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September 24, 2009

Even celebs get swine flu

sanjay gupta swine fluCelebrities, they're just like us. Some of them even get the swine flu.

Take Dr. Sanjay Gupta, one of television's most recognizable faces who dispenses medical advice to the masses on CNN. He was on assignment in Afghanistan and came down with a terrible sore throat, body aches, a fever -- the whole shebang. Tests later confirmed that yes, this well-known health reporter had the swine flu. Way to throw yourself into one of the biggest medical stories of the year.

Marilyn Manson, the strange looking rocker, announced on his MySpace page that he has the swine flu. "Unfortunately, I am going to survive," he writes. Last spring, Harry Potter actor Rupert Grint -- he plays Ron Weasley, the boy wizard's best friend -- came down with the H1N1 virus.

And in a bit of irony, Laurie Garrett, a flu expert who wrote a book published in 1994 called The Coming Plague about emerging new diseases and author of a Newsweek cover story about the swine flu outbreak in May, has come down with it.

(OK, her celebrity isn't on the level of the others, but it's quite a coincidence, no?)

The bug is, in virology parlance, a "mild flu," but only somebody who hasn't been laid low by H1N1 would consider days of semi-delirium, muscle aches, fatigue, nausea, and stomach twisting to be "mild."

If the duration and depth of my personal illness are any indication of what's in store, and if scientists have correctly predicted that the bulk of infections in the U.S. will slam the entire nation long before vaccines are available, we are in trouble.

Watch this space. More celebs are bound to get the swine flu. Picture of Health will keep you up-to-date. More at 11.

Photo courtesy of Associated Press

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 12:00 PM | | Comments (2)
Categories: Swine flu/H1N1
        

Comments

I thought I also heard some of the NY Mets had it but I don't remember where I saw it.

First of all, who uses MySpace? Secondly, I think it's good that a sort-of celebrity got the Swine Flu because hopefully people will realize that the chances of dying from the Swine Flu are pretty low if you are relatively healthy. Even though this guy has H1N1, no one's worried about him dying from it. Maybe he just needs to wash his hands more and use some hand wipes, even when he's on assignment.

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About Picture of Health
Kelly Brewington came to the health beat a year ago after covering everything from education and government to race and immigration in her 11 years as a reporter. Since then, she has tackled stories on autism, heart failure and acupuncture used to treat drug addiction. She’s been fascinated by medicine since childhood, when her doctor dad and nurse mom gave her Gray’s Anatomy coloring book to play with. She also blames her early exposure to the field of medicine for her hypochondria.

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