“First 100 days,” said Means, a former consultant to Big Pharma who uses the social platform X to focus attention on chronic disease. “What should be done to reform the FDA?”

The question was more than rhetorical. Means is among a cadre of health business leaders and nonmainstream doctors who are influencing President Donald Trump’s focus on health policy.

Trump’s return to the White House has given Means and others in this space significant clout in shaping the nascent health policies of the new administration and its federal agencies. It’s also giving newfound momentum to “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, a controversial movement that challenges prevailing thinking on public health and chronic disease.

Its followers couch their ideals in phrases like “health freedom” and “true health.” Their stated causes are as diverse as revamping certain agricultural subsidies, firing National Institutes of Health employees, rethinking childhood vaccination schedules, and banning marketing of ultra-processed foods to children on TV.

Public health leaders say the emerging Trump administration’s interest in elevating the sometimes unorthodox concepts could be catastrophic, eroding decades of scientific progress while spurring a rise in preventable disease. They worry the administration’s support could weaken trust in public health agencies.

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said he welcomes broad intellectual scientific discussion but is concerned that Trump will parrot untested and unproven public health ideas he hears as if they are fact.

Experience has shown that people with unproven ideas will have his ear and his “very large bully pulpit,” he said. “Because he’s president, people will believe he won’t say things that aren’t true. This president, he will.”

But those in the MAHA camp have a very different take. They say they have been maligned as dangerous for questioning the status quo. The election has given them an enormous opportunity to shape politics and policies, and they say they won’t undermine public health. Instead, they say, they will restore trust in federal health agencies that lost public support during the pandemic.

“It may be a brilliant strategy by the right,” said Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who has come under fire for saying covid-19 vaccines are unsafe. He was describing some of the election-season messaging that mainstreamed their perspectives. “The right was saying we care about medical and environmental issues. The left was pursuing abortion rights and a negative campaign on Trump. But everyone should care about health. Health should be apolitical.”

The movement is largely anti-regulatory and anti-big government, whether concerning raw milk or drug approvals, although implementing changes would require more regulation. Many of its concepts cross over to include ideas that have also been championed by some on the far left.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist Trump has nominated to run the Department of Health and Human Services, has called for firing hundreds of people at the National Institutes of Health, removing fluoride from water, boosting federal support for psychedelic therapy, and loosening restrictions on raw milk, consumption of which can expose consumers to foodborne illness. Its sale has prompted federal raids on farms for not complying with food safety regulations.

Means has called for top-down changes at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which he says has been co-opted by the food industry.

Though he himself is not trained in science or medicine, he has said people had almost no chance of dying of covid-19 if they were “metabolically healthy,” referring to eating, sleeping, exercise, and stress management habits, and has said that about 85% of deaths and health care costs in the U.S. are tied to preventable foodborne metabolic conditions.

A co-founder of Truemed, a company that helps consumers use pretax savings and reimbursement programs on supplements, sleep aids, and exercise equipment, Means says he has had conversations behind closed doors with dozens of members of Congress. He said he also helped bring RFK Jr. and Trump together. RFK Jr. endorsed Trump in August after ending his independent presidential campaign.

“I had this vision for a year, actually. It sounds very woo-woo, but I was in a sweat tent with him in Austin at a campaign event six months before, and I just had this strong vision of him standing with Trump,” Means said recently on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

The former self-described never-Trumper said that, after Trump’s first assassination attempt, he felt it was a powerful moment. Means called RFK Jr. and worked with conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson to connect him to the former president. Trump and RFK Jr. then had weeks of conversations about topics such as child obesity and causes of infertility, Means said.

“I really felt, and he felt, like this could be a realignment of American politics,” Means said.

He is joined in the effort by his sister, Casey Means, a Stanford University-trained doctor and co-author with her brother of “Good Energy,” a book about improving metabolic health. The duo has blamed Big Pharma and the agriculture industry for increasing rates of obesity, depression, and chronic health conditions in the country. They have also raised questions about vaccines.

