Published6 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingBy Rachel SchraerHealth and disinformation reporterBlood sugar-monitors are unnecessary for people without diabetes and could, in extreme cases, fuel eating disorders, leading doctors have warned. They are part of a personalised diet trend, promoted on social media and spearheaded by companies including ZOE. But NHS national diabetes advisor Prof Partha Kar said there is no strong evidence the gadgets help people without the condition. ZOE said research is at an early stage but is “cutting edge”. In people with diabetes, blood sugar – also known as blood glucose – can remain high for several hours after eating. At very high levels this can cause organ damage if it’s not monitored and kept in check. ZOE – previously involved with the Covid symptom-tracking app – is one of the leading companies bringing the use of blood sugar monitors to people without the condition. Now it offers a programme, starting at around £300, which it advertises widely, including across social media platforms.Participants log their food intake and wear a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for two weeks to measure blood sugar levels after eating.In separate tests, they also have their responses to fat, and their gut bacteria tested.ZOE says all of these tests have helped it identify that even two healthy people can have wildly different responses to the same food – for example one person’s blood sugar might spike and dip more after eating carbohydrates than another person’s. It suggests this could guide individual food decisions.But other researchers argue that what, if anything, those numbers mean – including bigger spikes and dips in blood sugar within the non-diabetic range – is still not properly understood.Dr Nicola Guess, a dietitian and diabetes researcher at the University of Oxford, said the majority of evidence linking high, and highly varied, blood sugar to health problems is based on glucose levels only seen in people with diabetes or prediabetes.High blood sugar is a symptom, not directly a cause, of diabetes, she explains. Prof Kar said “the evidence base is nothing” for understanding what the swings in blood sugar mean in people without diabetes. ZOE points to some evidence – including some very small studies – suggesting that even before it reaches prediabetic or diabetic levels, having higher blood sugar and big variations through the day may be linked to some worse outcomes. Most data is still in diabetic patients, though.It says it is investigating gut bacteria and starting to see links between gut microbes, diet and health. Gut microbiome expert and colorectal surgeon at Imperial College London, James Kinross, said while the microbiome was very important, direct-to-consumer testing was “problematic” because “this is such a young science and there are many unanswered questions about how the microbiome influences our health.”ZOE’s chief scientist Dr Sarah Berry told the BBC its programme used “decades” of existing nutrition research, and their own studies on links between blood sugar and health. But she acknowledges that “we don’t have all of the evidence”. But given the risks of poor diet we already understand, she said, “it would actually be irresponsible to wait” decades to understand long-term outcomes like heart disease and death.Dr Ran Crooke, a GP who founded a company providing health services to start-ups, praised the company for trying to gather the evidence, and said not having all the evidence on blood sugar shouldn’t be “stifling innovation”. He and others, including some of ZOE’s critics, agree CGMs could potentially be a helpful tool for some people to motivate them and change their diet. However, people have been sounding the alarm over diet-related illness for decades. Yet hundreds of diet programmes have failed to resolve the challenge of getting people to stick to habits when their environment – a modern prevalence of high-sugar foods, for example – and biology seems to be stacked against them. And they aren’t without risks themselves.The company said: “ZOE is scientifically rigorous in its approach, unrivalled by others in the industry in terms of clinical trials, robust research and a dedicated team of scientists and nutrition professionals looking to improve health through useful, evidence-based advice.” But Dr Guess is concerned she is seeing patients who use ZOE’s products cutting out foods she believes are good for their health, because they seem to spike their blood sugar. That in itself can lead to health problems, and is not recommended by the company.She adds people who avoid carbohydrates will get a temporarily “exaggerated glucose response” the next time they eat them – which she says is “perfectly normal,” but that could potentially lead them to think they are unable to tolerate carbs at all. Prof Kar thinks using CGMs when there’s no health reason to do so can drive an obsessive focus on numbers which, in the most extreme cases, “can translate into eating disorders”. According to eating disorder charity Beat, “people with eating disorders often fixate on numbers… as part of their illness, so we’d never recommend that anybody affected uses glucose monitors”. ZOE does attempt to screen out people with a history of eating disorders, and Dr Berry told the BBC the company takes “the wellbeing of our members very seriously,” and that customers have access to trained nutrition coaches, who can support them with food anxiety and refer them on if they feel there’s a problem.The company has published research based on the data it has collected from participants to try to find patterns in areas like food choices, hunger and blood test results. But it can’t show which aspects are actually causing changes to health and which are coincidences. ZOE has carried out a study to understand changes caused by the programme, but it has not yet been published. Critics are concerned this study won’t be able to unpick the effects of the programme’s different elements, such as personalised diets based on test results versus support and coaching.Dr Berry argues ZOE’s programme is, “a very holistic product that doesn’t involve just microbiome testing or just continuous glucose monitoring”. However, Dr Guess believes since these elements remain unproven, without them, it’s just a “sciencey-sounding way of having people eat more fruit and veg”.A lot of ZOE’s advice, including around eating more whole foods and fewer processed foods, is sensible, she thinks but she believes this message is “not compelling enough” to sell a £300 product.Are you affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. 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If you are reading this page and can’t see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission. More on this storyPlant-based diets good for the heartPublished25 May 2023Can green ‘super powders’ really make you healthy?Published3 MarchThe quest to find healthy and cheap sweetenersPublished15 December 2023

