Massive malaria vaccine trial to begin in Africa

news.yahoo.com — Researchers trying to create the world's first malaria vaccine are launching a massive medical trial as early as next month involving 16,000 children that could be the largest such trial ever conducted on children in Africa. British-drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline PLC is teaming with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is an anti-malaria charity funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and clinics and research centers in Africa to develop a malaria vaccine. "This is probably going to be one of the largest studies in infants and in children in Africa," said Joe Cohen, a top vaccine researcher for GlaxoSmithKline. read more...

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Pneumonia Vaccine Lowers Chances of Heart Attack

health.msn.com — Being vaccinated against pneumonia halves the risk of having a heart attack two years later, a new Canadian study finds. The study compared 999 people admitted to Canadian hospitals for heart attacks, with 3,996 admitted for other reasons. It found no difference between those who did or did not have the pneumococcal vaccine in the previous year, but a 50 percent lower rate for those getting the vaccine two years earlier. "If confirmed, this association should generate interest in exploring the putative mechanisms and may offer another reason to promote pneumococcal vaccination," said a report in the current issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal from researchers at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec. There are plenty of theories and many statistics linking pneumonia with heart attacks, said Dr. Mohammad Madjid, a senior research scientist at the Texas Heart Institute, who wrote an accompanying commentary. read more...

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Doubts Grow Over Flu Vaccine in Elderly

nytimes.com — The influenza vaccine, which has been strongly recommended for people over 65 for more than four decades, is losing its reputation as an effective way to ward off the virus in the elderly. A growing number of immunologists and epidemiologists say the vaccine probably does not work very well for people over 70, the group that accounts for three-fourths of all flu deaths. read more...

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Flu Vaccine Doesn't Protect Seniors From Pneumonia

nlm.nih.gov — Flu vaccine may not protect older people from pneumonia once they get the disease, researchers report. Older, frail adults are more susceptible to getting the flu, even if they have been vaccinated, and once getting the flu, they are more susceptible to such complications as pneumonia. It had been thought that flu vaccine would prevent flu -- and pneumonia -- across all groups of seniors, but this benefit appears to be largely confined to younger, healthier seniors. "In seniors, flu vaccine was not linked to a reduced risk of pneumonia," said lead researcher Michael L. Jackson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle. Jackson still recommends that seniors get flu vaccine, however. "There have been good randomized trials that show, at least in healthy seniors, that the vaccine reduces the risk of influenza," he said. "However, earlier studies have overestimated how well the vaccine works in reducing complications of influenza. So, the vaccine may not reduce the risk of complications as much as previously thought," he said. read more...

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Yeast-Based Vaccine Induces Immune Responses and Reduces Tumor Size

nih.gov — Scientists have found that vaccination with a heat-killed, non-toxic yeast that is genetically engineered to manufacture a common tumor protein can induce specific and repeated anti-tumor immune responses in mice. Vaccination extends overall survival and reduces tumor size in mice that have been injected with cancer cells displaying the same protein that was engineered into the yeast. Results of this research by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, can be found in the July 1, 2008 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. "These results provide a rationale for evaluating yeast vaccines in cancer immunotherapy studies in humans," said study author James W. Hodge, Ph.D., in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. The type of yeast used in this study, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, does not cause disease in humans and has been used as a delivery vehicle for antigens, which are proteins usually on the surface of cells or organisms that stimulate immune responses. The tumor-associated antigen made by the genetically engineered yeast in this study is carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). CEA is commonly found on cancers of the colon, rectum, stomach, breast, and lung. read more...

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Bird flu vaccine strength could be under-or overestimated due to test

medbroadcast.com — TORONTO - A study comparing the tests being used by vaccine manufacturers to gauge the effectiveness of their H5N1 avian flu vaccines shows there is a lot of variation in the sensitivity of the tests, the British scientist leading the effort says. Differences in the sensitivity of the tests mean companies could be underestimating or overestimating the power of their vaccines as they try to work out what is the smallest protective dose, experts admit. As things stand now, there is no way to usefully compare the results of one company's clinical trials for their vaccine with a competitor's findings. "If Company A's assay (test) happens to be 10 times more sensitive than Company B's, Company A and Company B could be evaluating the exact same thing but reach different answers about whether they worked or not," says Dr. John Treanor, a vaccine expert who knows of the study but is not involved in the work. The effort, which included trying to develop an international standard against which H5N1 antibody tests could be measured, is being led by Dr. John Wood, a prominent influenza virologist with Britain's National Institute for Biological Standards and Control. read more...

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