Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Questions continue about the health law's future

CQ HealthBeat reports on the courses available for the law's implementation as stakeholders await the Supreme Court's rulings. Politico Pro reports that the recent denials by the Department of Health and Human Services regarding state medical-loss ratio adjustment requests is very different than earlier experiences.

11 Jan 2012

Intestinal worm infections may not be bad

Intestinal worm infections may not be all bad, according to a new study by William C. Gause, PhD, and colleagues at UMDNJ- New Jersey Medical School. The researchers have found cytokines that help oust intestinal worm infections in mice also soothe associated lung injury and inflammation.

11 Jan 2012

Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation names 18 new Fellows

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on supporting innovative early career researchers, named 18 new Damon Runyon Fellows at its fall Fellowship Award Committee review.

11 Jan 2012

Decorative fountain in hospital linked to 2010 Wisconsin outbreak of Legionnaires' disease

A 2010 outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in Wisconsin has been linked to a decorative fountain in a hospital lobby, according to a study published in the February issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

11 Jan 2012

Questions raised over nicotine replacement therapy: Study

Smokers have been advised a host of choices for nicotine replacement like gums, patches and nasal sprays to help them quit. But a new U.S. study says that these do not help people quit cigarettes over the long term any better than going it alone.

10 Jan 2012

Report on the value of 'Google Flu Trends' for emergency departments

Monitoring Internet search traffic about influenza may prove to be a better way for hospital emergency rooms to prepare for a surge in sick patients compared to waiting for outdated government flu case reports. A report on the value of the Internet search tool for emergency departments, studied by a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine over a 21-month period, is published in the January 9 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

10 Jan 2012

Nigerian leaders sign onto Gates immunization challenge

"Nigeria's 36 Executive Governors and the Federal Capital Territory have signed up to the Nigeria Immunization Challenge launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last year," a Gates Foundation press release states.

10 Jan 2012

Baxter submits GAMMAGARD LIQUID sBLA to FDA for treatment of MMN

Baxter International Inc. today announced that the company has submitted a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval of GAMMAGARD LIQUID 10% for the treatment of multifocal motor neuropathy.

From Baxter International Inc. 9 Jan 2012

Colby's JVRS-100 enhances immunogenicity, cross-protective efficacy of H5N1 influenza vaccine

Colby Pharmaceutical Company (CPC) today announced publication of new results showing that a single dose of JVRS-100 adjuvanted H5N1 influenza vaccine enhanced-immune responses, -dose sparing, and -cross-clade influenza virus protection.

9 Jan 2012

MPIIB, QIAGEN partner to develop latent TB diagnostic test

QIAGEN N.V. and the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (MPIIB), Department of Immunology have announced a new collaboration to develop a molecular diagnostic test to assess the risk of an individual with latent tuberculosis (TB) developing active TB disease during their lifetime.

From QIAGEN Manchester Limited 9 Jan 2012

Positive results from BioCryst's BCX4208 Phase 2b study on gout

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced long-term results from the extension phase of its randomized Phase 2b study of BCX4208 added to allopurinol in patients with gout who had failed to reach the serum uric acid (sUA) therapeutic goal of <6 mg/dL on allopurinol alone.

8 Jan 2012

Anthrax defenses need to be strengthened say experts

It has been a decade since the anthrax attacks brought home the reality of bioterrorism and the nation has a stockpile of some basic tools to fight back against a few of the threats that worry defense experts the most.

8 Jan 2012

AVMA warns against further restrictions on cephalosporin usage in food animals that are not backed by science

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) announced today that the FDA's order prohibiting certain uses of cephalosporins in food animals appears consistent with the current AVMA position on the limited prohibition on extra-label drug use, but warned against further restrictions not backed by science.

7 Jan 2012

Pennsylvania Department of Health to provide free influenza and Tdap vaccines

The Department of Health will offer free influenza and Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis (Tdap) vaccines at the 2012 Pennsylvania Farm Show, Jan. 9-13, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

7 Jan 2012

Governments must rethink policies surrounding biosecurity, not resort to censorship

Author Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in this Foreign Policy opinion piece that the announcement researchers from the Netherlands and the U.S. have developed a supercontagious variety of bird flu "has highlighted a dilemma: How do you balance the universal mandate for scientific openness against the fear that terrorists or rogue states might follow the researchers' work -- using it as catastrophic cookbooks for global influenza contagion?"

7 Jan 2012

WHO confirms bird flu cases in Egypt, China

The WHO on Thursday "announced the deaths of two men from H5N1 avian influenza, one from Egypt and another from China whose death was reported earlier in the media," CIDRAP News reports. Both men are suspected to have contracted the virus from avian sources, although an investigation into the man from China's exposure to the virus is ongoing, according to news service.

7 Jan 2012

Researchers crack structure and function of malarial protein

A biology lab at Washington University has just cracked the structure and function of a protein that plays a key role in the life of a parasite that killed 655,000 people in 2010.

7 Jan 2012

USPTO issues patent to Tris Pharma's OralXR+ platform

Tris Pharma, an emerging specialty pharmaceutical company, announced the US grant of its core technology patent for its OralXR+ platform. This is the first patent grant of a substantial estate filed by Tris Pharma and covers a multitude of actives having modified release formulations comprising drug-ion exchange resin complexes.

7 Jan 2012

APUA applauds FDA for acting to limit antibiotics in food-producing animals

The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA) today praised the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acting to limit certain extra label uses of cephalosporins in major animal species – cattle, swine, chickens and turkeys – where misuse and overuse are cause for great concern. Extra label use occurs when use of a drug does not comply with the approved labeling.

6 Jan 2012

Bringing health solutions to women, children

In this Huffington Post "Impact" blog post, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes that she will be visiting Bangladesh to "learn even more about two of the biggest killers of children -- pneumonia and diarrhea," and says "Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the number of childhood deaths by 65 percent since 1990."

6 Jan 2012