Whooping Cough News and Research

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Whooping Cough is a serious bacterial infection of the lungs and breathing tubes that spreads easily. Whooping cough begins like a cold, but develops into severe coughing and gasping for air. Long spells of coughing may cause vomiting, and broken blood vessels in the eyes and on the skin. Also called pertussis.

Research roundup: Examining readmissions; easing doctor burnout

Despite massive early IT problems, exchange enrollment is accelerating rapidly. While enrollment may not reach 7 million by the end of March, we expect at least 5 million to have enrolled by the close of the initial open-enrollment period. If enrollment falls far short, HHS could extend open enrollment for a fixed period to reach its 7 million target. ... We project that 5 million new beneficiaries will be covered by Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program by the end of 2014. Medicaid managed-care enrollment of non-dual beneficiaries will increase by 20 percent from 2013 to 2014 and by 38 percent from 2013 to 2016. We expect that 75 percent of non-dual Medicaid beneficiaries will be covered by Managed Care Organizations starting in 2015, up from 63 percent in 2012 (Feb. 2014).

14 Feb 2014

Scientists develop new nasal vaccine that proves effective against whooping cough

Scientists involved in the EU-funded project ChildInnovac are about to publish in the online journal Plos One the results of their first clinical trial of a new nasal vaccine.

16 Jan 2014

Longer reads: Hospice drains Medicare; false Obamacare 'horror stories;' growing up without vaccines

Hospice patients are expected to die: The treatment focuses on providing comfort to the terminally ill, not finding a cure. To enroll a patient, two doctors certify a life expectancy of six months or less. But over the past decade, the number of "hospice survivors" in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren't actually dying, a Washington Post investigation has found. Healthier patients are more profitable because they require fewer visits and stay enrolled longer (Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating, 12/26).

9 Jan 2014

Vaccines for whooping cough contain 3 to 5 protective antigens

Vaccines for whooping cough contain three to five protective antigens, the presence of which are critical to the vaccine's effectiveness. But one of the antigens, pertactin, which had been present in almost all isolates of Bordetella pertussis in the US as late as 2010, is now absent from more than half of them, according to a paper published ahead of print in Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

13 Dec 2013

Medical Research Council should do more in the development of gold standard for clinical trial design

More should be done to celebrate the role of one of Britain’s leading institutions, the Medical Research Council, in the development of the gold standard for clinical trial design. Sir Iain Chalmers, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, questions the apparent reluctance of the MRC to take credit for its ground-breaking work in the design and management of randomised multicentre controlled clinical trials in the 1950s.

28 Nov 2013

Viewpoints: Senate should reconsider treaty on protections for people with disabilities; HHS treading wrong way on payments for bone marrow donors

About a year ago the Senate fell five votes short of ratifying an international treaty that would improve protections for the disabled. It was an ignoble spectacle as the opponents rebuffed Bob Dole, a former colleague and disabled veteran, who came to the Senate floor to lobby for it.

26 Nov 2013

Pertussis incidence: an interview with Leonard Friedland, M.D., V.P. and Director of Scientific Affairs and Public Health for GSK Vaccines

Distinguishing pertussis (also known as whooping cough) from other respiratory illnesses is challenging in particular among adults because the signs and symptoms of pertussis overlap with those of other respiratory diseases.

24 Oct 2013

Abortion of female fetuses in northern India results in gender imbalance

Modern ultrasound technology and economic pressure leads to female fetuses in the Ballabgarh area of northern India being aborted more often than male fetuses. Additionally, girls up to the age of five die more frequently than boys, which results in a gender imbalance in the area, according to Anand Krishnan, MD and doctoral candidate at Ume- University, who defends his thesis on 11 October.

9 Oct 2013

New report shows 6.6 million children under 5 died in 2012

In 2012, approximately 6.6 million children worldwide - 18 000 children per day - died before reaching their fifth birthday, according to a new report released today by UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank Group and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division. This is roughly half the number of under-fives who died in 1990, when more than 12 million children died.

13 Sep 2013

Undervaccination results in increased risk for whooping cough in young children

Undervaccination – not receiving all recommended vaccinations or not being vaccinated according to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices schedule – results in an increased risk for whooping cough in children 3 to 36 months of age, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study.

12 Sep 2013

State highlights: Texas Gov. Perry touts tort reform; Calif. lawmakers want to pass 100 bills per day

A measles outbreak in a vaccination-wary North Texas megachurch and soaring rates of whooping cough across the state are drawing renewed calls for immunization legislation, which some lawmakers and medical professionals argue would help the state prevent public health crises (Aaronson, 9/10).

11 Sep 2013

First Edition: September 10, 2013

Today's headlines include reports from Capitol Hill about the GOP strategy to link debate of a stopgap spending bill to keep the government operating to efforts to defund the health law.

10 Sep 2013

Undervaccination with diptheria increases risk of whooping cough

Undervaccination with the diptheria, tetanus toxoids and acelluar pertussis (DTaP) vaccine appears to be associated with an increased risk of pertussis (whooping cough) in children 3 to 36 months of age, according to a study by Jason M. Glanz, Ph.D., of the Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver.

10 Sep 2013

Safety and health checklist to help kids avoid emergency room

With the school year underway, Children's Hospital Los Angeles experts have developed a safety and health checklist to help kids avoid the emergency room and develop productive extracurricular and learning activities to enhance the classroom experience. What do parents need to consider? Many symptoms of childhood conditions are often discovered in the classroom.

7 Sep 2013

Viewpoints: Expanding abortion restrictions; Lift the ban on gay blood donors; Medicare's price schedules

What's going on in Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa ought to be a wake-up call to Minnesotans who prefer that physicians, not politicians, guide an individual's medical care. Minnesota's neighbors have moved with alarming alacrity to cripple women's access to a safe and legal medical procedure - abortion (7/18).

20 Jul 2013

Research finds that people born during whooping cough outbreaks more likely to die prematurely

People born during whooping cough outbreaks are more likely to die prematurely even if they survive into adulthood, research at Lund University in Sweden has found.

19 Jun 2013

University of Michigan poll: 61% of adults don't know when they last vaccinated against pertussis

Cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, are on the rise in the U.S., recently reaching their highest level in 50 years. The disease can be serious or even fatal to newborns who have not yet received vaccinations.

18 Jun 2013

State highlights: Calif. bill would fine big employers with employees on Medi-Cal; Abortion fight set in N.Y. Senate

For years, politicians and labor unions have pilloried Wal-Mart and other large employers for paying workers so little that many qualify for government health insurance at taxpayers' expense. Now critics fear the public will get stuck with an even bigger tab as California and other states expand Medicaid as part of the federal health care law.

4 Jun 2013

Report highlights successes in improving maternal health, reducing child mortality

Rapid expansion of programs to prevent HIV transmission to babies and vaccinate children show how results can be achieved in relatively little time.

1 Jun 2013

U-M-led researchers examine factors that contribute to resurgence of pertussis

Whooping cough has exploded in the United States and some other developed countries in recent decades, and many experts suspect ineffective childhood vaccines for the alarming resurgence.

21 May 2013