LEIDEN, Netherlands — Dutch biopharmaceutical company Crucell announced March 8 that Jerald C. Sadoff was appointed chief medical officer will be a member of its management committee.

Vitamin D

LONDON — Vitamin D is vital in activating human defenses and low levels suffered by around half the world's population may mean their immune systems' killer T cells are poor at fighting infection, scientists said March 7.

Meningitis

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The seven bacterial meningitis cases at Ohio University the past two years have been declared an outbreak by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Columbus Dispatch reported March 7.

Hepatits B

About one in five babies born to mothers with hepatitis B aren't getting treatments that have been shown to prevent the infection in newborns, a study whose findings were released online March 8 in advance of the April print issue of Pediatrics.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced March 8 that it would decide whether a federal law protects vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits in state court seeking damages for alleged design defects.

HIV

A seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine can protect adults with HIV against recurrent pneumococcal infection, according to research published in the March 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded Abt Associates two new contracts to evaluate the effectiveness of the H1N1 vaccine among health care workers and children younger than 18, the company announced March 5.

H1N1

WASHINGTON — First, people were clamoring for H1N1 vaccines, but there were not enough to go around. By the time vaccines were available in any quantity, most of the public had lost interest.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not planning to seek advice from its outside advisers over Dendreon Corp.'s experimental prostate cancer vaccine, Reuters reported March 5.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received reports of several cases of malaria in Haiti since a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the country Jan. 12.