Vaccine News and Research

Latest Vaccine News and Research

$20 million boosts AIDS treatment, vaccine research in Rochester

The University of Rochester Medical Center will continue to play a leading role in the nation’s effort fighting AIDS, with more than $20 million to be directed to Rochester doctors and researchers who are working on new treatments for the disease and on finding a vaccine to prevent it altogether, Federal officials announced today.

12 Mar 2007

Bird flu doing the rounds in Egypt

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed that a Egyptian 4-year-old boy has tested positive for bird flu; he is the country's 24th case.

12 Mar 2007

Lack of preventive care, not HPV vaccine, 'real' reason 'too many women still die of cervical cancer'

The "real" reason that "[t]oo many women still die of cervical cancer" is the "lack of access to preventive medical care for low-income women and not the lack of a vaccine," Wall Street Journal columnist and Illinois-based physician Benjamin Brewer writes in an opinion piece.

11 Mar 2007

Gardasil not provided at most New York City health clinics

Merck's human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil is not provided at most New York City health clinics, and girls and women who are eligible for no-cost or low-cost vaccination often are told they must pay for it, according to a report released on Wednesday by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, the New York Sun reports.

11 Mar 2007

Vaccines again linked to form of autism

New findings presented yesterday at a National Autism Association meeting bolster claims that vaccines may play a role in the development of autism spectrum disorders.

8 Mar 2007

Debate over HPV vaccine 'clouded' by worries about promiscuity

The debate over the Merck's human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil has been "clouded" by "worries about promiscuity," New York Times reporter Denise Grady writes in a column

8 Mar 2007

Bold proposal to restructure drug development patents

Weill Cornell Medical College scientist Dr. Carl Nathan has issued a bold call for reforming the pharmaceutical development and patent systems in order to increase the number of vaccines and drugs available to combat neglected diseases that are ravaging the world's poor.

8 Mar 2007

Healthy health advice online

When searching for health advice online, consumers often reject websites with high quality medical information in favour of those with a human touch, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

7 Mar 2007

China's southern Guangdong Province found to be source of H5N1

A team of scientists at the University of California, Irvine, who have been conducting a genetic analysis of the H5N1 bird flu virus, have found that China's southern Guangdong Province is the source of the deadly strain.

7 Mar 2007

Bird flu vaccine - experts say let's try harder

Experts on viruses are calling for a bigger effort to be made in developing vaccines to tackle pandemics.

6 Mar 2007

Debate over mandatory HPV vaccination

The Washington Post on Sunday examined the "widespread backlash" toward proposals to mandate human papillomavirus vaccination for school attendance after dozens of states "enthusiastic[ally] embraced" HPV vaccines.

5 Mar 2007

Safety of Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil 'lost' in debate

The effectiveness and safety of Merck's human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil has "been lost" because of Merck's lobbying campaign for mandating vaccination for school attendance, and the "real losers" might be "girls and women who need access" to the vaccine, Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman writes in an opinion piece .

5 Mar 2007

Mayo Clinic tests engineered measles virus against multiple myeloma

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has opened a new Phase I clinical trial testing an engineered measles virus against multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow that currently has no cure. This is the third of a series of molecular medicine studies in patients testing the potential of measles to kill cancer.

5 Mar 2007

Vaccines for measles-mumps-rubella and varicella are effective in extremely preterm infants

The study, which included 16 term and 16 extremely preterm (born before about 6 months of pregnancy) infants born between May 2002 and May 2005, is the first of its kind to examine the antibody levels of measles, mumps, rubella and varicella in this population before and after vaccination. It was published in this month's Pediatrics.

5 Mar 2007

Actions taken on HPV vaccine proposals in Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota and Virginia

Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline's HPV vaccine Cervarix in clinical trials have been shown to be 100% effective in preventing infection with HPV strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases.

4 Mar 2007

Lawmakers should not make HPV vaccination mandatory, CDC advisory panel chair says

Jon Abramson, chair of CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recently said that he does not support mandating human papillomavirus vaccination for school attendance, the Washington Times reports.

1 Mar 2007

About 26% of U.S. girls, women ages 14 to 59 have HPV

Of U.S. women and girls ages 14 to 59, about 24.9 million women, or 26.8%, have the human papillomavirus, and about 2% of women and girls in the age group have HPV strains 16 or 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases, according to a study published in the Feb. 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Wall Street Journal reports.

1 Mar 2007