Research with mice paves the way for injectable skin cancer treatment

February 11th 2021 Drug delivery with bioadhesive nanoparticles shows exceptional promise. One in five people in the U.S. will develop skin cancer in their lifetime, with the most common type of malignant skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma or SCC, killing 10,000 people each year1,2. Cases of skin cancer are steadily rising, and in fact, skin … Continue reading Research with mice paves the way for injectable skin cancer treatment

Why 40% of Americans are unwilling to get the COVID-19 vaccine

January 26th 2021 TL:DR Vaccines work. Vaccines save lives. Safety and efficacy will continue to be monitored for the life of any FDA approved vaccine. There are reasonable scientific and ethical concerns which remain with respect to COVID-19 vaccines—however, the benefits of taking either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine outweigh the costs of not doing … Continue reading Why 40% of Americans are unwilling to get the COVID-19 vaccine

#FactCheckNeeded: How are mice and rats accounted for in the balance of science, medicine, and animal welfare?

Faulty assumptions lead to faulty conclusions. Jeremy D. Bailoo, Sangy Panicker & Allyson J. Bennett January 12th 2021 A new entry in the seemingly eternal quest for universal adoption of European approaches to the regulation of research animals appeared today in the journal Scientific Reports. The author, US veterinarian Larry Carbone, estimates from a sample … Continue reading #FactCheckNeeded: How are mice and rats accounted for in the balance of science, medicine, and animal welfare?

2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine highlights vital role of animal research

October 6th 2020 The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been jointly awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton, and Charles M. Rice, who have made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world. Inflammation of the … Continue reading 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine highlights vital role of animal research

Animal models paved the way for Phase III testing of the COVID-19 vaccine

Yesterday, NIH and Moderna announced the start of a multi-site, Phase 3 clinical trial of a candidate vaccine for COVID-19. This candidate vaccine uses messenger RNA, or mRNA, a “codebook” that cellular machinery “reads” in order to build proteins. For this candidate vaccine, the mRNA contains instructions for building spike proteins found on the coronavirus, … Continue reading Animal models paved the way for Phase III testing of the COVID-19 vaccine

#Evergreen: Celebrating #WorldImmunizationWeek 2020 – Reversing the damage

April 28th 2020 (originally posted 4/25/2019) TL:DR Get vaccinated, do not spread misinformation, educate and confront your fears! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqAvg21S_mg Twenty five years ago, Andrew Wakefield published a series of fabricated studies, in the end claiming that the MMR vaccine causes autism--and with a personal gain of (~674,000 USD). Since then, millions of dollars, which could … Continue reading #Evergreen: Celebrating #WorldImmunizationWeek 2020 – Reversing the damage

#Evergreen: Celebrating #WorldImmunizationWeek 2020 – The post-Wakefield fallout.

April 27th 2020 (originally posted 4/24/2019) In our previous piece, we showed how Andrew Wakefield fabricated data claiming that the MMR vaccine caused autism. The fallout from this fabrication--the “anti-vaxxer” movement--continues even today. https://giphy.com/gifs/link-article-ic-10xobTbHX49uvK Subsequent to Wakefield’s studies and claims, researcher’s started investigating the links between the MMR vaccination and autism, given the seriousness of … Continue reading #Evergreen: Celebrating #WorldImmunizationWeek 2020 – The post-Wakefield fallout.

#Evergreen: Celebrating #WorldImmunizationWeek 2020 – The MMR-Andrew Wakefield Scandal

April 26th 2020 (originally posted 4/23/2019) In our previous post, we highlighted how vaccines work and all of the effort that goes into ensuring safety and efficacy. So how did we get a point in our history where people fail to see the value of getting vaccinated? As a thought exercise, imagine that you lived … Continue reading #Evergreen: Celebrating #WorldImmunizationWeek 2020 – The MMR-Andrew Wakefield Scandal