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☆ U.S. lawmakers push for more oversight of Elon Musk's Neuralink
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Rachael Levy | Thomson Reuters | Award-Winning Journalist Covering Corporate Governance. Her Reporting Has Prompted Federal Investigations | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Dec 8 (Reuters) - U.S. House Representatives Earl Francis Blumenauer and Adam Schiff want further U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scrutiny of Elon Musk's Neuralink following a Reuters report that outlined mistakes in the brain chip company's animal testing program, their offices said on Thursday. A USDA spokesperson said the agency could not comment on Neuralink and referred Reuters to the inspector general's office, which also declined to comment. In total, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018, Reuters found. Blumenauer's and Schiff's offices declined to comment on what they want the USDA to do beyond the inspector general's investigation. Schiff has also been critical of Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc, accusing him of "sabotaging safeguards against digital misinformation and hate."

☆ Cyberattack on top Indian hospital highlights security risk
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

NEW DELHI — The leading hospital in India’s capital limped back to normalcy on Wednesday after a cyberattack crippled its operations for nearly two weeks. Online registration of patients resumed Tuesday after the hospital was able to access its server and recover lost data. The attack was followed by a series of failed attempts to hack India’s top medical research organization, the Indian Council of Medical Research. “We are digitizing (everything), but then there is an attack on the country’s most important medical institute,” he said. Altaf Qadri / APOn Nov. 30, there were repeated but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to breach the website of the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

The spread of RSV appears to be slowing, though Covid cases have risen since Thanksgiving and flu hospitalizations remain at a decade high, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday. "This year’s flu season is off to a rough start," Dr. Sandra Fryhofer, board chair of the American Medical Association, said at a CDC press briefing. Nationally, the number of positive weekly RSV tests fell from more than 19,000 in the week ending Nov. 12 to around 7,500 in the week ending Nov. 26. Average daily Covid cases, however, have risen 16% over the last two weeks, according to NBC News' tally. The CDC recorded a nearly 18% increase in average daily hospital admissions due to Covid from the week ending Nov. 22 to the week ending Nov. 29.

☆ Exclusive: Musk’s Neuralink faces federal probe, employee backlash over animal tests
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Rachael Levy | Thomson Reuters | Award-Winning Journalist Covering Corporate Governance. Her Reporting Has Prompted Federal Investigations | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +16 min

Reuters could not determine the full scope of the federal investigation or whether it involved the same alleged problems with animal testing identified by employees in Reuters interviews. Musk has pushed hard to accelerate Neuralink’s progress, which depends heavily on animal testing, current and former employees said. Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said it is “very unusual” for the USDA inspector general to investigate animal research facilities. In September, the company responded to employee concerns about its animal testing by holding a town hall to explain its processes. “We’re extremely careful,” he said, to make sure that testing is “confirmatory, not exploratory,” using animal testing as a last resort after trying other methods.

There have been at least 8.7 million illnesses, 78,000 hospitalizations, and 4,500 deaths from flu so far this season, according to CDC estimates. She said flu season started earlier and "hospitalizations for flu continue to be the highest we have seen at this time of year in a decade." People also likely have weakened defenses after not being exposed to flu and RSV while working or schooling from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. About 12% fewer pregnant women have been vaccinated so far this season compared to last season, and about 5% fewer children, Walensky said. COVID-19 cases have risen following the Thanksgiving holiday and COVID-related hospitalizations have also increased about 15% to 20% over the last week, Walensky said.

☆ Inside Ukraine’s Blackouts: Fraught Operations, Candlelit Concerts, Anger With Russia
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Matthew Luxmoore | Photographs Justyna Mielnikiewicz Maps For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

KYIV, Ukraine—Doctors were operating on Ksenia Maikan’s 14-year-old son at a hospital in the capital last week when she heard two explosions and saw the lights in the surgery room go out. Russia had fired another barrage of missiles at targets across Ukraine that morning, causing fresh power outages in major cities including the capital. Hospital staff scrambled to get patients and relatives to the bomb shelter, but Ms. Maikan chose to stay near her son, David, who was undergoing heart surgery for a congenital defect. The doctors continued to work as generators kicked in to power critical equipment and assistants shone lamps to illuminate the boy’s chest.

Covid, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are together driving a national wave of respiratory illnesses. Covid, flu and RSV can be difficult to distinguish, since they share many common symptoms. But a loss of taste and smell is more commonly associated with Covid than with flu or RSV. Flu symptoms tend to develop more suddenly than those of Covid or RSV. To reduce the length of flu symptoms, though, doctors usually prescribe Tamiflu or one of three other approved treatments.

