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Most childhood vaccines are 90–99% effective in preventing disease. Side effects are rarely serious.
Approximately 25% of all reported medication errors result from some kind of name confusion.
People about to have surgery must tell their health care providers about all supplements they take.
Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system destroys its own healthy tissues. When this occurs, white blood cells cannot distinguish between pathogens and normal cells.
As many as 28% of hospitalized patients requiring mechanical ventilators to help them breathe (for more than 48 hours) will develop ventilator-associated pneumonia. Current therapy involves intravenous antibiotics, but new antibiotics that can be inhaled (and more directly treat the infection) are being developed.