Former President Bill Clinton, and his daughter, Chelsea, will be among the dignitaries honored next month at the Harvard School of Public Health as the institution celebrates its 100th anniversary. Also slated to receive a Centennial Medal in a ceremony Oct. 24 is Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, co-founder of Partners In Health and former chair of the HMS Department of Global Health and Social Medicine.
Some intensive-care patients receive expensive treatments that don’t prolong life while increasing pain and suffering, a study found. Robert Truog, HMS professor of anaesthesia (pediatrics) at Boston Children’s Hospital, wrote an editorial accompanying the study.
Scientists have known for decades that people with Down syndrome were at increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, but they didn’t know why. Brian Skotko, HMS assistant professor of pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital and Cindy Lemere, HMS associate professor of neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, are quoted.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University have launched a human trial to test a potential vaccine against melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. Don Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard and the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at HMS, is quoted.
The trillions of bacteria that live in the gut — helping digest foods, making some vitamins, making amino acids — may help determine if a person is fat or thin. The evidence is from a novel experiment involving mice and humans that is part of a growing fascination with gut bacteria and their role in health and diseases like irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease. Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard University, is quoted.
Men, it turns out, are more likely to delay treatment for serious conditions under high-deductible plans, in contrast to women, who tend to be more selective and cut back care for minor ailments only. Frank Wharam and Alison Galbraith, both HMS assistant professors of population medicine, are quoted.
Cognitive behavioral therapy can be a powerful tool for preventing depression, equaling or exceeding the effectiveness of antidepressants and other types of care, according to two new studies. William Beardslee, the George P. Gardner and Olga E. Monks Professor of Child Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Boston Children’s Hospital, led one of the studies.
According to a new study, yelling — defined as shouting, cursing or insult-hurling — may be “just as detrimental” as physical punishment to the long-term well-being of adolescents. Steven Schlozman, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.
Slightly more patients with terminal cancer are getting hospice care during the end of their lives, but they are still entering hospice care too late — within days of death — finds a new national analysis. Lachlan Forrow, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Susan Block, HMS professor of psychiatry at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, are quoted.