“Yeah, I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they are getting before 18 months,” Casey Means said in the Joe Rogan podcast episode with her brother.

The movement, which challenges what its adherents call “the cult of science,” gained significant traction during the pandemic, fueled by a backlash against vaccine and mask mandates that flourished during the Biden administration. Many of its supporters say they gained followers who believed they had been misled on the effectiveness of covid-19 vaccines.

In July 2022, Deborah Birx, covid-19 response coordinator in Trump’s first administration, said on Fox News that “we overplayed the vaccines,” although she noted that they do work.

Anthony Fauci, who advised Trump during the pandemic, in December 2020 called the vaccines a game changer that could diminish covid-19 the way the polio vaccine did for that disease.

Eventually, though, it became evident that the shots don’t necessarily prevent transmission and the effectiveness of the booster wanes with time, which some conservatives say led to disillusionment that has driven interest in the health freedom movement.

Federal health officials say the rollout of the covid vaccine was a turning point in the pandemic and that the shots lessen the severity of the disease by teaching the immune system to recognize and fight the virus that causes it.

Postelection, some Trump allies such as Elon Musk have called for Fauci to be prosecuted. Fauci declined to comment.

Joe Grogan, a former director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council and assistant to Trump, said conservatives have been trying to articulate why government control of health care is troublesome.

“Two things have happened. The government went totally overboard and lied about many things during covid and showed no compassion about people’s needs outside of covid,” he said. “RFK Jr. came along and articulated very simply that government control of health care can’t be trusted, and we’re spending money, and it isn’t making anyone healthier. In some instances, it may be making people sicker.”

The MAHA movement capitalizes on many of the nonconventional health concepts that have been darlings of the left, such as promoting organic foods and food as medicine. But in an environment of polarized politics, the growing prominence of leaders who challenge what they call the cult of science could lead to more public confusion and division, some health analysts say.

Jeffrey Singer, a surgeon and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy research group, said in a statement that he agrees with RFK Jr.’s focus on reevaluating the public health system. But he said it comes with risks.

“I am concerned that many of RFK Jr.’s claims about vaccine safety, environmental toxins, and food additives lack evidence, have stoked public fears, and contributed to a decline in childhood vaccination rates,” he said.

Measles vaccination among kindergartners in the U.S. dropped to 92.7% in the 2023-24 school year from 95.2% in the 2019-20 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency said that has left about 280,000 kindergartners at risk.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

The post Make America Healthy Again: An Unconventional Movement That May Have Found Its Moment appeared first on Medika Life.

Recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP) is just one of those unexpected HPV-driven conditions. RRP is not a sexually transmitted disease and patients are not contagious. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people in the United States and more than 125,000 globally have RRP. This burdensome disease takes several forms and impacts people’s upper or lower respiratory tracts or presents as recurrent lesions on the vocal cords or adjacent tissues that require endless corrective surgeries. The treatment often results in permanent damage to a person’s voice.

RRP falls into two demographic subtypes: juvenile-onset (even toddlers) RRP and adult-onset RRP. Each presents unique medical management and lifestyle difficulties, and in addressing these challenges, patient advocacy—raising awareness and building a supportive community—is critically important.

Since it has no Food and Drug Administration (FDA)- approved treatment or cure, patients and scientists devote energy and resources to ensuring people with RRP have access to information. They are in the loop about clinical possibilities for this rare disease. No cure doesn’t mean there is no action!

Beyond the physical challenges of dealing with the disease – and the missed life events and career detours resulting from repeated surgeries, patients also face significant and demoralizing administrative challenges, such as battling payers to cover care using drugs not indicated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for RRP or deemed “not sufficiently proven.”

