get judged as 'Laura Ashley dramas'. Comments which are as obtuse as they are ignorant. So after a magn...

This week in pandemic flu, emerging infectious disease: Time to get your seasonal flu shot!

Reports of seasonal flu cases are trickling in from across the U.S., with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting elevated flu...

Glass in the Face

I learn from the inestimable 'Piloti' in Private Eye that the oafish Abingdon Council in Oxfordshire want to put a glass lift up to...

When planning for a pandemic, let's not forget the kids

When planning for a pandemic, there's one item you should be sure not to leave off the list: the kids. But a recent report suggests tha...

Cast Iron Constitution

Drink was taken yesterday at the all-new St.Pancras railway station. Ejected from the 'champagne bar' (which looks like the kind of ...

Railway Echo No 4

These days 'luggage', to train operators at least, means something that's left behind a seat at the terminus or destroyed in a c...

This week in pandemic flu, emerging infectious disease: Seasonal flu vaccinations on agenda

Seasonal flu is here, and health workers around the globe are using innovative methods — from drive-thru clinics to talking posters - to e...

Help make sure the nation is ready for pandemic flu

It's important that each and every one of us takes steps to prepare for pandemic flu. But what is the government doing to help? Quite a ...

Won't you be my neighbor? Community preparedness and pandemic flu

Neighbors. Whether we live in a city, suburb or rural area, we've all got 'em. Whether or not we've actually met any of them is ...

Mosquito Coast

It's that time of the year again when autumn winds presage the dusting down of dark overcoats and the button-holing of red paper poppies...

Bamboo & China Doves

Oxfam shops can be showcases of startling juxtapositions. The genteel cast-offs of an English country town posed next to stark reminders of...