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An analysis of research literature published last year before the omicron variant took hold found that while COVID-19 vaccines lose some effectiveness in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection, the vaccines retain nearly all of their ability to prevent severe disease up to six months after full vaccination. The study, which appears online February 21 in The Lancet, was led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the World Health Organization.
For their study, the researchers analyzed vaccination effectiveness data published last year from June 17 to December 2 in both peer-reviewed journals and on preprint servers, which post papers ahead of peer review. The data — detailed in 24 papers — covered dozens of individual vaccine evaluations preceding the emergence of the currently dominant omicron variant.
The researchers found that the level of protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection fell by about 21 percentage points, on average, in the interval from one to six months after full vaccination — whereas the level of protection against severe COVID-19 fell by only about 10 percentage points in the same interval. The authors defined “full vaccination” as one dose of Janssen vaccine or two doses of other vaccines. Booster doses were not evaluated.
“There is an indication here of waning vaccine effectiveness over time, though it is encouraging that protection from severe disease — the most worrisome outcome — seems to hold up well,” says study co-first author Melissa Higdon, MPH, a research associate in the Department of International Health and a member of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Bloomberg School.
How long vaccines protect from infection and severe disease is one of the most urgent questions facing public health professionals and policymakers in the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the question, the researchers identified 24 studies, published in journals or posted on preprint servers June 17 to December 2 last year and covering the four major Western-developed vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, and AstraZeneca. Many papers contained multiple vaccine evaluations. The researchers combined the data from the different studies using statistical tools to estimate an average change in vaccine effectiveness over time.
The finding that protection dropped against detected infection by an average of 21.0 percentage points over five months means that a vaccine providing 90 percent protection from infection at 1 month would provide only 69 percent protection at 6 months. The average drop was essentially no different among vaccinated persons older than 50 when analyses were restricted to just their data.

Researchers have used sound waves to turn stem cells into bone cells, in a tissue engineering advance that could one day help patients regrow bone lost to cancer or degenerative disease.
The innovative stem cell treatment from researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, offers a smart way forward for overcoming some of the field’s biggest challenges, through the precision power of high-frequency sound waves.
Tissue engineering is an emerging field that aims to rebuild bone and muscle by harnessing the human body’s natural ability to heal itself.
A key challenge in regrowing bone is the need for large amounts of bone cells that will thrive and flourish once implanted in the target area.
To date, experimental processes to change adult stem cells into bone cells have used complicated and expensive equipment and have struggled with mass production, making widespread clinical application unrealistic.
Additionally, the few clinical trials attempting to regrow bone have largely used stem cells extracted from a patient’s bone marrow — a highly painful procedure.

People with a history of allergic-like reactions to iodinated contrast media, which is used in a variety of X-ray-based procedures, such as CT and angiography, are susceptible to similar reactions from commonly used MRI contrast agents, according to a large, eight-year study published in the journal Radiology. The study also found that premedication or switching to a different MRI contrast agent may reduce risk in patients who have had previous contrast agent reactions.
Gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCA) have long been used to improve visualization of organs, tissues and blood vessels on MRI and provide a more accurate depiction of disease. Although GBCA are relatively safe, recent studies have reported several adverse reactions related to their use, including allergic-like hypersensitivity reactions, such as rash and flushing.
The incidence of these reactions is increasing with the widespread use of GBCA, prompting an urgent need for research into risk factors, according to the study’s senior author Hye-Ryun Kang, M.D., Ph.D., from the Department of Internal Medicine at Seoul National University College of Medicine in Seoul, Korea.
Dr. Kang and colleagues recently analyzed more than 330,000 cases of GBCA exposure in 154,539 patients over an eight-year period at the Seoul National University Hospital. There were 1,304 cases of allergic-like hypersensitivity reactions, for a rate of 0.4%. In patients who had a previous GBCE reaction, the average recurrence rate was 15%.
Acute allergic-like hypersensitivity reactions, or those that occur within one hour of contrast administration, accounted for 1,178 cases, while a far smaller number of 126 cases were delayed allergic-like hypersensitivity reactions, or those that occur beyond the first hour and mostly within one week after exposure.
The risk of allergic-like hypersensitivity reactions to GBCAs was higher in those with a history of similar reactions to iodinated contrast media. Traditionally, a history of iodinated contrast media hypersensitivity was not considered as a risk factor for hypersensitivity to GBCAs and vice versa, owing to the structural and compositional differences between the two.

