Today, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the approval of the first 13* human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines for use in NIH-funded research.  Children’s Hospital in Boston developed 11 of the approved lines and Rockefeller University in New York City developed two additional lines.

All of the approved lines were obtained from embryos left over by couples seeking treatment for infertility who consented to their use for research under the NIH’s Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research. Read the rest of this entry »

The Centers for Disease Control is warning the public about fraudulent emails that appear to come from the CDC and tell people to create a “Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile” on the CDC website.

Clicking on a link in the email takes the receiver to a site that looks very much like the CDC’s own web pages.  Once there, readers are encouraged to download a file which loads a malicious program on their computers which can collect sensitive information and steal identities.

The CDC stresses that they are not sponsoring a personal vaccination profile program requiring registration online. Read the rest of this entry »