‘Practical Flow Cytometry’ online text

Practical Flow Cytometry by Howard M. Shapiro, 4th ed. (2003) is available online. The material has been made available for online viewing but cannot be copied or downloaded.

PBS public health series ‘Unnatural Causes’

A seven-part PBS series on public health called ‘Unnatural Causes’ starts tonight; check your local listings.

UNNATURAL CAUSES criss-crosses the country investigating the stories and findings that are shaking up conventional notions about what makes us healthy or sick. It turns out there’s much more to our well-being than genes, behaviors and medical care. The social, economic, and physical environments in which we are born, live and work profoundly affect our longevity and health – as much as smoking, diet and exercise.

The series sheds light on mounting evidence of how lack of access to power and resources can get under the skin and disrupt human biology as surely as germs and viruses. It also reveals a health gradient tied to wealth: those at the top of the class pyramid average longer, healthier lives, while those at the bottom are the most disempowered, get sicker more often and die sooner. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

What’s more, at every level, many communities of color are worse off than their white counterparts. Researchers believe that chronic stress over the life course may create an additional health burden for people of color.

Compelling personal stories illustrate obstacles and inequities in society but they also point the way to new possibilities, as individuals and communities organize to gain control over their destinies and their health.

As Harvard epidemiologist David Williams points out in the film, investing in our schools, improving housing, integrating neighborhoods, better jobs and wages, giving people more control over their work – these are as much health strategies as disease prevention and education efforts.

Biosafety links from AIHA

The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) has a well-organized collection of links for biosafety, from “animals in research” to “World Health Organization.”

World TB Day: “The Future of TB Laboratory Services” and more

“The Future of TB Laboratory Services” is a 44 page pdf report published in 2004 to present the conclusions of a task force commissioned by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Also available from APHL: External Quality Assessment for AFB Smear Microscopy

Slide presentations from the Fourth National Conference on Laboratory Aspects of Tuberculosis (2002)

World TB Day – Monday, March 24, 2008

This coming Monday, March 24, is World TB Day.

Here is information from the World Health Organization (WHO):

World TB Day raises awareness about the global epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) and efforts to eliminate the disease. One-third of the world’s population is currently infected with TB. The Stop TB Partnership, a network of organizations and countries fighting TB, organizes the Day to highlight the scope of the disease and how to prevent and cure it.

The annual event on 24 March marks the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch detected the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. This was a first step towards diagnosing and curing tuberculosis. WHO is working to cut TB prevalence rates and deaths by half by 2015.

From the CDC: Trends in Tuberculosis — United States, 2007 (MMWR)

Todar’s Online Textbook of Bacteriology

Update on “Public domain Army correspondence courses”

Public access is still available for the Army correspondence courses listed in this earlier post. The links have now been updated and two new courses have been added: Clinical Chemistry I and II.

If you find broken links on the site, please leave a comment and I will try to update them.

“Great Teachers – The Modern World of Foodborne Disease”: NIH videocast tomorrow (March 12)

National Institutes of Health (NIH) videocast 

Wednesday, March 12
12 noon – 1 p.m.   (Eastern)

Contemporary Clinical Medicine: Great Teachers
The Modern World of Foodborne Disease
Michael T. Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Professor, School of Public Health
Director, Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy
University of Minnesota
Lecture will be videocast, http://videocast.nih.gov/
CME credit requires live or live webcast viewing.  To obtain a CME evaluation form for remote reviewing, please contact Sheila Stitt at 301-496-9425 or stitts@mail.cc.nih.gov.

For more information:  

The full listing of upcoming events at NIH videocasting.
More information on the speaker, Dr. Michael T. Osterholm.
NIH videocast archived events (over 3800 events are available and searchable)

Nebraska FTIR Proficiency Testing Program

“The Nebraska Public Health Laboratory is announcing open enrollment for its Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Proficiency Testing (PT) Program. This open enrollment is intended to make the program available to laboratories and agencies nationwide.”

For more information visit http://nphl.org/NebraskaFTIRProficiencyTestingProgram.html

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Additional FTIR links: 

An online FTIR tutorial is available here.

Dr Shulamit Levin’s FTIR page

 

CDC: updated ricin information

The CDC has updated information on ricin at the Emergency Preparedness & Response section of their website.