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Tylenol can lower vaccines' effectiveness
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Giving babies Tylenol to prevent fever when they get childhood vaccinations may make the shots a little less effective, perhaps because a fever is an essential part of the development of an immune response, surprising new research suggests.
Although the effect was small and most kids still got enough protection from vaccines, the results make "a compelling case" against routinely giving acetaminophen right after vaccination, say doctors from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
They wrote an editorial accompanying the study, published in today's issue of the British medical journal, Lancet.
MICE HEART MUSCLE STRIP IS GROWN
Scientists have grown a piece of heart muscle -- and then watched it beat -- by using stem cells from a mouse embryo, a big step toward one day repairing damage from heart attacks.
"We're making a heart part, and [eventually] we're going to put the part in," said Dr. Kenneth Chien of the work by his team of Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers.
Lots of work remains before trying that dramatic an experiment in people. But regenerating damaged heart muscle is a holy grail in cardiac care.
Doctors today have lots of treatments to prevent a heart attack. But once one strikes, there's no way to restore the heart muscle it kills. Gradually the weakened heart quits pumping properly, leading to heart failure.
Hence the focus on embryonic stem cells, master cells that can give rise to any tissue in the body. Until now, scientists haven't known how to coax those cells into producing pure cardiac muscle.
AP, LOS ANGELES TIMES
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