December 8-14 is National Influenza Vaccination Week.

The week-long emphasis on flu vaccination was established to highlight the importance of continuing influenza vaccination, as well as fostering greater use of flu vaccine after the holiday season into January and beyond.

National Influenza Vaccination Week provides an opportunity for public health professionals, health care professionals, health advocates, communities, and families from across the country to work together to promote flu vaccination before the traditional winter peak in flu activity.

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LifeScience Moment: The Harrison Narcotic Act was passed, mandating narcotic and prescription drug requirements."

On December 17, 1914. the Harrison Narcotic Act was passed by Congress which mandated narcotic and prescription drug requirements. The act which regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates was proposed by Representative Francis Burton Harrison of New York City.

Harrison was lobbied by Dr. Hamilton Wright, a prohibition advocate, who claimed that cocaine gave Negroes superhuman strength, criminal drive, and hatred of white authority. Notably, the Act did not specifically prohibit drugs, but mandated that a physician, dentist, or veterinarian could only prescribe drugs "in the course of his professional practice". Prosecutors interpreted that to mean that prescriptions for non-medicinal drug use were prohibited, and arrests of both addicts and doctors began almost immediately.

This Act is generally accepted as the beginning of American drug regulation. Over subsequent decades, the Harrison Act was revised to be more and more restrictive, and state laws were patterned after the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.

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BioEvolution Posters

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It's a Small World
	H1N1 Influenza Virus

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Science Quote

"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere."

-	Isacc Asimov, American writer
(1920-1992)