High Risk

It's a story that's becoming all too familiar: a record flu-vaccine shortage - half the nation's expected 100 million doses are unusable - with many high-risk patients, many of them elderly, waiting in long lines but unable to get a flu shot. Nonetheless, public health experts and others such as Tommy Thompson, the U.S. health and human services secretary, say we're not facing a public health crisis despite the staggering shortfall in flu vaccine. I disagree. This is a public health crisis that needs to be addressed - now, not later.

The state Legislature gave final approval yesterday to bills that would require satellite tracking of high-risk sex offenders, create a $200 million housing fund for the mentally ill, and allow voting by absentee ballot for any reason. Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey is expected to sign the measures. The Assembly voted 80-0 to establish a $3 million, two-year pilot program to monitor 250 sex offenders. More than 200 are deemed at the highest risk of re-offending. The other offenders who would be tracked are designated as moderate risk but are still a concern to authorities.

A federal court in Philadelphia yesterday upheld communities' right to know if high-risk sex offenders live in their midst, delivering the country's most authoritative ruling yet on Megan's Laws and setting the stage for a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on a New Jersey law cleared the way for notifications to begin in New Jersey in about a month, after being on hold for two years as lawyers battled over the statute, officials said.

DRUGS TERRORIZING A NEIGHBORHOOD IN NORTH PHILA. The war on drugs is not getting enough attention. This situation is getting way out of proportion. There has been a riot up in North Philadelphia on Wilson Street, between Clearfield and Allegheny Avenues. Drugs have taken over the neighborhood and terrorized the neighbors. In two years, the shadow of drugs has eclipsed the street's sunny congenial atmosphere. The dealers also beat the neighbors with bats and shoot at them. When the neighbors are outside, they will chase them into their own homes.

The state's human-services commissioner yesterday announced new child-protection measures following the revelation that a 14-month-old boy starved to death after a caseworker had visited his home. James M. Davy announced the changes at a news conference in which he named a medical director for New Jersey's troubled child-welfare system. Davy said he hoped the new position, filled by Connecticut pediatrician Joseph Jacobs, would guard against cases like that of Jmeir White, who weighed 10 pounds when emergency workers found him dead Aug. 22 in an Asbury Park apartment.

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health exhausted its flu vaccine supply yesterday after inoculating just a fifth of the needy patients it had planned to help. The announcement yesterday forced the city to shut down the immunization program at its district health centers. But officials said there was still hope that more supplies would arrive. "There is no reason to panic or for hysteria," said Health Commissioner John F. Domzalski. The shutdown could have a big effect on the health of vulnerable residents if it holds.

A glass of red wine can warm the heart on a chilly fall evening, and some data show it will also improve your cardiovascular health. But women who take one sip may no longer deserve to wear that pink ribbon. Even moderate drinkers are encouraging the enemy - breast cancer - at least according to the latest news from the Journal of the American Medical Association. A recent study shows that even one drink a day can raise a woman's risk by 15 percent. The findings come from a large study that followed 105,986 nurses over 28 years.

JULY CAME EARLY THIS YEAR with hot and muggy weather on Memorial Day, and the weather is expected to remain that way until Tuesday night, when showers or a thunderstorm are forecast to hit the area. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for Memorial Day and Tuesday, prompting the city to activate its summer heat programs that zero in on seniors and the homeless. Temperatures hit a high of 91 at 3:59 p.m. (the low of 68 degrees clocked in at 5:31 a.m.)

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the estimated number of Americans who lack health insurance had dropped to 45.7 million, compared to 47 million in 2006. The slight improvement is entirely due to an increase in the number of people covered by government health insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Even so, the lower number remains a national scandal, yet the Bush administration tends to discount such reports. The president says that many of the uninsured are young and healthy people who don't want to buy insurance, presumably because they think they don't need it. But this flies in the face of a new study by a team of Harvard researchers who report that 11.4 million of the nation's uninsured are working-age adults with one or more chronic illnesses, including hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, asthma and cancer.

If you really want to improve your odds for survival, eat a salad, take a walk, and don't obsess over duct tape. Experts say a person's chance of dying from a chronic disease is far greater than the chance of dying in a terrorist attack. And that likelihood did not change just because the government raised its threat level last week to a high-risk "orange" alert. "The evidence is incontrovertible that there are much larger risks, such as heart disease, as causes of death," said David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.