Use 'common-sense' steps against H1N1 virus, Obama says

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama encouraged all Americans Tuesday to take "common-sense" steps in preparation for an expected resurgence in the H1N1 virus this fall.


President Obama meets Wednesday with top advisers to discuss plans regarding the H1N1 virus.

Among other things, he said, people should wash their hands frequently and stay home from work if they are ill.

"I know it sounds simple, but it's important and it works," he said at the White House.

"I don't want anybody to be alarmed. But I do want (people) to be prepared."

The president said hospitals need to prepare for an unusually large influx of patients. While the federal government is doing everything possible to prepare for a new H1N1 outbreak, there will likely be "issues coming up over the next several months," Obama said. The way the virus is "moving is still somewhat unpredictable."

Families and businesses, he said, should have plans in place in the event that relatives or co-workers contract the virus and need to remain at home.

State and local governments need to be "on the front lines to make anti-viral medications and vaccines available," he added. Watch President Obama discuss what precautions people can take »

The president made his remarks after receiving a briefing on preparedness for H1N1, also known as swine flu, from several senior administration officials.

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He met with Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Health, and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, among others.

Obama's remarks came one week after a presidential advisory panel estimated the H1N1 virus could cause up to 90,000 U.S. deaths, mainly among children and young adults, when infections surge upward as expected this fall.

Seasonal flu, in contrast, typically kills an average of about 36,000 Americans each year, according to the CDC, mainly people 65 and older and young children.

With both types of flu, people with chronic medical conditions and pregnant women also are at higher risk.

H1N1 could infect between 30 percent to 50 percent of the American population during fall and winter and lead to as many as 1.8 million hospital admissions, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported.

The fall H1N1 resurgence may begin with the start of the school year and may peak in mid-October, the report said. A vaccine against H1N1 is being tested but is not expected to be available until at least mid-October, health officials have noted.

The vaccine will likely require two shots at least one week apart, and because it typically takes a couple of weeks for a person's immunity to build up after vaccination, most Americans would not be protected until sometime in November.

Vaccinations will be voluntary but "strongly recommended," Obama said.

In a separate meeting Tuesday, Napolitano and Washington-area leaders expressed confidence in the region's planning for the H1N1 virus.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said state budget problems will not impact public health care.

"We are confident that we are going to be able, notwithstanding those challenges, to distribute vaccinations as they become available. ... We have to. That is our job," O'Malley said.

Said Kaine: "We don't just cut across the board. We cut based on priorities, and public health is a very top priority."

The World Health Organization in June declared a Level 6 worldwide pandemic, the organization's highest classification.

To help combat the spread of the virus among young children, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that it is re-releasing a series of public service announcements featuring the popular Sesame Street character Elmo.

The ads stress the importance of basic healthy habits such as frequent hand washing, sneezing into the bend of your arm, and not touching your mouth, nose, and eyes.

The ads were initially rolled out in May, but have now been repackaged to help promote www.flu.gov, the government Web site responsible for posting information regarding the H1N1 virus.

Olympic speed winners getting taller, heavier

CNN) -- Michael Phelps, who scored his fifth gold medal at the world championships in Rome, Italy, last weekend, has a body that frequently propels him to world record speeds in the pool.


Eamon Sullivan, who broke two world records for the 100-meter freestyle in 2008, was considered in the study.

To move fast, athletes such as Phelps need the right balance of vertical and horizontal -- that is, a lot of height and weight, but not too much weight to hold them back. Researchers at Duke University have found that winning Olympic athletes today are mostly taller and heavier than their predecessors, and that this pattern has been consistent for 100 years.

The fastest male swimmers are 4.5 inches taller than their 1900 counterparts, and the fastest male runners 6.4 inches taller, the study said. The average human today is about 1.9 inches taller than the average human 100 years ago, according to the study.

That goes along with the idea that, generally, bigger animals can move faster than smaller animals.

It's not that winning athletes are getting either fatter or taller, but that the overall size of the average winner today has increased proportionally compared with winners in the past, and is expected to continue growing in the future, said Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke University. The study is in the newest issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Bejan and colleagues used mathematical formulas that govern speed and motion to analyze how the bodies of Olympic athletes in different time periods compared with each other. They say the pattern is consistent with what they call constructal theory, the idea that natural systems evolve to promote easier "flow" -- for example, of air through lungs, or of water through river basins.

