http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Despite increasingly frequent references to global health from media, scholars and students, the term is rarely defined. And when it is defined, it is often merely a rephrased definition of public health or an updated definition of international health. What, then, is global health? http://www.physorg.com/news163432849.html Medicine & Health Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:01:16 EST news163432849 As swine flu spread from Mexico to Texas and then fanned out farther in the United States, Americans began to alter their behavior. Families kept children home from school, postponed trips to the mall, and stayed home instead of eating out. In so doing, the American population may have inadvertently altered the behavior of the pathogen itself. http://www.physorg.com/news163156990.html Medicine & Health Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:26:18 EST news163156990 (AP) -- Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news162795409.html Medicine & Health Fri, 29 May 2009 05:57:55 EST news162795409 Researchers long ago rejected the theory that vaccines cause autism, yet many parents don't believe them. Can scientists bridge the gap between evidence and doubt? http://www.physorg.com/news162625234.html Medicine & Health Wed, 27 May 2009 06:41:01 EST news162625234 With the current outbreak of swine flu, and in the absence of a vaccine or treatment at present, the only way to contain the virus is to get people around the world to take precautionary measures. http://www.physorg.com/news161950376.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 May 2009 11:18:31 EST news161950376 It is time for states to suspend, rather than terminate, the Medicaid benefits of inmates while they are incarcerated, say correctional health care experts from The Miriam Hospital in a commentary published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news161871212.html Medicine & Health Mon, 18 May 2009 13:14:00 EST news161871212 Air conditioning in cars cuts out more than 80 percent of germs, fungal spores and particles from outside air, providing a boon for people with respiratory problems or allergies, German scientists say. http://www.physorg.com/news161788747.html Biology Sun, 17 May 2009 14:19:47 EST news161788747 Tapping the Internet - including personal Web searches, news reports, blogs, chat rooms and social networking sites - is fast becoming a way to get a complete, up-to-the-minute view of public health threats, say researchers from the Informatics Program at Children's Hospital Boston (CHIP) in a Perspectives article published Online First by The New England Journal of Medicine on May 7, 2009. In an accompanying sidebar, they describe the use of HealthMap.org - a freely available Web site that aggregates, categorizes, filters and displays real-time information on emerging infectious diseases - in tracking the current H1N1 swine flu outbreak. http://www.physorg.com/news160941096.html Medicine & Health Thu, 07 May 2009 18:52:01 EST news160941096 The global outbreak of swine flu hovering just below the pandemic threshold could provide immunity for those already infected if the virus mutates into a more deadly form, scientists have told AFP. http://www.physorg.com/news160896138.html Medicine & Health Thu, 07 May 2009 06:22:46 EST news160896138 The Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry announced Saturday the start of vaccine development against swine flu, following the arrival of a sample of the new type of flu strain at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. http://www.physorg.com/news160645135.html Medicine & Health Mon, 04 May 2009 08:39:19 EST news160645135 Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a gene associated with narcolepsy, a disorder that causes disabling daytime sleepiness, sleep attacks, irresistible bouts of sleep that can strike at any time, and disturbed sleep at night. The gene has a known role in the immune system, which strongly suggests that autoimmunity, in which the immune system turns against the body's own tissues, plays an important role in the disorder. http://www.physorg.com/news160592892.html Medicine & Health Sun, 03 May 2009 18:08:51 EST news160592892 One week into the race to catch up with the swine flu virus, here's the score: Virus, hundreds. Vaccine, zero. While the virus has moved with lightning speed to four continents, U.S. authorities are debating whether to make a protective vaccine. Will it be too late? http://www.physorg.com/news160547534.html Medicine & Health Sun, 03 May 2009 05:33:43 EST news160547534 (AP) -- As the number of swine flu cases in Mexico wanes and rises, experts are being forced to walk a public health tightrope - if they push their message too far and the virus fizzles out, they could lose credibility. But if they back off and it suddenly surges, they will be blamed. http://www.physorg.com/news160544908.html Medicine & Health Sun, 03 May 2009 04:49:51 EST news160544908 (AP) -- As reports of a unique form of swine flu erupt around the world, the inevitable question arises: Is this the big one? http://www.physorg.com/news160030889.html Medicine & Health Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:01:54 EST news160030889 (AP) -- A $225 million fund to provide low-price anti-malaria medicine around the world was launched in the Norwegian capital Friday to fight a disease that kills 2,000 children a day. http://www.physorg.com/news159342410.html Medicine & Health Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:48:53 EST news159342410 The first complete update in five years of the U.S. guidelines for preventing and treating HIV-associated opportunistic infections has been released by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in cooperation with the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). http://www.physorg.com/news159098303.