Published2 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Victoria BrownworthBy Rachel SchraerHealth and disinformation reporter”Seven days, 18 hours, 39 minutes ago my beloved… died suddenly of cardiac arrest”. When Victoria Brownworth logged onto Twitter to post these words about her partner of 23 years, she didn’t know that two of them in particular would provoke a storm of online harassment. Because, as Victoria waited at her home in Philadelphia on Sunday night for her wife’s ashes to be delivered, a video titled Died Suddenly was about to drop. In an hour and eight minutes of dramatic music and out-of-context news reports, the film tells a fictitious story of a dangerous vaccine killing off swathes of young people – all part of an imagined plot to depopulate the earth. It landed on niche video-sharing platform Rumble on Monday and began to spread. By Wednesday morning it had been viewed more than 4 million times on Rumble and at least 1.5 million times on Twitter. The claims made in the video quickly fall apart under scrutiny. Vast amounts of evidence from different independent scientists all over the world, as well as the experiences of billions of people, have shown that serious Covid vaccine side effects are rare. Social media battles Plandemic conspiracy videoBut its call for people to look at any reported deaths through a lens of suspicion had made Victoria fair game – and as the phrase “died suddenly” started to trend, people flocked to her memorial thread. “How long’s it been since she got the jab?”, hundreds of people began to reply. Victoria’s wife, Madelaine Gold – a painter and design professor – had an advanced stage of cancer, though she had been doing better just before she died. There is no suggestion the vaccine had anything to do with her death.When she began to hit back, Victoria was told she was lying.”She did die suddenly… We didn’t have time to say goodbye, I didn’t have time to give her a last kiss. I will never get to talk to her again.””They were trolling her obituary, literally.”So what was it about this film that led people online to deny Victoria’s reality?Image source, TwitterThe film flashes through dozens of upsetting news reports and images of people collapsing.One headline reads: “My kind, compassionate son died unexpectedly.” Another clip shows a young athlete dramatically keeling over. Together, this can easily be used to paint an alarming picture of something suspicious going on.Yet just a couple more clicks would reveal the son in question died in a car crash. And the athlete, college basketball player Keyontae Johnson, collapsed in December 2020 before he could even have had a Covid vaccine. He didn’t die suddenly as the title suggests – he returned to the court last week. Other people featured are also still alive. And several of the genuine deaths are explained by an alternative cause within the very news reports used as evidence by the film makers.Image source, RumblePart of the film’s power is that it takes scraps of truth but distorts them to tell a misleading story.There have been a small number of deaths from the vaccines – I’ve spoken to people affected – but these cases are rare and their causes are established through extensive monitoring, complex medical testing and statistical analysis. It’s not possible to measure vaccine side effects by simply Googling news reports. As Dr Frank Han, a US cardiologist it can, “give you pieces of the puzzle, but actual medical training is necessary to link all the pieces of how the body works together”. Long stretches of the film involve gruesome images of clots being pulled out of bodies, designed to suggest Covid vaccines are having alarming effects. When people feel afraid or disgusted they might be more likely to leap to conclusions. But these images can’t tell us anything on their own. Firstly, they are mostly based on the testimony of one embalmer with no indication this is a wider concern. And, Dr Han explains, it’s “insufficient to establish why the clots are there”.Blood clots are commonly found in dead bodies and are caused by a range of things from smoking to being bed-bound to Covid-19. When unusual clotting was identified in rare cases after the AstraZeneca vaccine – not used in the US – it was quickly investigated and vaccine recommendations changed, after which the cases pretty much disappeared. Emotional stories, backed up by official numbers make a powerful persuasive tool. But it’s important to understand where the numbers actually come from and whether they are being fairly represented – something many people won’t have the time or resources to investigate.A graph in the film shows stillbirths shooting up around 2021, making the unsupported suggestion Covid vaccines are causing miscarriages, looks shocking. The film-makers don’t provide a source, though.This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Although the voiceover claims the data is from Waterloo, Canada, genuine data from Ontario, the province Waterloo is part of, has not seen any increase in stillbirths, according to Dr Victoria Male, a reproductive immunologist. Pregnant targeted with false Covid vaccine claimsThe vaccine fertility myths that just won’t go awayStillbirth risk may increase with CovidIn fact, a large study found a “lower (not higher) rate of stillbirth among those vaccinated in pregnancy, compared to those who were not,” she said.This is supported by dozens of studies involving tens of thousands of people produced by different independent teams around the world. The tactics used in this video have been seen before and this isn’t the first time misleading health information has been spread by verified accounts. What’s new this time is the main account spreading the film on Twitter has bought verification – the blue tick which is supposed to be a mark of credibility, something experts have warned could help misinformation spread.Twitter confirms users’ fee to buy verificationTwitter drama continues with blue-tick confusion”Since Elon Musk took over he’s just, you know, let it be the Wild West again,” Victoria believes.Twitter did not respond to a request for comment. If you have a story you can contact Rachel rachel.schraer@bbc.co.uk or follow her on Twitter

