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As Matthew van Antwerpen, a 17-year-old in suburban Dallas, struggled with remote schooling during the pandemic last year, he grew […]

A woman with spinal muscular atrophy has been using TikTok to dispel myths about her disability. Shelby Lynch, from Leeds, has more than 400,000 followers on the social media platform. She said: “I am just a regular 24-year-old that’s disabled and needs extra accommodations, that’s literally it.”I don’t want to be treated like a child just because I am disabled.” She recently won Influencer of the Year at the 2021 Sense Awards, which “celebrate the achievements of people with complex disabilities”.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesNew Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.”We want to make sure young people never start smoking,” Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand’s health ministry on Thursday.Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the “world-leading” reforms which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.”It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine,” said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.Currently, about 13% of New Zealand adults smoke, down from 18% about a decade ago. But the rate is much higher – about 31%- among the indigenous Maori population who also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.Dog sniffs out hole in a wall cigarette stashSmoking surge in young during Covid lockdownNew Zealand’s health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls, including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.In recent years, vaping – smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine – has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes. New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well. But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to help smokers quit tobacco.

Men who contracted HIV in the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic harbored a greater relative abundance of pro-inflammatory vs. anti-inflammatory gut microbes before they became HIV-positive compared to their counterparts who remained HIV-negative, according to new research published today in the journal Microbiome. In addition, the men who progressed to AIDS the quickest had the least favorable gut microbiome composition.
The study, which was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and used patient samples preserved from the beginning of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the early 1980s, is the first to link the composition of the gut microbiome before infection to HIV susceptibility and progression.
“There was something going on in the intestinal tract of these men before they acquired HIV that was different than the men who did not contract the virus,” said co-senior author Charles Rinaldo, Ph.D., professor of infectious diseases at Pitt. “Not only were they at greater risk of acquiring HIV, but once HIV-positive, they also were at greater risk of developing AIDS compared to people with a more normal microbiome. This discovery helps us understand what was underlying the susceptibility of men to HIV well before we had antiviral drugs to control the virus. It could also have implications for disease cure or even prevention.”
The scientists analyzed stool and blood samples donated starting in the spring of 1984 — months before HIV was found to be responsible for AIDS — by gay men enrolled in the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), which had four sites nationwide, including in Pittsburgh. At the time, AIDS was killing the participants’ friends, but scientists didn’t know why, so MACS collected stool samples from volunteers every six months to try to find a cause. Once HIV was discovered, they stopped collecting such samples, but instead of throwing away the ones they already had, the MACS team cryogenically froze and stored them in a biorepository.
In 2017, Rinaldo — then chair of the Pitt Graduate School of Public Health’s Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology — was discussing the biorepository with Shyamal Peddada, Ph.D., who was then chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the school and has expertise in the microbiome.
“At that time, a new and growing body of research tied the microbiome to our immune response,” said Peddada, co-senior author and now chief of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Branch at the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). “It became apparent to both of us that MACS had, thankfully, preserved a treasure trove of specimens. Science had advanced to the point that we could now revisit this biorepository to find out what was happening in the microbiome and immune system of men before and after they got HIV.”
The researchers obtained preserved samples of blood and stool from 265 participants who did not have HIV when they enrolled in MACS. Of the participants, 109 contracted the virus in that first year; the rest did not.

