In the past, vaccines had a big problem: bacteria could grow in them and make people sick. To stop this, a preservative called thimerosal was added to vaccines in the 1930s. It worked well for a long time, and the only issues were minor reactions at the injection site. But in 1999, health officials asked vaccine makers to remove thimerosal from vaccines. Why? Becaus...
A nurse practitioner with a background in pediatrics and family medicine is set to discuss thimerosal in flu vaccines at a meeting of new CDC vaccine advisers. Lyn Redwood, former president of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, will present on this topic, raising eyebrows among public health experts. Thimerosal, a preservative once commonly used in va...
As people live longer, keeping them safe from infections has become a big deal. The immune system weakens with age, making it harder for vaccines to work as well as they should. This is why scientists are working hard to find new ways to boost immune responses in older adults. Vaccines for the elderly are not a new idea. There are already shots for flu, pneumonia, C...
Hospitals are super busy places where Covid-19 can easily spread. Just having general rules might not cut it. But there's a cool way to figure out what works best: agent-based modelling. This method lets researchers create a virtual hospital and see how different factors affect the spread of Covid-19. In 2023, a study used this method to look at how things like mask...
The fight against HIV just got a new ally. It is the same technology that made COVID-19 vaccines possible. mRNA, or messenger RNA, is a set of instructions for genes. It is not a new discovery. It has been around for a while. It is only now that it is being used in new ways. Scientists in Australia have found a way to use mRNA to target HIV. This is big news. ...
The US Department of Health and Human Services recently made a bold move. They ended a contract with Moderna. The contract was for developing an mRNA vaccine for bird flu. The reason given was that mRNA technology is not well-tested. This decision sparked a response from Pfizer's CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla. He strongly disagreed with the claim that mRNA vaccines are unde...
Glioblastoma is a serious type of brain tumor. It is aggressive and hard to treat. This has made it a major focus in medical research. One promising area of study is the development of vaccines. These vaccines aim to boost the body's immune system to fight the tumor. Vaccines work by teaching the immune system to recognize and attack specific targets. In the case of...
Vaccines play a big role in stopping infectious diseases. But they can also cause unwanted side effects. These are called adverse events. Usually, spotting these side effects involves a lot of manual work. This is slow and limited in what it can find. There is a new way to look at these side effects. It uses something called Large Language Models. These models can u...
The government recently shared a report on chronic diseases in the U. S. This report is a big deal because it's the first time a government agency has been so honest about the state of America's health. It's a wake-up call to do something about the health crisis. The report points fingers at several things. It blames ultra-processed foods, chemicals in the enviro...
The Food and Drug Administration is gearing up to change how Covid vaccines are given out. Starting this fall, these vaccines will likely be reserved for older adults and those with specific health issues. This shift comes as officials question the benefit of extra doses for younger, healthier people who have already been vaccinated or had Covid. The FDA's vaccine d...