Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Nation in brief

Study: New vaccine could be life-saver for children

By wire services
Published March 25, 2005

A new vaccine could save hundreds of thousands of children each year from dying of pneumonia and related ailments, according to scientists reporting today in a leading medical journal.

The vaccine, tested by a team of researchers in the West African nation of Gambia, was found to reduce overall childhood mortality by 16 percent.

"This vaccine not only prevents disease in kids who were vaccinated, it also interrupts transmission so their parents and grandparents and anyone else they come in contact with are at reduced risk of getting it," said Orin Levine of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who took part in the study.

The study is the first major vaccine trial in nearly 20 years to show a significant reduction in child mortality, he said.

A report on the vaccine trial appears in today's issue of the Lancet, a British medical journal.

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A sheriff's technician testified Thursday in Michael Jackson's molestation trial that she found a fingerprint from the brother of Jackson's accuser in an adult magazine seized from the singer's home.

Prosecutors also showed jurors hardcore sex images from magazine pages on which they said other prints were found, although they did not immediately identify the prints.

The testimony on fingerprint evidence was to support the boys' accounts that the pop star showed them sexually explicit magazines at his Neverland ranch.

Jackson is accused of molesting a boy at Neverland in February or March 2003.

JONESBORO, Ga. - A judge ruled Thursday that a suburban Atlanta sheriff had no right to fire 27 employees en masse when he took office in January.

Superior Court Judge Ben Miller said the employees were protected under Clayton County's civil service system. Sheriff Victor Hill had argued that the employees could be fired at will.

The employees have sued Hill, accusing him of racial, gender and age discrimination. Nineteen of them are white; Hill is black.

[Last modified March 25, 2005, 01:01:16]