The lack of treatment does not mean the RRP community is without hope. They are resilient and courageous and are making meaningful connections through the patient advocacy efforts of the Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis Foundation. They are reaching and inspiring researchers at the National Institutes of Health to pursue breakthrough research and oversee clinical trials. They also connect with scientists advancing possible therapies at discovery and clinical-stage biopharmaceutical companies like Precigen and encourage them to move forward by enrolling in clinical trials.

Collaboration Accelerates Change

When people unite, their presence creates energy. The Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis Foundation, biotech company Precigen, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and RRP patients and their caregivers met on June 11th at the National Press Club for the Inaugural International Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis Awareness Day. This was an inflection point for those who follow the rare disease category.

The gathering wasn’t about hype or baseless optimism; it was a meeting that brought people together, prepared and ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work. It was a day that reaffirmed a commitment to transparency and a truthful assessment of the current situation and path forward.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner, chair of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, which oversees cybersecurity efforts that are key to healthcare and innovation data protection, kicked off RRP Awareness Day by expressing his support for people with rare diseases and his desire to help RRP patients find their voice. Senator Warner stated his desire to advance research and innovation and ensure access to care, an expression of determination that reflected his long-standing record on behalf of people seeking treatment options and improved outcomes.   

RRP Foundation President Kim McClellan also spoke as an advocate for the RRP community and as a patient. “We are here to raise awareness about RRP and bring together critical stakeholders in a dialogue on important aspects impacting individuals living with RRP,” she said. “We invite and encourage anyone living with RRP, either as a patient, family member or caregiver, to join us in spreading the word about RRP and participate in clinical trials and advocacy efforts.”

The date of this groundbreaking gathering has special meaning for the RRP community. June 11th (6/11) corresponds to HPV variants 6 and 11 associated with RRP. As the date symbolizes, the gathering united people with the disease, their family members, congressional leaders, and researchers from government agencies and corporate partners in a community united in a common cause.

The opportunity to share and hear multiple perspectives enriched discussions and underscored the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to tackling this condition. Panels of experts and patients sharing personal stories about their journeys gave attendees an unmatched opportunity to delve into the intricacies and impacts of RRP.

Helen Sabzevari, PhD, President and CEO of Precigen, expressed that she and her company were “proud to join forces with the RRP Foundation to establish the first global RRP Awareness Day to bring visibility to the many challenges experienced by RRP patients and to help forge connections among patients, clinicians and government officials.”

A former NCI team leader, Dr. Sabzevari’s commitment to RRP awareness and patient well-being as an animating principle is a model biopharma company C-Suite executives would be wise to emulate. For her and her Precigen colleagues, patients are the focal point of every decision, action, and investment.

RRP Awareness Day was an inspiring platform for discussing struggle, stigma, and science. Lunch was optional, but tissues were required as attendees in the filled-to-capacity room listened to a patient panel on how RRP impacts people and their families. They learned how some individuals living with RRP have needed hundreds of surgeries over the years, beginning when they were toddlers or young children in primary school.

Culture Drives Clinical Performance

Therapeutic innovations are needed to ensure that future generations living with RRP have options reviewed and indicated by the FDA for treating this viral condition.

During the event, a panel of representatives from advocacy and research reflected on how their collaborative approach centering around patients – from the design of clinical trials to allocating resources that have enabled patients to participate in those trials – has been vital in accelerating the R&D process toward identifying and developing viable treatments. The panel included James Gulley, MD., PhD., NIH, Senior Investigator, Center for Immuno-Oncology, Acting Co-Director, National Cancer Institute/Center for Cancer Research; Scott M. Norberg, DO., NIH, Associate Research Physician, Center for Immuno-Oncology; Helen Sabzevari, PhD, CEO, Precigen; and Kim McClellan, President, RRP Foundation.

Dr. Gulley, who is part of the NCI team and has been instrumental in advancing research on RRP and its connection to HPV, emphasized the pressing need for innovative therapies. In his panel comments, Dr. Gulley highlighted the importance of collaborative research efforts to explore potential immunotherapeutic approaches that could offer new hope for patients suffering from this debilitating condition.

