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Tag: diseases

  • An Invasive Disease-Carrying Mosquito Has Spread to the Rocky Mountains

    This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

    It can carry life-threatening diseases. It’s difficult to find and hard to kill. And it’s obsessed with human blood.

    The Aedes aegypti is a species of mosquito that people like Tim Moore, district manager of a mosquito control district on the Western Slope of Colorado, really don’t want to see.

    “Boy, they are locked into humans,” Moore said. “That’s their blood meal.”

    This mosquito species is native to tropical and subtropical climates, but as climate change pushes up temperatures and warps precipitation patterns, the Aedes aegypti—which can spread Zika, dengue, chikungunya and other potentially deadly viruses—is on the move.

    It’s popping up all over the Mountain West, where conditions have historically been far too harsh for it to survive. In the last decade, towns in New Mexico and Utah have begun catching Aedes aegypti in their traps year after year, and just this summer, one was found for the first time in Idaho.

    Now, an old residential neighborhood in Grand Junction, Colorado, has emerged as one of the latest frontiers for this troublesome mosquito.

    The city, with a population of about 70,000, is the largest in Colorado west of the Continental Divide. In 2019, the local mosquito control district spotted one wayward Aedes aegypti in a trap. It was odd, but the mosquitoes had already been found in Moab, Utah, about 100 miles to the southwest. Moore, the district manager, figured they’d caught a hitchhiker and that the harsh Colorado climate would quickly eliminate the species.

    “I concluded it was a one-off, and we don’t have to worry too much about this,” Moore said.

    Tim Moore, district manager of Grand River Mosquito Control District, explains that managing a new invasive species of mosquito in Grand Junction has required the district to increase spending on new mosquito traps and staff.Photograph: Isabella Escobedo

    Erin Douglas

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  • A Gene Editing Therapy Cut Cholesterol Levels by Half

    In a step toward the wider use of gene editing, a treatment that uses Crispr successfully slashed high cholesterol levels in a small number of people.

    In a trial conducted by Swiss biotech company Crispr Therapeutics, 15 participants received a one-time infusion meant to switch off a gene in the liver called ANGPTL3. Though rare, some people are born with a mutation in this gene that protects against heart disease with no apparent adverse consequences.

    The highest dose tested in the trial reduced both “bad” LDL cholesterol and triglycerides by an average of 50 percent within two weeks after treatment. The effects lasted at least 60 days, the length of the trial. The results were presented today at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting and published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

    The Nobel Prize–winning Crispr technology has mostly been used to address rare diseases, but these latest findings, while early, add to the evidence that the DNA-editing tool could be used to treat common conditions as well.

    “This will probably be one of the biggest moments in the arc of Crispr’s development in medicine,” Samarth Kulkarni, CEO of Crispr Therapeutics, tells WIRED. The company is behind the only approved gene-editing treatment on the market, Casgevy, which treats sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.

    The American Heart Association estimates that about a quarter of adults in the US have elevated LDL levels. A similar number have high triglycerides. LDL cholesterol is the waxy substance in the blood that can clog and harden arteries over time. Triglycerides, meanwhile, are the most common type of fat found in the body. High levels of both raise the risk of heart attack and stroke.

    The Phase I trial was conducted in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand between June 2024 and August 2025. Participants were between the ages of 31 and 68 and had uncontrolled levels of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. The trial tested five different doses of the Crispr infusion, which took about two and a half hours on average to administer.

    “These are very sick people,” says Steven Nissen, senior author and chief academic officer of the Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute at Cleveland Clinic, which independently confirmed the trial’s results. “The tragedy of this disease is not just that people die young, but some of them will have a heart attack, and their lives are never the same again. They don’t get back to work, they develop heart failure.”

    One trial participant, a 51-year-old man, died six months after receiving the lowest dose of the treatment, which was not associated with a lowering of cholesterol and triglycerides. The death was related to his existing heart disease, not the experimental Crispr treatment. The man had a rare, inherited genetic form of high cholesterol and previously had several procedures to improve blood flow to his heart.

    Emily Mullin

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  • Bad Air Is One of the Biggest Threats to Your Health. Here’s How to Protect Yourself

    There’s something invisible that can put us in an early grave. And I’m not talking about sentient AI, but something much more ubiquitous and real. While AI doomers predict the existential risk that artificial intelligence poses to humanity, air pollution—specifically, ultrafine particulate matter, PM 2.5—has been an efficient killer for decades. Many people don’t realize there are volumes of scientific evidence that link cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and brain damage to the growing list of bleak health consequences of bad air.

    According to the World Health Organization, air pollution caused 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2019. As Trump’s EPA continues to roll back standards and deregulate industries that cause air pollution, the burden of maintaining a safe breathing environment is increasingly falling on individuals. Luckily, there are some steps you can take.