Generally, track athletes need more height and more muscle mass for propulsion, said Dr. R. Amadeus Mason, sports medicine physician at Emory University, who was not involved in the study. For swimming, world record-holder Michael Phelps, at 6-foot-4, 195 pounds as of the Summer Games last year, has the "ideal" body, allowing him to stroke efficiently without being too heavy, Mason said.

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Bejan and colleagues suggest that the trend of Olympic winners getting taller and heavier as a population -- not on the individual level -- is separate from the trend of growth of height and weight in the population generally.

"The increases in the size in the winning athletes belong to a different phenomenon, the phenomenon of the pursuit of speed," Bejan said.

But some experts who were not involved in the study say other factors are at play.

It is difficult to generalize about the growth of winning athletes compared with the entire population, Mason said.

Rather, it is more likely that they are part of the larger trend of human bodies growing in general, Mason said. This recognized phenomenon is not well understood, but it may reflect that proportion of the population is getting better nutrition, or that certain additives in foods contribute to growth, he said.

"The overall population is getting heavier and taller, you would expect that the pinnacle is getting heavier and taller," Mason said.

The strong incentives for people to aspire to be professional athletes, such as fame and money, may also have something to do with what the Duke study observed, said Joe Patterson, professor of astronomy at Columbia University, who has analyzed speed records at the Olympics and was not involved in Bejan's study. The benefits of being an Olympic champion have increased over time, meaning more people attempt to compete, so there are more people with body sizes that promote speed in that group, he said.

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"In the [19]20s, 30s, and 40s, you had the Olympic [athletes who] were famous, but still couldn't make a buck," he said. "It was kind of an impractical thing, like writing poetry."

He also pointed to technological changes in training and nutrition that may have helped athletes come bigger generally. Illegal drugs may also have something to do with it, Patterson said. Low-friction swimsuits and better-designed pools may have also given swimmers extra speed.

In the data, researchers noted, for example, that Duke Kahanamoku, who had world records for the 100-meter freestyle in 1912 and 1918, weighed 185 pounds and stood 6 feet, 2 inches. In 2008, Alain Bernard broke a record for the same race, weighing 190 pounds and standing about 6 feet, 5 inches.

But not everyone conforms to the pattern of increased height and weight -- at about 172 pounds, swimmer Eamon Sullivan weighed less than both Kahanamoku and Bernard, and also broke records for the same contest in 2008.

There appears to be no limit to the growth of the human body in the near future, Bejan said. It follows that there is no foreseen limit to human speed, because larger size is required to go faster, Bejan said.

But Mason disagrees -- he doesn't think 100 years from now the winning athletes will show the same addition of height and weight as today's winners show compared to their counterparts in the early 1900s.

"At some point, you're going to get too tall to be able to move efficiently, too heavy to move quickly," Mason said.

Bejan's group also used their findings to predict running speeds during the Roman Empire. They found that, in antiquity, body weights were about 70 percent what they are today. If the winner of the 100-meter dash wins in 13 seconds today, the winner 2000 years ago would have taken about 14 seconds, the researchers said.

Credit : cnn.com

Obama: Efforts to delay health care reform a political ploy

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama responded Tuesday to Republican opposition to health care reform, saying that political motives are behind efforts to block progress on the issue.

President Obama takes on critics of health care legislation in remarks Tuesday at the White House.

Republicans "who openly announce their intentions to block this reform" would "rather score political points" than confront the ailing health care system, Obama said in a Rose Garden statement.

Republicans responded that Democratic proposals so far would fail to deliver what they promise and eventually lead to a government takeover of health care.

Delaying action now "is so we can be smart about the action we have to take," said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

Amid the sharpened debate, a leading House Democrat said Tuesday the chamber may not vote on a bill before Obama's deadline of August 7, when Congress goes on recess. Obama and his chief spokesman indicated the deadline was more a target for progress, rather than a make-or-break moment.

"We're going to come back here after the August break and have a lot of work to do on health care," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

At issue is overhauling a health care system beset by spiraling costs while leaving 46 million Americans uninsured.

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The House and Senate are considering Democratic proposals that would create a government-funded public health insurance option to compete with private insurers blamed for driving up costs.