No Disagreement – Harmony

Panelists Gulley, Norberg, and Sabzevari applauded the patient community, acknowledging the courage of their readiness to volunteer to participate in clinical trials to speed possible therapeutics forward. It was a reassuring presence and a reminder that public-private collaborations, particularly for rare diseases, do more than spark hope; they spur action. The patient-panel takeaways were: (1) Connect with the RRP Foundation, (2) Support ongoing clinical trial efforts, (3) Prevention through HPV vaccination is key.

While there is still no FDA-approved treatment to manage RRP, this community remains resilient and upbeat, inspiring everyone facing the challenge of rare conditions. The RRP Foundation, Precigen, and NCI are on the same page—science is essential. People living with RRP can remain hopeful that this collaboration will continue until actions result in better options for this patient community.

The post HPV Urban Legends – From Contagion to Symptoms to Risks to Prevention – There Are More Rare Concerns that Deserve Our Attention appeared first on Medika Life.

I always get my vaccinations in my left arm. Not because I anticipated the intriguing new study results.

Rather, I sleep on my right side and don’t want the discomfort associated with vaccination on my compressed arm.

Before we examine sidedness and vaccinations, I must share that winter has begun in Seattle. I define the season as dark and rainy.

Chilled-looking people walking along the riverside, the snow beginning, faintly, to pile up on the roofs of cars, the bare trees shaking their heads left and right, dry leaves tossing in the wind. The silver of the metal window sash sparkled coldly. Soon after, I heard sensei call, “Mikage! Are you awake? It’s snowing, look! It’s snowing!” “I’m coming!” I called out, standing up. I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again. — Banana Yoshimoto

Arm-Sidedness and COVID Vaccination

I read the title of a recent article and thought, “Really?” But as you will see, there is a logic to the finding. Here’s the title:

Differences in SARS-CoV-2 specific humoral and cellular immune responses after contralateral and ipsilateral COVID-19 vaccination.

In other words, individuals may get more protection against COVID-19 if they get their vaccinations and boosters in the same arm.

The Study

German researchers examined health data for 303 people who got the mRNA vaccine and a subsequent booster shot. None had a history of COVID-19 infection.

They measured the antibody levels of the subjects two weeks after the second shot.

Here are the surprising results:

The number of protective “killer T cells” was higher in the 147 study participants who got both shots in the same arm.

Scientists found killer T cells in 67 percent of cases when both shots entered the same arm. This number compares to 43 percent of cases with different arms.

My Take

Same-arm vaccinations may work better because the cells providing the immune response are in nearby (underarm) lymph nodes.

There may be a more vigorous immune response if the immune cells in the nearby nodes are restimulated in the same location.

Since this study does not represent high-level evidence, we need more studies to validate the results. Moreover, we don’t know if the findings apply to other vaccines, including the flu.

Still, I will continue to get my vaccinations in my left arm. I sleep on my right side, so it is for the best.

The post Is Getting COVID Shots in the Same Arm Better? appeared first on Medika Life.

In an effort to get ahead of a potential tripledemic this winter of COVID-19, flu, and RSV that could overwhelm hospitals, health officials have re-booted an important program: making COVID test kits free again. Those kits will be available by mail to households starting September 25.

Next comes the hard part: convincing enough people to get the kits and then persuading them to follow quarantine guidelines if they or their family members get sick.

This is not the time to roll out stale messaging delivered by a carousel of health officials trying to convince the public to get the test kits. Americans are weary of being told to keep their guard up against a disease that many view as more of an inconvenience than a threat. If the sales pitch to get the kits is off, health officials may find that the test kits no longer serve as an effective public health tool. Instead, they could become another partisan symbol of perceived government overreach, further impeding people’s freedom to live as they want.

In short, we have a messaging challenge ahead of us, and if we haven’t taken to heart the lessons learned during the worst early days of the pandemic, we’re doomed to repeat mistakes that cost lives.