    Turning Back the Clock

    PM 2.5, produced by wildfires, automobile exhaust, power plants, and industries like mining, enters the body through the nose and mouth through the simple act of breathing. Once inside the body, PM 2.5 can enter the bloodstream and the brain. Air pollution’s impact on public health and life expectancy isn’t novel. In 1970, 22 years after the deadly Donora Smog Event that killed 20 people and sickened over 6,000 in Western Pennsylvania, the Clean Air Act became federal law.

    Earlier this year, the Trump administration repealed the Biden administration’s new standards for air pollutants from taconite iron ore processing, exempting private sectors from complying, saying, “Preserving and enhancing domestic taconite processing capabilities … ensuring [the] resilience of American industrial supply chains.”

    Taconite iron ore processing creates a major amount of PM 2.5. Trump’s White House also repealed recent emissions standards for coal- and oil-fired electric utility steam, along with several other industries. As America’s commitment to limiting air pollution declines, there are appliances and actions you can take to keep the air you breathe healthier, both indoors and outside.

    It Can Cause Heart Disease

    Courtesy of Coway

    When people think of high blood pressure, air pollution might not be what they envision. More often, stress, smoking, poor diet, or genetics might come to mind, but air pollution, PM 2.5, can cause and/or contribute to hypertension. NYU cardiologist Jonathan Newman, an expert on the link between the environment and cardiovascular disease, says that “in broad strokes, air pollution can affect cardiovascular risk factors, blood sugar/diabetes, blood pressure/hypertension.”

    Invisible PM 2.5 reaches the deepest part of the lungs, entering the lung’s tiny air sacs, where it passes through the barrier to enter the bloodstream. There, it can build up into plaque on the arterial walls, known as atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. According to Newman, “Generally this occurs through direct effects of inflammation, neurohormonal effects, direct particle effects.” The interaction of PM 2.5 causes an imbalance with free radicals and antioxidants that puts stress on the body, causing inflammation and oxidative stress that leads to cell damage.

    In other words, PM 2.5 can wreak havoc on the molecular level. The World Health Organization recommends that average annual concentrations not exceed 10 micrograms per cubic meter, with daily levels under 20 micrograms per cubic meter. Those guidelines are difficult to live by. A study found that “over 90 percent of the world population lives at PM 2.5 levels above World Health Organization standards.” The cheapest and easiest protection is to use a well-made N95 face mask. I carry an N95 mask with me at all times, as I cannot predict if a good-air day will turn into a bad-air night. The practice of carrying a just-in-case mask is one way to have agency over the air you breathe.

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    Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

    3M

    Particulate Respirator N95

    It Can Progress Diabetes

    Newman was one of the coauthors of last year’s study that found that “air pollution exposure has been implicated in the onset and progression of diabetes. Increased exposure to fine particulate matter air pollution (PM 2.5) is associated with increases in blood glucose and all forms of diabetes.” The findings are not new; in studies going as far back as 1967, researchers have found a link between high levels of PM 2.5 in ambient air (outdoor air) and an increase in diabetes deaths. And while there are other contributors to diabetes such as obesity and genetics, there is a link between the inflammation caused by PM 2.5 and diabetes.

    It Can Impair Brain Development

    While respiratory disease has long been studied as a negative outcome of air pollution, recent studies show that it also impacts the nervous system and brain development, linking PM 2.5 with stroke, changes in cognitive function, dementia, and psychiatric disorders. In particular, that fine and ultrafine particulate matter has an outsized impact, as it can be absorbed into the bloodstream to reach the central nervous system.

    And how does this happen? One possible and terrifying way is through the olfactory nerve, the shortest nerve in your body, which enables us to smell. It goes from your brain to the upper inside part of your nose. To understand how something tiny like PM 2.5 can cause inflammation, a 2022 study reiterated, “PM 2.5 can pass through the lung-gas-blood barrier and the ‘gut-microbial-brain’ axis to cause systemic oxidative stress and inflammation, or directly enter brain tissue via the olfactory nerve.” That PM 2.5 accumulates and results in oxidative stress (the free radicals and antioxidants have an imbalance), where it can “cause systemic inflammation and brain tissue damage.”

    Lisa Wood Shapiro

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  • Mesa County’s summer measles outbreak totaled 11 cases, started with out-of-state travel

    Mesa County’s late-summer measles outbreak started with three children who brought the virus back from an out-of-state trip, ultimately passing it on to eight other people.

    The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment previously identified seven people who contracted measles within the county, raising concerns that the virus was spreading under the radar.

    On Wednesday, the agency announced four additional cases from August, including the three who traveled and one person they infected directly. Those four previously unidentified people then spread the virus to the seven known cases.

    All four of the new cases were unvaccinated children between 5 and 17, according to the health department. It didn’t release any other information, such as which state the children traveled to or whether any of them were related.

    The department found their cases after the state they traveled to identified them as contacts of people who had tested positive there, spokeswoman Hope Shuler said.

