STONY BROOK, N.Y. (CBS) ― They’re upset over an ultimatum from the health department.

Workers are being told to either get the swine flu vaccine or lose their jobs.

New York is the first state in the country to mandate flu vaccinations for its health care workers. The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be available beginning next week. Much of it is reserved for state health care workers, but there is growing opposition to required innoculations.

Health care workers in Hauppauge screamed “No forced shots!” as they rallied Tuesday against the state regulation requiring them to roll up their sleeves.

“I don’t even tend to the sick. I am in the nutrition field. They are telling me I must get the shot because I work in a health clinic setting,” said Paula Small, a Women, Infants and Children health care worker.

Small said she will refuse, worried the vaccine is untested and unproven, leaving her vulnerable. In 1976, there were some deaths associated with a swine flu vaccination.

Registered nurse Frank Mannino, 50, was also angry. He said the state regulation violates his personal freedom and civil rights.

“And now I will lose my job if I don’t take the regular flu shot or the swine flu shot.”

When asked if he’s willing to lose his job, Mannino said, “Absolutely. I will not take it, will not be forced. This is still America.”

The protest also shook Albany Tuesday. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded freedom of choice. After all, as health care professionals they argue they’re already constantly washing their hands and aren’t likely to transmit or contract the flu.

Around 500,000 health care workers are slated to receive the vaccine.

“It’s certainly their prerogative to voice their opinion,” said Dr. Susan Donelan of Stony Brook University Hospital.

Donelan said most in the medical community see the benefits and safety of the shots and welcome them, and that hospitals must obey the law.

“Our hospital is committed to following the mandate to have our personnel vaccinated,” she said.

The state said change was needed this year to save lives, typically only about 45 percent of health care workers take advantage of voluntary flu vaccines.

More than 150 institutional outbreaks of seasonal and H1N1 flu are expected this year in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice centers.

New York and New Jersey will get their first doses of the swine flu vaccine next week. It will be the nasal mist, not a shot.

http://wcbstv.com/

The ban on smoking in public places, such as bars and restaurants, has been one of the greatest public health debates of the early 21st century. Now, two large studies suggest that communities that pass laws to curb secondhand smoke get a big payoff—a drop in heart attacks.

Overall, American, Canadian, and European cities that have implemented smoking bans had an average of 17% fewer heart attacks in the first year, compared with communities who had not taken such measures. Then, each year after implementing smoking bans (at least for the first three years, the longest period studied), smoke-free communities have an average 26% decline in heart attacks, compared with those areas that still allow smokers to light up in public places. Read the full story

Is ACORN funding ban unconstitutional?

The hastily passed House ban on ACORN funding last week launched a thousand press releases and a thousand talk radio rants, but it might take a single lawsuit to blow it out of the water. Read the full story

We knew it was going to happen, but we’re still stoked to report that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski formally proposed a set of net neutrality rules this morning, calling them “the fair rules of the road for companies that control access to the internet.” There are two big new rules, which say broadband providers of any kind can’t discriminate against content or applications, and must be transparent about their network management policies — a big change for wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T, who would have to open their networks to scrutiny, and a direct response to Comcast’s secretive packet-filtering techniques.

Read the full story

ZURICH (Reuters) – Russia’s top general said on Monday that plans to deploy missiles in an enclave next to Poland had not been shelved, despite a decision by the United States to rethink plans for missile defence in Europe.

But a former Russian diplomatic negotiator indicated he thought the deployments in Kaliningrad region, bordering Poland, unlikely to go ahead. Alternative U.S. proposals for sea-based defences appeared less likely to raise Kremlin objections. Read the full story

Updated 09/24/2009 @ 12:56 PM Central

Feds: Suspect hit beauty stores for bomb supplies

By TOM HAYS and DEVLIN BARRETT (AP) – 8 minutes ago

NEW YORK — An Afghan immigrant plotted for more than a year to detonate homemade bombs in the United States, had recently bought bomb-making supplies from beauty supply stores and was looking for “urgent” help in the past two weeks to make explosives, an indictment charged Thursday. Read the full story

Personally, I feel the internet is one of the very few places an individual can freely express themselves. I also believe web anonymity is beneficial, because judgments of an individual are based on the content they provide, as opposed to biases we encounter in person.