How can we be more thoughtful about containing COVID and other dangerous diseases? To generate greater public compliance for fighting an endemic disease, communicators must provide a credible and compelling case of the risk of inaction and convince people that ignorance – of not knowing your infection status – is greater than the cost of knowing. These can be very high bars to clear since people have different thresholds for risk and for being informed.

It’s likely we won’t clear those hurdles with the roll-out of the free test kits. Because the perceived risk of COVID-19 infection and severity is low, many people have adopted a “no test, no stress” attitude, especially in light of the potential personal disruption that COVID infection causes. It’s a dangerous direction and one of the reasons why we will continue to see cases spike.

For communicators to overcome the twin challenges of infection risk perception and status aversion, they must use convert communicators – people who are credible to specific audiences and have changed their views to support disease intervention. There is mounting data showing that people who identified as Republicans were far likelier to get infected by COVID and die from the disease than those from left-leaning political parties. Messaging that taps into this research could point to breaking through to these audiences.

Successful public health interventions rely on a strong majority of the population participating in disease mitigation efforts, which means spotlighting conservative voters who see the value of COVID testing and can serve as credible messengers to similarly ideologically inclined individuals. This is where digital storytelling, data visualization and engagement of champions outside of the health sector can be potent measures to build the case for supporting new public health tools.   

It is also important to truly understand the pain points that different audience segments cite as reasons for not wanting to know their infection status and to provide targeted counterpoints. Most people can’t afford to miss work, even with a mild case, and families can be heavily impacted when a parent must choose between going to work or keeping their kids home. In these and other scenarios, the test result becomes the thing people may begin to dread more than the disease itself.

To ensure that people do not feel like they must choose between a host of the least bad options when COVID comes to their home, the government must consider new incentives for reporting positive test results and adhering to public health guidelines. These can range from reinstituting protected sick leave that was available as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) during the pandemic to encouraging more employers to use the tax credits available through the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) to reimburse for employee sick leave. Without putting these and other options on the table, people will feel penalized even when they do the right thing.

The post It’s Time to Up Our Messaging Game Ahead of Another Winter with COVID appeared first on Medika Life.

The British introduced human papillomavirus (HPV) immunization in 2008, with routine vaccination offered to girls aged 12 to13 years with a catch-up program for females aged 14 to 18 years in 2008–10.

The jabs carry the potential of lowering certain cancers.

Did you know that the human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the USA? Of the over 150 virus types, about 40 spread via direct oral or genital contact.

Most individuals who have been sexually active will contract HPV at some point. That’s right, most of us will carry human papillomavirus at some point in our lives. Human papillomavirus quickly spreads through sexual contact.

HPV basics

We may conveniently divide HPV strains into two categories: Low-risk versus high-risk.

Low-risk HPV

This type of genital human papillomavirus strain doesn’t lead to symptoms. The HPV vanishes as your body develops immunity to the virus. While low-risk HPV is not associated with cancer, the virus can cause genital warts.

Some low-risk HPV strains can cause abnormalities of a woman’s cervix, but these types (unlike their high-risk counterparts) don’t become cancer.

High-risk HPV

Unlike its low-risk counterpart, high-risk human papillomavirus can lead to troublesome changes (including cancer) in cervix cells. While there are more than a dozen strains of high-risk HPV, types 16 and 18 lead to most HPV-related cancers.

High-risk human papillomavirus can cause cancer of the following:

• cervix, vagina, and vulva (women)
• penis (men)
• oropharynx (throat, back of the tongue, and tonsils)

HPV vaccination slashes infection rates

A new study shows that the human papillomavirus vaccine has been extraordinarily effective, nearly eliminating the prevalence of the two most dangerous viral strains in young women by 2016.

Moreover, the vaccine didn’t just help the young women who got the HPV vaccine. The vaccinations led to herd immunity, with prevalence rates dropping among the unvaccinated as the virus could not circulate freely.

