Many clinical trials, even those on vaccines, are currently being made without considering the immunological differences that can exist between men and women. Katie Flanagan, senior lecturer of the Department of Immunology at Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia, explains how, and why this needs to be changed.
Public engagement that sets citizens and stakeholders as co-designers and collaborators of R&I activities can contribute to more dynamic and responsible governance of research and innovation. Public Engagement for Research, Practice and Policy conference, to be organized on November 16-17 in Brussels, calls for experts, stakeholders, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, researchers, regional authorities and Commission officials to a joint discussion on this theme.
An application aimed to help parents taking care of their children’s health. This is the idea behind MyPed, a mobile app developed by a group of physicians that won our Best practice award for general practitioners. The app, available for both Android and iOS smartphone, combines different tools that parents may use to manage their children’s health.
Susanna Esposito, professor of Paediatrics at the University of Milan, Italy and president of WAIDID (World Association for Infectious Diseases), thinks that families need more information about safety and efficacy of vaccines, in order to overcome their growing hesitancy towards them.
Until the end, it seemed it could sort out to be a happy-ending story, a demonstration of how new social networks, renown for spreading misinformation, can also correct it, when used properly. But the unfortunately predictable finale showed the opposite: counteracting false ideas about vaccines is not that easy. It will take time, a big deal of patience, communication skills and a good, coordinated strategy as well.
“We are so close to ending the polio” and “Still 15 years to a polio-free world” are not contradictory statements. They instead describe, with different degree of optimism, the current framework and the objective to be pursued in the fight against this disease. In other words, we are closer than ever to the target of a world free of polio, but much remains to be done to carry the world across the threshold. Polio eradication is the next issue public health authorities will be committed to in midterm future.
