Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease that is completely preventable. Since 1988, members of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), including CDC, the World Health Organization (WHO), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary, and UNICEF, have teamed up to eradicate polio world-wide through large scale vaccination efforts. Global polio cases are down more than 99% since GPEI began. We were able to completely eradicate the disease in the Americas by 1994 and protect our children. By 2006, polio was endemic in only four countries: Read more »
[We reported last week from the mHealth Summit in Washington, DC -- a conference covering the integration of mobile technologies with medical research, information, diagnosis, treatment, and care.]
One of the highlights of last week’s mHealth Summit was the keynote interview of Bill Gates. While inseparable from his history as founder and leader of Microsoft from 1975 to 2008, his current passion is global health.
Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has now given 3.8 billion (with a “b”) of targeted philanthropy into global health since 1994, he and his wife Melinda are helping bring about profound change to the lives of millions around the world. In a meeting dedicated to exploring the power of mobile devices to shape health in developed and developing countries, Bill Gates eloquently refocussed our attention towards the real urgency of saving the millions of our fellow humans who die needlessly for want of vaccinations or the simplest treatments. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
Finally men everywhere might have a birth control option that won’t rob them of the joys of living.
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may have discovered a cheap, convenient and noninvasive method of male birth control — ultrasound. The scientists believe that a single treatment can provide up to six months of infertility that is reversible.
The team has received a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their work. If the project pans out, this could have an incredible impact on global health. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Thanks to a tip from FOX Business Network, Bill Gates has just announced that his Foundation is doubling its financial support ($10 billion over the next 10 years) to save children from vaccine-preventable illnesses on a global scale. This is very good news, and probably the best use of Gates Foundation money from an ROI perspective in healthcare.
If you can read this you need to download a more recent browser It is estimated that as many as million U.S. adults have ADHD Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder A recent research study publication-pending suggests that the economic burden of ADHD on America could be as high as billion annually. I…
If you can read this you need to download a more recent browser Today most- if not all- Doctor’s offices are strained by the shortage of some prescription medication or vaccine. A month ago President Obama signed his executive order directing the FDA to take steps to reduce drug shortages…
My friend and former Chair of the CFAH Board of Trustees Doug Kamerow has written a book that I think you will like. Besides being a mensch and witty as heck Doug is a family doctor and a preventive medicine specialist. In his new book Dissecting American Health Care Commentaries…
Recently I had a conversation with Shannon Brownlee the widely respected science journalist and acting director of the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation about whether men should continue to have access to the PSA test for prostate cancer screening despite the overwhelming evidence that it extends few…
Food Truths Food Lies written by family physician Eric Marcotte M.D. may be the most refreshingly evidence-based diet book of the decade. You will not find a single mention of super-foods magical berries or supplement must-haves in the entire book. What you will find is the cold hard truth about…