One of my guilty pleasures in this run-up to the next U.S. presidential election is watching proudly ignorant Republican wannabes like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann lashing out at each other instead of Obama. The Minnesota representative recently attacked the Texas governor for proposing in 2007 that pre-pubescent girls in his state be vaccinated against [...]

The deaths this week of nine polio vaccine workers in Pakistan at the hands of gunmen indicate a threat not only to workers but also to the effort to eradicate the disease—locally and globally. Earlier this year, the international push to eradicate the crippling—and sometimes deadly—childhood disease from its final holdouts (Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan) was [...]

Most people do their best to avoid contact with Salmonella. This bacteria genus, which often lives on poultry and can find its way into other food products, causes hundreds of thousands of illnesses—and hundreds of deaths—in the U.S. each year. But new research demonstrates that this common food pathogen could be disarmed and reconfigured as [...]

Researchers have engineered a new type of chicken that might help prevent the spread of bird flu—a worrisome virus that has already caused extensive economic harm on farms, especially in Asia, and that could lead to a pandemic in humans. Many farmers have gone to great lengths to prevent a poultry-based pandemic, but the newest [...]

The note on the receptionist’s desk at my doctor’s office was quite emphatic: there was no vaccine to give, either for the H1N1 swine flu or the seasonal variety. If I wanted to yell and scream, the note advised, I should call my congressman, rather than give the staff an earful. Several explanations can account [...]

Despite millions of needle jabs to bolster flu immunity each year, the efficient influenza virus continues to evolve to get around these biological blockades by altering its surface proteins. As people in a population become immune to the virus through vaccination or exposure, however, they change how the virus mutates and, ultimately, the chances of [...]

An advisory panel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the use of Gardasil, a vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV), for use in males. A new study, published yesterday in the British Medical Journal, found, however, that a public health campaign to vaccinate boys—in addition to girls, who have been receiving [...]

The first doses of approved vaccines for the H1N1 "swine" flu will start trickling in across the U.S. on Tuesday. The first to arrive, 600,000 doses of MedImmune’s FluMist nasal spray, will be for healthy people ages two to 49, the Associated Press reported. "This is really just the beginning," Anne Schuchat, director of the [...]

A particular drum I like to beat, is about science communicators learning how to use images effectively. Give your blog post illustration some thought. Don’t just stick any old candied cherry on the top of your post: make sure it’s the right maraschino cherry. Then add sprinkles. If you are having trouble finding good images [...]

A fictionalized essay on how I imagine the world to be with the advent of addiction vaccines: You open your front door wide, take in the crisp morning air. It’s going to be a beautiful day. You hear they’ve perfected a vaccine against drugs. You smile wide, happy and can nearly see the pink tinge [...]