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Staff Picks: Keeping up today on H1N1 (Swine Flu)

Whether you are a health care provider, and information provider, a student, a teacher, a parent, a child, a senior or for that matter just about anyone at all, you have seen headlines about swine flu or as it is formally called H1N1. Wading through the facts and fiction, the risks and preventive measures can be daunting.

Primary Government Sources

The most accurate and up to date information on this disease can be found on a variety of government sponsored web sites.

Here in Maine the place to start your information search is with the Maine Center for Disease Control (CDC). This site includes a toll free number, calendar of vaccination clinics and other Maine specific information.

The Federal Center for Disease Control (CDC) website includes helpful information, free brochures and a way to sign up for email updates.

Government Sources for Specific Groups

Within both the state and federal CDC web sites are links to information directed at specific population groups.

Background Reading

For those who want to learn more about Swine Flu, pandemics or the 1918 Influenza outbreak the following books and audio books are available at the Maine State Library.

  • Bird flu: a virus of our own hatching / Michael Greger 614.518 G818b 2006

  • Bird flu: everything you need to know about the next pandemic / Marc Siegel 614.518 S571b 2006

  • China syndrome: the true story of the 21st century's first great epidemic / Karl Taro Greenfeld 614.592 G812c 2006

  • Chronology of public health in the United States / Russell O. Wright 362.10973 W952c 2005

  • The common cold cure: natural remedies for colds & flu / Ray Sahelian and Victoria Dolby Toews 616.205 S131c 1999

  • Epidemics and pandemics : their impacts on human history / J. N. Hays 614.49 H425e 2005

  • Flu: the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it / Gina Kolata 614.518 K81f 1999

  • Global epidemics / edited by Christopher Mari 614.4 G562 2007

  • The great influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history / John M. Barry Book and Audio CD 614.518 B279g 2006

  • Influenza / Donald Emmeluth 616.203 E54i 2009

  • Influenza 1918: the worst epidemic in American history / Lynette Iezzoni 614.518 I22i 1999

  • The influenza pandemic of 1918 / Virginia Aronson 614.518 A769i 2000

  • The plague of the Spanish lady: the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 / Richard Collier 616.205 C699p

  • Respiratory disorders sourcebook 616.2 R434 2008

Thanks to Andrea DeBiase of Carrabassett Valley Public Library for the topic suggestions and many of the sources listed.

Contact: Reference Department
Tel: 207-287-5608

Posted: October 22, 2009

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