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Nigerian Vaccine Summit an opportunity to translate political will into action

In this post in the Huffington Post Blog, Orin Levine, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), reports on the Nigerian Vaccine Summit, where Nigeria's leaders will meet this week to discuss children's health in the country.

18 Apr 2012

Simple, cost-effective saliva test to detect oral cancer

A Michigan State University surgeon is teaming up with a Lansing-area dental benefits firm on a clinical trial to create a simple, cost-effective saliva test to detect oral cancer, a breakthrough that would drastically improve screening and result in fewer people dying of the world's sixth most common cancer.

18 Apr 2012

Frequent but moderate consumption of alcohol before and after heart attack may improve health outcomes

The Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) is a prospective cohort study of 51,529 US male health professionals. During the follow up of these men between 1986 to 2006, published in the European Heart Journal, 1,818 men were confirmed with incident non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI) - a non fatal heart attack.

18 Apr 2012

Addiction to opioids has higher risk of death than alcohol or other drugs

People with an opioid addiction had the highest risk of death when compared with rates for alcohol and other drugs, according to a new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

18 Apr 2012

Accidental deaths among kids down but more needs to be done: CDC report

According to U.S. mortality data the overall death rate from unintentional injury among children and teens fell 29% from 2000 to 2009. What was concerning however, was that rates of death by poisoning in young adults - mostly from prescription drug overdose - and suffocation in infants rose. And unintentional injury still accounted for 37% of all deaths in the 19-and-under age group in 2009 and was the fifth leading killer of patients younger than 1, the report said. The CDC report was published in the April 16 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

17 Apr 2012

ACS, CDC partner to improve surgical patient safety

A joint, strategic partnership to improve surgical patient safety at the national level was announced today by leaders of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

17 Apr 2012

Metformin associated with reduced risk of Parkinson's in patients with diabetes

A major 12-year study based on a Taiwanese population cohort has demonstrated that not only does diabetes increase the risk of developing Parkinson's disease more than 2-fold, the use of sulfonylureas, commonly used as treatment for diabetes, increases the risk further by about 57%. This study also found that by including metformin in the therapy, no increased risk in developing Parkinson's disease was recorded.

17 Apr 2012

Study: 1 in 26 may develop epilepsy at some point in life

A landmark study from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports that your chance of developing epilepsy at some point in your life is one in 26. Onset is highest in children and older adults. But epilepsy knows no boundaries—it can strike at any age and across all socio-economic levels and ethnicities. There is no known cure and one-third of people with epilepsy have treatment-resistant or refractory epilepsy.

17 Apr 2012

Canadian docs recommend HPV vaccine for boys

Girls have had access to free HPV vaccinations for five years - administered to protect them against cervical cancer - and this week, the Canadian Cancer Advocacy Coalition called on provincial governments to pay for the vaccine for boys as well. In January, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended HPV vaccination for males aged nine to 25.

16 Apr 2012

The key to treating AML may lie within FTL3 gene mutations

The key to treating one of the most common types of human leukemia may lie within mutations in a gene called FLT3, according to new research led by physician-scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

16 Apr 2012

Study finds feasible and impactful solutions for Nigeria's immunization program

A study released today by the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has identified the most feasible and impactful solutions for Nigeria's immunization program that could offer the best hope yet for scaling up vaccine access to the nation's most rural areas and taking aim at the country's precipitous number of child deaths.

16 Apr 2012

Bat on a plane gives rise to rabies exposure risk: CDC report

On 5th August 2011, a bat flew through the cabin of a commercial airliner minutes after takeoff during an early morning flight from Wisconsin to Georgia. This potentially exposed the passengers and flight crew to rabies virus. Three days later, the Wisconsin Division of Public Health (WDPH) requested assistance from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct a rabies risk assessment for those on board and the ground crew.

15 Apr 2012

Ovarian cancer screening may not be needed on routine basis for all women says panel

In its latest review since 2004 of the benefits and harms of ovarian cancer screening, the United States Preventive Services Task Force found no new evidence to support routine screening.

12 Apr 2012

U.N. Secretary-General taps U.K. PM Cameron to chair committee to develop new set of MDGs

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has been asked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to chair a "U.N. committee tasked with establishing a new set of U.N. millennium development goals [MDGs] to follow the present goals, which expire in 2015," the Guardian reports.

12 Apr 2012

IOM report: Tax medical care, double public health spending

An Institute of Medicine panel recommended a new tax on medical care to generate more funding for public health initiatives to help prevent disease.

12 Apr 2012

Timing pregnancy an important health concern for women

A newly published article in the journal Nursing for Women’s Health highlights the importance of a woman’s ability to time her childbearing. The author asserts that contraception is a means of health promotion and women who work with their health care providers to ensure they are healthy prior to conceiving can minimize their risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

11 Apr 2012

TAVI improves heart function, exercise capacity in patients with aortic stenosis

German researchers report success with transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in patients with low-flow, low-gradient aortic stenosis-a special form of aortic stenosis that is difficult to treat. Results published in the April issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), show that while all-cause mortality was high within the first six months, TAVI significantly improved heart function and exercise capacity in surviving patients.

From Medtronic 11 Apr 2012

Losartan may not increase risk of all-cause mortality in heart failure patients

Although observational studies have suggested that losartan, a drug used primarily for the treatment of hypertension, may be associated with an increased risk of death among patients with heart failure compared with other medications in the same class of drugs (angiotensin II receptor blockers [ARBs]), an analysis that included nearly 6,500 patients found that overall, use of losartan was not associated with increased all-cause death or cardiovascular death compared with use of the ARB candesartan, according to a study in the April 11 issue of JAMA.

11 Apr 2012

FDA approves Medtronic’s expanded indication for implantable CRT-D devices

Medtronic, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an expanded indication for its cardiac resynchronization therapy with implantable cardioverter defibrillator (CRT-D) devices.

From Medtronic 11 Apr 2012

High cancer treatment costs in the US – are they worth it? Study explores

Healthcare in the United States is costlier than care in other countries. A new analysis suggests that the cost may be worth it at least when it comes to cancer care. Americans may pay more for cancer treatment, but they also live longer after diagnosis — getting a benefit that offsets their higher health expenses the study says.

10 Apr 2012