Public Health in the News – June 8, 2014

Global

• The European Union has created a new set of rules to regulate its clinical trials, which will hopefully stop the decline in trials seen in recent years.
• A new strategy to fight drug-resistant bacteria may come from an older therapy used in the Soviet era: phage therapy, in which patients are given a bacteria-fighting virus.
• A study of children in Bangladesh shows that the microbes in our gut change as we get older, and this may have implications for helping children suffering from malnutrition.

National

• DNA sequencing identified the type of bacteria infecting a critically ill child and helped save his life.
• Put on that sunscreen! Teens who get at least five bad sunscreens have a much greater risk of developing melanoma later in life.
• A new project called Flip the Clinic is trying to improve the interactions between patients and doctors.
• If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at the Daily Show’s segment about the anti-vaccination movement.
• A previously discovered but subsequently ignored genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is now generating more interest.
• Wired Magazine profiles Lucy Jones, a seismologist looking for ways to minimize earthquake damage.
• The National Institutes of Health just came up with an ambitious ten-year plan for Obama’s proposed neuroscience initiative.
• Science writer Virginia Hughes talks about a plan to screen Adam Lanza’s DNA, and asks what it will mean for our society if we find certain genes that are linked to violent activity or psychiatric disorders.

Chicago

• The city of Chicago has sued five top narcotics manufacturers, because the city believes they hid potential health risks from consumers.

Northwestern

• A team of Northwestern faculty and staff developed a method to reduce the wait time for patients who come to the Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center to receive chemotherapy treatments.
• A blog post by The Women’s Health Research Institute at NU explains why we need sex-based research.
• NU Professor June M. McKoy, MD, calls for more diversity in medical school leadership.

Cover Photo by TookAPic via Pexels: Creative Commons