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Whooping Cough Vaccine Loses Effectiveness Faster Than Thought, Study Finds

huffingtonpost.com - by Mike Stobbe - September 12, 2012

NEW YORK — As the U.S. wrestles with its biggest whooping cough outbreak in decades, researchers appear to have zeroed in on the main cause: The safer vaccine that was introduced in the 1990s loses effectiveness much faster than previously thought.

A study published in Wednesday's New England Journal of Medicine found that the protective effect weakens dramatically soon after a youngster gets the last of the five recommended shots around age 6.

The protection rate falls from about 95 percent to 71 percent within five years, said researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Research Center in Oakland, Calif.

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Study - NEJM - Waning Protection after Fifth Dose of Acellular Pertussis Vaccine in Children
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1200850?query=featured_home

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CRICS 9 eHealth - Reaching Universal Access to Health

                   

The Ninth Regional Congress on Health Sciences Information – CRICS9 will be held at the Pan American Health Organization Headquarters, in Washington, DC – USA, during October 22 – 24, 2012.

The 'Chemputer' That Could Print Out Any Drug

Chemistry professor Lee Cronin with the 'chemputer' he has adapted from a 3D printer. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

When Lee Cronin learned about the concept of 3D printers, he had a brilliant idea: why not turn such a device into a universal chemistry set that could make its own drugs?

guardian.co.uk - by Tim Adams - July 21, 2012

Professor Lee Cronin is a likably impatient presence, a one-man catalyst. "I just want to get stuff done fast," he says. And: "I am a control freak in rehab." Cronin, 39, is the leader of a world-class team of 45 researchers at Glasgow University, primarily making complex molecules. But that is not the extent of his ambition.

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Lee Cronin - The Cronin Group - University of Glasgow, U.K.
http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin/

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Grand Challenges Explorations - Winners Announced May 9, 2012

From: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation <***@***.***>
Date: May 9, 2012 1:28:04 PM EDT
To: <redacted>
Subject: Grand Challenges Explorations - Winners Announced May 9, 2012
Reply-To: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation <***@***.***>

Dear Colleagues:

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Gulf's Dolphins Pay Heavy Price for Deepwater Oil Spill

A study of bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, showed that many of the marine mammals were suffering from lung and liver disease. Photograph: Alamy

by Peter Beaumont - guardian.co.uk - March 31, 2012

New studies show impact of BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster on dolphins and other marine wildlife may be far worse than feared.

A new study of dolphins living close to the site of North America's worst ever oil spill – the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe two years ago – has established serious health problems afflicting the marine mammals.

The report, commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], found that many of the 32 dolphins studied were underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.

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Proceedings for the 2011 Community Health Resiliency Workshop are Now Available

       

 

Thank you for attending the 2011 Community Health Resiliency Workshop; your participation helped make this event a success!

Material from the workshop is now available for download in the attachment below, and at: http://www.communityhealthresilience.com/proceedings.html

Respectfully,

The Community Health Resilience Workshop Coordination Team

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Firefly Technology Sheds New Light

The light-producing enzyme in the firefly is the key to rapid pathogen detection // Source: cri.cn

submitted by Luis Kun

Homeland Security News Wire - March 22, 2012

A new device, employing the same chemical which lights up fireflies, can easily detect food contamination; the researchers who developed the system hope it will soon be used to test for other diseases, including HIV-AIDS.

Food contamination can now be detected easily by a new device based on the chemical which lights up fireflies.

The Bioluminescent Assay in Real-Time (BART), jointly invented by Professor Jim Murray of the Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences and Dr. Laurence Tisi of Lumora, allows users to test rapidly and simply for food poisoning bacteria. Professor Murray and his partners at technology company Lumora Ltd. hope to develop the system to test for other diseases, including HIV-AIDS.

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Antimicrobial Resistance in the European Union and the World

Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization

The EU’s contributions to the solutions of the global antimicrobial resistance problem Keynote address at the conference on Combating antimicrobial resistance: time for action
Copenhagen, Denmark

14 March 2012

Your Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary, excellencies, distinguished delegates, experts, representatives of regulatory authorities, agencies for disease control, and civil society, ladies and gentlemen,

You are meeting to explore what EU Member States can do to solve what you rightly recognize as a serious, growing, and global threat to health.

Drug-resistant pathogens are notorious globe-trotters. They travel well in infected air passengers and through global trade in food. In addition, the growth of medical tourism has accelerated the international spread of hospital-acquired infections that are frequently resistant to multiple drugs.

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An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report: Climate Change and Human Health

Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society - March 15, 2012

Worldwide increases in the incidences of asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular diseases will result from a variety of impacts of global climate change, including rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases as the planet heats up, the professional organization representing respiratory and airway physicians stated in a new position paper released today.

The paper is published online and in print in the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/uoc--lde030912.php

An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report: Climate Change and Human Health

http://pats.atsjournals.org/content/9/1/3.abstract

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Sick, Stranded Dolphin Found in Alabama is Transported to Research Center for Study

Photo Credit: Marine Mammal Studies

by Deborah Dupre - examiner.com - February 11, 2012

A dolphin named "Chance," is the "first dolphin found alive in Alabama" since the April 20, 2010 Gulf of Mexico oilrig explosion.

"He's just like a black box. He's revealing some very important information as to what happened since the oil spill. A lot of information on disease, his health and other information on the environment."

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