Boston Children's Hospital's science and clinical innovation blog
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The immunosuppressant effect in newborns' blood comes not from blood cells themselves, but from the plasma that surrounds them (smaller.pathological.ca/Flickr)
“If we can understand the molecular mechanisms causing the immune system to be different when we’re very young or very old, we can leverage that knowledge to develop new treatments,” says Levy. Full story »
This 1802 British cartoon skewers the cowpox vaccine, newly introduced against smallpox. Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_cow_pock.jpg#file
The cases are the legacy of parents who decided to forgo vaccinating at least 1 million children against measles, based on a 1998 study in The Lancet linking the measles vaccine to autism. That now-retracted study became the origin of its own epidemic, carrying misinformation through a network of parents and media outlets that believed the author had discovered the cause of autism.
Until recently, tracking the spread of vaccine-related rumors was even more difficult than tracking the outbreaks such misinformation engenders. A study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, involving Boston Children’s Hospital’s HealthMap data collection system and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has taken a huge step toward turning that around. Full story »
If we could immunize infants at birth, far more could be protected from infections.(DFID-UK Dept for International Development)
Right now, immunizations against most infections begin at 2 months of age. But that leaves newborns at risk for infections like rotavirus, whooping cough and pneumococcus during a highly vulnerable time.
In resource-poor countries, this is a serious problem: Many children see a health care provider only at birth, so may miss their chance to be protected. Worldwide, each year, more than 2 million infants under 6 months old die from infections, especially pneumonia. If we could immunize infants at birth, it would be a huge win for global health.
Unfortunately, though, newborns don’t respond to most vaccines. Their immune systems are too immature—which is why few vaccines for newborns exist. Full story »
Influenza A H1N1 model (scherle.com/Wikimedia)
What caused previously healthy children to die during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic? Yesterday, the journal Pediatrics published the results of a study I conducted with the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigator’s (PALISI) Network. Results have been widely reported, by the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today and TIME, among many others, provoking a lot of reader commentary, questions and, I fear, some misconceptions.
Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA)(CDC)
Our study collected data on 838 children with 2009 H1N1 infection admitted across 35 pediatric intensive care units (ICUs) in the U.S. Most of these children were severely ill, the majority requiring mechanical ventilator support for respiratory failure, and 9 percent died. Many (70 percent) had underlying illnesses like asthma or neurologic conditions that increased their risk. But among those who were previously healthy, the chief risk factor for death was co-infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. It increased the risk of mortality 8-fold. Full story »
Streptococcus pneumoniae in spinal fluid
Serious pneumococcal infections – pneumonia, bacteremia, meningitis – are responsible for up to 11 percent of child deaths on the planet. Vaccines exist, such as Prevnar, but they have two big shortcomings.
First, they’re designed to help people build antibodies against specific strains of pneumococcus. But new strains keep emerging, and most of those circulating in the developing world aren’t covered.
Second, they’re too expensive for most developing countries.
Six years ago, Richard Malley, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital Boston, and Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health, showed that there is another defense against pneumococcus that doesn’t care what strain it’s encountering. And, despite what textbooks were saying, it has nothing to do with antibodies. Full story »
Ofer Levy is nothing if not passionate. Talking about his new project, he starts taking notes on my pad for me, to make sure I catch every detail. When Levy was getting his MD/PhD at NYU, one of his mentors told him, “In pursuing your life’s passion as a researcher, you should set your sights on a distant star.” Full story »
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