Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

No one gets the blame but turkey company gets compensated for bird flu scare

A turkey producer in Britain has been awarded compensation to the tune of almost 600,000 pounds following an outbreak of bird flu at a farm there earlier in the year.

19 Apr 2007

New bill to train more preventive medicine doctors

U.S. Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) joined together to take a major step toward stemming the tide of America's eroding preventive medicine and public health workforce.

18 Apr 2007

Collagen injected meatballs!

Injecting meatballs with collagen can help the meat to retain the important nutrients iodine and thiamine, a new study by researchers from the Agricultural University of Poznan in Poland shows.

18 Apr 2007

Vaccination week in the Americas

The countries of the Americas are preparing a huge promotional effort for the fifth year of Vaccination Week in the Americas, which this year aims to immunize some 55 million persons.

18 Apr 2007

FDA approves new bird flu vaccine from sanofi pasteur

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the first approval in the United States of a vaccine for humans against the H5N1 influenza virus, commonly known as avian or bird flu.

18 Apr 2007

Irish smoking ban effective at clearing the air

A national workplace ban on smoking in Ireland resulted in an 83 percent reduction in air pollution in pubs, an 80 percent decrease in airborne carcinogens for patrons and staff, and an improvement in the respiratory health of bar workers, according to a one-year follow-up study.

17 Apr 2007

H5N1 western genomes sequenced

In a paper in the May issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases , an international team of researchers report the first ever large-scale sequencing of western genomes of the deadly avian influenza virus, H5N1.

17 Apr 2007

U.S. ready for bird flu

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States has approved for the first time a vaccine to prevent bird flu in humans.

17 Apr 2007

Bristol-Myers Squibb announces new results of Baraclude (entecavir) resistance monitoring program

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company has announced new results of the Baraclude (entecavir) resistance monitoring program, which found a continued low incidence of resistance in studies of nucleoside-naive chronic hepatitis B patients through four years of treatment.

16 Apr 2007

Should stocks of smallpox virus be destroyed?

Smallpox was eradicated in 1980, but the virus still exists in WHO controlled depositories. In this week's BMJ , two experts go head to head over whether these stocks should be destroyed.

15 Apr 2007

Understanding of primate evolution advanced

The completed DNA sequence of the rhesus macaque ,an Old World monkey, has advanced understanding of primate evolution and will enhance medical research in neuroscience, behavioral biology, reproductive physiology, endocrinology, heart and blood vessel disease and immunodeficiency, said scientists at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) Human Genome Sequencing Center who led the effort.

15 Apr 2007

New, updated guidelines for esophageal reflux testing

Developed and approved by the American College of Gastroenterology, these guidelines summarize advances in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) diagnostic testing and how they have modified the clinical management of esophageal disorders.

14 Apr 2007

BioForce Nanosciences pursues support for ViriChip platform

BioForce Nanosciences continues their effort to fund development of the ViriChip platform, a patented system designed to rapidly and nondestructively detect and identify whole viruses.

12 Apr 2007

Freedom from the egg holds much promise for new flu vaccines

An experimental flu vaccine made in insect cells – not in eggs, where flu vaccines currently available in the United States are grown – is safe and as effective as conventional vaccines in protecting people against the flu, according to results published in the April 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association .

11 Apr 2007

Stem cell transplantation beneficial treatment for type 1 diabetes

A therapy that includes stem cell transplantation induced extended insulin independence in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus, according to a preliminary study in the April 11 issue of JAMA.

11 Apr 2007

Experimental flu vaccine produced using insect cells shows promise

An influenza vaccine produced with the use of insect cells appeared safe and produced an immunogenic response in healthy adults, suggesting promise as an alternative to using embryonated eggs for the development of influenza vaccine, according to a preliminary study in the April 11 issue of JAMA.

11 Apr 2007

Death toll in Egypt from bird flu now 14

Health officials in Egypt say a teenage girl who was recently diagnosed with the deadly H5N1 bird flu has succumbed to the virus.

11 Apr 2007

Stem cells re-set the immune systems of diabetes patients

Researchers in Brazil and the U.S. have conducted an experiment which shows that stem cells can "re-set" the immune systems of diabetes patients.

10 Apr 2007

India is poised to revolutionize biotechnology

India's health biotech firms are emerging as a major global player, with growing means and know-how to produce innovative as well as generic drugs and vaccines at costs small relative to those of giant Western firms, according to ground-breaking Canadian research.

10 Apr 2007

More bird flu cases in Pakistan and Bangladesh

According to a government official in Pakistan new bird flu cases have been discovered on at least five commercial poultry farms in the southern province of Sindh and in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

10 Apr 2007