There are a dizzying number of tips, hacks and recommendations on how to stay healthy, from dietary supplements to what color of clothes promotes optimal wellness. Some of these tips are helpful and based on good evidence, while others are not.

However, one of the easiest, most effective and safest ways to stay healthy is rarely mentioned: vaccination.

We are a preventive medicine physician and an immunologist who want people to live the healthiest lives possible. Among the many research-backed ways to live healthier, we encourage people to eat well, exercise regularly, get good sleep and care for their mental health.

Read more at The Conversation.

Earlier this week, Moderna announced positive results for its phase 3 clinical trial of a combined vaccine against COVID and influenza.

So what exactly did the trial find? And what sort of impact would a two-in-one COVID and flu vaccine have on public health? Let’s take a look.

Combination vaccines are already used for other diseases

Combination vaccines have been successfully used for several decades in Australia and around the world.

Read more at Science Alert.

On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, a different virus threatens to cause widespread illness and death, bring the global economy to its knees and throw us back into the chaos that we seemingly just emerged from with the virus SARS-CoV-2. That pathogen is, of course, bird flu or avian influenza, especially the H5N1 strain.

While we’re not there yet, nearly all the conditions are ripe for a new pandemic. H5N1 is seemingly everywhere we look. It’s in wild birds, factory farm birds, cats, mice and traces of it have shown up in milk thanks to hundreds, if not thousands, of dairy cows that have become the new focal point in this unwinding crisis. But a lot of open questions remain, including if we have the capacity to stop it in time.

Read more at Salon.

Measles is making a comeback globally and in the U.S. And not enough Coloradans, especially youngsters, are vaccinated against it to prevent it from hitting the state with a vengeance.

“We’re an accident waiting to happen,” said Susan Lontine, executive director of Immunize Colorado, which works to protect Coloradans from vaccine-preventable diseases. “I mean, we thought we eradicated all these things.”

One big warning sign: Just 88 percent of kindergarteners have gotten the MMR shot which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. That’s according to the latest data from the state health department.

Though that figure is an increase from last year, a percentage above 95 percent is considered ideal to provide community protection.

Read more at CPR.

Colorado’s vaccination rate held steady in the most recent school year, but pockets of the state remain vulnerable to outbreaks of measles and other diseases.

Last school year, 92.1% of children from kindergarten to 12th grade had all of their required shots or a valid exemption, which was virtually unchanged from the 2022-2023 school year. Kindergarteners had lower compliance rates, with 90.1% either up to date on their shots or holding an exemption.

About 93.6% of all schoolchildren had their combined measles, mumps and rubella shots, which are among the most important because a person with measles can infect nine out of 10 unvaccinated people they come across, said Susan Lontine, executive director of Immunize Colorado. Only 88% of kindergarteners had been vaccinated against measles, though.

Read more at The Denver Post.

Pregnant women who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 are less likely to have a cesarean section or experience hypertension, according to a study.

A meta-analysis funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre of 67 studies which included more than 1.8m women found that being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 had a protective benefit against infection and hospitalization, while vaccination with at least one dose lowered the risk of adverse pregnancy-related and neonatal outcomes.

Read more at News Medical.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it had advised drugmakers to update the Covid vaccines to target the KP.2 strain, a descendant of the highly contagious JN.1 variant that began circulating widely in the U.S. this winter. 

The announcement came just over a week after an FDA advisory panel voted unanimously to recommend that the Covid vaccines for the fall be updated to target the JN.1 variant or one of its descendants. 

Following the vote, there was a disagreement between panel members and Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, about which strain the agency should choose. Most panel members expressed a preference for JN.1, while Marks preferred selecting a newer strain, such as KP.2.

Read more at NBC.

“Do you have the COVID-19 vaccines here with you today?” was a question I received from a community member during a vaccine education session in San Bernardino, California, in September 2023. Sadly, I had to inform the congregant that I did not have the vaccines on hand as a previous vaccinating partner had recently jilted me.

This question marked a turning point in my three-year journey to promote vaccine uptake within Black communities in San Bernardino County. Gone were the questions heavily riddled with vaccine mistrust and weariness, and in their place was the intent to be immunized. This brings forth a harsh reality: We cannot address trustworthiness without addressing the ever-present accessibility barriers to preventative health across minoritized populations in the United States.

Read more at Science Speaks.

Ask a friend what DNA is and, chances are, they have a general idea.

Seventy years after scientists discovered the two-stranded helix, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is widely understood as the keeper of our genetic information and a window into our ancestry. It has become a household word.

Not so with RNA.

“RNA was never the star of the show,” writes Tom Cech, a distinguished professor of biochemistry at CU Boulder who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1989 for his research on RNA. “It was like a biochemical backup singer slaving away in the shadows of the diva.”

As Cech reveals in his new book “The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life’s Deepest Secrets,” RNA (ribonucleic acid) is having its moment, with research surging globally and more than 400 RNA-based drugs in development.

Read more at CU Boulder Today.

As much as we’d like to think that COVID-19 is behind us, the virus isn’t going anywhere. Health officials continue to recommend that people get vaccinated for both COVID-19 and influenza every year for the foreseeable future, and high hospitalization rates for COVID-19 in the past winter were a reminder that SARS-CoV-2 can still cause serious disease.

Soon, that may be possible with one shot instead of two. On June 10, Moderna reported that its combination COVID-19/influenza shot generated even better immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 and influenza than those elicited by existing, separate vaccines.

Read more at Time.