Women who conceive with assisted reproductive technology (infertility treatment) may be at increased risk for vascular and pregnancy-related complications, according to new research published today in a special Go Red for Women® issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.
Assisted reproductive technology, also known as ART, is the umbrella term for infertility treatments in which eggs or embryos are handled to improve the odds of pregnancy. These treatments may involve administering medication to control timing of ovulation, as well as procedures such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, during which a woman’s eggs are surgically retrieved and fertilized in a laboratory before being implanted back into her uterus. According to 2019 statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the use of assisted reproductive technology has more than doubled during the past decade. More than 2% of infants born in the U.S. every year are conceived with assisted reproductive technology. Since 1978, ART has contributed to the birth of more than 5 million infants worldwide.
“Older women are increasingly turning to assisted reproductive technology. However, advancing maternal age — specifically being age 35 and older — increases the risk of having or developing conditions, such as chronic high blood pressure, that increase the risk of pregnancy complications,” according to study author Pensée Wu, M.B.Ch.B., M.D., senior lecturer and honorary consultant obstetrician and subspecialist in Maternal Fetal Medicine at Keele University School of Medicine in Staffordshire, United Kingdom.
“Adverse pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure during pregnancy have now been established as risk factors for future cardiovascular disease,” Wu said. “All of this has raised concerns about adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with assisted reproductive technology, yet studies on the topic are few and have inconsistent findings. A better understanding of the potential impact of assisted reproductive technology on women’s risks for cardiovascular- and pregnancy-related outcomes will help inform women considering assisted reproductive technology and is valuable after birth to develop cardiovascular risk reduction strategies.”
For this study, researchers examined data from the U.S. National Inpatient Sample, which contains all hospital discharges between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2016. They extracted records for all delivery admissions and specifically records that noted the use of assisted reproductive technology, as well as cardiovascular and pregnancy-related complications. The researchers also evaluated hospital costs, length of stay and more. The study included more than 106,000 deliveries conceived with assisted reproductive technology and more than 34,167,000 deliveries conceived without ART.
The analysis found: Women who conceived with assisted reproductive technology were older, at an average age of 35 years compared to 28 years for those who conceived without ART. Those who conceived with assisted reproductive technology also had more pre-existing health conditions, such as chronic hypertension, obesity and diabetes. Women with assisted reproductive technology-conceived pregnancies were more than 2.5 times more likely to suffer acute kidney damage, also known as acute kidney failure, and they were also found to have a 65% higher risk for arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat). Assisted reproductive technology-conceived pregnancy was associated with a 57% greater likelihood of placental abruption, a serious complication in which the placenta separates from the lining of the uterus; a 38% increased risk of Cesarean delivery; and a 26% higher risk for preterm birth. The increased risks were present even among the women having ART who did not have pre-existing cardiovascular risk factors. Hospital charges for women who conceived with assisted reproductive technology were an average $18,705 compared to $11,983 for those who conceived without ART.”We were surprised that assisted reproductive technology was independently associated with these complications, as opposed to being associated with only the existence of pre-existing health conditions or only among older women undergoing infertility treatment,” Wu said.
The study highlights the importance of counseling patients who are considering assisted reproductive technology about health and pregnancy, as well as postpartum-related risks.
“Especially patients with existing cardiovascular risk factors should be counseled about the potentially long-term cardiovascular implications and risks associated with ART,” Wu said. “It’s important for women to know that assisted reproductive technology carries a higher risk of pregnancy complications, which require close monitoring, particularly during delivery. Primary and specialist health care professionals should ensure these risks are communicated and strategies to mitigate them are discussed and implemented.”
A study limitation is its retrospective nature, meaning it is an examination of data that was recorded for reasons other than research, therefore, there may be errors, such as misclassification or misdiagnosis.
“Future research should examine how optimizing cardiovascular risk prior to assisted reproductive technology impacts pregnancy complications and long-term cardiovascular health,” Wu said.
The National Institute for Health Research and Blumenthal Scholarship in Preventive Cardiology at Johns Hopkins funded this study.
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Women who had ever experienced sexual violence in their lifetime — including sexual assault and workplace sexual harassment — were more likely to develop high blood pressure over a seven-year follow-up period, according to findings from a large, longitudinal study of women in the United States. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, indicated that sexual violence was a common experience, affecting more than 20% of the women in the sample.
“Our results showed that women who reported experiencing both sexual assault and workplace sexual harassment had the highest risk of hypertension, suggesting potential compounding effects of multiple sexual violence exposures on women’s cardiovascular health,” said Rebecca B. Lawn, Ph.D., of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, lead author on the study.
