By Savanna Ledford Wendy’s is a popular fast-food chain that promises quality and offers great late night eats to over 12 million loyal customers.1 However, in a turn of events that turned stomachs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched an E. coli investigation after 97 people fell ill after eating sandwiches with … Continue reading “Quality is our Recipe” – Lettuce Reconsider That Slogan
infectious disease
Epstein-Barr Virus and Multiple Sclerosis: How a Ubiquitous Pathogen Leads to Rare Disease
By Cole Burgess Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an auto-immune disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that involves auto-reactive lymphocytes (simplified to B cells). MS affects 400,000 people in the United States and nearly 2 million people worldwide, according to a study published in 20181. MS occurs more commonly in women than men at a … Continue reading Epstein-Barr Virus and Multiple Sclerosis: How a Ubiquitous Pathogen Leads to Rare Disease
COVID-19 Causes Lingering Brain Fog: How Can We Combat The Effects?
By Laura Budurlean Are you a victim of “brain fog”? You can blame the pandemic. Individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, resulting in COVID-19, sometimes experience lingering brain fog, one of the symptoms of post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PACS or “long-COVID”). Brain fog is characterized by a general confusion, an inability to focus, and decreased mental clarity … Continue reading COVID-19 Causes Lingering Brain Fog: How Can We Combat The Effects?
Navigating Conversations with Vaccine-Hesitant Family and Friends
By Julia Simpson One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, members of my extended family began reaching out to me with questions about the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines that the FDA had approved under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) just a month prior1, 2. Anti-vaccine rhetoric rang through their social circles and media, and they hoped that, … Continue reading Navigating Conversations with Vaccine-Hesitant Family and Friends
Tackling HIV Prevention, One Shot At A Time
By Chris Kendra Fighting the spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has become easier than ever with newly developed therapeutics. In addition to current once-daily pills, new tools in the fight against the HIV epidemic have come in the form of two types of long-lasting injectable HIV medications, one as a first line prophylactic and … Continue reading Tackling HIV Prevention, One Shot At A Time
How We Almost Eradicated Polio
By Sonam Lhamo In the late 1940s and early 1950s, polio was a feared infectious disease in the U.S. During summers, when the disease peaked, parents would keep their children from going to swimming pools and movies for fear of their children contracting polio from infected children1. Polio is a highly contagious, infectious disease caused … Continue reading How We Almost Eradicated Polio
What’s the buzz about Mosquirix?
By Victoria Silvis While the world has focused on rapidly developing a vaccine for SARS-CoV2, the WHO recently approved a vaccine that has been developed for malaria, a serious illness endemic to poorer tropic and subtropic regions globally. In 2020 alone, there were 229 million cases with an estimated half a million deaths.1 Malaria infections … Continue reading What’s the buzz about Mosquirix?
Controlling Outbreaks Before They Happen – Targeting Emerging Diseases at the Source
By Ian Hayman Bird Flu. Ebola. Hantavirus. Dengue. Zika. SARS-CoV2. Bubonic Plague. West Nile. Malaria. These pathogens are often cast as the central antagonist, the great evil in many books, movies, and in real life. Even hearing their names can produce a visceral response, a sense of dread in the back of the head about … Continue reading Controlling Outbreaks Before They Happen – Targeting Emerging Diseases at the Source
Recycling Pseudoscience for the Coronavirus Pandemic
By Carson Purnell Early in 2020, the tone around the Covid-19 pandemic quickly changed from a ‘bad flu’ to a worldwide catastrophe, to be compared to the 1918 flu pandemic’s 50-100 million deaths1. Nobody in the world had specific immunity to this pathogen, and it was clear the novel coronavirus was highly contagious and had … Continue reading Recycling Pseudoscience for the Coronavirus Pandemic
Are We Ready for a COVID-19 Vaccine?
By Gaelyn Lyons At this point, no one is a stranger to COVID-19. We have all been affected by the virus, whether it be socially, physically, or mentally. As of August 15th, there have been about 5.2 million cases in the US, of which about 167,000 patients have died (CDC, 2020). Although it feels as … Continue reading Are We Ready for a COVID-19 Vaccine?
Lions Talk Science 