Last January, the scientific journal Nature published a news about scientists who do research funded by the Gates Foundation, who are not allowed to publish their work in those journals that do not comply with the Foundation’s open-access policy. This is the case of important publications such as Nature, Science and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Immunization rates in Italy are decreasing at a worrying trend: international targets for measles eradication and safety thresholds in childhood vaccination are vanishing. Authorities, doctors and families are concerned that a coverage below 86% for MPR (measles, parotitis and rubella) vaccine can impair herd immunity, putting younger babies, immunocompromised people and not-responders at risk.
Most emerging diseases come from animals (zoonosis). Therefore, surveillance needs to keep an eye on viruses and other microorganisms that could be transmitted to humans, acquiring the capability to spread among people. Ilaria Capua, director of the One Health Excellence Centre at the Emerging Pathogens Institute of the University of Florida, USA, recommends not letting our guard down.
Ilaria Capua, as director of the One Health Excellence Centre at the Emerging Pathogens Institute of the University of Florida, USA, is very busy in coordinating interdisciplinary research, facing the epidemic of zika virus disease spreading in South America and the Caribbean and reaching Florida. Scientists are testing new diagnostic tests and working on vaccines, but the risk of serious birth defects in the offspring of infected pregnant women calls also for responsible procreative choices, involving lawmakers, governments and religious leaders as well.
Internationally, the issue of including women in clinical trials of medicines has been addressed in various guidelines issued by the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH), which promotes regulatory standards for clinical trials. While ICH has specific guidelines on the conduct of clinical trials in paediatric and geriatric populations, there are no consolidated guidelines for the investigation of medicinal product in women.
Month by month, the diseases spread across the world, cities fall into panic and some of them are even wiped out by virulent outbreaks, while tenacious experts cooperate to find a cure before it’s too late.
An increasing perception of the importance of gender differences is moving scientists to study these aspects in the different branches of medicine. In immunology, for example, a new awareness is emerging that women and men’s defences do not react to infections and vaccines in the same way. Katie Flanagan, senior lecturer of the Department of Immunology at Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia, tells ASSET what is the state-of-the-art knowledge and evidence in this field so far.
Attention to sex and gender in biomedical, health and clinical research is an important quality and safety issue. Medicinal products are safer and more effective for everyone when clinical research includes diverse population groups. Historically, women’s health issues have focused on reproductive health, followed by gender issues such as behaviour, socio-economic factors, culture, lifestyles and influence biological development and health.
A change in the attitude towards science, coming from an understanding of its limits, interferes with people’s trust towards vaccination. Hesitancy and refusal in this field have their roots in a relationship between science and society that is different from what it used to be. A great role in this is played by media, which are somehow forced to publish what people want to hear and read, despite scientific evidence, in order to make profit, or just to survive.