    Measles is most dangerous for people under 5 or over 20.

    The newly identified people got sick in August, meaning they’re well past the contagious period. Most people who have measles are contagious for about four days before the rash appears and four days after.

    The vaccine schedule calls for kids to receive their first dose at about 1 and their second around 5. Some children with compromised immune systems can’t receive the vaccine and rely on the rest of the community to protect them through herd immunity, where so many people have been vaccinated that the virus can’t easily reach new hosts.

    The known cases included two unvaccinated adults who got sick in mid-August, three people who shared a household with one of them and two strangers who crossed paths with them and later tested positive. None of them needed hospital care.

    Meg Wingerter

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  • Vaccine Panel Stacked by RFK Jr. Recommends Delaying MMRV Immunization

    A federal vaccine advisory committee made up of members hand-picked by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommended in an 8-3 vote on Thursday that the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine should not be given before age 4, citing long-known evidence that shows a slightly increased risk for febrile seizures in that age group.

    Experts say that while frightening, febrile seizures—which are uncommon after vaccination—are usually short-lived and harmless, and removing the option for parents could cause a decline in immunization rates against measles, mumps, and rubella, some of the most dangerous childhood diseases.

    Known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, the group provides recommendations to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine usage. These recommendations are typically adopted by CDC and have an impact on state vaccine requirements for school, insurance coverage of vaccines, and pharmacy access—something at least one member of the panel seemed to be unaware of.

    Thursday’s vote is part of a new shift in vaccine policy being spearheaded by Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist. In his short time as HHS secretary, Kennedy has implemented restrictions on who can receive Covid-19 vaccines and dismissed all 17 sitting members of ACIP, replacing them with 12 new members—some of whom were installed just this week. Several of the new advisers have a history of criticizing vaccines or denouncing public health measures taken during the Covid-19 pandemic. Kennedy said a “clean sweep” of ACIP was necessary to build back public confidence in vaccine science.

    On Thursday, committee members were asked to evaluate whether to recommend against the combined MMRV vaccine before age 4, as well as whether to delay the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine until the child is at least one month old.

    Currently, parents have two options for vaccinating their children against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella, also known as chickenpox. They can choose the combined shot, known as MMRV, or two separate shots—one for MMR and another for chickenpox. About 85 percent of children get separate shots.

    In the US, the hepatitis B vaccine is given in the hospital shortly after birth, because the virus can be transmitted to children during delivery. A serious liver infection, hepatitis B can lead to cirrhosis and cancer. Each year in the US, an estimated 25,000 infants are born to women diagnosed with the hepatitis B virus. Without vaccination, up to 90 percent of them would develop chronic infections. The World Health Organization advises a universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.

    The topics of discussion at Tuesday’s meeting were not based on new data or evidence, and in fact, two ACIP members, Joseph Hibbeln and Cody Meissner, as well as several representatives from professional medical organizations who were in attendance, questioned why these changes were up for consideration.

    Robert Malone, one of the more controversial new ACIP members, offered an explanation: “It’s clear that a significant population of the United States has significant concerns about vaccine policy and about vaccine mandates.” Malone is a former mRNA researcher who rose to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic by spreading falsehoods about the disease and the vaccines; he abstained from Thursday’s vote because he previously served as an expert witness in a lawsuit over the mumps vaccine.

    Emily Mullin

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  • CVS, Walgreens now require prescriptions for COVID vaccines in Colorado

    People who want to get an updated COVID-19 vaccine at CVS or Walgreens pharmacies in Colorado this fall will need to present a prescription.

    State law allows pharmacists to administer vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group that counsels the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about who will benefit from which shots.

    In previous years, the committee recommended updated COVID-19 vaccines within days of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving them. This year, the committee doesn’t have any meetings scheduled until late September, and may not recommend the shot when it does meet, since Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appointed multiple members with anti-vaccine views after removing all prior appointees in June.

    The lack of a recommendation also means that insurance companies aren’t legally required to pay for the COVID-19 vaccine without out-of-pocket costs. Most private insurers will cover the updated shots this year, though that could change in 2026, according to Reuters.

    Initially, CVS said it couldn’t give the COVID-19 vaccine to anyone in Colorado or 15 other states, because of their ACIP-approval requirement. As of Friday morning, its pharmacies can offer the shots to eligible people who have a prescription, spokeswoman Amy Thibault said.

    As of about 10 a.m. Friday, CVS’s website wouldn’t allow visitors to schedule COVID-19 shots in Colorado.

    Walgreens didn’t respond to questions about its COVID-19 vaccine policy, but its website said patients need a prescription in Colorado. A New York Times reporter found the same in 15 other states.

    The FDA this week recommended the updated shots only for people who are over 65 or have a health condition that puts them at risk for severe disease.

