From ProMed:
With the recent explosion of A(H1N1/2009) cases in Japan, it will probably be prudent to monitor for Tamiflu (oseltamivir) resistance. One Roche representative in Hong Kong told me that Japan accounts for about 70 percent of the world’s use of Tamiflu (even before avian H5N1 and the new H1N1/2009 viruses appeared). Thus, if Tamiflu [...]

If it’s 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we’re headed for a blowout.
— Republican strategist John Weaver, quoted in the Washington Examiner.

Was I out of the room when the Republicans apologized for the Bush years? Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele is planning to stop doing it, which means at some point they started. How did I miss that?
“The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over,” Steele will say in [...]

This odd exchange took place at [Sunday's] press conference with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
David Brown, The Washington Post: “There’s a report that there is yet another new H1N1 virus that has been found in the states of Durango, Zacatecas, and Jalisco that is distinct from both this swine H1N1 and [...]

I think one of the biggest mistakes that is made in Washington is this notion you have to dumb things down for the public.
— President Obama, in an interview with Newsweek.

The latest Rasmussen Report poll found that 43 percent of voters nationwide say that it’s at least somewhat likely that the Central Intelligence Agency misled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the use of waterboarding in interrogations. But the national telephone survey also found that 41 percent say it’s not likely the CIA did so.
It breaks [...]

Given his continuing series of gaffes and dumb-ass statements, I have been wondering why the Republican Party keeps Michael Steele as chairman. But then I read about his recent comments regarding the potential of gay marriage to wreak havoc on small businesses, or at least using that message to expand the base, which right now [...]

”If he doesn’t level the playing field, we have a serious problem in the Republican Party of Florida and we’ll have to straighten it out at our July meeting. The press might want to be there for that.” – Sid Dinerstein, chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party.
Dinerstein and others have cried foul [...]

I waited for two years after I left office to make statements that were critical, and then of policy … You talk about somebody that shouldn’t be talking about making the country less safe, invading a country that did not attack us and posed no serious threat to us at all.
— Former vice president Al [...]

Thanks to Make the Logo Bigger for passing along these two vintage public service announcements from the golden days of swine flu. The second one, with the cheerful female voiceover, is the clear favorite.
For those of you too young to remember, one of the things that sunk Pres. Gerald Ford’s campaign in 1976 was calling [...]