At the risk of sounding like an alarmist, SFist received word today about a possible virus outbreak in San Francisco. It's the Norovirus, a common cause of the stomach flu, which is "transmitted by faecally contaminated food or water [Ew! -- SFist] and by person-to-person contact."...

A whooping cough outbreak has affected over 20 students at East Bay Waldorf School in El Sobrante, effectively shutting it down. Whooping cough, an illness normally thought of as an infant's, hits its victims with "severe coughing spells that end in a 'whooping' sound when the person breathes in." Ick. School will reopen on Monday, but students can return to class only if they have proof that they are taking antibiotics and are symptom-free.......

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water: Initial reports indicated that a very minimal amount of the substance, now confirmed to be Toluene, was able to reach the San Pablo Bay. However, upon further investigation workers discovered that an unknown quantity of the chemical was able to seep into the surrounding marsh and wash into the Bay. The chemical that has reached the San Pablo Bay is expected......

After someone supposedly stole brass fittings from a chemical company, toluenediamine, a flammable substance that causes irritation by inhalation, was released. Oops. Contra Costa County authorities have asked residents of over 1,500 homes in Richmond "to stay indoors while authorities investigate a chemical leak." According to the Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Team: The chemical spill occurred at an unconfirmed time this past weekend. The spill has been fully contained by booms and absorbent......

The American Academy of Dermatology is launching a new campaign to get girls from 16 to 29 years old (and boys in the same age range who live in district 5) to stop using indoor tanning beds. The campaign is called, fittingly enough, "Indoor Tanning is Out." How so? Because: a) only trash uses indoor tanning facilities, and b) indoor browning is associated with a significant increase in the risk of melanoma. (Though we......

Mr. Brock, While I appreciate your coverage of the spray situation I don't appreciate the stereotyping and blatant prejudice against people who become ill from being around cologne.(chemicals, paint, new carpeting car exhaust etc etc) ...

In a sensationalist piece that has been e-mailed to every blogger's inbox this morning, the New York Times has added another bit of fuel to the "journalists vs. bloggers" fire: Bloggers will die... soon. Using a scant two examples of prolific bloggers dying in the past few months, New York Times decides that these deaths are due to constant stress, long hours and the need to always "break" stories. My, that doesn't sound like being......

Herb Peterson, inventor the the McDonald's Egg McMuffin, died this past Wednesday at the age of 89 in his Santa Barbra home. Peterson started his career with McDonald's as vice president of the fast food chain advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, where he came up with the questionable slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day."...

Photo credit: sfjim123/Flickr Well, can you? Also: ew.......

Delicious, effervescent cold remedy Airborne, it seems, exaggerated their sniffle-fighting prowess. Turns out they faked their clinical trials, and are now offering you, the customer, some cash back. According to a 2006 ABC report: Airborne said that a double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted with “care and professionalism” by a company specializing in clinical trial management, GNG Pharmaceutical Services. GNG is actually a two-man operation started up just to do the Airborne study. There was......

Starting this Thursday (Feb. 14) and going until next Monday (Feb 18) will be the International Bear Rendezvous, a yearly party for bears and bear lovers, sponsored by the Bears of San Francisco. What are bears, you ask? Bears are above-averagely hairy and/or fat men of the homosexual persuasion. Although considered a subset of the overall queer community, they were, arguably, quite popular for a brief moment in time, or so sayeth the holy......

Hint: gay.......

In a Spearsian like maneuver, looking to trump both the recent storm and the Dhaliwal brothers, oil spill made a comeback this morning. It seems that a crane fell off of a san Francisco pier a little before 10 a.m. this morning, spilling "an unknown amount" of oil into the Bay. According to the Gate, "[t]he crane was on a sliding rail system at a dry dock at Pier 70 when it suddenly tilted......

Seems like all our friends are getting sick with that weird cold/flu that's going around town -- what with the cold weather and pre-holiday stress, we guess we're not too surprised about it, but still. So do you have that cold? Are you getting over it? Because we have a question if so -- how did your cold start? We've been coughing a little and we're wondering if we're coming down with something. How long......

-- Belle de jour (1967): Watch Catherine Deneuve turn into a whore while you, in turn, help to support some. A discussion will follow Luis Buñuel's housewife-cum-prostitute classic, and participants will receive gifts of sex toys. (Tee hee.) All of tonight's proceeds will go to support St. James Infirmary, a health and occupational injury clinic for sex workers. Screens tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Artists' Television Access; donation of $5-20. -- Merry Crassmas: This......

Whether you call it soda, pop, or cola, you'll have to pay more to buy it if Gavin Newsom gets his way: Matier and Ross report that Mayor Newsom is thinking about taxing city vendors of sugary soft drinks to pay for his Shape Up SF kid fitness programs. The thinking's that the fructose corn syrup that gets added to your Coke [we grew up in the South, so we call 'em Cokes, though we've......

