I recently had an opportunity to speak with a group of eight disabled musicians from Zimbabwe who were touring the U.S. Their group is called Liyana, which means ‘it’s raining.’ Click here to listen to the podcast of the interview, as well as to some of their music.

And at Liyana’s Website, you can watch a trailer for an  HBO documentary that’s currently being made about Liyana and the challenges they’ve faced. The lead singer and songwriter Prudence, for example, was abandoned by her mother—whose mother had recommended she simply starve Prudence to death instead.  On their U.S. tour, Liyana performed on stages including Los Angeles’ House of Blues and New York’s Apollo Theater. They were celebrated for their courage and incredible talent, for their determination and hard work in chasing their vision.

Seeing Liyana provoked me to wonder: if they can do this, against such odds, what should the rest of us be able to do? (Though of course, we don’t all have such remarkable musical talent!) […]

More than 100 nurses gathered on the steps of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center today to protest what they say are unsafe practices in the handling of swine flu patients. (Read more.)

The protesting nurses pointed to understaffing as a potential contributor to the unsafe practices.

And Nursing Times has this, regarding new research on the use of Tamiflu (oseltamivir) in children:  “Risk from Swine Flu Drugs Outweighs Benefits in Children”

AJN received this advisory earlier this week from the CDC:

In July 2009, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made recommendations on who should receive vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1) when it becomes available, and which priority groups should be vaccinated first if the vaccine is initially available in extremely limited quantities. Five key populations were focused on by the committee to help reduce the impact and spread of novel H1N1. The key populations include those who are at higher risk of disease or complications, those who are likely to come in contact with novel H1N1, and those who could infect young infants. The committee recommends that when the vaccine becomes available, the following groups, accounting for approximately 159 million people in the United States, should receive the vaccine first:

• pregnant women,
• people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age,
• health care and emergency services personnel,
• persons between the ages of 6 months through 24 years of age, and
• people from ages 25 through 64 years who are at higher risk for novel H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.

The committee does not expect that there will be a shortage of novel H1N1 vaccine, but availability and demand can be unpredictable. There is some possibility that initially the vaccine will be available in limited quantities. In this setting, the committee recommended that the following groups receive the vaccine before […]