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Facebook/ An0maly/ NTISince cases of monkeypox began to emerge in Europe, beliefs about the virus have been shared widely on social media that appear to be recycled from the Covid-19 pandemic.There are no plans for a monkeypox lockdownA common fear shared online is that restrictions on movement are being planned. One account told followers to get ready for “monkeypox lockdowns” and “monkeypox tyranny”. Image source, TwitterWhile fears about the monkeypox outbreak are understandable, scientists say this virus is not like Covid, and most experts think its spread will be limited. It is much harder to pass on than Covid, we already have available vaccines and treatments, and people appear to be infectious only once symptoms appear – making it easier to spot and isolate.So restrictions such as lockdowns or mass vaccinations are “really not going to be the way to respond to this”, says Prof Peter Horby, director of the Pandemic Sciences Centre at the University of Oxford. Instead, isolation measures and vaccines are currently being targeted at infected people or their close contacts. What is monkeypox and how do you catch it? Monkeypox case confirmed in EnglandDr Rosamund Lewis, of the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergencies Programme, confirmed there was no need for mass vaccination, and the WHO has also recommended against any travel restrictions. There’s no evidence it was released from a labIt’s no surprise people’s minds now turn to Covid when news of an unfamiliar virus breaks. But the Institute for Strategic Dialogue has noted that recent outbreaks of monkeypox were also “reviving the spread of a set of cut-and-paste… conspiracies” which have been used over the past two years to mislead people during the Covid pandemicSocial media accounts and news outlets in Ukraine, Russia, China and the US have all made accusations that the outbreak was the result of a laboratory leak, or the use of monkeypox as a biological weapon. However, it’s possible to identify where a virus is likely to have come from by sequencing its DNA. Geneticist Fatima Tokhmafshan likens this to scanning a barcode on a parcel to “map the different paths [it] has taken”. The genetic sequences we have so far for the virus all trace it back to the strain of monkeypox which commonly circulates in West Africa: “That tells us this is not something manufactured”. Image source, UKHSAThere were a handful of cases in the UK in 2018 and in 2021, and a larger outbreak in the US, also in 2021, each brought over by human travellers or imported animals. “So it’s entirely plausible that that’s exactly what’s happened this time, “says Prof Horby, “and it’s by far the most likely scenario.” The earliest case identified in the UK in the current outbreak was traced to someone who had travelled from Nigeria.As for the idea that monkeypox escaped from a lab, “there is absolutely no basis for that claim at all”, Prof Horby says.No evidence the outbreak was plannedThere are those claiming online that the current monkeypox outbreak was deliberately planned – with many pointing the finger at Bill Gates or Anthony Fauci, in an echo of Covid conspiracies. This unfounded assertion is being shared across Russia media, on the Chinese social app Weibo, and on Instagram. It can also be found on Facebook in Romanian, German, English, Arabic, French, Slovenian, Hungarian and Punjabi.Image source, TwitterThe claims point to a document prepared by a US-based biosecurity organisation, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). In 2021, NTI conducted a workshop to encourage leaders from around the world to plan for the possibility of future pandemics. The participants were asked to work through a fictional scenario – a “deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual strain of monkeypox virus… [that] spread globally”. “The risks posed by monkeypox”, according to the NTI, “have been well documented for years” and cases have been on the increase, making it an obvious virus to choose for this workshop.Outbreaks of infection are a fact of life, so an organisation predicting and planning for them is not in itself suspicious. Monkeypox is not linked to Covid vaccinesThis claim has taken two forms – some point to the fact the AstraZeneca vaccine uses a virus found in chimpanzees, modified so it cannot replicate and spread. Image source, TwitterThese social media posts then suggest a link between vaccines employing that chimp virus and the monkeypox outbreak.However, monkeypox is caused by a totally different type of virus to the one found in the AstraZeneca vaccine – and is actually thought to be mostly found in rodents, not monkeys. The second type of claim spreading online is that the Covid vaccine somehow suppresses your immune system, making you more vulnerable to other infections.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty Images When Hana found out she was pregnant, she searched Google for “abortion clinics near me”. The first result – a neutral-looking website offering a free consultation – looked like her best bet. It wasn’t until the 19-year-old was walking down corridors of the north-eastern US clinic, lined with posters comparing the procedure to murder, that she realised this was not an abortion provider – its purpose was to talk her out of her decision.In many US states, BBC News has seen misleading websites advertising these clinics appearing high up in Google search results – and Facebook adverts with inaccurate medical advice – while genuine abortion providers are having their ads rejected and accounts restricted. Advice centres, such as the one visited by Hana, are often run by Christian organisations.They may offer some medical services such as pregnancy tests and ultrasounds – but some of their online promotion falsely suggests they also provide pregnancy-termination services.’Get care’Hana describes herself as a “nerdy researcher”, studying a health-related course at college – but nothing about the clinic’s website tipped her off to the service it actually provides. The home page says: “Take control – start with a free abortion consultation.” And in a tab labelled: “Get care,” it lists the types of abortion (medical and surgical) that can be performed during different trimesters of pregnancy, under the heading: “You just found out you’re pregnant and want to know your options.”Once there, Hana says, she was told, inaccurately, abortions were linked to infertility and breast cancer – and having had a Covid-19 vaccine, she might lose the pregnancy anyway, making abortion unnecessary, despite the evidence suggesting vaccinated people are no more likely to miscarry and, in fact, better protected against the risks of pre-term and still birth associated with Covid.She was also pressured to view the ultrasound scan against her wishes. “What kind of mother doesn’t want to see a picture of their child?” asked the person attending to her.Hana was left feeling deceived and betrayed. ‘Choose life’The Human Coalition, an anti-abortion group providing marketing for the centre and more than 40 