August is National Immunization Awareness Month
The goal of National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM) is to increase awareness about
immunizations across the life span, from infants to the elderly.
Immunization is one of the most significant public health achievements of the 20th century.
Vaccines have eradicated smallpox, eliminated wild poliovirus in the U.S. and significantly
reduced the number of cases of measles, diphtheria, rubella, pertussis and other diseases.
But despite these efforts, people in the U.S. still die from these and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
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LifeScience Moment: German chemist Felix Hoffmann synthesized aspirin and heroin.
On August 10, 1897, German chemist Felix Hoffmann searching for something to relieve his father's arthritis synthesized acetylsalicylic acid (ASA)
aspirin and heroin, and Bayer began to market the substance as Aspirin.
Felix Hoffmann is generally recognized for the creating the first synthesized medically forms of heroin and aspirin. However,
this is disputed and others believe that Arthur Eichengrun was the real inventor. In 2002, Hoffmann was inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame.
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It's a Small World
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Norovirus Virions (Photo Credit: Charles D. Humphrey)
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Science Quote
"No effect that requires more than 10 percent accuracy in measurement is worth investigating."
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Walther Nernst German physicist, chemist. Nobel prize, 1920
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(1864-1941)
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