Meningitis B vaccine

Everyday I visit the BBC news website, focusing particularly on the health section in an attempt to keep myself informed of the medical advancements that are occurring in the world at present, since obviously medicine and disease are constantly evolving. Today I read an article that particularly captured my attention, it was about the a disagreement on the pricing of a vaccination against meningitis B - Bexsero. After reading this article I can't help but feel two things, one slightly concerned at how little I knew of meningitis despite being such a prominent issue, with approximately 1870 new cases each year in the UK alone, but also quite annoyed and angry that something as life changing as a vaccination for meningitis B, the most common cause of bacterial meningitis, is not being admitted to babies due to something, in my opinion, as silly as a price.

Addressing my feelings on the second issue first, as I would imagine this would be the most controversial and possibly ignorant comment on my behalf. Bexsero the vaccination developed is a vaccine that consists of an inactivated strain of meningitis B combined with proteins found on the surface of meningococcal bacteria, the new vaccine is said to protect against 88% of the strains circulating the UK at present. Bexsero is owned by GSK, which recently acquired it from Novartis due to a recent transaction, and they are currently offering the vaccination at £75 privately.

The Dress...

This past week the internet has been raging over the question is the dress white and gold or is it blue and black. Whilst this dress is not actually related to medicine, I wanted to write about the true colour of this dress and the reason behind why so many people see different colours of it, in order to hopefully end some disputes. 

The divide in whether the colour of the dress is black and blue or white and gold, is due to colour constancy phenomenon. "Colour constancy is a part of the visual perception system which allows people to perceive colour in a variety of conditions, and to see some consistency in the colour." It allows the brain to make assumptions on colour due to it's surroundings.


The photo of the dress is so close up that the surroundings are extremely ambiguous, this in turn leads to the brain having to make assumptions on the surroundings of the dress.