Newspaper fuels Web anonymity debate

MADISON, Wis. — Getting named the local paper’s Person of the Year was supposed to be an honor for small-town politician Dean Zuleger. But the award only enraged many townspeople. Read the full story

Read the full story

Texans cornerback Robinson fined for message on shoes

Texans cornerback Dunta Robinson has been fined an undisclosed amount for wearing shoes that read “Pay Me Rick” during Sunday’s 24-7 loss to the New York Jets. Read the full story

Posada in middle of Blue Jays-Yankees brawl

The Associated Press

NEW YORK – Jorge Posada and Toronto reliever Jesse Carlson got into a fight near home plate, leading to a frenzied, bench-clearing brawl between the Yankees and Blue Jays in the eighth inning. Read the full story

At least two Connecticut news organizations are reporting police have a suspect in the brutal death of Yale graduate student Annie Le.

The New Haven Independent and the New Haven Register report a Yale lab employee is being looked at by law enforcement. Read the full story

BOSTON (AP) — James S. McDonald, president and chief executive of investment management firm Rockefeller & Co., has died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, Massachusetts authorities said Tuesday. Read the full story

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Police are hunting for the killer who stuffed a body believed to be that of a Yale University graduate student behind a wall in the high-security laboratory building where she worked. Police found the body around 5 p.m. Sunday, on what was to have been 24-year-old Annie Le’s wedding day. An autopsy was underway on Monday to verify the identity of the body, found in a cable duct in the Yale medical school building. Police would not say Monday if they have a suspect, but said that nobody is in custody. Read the full story

ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — A 20-year-old Cornell University student has died of complications related to H1N1 influenza, and influenza-type illness has been diagnosed in 520 other students in the past three weeks, the university reported Friday.

David Skorton, the college’s president, released a statement Friday evening saying that the 20-year-old, Warren J. Schor, died that day at Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca. The student’s hometown was not immediately released. Read the full story

One question: Why would a United States agency conduct a training exercise in Washington D.C. on 9/11?????

This does not make any sense at all.

White House hits CNN for Coast Guard report

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today criticized CNN – not the Coast Guard – over the panic caused by the agency’s training exercise on the Sept. 11 anniversary, saying that the alarm could have been avoided if the network had checked its facts.

Gibbs said he wouldn’t second-guess Coast Guard leadership for holding a Potomac River exercise on the morning of the 9/11 commemoration. But he took a shot at CNN, which initially didn’t know the maneuvers in the Potomac were an exercise and erroneously reported that gunshots were fired – something the homeland security department said didn’t occur. Read the full story

By Mariel Concepcion

NEW YORK (Billboard) – At the beginning of the year, rapper Kid Cudi threatened to quit the music industry.

Cudi wrote on his blog, “The drama that comes with it is more overwhelming than the s–t I was dealing with when I was p–s-poor broke.” He says he felt pressured to top the success of his introductory single, “Day N Nite,” which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and the expectations weren’t helped by reports of a beef with fellow rapper and labelmate Consequence. Read the full story

John Lennon did many brilliant things in his life, but arguably one of his most inspired acts was his deliberate destruction of the Beatles in 1969 — just 40 years ago this month. It didn’t seem that way then, not to tens of millions of devastated Beatles fans around the world, and not to Paul McCartney, who, feeling abandoned, went off to his farm in Scotland and into a deep depression.

But if Lennon, who’d started the group that evolved into the Beatles, hadn’t murdered his creation at that moment, if the band had somehow struggled on through their rows into the 1970s,

I doubt that you’d be reading this article today. Read the full story