http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/

Posted: March 17th, 2009 under Hepatitis.
Comments: none

http://www.cdc.gov/tb/faqs/default.htm

Posted: March 17th, 2009 under Tuberculosis.
Comments: none

What we should know to protect our loved ones!

http://www.cdc.gov/meningitis/viral/viral-faqs.htm

Posted: March 17th, 2009 under Diseases, Meningitis.
Comments: none

The Global Peace Coalition is honoring President George W. Bush for his “unprecedented level of contribution” to the fight against HIV/AIDS as U.S. president during the Saddleback Civil Forum in Washington D.C. Global on Monday, World AIDS Day.

“No U.S. president or political leader has done more for global health than this administration,” said Dr. Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, noting that the conservative Bush “has raised the bar on America’s role and responsibility for providing critical humanitarian assistance around the world.”

Warren said that over the past eight years, the President and Mrs. Bush, both evangelical Christians, have traveled around the world to bring awareness and solutions to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

President Bush will be the first recipient of the “International Medal of PEACE” from the Global PEACE Coalition.

The award is given on behalf of the Global Peace Coalition to individuals that exemplify outstanding contribution towards alleviating the five global problems recognized by the coalition: pandemic diseases, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness.

The Coalition is a network of churches, businesses and individuals working together to solve humanitarian issues.

Under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), crafted by President Bush and his aides, more than $18.8 billion has been provided to combat global HIV/AIDS during the last five years.

Congress authorized an additional $48 billion for ongoing efforts to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic as well as tuberculosis and malaria – the other deadly killers in third world countries – over the next five years.

Warren, in addition to presenting the president with the award, will also engage both President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush in candid conversations regarding past accomplishments and priorities in the future regarding international health issues – including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

President Bush, First Lady recognized by Rick Warren for AIDS policy.

Posted: November 29th, 2008 under Diseases, HIV.
Comments: none

BOSTON — On September 8, Nantucket’s newspaper, The Inquirer and Mirror, reported the number of confirmed cases of Lyme disease had reached 262 for 2008. This represented an increase of almost 40% over all of 2007. In 2006 there were only 23 cases confirmed.

It was only 33 years ago that Lyme disease was recognized as the cause of a mysterious cluster of juvenile arthritis cases in the town of Lyme, Conn. In 1982 the causative agent, a bacteria named Borrelia burgdorferi, was isolated from the mid-gut of deer ticks. Since that time Lyme disease has become the most common vector-borne disease in the U.S. and has vaulted into the top ten of all infectious diseases. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reports the incidence of Lyme disease as confirmed cases per 100,000 population. In 2005 there were 36.3 reports per 100,000 statewide compared to the national average of 8.2 cases. At the current rate Nantucket will surpass 1,000 cases per 100,000 giving it one of the highest incidences in the world.

According to Massachusetts native Constance Bean, former coordinator of health education at MIT and author of Beating Lyme: Understanding and Treating This Complex and Often Misdiagnosed Disease, the Lyme disease problem on Nantucket is just the tip of the iceberg. “The higher numbers are not due to improved diagnosis, “she tells Infection Protection. “By all estimates only one in ten cases is reported. We don’t have true numbers on the Lyme epidemic because we don’t have reliable tests. It is estimated that 1.7 million Americans are infected. We have more ticks. The ticks have no natural enemies and more of the ticks are being infected.”

Dr. Dan Cameron is an epidemiologist and an expert in Lyme disease. He is board president of the International Lyme and Associated Disease Society. “Yes”, he tells Infection Protection, “Lyme disease is certainly the epidemic of our time”. He agrees that Lyme disease is under-reported and under-treated. “The most effective way to address Lyme disease is to foster greater understanding of the disease within the medical community. Increased incidence of Lyme disease can be attributed to several factors, including the continued spread of human populations into wooded habitats with increased exposure to ticks, global warming that has increased survivability of ticks, and the geographic spread of infested tick populations to all 50 states.”

– by Dr. Chris Iliades, MD,  Boston Correspondent, Infection Protection

Posted: November 29th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, Impaired Immunity, Lyme disease.
Comments: none

The pathogen that causes AIDS may be eliminated in 10 years if all people living in countries with high infection rates are regularly tested and treated, according to a new study.

The proposed solution to end the AIDS epidemic is compelling. But, experts said, it is based on assumptions rather than simply data data, and is suffused with logistical problems. The study was published online Tuesday in the medical journal, The Lancet.

