In August, I blogged about a mysterious rash of pertussis cases in Durango that prompted a team of CDC investigators to come to Southwest Colorado to investigate. The spike in cases amounted to about 40 percent of the state’s total, and many of them did not have the characteristic “whoop” that gives the disease its informal name.

It turns out, according to The Durango Herald, that the cases came from shoddy testing. The CDC, in its report, said a combination of factors resulted in several misdiagnoses, and it emphasized proper handling of test specimens. The San Juan Basin Health Department said the testing was done by area health care providers, not the health department. Check out the full story here.

A new Web site launched today provides a self-assessment tool designed to evaluate for the flu and help people make the determination about whether to  see a doctor. The site also allows people to share the information with family members and with their doctors.

AMAfluhelp.org. was developed by Colorado-based HealthCircles, and its launch was kicked off by Gov. Bill Ritter today. People can quickly answer a series of questions based on CDC guidelines. It can also generate a doctor’s note about when it is safe to return to work or school. The site also attempts to answer a number of questions about the flu.

A top CDC official said Wednesday the H1N1 vaccine is taking longer to distribute than anticipated. That’s no surprise, given that El Paso County Public Health Director Kandi Buckland said the same thing Monday, regarding the lag in local shipments of vaccine. Clinics here have been put off for what will likely be several weeks.

The question is, who will be left to vaccinate by then?

When my daughter came down with H1N1 a few weeks ago, her provider, who was seeing such cases in the droves, wondered aloud whether a vaccine would come too late to do much good. A week ago, The Denver Post reported cases might be peaking. About the same time I wrote about the rush on hospitals and other health-care providers.

One study by Purdue researchers does, in fact, suggest the vaccine will come too late to help most people. It is peaking right now, their model suggests, and when the smoke clears some 60 percent of us will have been sickened. Read about the study in The Washington Times. But note that the study’s authors don’t suggest people skip the vaccine.

Whether most of us have been sickened or not come mid-November, when a decent supply of vaccine is expected, health officials say it is worth getting vaccinated, both to protect yourself and protect others.

And, hey, if most people have gotten the flu by then, it might just mean you won’t have to wait in line quite so long.

Penrose-St. Francis Health Services has Southern Colorado’s only da Vinci surgical system, which allows surgeons to perform less-invasive surgeries through the assistance of robotics. I wrote about it in 2007.

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that, in the case of prostate surgery, there’s no clear winner when less-invasive surgery is compared to conventional approaches. Surgeries like those performed with the da Vinci machine had more occurrences of erectile dysfunction and incontinence than conventional ones. Conventional surgeries resulted in longer hospital stays and a greater need for blood transfusions, however. For a full story on the findings, check out Reuters’ account.

The JAMA study is a reminder of an important question people, and even health reporters, often fail to ask: What are the outcomes?

New technology is constantly hitting the market, and much of it certainly has a Wow! factor. I must admit that sticking my hands on the controls of the da Vinci machine in 2007 was very cool! Add marketing muscle to that wow, and it is easy to get caught up in the moment. The Reuter story notes that sales of the da Vinci equipment increased dramatically in recent years.

Studies such as this one take time, and such unbiased clinical outcomes don’t come overnight. Still, asking these questions will put anyone on the path to being a better informed consumer.

On Monday I wrote the story headlined “Seasonal flu-shot clinics canceled because of vaccine shortage.” The next day The Denver Post wrote a similar story, Shortage of seasonal flu vaccine cancels clinics.

So if you saw KOAA’s headline Tuesday, Health officials: No seasonal flu vaccine shortage, you might be left scratching your head.

In an effort to clear up confusion, here’s the deal. If you want a seasonal flu shot now, you might have trouble finding it. Several clinics have been canceled and supplies for many providers are low, if not exhausted. Some providers have seen record numbers of people wanting vaccine, and the vaccines were given earlier this year. Coupled with a delay in shipments for more vaccine, and you have a shortage.

But, this is not expected to be the case all season. Enough vaccine was originally produced, health officials have said, to cover anyone who wants it.

