Using high-quality data about the incidence of influenza infections in Alberta during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, the researchers show that when schools closed for the summer, the transmission of infection from person to person was sharply reduced.

A study of more than 300 children and adolescents with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) revealed no association between specific antiretroviral therapy and the severity of psychiatric disorders. In “Human Immunodeficiency Virus Disease Severity, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Functional Outcomes in Perinatally Infected Youth,” Principal Investigator Sharon Nachman, M.D., of Stony Brook School of Medicine, and colleagues detail this finding and others in the Online First edition of Archives of Pediatrics & Adult Medicine.

Ultrasound is transforming the way arthritis is diagnosed and treated, making evaluation and treatment quicker and more accurate. The new approach is dubbed fast arthritis sonographic evaluation and treatment, or FAST, by rheumatologists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center who are leading its development.

The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) will observe its 100-year anniversary during 2012 with special events, publications and other commemorative activities – including a gala celebration during its Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, in April.

A new UCSF analysis has found that a state ballot initiative to increase the cigarette tax would create about 12,000 jobs and nearly $2 billion in new economic activity in California.

Treatment with three “targeted” cancer drugs has been linked to a slightly elevated chance of fatal side effects, according to a new analysis led by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. These risks remain low, but they should be factored in when developing patients’ treatment plans.

A new scoring method can help doctors quickly decide which stroke patients will respond well to the clot-busting drug alteplase, according to a study published in the February 7, 2012, print issue of Neurology(r), the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The future of disease diagnosis may lie in a “breathalyzer”-like technology currently under development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Production for the eighth season of ABC-TV’s “The Bachelorette” – the successful spin-off of the hugely popular “The Bachelor” – starts next month, but medievalist Paul Patterson, Ph.D., assistant professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, says the plots for both TV hits were written long ago.

Boise State University biologists have uncovered why the chemical defenses in birch, a common type of tree found in North America, are toxic to snowshoe hares.