Health: A Date with DEET

As the West Nile season begins, doctors are comparing it to the polio epidemic

Spring showers this year have produced a bumper crop of mosquitoes--and heightened fears of the West Nile virus they carry. So far this year, the virus is off to a relatively slow start (the first human cases began showing up last week), but experts predict that by the time it peaks in August, this year's West Nile season may be the worst yet--worse even than that of 2002, when 4,000 Americans were infected and 284 died.

So how much do we know about West Nile? A lot more than we did, thanks to a study published in the current issue of...

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