The dark side of immunizations? A controversial hypothesis suggests that vaccines may abet diabetes, asthma.
As newborns, human babies can't do much more than sleep, eat, cry, and--well, you know. Even their immune systems seem idle. That's why babies are usually 2 months old before they are given vaccinations--to ensure that they can muster an adequate immune response. However, some scientists now...

Questions of mind over immunity: scientists rethink the link between psychology and immune function.
Questions of Mind Over Immunity Scientists rethink the link between psychology and immune function Like bacteria multiplying in a moist laboratory culture, investigations of the link between psychological factors and immune function proliferated during the 1980s. Particular interest centered on probes of disturbed immunity among people...

Cord Stem Cells: Results, Not Hype.
The stem cells likely to yield the quickest, least expensive, and largest clinical benefit are readily available and present no ethical dilemma. They are umbilical cord blood stem cells. The controversy surrounding President Bush's decision to fund research involving existing lines of embryonic stem cells has dominated...

Early Stem Cell Payoff Is With Umbilical Cord Cells.
Utility for diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis. The stem cells likely to yield the quickest, least expensive, and largest clinical benefit are readily available and present no ethical dilemma. They are umbilical cord blood stem cells. The controversy surrounding President Bush's decision to fund research involving existing...

State Health Department Confirms Season's First Influenza Case.
Health Secretary Reminds Pennsylvanians to Get a Flu Shot HARRISBURG, Pa., Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- A 20-month-old child in Philadelphia County is Pennsylvania's first state laboratory-confirmed case of influenza of the season, according to the state Health Department. "The announcement of the season's first confirmed...

Despite Technical Hurdles, Potential to Transform Drug Discovery and Development to Drive Gene Expression Markets.
LONDON, November 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The analysis of gene sequence and gene expression variations allows for the detection of defective genes and polymorphisms associated with specific diseases. These techniques provide the initial answers as to whether a potential therapeutic compound merits further evaluation and testing, making it of immense...

Pennsylvania to Observe National Influenza Vaccination Week.
HARRISBURG, Pa., Nov. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania State Health Secretary Dr. Calvin B. Johnson today urged Pennsylvanians to observe National Influenza Vaccination Week, which runs from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, by getting a flu shot. "Flu season has already begun in Pennsylvania, so it is very...

Millennium Initiates Phase II Trial to Evaluate MLN3897 in Rheumatoid Arthritis.
-- Part of broad and novel inflammation pipeline -- CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced the initiation of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II study of MLN3897 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). MLN3897, an oral, small molecule designed to block CCR1,...

Vasogen Announces Year-End Results for 2000.
TORONTO, March 15 /PRNewswire/ - Vasogen Inc. (TSE: VAS; AMEX: MEW), a developer of proprietary immune modulation therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular, autoimmune and other inflammatory diseases, today reported the results of operations for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2000. All amounts referenced herein are...

Biologists reveal the proteins that first see dangerous microbes.
About 3 weeks after a 4-year-old boy visited the emergency room for a nagging eye infection--which doctors easily cured--the boy's mother arrived at the same Canadian hospital. She was infected with the same bacterium, though it had done much more than redden her eyes. She showed signs of shock:...