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FDA Experts Vote to Make All COVID-19 Vaccines and Boosters Bivalent
In a unanimous decision, all 21 voting members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine committee recommended that the U.S. start using the same COVID-19 virus strain in all of the COVID-19 vaccines, including primary and booster doses. That means the bivalent booster dose, which targets both the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and the Omicron BA.4/5 strains, would soon become the only type used for all primary shots and boosters. The decision reflects a turning point in the pandemic. Until now, vaccine makers have tried to keep up with constantly evolving variants, but they’ve always been a few step...
Source: TIME: Health - January 27, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news

Cold Weather Can Be Dangerous for the Human Body. This Winter Worries Experts
A particularly nasty trifecta of influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is already portending a rough winter. But there’s another factor contributing to a potentially tough season for health: a colder-than-average season, which is forecast in the northern U.S. and the U.K. Even an ordinary cold season can pose a threat to human health and safety. One 2015 study published in the Lancet analyzed over 74 million deaths around the world found that more than 7% of deaths were attributed to exposure to cold temperatures. “There is conclusive evidence that there is increased risk for many health ou...
Source: TIME: Health - November 15, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tara Law Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Public Health Wellbeing Source Type: news

Unusual Symptoms of Coronavirus: What We Know So Far
While most people are familiar with the hallmark symptoms of COVID-19 by now—cough, fever, muscle aches, headaches and difficulty breathing—a new crop of medical conditions are emerging from the more than 4 million confirmed cases of the disease around the world. These include skin rashes, diarrhea, kidney abnormalities and potentially life-threatening blood clots. It’s not unusual for viruses to directly infect and affect different tissues and organs in the body, but it is a bit unusual for a primarily respiratory virus like SARS-CoV-2, which is responsible for COVID-19, to have such a wide-ranging reach...
Source: TIME: Health - May 19, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news

4-Year-Old Iowa Girl Blinded After Contracting the Flu
Jade DeLucia, a 4-year-old from Iowa, is back home with her family after being struck with a case of the flu that, after a lengthy hospital stay, has left her blind. Amanda Phillips, the girl’s mother, told reporters that Jade came down with a fever in mid-December, which she initially controlled with medication. “There wasn’t any sign that would’ve told me that something was seriously wrong with her,” Phillips told CNN. Phillips did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment. Jade had been vaccinated earlier in 2019, according to a post Phillips wrote on Facebook. But, she ad...
Source: TIME: Health - January 14, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jasmine Aguilera Tags: Uncategorized Iowa onetime public health Source Type: news

A bummer for kids: Nasal flu vaccine not effective
Follow me at @drClaire Every year, many of my patients have been able to skip the needle — and still get vaccinated against the flu. That was the great thing about the nasal spray version of the flu vaccine, known as the LAIV (live attenuated influenza vaccine): kids scared of needles could get a squirt up each nostril and be all set. This coming flu season, everyone is getting the shot. It turns out that the nasal spray just didn’t work that well. Despite studies from the 2002-2003 and 2004-2005 flu seasons that seemed to show that the nasal spray actually worked better than the shot in children ages 2-8 years, over t...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - June 28, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Children's Health Cold and Flu Infectious diseases Parenting Prevention Source Type: news

Flu Shot Could Prevent a Heart Attack
The flu vaccine protects against more than just influenza ― it also reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke by about one-third, according to studies published by the British Medical Journal Heart and the Journal of the American Medical Association. This February during American Heart Month, Texas physicians urge everyone who hasn’t yet received an annual flu shot to get vaccinated.
Source: TMA News Room - February 22, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news

Do statins interfere with the flu vaccine?
Statins are powerful, unusual, and, like El Niño and Tom Cruise, not well understood. Statins have a huge upside. They improve survival after heart attacks and lower the risk of recurrent strokes. They are also the only cholesterol-lowering medications that have been clearly shown to reduce heart attacks and deaths in high-risk patients without heart disease. In addition to reducing cholesterol, statins also lower levels of inflammation in the body. Reducing inflammation probably helps statins to prevent heart attack and stroke. However, evidence is emerging that these statin effects may also have a downside, hindering th...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - November 30, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Cold and Flu Drugs and Supplements Health Heart Health Vaccines flu vaccine statins Source Type: news

Get the flu vaccine, reduce your risk of death
Last year was a lousy year for the flu vaccine. Hospitalizations for flu hit a nine-year high, and the vaccine prevented flu in only 23% of all recipients, compared with 50% to 60% of recipients in prior years. Why does the flu vaccine work well in some winters and not others? The flu vaccine primes the immune system to attack two proteins on the surface of the influenza A virus, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). Different flu strains have different combinations of these proteins — for example, the strains targeted by recent flu vaccines are H3N2 and H1N1. Unfortunately, the influenza virus is microbiology’s ans...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - September 15, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Cold and Flu Vaccines Flu Shot flu vaccine Source Type: news

10 Good Reasons To Get A Flu Shot
By Melaina Juntti for Men's Journal How many times have you heard you should get a flu shot? There's good reason for the hype: Over the past few years, the influenza vaccine has prevented millions of flu cases and tens of thousands of related hospitalizations, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although an increasing number of people are getting vaccinated every year, more than half of American men still aren't doing it, for a variety of reasons, most of which aren't backed by science. "Men have this macho sense that if they do get the flu, they can tough it out," says William Schaffner, M.D., chair...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - November 29, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news

Flu jab "may cut" stroke risk by a quarter
ConclusionThis research finds that, overall, having the flu vaccine reduced the risk of a person experiencing a stroke by about 25%. The reduction in risk seemed to be greatest within the first three months of vaccination, but remained for up to 12 months.  However, the effect lasted only if the vaccine was given early in the flu season (September to mid-November); giving the vaccine late in the flu season (mid-November to February) was not associated with significantly reduced risk.The research benefits from using data coded within the General Practice Research Database for England and Wales for almost 50,000 people with...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 21, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Neurology Older people Source Type: news

Flu jab linked with lower risk of heart attack
Conclusion This study suggests that there is an association between being vaccinated against the flu and decreased odds of having (and surviving) a heart attack. The researchers conclude that receiving the flu jab may be protective against heart attack, and report that previous studies have shown a link between flu infection, flu vaccination and heart attack. They further suggest that future policy decisions regarding the age at which the seasonal flu jab is offered take into account its potential effect on cardiovascular events. They say “even a small effect of influenza vaccination in preventing AMI [acute myocardial i...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 22, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Medical practice Source Type: news