others, told BBC News: “We find in our work, most abortion-determined women do not desire an abortion, they desire help.”We’re here to empower women by filling that gap – connecting women to the care and support they want, to choose life.”Image source, Contributor’s own photoGoogle displays adverts above search results for certain terms. Advertisers bid to have their ads appear first, Google says, although the order should also be determined by “relevance” and “overall quality”. But, Whitney Chinogwenya, of MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes international) says, this creates a “battle of budgets”, with regulated abortion clinics competing with anti-abortion clinics or unregulated pill providers for ad space on specific search terms. Several large global abortion providers have also told BBC News they regularly have their online material referring to abortion censored without explanation, including having YouTube channels suspended, social-media accounts restricted and Facebook and Google ads rejected. In 2019, having been criticised for hosting misleading adverts, Google tried to crack down on abortion-advice clinics, which are most common in the US but can also be found across Europe (including the UK), Africa and Latin America. In the US, UK and Ireland, anyone running an ad mentioning abortion must first apply for a certificate. Ads from advice clinics not offering abortions can still run but will be given a disclaimer the advertiser “does not provide abortions”.Image source, Hana/GoogleHana says she did not see this disclaimer.It appears in very small font underneath the search headline and description. Sarah Eagan, a researcher for campaign group the Center for Countering Digital Hate, questions whether Google should be taking money at all for anti-abortion ads that target keywords used by people actively seeking terminations.The CCDH has also found anti-abortion ads promoting unproven medicines remaining on Facebook.And at the other end of the spectrum, the researchers found Google’s autocomplete function suggesting ineffective do-it-yourself abortion methods.Kelly, like Hana, says she was given inaccurate medical information as she struggled to find an affordable and safe way to terminate her pregnancy in her home state of Texas. What is Roe v Wade ruling on abortion? What happens if Roe v Wade is overturnedImage source, Getty ImagesBetween jobs and without insurance, she could not afford “an actual doctor’s visit” so searched for affordable clinics. Finding her way to an anti-abortion centre, Kelly says she was frightened with warnings she could “bleed out” and risk her life but not given the context medical abortion is an extremely safe procedure.Kelly feels promoting free pregnancy tests targets low-income women.The centre appears to be using organic search, not adverts, making it more complicated to regulate. It says its website clearly states: “We do not refer or perform abortions,” adding it provides “free services annually to over 5,000 minority poor under-served single mothers”. Image source, Getty ImagesEventually, Kelly was prescribed termination drugs – just hours before she passed the 12-week limit for a safe medical abortion. But Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C, the organisation that helped Kelly access these abortion pills, says its online material is routinely “disallowed for violating community standards” on Facebook, Instagram and Google. Google says it has clear policies governing abortion-related ads, some determined by local laws and regulations.Some of the posts and channels flagged by BBC News had been removed in error and since reinstated, it said.Facebook said it had restored a small number of incorrectly rejected ads for abortion providers.Read more from Reality CheckSend us your questions

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesHow do you solve a problem like bad information?When it comes to understanding science and making health decisions, it can have life-or-death consequences. People dissuaded from taking vaccines as a result of reading misleading information online have ended up in hospital or even died. And inaccurate or completely made-up claims about 5G and the origins of Covid-19 have been linked to violence and vandalism. But completely removing information can look a lot like censorship, especially for scientists whose careers are based on the understanding that facts can and should be disputed, and that evidence changes. The Royal Society is the world’s oldest continuously operating scientific institution, and it is attempting to grapple with the challenges posed by our newest ways of communicating information. In a new report, it advises against social media companies removing content that is “legal but harmful”. Instead, the report authors believe, social media sites should adjust their algorithms to prevent it going viral – and stop people making money off false claims.But not everyone agrees with that view – especially researchers who are experts in tracking the way misinformation spreads online, and how it harms people. The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) maintains there are cases when the best thing to do is to remove content when it is very harmful, clearly wrong and spreading very widely.The team points to Plandemic – a video that went viral at the start of the pandemic, making dangerous and false claims designed to scare people away from effective ways of reducing harm from the virus, like vaccines and masks, and was eventually taken down. Social media companies were better primed for the video’s sequel Plandemic 2, which fell flat after being restricted on major platforms, having nothing like the same reach as the first video. “It’s a political question…what balance we see between individual liberties and some form of restrictions on what people can and cannot say,” says Prof Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.Prof Nielsen acknowledges that, although it’s a relatively small part of people’s media diets, science misinformation can lead to disproportionate harm.But, he adds, given a lack of trust in institutions is a big driver of misinformation: “I imagine that there are quite a lot of citizens who would have their worst suspicions confirmed about how society works, if established institutions took a much more hands-on role in limiting people’s access to information.”Image source, Getty Images’Harder to reach’Echoing this concern, the Royal Society says: “Removing content may exacerbate feelings of distrust and be exploited by others to promote misinformation content.” This “may cause more harm than good by driving misinformation content…towards harder-to-address corners of the internet.”The fact that those corners are “harder to reach”, though, is arguably