Carol Baker appointed chair of national CDC advisory committee on immunization practices Oct 20, 2009
Dr. Baker's work has focused on all aspects of pediatric infectious diseases, particularly all aspects of group B streptococcal infections including research to develop a vaccine. Her policy work in the early 1990s led to the U.S. recommendations for intrapartum chemoprophylaxis to prevent early-onset group B streptococcal disease in neonates. (EurekAlert! -- Business News)
How To Fix Racial Disparities in Medical Care Aug 18, 2009
Universal screening of group B streptococcal infections during pregnancy in newborn infections, racial disparities of deadly pneumococcal infections in children over the past decade after universal Prevnar vaccination began, and a Medicare-backed reporting plan from only 46 percent among whites and 36 percent among blacks to roughly 85 percent among all comers. In fact, these kinds of race- and class-blind interventions are arguably the only ones proven to reduce disparities on a meaningful... (Slate)
Group B Strep Screening Guidelines Sparing Newborns Jun 19, 2009
WEDNESDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- Recommendations implemented in 2002 to screen all pregnant women for group B streptococcal disease have largely been successful, a new report shows. Eighty-five percent of women in the United States are now being screened and, if positive, given appropriate treatment. (MEDLINEplus)
Evaluation of Universal Antenatal Screening for Group B Streptococcus Jun 18, 2009
Background Group B streptococcal disease is one of the most common infections in the first week after birth ... Methods We evaluated the implementation of the guidelines in a multistate, retrospective cohort selected from the Active Bacterial Core surveillance, a 10-state, population-based system that monitors invasive group B streptococcal disease ... We abstracted data from the labor and delivery records of a stratified random sample of live births and of all cases in which the newborn had... (New England Journal of Medicine)
