Publisher Health

Getty ImagesA large UK study has found further evidence that people with more calcium in their diet – equivalent to a glass of milk a day – can help reduce their risk of bowel cancer.

Getty ImagesThe health secretary has said some patients’ experience of the NHS this winter makes him feel “ashamed”.

Washington State’s program is the first, but other states are expected to try allowing pharmacists to prescribe the pills to counter growing efforts to curtail abortion access.Pharmacists have begun prescribing abortion pills, not simply dispensing them — a development intended to broaden abortion access.The new effort is small so far — a pilot program in Washington State — but the idea is expected to be tried in other states where abortion remains legal.“I think it is going to expand, and it is expanding,” said Michael Hogue, chief executive of the American Pharmacists Association, a national professional organization, which is not involved in the new program and does not take a position on abortion.Many states now allow pharmacists to prescribe a variety of medications, he said, adding that in his organization’s view, it makes sense to have “someone so accessible in a local community be able to provide safe access to therapies that might sometimes be difficult to get.”Supporters of abortion rights consider pharmacist prescribing part of an effort to open as many avenues as possible at a time when abortion pills are facing growing attacks from abortion opponents.Pills are now the method used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States. But a lawsuit intended to force the Food and Drug Administration to sharply restrict mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug medication abortion regimen, was recently revived after the Supreme Court turned away the case, saying the original plaintiffs lacked the standing to sue. The Texas attorney general recently sued an abortion provider in New York for sending abortion pills to a patient in Texas. And abortion rights supporters are concerned that a 151-year-old federal anti-vice law known as the Comstock Act could be invoked by the incoming Trump administration to try to prevent the mailing of abortion medication.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Variant Bio, a small biotech company based in Seattle, is using genetic information from Indigenous people to develop drugs for obesity and diabetes.When Stephane Castel first met with a group of Māori people and other Pacific Islanders in New Zealand to talk about his drug company’s plans for genetic research, locals worried he might be seeking to profit from the genes of community members without much thought to them.Instead, Dr. Castel and his colleagues explained, they were aiming to strike an unconventional bargain: In exchange for entrusting them with their genetic heritage, participating communities would receive a share of the company’s revenues. Dr. Castel also vowed not to patent any genes — as many other companies had done — but rather the drugs his company developed from the partnership.“A lot of people told us this was a crazy idea, and it wouldn’t work,” Dr. Castel said. But five years after that first conversation during an Indigenous health research conference in March 2019, Dr. Castel’s gambit is beginning to pay off for both parties.On Tuesday, his company, Variant Bio, based in Seattle, announced a $50 million collaboration with the drugmaker Novo Nordisk to develop drugs for metabolic disorders, including diabetes and obesity, using data collected from Indigenous populations. Variant Bio will distribute a portion of those funds to the communities it worked with in nine countries or territories, including the Māori, and will seek to make any medicines that result from its work available to those communities at an affordable price.Experts on Indigenous genetics said the deal was a positive step for a field that has been plagued by accusations of exploitation and a gulf of mistrust.“In the past, researchers would enter Indigenous communities with empty promises,” said Krystal Tsosie, a geneticist and bioethicist at Arizona State University who runs a nonprofit genetic repository for Indigenous people. “Variant Bio is the only company, to the best of my knowledge, that has explicitly talked about benefit-sharing as part of their mission.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Patients at Royal Liverpool University Hospital’s accident and emergency unit are facing waits of up to 50 hours.

Getty ImagesIn recent weeks, scenes of hospitals in China overrun with masked people have made their rounds on social media, sparking worries of another pandemic.

Mark Norman / BBCA police investigation into allegations of preventable deaths and injuries at an NHS trust has doubled the number of cases it is looking at, BBC News can reveal.

While cases are climbing in China, the situation is very different from what it was when Covid-19 emerged five years ago, medical experts say. HMPV is common and decades old.Reports of a surge in cases of a respiratory virus in China have evoked dark echoes of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic almost exactly five years ago.But despite the surface similarities, this situation is very different, and far less worrisome, medical experts say.The Chinese cases are reported to be infections with human metapneumovirus, known to doctors as HMPV. Here is what we know so far:What is HMPV?It is one of several pathogens that circulate across the world each year, causing respiratory illnesses. HMPV is common — so common that most people will be infected while they are still children and may experience several infections in their lifetimes. In countries with months of cold weather HMPV can have an annual season, much like the flu, while in places closer to the Equator it circulates at lower levels all year long.HMPV is similar to a virus that is better known in the United States — respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V. It causes symptoms much like those associated with flu and Covid, including cough, fever, nasal congestion and wheezing.Most HMPV infections are mild, resembling bouts of the common cold. But severe cases can result in bronchitis or pneumonia, particularly among infants, older adults and immunocompromised people. Patients with pre-existing lung conditions, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or emphysema, are at higher risk of severe outcomes.In higher-income countries, the virus is rarely fatal; in lower-income countries, with weak health systems and poor surveillance, deaths are more common.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

BBC

The deceased was over 65 and had other medical conditions, state officials said.A Louisiana patient who had been hospitalized with severe bird flu has died, the first such fatality in the United States, state health officials reported on Monday.The patient was older than 65 and had underlying medical conditions, the officials said. The individual became infected with the bird flu virus, H5N1, after exposure to a backyard flock and wild birds.There is no sign that the virus is spreading from person to person anywhere in the country, and Louisiana officials have not identified any other cases in the state. Pasteurized dairy products remain safe to consume.“I still think the risk remains low,” said Dr. Diego Diel, a virologist at Cornell University.“However, it is important that people remain vigilant and avoid contact with sick animals, sick poultry, sick dairy cattle, and also avoid contact with wild birds,” he added.The news comes on the heels of a report that the patient had carried mutations that might help the virus infect people more easily.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said late last month that the mutations were not present in virus samples taken from the backyard flock, suggesting that they developed in the patient as the illness progressed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.