The company’s finding is based on only a small study of blood samples in a laboratory, but others are sure to follow.WASHINGTON — Pfizer and BioNTech said Wednesday that laboratory tests suggest a booster shot of their coronavirus vaccine offers significant protection against the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the virus.The companies said that tests of blood from people who had received only two doses found much lower levels of antibodies protecting against Omicron than against an earlier version of the virus. That suggests that two doses “may not be sufficient to protect against infection” by the new variant, the companies said.While limited in scope — to get fast results, the companies examined only about 39 samples — the findings provided a bit of hopeful news at a time of renewed uncertainty. Health departments are identifying close to 100,000 cases a day, hospitalizations are ticking up and deaths are again on the rise in the United States, almost all due to the Delta variant.The companies summarized their findings in a news release and did not release any data. Their study came on the heels of a preliminary report on laboratory experiments in South Africa that also found Omicron seemed to dull the power of two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.The CDC had recorded 43 cases of Omicron infection, most of them mild, in about 20 American states as of Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. Cases are rising much faster in parts of South Africa and Europe. Early modeling and analysis suggest that it may move twice as fast as Delta.In South Africa, where Omicron already appears to be dominant, two large hospitals are reporting more children testing positive for the coronavirus after being admitted for other reasons, suggesting increased community transmission there. Around the world, cities are canceling Christmas and New Year’s Eve events amid unresolved questions about the transmissibility and virulence of the new variant.President Biden went out of his way to draw attention to Pfizer-BioNTech’s findings on Wednesday, calling them “very, very encouraging” and saying they showed that the vaccines remain a bulwark against the virus.“If you get the booster, you’re really in good shape,” Mr. Biden said. According to federal data, the United States has more than 200 million fully vaccinated people, but only about 50 million have gotten a booster dose.But Pfizer-BioNTech’s study of blood samples in a laboratory is not proof of how the vaccines will perform in the real world. While antibodies are the first line of defense against infection, they are only part of a wider-ranging and powerful response by the immune system. Because antibodies are the fastest and easiest part to measure, those results typically come first.“You have to start somewhere,” said Kathrin U. Jansen, a senior vice president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, while awaiting the results of more complex studies and “real-world evidence that tells you what we need to know.”Scientists say it could take a month or more to really understand the new variant’s threat. By then, they say, Israel, Britain or other countries with sophisticated health surveillance systems will have gathered more data on whether Omicron will overtake Delta and how the vaccines will hold up against it.The Pfizer-BioNTech results seemed to underscore the importance of boosters in combating infection. The blood samples obtained from people who had received a booster shot contained antibodies neutralizing Omicron at levels comparable to those combating the original variant after two doses, Pfizer’s statement said.While calling the results “really good news,” Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert with the Baylor College of Medicine, noted that researchers only measured the levels of neutralizing antibodies one month after a booster injection. He is concerned, he said, that the surge of virus-blocking antibodies provided by a booster may be short-lived.The World Health Organization, which has long resisted broad rollouts of booster shots amid severe vaccine shortages in poorer nations, said on Wednesday that it was too early to conclude whether the vaccines were significantly less effective against Omicron or whether the emergence of the variant necessitated a booster shot for most people.Both Dr. Albert Bourla, the chief executive officer of Pfizer, and Dr. Ugur Sahin, the chief executive of BioNTech, said that while two doses may still prevent severe disease from Omicron, the study demonstrates that a third strengthens protection. Dr. Sahin said three doses “could still offer a sufficient level of protection from disease of any severity” caused by the variant. Like other vaccine manufacturers, both companies have profited hugely from the global demand for their shots.The companies suggested that Omicron would not significantly diminish the power of T-cells, which kill off infected cells. Researchers identified parts of Omicron that could be recognized by the T-cells produced after vaccination. Most did not contain any mutations.Dr. Jansen said it was “very important” that the parts of the Omicron variant targeted by virus-killing cells were mostly unchanged from previous variants. “It gives comfort that you will have sufficient T-cell responses to prevent the worst outcomes,” she said.Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee, said he, too, wanted “to sound a note of reassurance.”The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4The Omicron variant.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesThe UK’s chief veterinary officer has told the BBC there is a “phenomenal level” of avian flu in the UK.Tens of thousands of farmed birds have already been culled, as the” largest number of premises ever” in an avian influenza outbreak are infected.Officials say the risk to human health is low – there is no link to the Covid-19 pandemic – but infected birds should not be touched.”It has huge human, animal, and trade implications,” the chief vet said.Lessons learned from the foot-and-mouth outbreak are being used to try to control the outbreak, Dr Christine Middlemiss added.As of Wednesday there were 38 confirmed infected premises in the UK – 31 in England, three in Wales, two in Scotland, and two in Northern Ireland. The total last year was 26 confirmed cases. The disease is largely spread by migratory wild birds which return to Britain and pass it on to other birds. Dr Middlemiss said the UK was only a few weeks into the migratory season, which normally goes on until March.”We are going to need to keep up these levels of heightened biosecurity for all that time.” An Avian Influenza Prevention Zone was declared across the UK on 3 November. It was extended on 29 November, requiring all bird owners to keep the animals indoors.Dr Middlemiss said there was a high level of infection in wild birds returning from the north of Russia and the east of Europe, where they spent the summer.The advice from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is that the risk to human health from the avian flu A(H5N1) virus is “very low”. However, members of the public are strongly advised not to touch diseased birds.The availability of eggs in supermarkets is unlikely to be affected, said Dr Middlemiss, because the number of farms affected is low compared to overall egg production.Image source, Getty Images”Whilst we’re happy that there are not going to be any food supply issues, because of the overall large number of chickens and eggs and things we produce, it is devastating for those individual companies involved. It’s also devastating for people who keep yard flocks.”Dead swansThe types of premises infected have ranged from bird sanctuaries and small flocks kept in gardens or yards, up to very large commercial farms. Peregrine falcons, curlews, barnacle geese and herring gulls are some of the wild bird species to have been found dead or dying from the disease.Where a case is confirmed after testing by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) biosecurity control zones are set up and the infected birds killed. In some commercial farms, more than 10 thousand birds have had to be destroyed. The first detection of the H5N1 strain this season was in rescued swans and captive poultry at a swan sanctuary in Worcester on 15 October.In November dead swans were found around the centre of Stratford-on-Avon and the Diglis Basin in Worcester; footpaths were blocked off and the public urged not to feed the animals. In Belfast the disease was confirmed in wild birds in an urban area. There have been other outbreaks in nature reserves in Scotland.Dr Middlemiss emphasised that “the absolute key” was biosecurity. She said that chicken sheds should be kept “as clean as a surgical theatre”, which would reduce the chance of wild birds either directly or indirectly coming into contact with kept birds.Biosecurity lessonsBiosecurity measures, she said, had been learned from the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001 when more than 2,000 cases of the disease in farms across the UK led to the culling of six million cows and sheep. However, foot-and-mouth was spread by cattle-to-cattle contact. Avian flu is being largely spread by wild birds, over which there can be “very little control”.The clinical sign of infection is that birds tend to go off their food and water, then develop respiratory problems, eye discharges and sneezing. Then they can display nervous signs, like twisted necks. Dr Middlemiss said, “We’re not on our own. There are a large number of outbreaks across the EU happening. This is a different strain to last year. We do need to understand why we are seeing more year-on-year outbreaks, and understand what’s behind that. She said she wanted to understand the pattern: “We can’t wait until another year and have an even bigger outbreak. So, we will be working not just with our own scientists but internationally, to understand more of what we can do about what’s behind it.”The RSPB said: “Everyone should take care to maintain good hygiene when feeding garden birds, regularly cleaning feeders outside with mild disinfectant, removing old bird food, spacing out feeders as much as possible, and washing your hands.”Follow Claire on Twitter.

