Word: pox
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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...
...pox spreads through the land as we close out the century. We're all hooked up to everything but peace of mind, and it shows in the cathode pallor we carry; we are a Night of the Living Dead army of zombies wondering if we've got unopened e-mail. Nobody, with the possible exception of Congress, knows how to do nothing anymore...
...collective pox on the parole board that ever sees fit to unleash this demon on society again," New York Supreme Court Justice Edwin Torres said in sentencing John Rosado to 50 to 100 years in prison, calling him the devil incarnate. "And if necessary, I will arise from my mouldy grave to visit it on them myself...