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:59:09 EST news159098303 (PhysOrg.com) -- Groundbreaking CSIRO research into how the deadly Hendra virus spreads promises to save the lives of both horses and humans in the future. http://www.physorg.com/news159014912.html Medicine & Health Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:49:50 EST news159014912 (AP) -- An extensive investigation has failed to determine how E. coli bacteria was introduced into a northeastern Oklahoma restaurant linked to hundreds of illnesses and one death, the state health board said in a report released Thursday. http://www.physorg.com/news158516911.html Medicine & Health Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:29:38 EST news158516911 (AP) -- The flu season is winding down and turning out to be one of the mildest in years, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.physorg.com/news158346469.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:08:19 EST news158346469 Damage to patients' immune systems is happening sooner now than it did at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, suggesting the virus has become more virulent, according to a new study in the May 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. http://www.physorg.com/news158321117.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:05:38 EST news158321117 Pigs are known carriers of the bacterium Yersinia enterocolitica, and they can infect both other pigs and people. Human infection occurs through eating improperly-cooked pork. Professor Truls Nesbakken of the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science is trying to rid pigs of the bacterium. http://www.physorg.com/news158312027.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:34:15 EST news158312027 Recent research has predicted that climate change may expand the scope of human infectious diseases. A new review, however, argues that climate change may have a negligible effect on pathogens or even reduce their ranges. The paper has sparked debate in the ecological community. http://www.physorg.com/news157809539.html Space & Earth Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:00:12 EST news157809539 (PhysOrg.com) -- The spread of malaria, one of the world's most prevalent insect-borne diseases and a leading killer of children, may have more to do with landscape than precipitation as the world warms, according to a new study. http://www.physorg.com/news157739485.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:32:15 EST news157739485 Researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and at Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium, have identified a new role for certain lung cells in the immune response to airborne allergens. Many foreign substances, called antigens, are inhaled daily, but the lungs have mechanisms that usually prevent people from making unwanted immune responses to these materials. http://www.physorg.com/news157633193.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:00:37 EST news157633193 Using data from nearly 8000 local surveys of malaria parasite infection rates, an international team of researchers has built a global map showing the proportion of the population infected with the parasite Plasmodium falciparum at locations throughout the globe. Published in this week's PLoS Medicine, the map shows that areas where a high proportion of residents are infected are common - but by no means uniform - in Africa, while lower prevalence levels are found in the Americas and Central and Southeast Asia, although pockets of intermediate and high transmission remain in some parts of Asia. http://www.physorg.com/news157105558.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:27:02 EST news157105558 A new study suggests that previously noted low rates of successful hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy in African Americans are in large part due to very early differences in the antiviral activity induced by interferon. The study is published in the April 15 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. http://www.physorg.com/news156782952.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:49:46 EST news156782952 The traditional view is that hepatocyte necrosis is the main feature of fulminant hepatic failure, but increasing evidence implicates a dominant role for hepatocyte apoptosis in this pathogenesis. It is not known if cathepsin B-mediated hepatocyte apoptosis is involved in the pathogenesis of fulminant hepatic failure. To ascertain its pathogenic role in hepatic failure, the research examined the protective effect of a cathepsin B inhibitor (CA-074Me) on fulminant hepatic failure in mice. http://www.physorg.com/news156771558.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:39:40 EST news156771558 USA300--the major epidemic strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causing severe infections in the United States during the past decade--inherits its destructiveness directly from a forefather strain of the bacterium called USA500 rather than randomly acquiring harmful genes from other MRSA strains. This finding comes from a new study led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. http://www.physorg.com/news156512182.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:39:13 EST news156512182 Eating dog meat is common in many Asian countries, but research conducted as part of the South East Asian Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Network has discovered a potentially lethal risk associated with preparing dog meat: rabies. http://www.physorg.com/news156512063.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:34:55 EST news156512063 Many scientists believe a vaccine that prevents HIV infection will need to stimulate the body to make neutralizing antibodies, infection-fighting proteins that prevent HIV from entering immune cells. Previous research has shown that some individuals who control HIV infection without medication naturally produce antibodies able to neutralize diverse strains of HIV. Until now, however, scientists were hampered in studying the way effective HIV-neutralizing antibodies arise during natural HIV infection because scientists lacked the tools to obtain more than a few HIV-specific antibodies from any given individual. http://www.physorg.com/news156428787.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:26:47 EST news156428787