Despite shifts towards vegan and vegetarian diets in Western cultures, demand for animal protein persists. Alternative protein sources are required to nourish the growing world population without compromising on sustainability. Researchers at the University of Göttingen and the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, investigated consumer preferences of alternative feedstuffs. Specifically, the researchers looked at the effect of information regarding algae and insects in the food chain. The results were published in the journal Food Policy.
The researchers photographed chicken breasts from animals fed with spirulina or insect meal and rendered the photos to imitate market-ready products. The chicken breast products were labelled with health or sustainability claims to further understand preference motivation for alternative feedstuffs. Two groups of respondents (around 1000) then completed an online questionnaire, where they were shown two different chicken breast products and asked which one they would purchase. One group received the information available on the package, such as labelling and price. The other group received additional information regarding the feedstuffs and the feedstuffs were also identified on each product. Information on feedstuffs proved to be an important factor in influencing consumer preferences. Because spirulina drastically alters the colour of the end product, it is necessary to provide information to make these products marketable to consumers.
Surprisingly, the respondents liked the chicken breast reared with insect meal the most. However, when the feedstuff was identified, only sustainability-motivated consumers continued to prefer insects as a feedstuff. “Therefore, the incorporation of insects into feed for poultry should be conducted with full transparency for the end consumer and feedstuffs should be labelled in order to avoid future backlash or mistrust,” explains Dr Brianne Altmann, lead researcher. “However, the increased exposure through having these products available on the market will likely increase their acceptance.”
Although spirulina has a history of being used as a feedstuff in some cultures, it is currently cultivated as a health supplement and remains much more expensive than soybean meal. Insects on the other hand, have recently been certified for use in poultry feed in the European Union. “One drawback within the current legislation hindering the sustainability is that insects for feed must be reared on certified feedstuffs, putting insect rearing in direct competition for the rearing of other poultry and livestock,” says Altmann “In order to increase the uptake and sustainability of alternative feedstuffs, advances in production, such as growth in scale and the incorporation of waste products, are urgently needed.”
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Materials provided by University of Göttingen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

A new medication has been added to the treatment options for children with moderate-to-severe asthma. In a late-stage clinical trial, the biologic agent dupilumab reduced the rate of severe asthma attacks and improved lung function and asthma control for children ages 6 to 11.
The findings of the international multicenter Liberty Asthma VOYAGE trial, reported Dec. 9 in the New England Journal of Medicine, supported approval of dupilumab for the treatment of moderate-to-severe asthma in this age group by the Food and Drug Administration in October.
“This is a really important advance for children with moderate-to-severe asthma and their families,” said Leonard Bacharier, MD, an asthma specialist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and the international lead investigator for the trial.
Asthma — a condition that affects the lung’s airways and makes it hard to breathe — is the most common chronic disorder of childhood, with more than 5 million children under age 18 affected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a leading cause of hospitalization for children, and children with moderate-to-severe asthma may have reduced lung function and be at greater risk for lung diseases in adulthood, said Bacharier, who holds the Janie Robinson and John Moore Lee Chair in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
“As asthma gets increasingly severe, the burden becomes substantial, impacting the child and the entire family,” he said. “While we have very good asthma therapies available, none of them are perfect in eliminating severe exacerbations.”
Dupilumab, a monoclonal antibody that targets type 2 inflammation, has been approved for the treatment of asthma in adults and adolescents for several years. Based on its established safety and efficacy, the investigators conducted a phase 3 clinical trial in 408 children between the ages of 6 and 11 who had uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma.

