Public Health

During the 1989–1991 U.S. measles epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente conducted a clinical trial in Los Angeles testing the Edmonston-Zagreb (E-Z) measles vaccine on nearly 1,500 predominantly Black and Latino infants. The study aimed to compare the experimental E-Z vaccine, used...

The 2025 influenza season has surged to unprecedented levels, with flu activity across the United States reaching its highest intensity since the 2009 swine flu pandemic. According to the latest reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), flu-related doctor’s visits and hospitalizations have skyrocketed, making this...

In December 1919, the holiday spirit in Sussex County, Delaware, was overshadowed by an outbreak of smallpox, an illness that had long haunted humanity as one of the deadliest diseases in history. The trouble began near Millsboro, in the Indian River Hundred, where early reports suggested it might be...

In October 2022, public health officials in New York City noticed something concerning: an outbreak of chickenpox (also called varicella) was spreading, primarily among immigrant families living in city shelters and residential facilities. What started as a small cluster of cases quickly grew. By March 2024, there were 873...

A massive polio vaccination campaign is underway in Gaza. The campaign comes amid an armed conflict that has led to the destruction of most of the healthcare and public health infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave. The urgency in doing the campaign came from the discovery of a single case...

In 1947, New York City almost faced a huge health crisis due to smallpox, but it was prevented by quickly vaccinating lots of people. Over 6.3 million people got the smallpox vaccine in just a few weeks. This was a huge effort, with vaccine makers working non-stop to make enough...

In the realm of scientific research, evidence plays a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the world. From medicine to social sciences, researchers follow a hierarchical structure of evidence to assess the reliability and strength of their findings. This hierarchy provides a systematic approach to discern the credibility of...

In January of this year, we wrote a blog post asking when the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) would end. In it, we predicted the World Health Organization (WHO) would declare the PHEIC over by mid-year. Well, WHO announced on May 5 that the PHEIC...

No product in the known universe is 100% safe or 100% effective. There is just no perfection when it comes to anything we buy and consume. Even something as simple as drinking tap water comes with some risk, be it from environmental contamination, from old pipes leaking heavy metals into...

In August 2010, more than a year to when it started, the H1N1 influenza pandemic was declared over by the World Health Organization (WHO). For their decision, the WHO panel charged with advising on ending the pandemic declaration looked at several factors, including the worldwide activity of H1N1 influenza,...