    The listed conditions include:

    • Asthma and other lung diseases
    • Cancer
    • History of stroke or disease in the brain’s blood vessels
    • Chronic kidney disease
    • Liver disease
    • Cystic fibrosis
    • Diabetes (all types)
    • Developmental disabilities, such as Down syndrome
    • Heart problems
    • Mental health conditions, including depression and schizophrenia
    • Dementia
    • Parkinson’s disease
    • Obesity
    • Physical inactivity
    • Current or recent pregnancy
    • Diseases or medications that impair the immune system
    • Smoking

    Meg Wingerter

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  • DC Health urges residents to take precautions after several birds test positive for West Nile virus – WTOP News

    Health officials in D.C. are urging residents across the city to take precaution after four birds in four different neighborhoods tested positive for West Nile virus last month.

    Health officials in D.C. are urging residents across the city to take precaution after four birds in four different neighborhoods tested positive for West Nile virus last month.

    D.C. Health said a partner agency, City Wildlife, tested four American crows and the results came back positive. The birds were found in Wards 2, 3, 5 and 7, according to Joy McFarlane Mills, program manager for the agency’s Division of Animal Services.

    The health agency tests for the virus from June until October, when the weather is warmest. Most of the testing has yielded negative results, McFarlane Mills told WTOP. Officials usually test mosquitoes, but when four dead birds were found, those were tested too.

    “It’s here, and we always need to take prevention mechanisms,” McFarlane Mills said. “Just continue to know that it’s endemic to the District of Columbia. We don’t want people to stay indoors. We want you to still do everything in the District, but just make sure you’re taking precautions. Safety is key in protecting yourself.”

    The latest positive results are the city’s first in wild birds since two American crows were found to have the virus in 2021. An average of three human cases were reported annually between 2020 and 2024, according to D.C. Health data, and there haven’t been any human cases reported so far in 2025.

    D.C. Health notified personnel and residents in the impacted areas, and McFarlane Mills said that means wearing long sleeves and long pants, and using an Environmental Protection Agency-approved repellent, particularly from dawn to dusk.

    Birds are what McFarlane Mills described as a “dead host … but the key concern is the vector of mosquitoes.”

    Mosquitoes could feed on infected birds, and spread the virus to humans through a bite on the skin. People who get infected usually report flu-like symptoms, including fever and chills.

    “West Nile virus has been here. The mosquitoes are going to be here. Just (ensure) that you are taking those prevention and protection precautions,” McFarlane Mills said.

    The virus has been in D.C. since 2002, McFarlane Mills said.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

    Scott Gelman

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  • Alcohol Plays a Major Role in New Cancer Cases

    Alcohol Plays a Major Role in New Cancer Cases

    THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

    A little bit of alcohol was once thought to be good for you. However, as scientific research advances, we’re gaining a clearer picture of alcohol’s effect on health—especially regarding cancer.

    The complex relationship between alcohol and cancer was recently highlighted in a new report from the American Association for Cancer Research. The report’s findings are eye-opening.

    The authors of the report estimate that 40 percent of all cancer cases are associated with “modifiable risk factors”—in other words, things we can change ourselves. Alcohol consumption being prominent among them.

    Six types of cancer are linked to alcohol consumption: head and neck cancers, esophageal cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and stomach cancer.

    The statistics are sobering. In 2019, more than one in 20 cancer diagnoses in the West were attributed to alcohol consumption, and this is increasing with time. This figure challenges the widespread perception of alcohol as a harmless social lubricant and builds on several well-conducted studies linking alcohol consumption to cancer risk.

    But this isn’t just about the present—it’s also about the future. The report highlights a concerning trend: rising rates of certain cancers among younger adults. It’s a plot twist that researchers like me are still trying to understand, but alcohol consumption is emerging as a potential frontrunner in the list of causes.

    Of particular concern is the rising incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer among adults under 50. The report notes a 1.9 percent annual increase between 2011 and 2019.

    While the exact causes of this trend are still being investigated, research consistently shows a link between frequent and regular drinking in early and mid-adulthood and a higher risk of colon and rectal cancers later in life. But it’s also important to realize this story isn’t a tragedy.

    It’s more of a cautionary tale with the potential for a hopeful ending. Unlike many risk factors for cancer, alcohol consumption is one we can control. Reducing or eliminating alcohol intake can lower the risk, offering a form of empowerment in the face of an often unpredictable disease.

    The relationship between alcohol and cancer risk generally follows a dose-response pattern, meaning simply that higher levels of consumption are associated with greater risk. Even light to moderate drinking has been linked to increased risk for some cancers, particularly breast cancer.

    Yet it’s crucial to remember that while alcohol increases cancer risk, it doesn’t mean everyone who drinks will develop cancer. Many factors contribute to cancer development.

    Damages DNA

    The story doesn’t end with these numbers. It extends to the very cells of our bodies, where alcohol’s journey begins. When we drink, our bodies break down alcohol into acetaldehyde, a substance that can damage our DNA, the blueprint of our cells. This means that alcohol can potentially rewrite our DNA and create changes called mutations, which in turn can cause cancer.