Lawn and colleagues analyzed associations between lifetime exposure to sexual violence and blood pressure while accounting for the possible impacts of exposure to other types of trauma. For data, the researchers used the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II), a longitudinal study of adult women in the U.S. that began in 1989 with 115,000 nurses enrolled.
Over time, the NHS II has collected data on a wide range of sociodemographic, medical, and behavioral variables. As part of a 2008 NHS II sub-study, a subgroup of participants reported whether they had ever experienced sexual harassment at work (either physical or verbal) and whether they had ever experienced unwanted sexual contact. They also reported exposure to other traumas, such as an accident, disaster, or unexpected death of a loved one.
Lawn and colleagues analyzed the NHS II sub-study data, excluding those participants who already had a diagnosis of high blood pressure or were taking medication for high blood pressure from their analyses. They also excluded women who had a history of cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease. The final sample consisted of 33,127 women who were ages 43 to 64 in 2008.
The NHS II data indicated that experiences of sexual violence were common: about 23% of the women had experienced sexual assault at some point in their life and 12% had experienced workplace sexual harassment. About 6% of women had experienced both.

Men with a high body mass index (BMI) in their upper teens had an elevated risk of severe COVID-19, requiring hospitalization, later in life, University of Gothenburg researchers show in a register study.
For some time, overweight and obesity have been recognized risk factors for severe COVID-19. To date, however, there have been no studies to monitor large groups of individuals whose obesity was identified at an early age, and to find out how severely ill they become if they later get COVID-19.
The present study, published in the journal Obesity, includes data from the Swedish Military Service Conscription Register on 1,551,670 men in Sweden, born between 1950 and 1987, who were conscripted for military service in the period 1969-2005. At the outset, their height and weight were measured.
Merging the conscription data with three Swedish medical registers — the National Patient Register, the Intensive Care Register and the Cause of Death Register — revealed a clear connection between BMI in adolescence and the risk of getting COVID-19, many years later, severely enough to require hospitalization. Even clearer was the link between BMI in the upper teens and needing intensive care for the disease.
Elevated risk from normal weight upward
For the study, the scientists divided the men into six groups, from underweight (BMI 15-18.5) to three levels of normal weight (18.5-20, 20-22.5 and 22.5-25), followed by overweight (25-30) and obesity (BMI of 30 or more). Of the whole group during the study year (2020), 4,315 men with COVID-19 required hospitalization; 729 of them received intensive care; and 224 died from COVID-19.

Seniors take note, running or brisk walking is not the only way to reduce the risk of heart disease. Simply being “up and about” performing routine activities, referred to as daily life movement, including housework, gardening, cooking and self-care activities like showering can significantly benefit cardiovascular health.
Compared to women with less than two hours per day of daily life movement, those women with at least four hours of daily life movement had a 43% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, 43% lower risk of coronary heart disease, 30% lower risk of stroke and notably, a 62% lower risk of cardiovascular disease death.
Reporting in the Feb. 22, 2022 online edition of the Journal of the American Heart Association, a multi-institutional team led by researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego studied the impact of daily life movement to cardiovascular disease risk.
“The study demonstrates that all movement counts towards disease prevention,” said first author first author Steve Nguyen, Ph.D., M.P.H., postdoctoral scholar at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health. “Spending more time in daily life movement, which includes a wide range of activities we all do while on our feet and out of our chairs, resulted in a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.”
Researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to classify each minute spent while awake into one of five behaviors: sitting, sitting in a vehicle, standing still, daily life movement, or walking or running. Daily life movement encompasses activities occurring when standing and walking within a room or patio, such as when getting dressed, preparing meals or gardening.
As part of the Women’s Health Initiative Objective Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health study, researchers measured the physical activity of nearly 5,416 American women, who were aged 63 to 97 and who did not have heart disease at the start of the study.
Participants wore a research-grade accelerometer for up to seven days to get accurate measures of how much time they spent moving and, importantly, the types of common daily life behaviors that result in movement and are not often included in prior studies of light and moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity. Those prior studies typically focused on intensity and duration of activities like running and brisk walking while the current study measured smaller movements at varying intensity during activities like cooking.
Cardiovascular disease continues to be the leading cause of death among both women and men in the United States with rates highest in adults aged 65 or older.
In this study, 616 women were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, 268 with coronary heart disease, 253 had a stroke, and 331 died of cardiovascular disease.
