Uninsured Americans Hope Reform Brings Health Coverage

WITHOUT question the dumbest headline I’ve seen in my 65 years.

Now, if people where OPPOSED to getting free taxpayer provided health care, with no ellort on their part, THAT might be a headline. Stating the obvious is not a headline…….

A.B.

As headlines go, it isn’t exactly a startling click-magnet: GBU Editor

President Barack Obama holds a town hall meeting on health care in Grand Junction, Colorado August 15, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing

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Your shower may be blasting you with germs: study

Mycobacterium avium is linked to pulmonary disease, causing symptoms such as a persistent drug cough, breathlessness and fatigue, and most often infects people with compromised immune system but can occasionally infect healthy people.

Your article uses the phrase “persistent drug cough” but I think you mean it to read “persistent dry cough.”

David M.

Yes. We corrected: GBU Editor

Festival-goers shower at the Paleo music festival in Nyon, Switzerland, July 24, 2009. REUTERS/Valentin Flauraud

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Obama warns against scare tactics over healthcare

Protesters in Washington brandished American flags and home-made signs venting their anger at Obama and the Democrats who control both houses of the U.S. Congress, accusing them of pushing the country toward bankruptcy with reckless spending.

“Taxed Enough Already!” one man shouted, while others listened to speakers and traded leaflets. The crowd appeared to be one of the largest rallies against Obama since he took office, although it did not come close to matching the turnout on the National Mall for his inauguration in January.

I’ve not been able to find, on online Reuters, news on that huge protest demonstration in Washington, D.C. on the 12th. I searched news stories in the U.S. section and the Politics section, for the last 7 days. Where should I look? Thanks!

Ted W.

You call yourselves a news organization. But you did even mention the largest march on Washington in years. You are obviously in the Obama camp, hook, line and sinker. How shameful.

Rik

Where is the coverage of the Tea Party across the country? Same as all the other lazy no common sense news organizations. Dont have a clue as to whats really happening.

Kris

One million or more people protest in DC. Where is the coverage? Would be nice to see some old fashioned reporting.

Wodun

A number of readers wrote in looking for our coverage of the weekend taxpayer protest in Washington, DC.

We folded two paragraphs on the event into a larger story about a Minneapolis appearance by President Obama on Saturday, but did not have a separate text story.

We did have a video report, but likewise combined it with the Obama story, and the headline, “Obama healthcare plan on the road,” was not exactly user-friendly for readers trying to follow the protests : GBU Editor

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Thousands of demonstrators gather on the plaza near the U.S. Capitol to participate in a “Taxpayer March on DC” protest against President Barack Obama’s fiscal and economic policies including the administration’s health care reform plans in Washington, September 12, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

Alcohol kills over half of Russians in prime-study

MOSCOW, June 26 (Reuters) - Cheap and illicit alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years and the government must act urgently to reverse the trend, a study to be published in The Lancet at the weekend said.

“Excessive alcohol consumption in Russia, particularly by men, has in several recent years caused more than half of all the deaths at ages of 15-54 years,” the Lancet article said.

Both your lead paragraph and your headline have the same error.

Alcohol does not kill half of all Russians in their most productive years. Rather, half of all deaths of Russians in their most productive years are killed by alcohol.

That’s a very important difference. Half of all deaths is a number in the hundreds of thousands; which is very high to be sure. If your paragraph were accurate than tens of millions of Russians would be dying.

M.A.K.

Yes. The story later makes clear what we meant, but the headline and lead are indeed misleading: GBU Editor

A man drinks antiseptic alcohol on a street in central Moscow in a 2006 file photo. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

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World closer to swine flu pandemic

Worldwide, seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people in an average year but the new strain worries experts because it spreads rapidly between humans and there is vaccine for it.

You have several copy errors in this article the most significant of which is where you mean to say …thereis NO vaccine for it.”

J.M.

We corrected that error soon after the story was issued on our wires, but unfortunately the correction did not make it to our reuters.com home page for several hours: GBU Editor

A couple wearing masks wait for their relatives to arrive from Mexico at Sao Paulo’s international airport, April 27, 2009. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a “public health emergency of international concern” over an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

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Swine flu epidemic fear grows, world on alert

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Governments around the world rushed on Sunday to check the spread of a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected around a dozen in the United States.