A fiscally conservative House Democrat said Tuesday he reached a verbal agreement with Obama and House Democratic leaders on reducing costs of health care reform legislation.

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, a member of the so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats concerned about the high cost of health care reform, said those at the meeting agreed to create an independent council to set health care reimbursement rates as a way to hold down spiraling costs.

The Blue Dog Democrats comprise enough votes to defeat the health care bill at the committee level.

Ross cautioned that his group also wants other changes in the House bill, including raising the exemption for small businesses required to provide health insurance to workers, and unspecified changes to a government-funded public health insurance option in the bill.

Despite the breakthrough, Democratic grumbling about Obama's handling of health care reform is growing as prospects dim for passing bills in either the House or Senate before the August recess.

A senior Democratic congressional source told CNN that members of the president's own party are frustrated over not getting more specific direction from him on health care.

"We appreciate the rhetoric and his willingness to ratchet up the pressure, but what most Democrats on the Hill are looking for is the president to weigh in and make decisions on outstanding issues," the source said. "Instead of sending out his people and saying the president isn't ruling anything out, members would like a little bit of clarity on what he would support -- especially on how to pay for his health reform bill."

On the Senate side, Republican and Democratic leaders of the Finance Committee continued a series of meetings behind closed doors to work on a compromise that would be the first bipartisan proposal.

Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus of Montana said the group was considering a proposal to tax insurance companies for so-called "Cadillac" health plans that cost much more than average coverage.

Baucus originally wanted to create a tax on the health care benefits provided by employers. However, opposition by organized labor caused Democratic leaders to reject that proposal.

Under the Cadillac plan idea attributed to Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, insurance companies providing such expensive coverage would be taxed instead of individuals receiving benefits.

The talks have reached tentative agreement on "four or five" of about a dozen major issues so far, Baucus said Monday. He refused to speculate whether his group would finish its work before Obama holds a nationally televised news conference on Wednesday night.

On Tuesday, Obama criticized Republican calls to throw out the Democratic proposals and start fresh with a bipartisan approach. He noted comments by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and conservative columnist William Kristol that health care reform should be defeated to harm the president's political standing.

"These opponents of reform would rather score political points than offer relief to Americans who've seen premiums double and costs grow three times faster than wages," Obama said. "They would maintain a system that works for the insurance and the drug companies, while becoming increasingly unaffordable for families and for businesses."

He and other Democrats cited progress this year in the health care debate, noting that bills passed so far by House and Senate committees provide expanded health coverage and prevent insurance companies from denying eligibility because of pre-existing conditions.

However, Steele accused Obama and the Democrats of trying to ram through a health care overhaul without giving Congress proper time for full consideration. He noted that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported the bills offered so far fail to deliver benefits touted by Democratic sponsors, including a reduction in health care costs.

Steele said the Democratic health care proposals would lead to a government takeover of health care, but admitted nothing in the legislation so far specifically states that.

"Whether or not it's in the legislation, it's a concern that I've heard ... that needs to be addressed," Steele said.

When asked what form he thought the bill should take, Steele responded: "We've got policy makers ... we've elected to do that."

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma echoed Steele, saying the health care problem involved high costs and limited access and not a systemic failing requiring an extensive overhaul.

"The access problem is based on cost, and the only way you drive down cost is to create transparent markets to make sure people have some buying power and some economic decision, but we make sure everybody does," Coburn said.

In response, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called such language "buzz words for 'let's keep things the way they are.' "

In the House, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Tuesday the chamber could leave for its August break without a vote on a health care bill.

"If we can get consensus we're going to move. If we can't get consensus, we're going to continue to work on creating consensus," Hoyer said.

He said Democrats want to pass a bill next week and continue to discuss changes to a measure introduced last week. Along with questions raised by the Blue Dogs, other Democrats question the measure's proposed tax surcharge on wealthy Americans to help pay for health care reform.

On Monday, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was open to modifying the increased tax provision if that would help bring consensus.

Currently, the House Democrats' bill would impose a surcharge on individuals making $280,000 or more and families making $350,000 or more. Pelosi is now suggesting the surtax would kick in for individuals making $500,000 and families making $1 million.

The White House has so far resisted another idea for raising revenue -- creating a tax on the medical benefits provided by employers. Baucus said he likes the idea, but Obama said it could be too disruptive to a system in which 180 million Americans have health coverage provided by their employers.