“Much of the movement engaged in by older adults is associated with daily life tasks, but it may not be considered physical activity. Understanding the benefits of daily life movement and adding this to physical activity guidelines may encourage more movement,” said senior author Andrea LaCroix, Ph.D., M.P.H., Distinguished Professor and chief of the Division of Epidemiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health.
Co-authors include: John Bellettiere and Loki Natarajan, UC San Diego; Guangxing Wang and Chongzhi Di, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; and Michael J. LaMonte, University at Buffalo — SUNY.
This research was funded, in part, by the National Institute on Aging (P01 AG052352, 5T32AG058529-03) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01 HL105065). The Women’s Health Initiative was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (75N92021-D00001, 75N92021D00002, 75N92021D00003, 75N92021D00004, 75N92021D00005).

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SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, ReutersColombia’s constitutional court has decriminalised abortions within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.Under the new rules, no one will be prosecuted for having an abortion within that time frame.Since 2006, abortions have been allowed in Colombia in cases of rape, when the woman’s life is at risk, or if the pregnancy is not viable.The ruling was welcomed by pro-choice groups, who called it “a historic achievement”.But Archbishop José Luis Rueda said the Catholic Church would “continue to proclaim, defend and promote human life from gestation until natural death”.Pro-choice activists say it is the latest in a series of victories in recent years, including a similar ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court in September and the legalisation of abortion up to the 14th week in Argentina. This is a massive step for Latin America, a Catholic region and one with deeply conservative values.But the fact that Mexico, Argentina and now Colombia have decriminalised abortion feels like there is momentum growing.The activist movement in the region has been huge these past few years and that has definitely influenced change.But the fight is not over yet. Many Latin American countries still severely limit abortion rights, namely Brazil, the region’s biggest nation by far.And in several Central American states abortion is banned outright, even in the case of rape and incest. There are women in prison serving long sentences, many of whom say that they suffered miscarriages. But with so few reproductive rights in some countries, women who need medical help are instead abandoned by the state.The ruling came about as a result of a lawsuit filed by the umbrella group Causa Justa (Just Cause) whose aim is to have abortion removed from the penal code. Causa Justa argued that because abortions were defined as a crime outside of the three cases allowed under the 2006 ruling, doctors who performed abortions and their patients were often stigmatised.Image source, EPAThe group estimates that 90% of abortions in Colombia are carried out clandestinely, putting the health and life of women at risk.While Monday’s decision has not removed abortion from Colombia’s penal code entirely, it is seen as a victory in the battle to widen access to the procedure.Following its 5-4 ruling, the court urged the Congress and the government to come up with legislation which will protect the rights of pregnant women, including providing family planning services, eliminating obstacles to abortion care and helping with adoptions.You may want to watch:This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.

Health care providers are increasingly opening offices and clinics in street-level storefronts, malls and shopping centers, taking advantage of rents depressed by the pandemic.The next time you get your teeth cleaned or blood pressure checked, you may be doing so in a space once outfitted with face creams and frying pans.Health care providers are increasingly choosing former stores for their offices and clinics, in a trend known as medtail — a reflection of the medical industry’s migration to retail properties.The pandemic has accelerated their embrace of retail space. Taking advantage of depressed rents, medical providers are opening facilities in storefronts on city streets and moving into malls and shopping centers in suburban and rural areas, sometimes occupying the hulking shells vacated by big-box and department stores.In the past, landlords might not have welcomed such tenants — some just didn’t want sick people around their properties, experts say — but they are increasingly seeking them out to fill vacancies and help generate foot traffic that may benefit the other occupants. This has been especially true for health care providers that brand themselves as so-called wellness companies, adopting the look and feel of consumer-oriented retailers.“The retailization of health care has really exploded,” said Barrie Scardina, a retail expert for Cushman & Wakefield.The medtail concept has been gaining traction for some time. Today, about 20 percent of leased medical space is in retail buildings, up from about 16 percent in 2010, according to data from the research firm CoStar Group.But it remains to be seen whether health care tenants can put a meaningful dent in retail vacancies resulting from the rise of e-commerce, a swing that has been compounded by the pandemic. Health care start-ups face many hurdles, including a competitive environment, high renovation costs and fickle landlords.