One of the persistent riddles of the deadly 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic is why it struck different cities with varying severity. Why were some municipalities such as St. Louis spared the fate of the hard-hit cities like Philadelphia when both implemented similar public health measures? What made the difference, according to two independent studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was not only how but also how rapidly different cities responded. [click link for full article]

Pregnant women who gain excessive or even appropriate weight, according to current guidelines, are four times more likely than women who gain inadequate weight to have a baby who becomes overweight in early childhood. These findings are from a new study at the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and are published in the April issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. [click link for full article]

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have announced it is awarding $23 million per year for seven years to establish six Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance. [click link for full article]

GlaxoSmithKline [NYSE:GSK] announced recently that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Twinrix® [Hepatitis A Vaccine (Inactivated) and Hepatitis B (Recombinant) Vaccine], for an accelerated dosing schedule that consists of three doses given within three weeks followed by a booster dose at 12 months. [click link for full article]

Erbitux (Cetuximab), a new drug which is used in combination with chemotherapy, increases overall survival in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, according to ImClone, the company which introduced the drug together with Bristol-Myers Squibb. [click link for full article]

The number of children and teenagers prescribed antidepressant medications appears to have decreased following public warnings about suicidal behavior potentially associated with the drugs, according to a report published in the April issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, antidepressants are now more often prescribed to this age group by psychiatrists rather than primary care physicians.The U.S. [click link for full article]

Increasing rates of amphetamine and cocaine usage by young adults significantly boost their risk of stroke, with amphetamine abuse associated with the greatest risk, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center report.In the study, available online in the Archives of General Psychiatry, UT Southwestern physicians examined more than 8,300 stroke patients - ranging in age from 18 to 44 - at more than 500 Texas hospitals in the years 2000 through 2003. [click link for full article]

Scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno are at the forefront on a number of seismological fields, including helping the world better determine whether an earthquake is big enough to generate an ocean-wide tsunami.Through work at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory on the Nevada campus, important data on seismological events throughout the world is compiled, including Monday’s fatal occurrence in the Solomon Islands, where at least 13 people were killed. [click link for full article]

The decision follows a review of clinical data from the Feasibility Trial submitted in March and unconditional approval of the protocol for the BTT trial, received in January.Ventracor Chief Executive Officer Peter Crosby said: “Ventracor has achieved another major milestone towards the commercialisation of the VentrAssist and further strengthened our position in the world’s largest healthcare market.”The BTT trial shares the same protocol as the Feasibility Trial. [click link for full article]

Salicylates, including aspirin, are used to treat a range of inflammatory conditions and can be used to prevent diseases such as cancer, but the way aspirin works is not yet fully understood.In a paper published in the prestigious Journal of Biological Chemistry in April, Professor Bryan Williams, Director of the Monash Institute of Medical Research, led a collaborative study that investigated the effects of salicylates on the inhibition of protein synthesis. [click link for full article]