    The tale grows more complex when we consider the various ways alcohol interacts with our bodies. It can impair nutrient and vitamin absorption, alter hormone levels, and even make it easier for harmful chemicals to penetrate cells in the mouth and throat. It can affect the bacteria in our guts, the so-called microbiome, that we live with and is important for our health and well-being.

    Justin Stebbing

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  • The Bird Flu Outbreak Takes a Mysterious Turn

    The Bird Flu Outbreak Takes a Mysterious Turn

    This year in the United States, 14 people have tested positive for avian influenza, or bird flu. Nine of those became infected after coming into contact with poultry, and four got the virus from exposure to dairy cows. The source of the remaining, most recent case remains a mystery.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the case on September 6. Initially detected by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, it is the first known case of human bird flu in the country with no known exposure to a sick or infected animal. On Thursday, health officials said they hadn’t determined how the person acquired the virus.

    “Right now, evidence points to this being a one-off case,” said Nirav Shah, the CDC’s principal deputy director, during a news briefing.

    Yet the case is troubling, because it raises the possibility of an alternate source of transmission, either from a person or an unknown source. Health officials say there is no evidence of person-to-person spread at this time. The CDC says its surveillance system has not picked up any unusual flu activity in the country, and the risk to the general public remains low.

    “Our influenza surveillance system is designed to find needles in haystacks,” Shah said in the briefing. “In this case, we found such a needle, but we don’t know how it got there.”

    The Missouri case is the first to be detected through the country’s national flu surveillance system as opposed to targeted testing of animals. This year, the H5N1 flu virus has been responsible for wiping out poultry flocks across the country and infecting 200 dairy herds in 14 states—the latest in California. It is increasingly spilling over to other mammals, including foxes, mice, raccoons, and domestic cats. With more animals harboring the virus, there is greater potential for human infection.

    It’s not known whether that happened in the Missouri case, but it is one avenue health officials say they are investigating.

    “Regardless of the source, it’s concerning, because it suggests that there’s a lot of the virus out there,” says David Boyd, a virologist at UC Santa Cruz who studies influenza. “This indicates that there is widespread transmission among animal sources.”

    On August 22, an adult patient was hospitalized in Missouri for reasons related to underlying medical conditions and happened to also test positive for influenza. The patient’s specimen was then sent to the Missouri State Public Health Laboratory, which determined that it didn’t match the currently circulating seasonal flu viruses.

    That triggered additional testing by the CDC, which last week confirmed it was a type of bird flu, or H5. The agency was conducting additional testing to determine the virus subtype—the “N” part of H5N1. On Thursday, health officials said the patient had a very low concentration of viral genetic material and, because of this, they have not been able to generate a full genome, including the N part of the virus. However, their data shows that the specimen is closely related to the H5 virus circulating in dairy cows.

    Emily Mullin

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  • Crispr-Enhanced Viruses Are Being Deployed Against UTIs

    Crispr-Enhanced Viruses Are Being Deployed Against UTIs

    Locus’s therapy is actually a cocktail of six phages. The company used artificial intelligence to predict a combination that would be effective against E. coli. Three of the phages are “lytic,” meaning work by infecting E. coli cells and causing them to burst open. The other three are engineered to contain Crispr to enhance their effectiveness. Once inside their target cells, these phages use the Crispr system to home in on a crucial site in the E. coli genome and start degrading the bacteria’s DNA.

    Some phages are really good at getting into bacterial cells but not good at killing them. “That’s where gene editing comes in,” explains Paul Garofolo, CEO of Locus. He says the therapy is meant to “reach into the human body and remove a targeted bacterial species without touching anything else.”

    In a Phase 2 trial, 16 women received a three-day course of the phage cocktail, along with Bactrim, a commonly prescribed antibiotic for UTIs. Within four hours of the first treatment, levels of E. coli in the urine rapidly declined, and were maintained through the end of the 10-day study period. By that time, UTI symptoms in all of the participants had cleared up, and levels of E. coli were low enough in 14 out of 16 women that they were considered cured.

    The findings were reported August 9 in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is co-developing the therapy.

    UTIs are incredibly common, and roughly half of women will have a UTI in their lifetime. More than 80 percent of infections are caused by E. coli, and in a 2022 report, the World Health Organization found that one in five UTI infections caused by E. coli showed reduced susceptibility to standard antibiotics like ampicillin, co-trimoxazole, and fluoroquinolones.

    While phage therapy is common in the Republic of Georgia and Poland, it is not licensed in the US. However, it is used experimentally in certain cases with permission from the US Food and Drug Administration. A major challenge with commercializing phage therapy is that it’s often personalized to individual patients and thus difficult to scale. Finding the right phage for treatment can take time, and then batches of phages need to be grown and purified. But using a fixed cocktail like Locus’s would mean the therapy could be more easily scaled.