part of the point. It reduces the risk that someone who is not already committed to potentially harmful beliefs, and isn’t seeking them out, will be exposed to them by chance.Some of the violent protests that were driven at least in part by conspiracies had their origin not in obscure corners of the internet, but on Facebook. And there is little clear evidence that removing content drives people further into harmful beliefs. Change the algorithm Scientific misinformation is nothing new. The HIV misinformation still circulating in 2021The incorrect belief in a link between the MMR vaccine and autism came from a published (and later retracted) academic paper, while widespread unevidenced beliefs in the harm of water fluoridation were driven by the print media, campaign groups and word of mouth.What’s changed is the speed at which false facts travel, and the huge numbers of people who can end up reading them.Rather than removing content, one way suggested by the report’s authors of tackling misinformation is making it harder to find and share, and less likely to appear automatically on someone’s feed.This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This, Prof Gina Neff, a social scientist at the Oxford Internet Institute explained, was to “ensure that people still can speak their mind” – they just aren’t guaranteed an audience of millions. “They can still post this information, but the platforms don’t have to make it go viral.” Fact-checkingThe Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank which monitors extremism, points out a substantial proportion of misinformation relies on the appropriation and misuse of genuine data and research. “This is sometimes more dangerous than outright false information, because it can take substantially longer to debunk by explaining how and why this is a misreading or misuse of the data,” its spokesperson says. That’s where fact-checking comes in – another tool which the Royal Society supports.One of the most common pieces of vaccine misinformation over the past year – which the BBC has repeatedly fact-checked – was the notion that people are being harmed in high numbers by the jab. This claim is based on a misinterpretation of real figures. De-platforming individualsThe ISD says research has shown that a small group of accounts spreading misinformation had a “disproportionate influence on the public debate across social media”.”Many of these accounts have been labelled by fact-checkers as sharing false or misleading content on multiple occasions, yet remain live.”The Royal Society did not investigate removing the accounts of “influencers” who are especially prolific spreaders of harmful misinformation. But this is seen as an important tool by many disinformation experts, and research into ISIS and the far-right suggests it can be successful. When David Icke, a prolific spreader of Covid misinformation as well as anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, was removed from YouTube, research from the CCDH found his ability to reach people was considerably reduced.While his videos remained on alternative video-hosting platform BitChute, their views fell from 150,000 on average before the YouTube ban to 6,711 afterwards. On YouTube, 64 of his videos had been viewed 9.6 million times. Research from Cardiff University, found that the de-platforming of Kate Shemirani, a former nurse and prolific spreader of Covid misinformation, decreased her reach in the short term. This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.”Part of the issue is that current models of de-platforming need to be developed. It’s not enough to just take down a piece of content, or a small number of accounts,” one of the paper’s authors – Prof Martin Innes – explains. Research from organised crime and counter-terrorism shows the need to disrupt the whole network, he says.But he believes “this level of sophistication isn’t embedded yet” in the way we tackle disinformation that could put people in danger.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Doreen Moraa MorachaThe last time Paul Thorn saw his parents, decades ago, they threw away the crockery he ate off out of fear of infection. When he was diagnosed with HIV, in 1988, he had to stop training as a nurse.”I lived my entire 20s in fear,” he says. Now, Mr Thorn, based in the UK, hardly thinks about the virus – apart from taking a pill a day and visiting his doctor twice a year. People with HIV who receive treatment can enjoy entirely normal life spans – and outdated and incorrect views that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be caught from sharing a plate have mostly disappeared – but damaging misinformation still circulates. ‘There is a cure’Doreen Moraa Moracha, from Kenya, was born with HIV but only found out about her diagnosis at the age of 13, in 2005.A television advertisement then led her to a man in Tanzania, claiming to be a healer, who said he could cure Ms Moraa Moracha and her mother of HIV.”We drank the herbal medication that he was selling and we came back believing that we were HIV negative,” she said. She stopped taking her anti-retroviral drugs, which prevent the virus replicating – until she caught shingles and pneumonia because of her weakened immune system.And her viral load – how much HIV is in the blood – was so high her doctor told her if she caught another infection, it would kill her.Untreated, HIV can lead to acquired immune-deficiency syndrome (Aids) – a disease where the body cannot fight off even mild infections.It became clear to her the man was a “scammer”. There is no vaccine or cure for HIV, but belief in a cure is common, International Aids Society president Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman says.Recent cases of people recovering from the virus have raised hopes.This month, a woman in Argentina became the second documented person to become HIV-free apparently through her own immune system. But it’s not understood how or why. First person cured of HIV, Timothy Ray Brown, dies’You will always be infectious’Joyce Mensah – who is from Ghana but moved to Germany to escape the stigma – says she has lost relationships and even her job because of misconceptions about her condition. The stigma derives from the fallacy that people with HIV are always at risk of passing it on to their partner or child, she says.”When a person discloses their HIV status to a family member or a partner… people have this misconception that it is not 100% safe, once you are positive, you are positive,” Ms Mensah says. In fact, after taking anti-retroviral medication for long enough, people won’t pass the virus on since there is no measurable infection to transmit (though they will still have HIV and require lifelong treatment). Image source, Joyce MensahMs Mensah had four children while on treatment – and none caught the virus. Worldwide, cases of mother-to-child transmission have halved since 2010, as the treatment has become more widespread.But in Ghana, Ms Mensah’s daughter was recently sent home from her school in the false belief she too had the virus – and could infect others.Ian Green, the chief executive of UK charity the Terrence Higgins Trust, who lives with HIV, said: “The biggest single issue for people living with HIV, and certainly my experience as well, is often you view yourself as a vector for disease. “For many years, I was terrified about transmitting the virus to somebody else. “To know now that it’s impossible for me to transmit the virus, that’s been hugely liberating.”