Look at these remarkable results:

Among women 18 to 26 years old, the prevalence of high-risk strains of HPV before the introduction of the vaccines was 15.2 percent. In the 2015 to 2016 period, this percentage declined to 3.3 percent among the unvaccinated and one percent among the vaccinated. By ten years, the rate dropped to zero for those at the younger vaccinated women.

We can do better. The vaccine is available for boys and girls in the United States from age nine through early adulthood. From 2015 to 2016, approximately 55 percent of women aged 18 to 20 had received a jab, 52 percent of those aged 21 to 23, and 50 percent of those aged 24 to 26.

While our vaccination rates are not yet optimal (with the researchers pointing to an 80 percent target), the results are quite encouraging. We may someday eliminate HPV infections. Today, I celebrate that cancer incidence rates have dropped substantially among those less than 25 years.Cervical Cancer Rates Have Dropped Among Young Women in the United StatesHuman papillomavirus (HPV) is a common sexually transmitted infection. Nearly all men and women in the United States…www.cdc.gov

One researcher notes that the reasons for not getting the vaccine are driven largely by unfounded safety concerns from parents. The United States has lower vaccination rates in the Midwest and Southeast. Not surprisingly, HPV-associated cancer incidence remains relatively high in those states.

Among states with the lowest vaccination rates are those in the Midwest and Southeast, and HPV-associated cancer incidence remains high in those states, Deshmukh said.

And no, there is no good evidence that the vaccination somehow serves as a license for more sexual activity. Can we catch Australia, which aims to eliminate cervical cancer by 2035? And what about the rest of the world, where cervix cancer is rising? Can we more equitably distribute vaccines?

One caveat: The great success of the vaccine has not yet eliminated the need for appropriate cervix cancer screening. Thank you for joining me in this look at the remarkable success of the HPV vaccine.

The post This Vaccine Has Been Wildly Successful appeared first on Medika Life.

In his decision last Saturday, Tedros said he was aware of the complexities and uncertainties surrounding the monkeypox outbreak in the world today. He finally established that state of emergency. Adhering to the views among the Committee Members and Advisors, as well as other factors in line with the International Health Regulations, Tedros then published the so-called Temporary Recommendations.

Recommendations are detailed differently for the four WHO member country groups. The first group is countries that have no history of monkeypox in humans or have not detected it in the last 21 days.

The second recommendation is for countries that have recently imported cases of the disease in their population or of human-to-human transmission, including in their population groups that are at high risk. It includes health surveillance and travel bans for certain individuals.

The third group is countries with known or suspected cases of zoonotic transmission (virus jumps from animals to humans) at present or in the past, those with cases of monkeypox in their animals — both now and in the past. Finally, the recommendation is addressed to countries that have the capacity to manufacture drugs.

Current Situation

According to data presented by the WHO Secretariat, so far this year until July 20, 14,533 confirmed and suspected cases have been reported from 75 countries in all six WHO work areas. The figure, which includes 3 deaths in Nigeria and 2 in the Central African Republic, is up from 3,040 cases from 47 countries as of early May.

Transmission occurs in many countries where monkeypox was not previously known, and the highest number of cases are currently reported in European and American countries. The majority of monkeypox cases recorded by the WHO have affected men who claim to be gay, bisexual, and other men who have multiple partners. Many cases are urban and clustered in social and sexual networks.

There was also a significant increase in cases in countries in West and Central Africa. Cases from this region have a different demographic profile than those observed in Europe and the Americas, where there are more infected women and children.

Clinical symptoms of monkeypox that appear in outbreaks outside Africa are generally mild and not widespread in the body. More often localized in the genital, perineal/perianal, or peri-oral areas. Usually also precede the symptoms of lymphadenopathy, fever, malaise, and pain in the wound.

