Winter is on the way and the hideous norovirus (stomach virus) always comes along for the ride. Are we still helpless against this little monster? What's going on out there? You may be surprised.
Disease
The good news is that African swine fever has nothing to do with swine flu and does not infect humans; the bad news is mostly for pig farmers and ranchers who are facing, as Russian scientists claim, "arguably the most dangerous swine disease worldwide."
Macaque monkeys are starting to overrun parts of Florida. Like humans, macaques have their own version of herpes. It doesn't bother the monkeys but is very deadly to humans. Here's why.
The flu season is upon us. But what is it that makes an infectious disease seasonal at all?
The knee is an incredibly complicated structure, which is why "knee pain" can be rather challenging to address. New research examines the physical distribution of knee pain and finds three common patterns.
Polio peaks in the summer, measles during the school year, and chickenpox in the spring.
The CDC reports that last year four states experienced outbreaks of hepatitis A, mostly among homeless people and/or intravenous drug users. Overall, 1,521 people got sick and 41 died. This is the predictable outcome of societal negligence and our collective unwillingness to adequately address the homelessness crisis.
Sometimes, a cute stray animal at your doorstep is carrying something you don't want to cuddle up to.
Our national experience of influenza, as one disease with a set season, makes it difficult to recognize that flu is not a monolith. The global exposure to influenza has a lot more variation, and vaccination rates are influenced by much more than we might expect.
It turns out that Type 2 diabetes is not one monolithic disease. There are at least five identified genetic dispositions affecting our metabolism in different ways. Precision medicine may be more difficult than we are led to believe.
We haven't had a flu pandemic in a hundred years. And vaccines are why.
As if hospitals aren't bad enough, a really dangerous bug called Clostridium difficile is all over the place. And this bug, more commonly known as (C. diff), is not so easy to kill. Researchers looked at what happens when you wash contaminated sheets. The expression "it call comes out in the wash" does not apply.