Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Secondhand smoke affects pets too

The threat of secondhand smoke to the health of non-smokers has been known for years but now researchers say pets can also suffer from the effects of secondhand smoke.

5 Sep 2007

H5N1 bird flu virus found on Russian chicken farm

An outbreak of bird flu on a farm in Russia will mean 22,000 chickens will be culled.

5 Sep 2007

Blood pressure pill offers diabetics a longer life

A team of Australian researchers say a once-a-day pill to lower blood pressure should be given routinely to people with diabetes to prevent heart disease, strokes and other medical complications.

5 Sep 2007

New bird flu cases in Vietnam leaves four dead

The Ministry of Health in VietNam says there have been five new human bird flu cases of the deadly virus in the country since June this year.

4 Sep 2007

Indonesia denies human to human spread of bird flu

The Indonesian government has been forced to speak out about the continued spread of bird flu in the vast archipelago following the release of an analysis which suggests the deadly virus had been spread by person to person contact.

4 Sep 2007

Secondhand smoke and pets

It has been in the news for years about how secondhand smoke is a health threat to nonsmokers. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that secondhand smoke is attributed with killing thousands of adult nonsmokers annually.

3 Sep 2007

New targets for antibiotics

University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have identified new sites on the bacterial cell's protein-making machinery where antibiotics can be delivered to treat infections.

30 Aug 2007

Norwegians want to make their own diagnoses on the internet

Norwegians are ready to make their own diagnoses on the internet rather than sit in endless queues at the doctor's surgery, claim BI researchers Tor W. Andreassen and Even J. Lanseng in a recent study.

30 Aug 2007

$75 million extra for pandemic flu preparedness

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt has announced that the Department is making available another $75 million to states, territories and four metropolitan areas to help strengthen their capacity to respond to a pandemic influenza outbreak.

30 Aug 2007

New guidelines for childhood asthma recommend inhaled corticosteroids

New guidelines aimed at dealing with asthma have been released by government health experts in the United States.

30 Aug 2007

Flaxseed for hot flashes

Data from a new Mayo Clinic study suggest that dietary therapy using flaxseed can decrease hot flashes in postmenopausal women who do not take estrogen.

30 Aug 2007

Damp, moldy homes lead to depression

A groundbreaking public health study has found a connection between damp, moldy homes and depression.

30 Aug 2007

FDA approves new Roche direct detection of West Nile Virus in donated human blood

Roche Diagnostics announced that the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its biologics license application for the company's test for direct detection of West Nile Virus in donated human blood and plasma.

From Roche Sequencing and Life Science 29 Aug 2007

New type of male sling procedure to improve the urinary control

Michael Yarborough, a 58-year-old business owner from Waxahachie, Texas, was fortunate. A routine check-up three years ago revealed prostate cancer, but a side effect of his successful surgery was "driving him nuts."

29 Aug 2007

Discovery may lead to fast and cheap method of making vaccines

Researchers may be able to tinker with a single amino acid of an enzyme that helps viruses multiply to render them harmless, according to molecular biologists who say the discovery could pave the way for a fast and cheap method of making vaccines.

29 Aug 2007

German bird flu outbreak could be more widespread than first suspected

Veterinary officials in Germany now believe the outbreak of bird flu on a duck farm in southern Germany was more widespread and of longer duration than was first suspected.

29 Aug 2007

Limited human-to-human spread of Avian-flu virus in Indonesia in 2006 confirmed

In the first systematic, statistical analysis of its kind, infectious-disease-modeling experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center confirm that the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus in 2006 spread between a small number of people within a family in Indonesia.

28 Aug 2007

Animal model for dengue research

A mosquito-borne disease often known as "break-bone fever" has found a new enemy in a unique type of mouse.

28 Aug 2007

IDM Pharma receives not approvable letter for Mifamurtide for treatment of osteosarcoma

IDM Pharma, Inc. ( NASDAQ:IDMI ) announced today that it received a not approvable letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after completing the review of the new drug application (NDA) for the investigational drug mifamurtide (L-MTP-PE), formerly known as Junovan, for the treatment of non-metastatic osteosarcoma, a rare and often fatal bone tumor that typically affects children and young adults.

28 Aug 2007

New understanding of what makes a major global bacterial infection deadly

Researchers believe they have discovered why a bacterial lung infection is so lethal in the early stages, and it's not what medical authorities had thought, according to research published in the journal Immunity.

28 Aug 2007