The World Trade Organization Is No Impediment to Vaccine Production or Distribution
James BacchusIn a sign of their increasing frustration with global efforts to ensure that all people everywhere will have access to COVID-19 vaccines, a number of developing countries have asked other members of the World Trade Organization to join with them in a sweeping waiver of the intellectual property rights relating to those vaccines. Their request raises anew the recurring debate within the WTO over the right balance between the protection of intellectual property rights and access in poorer countries to urgently needed medicines.The proposed waiver brings back bad memories for all in the WTO of the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 16, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: James Bacchus Source Type: blogs
Shingles: What triggers this painful, burning rash?
If you’re like 95% of American adults, you had chickenpox as a kid. Before the United States started its widespread vaccination program in 1995, there were roughly four million cases of chickenpox every year. So, most people suffered through an infection with this highly contagious virus and its itchy, whole-body rash.
But unlike many childhood viruses, the varicella-zoster virus that causes chickenpox doesn’t clear from the body when the illness ends. Instead it hangs around, taking up residence and lying dormant in the nerves, sometimes for decades, with the immune system holding it in check. In some people, it lives...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - December 14, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Kelly Bilodeau Tags: Health Healthy Aging Skin and Hair Care Vaccines Source Type: blogs
Top 10 Online Medical Resources For The Patients Of The Future
There are over 1 billion health-related searches on Google every single day, according to a report. This was about 7% of all searches on the platform before, and no one will be surprised when the 2020 data massively surpasses this number. After all, the internet is likely the first source to turn to with your health-related questions.
But which hits are relevant, and which lead to straightforward la la land – even with the best intentions and the best A.I. toolset, the search giant can’t exclude the latter from among the results. And yet, doing so is especially important in the case of medicine and healthcare, s...
Source: The Medical Futurist - December 10, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Digital Health Research E-Patients Medical Education Medicine social media Webicina webmd gc2 online resources pharmaceutics Topol Mayo Clinic ePatients Medscape Eric Topol Smart Patients Medline Plus National Library of Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 7th 2020
In this study, except for the reduction in body weight, the aging characteristics related to epidermal and muscle tissue in mice were significantly ameliorated in the CR group compared with the control group. Additional studies have indicated that not stem cells themselves but the stem cell microenvironment is the key factor mediating stem cell activation, proliferation and differentiation.
Mitochondrial dysfunction is an important factor leading to age-related muscular atrophy. Considering the dependence of skeletal muscle on ATP, loss of mitochondrial function, which can lead to a decrease in strength and enduranc...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 6, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
“Drug Lag” and the COVID Vaccine
Jeffrey A. SingerThe U.K ’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)announced this morning that it has approved the Pfizer/ BioNTech COVID vaccine and expects to begin immunizing its population within a week. This vaccine, along with one independently developed by Moderna Pharmaceuticals, are the first evermRNA vaccines, which use a newprocess that can potentially be used against other infectious diseases and even to treat or preventcancer. Clinical trials show both of these vaccines to be95 percent effective. They also have an excellentsafety profile thus far —in part because they don’...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 2, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Federal Aid Creates Central ‐Planning Power
This study argues that Congress should repeal all federal aid-to-state programs for many reasons, including that aid comes with costly strings attached that destroy local democracy.Richard Epstein and Mario Loyolanoted about aid programs: “When Americans vote in state and local elections, they think they are voting on state and local policies. But often they are just deciding which local officials get to implement the dictates of distant and insulated federal bureaucrats, whom even Congress can’t control.”I came across a table (p. 82) in New Jersey ’s budget that lists the $15 billion the state received in 2020 fro...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 4, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
New Cato Book: Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting
In conclusion, I hope that you will buy this book and share it with your family and friends. It is meant to be a conversation piece. Instead of gathering dust on a bookshelf, it is designed to lie on a living room table (like so many architecture and interior design books), for visitors to see and discuss over a martini or glass of wine. I hope that it will alleviate some depression and anxiety, spark a fact ‐filled discussion around the dining room table, and maybe even change some minds. Strangers things have happened. Cheers! (Source: Cato-at-liberty)
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 31, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Marian L. Tupy Source Type: blogs
TWiV 655: Minority health with Robert Fullilove
Sociomedical scientist Robert Fullilove joins TWiV to discuss disparities in minority health; FDA announces an EUA on Yale’s SalivaDirect, protection of the upper and respiratory tract of mice after intranasal inoculation with an adenovirus-vectored SARS-CoV-2 spike gene, and listener questions. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - August 21, 2020 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology adenovirus coronavirus COVID-19 HIV/AIDS minority health mucosal immunity pandemic SalivaDirect SARS-CoV-2 vaccine viral viruses Source Type: blogs
4 Examples Of Merging Gaming & Digital Health
Pausing to check his map, Sam confirms that he is on the right track for his next delivery, only 2 kilometres left. He takes the opportunity to quench his thirst and check if his delivery load is securely attached to his back; some contain fragile vials of medicines and digital pills susceptible to damage if handled inappropriately. After making sure of the integrity of those packages, Sam takes a final look at his surroundings. “It’s quite peaceful with nobody around,” he thinks to himself and resumes his path.
