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Top-line results from Inviragen's INV21 Phase 1 trial on HFMD

Inviragen today reported top-line results of a placebo-controlled, randomized Phase 1 trial of INV21, the Company's highly purified virus particle vaccine against Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) caused by enterovirus 71.

12 Mar 2012

Circumcision may decrease risk of prostate cancer

A new analysis led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that circumcision before a male's first sexual intercourse may help protect against prostate cancer. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study suggests that circumcision can hinder infection and inflammation that may lead to this malignancy.

12 Mar 2012

Johns Hopkins epidemiologist named Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine

Frederick L. Brancati, M.D., M.H.S., professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of Hopkins' division of general internal medicine, was named Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine by the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees.

12 Mar 2012

HSS summit: Current classification system for osteoarthritis is inadequate

A recent summit that brought together international multidisciplinary experts has provided a foundation for addressing what is the leading cause of disability in the United States: osteoarthritis.

12 Mar 2012

New insight into causes of childhood pneumonia

The scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases has released its March Special Supplement focusing entirely on the research design of and pilot data from the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) Project, which seeks to identify the causes of pneumonia among the world's most vulnerable populations.

12 Mar 2012

ICAP releases results from HPTN 064 Women's HIV Seroincidence Study

ICAP at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health is part of a network of research organizations that jointly released results, finding that HIV infection rates of black women living in certain parts of the U.S. are higher than previously estimated for black adolescent and women living in the U.S.

12 Mar 2012

New Burn Medical Education app for physicians, students

A newly released mobile app designed to educate medical students, physicians and health care workers around the globe on how to care for burn victims is one of a fast-growing number of medical apps being developed at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

12 Mar 2012

Researchers to create and test novel interventions for older adult care

One in every eight Americans is aged 65 years or older and, by 2030, it is expected to be one in five. As the number of older Americans increases, healthcare providers and researchers must understand and address the needs of this growing population.

12 Mar 2012

Tobacco use among the youth should stop: Surgeon General’s Report

Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin has declared a war against tobacco, this time aiming to stop young people from starting to smoke, with the aim to have the next generation tobacco free. More than three million high school students are smokers, and smoking is now being called a pediatric epidemic the report said.

11 Mar 2012

Methylphenidate may affect learning and memory in children with ADHD

New research with monkeys sheds light on how the drug methylphenidate may affect learning and memory in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

11 Mar 2012

New ways of delivering personalized cancer therapies in a cost effective manner

As scientists continue making breakthroughs in personalized cancer treatment, delivering those therapies in the most cost effective manner has become increasingly important. Now researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have identified new ways of doing just that, allowing more patients to benefit from this revolution in cancer care.

11 Mar 2012

Women's health status linked to empowerment

"The health status of women is linked to their fundamental freedoms and empowerment," Susan Blumenthal, public health editor at the Huffington Post and former U.S. assistant surgeon general, and Jean Guo, a health policy intern at the Center for the Study of Presidency and Congress, write in the website's "Healthy Living" blog in a post marking International Women's Day, which was celebrated on Thursday.

11 Mar 2012

New drug approval pathway to encourage development of critically needed, lifesaving antibiotics

Congress will consider a new drug approval pathway to encourage development of critically needed, lifesaving antibiotics as part of a strategy to address the public health crisis of antibiotic resistance. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) proposed the new pathway, the "Special Population Limited Medical Use (SPLMU)" mechanism, to provide an important new approval option for companies interested in developing drugs to treat patients with serious infections where few or no treatment options exist.

10 Mar 2012

Concerns about aging in good health

Do men harbour concerns about aging in good health? Do they confide these concerns to their physicians? Are men's concerns the same as women's? The answers to these questions can be found in a large cross-sectional survey of 2325 Canadian men, aged 55 to 97 years old, led by Dr. Cara Tannenbaum, Geriatrician and the Michel Saucier Endowed Chair in Geriatric Pharmacology, Health and Aging at the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (IUGM) which is affiliated with the Université de Montréal.

10 Mar 2012

Global burden of disease revision covers 225 health conditions, 50 risk factors

At a plenary session Thursday at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) "presented preliminary data from the 2010 revision of the Global Burden of Disease," which "is aimed at analyzing global health trends to quantify the comparative magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries and risk factors by age, sex and geography for specific points in time," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports.

10 Mar 2012

Two-part blog series details Haiti cholera outbreak, response

In the first part of a two-part series in the Center for Strategic & International Studies' (CSIS) "Smart Global Health" blog, Alisha Kramer, an intern with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, and Matt Fisher, project coordinator of the CSIS Project on Global Water Policy and a research assistant at the Global Health Policy Center, provide a brief history of Haiti's cholera outbreak, noting, "Ultimately, by the end of 2011, the outbreak had resulted in over 500,000 infections and 7,000 deaths."

9 Mar 2012

IDRI receives $1 million RHSC grant to eliminate leprosy

Leprosy, otherwise referred to as Hansen's Disease, is one of the most ancient diseases known to humans. Although the World Health Organization declared leprosy to be under control in many previously endemic countries, most experts agree that current approaches to treating the disease are not sufficient to eliminate the disease as a public health problem. Currently, 1.6 billion people are considered at risk of exposure to leprosy, while over 800 new cases occur every day.

9 Mar 2012

Studies presented at CROI examine voluntary medical male circumcision

"HIV incidence among non-Muslim men has decreased with greater uptake of voluntary medical male circumcision (MMC) in Uganda, according to data presented Tuesday" by Ronald Gray of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Seattle, HIV Medicine Association Executive Director Andrea Weddle writes in this guest post on the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog.

9 Mar 2012

Critics raise alarms about downsizing of Calif. adult day health care program

Some say the state has predetermined how many people it can serve and is manipulating the process for assessing clients so the results fit within the new program's slimmer budget.

9 Mar 2012

Longer looks: Santorum's pro-government record; Electronic health records and lawsuits

If elected president, Santorum vows, he will end the "tyranny" of President Obama's Affordable Care Act. Yet as an up-and-coming congressman in the early 1990s, Santorum took a much different line. Then-;like now-;health care was one of the nation's most divisive issues. In 1993, Republicans were up in arms about a health care reform bill spearheaded by Hillary Clinton and pushed by President Bill Clinton.

9 Mar 2012