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☆ Sleep apnea, lack of deep sleep linked to damage in brain, study says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Sandee Lamotte | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

If the sleep apnea is severe and untreated, people have three times the risk of dying from any cause. People with severe sleep apnea who spent less time in deep, also known as slow-wave sleep, had more damage to the white matter of the brain than people who had more slow-wave sleep, according to the study. “The association with sleep apnea was only unveiled when we isolated severe cases, suggesting that mild to moderate sleep apnea may not be significantly associated with white matter changes,” he said. About 34% of the participants had mild sleep apnea, 32% had moderate and 34% had severe sleep apnea. People with sleep apnea, however, can have dozens of micro-awakenings during the night as they snore, snort or gasp for breath.

☆ Eli Lilly Trial Finds Alzheimer’s Drug Can Slow Progress of Disease
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Gina Kolata | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The drug manufacturer Eli Lilly announced on Wednesday that a clinical trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug showed it can slow progress of the feared disease and allow patients to have more time when they can still live independently, performing tasks like cooking meals, going to the store and driving a car. Lilly announced its results, from a trial involving 1,736 patients, in a news release, as required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The drug, donanemab, is not a cure, but along with two other drugs recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration,it may be a turning point in the long and frustrating quest to find an Alzheimer’s treatment. “These all point in the same direction,” said Dr. Ronald Petersen, the director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Mayo Clinic. He added that the donanemab results were “modest” but “meaningful.” “

☆ Alzheimer’s patients may wait years to get treated with new drugs, putting them at risk of more severe disease
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +17 min

But time spent waiting robs early patients of their memory and ability to live independently. This condition is often, though not always, a sign of early Alzheimer's disease. PET scans cumbersomeTwo types of tests can diagnosis Alzheimer's disease: PET scans and spinal taps. Early Alzheimer's disease can also be diagnosed with a spinal tap, in which fluid around the spinal cord is extracted with a catheter and tested. He believes big players like CVS will provide infusions for Alzheimer's disease on a major scale if they see there's a large and stable market.

☆ Exclusive: US to build $300 mln database to fuel Alzheimer's research
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Julie Steenhuysen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The platform will draw on data from medical records, insurance claims, pharmacies, mobile devices, sensors and various government agencies, they said. The database could help identify healthy people at risk for Alzheimer's, which affects about 6 million Americans, for future drug trials. The U.S. Medicare health plan for older adults will likely require such tracking in a registry as a condition of reimbursement for Leqembi. Silverberg said the data platform could also help researchers working in other disease areas understand which patients are most at risk and the impact of medications. The system would be built in a secure computing environment with a number of restrictions to ensure the privacy of people's health data, Silverberg said.

☆ China’s Covid wave threatens another snarl of U.S. medical supply chain
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Shannon-Pettypiece-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Shannon Pettypiece | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

“We’re looking a lot for potential early warning signs in the medical supply chain for any kinds of disruptions,” said an administration official. “One major concern throughout the entire pandemic has been that because of China’s zero Covid policy, shutdowns greatly reduced manufacturing capacity in China. Despite efforts over the past two years by the Biden administration to bolster the country’s domestic medical supply chain, the complexity, costs and regulations involved in health care manufacturing has limited companies’ ability to shift production. I think that would be a natural response,” said Douglas Kent, executive vice president of corporate and strategic alliances at the Association for Supply Chain Management. Health care officials say they hope that the U.S. is in a better place to withstand any shocks from China.

☆ U.S. records 100 million Covid cases, but more than 200 million Americans have probably had it
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

The U.S. officially recorded more than 100 million cases as of Tuesday, just under one-third of the total population, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Covid-19 has easily infected more than 200 million in the U.S. alone since the beginning of the pandemic — some people more than once. "There are have been at least 200 million infections in the U.S., so this is a small portion of them," Frieden said. The estimate was based on a survey of commercial lab data that found about 58% of Americans had antibodies as a result of a Covid infection. The more than 21 million additional confirmed cases on top of the CDC's February estimate of about 187 million total infections gives a low-end estimate of more than 208 million infections since the pandemic began.