Abortion remains safe after Canada removed restrictions on the medical abortion pill mifepristone in November 2017.
That’s one of the key findings from a UBC-led study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study used comprehensive government health data to examine 315,000 abortions in Ontario between 2012 and 2020. An analysis showed no increase in abortion-related health complications following the removal of restrictions on mifepristone, which is considered the “gold standard” drug for medical abortion globally.
“Complications were already very rare, and we found that abortion continued to be safe and effective when mifepristone was prescribed without restrictions,” said Dr. Laura Schummers (she/her), the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in UBC’s department of family practice. “This is the strongest evidence yet that it is safe to provide the abortion pill like most other prescriptions — meaning any doctor or nurse practitioner can prescribe, any pharmacist can dispense, and patients can take the pills if, when and where they choose.”
Canada was the first country in the world to remove all supplemental restrictions on the dispensing and administration of mifepristone.
The previous rules, which went into place when the drug was first approved in July 2015, included a requirement that physicians observe patients taking the medication. Additionally, the drug could only be dispensed to patients by specially trained physicians who registered with the manufacturer, and not by pharmacists.

The latest Global Health Security Index finds that no country is positioned well to respond to outbreaks.Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world remains “dangerously unprepared” for the next major outbreak, according to a new report.The 2021 Global Health Security Index, released on Wednesday, ranks 195 countries according to their capacity to respond to epidemics and pandemics. The inaugural version of the index, published just months before the first Covid-19 cases were detected, concluded that no nation was ready for such a crisis.Overall, the world is not any better prepared today, according to the 2021 index, which was created by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security nonprofit group, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.“I would call this a damning report,” said Dr. Rick Bright, the chief executive of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute, who was not involved in creating the index. “The world is not ready.”More than 90 percent of countries have no plan for distributing vaccines or medications during an emergency, while 70 percent lack sufficient capacity in hospitals, clinics and health centers, the report found. Political and security risks have risen worldwide, and public confidence in government is declining.Although many nations have funneled resources into addressing the acute Covid-19 crisis, few have made dedicated investments in improving overall emergency preparedness, the report found.“We documented the places where improvements for Covid were made,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Bloomberg School and one of the two lead authors of the report.But, she said, unless political leaders “act to ensure that what we’ve worked hard to develop in the midst of Covid doesn’t just erode after the event is over, we could find ourselves back where we started, or worse.”The researchers rated each country on a variety of factors, evaluating their health care systems, workforces, laboratories, supply chains, infrastructure, trust in government and more. Each nation was assigned a score from 0 to 100.The average score was 38.9, roughly the same as the 2019 average of 40.2, and no country broke into the top preparedness tier, which began at 80.1 points.The United States, which was ranked first in the 2019 index, retained its position atop the rankings, with a score of 75.9, while Australia, Finland, Canada and Thailand rounded out the top five.The top ranking surprised some experts, given what has been widely regarded as a failed pandemic response.“Really, U.S. No. 1?” said Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania who was a member of President Biden’s Covid-19 Advisory Board during the transition between presidential administrations. “I don’t think that’s a credible ranking.”But Dr. Nuzzo noted that the index was designed to measure the tools and resources that a nation has at its disposal and could not predict how effectively those resources would be used in an emergency.“Just because it exists on paper doesn’t mean it’s going to function,” she said.The United States had “the lowest possible score on public confidence in the government,” the report noted. Other vulnerabilities include financial barriers to health care and fewer hospital beds per capita than other high-income countries, which could compromise the United States’ ability to respond to future emergencies. “Any missing capacity could be crippling,” Dr. Nuzzo said.Rebecca Katz, who directs the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, said she agreed with the assessment that the world was not ready for another pandemic. And she was not surprised that the scores had not improved since 2019.“We’re still in the middle of a pandemic,” Dr. Katz said. “Everything’s on fire. So there hasn’t been a lot of longer-term, strategic-capacity building.”The report recommends that countries include funding for health security in their national budgets and review their performance in the current pandemic so they can learn from the experience, among other actions.Given the events that have unfolded over the past two years, it might also be smart to focus on elements of pandemic preparedness that go beyond technical capacities and capabilities, said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, the founding director of the Boston University Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research.“We need to think about our ability to sustain healthy communities when a crisis becomes prolonged,” she said. “What’s important to communities is not just the pandemic response, but also how well you’re managing everyday business when you have that crisis.”