‘HIV is over’While HIV is no longer a death sentence and people with the virus can live normal and healthy lives, some campaigners say perceptions have flipped too far the other way. “There’s been amazing advances in HIV treatment and prevention tools but this perception that Aids is over, in terms of prevention work – it’s not terribly helpful, and certainly in terms of investing in the search for an HIV cure,” Dr Kamarulzaman says.UN figures suggest in 2020, about 38 million people worldwide were living with HIV and 700,000 died from Aids-related illnesses, which can be the result of the virus going untreated.Mr Thorn says younger people see it as an old person’s disease, a sentiment echoed by Mr Green, who says they have a “generally lower awareness”.”They think that HIV is something in the past,” he adds.’I am not the sort of person who gets HIV’Just as young people see it as an older person’s illness, many see the virus as something affecting gay men only. Worldwide, just over half of people with HIV are women – and it is the biggest killer of women of reproductive age, according to Christine Stegling, of charity Frontline Aids.But few women she speaks to are aware of their risk. “It’s a very important data point to engage with, because women who are in that age group and women who might want to become pregnant have to have difficult conversations about unprotected sex,” Ms Stegling says.While huge progress has been made, the misinformation still circulating can leave people without jobs, relationships, the right treatment or even a diagnosis in the first place.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingThe Covid-19 pandemic has made celebrities out of scientists, who have graced the daily news headlines and gained large social-media followings. But this rise in prominence has come with online abuse and even physical harassment.The journal Nature surveyed scientists, who described receiving threats of violence after media appearances.Discussions about vaccines or the drug ivermectin were common triggers for harassment. In the past, scientists have faced abuse when discussing climate change or previous vaccination campaigns. Physically attackedThe self-selecting survey of 321 people working in fields relevant to Covid found more than a fifth had received threats of physical or sexual violence. While this is not representative of all scientists and cannot accurately reveal the scale of abuse, it provides a glimpse into some of the personal experiences of those who came into the public eye to give information during the global disease outbreak. Six people who responded to the questionnaire said they had been physically attacked following media appearances.Some of the more extreme cases have been widely reported. Leading Belgian virologist Prof Marc Van Ranst ended up in a safehouse after being targeted by a far-right trained sniper (since found dead) who despised lockdowns and threatened to kill health professionals. The UK’s chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, was assaulted in a park by a 24-year-old estate agent, while two prominent German scientists were posted bottles of clear liquid labelled “positive” and a note telling them to drink it.US infectious-diseases doctor Krutika Kuppalli, who gave national media interviews and testified to a congressional committee, told Nature she had received a death threat via a phone call to her home. Australian virologist Danielle Anderson, who worked at the Wuhan Institute for Virology and was critical of the theory it might be where the virus had escaped from, received an email telling her to “eat a bat and die”. Swinging coffinsProf Andrew Hill wrote a positive review of anti-parasite drug ivermectin for treating Covid but reversed his stance once he discovered data he had been basing his conclusions on was untrustworthy. Current available evidence suggests ivermectin is unlikely to be very effective for Covid – but Prof Hill has received a barrage of abuse, including accusing him of genocide, which has driven him off social media. “I was sent images of Nazi war criminals hanging from lampposts, voodoo images of swinging coffins, threats that my family were not safe, that we would all burn in hell,” he told BBC News.”This was happening most days – I opened my laptop in the morning to be confronted with a sea of hate and disturbing threats.”There were also threats to my scientific reputation on email.”I know many other scientists who have been threatened and abused in similar ways after promoting vaccination or questioning the benefits of unproven treatments like ivermectin.” Being harassedUniversity of Southampton senior research fellow in global health Dr Michael Head said there had been “a huge amount of abuse aimed at everyone contributing to the pandemic response… includ[ing] NHS front-line staff”. University College London behavioural scientist Prof Susan Michie said “disturbing” online abuse would happen “most intensively after media engagements and especially after those that address restrictions to social mixing ,the wearing of face masks or vaccination”.Other scientists surveyed mentioned emails being sent to their employers or their professional reputations being challenged. But of those being harassed on their own social media, almost half said they did not tell their employer. The Nature survey also found those targeted with the most frequent harassment were most likely to say it had affected their willingness to give media interviews in the future. Fiona Fox, chief executive of the UK Science Media Centre, which provides scientific comment and briefings to journalists, said it was a “great loss if a scientist who was engaging with the media, sharing their expertise, is taken out of a public debate at a time when we’ve never needed them so badly”. SOCIAL DISTANCING: How can I meet my friend safely? OXFORD JAB: What is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine?FACE MASKS: When do I need to wear one?TREATMENTS: What progress are we making to help people?VACCINE: When will I get the jab?