Mexicans huddled in their homes while U.S. hospitals tracked patients with flu symptoms and other countries imposed health checks at airports as the World Health Organization warned the virus had the potential to become a pandemic.

In New Zealand, 10 pupils from an Auckland school party that had returned from Mexico were being treated for influenza symptoms…

Countries across Asia, which have had to grapple with deadly viruses like H5N1 bird flu and SARS in recent years, snapped into action. At airports and other border checkpoints in Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, officials screened travelers for any flu-like symptoms.

Argentina declared a health alert, requiring anyone arriving on flights from Mexico to advise if they had flu-like symptoms.

In France, two people returning from Mexico who had flu-like symptoms were being tested…

A British Airways cabin crew member was taken to hospital in London after developing flu-like symptoms on a flight from Mexico, but tests later cleared him of swine flu.

Unless I’ve overlooked it, there soes NOT seem to be any information at all about symptoms of the disease other than a reference to flu-like problems. Think it would be very useful to provide such information with at least some specifics in your next report, and perhaps offer a sidebar with details.

R.L.

This is a good point raised by several readers. We have begun adding some basic symptom information to our flu stories, such as:

Flu is characterized by a sudden fever, muscle aches, sore throat and dry cough. Victims of the new strain have also suffered more vomiting and diarrhea than is usual with flu.

GBU Editor

A health worker explains the symptoms of influenza to a taxi driver in downtown Monterrey, northern Mexico, April 26, 2009. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo

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Mexico shuts schools in capital in flu scar

Hello, I noticed an error today on the Reuters site, that made me stare at the article in confusion.

Please note the lack of an E at the end of Scar(e). Such a simple word should not be misspelled in an article released from a company like Reuters. Are these articles proofread?

F.M.

Yes, but apparently not well enough. Readers always notice sloppy headline errors, and we’ve had too many of them lately: GBU Editor

A woman wears a mask as she walks inside of a metro station in Mexico City April 24, 2009. REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez

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U.S. officials track new flu strain

The virus is usually fairly mild but it still kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people in an average year. And every few decades, a completely new strain pops up and it can cause a pandemic, a global epidemic that kills many more than usual.

This was in your article, and I was wondering if it is a typo or mistake? Could you please let me know.

Kathy

The numbers are accurate, although I admit it is jarring to see the phrase “fairly mild” attached to a death toll like that: GBU Editor

The H1N1 influenza strain in a microscopic image courtesy of the CDC. REUTERS/Handout
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5.5 million Americans paralyzed, study finds

“Thirty-sex percent of those who reported being paralyzed said they had ‘a lot of difficulty’ in moving, while 16 percent said they were completely unable to move,” the researchers wrote.

I noted an amusing typo in this article. I did not expect to find humor, and I figured I should share this typo with you (some poor reader might be offended):

W.B.

Thirty SEX percent!
Wow, you’re getting as bad as newsprint.

P.F.

As  you might suspect, lots of readers noticed this one. We corrected: GBU Editor

Iraqi and U.S. forces unload wheelchairs from a truck to be distributed to needy children at al-Fadhil clinic in Baghdad April 14, 2009. REUTERS/Atef Hassan (IRAQ

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More Americans wary of U.S. tax man this year

An elderly woman in Austin, Texas, who asked not to be named, said her $3,000 debt to the IRS grew to around $60,000 in taxes and penalties over 16 years despite the fact that she paid off the initial debt within six months.

The 61-year-old is disabled and suffers from multiple health problems.

I don’t know who or how old ‘Jasmin Melvin’ is but she(he) is mistaken if she thinks 61yrs is ‘elderly’. How ridiculous!

Judith K.

Yikes. That one sure deflated me. From a global perspective, with average life expectancy in the mid 60s, I suppose 61 might be elderly. But in a story that was clearly set in the U.S. context, the word elderly looked silly. More to the point, it didn’t add anything to the story anyway: GBU Editor

President George W. Bush blows out the candles on his 60th birthday cake during a private dinner party at a restaurant in Chicago, July 6, 2006. REUTERS/Jason Reed

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