Flu | featured news

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

Patients can refuse a flu shot. Should doctors and nurses have that right, too? That is the thorny question surfacing as U.S. hospitals increasingly crack down on employees who won't get flu shots, with some workers losing their jobs over their refusal....

As the country's flu outbreak becomes an epidemic, odds are that you've had a few sheepish feelings about not doing something you probably should have: Gotten a flu shot. As of this November, the majority of American adults 64.8 percent, to be exact had not received a flu immunization. This wasn't a surprise to researchers: Flu is a disease with one of the lowest vaccination rates.

Influenza has officially reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with 7.3 percent of deaths last week caused by pneumonia and the flu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. That is just above the epidemic threshold of 7.2 percent. Nine of the 10 U.S. regions had "elevated" flu activity, confirming that seasonal flu has spread across the country and reached high levels several weeks before the usual time of late January or February. The other region, the Southwest and California, had "normal" flu activity last week.

Flu activity remains high across the United States, but there are signs this year's bad season may be waning in some areas, government health officials said Friday.

Flu season in the United States is having its earliest start in nearly a decade and health officials say this season could be a bad one. Although flu is always unpredictable, the early nature of the cases and the predominant type circulating this year could make this a severe flu season, said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This year’s flu season has kicked in early this year, with activity up significantly across the nation, particularly in the south and southeast, federal health officials say. The U.S. has logged baseline levels of flu, the earliest that has happened in nearly a decade.

Doctors trying to find some of the causes of autism put another piece into the puzzle on Monday: They found women who had flu while they were pregnant were twice as likely to have a child later diagnosed with autism.

What's killing us? For decades, global health leaders have focused on diseases that can spread - AIDS, tuberculosis, new flu bugs. They pushed for vaccines, better treatments and other ways to control germs that were only a plane ride away from seeding outbreaks anywhere in the world....

The first flu shot that works with a less-scary skin prick instead of an inch-long needle is hitting the market this fall.