    And there’s another potential benefit. “The Crispr-enhanced phages allow for degradation of the bacterial genome and would bypass several mechanisms by which bacteria can become resistant to phage,” says Saima Aslam, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, who studies phages but is not involved in the development of the Locus therapy. “Theoretically, this may prevent regrowth of phage-resistant bacteria and thus lead to more effective treatment.”

    Photograph: Locus Biosciences

    Emily Mullin

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  • Promising Mpox Drug Fails in Trials as Virus Spreads

    Promising Mpox Drug Fails in Trials as Virus Spreads

    As mpox continues to spread in Central Africa, a promising antiviral drug to treat the infection has failed to improve patients’ symptoms in a trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the outbreak.

    In the trial, the drug tecovirimat, also known as TPOXX, did not alleviate the characteristic blisterlike rash seen in people with mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. In an unusual step, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which sponsored the study, announced the initial findings earlier this month prior to the full results being peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal.

    Lori Dodd, branch chief of NIAID’s clinical trials research and statistics branch, tells WIRED that the agency shared the initial results “due to the urgent need for scientific evidence on the use of tecovirimat for the treatment of mpox.” That urgency, she says, was reinforced by the World Health Organization designating the mpox outbreak in Central Africa as a global health emergency on August 14. It’s the second such declaration in two years.

    The results come as a disappointment, especially as Central African countries are struggling to contain transmission of mpox. Since the beginning of this year, 13 African countries have recorded a total of 20,720 confirmed or suspected cases of mpox and 582 deaths, according to an August 25 report from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

    On Monday, the World Health Organization launched a six-month strategic plan aimed at reining in the outbreak. The plan, which is estimated to cost $135 million, includes boosting surveillance efforts, as well as improving access to testing and vaccines. “The mpox outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries can be controlled, and can be stopped,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, in a statement.

    There are approved vaccines to prevent mpox but no drugs indicated to treat the disease. Tecovirimat was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2018 for the treatment of smallpox, a related virus, and ongoing trials of the drug were launched in 2022 to treat mpox amid a global outbreak of the disease. The drug has also been available in the US for mpox through an expanded access program, which allows a physician to treat a patient with an investigational drug outside of a clinical trial. In the UK and Europe, TPOXX was approved for mpox under exceptional circumstances without comprehensive data on its efficacy.

    As part of the trial in the DRC, nearly 600 participants were randomly assigned to receive tecovirimat or a placebo and were admitted to a hospital for at least 14 days, where they were monitored closely. All participants received supportive care, which included nutrition, hydration, and treatment for any secondary infections. While the drug was found to be safe, it was no better at clearing up patients’ lesions than the placebo.

    Notably, mortality was lower, and patients’ lesions cleared up faster than anticipated regardless of whether they received tecovirimat or placebo. The study’s 1.7 percent overall mortality among enrollees, regardless of whether they received the drug or not, was much lower than the mpox mortality of 3.6 percent or higher reported among all cases in the DRC.

    Emily Mullin

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  • This Mpox Outbreak Isn’t Like the Last One

    This Mpox Outbreak Isn’t Like the Last One

    In May 2023, the World Health Organization released a statement declaring the end of mpox—formerly known as monkeypox—as a public health emergency. Just over a year later, the agency has been forced to backtrack, with a far more serious epidemic brewing across much of sub-Saharan Africa.

    Statistics show that more than 15,000 mpox cases and 461 deaths have been reported on the African continent since January, spreading out of countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where mpox has long been endemic, to 13 other African nations: countries like Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi, and Uganda, where the disease has never previously made an impact.

    In the eyes of scientists like Boghuma Titanji, an associate professor in infectious diseases at Emory University who studies mpox outbreaks, this new, deadlier outbreak represents the consequence of the world’s health watchdogs failing to do enough last time round.

    It was the summer of 2022 when the spread of mpox first set alarm bells ringing. Suddenly a virus which had always been predominantly contained within parts of West and Central Africa was suddenly going worldwide. Between early 2022 and December 2023, there were 92,783 confirmed cases of mpox across 116 countries, leading to 171 deaths.

    Despite these numbers, its perception as a public health threat swiftly faded. “Ninety-five percent of the cases during the 2022 outbreak were among men who have sex with men, reporting exposure through sexual or close contact with another infected person,” says Titanji. “It was an outbreak that was very focused, which allowed vaccinations to be prioritized among that network.”

    Countries in the global north successfully scrambled to suppress the outbreak within their own borders. Meanwhile, Titanji says, ramping up viral surveillance among the African nations who had been battling a steady rise in mpox cases for the past four decades soon slipped down the priority list, allowing a potentially more problematic variant to emerge undetected.