“It’s quite a startling result,” said Charlie Gilks, an AIDS treatment expert at the World Health Organization (WHO), and one of the paper’s authors. “In a relatively short amount of time, we could potentially knock the epidemic on its head.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Posted: November 26th, 2008 under Diseases, HIV.
Comments: none

Democratic officials are saying that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is a “leading contender” for the job of secretary of homeland security in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.

These officials caution that no final decision has been made on the job involving the new department created by the Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and the subsequent anthrax attacks on Congress and the media.

The officials agreed to discuss the situation on grounds of anonymity because of the secretive nature of the screening process for Obama’s Cabinet.

Napolitano, who once was Arizona’s attorney general, was among the first of the Democratic governors to commit to Obama’s presidential bid. “Governor Napolitano deserves praise for standing up the federal government,” said Dan Pochoda, legal director of the ACLU of Arizona.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) applauded Napolitano this summer when she refused to enforce the federal “Real ID” act which required that states to issue ID cards that would prevent terrorists from getting fake IDs, boarding planes, and attacking innocent Americans.

According to Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program, “the governor’s actions send a strong and clear message that the people of Arizona will not stand for the Department of Homeland Security trampling on their right to privacy.”

A poll on American On-Line (AOL) today said that 60 percent of Americans did not approve of the choice of Napolitano by Obama.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Posted: November 20th, 2008 under Anthrax.
Comments: none

A grand jury indicted a Sacramento man last week on charges related to a series of anthrax scares across the country that turned out to be fabrications.

The government accuses Marc Keyser, 66, of mailing threatening packages to several media outlets, businesses and Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif. It charges Keyser with 10 counts of hoax mailings and three counts of mailing threatening communications.

The charges each carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Mailing a threatening letter to Radanovich’s office carries a possible 10-year prison term.

Keyser, who was arrested Oct. 29, has yet to enter a plea and remains free on bond.

Prosecutors say the mailings contained a computer disk labeled “Anthrax Shock and Awe Terror” and a packet of a grainy substance with a biohazard symbol and the words “Anthrax sample.”

Some of the packages had Keyser’s return address, and agents found 11 more packets when they searched his car, according to the federal complaint filed in the case.

Reached Thursday at his home, Keyser said he believes the nation has become lax about the threat of terrorism and said the mailings were “an act of conscience.”

“I feel we are just as unprepared and vulnerable as ever. The nation is in a state of denial,” he said. “I have taken a stand. I have warned the nation.”

During the just-completed presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s campaign offices in lower Manhattan were the target of an anthrax scare, but the perpetrators of that terrorist event have not yet been identified. Obama supports putting terrorists through the criminal justice system, rather than putting them at the military prison at Guantanomo Bay in Cuba, as has been traditionally done.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Terrorists at the U.S. Navy’s GITMO base.

Posted: November 17th, 2008 under Anthrax.
Comments: none

Taking vitamin E and vitamin C supplements does not make contracting cancer less likely, according to a new study.That finding comes from the Physicians’ Health Study II, which recently showed that taking vitamin C and vitamin E supplements also may not lower the risk of heart attack or stroke, but is likely to lower the risk of catching infectious diseases.Doctors have now analyzed study data on cancer risk and found no sign of lower cancer risk in people taking vitamin E and vitamin C supplements daily during the study.The results were presented yesterday in Washington, D.C., at an international meeting on cancer prevention research hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).The research project included 14,600 male doctors aged 50 and older in the U.S.Some of the doctors were assigned to take 400 international units (IU) of vitamin E every other day. Others were assigned to take 500 milligrams of vitamin C every day during the study. For comparison, a third group of doctors took placebos.

Posted: November 17th, 2008 under Cancer.
Comments: none

An HIV-1 vaccine designed to stimulate cell-mediated immunity is “no better than placebo” in preventing HIV infection in individuals at high risk of contracting the disease, according to a study published this week in The Lancet.

The Lancet is one of the world’s leading medical journals.

Dr. Susan P. Buchbinder, MD, from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and colleagues randomly assigned 3,000 HIV-negative individuals to three injections of the MRKAd5 HIV-1 vaccine made in adenovirus type 5, Ad5, and designed to elicit cell-mediated immunity, or placebo.

Doctors found that among patients with low Ad5 antibody titers at baseline, 24, or 3 percent, of 741 vaccine recipients and 21, 3 percent, of 762 placebo recipients became infected with HIV-1.

Plasma HIV-1 RNA levels were similar in the placebo and vaccine groups, according to Dr. Buchbinder’s research.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Image courtesy of 3DScience.com.

Posted: November 14th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, HIV, Impaired Immunity.
Comments: none