☆ Children's hospitals call on Biden to declare emergency in response to 'unprecedented' RSV surge
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

The president should declare an emergency under the Stafford Act or the National Emergencies Act, and the health secretary should declare a public health emergency, Wietecha and Del Monte wrote. ACEP described the situation as a public health emergency. Oregon this week became the first state to declare on emergency in response to the RSV surge. A national public health emergency would be determined based on countrywide data, science trends and the insight of public health experts, the spokesperson said. UPMC Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh has faced a huge surge in respiratory illnesses since September, said Dr. Raymond Pitetti, director of the hospital's emergency department.

At Fortune 100 companies, only 12 chief executives were women as of July 15, the same number as a year earlier, according to Heidrick. The Heidrick & Struggles also report showed 86 CEOs in the group were white, down slightly from 88 in the prior period. "If you want to accelerate the rate of the change in the C-suite, then it (diversity) has to be embedded in the succession plan," Taylor said. In a separate survey, Heidrick found record levels of board seats filled by first-time directors at 43%. Nearly half of the appointees last year were women, while 41% were racially or ethnically diverse, similar to rates in 2020.

Ransomware hackers hit MercyOne in early October, part of a larger breach that caused hospitalwide outages at multiple health systems, according to The Des Moines Register. CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit health system based in Chicago, oversees 140 hospitals in 21 states; it was not clear how many of them hospitals were affected, and it declined to share the number. For Rachel Cupples of Western Washington, the CommonSpirit Health ransomware attack meant delaying important surgery for weeks. Like some other CommonSpirit Health hospitals that were affected, hers announced it was having trouble scheduling new patients. Parsi and Cupples said they blamed the hackers, not the hospitals, for their pain caused by delayed care.

☆ RSV vaccine for kids: Pfizer shot for pregnant women protects infants from severe illness
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Berkeley-Lovelace-Jr.Jpg | Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

An experimental RSV vaccine for pregnant women from Pfizer is effective at protecting newborns against severe illness for at least six months, the company said in a press release Tuesday. The vaccine was also about 70% effective against severe infections through the first six months of life. Pfizer said in a statement that it is currently not conducting an RSV vaccine trial in infants. Pfizer's RSV vaccine could be "a major step forward so that we can attack this last really bad communicable disease of the neonatal period," Schaffner said. Aside from pregnant women, Pfizer is testing its vaccine in older adults, who are also at risk for severe RSV infections.

☆ Millions at risk of losing health insurance if U.S. ends Covid public health emergency in January
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

The Health and Human Services Department will give the public 60 days notice before lifting the public health emergency, Becerra said. The health emergency also allowed millions of people to receive increased food benefits through the federal government's nutrition program. When the public health emergency does end, HHS estimates up to 15 million people will be disenrolled from Medicare and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Millions to lose Medicaid coverageThe most dramatic impact from ending the public health emergency will fall on people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Trump administration Health Secretary Alex Azar activated the FDA's emergency authorization powers in March 2020, about two months after first declaring the public health emergency.

☆ About 17 Americans die waiting for transplants each day. Scientists are trying to make more organs in 5 creative ways.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Courtesy of Leilani GrahamIf pig organs turn out to be just as effective as human organs, she added, "That is more appealing to me than using marginal donors." If the technique works for human organs in the future, it could allow clinicians to preserve many more organs for donation after death. Changing organs' blood typeEnzymes are delivered to a lung inside a perfusion machine at Dr. Marcelo Cypel’s lab. Growing synthetic organs from stem cellsResearcher Stormy Chamberlain holds a tray of stem cells at the University of Connecticut's Stem Cell Institute. Hanna started a company called Renewal Bio to pursue the possibility of turning stem cells into organs for transplants.

☆ Cybersecurity Tops the CIO Agenda as Threats Continue to Escalate
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Steven Rosenbush | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Cyber and information security has been at the top of their agenda since 2020. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Gartner forecasts that worldwide information security and risk-management spending by end-users will reach $188.336 billion in 2023, up 11.3% from the current year. It’s what boards are talking about,” said Truist Financial Corp. Chief Information Security Officer Howard Whyte. He and Truist CIO Scott Case work closely to understand the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank’s changing attack surface and cybersecurity risk.

☆ See the 18-slide pitch deck Peachy, a digital health insurance platform targeted at millennials, used to raise $1.6 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

London-based Peachy has raised $1.6 million for its health insurance platform. The startup tailors its digital platform to millennials and aims to expand its services to SMEs. Check out the 18-slide deck used to raise the fresh funding. A startup that has created a digital health insurance platform for millennials and service workers has closed a $1.6 million seed round. Their backers included the likes of Dr Damien Marmion, ex-CEO of global insurance provider Axa Global Health, Eva Maria Barbosa, partner at global law firm Clyde and Co, and Sian Fisher, ex-CEO of the Chartered Institute of Insurers, among others.

