Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Senior Medical Correspondent

On a recent flight from San Francisco, California, to Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Julie Gerberding was thrilled to get bumped up to first class. The thrill, however, quickly disappeared: As she did her victory walk to the front cabin, she noticed that the woman in the seat next to hers was hacking up a lung.

"She was on her cell phone, saying, 'I feel miserable. I just know I have swine flu,' " Gerberding remembered. "I thought to myself, 'Oh, great.' "

For the duration of her transcontinental flight, Gerberding played viral roulette as she sat shoulder-to-shoulder next to Ms. Sneezy in a confined space.

Gerberding, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had a few strategies for avoiding this woman's germs, some of which you can use on planes, trains, automobiles and anywhere else if you get stuck next to Typhoid Mary - or, in this case, H1N1 Mary.

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Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Senior Medical Correspondent

Clinical trials to test the effectiveness and safety of the H1N1 vaccine have been under way since the summer.

Next week, the long-awaited H1N1 vaccine is expected to arrive. At least three of the four vaccine makers have begun shipping their products to undisclosed distribution centers.

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Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Senior Medical Correspondent

Over the past week, I've been inundated with questions about swine flu, via Facebook, Twitter, CNN blogs and e-mail. So this week I'm empowering people with information about swine flu: how to protect yourself, what all the numbers mean and why you shouldn't freak out.

1. Hasn't swine flu been around for a while?

Yes. Swine flu was first identified in 1930 when researchers isolated the virus in a pig. In 1976, more than 200 soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, got swine flu. From 1976 until 2005, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received approximately one report every year or two of humans with swine flu. From December 2005 until January 2009, there were 12 cases of swine flu reported.

2. The folks who have it now, did they get it from pigs or people?

It appears that no one in the United States with swine flu had any contact with pigs. Dr. Richard Besser, the acting director of the CDC, said in a news conference Friday that among the first seven cases, no one had contact with pigs. In another press conference Monday, he added that investigators have looked to see whether any of the infected people had contact with pigs, and "we're not finding that linkage here."

3. Swine flu is transmitted from animals to humans. Does that happen a lot?

Yes. More than 200 "zoonotic diseases" are transmitted from animals to humans, including illnesses caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites. Rabies and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (better known as "mad cow disease") are two well-known examples.

4. Should I cancel my trip to Mexico?

Yes, you should, unless it's essential. That's the advice from a recent CDC travel warning.

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CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen takes a look at the economic stimulus and how it affects health care. She also debunks a falsehood making the rounds in conservative media.

Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Medical Correspondent

It sounds like the medical equivalent of a crystal ball: A single test that helps tell you your chances of developing Parkinson’s disease, prostate cancer, diabetes, alcoholism, obesity, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and more than 75 other diseases and conditions . Wow, I thought, I’ve discovered the holy grail of health care.

The genetic analysis is offered by a company called 23andMe – here’s the section that lists all the things they test for. You just spit into a test tube (don’t worry, you won’t miss; they give you a funnel), mail it in, and pay $399 for a genetic analysis of dozens of diseases that ends up on a secure Web site, which you can peruse at your leisure. The site quotes a satisfied customer: “I thought how fascinating if I could know more about my future. I should be aware for myself. For my children. If there’s something that I could prevent for the future…why not learn? Why not help myself?”

I ran into this Web site while researching a story this week on genetic tests being offered online. The question that keeps coming up in my mind is this: What do you get for your $400? Do you find out for sure that you’re destined to get, say, glaucoma? That you’re more likely than most people to get it? Way more likely or just a little more likely?

“I can’t figure out what you get for the $400,” I said to Brian Naughton, the Founding R&D Architect at 23andMe (yes, that really is his title, and the company name comes from the fact that we all have 23 pairs of chromosomes). “For example, if I get your test and it tells me I have the worst possible heart attack genes, what chance do I have of having a heart attack?”
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Worries over melamine in infant formula started in China and have spread to the United States.

Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Medical Correspondent

Silly journalists.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the Food and Drug Administration found the chemical melamine in baby formula in the United States. Yes, that’s the same toxic stuff that killed at least three babies in China, and sickened around 50,000 more.

