Saturday, June 20, 2009

Good News for Us Geezers

Old People May Be Immune to Swine Flu | Wired Science | Wired.com: "Just having been alive for a while could protect you from getting the novel swine flu circling the planet.

In 1977, a type of H1N1 virus, commonly known as the “Russian flu,” spread across the world, infecting people under 25 at much higher rates than their elders, who had been exposed to similar viruses in the ’40s and ’50s. In the first documented American outbreak, 70 percent of the students fell ill at a high school in Cheyenne, Wyoming, while their teachers proved immune. As the Air Force Academy’s chief medical officer said in 1978, “It’s one of the advantages of being middle-aged.”"

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