"Mean nut" restaurateur Luisa Hanson -- you know, the person more or less responsible for the Barleycorn closure -- had a swift bit of karma hurled at her head last week. It seems that her flagship, whimsically branded Luisa's, was forced to shut its door. Nothing too unusual. Yet. While initially chalked up to "planned renovations," Eater has the real, juicy, rat-infested scoop as it shutting its doors last Friday. it seems that Luisa's......

Congratulations, Oakland (29th), Fremont (32nd), and San Francisco (34th) -- you made it on the top 50 drunkest cities in the U.S. list. At least, according to the December issue of the body dysmorphia-inducing rag Men's Health Magazine. The rankings are based on alcohol-related liver deaths, "binge drinking data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," FBI-culled drunk driving arrest numbers, death-related auto accidents that involved booze, and "grades given to cities......

Oh, this looks like fun. While hogging the Internet today, we came across this Yahoo group for the homeless, which bills itself as a "unique, independent, community based support group, moderated by anonymous homeless and formerly homeless volunteers, in San Francisco, California." It's great. The homeless or lease signers among us can send them tips, blow whistles, upload real photos of meals served in several shelters, see photos of health and hygiene conditions at......

A website where official restaurant food safety rankings are easily accessible...

Today's toy test event in Union Square....

Yesterday, Mayor Newsom signed into action the Tommy Ammiano-introduced legislation that requires the city to handout ID cards to undocumented immigrants and other residents who either can't or just won't apply for driver's licenses. The good news is that these IDs will help (formerly) undocumented residents gain access to the wonderful world of banking, a sense of peace before calling the fuzz, as well as "health services at city-run clinics, public library privileges, and resident discounts at museums and other cultural institutions." (Entry fee discounts at the Exploratorium: the American dream realized.) ...

Last night at a downtown bar, we eavesdropped on a heated debate about the Bonds' indictment. The all-male group of self-proclaimed Bonds-haters argued loudly about whether or not sports should simply start allowing athletes to get as chemically enhanced as they wanna be, health risks be damned. The main pro-roids (pro-drug?) point was this: seeing as how athletes already push themselves to physical extremes, shouldn't synthetic enhancers also count? Since it also deals with......

After a bit of a hiatus, SFist Finds is back! Send your Bay Area finds to found [at] sfist [dot] com, or tag them sfist and found on Flickr. Let us know where and when you found the item and any other helpful details. Phew, what a relief, a clean bill of health for this lucky gal. And what a nice practitioner she has! Found at 14th and Guerrero. Thanks to Lady K for......

Eater SF uncovered something new and morally-questionable -- two of our favorite topics -- TablePronto, an online service that scalps restaurant reservations. Basically, it's a site that allows you to buy and sell reservations for a price. As of now they have a scant few available for SF: - Perbacco, 11/16, 9pm, $18; Foreign Cinema, 11/16, 8:30pm, $15; Town Hall, 11/16, 9:15pm, $10; Aqua, 11/16, 8:45pm, $10 Oh, all prime dining hours, too! But......

Yesterday, presidential hopeful Joe Biden released details of his plan for the health care system, and coincidentally, we spotted this sign in an area of San Francisco that our 2001 Muni map calls "Apparel City." Political candidates have asked us to help them before: we’ve voted for them, given them money, put posters in our window, walked the precincts… and we’re certainly willing to loiter for a worthy candidate. But we’ve always felt these......

As mentioned in today's Chronicle, the idea of a safe-space in which intravenous drug users can shoot up -- without fear of arrests, beatings, rapes, or whatever happens in those movies after heroin's sweet release -- might become a reality. Or at least, discussed in length at this Thursday's all-day symposium hosted by the city Department of Public Health....

-- Magic Bullets: Along with Bonde do Role and JuiceBoxxx, this local outfit (heavy on the bass lines, rhythmic keyboards, and melancholic vocals) performs tonight at 9 p.m. at The Independent, 628 Divisadero; $13. -- Queen Christina (1933): Young Swedish queen ends up kissing another dame as well as a dashing John Gilbert. Greta Garbo stars in this classic starting at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way. -- Downy......

Man, we can tell how long we've been doing this by the number of Zagat posts we've amassed! The 2008 edition is out: your nice alphabetical list of restaurants with a grade for food, decor and service, as rated by the users of Zagat. This year, it is going 2.0, with the introduction of such spiffy new things as colors, as in two of them, black and red! Post-it "love it" tags to customize your......

Although neither death nor illness have been reported, State health officials are warning people not to eat tofu produced by South San Francisco-based Quong Hop and Co....