    Mpox exists in two main subtypes, clade 1 and clade 2. Between them, clade 1 is believed to be up to 10 times more deadly, particularly among population groups with weakened or developing immune systems such as children under the age of 5, pregnant women, and immunocompromised people. That’s the viral strain behind this new outbreak, and why infectious disease scientists are so alarmed. (A separate outbreak spreading in South Africa among people living with HIV is thought to be linked to clade 2.)

    “The 2022 global outbreak was clade 2, and mortality was less than 1 percent,” says Jean Nachega, a Congolese infectious disease doctor and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. “Now we’re talking about a strain which can have up to 10 percent mortality.”

    While the previous outbreak predominantly affected homosexual populations, data indicates that the new strain is also being transmitted far more broadly, perhaps initially through sexual networks and then being passed on to family members. Last month, Nachega and others published a paper in the journal Nature Medicine demonstrating how an outbreak of mpox began in the small mining town of Kamituga in eastern DRC through sex workers before being transmitted to nearby Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi as the infected individuals returned home to visit their families.

    David Cox

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  • There’s New Hope for an HIV Vaccine

    There’s New Hope for an HIV Vaccine

    Since it was first identified in 1983, HIV has infected more than 85 million people and caused some 40 million deaths worldwide.

    While medication known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, can significantly reduce the risk of getting HIV, it has to be taken every day to be effective. A vaccine to provide lasting protection has eluded researchers for decades. Now, there may finally be a viable strategy for making one.

    An experimental vaccine developed at Duke University triggered an elusive type of broadly neutralizing antibody in a small group of people enrolled in a 2019 clinical trial. The findings were published today in the scientific journal Cell.

    “This is one of the most pivotal studies in the HIV vaccine field to date,” says Glenda Gray, an HIV expert and the president and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, who was not involved in the study.

    A few years ago, a team from Scripps Research and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) showed that it was possible to stimulate the precursor cells needed to make these rare antibodies in people. The Duke study goes a step further to generate these antibodies, albeit at low levels.

    “This is a scientific feat and gives the field great hope that one can construct an HIV vaccine regimen that directs the immune response along a path that is required for protection,” Gray says.

    Vaccines work by training the immune system to recognize a virus or other pathogen. They introduce something that looks like the virus—a piece of it, for example, or a weakened version of it—and by doing so, spur the body’s B cells into producing protective antibodies against it. Those antibodies stick around so that when a person later encounters the real virus, the immune system remembers and is poised to attack.

    While researchers were able to produce Covid-19 vaccines in a matter of months, creating a vaccine against HIV has proven much more challenging. The problem is the unique nature of the virus. HIV mutates rapidly, meaning it can quickly outmaneuver immune defenses. It also integrates into the human genome within a few days of exposure, hiding out from the immune system.

    “Parts of the virus look like our own cells, and we don’t like to make antibodies against our own selves,” says Barton Haynes, director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and one of the authors on the paper.

    The particular antibodies that researchers are interested in are known as broadly neutralizing antibodies, which can recognize and block different versions of the virus. Because of HIV’s shape-shifting nature, there are two main types of HIV and each has several strains. An effective vaccine will need to target many of them.

    Some HIV-infected individuals generate broadly neutralizing antibodies, although it often takes years of living with HIV to do so, Haynes says. Even then, people don’t make enough of them to fight off the virus. These special antibodies are made by unusual B cells that are loaded with mutations they’ve acquired over time in reaction to the virus changing inside the body. “These are weird antibodies,” Haynes says. “The body doesn’t make them easily.”

    Emily Mullin

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  • How Not to Get Brain-Eating Worms and Mercury Poisoning

    How Not to Get Brain-Eating Worms and Mercury Poisoning

    According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, almost all of us have at least trace amounts of methylmercury—the form of mercury we tend to encounter most—in our bodies due to its sheer prevalence in the environment. However, most of the time these levels are too low to result in any health problems.

    While some of this can come from residing near power plants, as coal combustion releases a range of harmful pollutants including mercury, humans tend to ingest the chemical through consuming fish, says Awadhesh Jha, a toxicologist at the University of Plymouth. “A lot of industries are near the coastline, and most of their contaminants, including mercury, are discharged into the aquatic environment,” he says. “So fish accumulate more of them.”

    While there is little information on the number of cases of mercury toxicity in the US each year, studies have shown that excessive mercury exposure can cause neurodevelopmental problems in children and expose adults to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease. In various national surveys across the US, people with an income of less than $20,000 per year, low education, and those who consume fish more than three times a week have been found to have the most mercury exposure.

    Risks are highest when consuming larger fish, Jha says, because they accumulate greater concentrations of mercury in their bodies over time through eating smaller species. Because of this, both the EPA and the Food and Drug Administration advise pregnant women to avoid eating shark, swordfish, mackerel, or tilefish, as they may contain higher amounts of mercury, which could have an impact on the brain development of an unborn fetus.