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage sourceGetty ImagesIsrael’s booster vaccination programme – offering a third shot to over-40s – has begun to show signs of success.But the country’s recent spike in cases has ignited debate about the future of the vaccination programme and the ongoing pandemic.It had virtually returned to normal life by this spring, cases stayed low and it looked like vaccination had more or less quashed Covid. From July, though, cases started to rise again. Since Israel surged ahead in immunising its population last winter, the rest of the vaccinated world has turned to it to understand what might be in store in the coming weeks and months. The country’s own health leaders will be keeping a watchful eye on cases after schools reopened on 1 September, while next week, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, will see groups gathering. Unvaccinated peopleAlthough the country rolled out jabs quickly and take-up was relatively high, there are still a million people out of its roughly nine million overall population who are eligible for the vaccine and haven’t taken it up.Israel is also a relatively young country, with about a third of its population under the age of 14. Under-12s are not eligible for the vaccine unless they have particular health conditions. That means, despite high take-up, only 60% of the total population is fully vaccinated with two doses.But even without these groups being vaccinated, back in spring the level of coverage appeared to be enough to keep a lid on cases – so what changed?Waning immunityThe more infectious Delta variant seems to have evaded part of the vaccine’s protection against infection, although it is still highly effective against severe illness. But scientists monitoring the data believe a major factor in the recent spike in cases is waning immunity from the Pfizer vaccine, which was initially the only one given in the country. Prof Eran Segal, who advises the Israeli government on Covid matters, said by month five or six after vaccination, people are probably only 30-40% protected, compared with more than 90% when protection first kicks in. “That’s what was driving the wave,” he said – a conclusion drawn from careful analysis of the rates of infection in people vaccinated in different months. Despite this fall, vaccination still prevents a substantial amount of sickness, with the unvaccinated becoming severely ill with Covid about nine times as often in over-60s, and twice as often in younger people. A third vaccination?Israel is responding to the dip in protection against infection by rolling out a booster programme, offering a third jab first to over-60s and more recently to the over-40s. The boosters for older people began to be offered just over a month ago, and they appear to be now taking effect, with hospital admissions levelling off in that group.”This is leading to a halt in the Delta wave,” Prof Segal said. Early data suggests a tenfold increase in protection from infection and severe disease after the third jab, compared with after two. Dr Anat Ekka Zohar, who is leading the booster programme study, said three doses were “highly protective, against both infection and severe illness”. She added: “The triple dose is the solution to curbing the current infection outbreak.” So what’s next?There are fierce debates over whether booster programmes should be rolled out when so many people around the world haven’t even had one vaccine.And some have questioned whether it is sustainable to top up the vaccines every six months, or once a year as is the case with the flu jab. While we’ve built up a large amount of evidence to show the Covid vaccines are safe and effective for almost everyone, there are still areas where we need more information. One of those areas is exactly how long immunity lasts, and whether a third booster shot will provide much more durable protection. It could be that a three-shot schedule is what’s needed, as in the case of the hepatitis B vaccine, where three doses result in more or less lifelong protection for most.Or it could be that two jabs plus natural immunity will be enough. People can get good natural protection after catching the virus, but, without a vaccine, that comes with the risk of becoming very ill, developing long-term complications or dying. With the vaccines now protecting against most of the worst disease, people may still catch milder versions of Covid and boost their vaccine-derived immunity that way. Scientists have hypothesised that repeated exposure to the Covid infection, now with the protection of the vaccine and natural immunity from past infection rendering it less risky, could over time turn the virus into a potentially recurring, but relatively untroublesome illness.What’s the best way to top up our Covid immunity?But others fear there may be a high cost to this, as breakthrough infections can still reach the most vulnerable and the eventual toll of “long Covid” remains unknown. At the least, Israel’s booster programme might provide more answers to some of these remaining questions.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage sourceGetty ImagesFalse and misleading claims that Covid-19 vaccines harm fertility and cause miscarriages are still circulating online, against all the evidence.Doctors are extremely cautious about what they recommend during pregnancy, so the original advice was to avoid the jab. But now, so much safety data has become available that this advice has changed and the vaccine is now actively encouraged (as getting Covid itself can put a pregnancy at risk). We have looked at some of the more persistent claims – and why they are wrong.A study shows the vaccine accumulating in the ovaries – FalseThis theory comes from a misreading of a study submitted to the Japanese regulator.The study involved giving rats a much higher dose of vaccine than that given to humans (1,333 times higher). Only 0.1% of the total dose ended up in the animals’ ovaries, 48 hours after injection. Far more – 53% after one hour and 25% after 48 hours – was found at the injection site (in humans, usually the arm). The next most common place was the liver (16% after 48 hours), which helps get rid of waste products from the blood. The vaccine is delivered using a bubble of fat containing the virus’s genetic material, which kick-starts the body’s immune system.And those promoting this claim cherry-picked a figure which actually referred to the concentration of fat found in the ovaries.Fat levels in the ovaries did increase in the 48 hours after the jab, as the vaccine contents moved from the injection site around the body. But, crucially, there was no evidence it still contained the virus’s genetic material.Posts also claimed the study had been “leaked”, though it was in fact publicly available online. Monitoring data shows vaccines cause miscarriages – FalseSome posts have highlighted miscarriages reported to vaccine-monitoring schemes, including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Yellow Card scheme in the UK and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the US. Anyone can report symptoms or health conditions they experience after being vaccinated. Not everyone will choose to report, so this is a self-selecting database.There were indeed miscarriages reported in these databases – they are unfortunately common events – but this does not mean the