Tag: immune response
The Growing Battle Over Infant Milk Allergies
This article was originally published by Undark Magazine.
For Taylor Arnold, a registered dietitian nutritionist, feeding her second baby was not easy. At eight weeks old, he screamed when he ate and wouldn’t gain much weight. Arnold brought him to a gastroenterologist, who diagnosed him with allergic proctocolitis—an immune response to the proteins found in certain foods, which she narrowed down to cow’s milk.
Cow’s-milk-protein allergies, or CMPA, might be on the rise—following a similar trend in other children’s
Nasal Vaccines Are Here – The Atlantic
Since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, a niche subset of experimental vaccines has offered the world a tantalizing promise: a sustained slowdown in the spread of disease. Formulated to spritz protection into the body via the nose or the mouth—the same portals of entry most accessible to the virus itself—mucosal vaccines could head SARS-CoV-2 off at the pass, stamping out infection to a degree that their injectable counterparts might never hope to achieve.
Now, nearly three years into
How Many COVID Vaccine Doses Do Little Kids Need?
After months and months of being told to wait, then wait, then wait some more, parents eager to vaccinate their littlest kids against COVID-19 have been gifted some good and very confusing news. Yesterday, after weeks of weird and cryptic waffling, Pfizer kick-started the process of requesting an emergency use authorization from the FDA for their infant-and-toddler COVID-19 vaccine; if the agency’s advisory-panel meeting, scheduled for the 15th, goes smoothly, the under-5 shots could be available as a two-dose series
The Omicron Variant: We Still Know Almost Nothing
As fall dips into winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the coronavirus has served up the holiday gift that no one, absolutely no one, asked for: a new variant of concern, dubbed Omicron by the World Health Organization on Friday.
Omicron, also known as B.1.1.529, was first detected in Botswana and South Africa earlier this month, and very little is known about it so far. But the variant is moving fast. South Africa, the country that initially flagged Omicron to WHO
Pfizer Won the Vaccine Race. Was There a Downside?
The Delta variant’s arrival this summer delivered a blow to the nation’s entire coronavirus arsenal, but its impact on the champion of last year’s vaccine race—Pfizer—has been particularly humbling. Compared with Moderna’s competing shot, Pfizer’s vaccine seems to induce half the amount of virus-fighting antibodies, and is associated with nearly twice as many breakthrough infections, according to two recent studies. Pfizer’s shots remain highly protective against hospitalization, but the latest numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Should You Get a Vaccine If You Had COVID-19?
Immune cells can learn the vagaries of a particular infectious disease in two main ways. The first is bona fide infection, and it’s a lot like being schooled in a war zone, where any lesson in protection might come at a terrible cost. Vaccines, by contrast, safely introduce immune cells to only the harmless mimic of a microbe, the immunological equivalent of training guards to recognize invaders before they ever show their face. The first option might be more instructive