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The controversial school vaccine bill SB 277, which met several protests by supporters and opponents of the bill, has been passed by California Senate on Thursday by a vote of 25-10. The bill aims at improving the vaccination rates among children in the state. The senate has permitted medical exemptions, but the exemptions based on personal and religious objections will not be permitted.

Now, the bill will go through the Assembly. It would not offer any option to parents in the state to opt out of state immunization requirements on the basis of their personal beliefs. According to reports, only those children will be excused from vaccinations who have medical problems like weakened immune system. The medical problems should also be verified by a physician.

On Friday, officials said all the poultry shows have been canceled at the Minnesota State Fair and all county fairs across the state this year as authorities are trying to stop a deadly bird flu virus. Other states have already made or are also considering such kind of moves.

Dr. Beth Thompson, assistant director of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, said the cancellations will prove helpful in preventing the spread of the disease ‘by not allowing the birds to be comingling’.

So far till Friday, 88 Minnesota turkey and chicken farms had been affected by confirmed or presumed outbreaks of the H5N2 avian influenza virus, costing the state's producers around 5.8 million birds.

Last year, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) along with Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) announced the launch of 21st Century Cures. It was an initiative aimed at speeding up the pace of cures and medical breakthroughs in the United States by making sure that our laws are keeping pace with innovation.

At that time, Chairman Upton said it was the first time ever that they in Congress have decided to take a comprehensive look at what steps they could take to accelerate the pace of cures in America.

Health experts in laboratories globally have tried their best to devise ways to end the largest Ebola epidemic on record. Now, technology experts have also been coming up with new ways to attack the virus with the help of smartphones and Ebola-proof tablets.

Since the outbreak started in December 2013, recording and tracking of the victims of Ebola in the West African nations of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia has proved a major challenge. It spread rapidly, killing over 11,000 people.

Ivan Gayton, an emergency coordinator with the medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said that inefficient tracking was not helpful, with workers in treatment centers that shared information about patients by shouting it over a fence to colleagues in a low-risk zone to record by hand.

A novel study has found that a form of vitamin B3, known as nicotinamide, can reduce a person’s risk of developing skin cancer by 23%.

The researchers from the University of Sydney recruited 386 patients. They were divided into two sub-groups: one of them has to take the vitamin and the other group has to take a placebo pill twice a day.

They were followed for five years and the researchers came to know that the preventive effect of the vitamin against skin cancer starts after three months of pill intake. Risk of basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas on people in the group taking the vitamin was 23% less than those who took the placebo pill.

Athletes are known to have great level of fitness and performance. But a new study has found that they may also suffer from cardiovascular abnormalities.

Therefore, the researchers have suggested that athletes should also undergo heart screening to know whether or not they have been suffering from any life-threatening disease.

An experiment was carried out in which 2,354 elite athletes were enrolled. Tests were carried out on them and it was found that six had potentially fatal disorders owing to which they were disqualified from taking part.

For now, it is not known as to why athletes are at increased risk of sudden death. But some have suggested that some extensive exercise can put pressure on heart muscles and enlarging them.