MMR Vaccine Sales Boost Merck’s 2019 Revenues
After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publicized measles outbreaks in several states beginning in January 2019, on May 1 Merck & Co. announced that it had increased production of its live attenuated (weakened) virus MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine in response to an increasing demand for the product in the United States. […]
EV-D68 Virus Pushed as Cause of AFM Paralysis
You may be familiar with the idiom, “square peg into a round hole.” It is an expression that is often used to describe something that cannot fit, but yet every effort is made to try and force it to fit. That is the image that is emerging in the quest to find an answer to […]
11 Cases of Polio-like Paralysis Confirmed Before Onset of AFM “Season”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on July 9, 2019 that it had confirmed 11 cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in eight states this year, including four cases in California and cases in Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. The CDC is investigating another 46 possible cases […]
“Vaccine-Derived” Polio on the Rise
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) last week reported that there have been a total of 22 confirmed cases of vaccine-derived polio paralysis, thus far, in 2019. The latest two cases involve a person from Sichuan province in China and a person in Angola. Other evidence of circulating vaccine strain poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) has […]
Half of Americans Will Be Diagnosed With Cancer by 2030
Cancer is an “abnormal growth of cells.” That is perhaps the most succinct description of the disease, which is really more a group of diseases since there are more than 100 types of cancer. Cancer cells are malignant—meaning that they can invade and spread to different parts of the body, forming solid tumors (masses of […]
Asymptomatic Carriers of Diphtheria Identified in Canadian School
Story Highlights A case of diphtheria has been confirmed in an elementary school in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Three other people, who are asymptomatic carriers of the bacterial disease have been identified and are being treated in isolation. The diphtheria vaccine is only available as a combination vaccine (DT, Td, DTaP, Tdap) and its effectiveness wanes over […]