☆ Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne tell serial killer story in 'The Good Nurse'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Hanna Rantala | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne attend the premiere of 'The Good Nurse' during the BFI London Film Festival, in London, Britain, October 10, 2022. Based on a book of the same name, "The Good Nurse" centres around ICU nurse Amy Loughren who in 2003 helped uncover the murders committed by her colleague and friend Charles Cullen. And so it felt like a big responsibility," Chastain told Reuters at the movie's London Film Festival premiere on Monday. “The Good Nurse” is directed by Tobias Lindholm, writer of the Oscar-winning Danish film "Another Round", making his English-language feature debut. "The Good Nurse” starts streaming on Netflix on Oct. 26.

☆ 5 cutting-edge medical experiments could expand our organ supply, from gene-edited pigs to artificial embryos
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Courtesy of Leilani GrahamIf pig organs turn out to be just as effective as human organs, she added, "That is more appealing to me than using marginal donors." While much of the shortage is driven by imperfect logistics and bureaucracy rather than supply, cutting-edge research could make organs — human, pig, or synthetic — more accessible in Graham's lifetime. If the technique works for human organs in the future, it could allow clinicians to preserve many more organs for donation after death. Changing organs' blood typeEnzymes are delivered to a lung inside a perfusion machine at Dr. Marcelo Cypel’s lab. Growing synthetic organs from stem cellsResearcher Stormy Chamberlain holds a tray of stem cells at the University of Connecticut's Stem Cell Institute.

☆ Thousands of nurses at Minnesota hospitals launch strike seeking wage increases of 30%
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-12 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

MINNEAPOLIS — Thousands of nurses in Minnesota launched a three-day strike Monday, complaining of low salaries and understaffing worsened by the strains of the coronavirus pandemic. Minnesota Nurses Association president Mary Turner said pay raises are necessary to address the “crisis of retention” that would otherwise leave the hospitals severely understaffed. Nurses picket Monday outside North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale, Minn. David Joles / Star Tribune via APThe hospitals have offered 10-12% wage increases but the nurses are seeking more than 30%. The hospitals affected by the strike included those operated by Allina Health, M Health Fairview, Children’s Hospital, North Memorial and HealthPartners. The Minnesota nurses’ strike comes amid an upsurge in union activity nationwide.

☆ GE unit boosts medical dye output as China COVID lockdown cuts supplies
▼ + stars: | 2022-05-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

read moreSome of the largest U.S. hospitals said on Tuesday they are facing critical shortages of iodinated contrast media products. The Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) warned on May 4 of temporary supply shortages of GE Healthcare's iodinated contrast media - specifically its Omnipaque products made in Shanghai. "We are working around the clock to expand capacity of our iodinated contrast media products," a GE spokesperson said after the company had to close its Shanghai facility for several weeks due to local COVID policies. GE Healthcare has four contrast media manufacturing facilities, including the one in Shanghai. A spokesperson for Bayer (BAYGn.DE), which competes with GE Healthcare in contrast media, said it is not facing a similar situation.

☆ Mississippi banned most abortions to be the 'safest state' for the unborn. Meanwhile, one in three Mississippi kids lives in poverty.
▼ + stars: | 2021-11-26 | by ( Sarah Fowler | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

Mississippi lawmakers said the ban on most abortions after 15 weeks makes Mississippi 'the safest state in the country' for the unborn. "We've had so many state leaders who have talked about wanting Mississippi to be the safest state in the country for unborn babies. It's even higher for kids: one in three Mississippi children live in poverty. Each of the women has dedicated their life to helping Mississippi women and families. More than 100,000 Mississippi children should be eligible, but in 2019 – the most recent year for which there's data – just 20,900 benefited from the program.

☆ Working discussion of members of the Operational Headquarters
▼ + stars: | 2020-03-12 | by ( ) novostipmr.com time to read: +3 min

It was noted in the course of the meeting of the Operational Headquarters under the PMR President that while maintaining the existing activity, the use of rapid tests for coronavirus available will be enough for two weeks. The President instructed to speed up the purchase of the next batch so that the republic would not be left without the possibility of testing. The President asked about the functioning of the new intensive care unit, deployed on the basis of the Tiraspol infectious diseases hospital. Another instruction of the President - to the government: to allocate funds from the budget of this year for the purchase of scanner for the Dubossary hospital. The meeting participants discussed the draft comprehensive plan for the provision of outpatient care at home to asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 presented by the Head of the Operational Headquarters.

Persons: Vadim Krasnoselsky, ”, Ruslan Mova Organizations: Republican Clinical Hospital, Operational Headquarters, Правительство Locations: Tiraspol

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