Upon arrival at his destination, his gear is disinfected before he has access to the inte...
Source: The Medical Futurist - August 4, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Prans Tags: Artificial Intelligence Augmented Reality Digital Health Research Healthcare Design Healthcare Policy Telemedicine & Smartphones Virtual Reality fda gamification Fitbit covid19 Apple Watch WHO gaming roche MySugr Foldit A Source Type: blogs
Too Many Small Steps, Not Enough Leaps
By KIM BELLARD
I was driving home the other day, noticed all the above-ground telephone/power lines, and thought to myself: this is not the 21st century I thought I’d be living in.
When I was growing up, the 21st century was the distant future, the stuff of science fiction. We’d have flying cars, personal robots, interstellar travel, artificial food, and, of course, tricorders. There’d be computers, although not PCs. Still, we’d have been baffled by smartphones, GPS, or the Internet. We’d have been even more flummoxed by women in the workforce or #Blac...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 28, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: COVID-19 Health Tech Public Health Health Age Kim Bellard Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 29th 2020
In conclusion, metabolomics is a promising approach for the assessment of biological age and appears complementary to established epigenetic clocks.
Sedentary Behavior Raises the Risk of Cancer Mortality
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/06/sedentary-behavior-raises-the-risk-of-cancer-mortality/
Living a sedentary lifestyle is known to be harmful to long term health, raising the risk of age-related disease and mortality. Researchers here show that a sedentary life specifically increases cancer mortality, and does so independently of other factors. This is one of many, many reasons to maintain a r...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 28, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
The Medical-Industrial Complex Pads Its Pockets As We Empty Ours
By MIKE MAGEE, MD
A report this month published in the British Medical Journal found that 80% of 293 physician leaders and board members of 10 of the most influential medical associations in the United States (including the American College of Physicians, American College of Cardiology, American Psychiatric Association, Infectious Disease Society of America, American College of Rheumatology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Endocrine Society, American Thoracic Society, and Orthopaedic Trauma Association) received financial payments of $130 million in total for “leadership” activities between 2017 and 2019....
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 8, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Economics Health Policy Medical Industrial Complex Mike Magee Source Type: blogs
Covid-19 Reuters Q & A with William Haseltine
I live-tweeted a fascinating and perhaps rather depressing meeting with William Haseltine via a Reuters Newsmaker Broadcast. His talk was upbeat but the message does not offer a positive outlook unless we can collaborate internationally to identify, trace, and isolate and go back to early antivirals to treat people urgently. A vaccine will probably never be found, we must stay on top of this virus when we get communities under control. Moreover, we must recognise that another emergent pathogen could appear any time.
These are essentially my notes from Haseltines’s talk.
Might we ever achieve herd immunity?
There is n...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - May 20, 2020 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Covid-19 Reuters Newsmaker Broadcast with William Haseltine
I live-tweeted a fascinating and perhaps rather depressing meeting with William Haseltine via a Reuters Newsmaker Broadcast. His talk was upbeat but the message does not offer a positive outlook unless we can collaborate internationally to identify, trace, and isolate and go back to early antivirals to treat people urgently. A vaccine will probably never be found, we must stay on top of this virus when we get communities under control. Moreover, we must recognise that another emergent pathogen could appear any time.
These are essentially my notes from Haseltines’s talk.
Might we ever achieve herd immunity?
There is n...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - May 20, 2020 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
OK, boomer: You ’re not the only one who needs testing for hepatitis C
It turns out that many more people than just boomers can benefit from testing for hepatitis C, a viral infection of the liver that often causes no symptoms. If you’re a member of the baby-boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964), your doctor may have already recommended the test. But those born before or after those years may not have known about the test unless they had a risk factor for hepatitis C, such as a history of intravenous drug use. A new guideline is changing this approach.
Why the different recommendations for baby boomers?
In 2012–2013, the CDC and the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) establ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 31, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Digestive Disorders Health Infectious diseases Men's Health Sexual Conditions Women's Health Source Type: blogs
