Little Women, the 19th century coming of age movie directed by Greta Gerwig currently showing in theaters nationwide, has moviegoers searching for information about scarlet fever. Beth, the youngest of the four March sisters, dies of complications of the infection at the climax of the movie. Scarlet fever is a bacterial infection caused by the […]
The journal Nature recently reported that tuberculosis (TB) vaccine developers discovered TB vaccine is much more effective if it is injected directly into the veins of monkeys rather than into the skin. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) found that administering BCG—the […]
Most people are aware of Big Pharma’s global human vaccine franchise facilitated by business deals with governments and its attempt to silence skepticism about vaccine safety that could harm profits from sale of vaccines.1 2 Less well known is the existence of a lucrative food animal vaccine franchise, which is seldom mentioned in the mainstream […]
A total of 72 people have died in Samoa during the current outbreak of measles there that began in mid-October. Most of the deaths have involved children under five years of age. U.S. and global media outlets have been following this story closely, providing regular updates on the number of people in Samoa who have […]
Health officials in Samoa, assisted by international health organizations, have struggled to manage a surge in measles and apparent deaths from measles on the impoverished island since the first laboratory confirmed cases were reported in September 2019. A state of emergency was declared on November 15, and by December 11, 4995 measles cases had been recorded, […]
On Dec. 5, 2019, the Samoan government reportedly arrested a “vocal antivaccination campaigner” and charged him with “incitement” as the government widens a mass measles vaccination campaign in the small South Pacific island nation of about 200,000 people. More than 4,300 measles cases with 63 deaths have been reported since the measles outbreak began in […]
After 65 years of global polio mass vaccination campaigns, on Oct. 24, 2019 (“World Polio Day”) the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that, along with wild type 2 poliovirus declared eradicated in 2015, wild type 3 poliovirus has been eradicated from the earth.1 The credit for the achievement was given to the Global Polio Eradication […]
(updated to reflect new outbreak figures released by AFP on Nov. 25, 2019)—A total of 2,194 cases of measles have been reported in Samoa this year. The government has declared a state of emergency and closed all schools, including the nation’s only university. Samoan health authorities are developing plans to implement compulsory MMR (mumps, measles, […]
A new report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2.6 million people die annually in low-and middle-income countries from medical errors, and that most of those deaths are related to misdiagnosis and administration of pharmaceutical products. According to the WHO, “Four out of every ten patients are harmed during primary and ambulatory […]
A one-year-old girl died in Cuba on Oct. 9, 2019 two days after receiving an MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) vaccination. Paloma Domínguez Caballero was administered the vaccine at a clinic near Havana on Oct. 7. Within two hours, the toddler began to have symptoms of severe adverse reactions.1 2 According to Paloma’s mother, “First we […]