Kategoria BISAC: Medical >> Epidemiology

The real story of AIDS--how it originated with a virus in a chimpanzee, jumped to one human, and then infected more than 60 million people--is very different from what most of us think we know. Recent research has revealed dark surprises and yielded a radically new scenario of how AIDS began and spread. Excerpted and adapted from the book Spillover, with a new introduction by the author, Quammen's hair-raising investigation tracks the virus from chimp populations in the jungles of southeastern Cameroon to laboratories across the globe, as he unravels the mysteries of when, where,...

Congenital malformations are worldwide occurrences, they know no national borders, do not distinguish between races, ethnicities, rich or poor. These severe physical abnormalities, present at birth, happen more often than is usually realized, once in every 33 births. They strike every part of the body, limbs, head, heart, and all others.

The most frequent of them all are the many types of malformations of the cardiovascular system, the heart and its blood vessels, which happen in about once in every 250 births. Study of these conditions during the twentieth century took many forms,...

Biobanking, i.e. storage of biological samples or data emerging from such samples for diagnostic, therapeutic or research purposes, has been going on for decades. However, it is only since the mid 1990s that these activities have become the subject of considerable public attention, concern and debate. This shift in climate is due to several factors. The purpose of this book is to investigate some of the ethical, legal and social challenges raised by research biobanking in its different modern forms and formats. The issues raised by research biobanking in its modern form can be divided into...

Vaccinology, the concept of a science ranging from the study of immunology to the development and distribution of vaccines, was a word invented by Jonas Salk. This book covers the history of the methodological progress in vaccine development and to the social and ethical issues raised by vaccination. Chapters include "Jenner and the Vaccination against Smallpox," "Viral Vaccines," and "Ethical and Social Aspects of vaccines." Contributing authors include pioneers in the field, such as Samuel L. Katz and Hilary Koprowski. This history of vaccines is relatively short and many of its...

Striking changes have occurred in the world since the publication of the last edition of Viral Infections of Humans. The global population is rapidly approaching 8 billion; climate change is leading to the introduction of new hosts, vectors and virus diseases heretofore never seen in many parts of the world; technological advances have revolutionized the ability to recognize and characterize viruses new and old; vaccines are altering the epidemiological landscape of the diseases they target, in some cases raising the hope of their eradication and remarkably powerful computational...

Despite decades of developments in immunization and drug therapy, tuberculosis remains among the leading causes of human mortality, and no country has successfully eradicated the disease. Reenvisioning tuberculosis from the perspective of population biology, this book examines why the disease is so persistent and what must be done to fight it. Treating tuberculosis and its human hosts as dynamic, interacting populations, Christopher Dye seeks new answers to key questions by drawing on demography, ecology, epidemiology, evolution, and population genetics. Dye uses simple mathematical models...

Japan s asbestos disasters, encompassing both occupational disease and environmental pollution, have been caused principally by the asbestos textile, asbestos cement water pipe, and construction industries. This book is unique in its interdisciplinary approach to those disasters as it incorporates medical science, economics, political science, law, architecture, environmental engineering, sociology, and journalism. Written by authorities in their fields, the chapters reflect the integration of these disciplines in topics that include a historical review of asbestos issues in Japan,...