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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...AIDS Vaccine In a field that has seen more failure than success, experts received the news of an effective new AIDS vaccine with a fair share of skepticism. In September, a $105 million trial of a novel combination of two older vaccines was the first to show protection against HIV infection. The results of the trial, which involved more than 16,000 volunteers, suggested that the vaccine was 31% effective at preventing infection among those who were inoculated. It was a modest outcome, given that behavior-based prevention methods, like condom use, can be equally if not more effective...
...patients, cancer advocacy groups and politicians vehemently opposed the rolled-back recommendations, fearing they were a harbinger of health care rationing or that insurance companies would be tempted to stop covering screening in younger women. That concern was put to rest in December, however, when the Senate cast its first votes on health care reform, approving an amendment to guarantee coverage of mammograms and preventive screening tests. See the Top 10 Scientific Discoveries...
...stem-cell lines already in existence. Before embarking on such research, however, scientists had to wait for a working group at the National Institutes of Health to vet the stem-cell lines and ensure that they were generated responsibly, according to stringent ethical and scientific principles. In December, the first lines to pass this test became available. See the top 10 green ideas...
...H1N1 vaccine when flu season officially kicked off in the fall. Despite the fact that the vaccine had proved effective in trials with one dose - rather than two, as researchers had originally expected - the vaccine supply from U.S. manufacturers still couldn't keep pace with demand in the first weeks of October, when the first million or so shots rolled off production lines. In many places around the country, there was not enough vaccine even to cover members of priority groups targeted by the government, including young children, pregnant women, health care workers, parents of infants younger than 6 months...
...Stem-Cell-Created Mice The birth of yet another laboratory mouse is hardly worth noting - unless the furry creature is the first to be developed from stem cells that do not involve embryonic cells. That deserves to be called a breakthrough. The new pups, whose creation in two separate labs in China was announced in July, were the first to be bred from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. These are adult cells (usually skin cells) that scientists reprogram back to their embryonic state by introducing four genes. The reprogrammed stem cells are then programmed again to develop into mice...