[1/2] People line up at a makeshift fever clinic set up inside a stadium, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Beijing, China December 19, 2022. "We stand ready to help any country in the world with vaccines, treatments, anything else that we can be helpful with," he said. "We want China to get COVID right," Blinken said earlier this month. “China faces a very challenging system in reopening,” Powell said, adding that its manufacturing, exporting and supply chain remain critical. Officials set up health centers and apps that told people with symptoms how to avoid infecting others, he said.

☆ High demand for children's medications shines a light on fragile US drug supplies
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

Even when demand is not sky-high, drugs shortages happen regularly – but usually more quietly – in the US. At any time, the reasons why shelves may be empty vary from place to place and from drug to drug. With children’s medications, drug manufacturers say they are running full-tilt, and they planned for some increase in sales over the winter months. The FDA tracks drug shortages too, taking reports directly from manufacturers, but it defines them differently than the pharmacists’ group. The White House says drug shortages are a priority for President Biden’s administration, too.

☆ How almost $427 million in taxpayer money is locked away in a forgotten government fund — and lawmakers won't spend it or return it
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Dave Levinthal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The intended beneficiaries of the taxpayer-fueled Presidential Election Campaign Fund — presidential candidates — don't want it, as they're soured by its restrictions on their election fundraising and spending. An accounting of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, as of October 31, 2022. Several nonprofit leaders told Insider that Congress could use the Presidential Election Campaign Fund money to immediately ease suffering, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2019-20 congressional session, two Republican lawmakers sponsored similar bills that attempted to kill the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. Until that or any other repurposing decision comes down, the FEC continues to spend taxpayer resources keeping the Presidential Election Campaign Fund alive.

☆ Experimental drug appears to slow progression of Alzheimer’s disease in clinical trial but raises safety concerns
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Jacqueline Howard | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

It involved 1,795 adults, ages 50 to 90, with mild cognitive impairment due to early Alzheimer’s disease or mild Alzheimer’s disease-related dementia. Such a score is consistent with early Alzheimer’s disease, with a higher number associated with more cognitive impairment. By 18 months, the CDR-SB score went up 1.21 points in the lecanemab group, compared with 1.66 in the placebo group. Overall, there were serious adverse events in 14% of the lecanemab group and 11.3% of the placebo group. The researchers also wrote that about 0.7% of participants in the lecanemab group and 0.8% of those in the placebo group died, corresponding to six deaths documented in the lecanemab group and seven in the placebo group.

☆ New subvariants, family gatherings may bring more Covid-19 after holiday, but experts don’t expect severe surge
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Experts expect that Thanksgiving gatherings will stir up social networks and give new coronavirus subvariants fresh pockets of vulnerable people to infect. And we are concerned that after holiday gathering, lots of people coming together, that we may see increases in Covid-19 cases as well,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday on CNN. For the week ending Nov. 19, the CDC estimates that BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 were causing about half of all new Covid-19 cases in the US. Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths have remained flat for the past four weeks. “It’s probably got a bit more of a fitness advantage, so what we’re seeing is gradual replacement without a massive change in the total number of Covid-19 cases,” he said.

☆ Opinion | Science Has a Nasty Photoshopping Problem
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Elisabeth Bik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +14 min

One evening in January 2014, I sat at my computer at home, sifting through scientific papers. Manipulated imagery in scientific papers can look ordinary at first glance. However, this ability, combined with my — what some might call obsessive — personality, helped me when hunting duplications in scientific images by eye. So when a scientist’s research shows a negative result, cheating can be tempting. Legitimate criticism of scientific research should receive legal protection.

☆ Monkeypox Researchers Recommend Vigilance as Cases Decline
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Denise Roland | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As a global outbreak of monkeypox loses steam, disease researchers said they need a better understanding of how the virus spreads, and how well vaccination protects against it to predict whether it could come roaring back. A global outbreak that gained momentum in May spread the virus much farther than it had been found previously. The virus might have reached new animal hosts, increasing the risk of future outbreaks, said epidemiologists and infectious-disease specialists. The extent to which vaccination has protected the most at-risk people from catching monkeypox is unknown.