    For the rest of us, Jha says he advises a limit of no more than 170 grams per week of fish such as tuna or mackerel—approximately a single can of tuna—and in general no more than 350 grams per week of any fish or shellfish. Exceeding these limits on an occasional basis will likely have little impact, but doing so week-in, week-out will raise your risk of having higher mercury levels in your body.

    The issue remains contentious among scientists, as eating a lot of fish also has known health benefits such as increasing intake of omega-3 fatty acids, which are protective against cardiovascular disease.

    “Ultimately it depends on the person and how well they metabolize toxic substances,” Jha says. “It’s the genetic makeup of individuals which determines the toxicity of chemicals including mercury.”

    Research has previously shown that mercury can affect the body in various ways, which can have an impact on immune function. Common signs of mercury poisoning are joint and muscle pain, weakness, fatigue, insomnia, and excessive sweating.

    Anyone suffering from mercury poisoning can be treated through medicines called chelators, which remove mercury from the blood and keep it away from the brain and kidneys, but it’s a time-consuming process that can take weeks or months before symptoms improve.

    “It will gradually decompose and then be metabolized and excreted, but it still depends if the mercury is bound by certain proteins and other molecules in the body,” says Jha. “If that’s the case, it might take longer to be eliminated from the body.”

    RFK Jr. insists that he’s well past any ill effects from the dual maladies. “I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate,” the candidate tweeted Wednesday on X. “I feel confident of the result even with a six-worm handicap.”

    David Cox

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  • Unbelievable facts

    Unbelievable facts

    Tetanus is no joke. If it doesn’t get you, the muscle spasms are so bad they might just snap…

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  • Measles Strikes a Florida Elementary School With Over 100 Unvaccinated Kids

    Measles Strikes a Florida Elementary School With Over 100 Unvaccinated Kids

    Florida health officials on Sunday announced an investigation into a cluster of measles cases at an elementary school in the Fort Lauderdale area with a low vaccination rate, a scenario health experts fear will become more and more common amid slipping vaccination rates nationwide.

    On Friday, Broward County Public School reported a confirmed case of measles in a student at Manatee Bay Elementary School in the city of Weston. A local CBS affiliate reported that the case was in a third-grade student who had not recently traveled. On Saturday, the school system announced that three additional cases at the same school had been reported, bringing the current reported total to four cases.

    On Sunday, the Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) released a health advisory about the cases and announced it was opening an investigation to track contacts at risk of infection.

    At Manatee Bay Elementary School, the number of children at risk could be over 100 students. According to a Broward County vaccine study reported by the local CBS outlet, only 89.31 percent of students at Manatee Bay Elementary School were fully immunized in the 2023/2024 school year, which is significantly lower than the target vaccination coverage of 95 percent. The school currently has 1,067 students enrolled, suggesting that up to 114 students are vulnerable to the infection based on their vaccination status.

    Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known. It spreads via respiratory and airborne transmission. The virus can linger in air space for up to two hours after an infected person has been in an area. People who are not vaccinated or have compromised immune systems are susceptible, and up to 90 percent of susceptible people exposed to the virus will become infected. Measles symptoms typically begin around eight to 14 days after exposure, but the disease can incubate for up to 21 days. The symptoms begin as a high fever, runny nose, red and watery eyes, and a cough before the telltale rash develops. Infected people can be contagious from four days before the rash develops through four days after the rash appears, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 1 in 5 unvaccinated people with measles are hospitalized, the CDC adds, while 1 in 20 infected children develop pneumonia and up to 3 in 1,000 children die of the infection.

    Those who are not immunocompromised and are fully vaccinated against measles (who have received two doses of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine) are generally not considered at risk. The two doses are about 97 percent effective at preventing measles, and protection is considered to be life-long.

    The DOH-Broward said it is now “identifying susceptible contacts that may be candidates for post-exposure prophylaxis through MMR or immunoglobulin.”

    While the risk of measles is generally low in the US—the country declared it eliminated in 2000—the threat of large outbreaks is growing as vaccination rates slip. Many cases in the US are linked to travel from countries where the virus still circulates. But, if a travel-related case lands in a pocket with low vaccination coverage, the virus can take off. Such was the case in 2019, when the country tallied 1,274 measles cases and nearly lost its elimination status.

    Health officials typically consider vaccination coverage of 95 percent or greater sufficient to protect from ongoing transmission. In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, vaccination rates among US kindergarteners have slipped to 93 percent, and vaccination exemptions reached an all-time high in the latest data from the 2022-2023 school year. There are now at least 10 states that have vaccination exemption rates above 5 percent, meaning that even if every non-exempt child is vaccinated, those states will not have enough coverage to reach the 95 percent target.

    The CDC has tallied 20 measles cases in the US so far this year. But that is the tally as of February 15; it does not include any of the Florida cases reported since Friday. In 2023, there were 58 measles cases reported to the CDC.

    This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.

    Beth Mole, Ars Technica

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