Word: chickened
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Bill's Bar: Jimmie's Chicken Shack...
Shingles? I recalled that my father had been afflicted by this strange ailment, but I knew little about shingles until I did some digging. I learned that shingles could be thought of as the revenge of the chicken pox, or of varicella-zoster, the virus behind this childhood disease. A close cousin of herpes simplex, which causes cold sores, varicella-zoster can be beaten back by the immune system but never eradicated. Like a bandit pursued by a posse, it retreats to a safe haven--bundles of nerve cells in the spinal cord or cranium. There varicella-zoster lies dormant...
Shingles (a.k.a. herpes zoster) is a common ailment. Over the course of a lifetime, 2 out of every 10 people who have had chicken pox will experience its misery. But while the disease can strike at any time, the risk increases sharply after age 50. Why? Probably because older people have fewer antibodies against varicella-zoster circulating in their bloodstream. Also at high risk are those whose immune systems are compromised, such as AIDS and transplant patients...
Current therapies--anti-inflammatories like prednisone and antivirals like acyclovir--are aimed at alleviating symptoms. But there may soon be a better option. A more potent version of the vaccine that's used to inoculate children against chicken pox is being tested on older adults, and if it works as well as hoped, millions of aging baby boomers will be lining up for shots. As for me, I've crossed shingles off my worry list. Very likely the attack I endured has rendered me immune to another...
...used to be you had to be a Roman emperor to change the calendar. Now all it takes is a Senate seat. Locked in a game of fiscal chicken with Bill Clinton, Republican Senate leaders are embracing a time-warping plan to make this year?s budgetary ends meet: They?re adding a 13th month to the upcoming fiscal year. "We all know we engage in a lot of smoke and mirrors," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told the Washington Post on Monday. "But we have to fund education, NIH, worker safety and other programs. It's a question...