☆ Fact Check-Monkeypox, polio and new COVID variants are not ‘planned’ as ‘scare tactics’ to affect the U.S. midterms
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Monkeypox and polio outbreaks, or new COVID-19 variants, have not been “planned” or orchestrated as “scare tactics” to manipulate the Nov. 8 midterm elections in the United States. As laid out in a Reuters explainer (here), experts agree that the major driver behind both vaccine-derived and wild polio outbreaks remains an under-vaccinated population. “Monkeypox is nothing more than a scare tactic to make you stay home and not vote in the November elections. Experts contacted by Reuters dismissed claims that these disease outbreaks are connected to election cycles and said they would not disrupt the upcoming electoral process. There is no evidence that monkeypox and polio outbreaks or new COVID-19 variants have been orchestrated as “scare tactics” to manipulate the U.S. midterm elections.

☆ Study tries to see if child vaccines and asthma are linked
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

Even if a link were ever found, the life-saving benefits of the vaccines are still likely to outweigh the asthma risk, said Dr. Matthew Daley, the study’s lead author. But it’s possible that if the results are confirmed, it could prompt new work to redesign vaccines, he added. Dr. Paul Offit, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, worried that the flawed study will needlessly scare some families away from proven vaccines. Several previous studies didn’t find a link between aluminum-containing childhood vaccines and allergies and asthma. About 4% of U.S. children under 5 have persistent asthma.

Globally, the figure could reach 139 million by 2050 without an effective treatment, Alzheimer's Disease International said. Aduhelm was the first new Alzheimer's drug approved in 20 years after a long list of high-profile failures for the industry. read morePatient advocacy groups hailed the news of positive lecanemab trial results. Micro hemorrhages in the brain occurred at a rate of 17% in the lecanemab group, and 8.7% in the placebo group. Aduhelm's approval was a rare bright spot for Alzheimer's patients, but critics have called for more evidence that amyloid-targeting drugs are worth the cost.

Shares of Biogen and Eisai were halted, but shares of Eli Lilly & Co , which is also developing an Alzheimer's drug, were up 6.7% in after hours trade. Aduhelm was the first new Alzheimer's drug approved in 20 years after a long list of high-profile failures for the industry. Symptomatic brain swelling was seen in 2.8% of those in the lecanemab group and none of the placebo group, they said. Aduhelm's approval was a rare bright spot for Alzheimer's patients, but critics have called for more evidence that amyloid-targeting drugs are worth the cost. Other plaque-targeting antibodies in late-stage development for Alzheimer's patients include Roche Holding AG's (ROG.S) gantenerumab and Eli Lilly's donanemab.

☆ How more than $424 million in taxpayer money is locked away in a forgotten government fund — and lawmakers won't spend it or return it
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Dave Levinthal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The intended beneficiaries of the taxpayer-fueled Presidential Election Campaign Fund — presidential candidates — don't want it, as they're soured by its restrictions on their election fundraising and spending. A US Treasury document detailing the finances of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. Several nonprofit leaders told Insider that Congress could use the Presidential Election Campaign Fund money to immediately ease suffering, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2019-20 congressional session, two Republican lawmakers sponsored similar bills that attempted to kill the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. Until that or any other repurposing decision comes down, the FEC continues to spend taxpayer resources keeping the Presidential Election Campaign Fund alive.

☆ The Covid-19 emergency may end, but there’s no rule to say when the pandemic is over
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

For now, it remains a public health emergency in the United States, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, and it’s still a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, according to WHO. Each country, in turn, declares its own public health emergency – declarations that carry legal weight. In the United States, for example, the end of the public health emergency will have ramifications for health care coverage and cost-sharing of Covid-19 tests and treatments. At this point, WHO is not saying whether it will recognize an end to the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, he said, WHO will continue to assess the need for the public health emergency, and an expert committee meets every three months to do that.

☆ Biden's comments about pandemic widen public health split over how US should respond to Covid-19
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Some public health experts worry that political motives are driving the President's desire to declare the pandemic over, rather than protection of the public's health. It's a 9/11, week after week after week," said Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health. The World Health Organization recognizes a global health threat as something different: a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC. The US also recognizes a public health emergency. Covid-19 is still considered to be a public health emergency both domestically and around the world.

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