Parents, understandably, are freaking out. So starting on late Tuesday afternoon, when the story broke that melamine had been found in a sample of infant formula made in the U.S., I had the silly thought that the Food and Drug Administration might actually have some information up on its Web site to help sort this all out for parents.

But nothing went up on the FDA’s Web site until Friday afternoon. For three days, the FDA had loads of information up about melamine in Chinese infant formula and in pet food from earlier incidents, but not a single syllable about this potentially deadly chemical in the formula we feed our babies right here in the United States.

“What’s up with that?” I asked FDA Spokeswoman Judy Leon, who was kind enough to answer her cell phone on Thanksgiving Day. “Is something wrong with my eyes? Is it there and I’m just not seeing it?”

No, said Leon, there was nothing wrong with my eyes. The site was indeed devoid of any information on the topic during those three days. “What can I tell you?” she said, sounding resigned. “I have nothing to say about that.”

Here are the basic facts about melamine in U.S. baby formula: the FDA has test results back on 74 samples of infant formula and so far it has found trace amounts of melamine in a sample of Nestle’s Good Start Supreme Infant Formula with Iron. They also found trace amounts of a related compound, cyanuric acid, in a sample of Enfamil LIPIL with Iron, made by Mead Johnson. In addition, Abott Laboratories found trace levels of melamine in a sample of its formula, Similac, according to the Associated Press.

Leon at the FDA says these low levels of melamine – monumentally lower than what was in the Chinese formula - pose “absolutely no risk” to babies. Pediatricians I’ve spoken with concur. “To have these tiny amounts in infant formula is of negligible concern,” says Dr. Harvey Karp, author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block” and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine. “The dictum in toxicology is that the dose makes the poison.”

Click here to read what the FDA posted on its site Friday:

For the FDA's test results on infant formula made in the US, click here:

Elizabeth Cohen | BIO
CNN Medical Correspondent

Blanche Danick may be 86 years old, but she's pretty hip. She keeps up with all the latest health news, and a while back, she called her daughter wanting to know whether she should start taking the herb ginkgo biloba. She'd heard it might stave off Alzheimer's disease.

"I told her not to bother, that it wouldn't make much of a difference," says her daughter, Edythe London, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "On the basis of what I've read, I don't think it staves off dementia."

London's advice makes a lot of sense, according to a study out this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Ginkgo is a top-selling herb and has been hailed by some as a memory-booster, but the new University of Pittsburgh study found it didn't help prevent Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia in more than 3,000 elderly study subjects.

Ginkgo manufacturers say this isn't the first - or the last - word on the herb. "There is a significant body of scientific and clinical evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of ginkgo extract for both cognitive function and improved circulation," said Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council.

London's still skeptical. "But I do tell my mother there are other things she can do," says London, who's studied the brain and aging. "I tell her to go out and do things and see people every day and be active." Studies have shown that physical exercise, the kind that keeps the heart healthy, also keeps the brain healthy, according to the National Institutes of Health's Cognitive and Emotional Health Project.

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Elizabeth Cohen | BIO
CNN Medical Correspondent

All this week I’ve been trying to get my head around $52 billion is. How many flu shots is that, or appendectomies, or tongue depressors?

Fifty-two billion dollars is how much President-elect Barak Obama’s health care plan is estimated to cost, at least – it might be as high as $106 billion, according to factcheck.org. There’s no question something’s got to be done. Forty-five million Americans are uninsured, and we’ve all heard the horror stories of sick people who can’t get the care they need because they don’t have insurance, or they have lousy insurance. Everyone agrees that shouldn’t happen.

But where would this money come from? Obama says he’ll roll back a tax break President Bush gave to wealthy Americans. But will that be enough? Obama also says his administration will help get health care costs under control – there’s a lot of waste out there – and that this savings will be passed on to you and me. But will it really happen that way? Hospitals and insurance companies, if they manage to figure out ways to cut costs, might just keep the savings for themselves.

Lots of questions, and not a lot of answers. Here’s another one: will Obama tackle health care reform early on? It’s expensive, and our economy’s a mess. Plus, remember Hillary Clinton’s 1993 attempt at health care reform? It was a failure. Health care reform is no way to win a popularity contest. It’s tricky. You’re bound to get someone mad, whether it’s doctors, pharmaceutical companies, or consumers.

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