December 24th, 2009 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Vaccination against infectious diseases is perhaps the most important reason why millions of additional persons do not succumb with morbidity and mortality from viral and bacterial infections in the modern world. Vaccines are most effective when they are administered with sufficient distribution and frequency to protect as many people as possible.
In the July 23, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med 2009;361:335-44, there appeared an article reporting a study by Dipika Sur, MD and colleagues entitled “A Cluster-Randomized Effectiveness Trial of Vi Typhoid Vaccine in India.” The premise of the study was that typhoid fever, caused by infection with the bacteria Salmonella enterica serotype typhi (S. typhi), causes up to 600,00 deaths per year, mostly in developing countries. Injectable Vi polysaccharide vaccine has up to this time been used in a limited fashion in public health programs, and there have been unanswered questions about its effectiveness in children (ages 2 to 5 years) and in particular its use to cause “herd” immunity (e.g., if it is given to a large population living in close proximity, will it promote immunity in the nonimmunized “herd” of people). Read more »
This post, Vi Typhoid Vaccine: Safe And Effective For Young Children, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
December 20th, 2009 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News
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If you think that the H1N1 pandemic is slowing down and have grown complacent with vaccination now that vaccines are more widely available, please learn something from last night’s tragic loss of local college student from Rhode Island, Lillian Chason:
A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, who friends said was battling complications from the H1N1 virus, died Wednesday evening, according to UNC Hospitals and a Facebook post made by her father.
Freshman Lillian Chason had been in critical condition at UNC Hospitals for weeks. Friends told WRAL News on Tuesday that she started feeling bad before Thanksgiving and went into the hospital on Nov. 20. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
December 4th, 2009 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News
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The CDC announced last week that the latest statistics on Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are still unacceptably high in the United States. The U.S. has some of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections of any developed country in the world including 1.2 cases of Chlamydia in 2008 and syphilis cases, up 18 percent, are at 13,500. Men who have sex with men accounted for 63 percent of the syphilis cases, but the rate among women also increased 36 percent between 2007 and 2008.
Almost half of the 19 million new sexually transmitted infection cases reported each year are among 15- to 24-year-olds. Clearly marking the shift away from abstinence-only policies, the CDC called for better, more honest and open, sex education including how to use a condom, limiting the number of sexual partners, and avoiding people who have had multiple sex partners. Read more »
This post, Sexually Transmitted Infections Still On The Rise, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..
December 2nd, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in News, Opinion
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What does America’s economic recession have to do with a school teacher in Kenya? A lot more than you realize. If there’s one thing I learned at the World Bank’s World AIDS Day event yesterday, it’s that our lives, economies, and health are all inextricably intertwined on a global scale.
Beldina Atieno (second from the left in the photo) traveled all the way from Nairobi to offer her first hand account of life as an HIV+ school teacher in Africa. Ms. Atieno’s story was both heart-wrenching and eye-opening. She was first diagnosed after her youngest daughter became very ill from an opportunistic infection, which prompted HIV testing in both daughter and mother. After discovering that they were both positive, she was abandoned by her husband and was plunged into poverty and despair. Read more »
November 27th, 2009 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Uncategorized
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From the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association comes an interesting article by BC Muller and colleagues (J Am Mosquito Control Assoc 2008;24:154-160) entitled “Ability of Essential Oil Candles to Repel Biting Insects in High and Low Biting Pressure Environments.”
Anyone who has spent much time outdoors, whether on a camping trip or enjoying a backyard picnic, has encountered the scourge of biting insects, and in particular, mosquitoes. There is no good reason to be bitten by a mosquito, and many very important reasons to avoid them, namely, the risk of transmission of infectious disease, such as dengue, West Nile virus, malaria and so on. My first experiences with mosquito repellents were the ubiquitous green (“snake”) coils and candle products, which were supposed to keep the critters away. No surprise – some of them work well and some of them do not work so well. Read more »
This post, Mosquito Repellents: Do Essential Oil Candles Work?, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
Vaccination against infectious diseases is perhaps the most important reason why millions of additional persons do not succumb with morbidity and mortality from viral and bacterial infections in the modern world. Vaccines are most effective when they are administered with sufficient distribution and frequency to protect as many people as possible.
