Undiagnosed US swine flu cases may be approaching 1 million
ATLANTA — Swine flu has infected as many as 1 million Americans, U.S. health officials said Thursday, adding that 6 percent or more of some urban populations are infected.
The estimate voiced by a government flu scientist Thursday was no surprise to the experts who have been closely watching the virus.
“We knew diagnosed cases were just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert who was in Atlanta for the meeting of a vaccine advisory panel.
Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the 1 million estimate in a presentation to the vaccine panel. The number is from mathematical modeling, based on surveys by health officials.
The percentage of cases hospitalized has been growing, but that may be due to closer scrutiny of very sick patients. It takes about three days from the time symptoms appear to hospitalization, Finelli said, and the average hospital stay has been three days.
Adult magazine can’t publish nude photos of slain woman
ATLANTA — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Hustler Magazine didn’t have the right to publish decades-old nude photographs of the wife of wrestler Chris Benoit, who killed the woman and his young son before committing suicide two years ago.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling found that a notorious death doesn’t give publishers a blank check to publish any images they wish — including those not linked to a newsworthy event. Such a policy, the court warned, would mean that the entire life of any victim of a notorious slaying would instantly be open to public scrutiny.
Nancy Benoit’s family filed a federal lawsuit against the Larry Flynt Publishing Group last year after the magazine published the photos of Benoit’s wife. The lawsuit claims that the woman, a model and former professional wrestler herself, had asked the photographer to destroy the images immediately after they were shot about 20 years ago.
The family’s plight gained international attention after the wrestler, his wife and their son were found dead in their suburban Atlanta home. Police said Benoit, then a wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment, strangled his wife and son and then hanged himself.
DC Metro accident may have been caused by faulty signaling
WASHINGTON — The signaling system for the Washington-area transit agency failed to detect a test train stopped in the same place as one that was struck during a deadly crash this week, federal investigators said Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board’s test results indicate the oncoming train involved in Monday’s crash that killed nine could have lacked information that another train was stopped on the tracks ahead. A statement by the NTSB did not say whether investigators think the problems were occurring before the crash, which injured dozens.
Investigators are trying to understand how the train control system was functioning when a train plowed into another that was stopped, resulting in the deadliest crash in the rail system’s 33-year history. The control system provides critical information to trains such as when to stop or slow down.
The moving train was operating in automatic mode, which means it was primarily controlled by a computer, although there is evidence the operator applied the emergency brake. On Thursday, investigators found streak marks on the tracks for about 125 feet leading up to the crash site, indicating “heavy braking.”
