PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — There’s a push to recognize a medical pioneer in Washington on Wednesday. Henrietta Lacks is known around the world for her remarkable contributions to medicine.

Now, some lawmakers are suggesting a more concrete reward.

A congressional honor is being considered for Henrietta Lacks. That many feel is long overdue.

“We are so glad that finally, the world is getting to know all about Henrietta Lacks,” Kim Lacks said.

More than 70 years after her death, Henrietta Lacks’ mark on medical research lives on. A remarkable impact that her family and a group of lawmakers want to honor with the congressional gold medal.

Read more at CBS.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved two separate vaccines to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in older adults aged 60 and up.

GSK’s vaccine, Arexvy, was the first-ever RSV vaccine to be approved in the United States when it earned approval in early May. Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, called Abrysvo, followed suit just a month later.

Both vaccines show promising results in preventing severe RSV—a highly contagious virus that causes cold and flu-like symptoms. While RSV causes mild illness in most people, it can be deadly for young children and older adults, especially those with underlying medical conditions.

Read more at Verywell Health.

Starting at about age 7 through age 18, children and teens need a number of important vaccines to protect them.

The vaccines that are recommended for them help prevent major health problems, including infertility, muscle paralysis, brain damage, blindness, deafness and cancer.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other medical groups all agree on the schedule of recommended immunizations. They recommend these vaccines at specific ages. Why? It is the age when the vaccine works the best with your child or teen’s immune system. It is also the time when your child or teen needs the protection the most.

Read more at Medical Xpress.

LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) – Childhood immunisation rates began to recover last year in the world’s poorest countries after being badly hit by COVID-19 disruptions, according to the global vaccine alliance Gavi.

Last year, 80% of children got their diptheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine, known as DTP3, according to early data from Gavi. That compares to 78% in 2020 and 77% in 2021. Before the pandemic hit, coverage rates had reached 82%.

Global health groups have called the pandemic’s impact on routine immunisation for children “the largest backslide in a generation”.

Read more at Reuters.

Public health officials have spent the past two years urging people to get vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, but despite free and available vaccines, many have yet to take their advice. Now, we are entering a new phase. With the end of the federal Public Health Emergency (PHE) on May 11, the government will no longer pay for COVID-19 tests or vaccines. In addition, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced earlier this month that his organization will lift the COVID-19 emergency status.

Even so, COVID-19 persists with new variants emerging and infections in the U.S. still numbering more than 77,000 per week. We need a new public health framework that can safeguard our communities, especially those most at risk, from the ravages of the virus. In healthcare, we talk about a community-based approach often, which is especially necessary when trying to reach those most at risk, including African Americans.

Read more at AFRO news.

A vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease. It sounds amazing, even fantastical – but we are a lot closer to this goal than you might think. As well as providing a new and innovative therapeutic option for a disease that has been notoriously difficult to treat, vaccination could unlock the door to that most elusive of objectives: prevention. We’ve dived into the latest science and spoken to an expert at the cutting edge of this field to bring you the lowdown on where this research is headed, with the aim of answering the all-important question, “Just how close are we to a vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease?”

Read more at IFL Science.

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved Pfizer’s vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus for people aged 60 and older, making it the second RSV shot authorized for use in the U.S.

Why it matters: With the earlier approval of GlaxoSmithKline’s RSV vaccine, older adults could soon have a choice of shots against the virus.

• RSV causes up to 10,000 deaths and as many as 160,000 hospitalizations a year for adults 65 and up, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What we’re watching: The CDC needs to first recommend both the Pfizer and GSK vaccines before they’re made available to the public.

• An advisory committee for the agency will discuss both vaccines at a meeting in late June.

Read more at Axios.

The world has waited decades for vaccines to protect older adults against RSV. One, made by GSK, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month. A second, made by Pfizer, is expected to follow by the end of May. Both will likely be in use this fall, in time to protect seniors going into the next RSV season.

So it’s tempting to think the fight against respiratory syncytial virus in older adults is about to kick into high gear, that as early as next winter the United States might start to see a turning of the tide in terms of the number of seniors who develop severe disease from a bout of RSV.

Maybe. Hopefully.

Read more at STAT News.

While society yawns, impatient to move on from the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans still play disability roulette. About 1 in 10 of the 110,000 people who catch COVID this week in the United States, many for a second or third time, will be left lastingly ill. Even some vaccinated people; even some young, previously healthy people, after only mild cases.

No longer a mass death event, COVID-19 is an ongoing mass disability event. Every seven days, 25,000 more people join the 10 million in our country suffering memory loss, heart problems, dizziness, extreme fatigue, and more owing to the virus. Globally an estimated 65 million people have this new chronic health condition. One recent long COVID study showed organ damage in more than half of a group of outpatients one year on.

Read more at Boston Globe.

Vaccine experts tend to be a serious bunch, but many are downright giddy about vaccine clinical trial results presented last week at a medical conference in Seattle.

The actual vaccine isn’t new — it’s the one used to protect against measles and rubella (German measles) and was formulated decades ago. But new results show that the novel delivery system, in development for more than two decades, could be a big step forward, especially for low-income countries.

There’s no syringe involved. Rather, there’s a small adhesive patch — think Band-Aid — containing tiny microarray “needles” made from the vaccine in dry form, says Steve Damon, CEO of Micron Biomedical, which has been working on the patch for about six years.

Read more at NPR.