“It’s challenging to predict,” said Carri W. Chan, the faculty director of the health care and pharmaceutical management program at the Columbia Business School.Of course, many health care providers still choose to remain on hospital campuses and in medical office buildings, and some — eyeglass stores with optometrists on staff, for example — have long occupied retail settings.But the proliferation of urgent care centers over the past two decades has helped broaden the idea of where consumers can seek medical attention. Such “doc-in-the-box” facilities — which fill the gap between a visit to a primary care physician and one to a hospital emergency room — tend to be near where people live and shop. Their retail-style signage and branding help them fit in.At the same time, some pharmacy and supermarket chains have been adding walk-in clinics, enabling customers to get a flu shot or strep test while picking up prescriptions or groceries. Such retail clinics are typically staffed with physician assistants or nurse practitioners (hence the nickname “nurse-in-a-box”). CVS, for instance, began opening clinics in its stores in 2005 and currently has more than 1,100.But now a range of providers — offering services like cosmetic dermatology, dental care, physical therapy and senior wellness — are seeking retail real estate. They are opening in street-level storefronts and vacated department stores at a time when people might be uneasy about going to the hospital, which has become associated with coronavirus outbreaks, but are obtaining medical attention in nontraditional places by getting Covid shots at convention centers and PCR tests on city sidewalks.The One Medical branch at Westfield UTC took over the space of a former Chico’s.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times“Being able to go into a retail environment closer to home, a smaller facility, felt safer and more convenient and also felt newer and cleaner,” said Matthew A. Coursen, an executive managing director at JLL, a commercial real estate services company.Tend, a boutique dental chain, has been opening offices in retail space in urban areas, where rents can be 20 percent below prepandemic levels. The company selects real estate in much the same way a retailer does — figuring out foot traffic patterns, demographic data and transportation options.Once it picks a site, Tend rolls out furnishings and finishes in the new space that match its other locations, down to the swirly green and white wallpaper meant to evoke mouthwash. The company spends between $1.1 million and $1.6 million on each office, said Andy Grover, a co-founder and the chief development officer of the company, which operates in four metropolitan areas.For landlords hit by store closures during the pandemic, well-funded health care providers, which tend to sign long-term leases, are suddenly desirable.“As the landlord thinks about what will happen if we ever go through a crisis again, they want things that won’t close — grocery stores, pharmacies and medical facilities,” said Ms. Scardina of Cushman & Wakefield.Some of these dynamics are playing out in suburban malls, where health care providers are moving into spaces vacated when retailers consolidated or went out of business. The providers consider malls attractive because they are familiar to residents, easy to get to and have ample parking. The open floor plates of former big-box stores are another plus.By early 2020, nearly seven in 10 adults in the United States were visiting a health care provider in a shopping center, enclosed mall or strip mall, according to a survey by ICSC, a trade group representing owners of such properties.Thirty-two enclosed malls across the country have health care providers taking up substantial square footage or, in some cases, the entire property, said Ellen Dunham-Jones, a professor at Georgia Tech who has been tracking the retrofitting of ailing malls. Some of the providers are expanding university medical systems.The University of Rochester in upstate New York is creating a $227 million, 350,000-square-foot ambulatory orthopedic facility at The Marketplace Mall in Henrietta, four miles from the university’s campus. The property, built in 1982, once had four anchor tenants, but one of them, a Sears store, closed in 2019. The overall vacancy rate had risen to 30 percent before the project began, said Jonathan L. Dower, vice president of leasing for Wilmorite, the mall’s owner.Wilmorite gutted the Sears store and an adjacent portion of the mall to pave the way for the project. The university, aided by architecture firms SLAM and Perkins&Will, is converting the Sears space into an outpatient surgery center, where patients will be able to get knee or hip replacements. The adjacent space will offer physical therapy.For landlords hit by store closures, well-funded health care providers can suddenly look desirable.Ariana Drehsler for The New York TimesRepurposing existing structures, rather than starting from scratch, reduces construction time and costs, said Scott Hansche, a principal of SLAM. It also is environmentally beneficial to salvage old structures.The challenges of the conversions include adding natural light to spaces that may be almost entirely enclosed, as well as beefing up plumbing, power and HVAC systems.One Medical, a membership-based primary care chain with about 125 locations, has been expanding into outdoor shopping centers rather than enclosed malls, said James Goldberg, the chain’s vice president of real estate and development. The company recently opened a branch in a former Chico’s near the Banana Republic and the Pottery Barn at Westfield UTC in San Diego, Calif.“Landlords are becoming understanding about what tenants we want to be next to,” Mr. Goldberg said.Some landlords now have health care tenants in mind as they build new properties.“I do go after them now,” said Dotan Zuckerman, a consultant who handles retail leasing for ground-up mixed-use developments in the Southeast. “In a lot of these big projects, there’s only so much food and beverage you can do.”