Longer life expectancy is one of the hallmarks of modern American life -- one of those facts that seems to have bearing on just about everything. It challenges our social insurance programs, alters our labor force dynamics, and, when paired with the phenomenon of low birth rates, generally gives demographers a headache. But of course, it's also a wonderful triumph! And it gives us a big reason to pat ourselves on the back as a society. The question is: whose back do we pat? And how do we understand our own role as individuals in the story? In the Journal of Social History, Helen Zoe Veit ... Read More
Life Expectancy, the Anti-Vaccine Movement, and How Individuals Started to Take Credit for Growing Old
August 10, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Engaging Iran Through Vaccine Diplomacy
November 30, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
To counter Iran’s emerging nuclear threat, we might look back to a little-known but highly effective Cold War collaboration between the U.S. and Soviet Union that defused international tensions and led to one of the world’s greatest humanitarian discoveries. Today, we are on the verge of achieving the global eradication of polio. Most of this success can be attributed to the development of a safe and effective live oral polio vaccine, a discovery that first began during the 1950s in the Cincinnati laboratory of Dr. Albert Sabin. Few are aware, however, that Sabin’s initial discovery ... Read More
Malaria Vaccine Gives Debate Shot in the Arm
October 19, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The fight against malaria has always featured a side controversy over whether the search for a vaccine — which always seemed a little pie-in-the-sky — sucked out some of the oxygen (read money) for more practical efforts like pesticide-infused bed netting. (Writer Karen Schmidt described such things as “Everyday Miracles” for us two years ago.) Given that most diseases that primarily hurt those in the developing world are pretty much ignored in the industrialized world, the dispute by well-meaning people was always a trifle unusual. Then the search for the malaria vaccine was ... Read More
Circumcision: The Surgical AIDS Vaccine
February 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Voters in San Francisco — the city that has probably suffered from AIDS more grievously than any other in America — may soon vote on whether to ban a safe, one-time procedure that protects against the virus that causes AIDS almost as effectively as the annual flu shot protects against the flu. Millions of dollars and years of research have thus far failed to overcome the diabolical obstacles to making an HIV vaccine. No doubt exists, however, that another treatment provides protection so effective that health experts have called it a "surgical vaccine." Unlike a flu shot, this protection ... Read More
A So-So HIV Vaccine May Be a Hard Sell
October 7, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
An HIV vaccine — the dream of medical science for a quarter-century — isn't all that far off. Given that 2.7 million new HIV infections in 2008 alone brought the world total to 33.4 million infected, there is a genuine need. But rather than a line out the door the first day of availability, new research by Peter Newman and Carmen Logie of the University of Toronto suggests that an HIV vaccine will mostly cause hypochondriacs to rush to their local clinic and others to, at best, scribble an appointment in the weekly planner. The team gathered 30 original studies, mostly from North ... Read More
The AIDS Funding Dilemma
June 21, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
Dr. Jerome Kabakyenga has just walked a pair of visitors through a pair of vividly different Ugandan hospital laboratories — one ultramodern, the other an outdated relic. In the first, highly trained technicians investigate blood samples using a battery of high-throughput computerized systems. The brightly lit, air-conditioned facility is spotless. In the second lab on Kabakyenga's tour, there's little equipment beyond a clutter of microscopes, a pair of old refrigerators and a few centrifuges. The technicians here depend on daylight from a set of dusty windows, one of which is cracked. As ... Read More
Storks, Vaccines and Causation
March 1, 2010 • By • 6 Comments
Before learning about the "birds and the bees" we may have been told how the stork brought us, as a little baby, to our parents. Even with a minimal interest in the animal kingdom of storks, birds and bees, we likely started to question this curious story. That is until we heard this news about Denmark: Post-1960 there was a significant decline in the number of nesting storks in Denmark. Also, beginning in the late 1960s, Denmark started recording its lowest average number of childbirths per woman. In short: fewer storks = fewer babies. Here rests one of the fundamental errors in ... Read More
Sneezing is a Game Changer
January 22, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
How afraid are you of suffering a heart attack? Or dying in an automobile accident? And how big of an overhaul does the American health care system really need? Your answer to those questions may depend upon whether someone near you has recently sneezed. A paper just published in the journal Psychological Science suggests minor, everyday events can have a major impact on our perception of risk — even influencing our attitude toward federal spending. Two studies conducted when swine flu fears were at their height found exposure to a sneeze was enough to shift people's views on a variety ... Read More
Flu Vaccine Inoculates Against Antibiotic Overuse
September 8, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Researchers in Canada have hurled a stone at two relatively large birds: annual outbreaks of influenza and increasing proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Their question: Would providing an opportunity for universal flu immunization result in a decrease in antibiotic use, even though antibiotics don't work on influenza? The answer is a resounding yes. Results of the 10-year study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases show that after universal flu vaccinations in Ontario, there was a 64 percent decline in antibiotic prescriptions. A larger study shows a 39 percent drop in ... Read More
Carrots, Mice, Monkeys and AIDS, Oh My
May 18, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Miller-McCune.com received an op-ed submission today from Paul A. Kawata, the executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council, asking — on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day — why no HIV vaccine exists: "An HIV vaccine would be a welcome addition to our current HIV prevention methods, and it's our best hope in controlling — and one day ending — the HIV/AIDS pandemic worldwide. This is particularly important in communities of color, which have been hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic since it began. "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1 million ... Read More
