Daily Rounds: How Flu Really Spreads; For-Profit Hospices; More Cancers As World Gets Fatter

New Study Sheds Light on Spread of Swine Flu - NYTimes.com "If you or your child came down with influenza during the H1N1, or swine flu, outbreak in 2009, it may not have happened the way you thought it did. A new study of a 2009 epidemic at a school in Pennsylvania has found that children most likely did not catch it by sitting near an infected classmate, and that adults who got sick were probably not infected by their own children. Closing the school after the epidemic was under way did little to slow the rate of transmission, the study found, and the most common way the disease spread was a through child’s network of friends." (nytimes.com)

Medical News: Profit Status of Hospice May Mold Patient Census - in Public Health & Policy, Medicare from MedPage Today"For-profit hospice agencies — which have been increasing in number in recent years — are more likely to enroll patients with dementia and noncancer diagnoses who require less care than nonprofit hospices, researchers found." (medpagetoday.com)

'Fat cancers' also hitting developing nations - Boston.com "Fat cancers" usually associated with wealthy countries are becoming more common in the developing world, too, according to new reports. "Obese people are thought to be at higher risk for many so-called "fat cancers," including breast and colon cancer. A separate report out Friday shows obesity rates worldwide have doubled in the last three decades, especially in the West but also nearly everywhere else." (boston.com)

Why Keeping Little Girls Squeaky Clean Could Make Them Sick : Shots - Health News Blog : NPR "In an article in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine, Sharyn Clough, a philosopher of science at Oregon State University who studies research bias, says young girls are held to a higher standard of cleanliness than young boys, a discrepancy that could help explain later health differences. Girls are expected to stay squeaky clean while boys are encouraged to play outside, Clough argues. And that might explain why women have higher rates of certain illnesses." (npr.org)