This explains why the health department will tell you there’s no shortage and the flu clinic will tell you they are all out.

Newspapers report on the here and now, and in that context, there is certainly a shortage. The health departments see the flu season as a whole, which means by the end of winter, or even in the next few weeks, no one should have been left out in the cold.

As the Gazette’s health reporter, I’d like to think I’ve learned a few things about H1N1. I’ve written about it since those pre-pandemic days last spring through the recent months of widespread activity. Because it is always fresh on the mind, I’ve made sure my family has been especially vigilant with the hand sanitizer and hand washing.

Nonetheless, our 3-year-old came down with it. Thankfully, her case was mild. Her fever was high and she was feeling pretty rotten, but she weathered it OK. My wife and I appear to have made it through the exposure without getting sick.

Still, this was a personal reminder of what a pandemic means. The pediatrician’s office reported a steady stream of children like ours. Even the best of precautions may not be enough in all cases (although that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow them).

And there’s still mystery surrounding this virus. Just today, the Denver Post reported an Adams County man with no underlying complications died of H1N1 complications. Who knows what made his case different than our daughter’s?

El Paso County saw one death from the disease. While the woman died, her husband recovered in just a few days.

The deluge of headlines about H1N1, and now seasonal flu, can de-sensitize. Don’t let it.

Should you ever find yourself in need of a gas mask, the woman next to you could be the answer. Dr. Elena Bodnar took a public health 2009 Ig Nobel prize for a bra that can be converted to two gas masks,  according to an article by the BBC.  The Harvard-hosted event is designed to recognize oddball research and achievements that “first make people laugh and then make them think,” the article said.

The BBC reports The Ig Nobel prize for medicine went to “Donald L Unger of Thousand Oaks, California, US, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand but not his right hand every day for more than 60 years.”

Other breakthrough research:

–A Swiss research team compared the differences in being hit in the head with a full versus an empty beer bottle (both could fracture the skull, they found).

–Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson, of the UK, discovered cows with names produced more milk than those without them.

Check out the full BBC story here.

El Paso County will not receive any of the first shipment of H1N1 vaccine.
Colorado’s first shipment of H1N1 vaccine, albeit a small one, is scheduled to arrive next week.
The state will receive 53,800 doses of the FluMist nasal spray vaccine out of 2 million being distributed nationally.
Most of the vaccine will go to health care workers in the Denver area, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which oversees the distribution statewide.
Additional shipments will occur weekly and include both the FluMist and injectable vaccines. Beginning Oct. 9, Colorado is expected to receive another 64,000 doses out of 4 million nationally. By week three, according to the state health department, quantities will increase sharply.
Colorado is expected to receive 1.6 percent of the national supply, and health authorities anticipate there will enough for anyone to get vaccinated who wants to be.
Highest priority groups are: Pregnant women, people in households with infants under 6 months old, health care workers who interact with patients, children 6 months to 4 years old, and children 5 to 18 with underlying health conditions.
For more information, visit www.colorado.gov/nofluforyou or call 1(877)462-2911.

Boil down the billions in economic stimulus dollars doled out through the countless small-scale projects and you get some interesting ways to stimulate the economy.

The El Paso County Department of Health and Environment has received $25,000 from the state health department’s share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to vaccinate 1,000 needy adults to protect against shingles. The zoster vaccine pilot project is part of the Pikes Peak Flu and Immunization Coalition’s Immunize for Life campaign.

Shingles is caused by the same virus as chickenpox, a bug called herpes zoster. The disease, known to cause severe and sometimes lingering pain, affects mostly older adults as their immune systems weaken with age. When someone gets chickenpox, the virus remains and, for some reason, it reactivates later in life in some people. As many as a million people a year get shingles. The vaccine is designed to reduce those numbers.

The vaccine is licensed for people who are 60-65. The free vaccines will go to people in this age group who don’t have insurance and who aren’t yet Medicare eligible. The vaccine alone cost $161, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not including providers’ charges related to administering it.