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Studies Find Little to No Immunity to H5N1 Avian Flu Virus in Americans
The American population has little to no pre-existing immunity to the H5N1 avian flu virus circulating on dairy and poultry farms, according to preliminary findings from ongoing testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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How Antisemites, Extremists and Conspiracy Theorists are Exploiting the Anti-Vax Movement
The days of lockdowns and social distancing are behind us, but anti-vaccine narratives remain prevalent on social media, and extremists continue to exploit these sentiments to recruit new members, raise money and mainstream their beliefs. Many extremists view anti-vaxxers as a massive pool of potential fresh recruits and followers primed for the “red pill.”
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ARPA-H Announces Program to Enhance and Automate Cybersecurity for Health Care Facilities
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) announced the launch of the Universal PatchinG and Remediation for Autonomous DEfense (UPGRADE) program, a cybersecurity effort that will invest more than $50 million to create tools for information technology (IT) teams to better defend the hospital environments they are tasked with securing.
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Study Reveals Persistent Risk of Death, Symptoms in COVID Survivors at 3 Years
COVID-19 patients hospitalized with the wild-type virus in 2020 were at a 29% higher risk for death than their nonhospitalized counterparts 3 years later, and even those with mild illness still reported new-onset health consequences.
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Ground-Breaking Study Reveals How COVID-19 Vaccines Prevent Severe Disease
A landmark study by scientists at the University of Oxford, has unveiled crucial insights into the way that COVID-19 vaccines mitigate severe illness in those who have been vaccinated.
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As States Loosen Childhood Vaccine Requirements, Health Experts’ Worries Grow
Vaccines protect not only the patient, but also those around them. Science has shown that a population can reach community immunity, also known as herd immunity, once a certain percentage of the group is vaccinated. That herd immunity can protect people who can’t get vaccinated, such as those with weakened immune systems or serious allergies, by reducing their chances of infection. But vaccine mandate opponents say it is not about science, but about their individual freedoms.
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Did a Worm Really Eat Part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Brain?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was found to have a pork tapeworm larva lodged in his brain. Cases in the US are reported to be in the hundreds per year. It is also an incredibly rare infection to encounter in Europe. Humans are the main host of mature tapeworms, but they need help from other intermediaries to spread.
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X's Crowdsourced Tool to Counter COVID Untruths mainly accurate, credible: Researchers
Community Notes, a crowdsourced COVID-19 vaccine misinformation countermeasure on X (formerly Twitter), generally corrected false posts accurately and pointed readers to more credible sources, according to researchers who evaluated the posts.
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COVID May Have Eroded Doctors' Belief That They Are Obligated to Treat Infectious Patients
Broadly disseminated misinformation about the disease — e.g., how the virus spreads, effective treatments, vaccine efficacy and safety, and more – contributed to the erosion of doctors’ commitment to treat infectious disease patients because of doctors’ fear that they would contract the disease.
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Oregon Data: COVID Vaccines Not Tied to Sudden Cardiac Death in Young People
A review of death certificates of previously healthy Oregon residents aged 16 to 30 years who died of cardiac or undetermined causes from June 2021 to December 2022 found no link between mRNA COVID-19 vaccination and sudden cardiac death.
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H5N1 Continues to Spread in the U.S. Amid Growing Concern About Threat to Public
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5) viruses continue to spread across the United States, with nearly 86 million birds affected in 1,118 reported outbreaks across 48 states as of April 10. CDCconfirmed case of H5N1 in a human patient in Texas.
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Action Needed to Improve U.S. Smallpox Readiness and Diagnostics, Vaccines, and Therapeutics: Report
A new report says that action is needed to enhance U.S. readiness for smallpox and related diseases, as well as to improve diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics that could be used in case of an outbreak. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed weaknesses in the ability of U.S. public health and health care systems to adapt and respond to an unfamiliar pathogen, as did challenges during the recent mpox outbreak to rapidly making diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics available at scale.
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U.S. Drugs with Noted Supply-Chain Risks 5 Times More Likely to Go into Shortage in Early COVID
In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, US prescription drugs flagged for potential supply-chain disruptions were nearly five times more likely to go into shortage than those without such warnings, finds a new study.
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Canada’s Biosecurity Scandal: The Risks of Foreign Interference in Life Sciences
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorized a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah. Then the story seemed to go away—until now.
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Avian Flu Infects Person Exposed to Sick Cows in Texas
Federal and state health officials yesterday reported that a person connected to a dairy farm in Texas has tested positive for H5N1 avian flu, the first known case linked to sick dairy cows and the nation’s second since the virus began circulating in wild bird and poultry in 2022.
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The long view
Huge Areas May Face Possibly Fatal Heat Waves if Warming Continues
A new assessment warns that if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2 degrees C over the preindustrial average, widespread areas may become too hot during extreme heat events for many people to survive without artificial cooling.