Discover the Science of Health
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a new silk-based stabilizer that, in the laboratory, kept some vaccines and antibiotics stable up to temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This provides a new avenue toward eliminating the need to keep some vaccines and antibiotics refrigerated, which could save billions of dollars every year and increase accessibility to third world populations.
While the alleged link between vaccines — particularly the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine — and autism has been thoroughly discredited in more than 20 well-conducted studies of vaccine side effects [1], fears about the side effects of vaccination nevertheless remain a major factor influencing the healthcare decisions some parents make. This has led to an increasing percentage of unvaccinated children in the U.S. in recent years, which in turn has ramifications for public health.
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, however, sheds new light on physiological roots — though not causes — of autism [2], and in so doing rules out the potential for any link between vaccination and development of the disease. In the study, researchers examined the size and number of neurons in the prefrontal cortex of young deceased males with autism, and compared the data to that obtained from young deceased non-autistic males.
In a commentary this month in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Dr. Gregory Poland discusses the dangers associated with vaccine denialism, defined as the continued propagation of anti-vaccination sentiment and misinformation in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary [1].
There are a lot of good reasons for people to lose weight and to quit smoking. However, according to a new study published in PLoS Medicine, saving money on lifetime healthcare costs isn’t one of them [1].