jab caused them. A study has found data showing the miscarriage rate among vaccinated people was in line with the rate expected in the general population – 12.5%.Dr Victoria Male, a reproductive immunologist at Imperial College London, says these reporting systems are very good for spotting side-effects from the vaccine that are normally rare in the general population – that’s how a specific type of blood clot was linked in some rare cases to the AstraZeneca vaccine. If you suddenly start seeing unusual symptoms in vaccinated people, it raises a red flag. The unfounded claims about vaccines and fertilityTrue stories, fake claims about periods and the vaccine They are not so good at monitoring side-effects that are common in the population – such as changes to periods, miscarriages and heart problems. Seeing them in the data doesn’t necessarily raise these red flags because you’d expect to see them anyway, vaccine or not. It’s only if we start getting many more miscarriages than are seen in unvaccinated people that this data would prompt an investigation – and that’s not been the case.Some people have also shared graphs showing a big rise in the overall number of people reporting their experiences to these schemes compared with previous years, for other vaccines and drugs. This has been used to imply the Covid vaccine is less safe. But the rise doesn’t tell us that, what it shows is that an unprecedented proportion of the population is being vaccinated. Vaccines could attack the placenta – No evidenceA widely shared petition from Michael Yeadon, a scientific researcher who has made other misleading statements about Covid, claimed the coronavirus’s spike protein contained within the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was similar to a protein called syncytin-1, involved in forming the placenta. He speculated that this might cause antibodies against the virus to attack a developing pregnancy, too.Some experts believe this was the origin of the whole belief that Covid vaccines might harm fertility. In fact syncytin-1 and the coronavirus’s spike protein are just about as similar as any two random proteins – if the body was that easily confused, it would risk attacking its own organs every time it caught an infection and developed antibodies.But now evidence has been gathered to help disprove his theory. US fertility doctor Randy Morris, who wanted to respond directly to the concerns he’d heard, began monitoring his patients who were undergoing IVF treatment to see whether vaccination made any difference to their chances of a successful pregnancy.Out of 143 people in Dr Morris’s study, vaccinated, unvaccinated and previously infected women were about equally likely to have a successful embryo implantation and for the pregnancy to continue to term. The study is small, but it adds to a large volume of other evidence – and were the claim true, you would expect that to show up even in a study of this size.Dr Morris pointed out that people spreading these fears had not explained why they believed antibodies produced in response to the vaccine could harm fertility but the same antibodies from a natural infection would not.The problem is, while scientists are rushing to provide evidence to reassure people, by the time they can report their findings people online have moved on to the next thing. As Dr Morris explained: “The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is as soon as it’s disproven, you move the goalpost.”Follow Rachel on Twitter

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightJohn AkehurstSniffer dogs could contribute to efforts to prevent the spread of Covid as society reopens, according to scientists.As part of a trial, dogs were trained to recognise a distinctive odour produced by people with the virus, but undetectable to the human nose.This could come in useful for screening at airports or mass events. But the dogs’ findings would have to be confirmed by lab testing, the researchers said.Although the dogs correctly picked up 88% of coronavirus cases, they also incorrectly flagged 14% of people who didn’t have Covid as having the virus.Dogs can have up to 100,000 times the smelling ability of humans and have long been used to sniff out drugs and explosives. Recent research has shown dogs – particularly breeds like spaniels and retrievers – can detect the unique scents of diseases including cancer, Parkinson’s and malaria.As part of the current canine screening trial, six dogs were trained to recognise the smell produced by people with Covid-19 using worn socks, face masks and t-shirts of various materials. They were rewarded with treats when they correctly guessed whether the sample was from an individual who had tested positive or negative. Some of the people in the negative group had common cold viruses, to make sure the dogs were able to distinguish Covid from other respiratory infections. The dogs were able to sniff out the disease even when it was caused by different variants, and when the person had no symptoms or only had very low levels of the virus in their system. Dr Claire Guest, Chief Scientific Officer at charity Medical Detection Dogs, which trained the animals, said the results were “further evidence that dogs are one of the most reliable biosensors for detecting the odour of human disease”.They picked up roughly 88% of positive cases – meaning, for every 100 cases, the dogs failed to recognise just 12 infected people. But out of 100 people who did not have Covid, the dogs wrongly suggested – via the sniff test – that 14 of them were infected. So if one person on a plane of 300 passengers has coronavirus, the dogs are likely to correctly identify that person, but may also wrongly indicate that another 42 Covid-negative people are infected.It means a proportion of infections will be missed, and more will be told they have the virus when they don’t. This is the case for all tests to different extents, but the canine method incorrectly tells a lot more people they have the virus than the type you swab up your nose. So the research team does not recommend dogs alone are used to sniff out positive cases.image copyrightMDDBut they believe the dogs could be an additional screening tool alongside more conventional tests. They say dog screening, followed by swab testing, will pick up 91% of infections. The real potential advantage, though, is speed: even the quickest tests take 15 minutes to show a result, while dogs can sniff out the disease in seconds. Two dogs could screen 300 people in half an hour, researchers say. This could make the sniff test “a suitable method for mass screening”, argues Prof James Logan at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which conducted the research alongside the University of Durham.In theory, people could be screened as they queue for a flight or to enter an event, and anyone flagged up by the dogs would need to take a PCR test – the more accurate type of swab tests which is processed in a lab.This could cut down on the numbers having to enter hotel quarantine. Dogs could also potentially be used in areas where there isn’t currently much screening, such as busy train stations, to help prevent a super-spreading event. The research is at an early stage so it still needs to be reviewed by other scientists before it can be published and, in the next phase of the study, tried out on infected people – rather than bits of sock.