Public Health in the News – May 11, 2015

Global

• After 15 months, Liberia is Ebola-free!
• Nature interviews Seth Berkley, chief executive of the GAVI Alliance, about bringing vaccines to people around the world.
• Scientists have developed a way to turn smartphones into microscopes that can identify a deadly parasite.
• When African researchers form international collaborations, their foreign colleagues are often favored.

National

• “Virtually every family in the country, the research indicates, has been subject to overtesting and overtreatment in one form or another.” Doctors often overtreat patients, but the system can change.
• A new type of pluripotent stem cell was recently identified; these might be useful for many research and clinical applications in the future.
• Should we be regulating the amount of arsenic found in foods? Yes, argues science blog The Crux, but it’s complicated.
• Children who get measles have weaker immune systems for years following the infection, a new study finds.
• An 18th-century doctor realized that fireplace soot contained cancer-causing carcinogens. These same chemicals are present in the smoke that is used to grill food … but people rarely worry about this.

Illinois/Chicago

• In a Chicago Sun Times article, Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Julie Morita takes on our governor’s budget cuts to public health programs.
• Rep. Mike Quigley is advocating for the use of quieter flight paths coming out of O’Hare, which may help alleviate some of the sleep-disrupting noise from low-flying aircraft.

Northwestern

• NU has trained its second Community Emergency Response Team to assist in crises in the Evanston area.
• Northwestern surgeon Ankit Bharat, MD, uncovered the cause of a rare infection that may save the lives of future lung transplant recipients.