The life-course approach to vaccination: Harnessing the benefits of vaccination throughout life.

Vaccination beyond childhood brings significant benefits at the individual, community and socio-economic levels. Despite this, immunisation programmes often fail to deliver the vaccines which could protect those at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases. In this commentary, we argue that the benefits of vaccination beyond childhood must be more widely understood and furthermore, that action must be taken by policymakers, healthcare professionals and patient and civil society organisations to ensure that the benefits of vaccination are fully realised.

Impact of heterozygote CFTR mutations in COPD patients with chronic bronchitis.

Background: Cigarette smoking causes Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S. CFTR ion transport dysfunction has been implicated in COPD pathogenesis, and is associated with chronic bronchitis.