— An AIDS vaccine touted as being 31% effective over three years might not actually stay protective for that long. Researchers announced yesterday that the low HIV infection rate among the Thai population tested may have distorted the study’s findings, first reported in September. “It is very likely that this vaccine only worked for a short period of time,” possibly only a year, said study author Nelson Michael of the Walter Reed Army Research Institute in Maryland. (Reuters)

— GE Healthcare has dropped its libel suit against Henrik Thomsen, a Danish clinician who allegedly claimed that the company’s MRI contrast drug Omniscan can sometimes cause potentially fatal complications among patients with kidney disease. Thomsen had filed a countersuit earlier this week, retaliating over a since-removed GE press release that said he made “knowingly false and inaccurate statements.” Yesterday, GE said it welcomes a “principled debate” over safety. (The Guardian)

— Andrew Wakefield, the controversial doctor behind a retracted study linking MMR vaccination and autism, has stepped down as executive director and research chief of the Thoughtful House Center for Children in Austin, Texas. The non-profit autism center says Wakefield left voluntarily, three weeks after his research actions were deemed unethical by the UK General Medical Council. (London Times)

— The latest animal model to catch researchers’ eyes is none other than the friendly mammal of the sea: the dolphin. Scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting yesterday said that dolphins could be the first animal model for human type 2 diabetes. The aquatic mammals enter a diabetic state at night when not feeding, likely triggered by a genetic switch that researchers could potentially find in humans. Dolphins are also the only animals, besides humans, that can harbor multiple papillomavirus infections, which could help shed light on the cervical cancer these viruses cause in humans — although dolphins themselves show no sign of cervical cancer development. All this research, however, may be impeded by scientists’ belief that dolphins have sophisticated intelligence, and thus a vulnerability to suffering and trauma.

Image by talkrhubarb via Flickr Creative Commons