News by Subject Medicine & Health

A commentary by researchers addresses the specter of clinical, ethical, public health and legal concerns that have been raised because of the recent measles outbreaks in New York. So far, the outbreaks seem to have emanated from ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents whose affected children were never vaccinated. Their commentary is motivated in part by the availability of important and relevant data from a small case series of interviews conducted with ultra-Orthodox Jewish mothers in Williamsburg and Rockland counties.

Infected tissue has a low concentration of oxygen. The body's standard immune mechanisms, which rely on oxygen, can then only function to a limited extent. How does the immune system nevertheless manage to control bacteria under such conditions? Researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and University Hospital Regensburg discovered that fewer metabolites are produced in the citric acid cycle under hypoxic conditions, leading to a reduced rate of reproduction among bacteria in macrophages.

The most severe pandemic in recent history, killing some 50 million people worldwide, the Spanish influenza, may have emerged up to two years earlier than previously believed. And, according to a new and influential study, its early manifestation was ignored at the time as a 'minor infection.'

A new study from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia finds that a skin patch may be useful in treating children with a painful, chronic condition called eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) triggered by milk. Among 20 children with EoE who wore Viaskin Milk -- a skin patch measuring just over an inch long containing trace amounts of milk protein -- nine saw an improvement in their symptoms and normalization of their biopsies after 11 months.

A protein from Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), which can infect monkeys and apes, has shown promise as a potential component of a vaccine against Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), in a new study from scientists at Scripps Research.