The average incubation period of monkeypox is estimated to be 7.6 to 9.2 days based on observational data from the Netherlands, England, Northern Ireland, and the United States. A small number of cases come from among health workers.

However, this isn’t the first time WHO declared PHEIC. There had been six other similar PHEIC declarations in the past years.

• 2009 Swine flu
• 2014 Polio
• 2014 Ebola
• 2015 Zika
• 2018 K. Ebola
• 2019 COVID

Some of you might not realize it because at that time things didn’t escalate this big. Not all PHEICs become pandemics. But it’s the right precautionary step by WHO.

According to Faheem Younus, a Chief of Infectious Diseases from the University of Maryland UCH said that “COVID is peculiar because it is a novel viral strain, easily transmissible through the respiratory route, attacks a vital organ (lungs) and is deadly”. He also added,

If COVID is like a snake bite, Monkeypox is like bed bugs. Important and concerning, but not the same.

He reminded us to not fall for fear mongering about monkeypox because it is harder to transmit than COVID. Monkeypox is transmitted to humans through close contact with lesions and body fluids of infected person or animal, or with material contaminated with the virus. Respiratory droplets can also transmit the virus, but only in rare cases. Transmission via droplet respiratory particles usually requires prolonged face-to-face contact.

What should we do now?

According to the tips from Harvard Health, there some steps that we can do to help stop this outbreak:

1. Recognize early symptoms

• Not like COVID, monkeypox often shows early symptoms that are flulike, including fatigue, fever, headache, and enlarged lymph nodes.
• After symptoms occur, the rash usually appears after a few days, changing from small flat spots to tiny blisters similar to chickenpox, then to larger, pus-filled blisters.
• The rash often starts on the face and then appears on the palms, arms, legs, and other parts of the body. If may show up near genitals if it’s is spread by sexual contact.

2. Take steps to stop the spread

• Anyone who has been diagnosed with monkeypox, or who suspects they might have it, should avoid close contact with others. Once the sores scab over, the infected person is no longer contagious.
• Health care workers and other caregivers should wear standard infection control gear, including gloves and a mask.
• In the current outbreak, many cases began with sores in the genital and rectal areas among men who have sex with men, so doctors suspect sexual contact spread the infection. As a result, experts are encouraging abstinence when monkeypox is suspected or confirmed.

3. Use vaccination to help break the chain

• Monkeypox is closely related to smallpox. People who received a smallpox vaccine in the past may have some protection from monkeypox.
• Stockpiled smallpox vaccinations and newer vaccines that can be used for monkeypox or smallpox are also available.

Ring vaccination

Monkeypox usually is contagious after symptoms begin, which can help limit its spread. One reason COVID-19 spread so rapidly was that people could spread it before they knew they had it.

This means it’s possible to vaccinate a “ring” of people around them rather than vaccinating an entire population. This selective approach is called ring vaccination.

Ring vaccination has been used successfully to contain smallpox and Ebola outbreaks. It may come in handy for monkeypox as well. Here’s how it works:

• As soon as a case of monkeypox is suspected or confirmed, the patient and their close contacts are interviewed to identify possible exposures.
• Vaccination is offered to all close contacts.
• Vaccination is also offered to those who had close contact with the infected person’s contacts.

Ideally, people should be vaccinated within four days of exposure.

It’s really good to stay vigilant, but let’s not get too anxious about monkeypox. We don’t need Google experts, fear-mongering, turning this into business, politicizing this virus, or stigmatizing any group. Stay Healthy!

The post Monkeypox Outbreak: Stay Vigilant but Let’s Not Get Too Anxious appeared first on Medika Life.

While this is appropriate that we know that our elderly family members, friends, neighbors, etc. may be at risk and we may want to ensure they maintain their health, there is information missing that I believe needs to be included. What about all the other factors that result in hospitalization?

What information would be useful? We know that older individuals probably are taking a number of medications and may have several illnesses. That is a given and it also means their immune system is probably not functioning as it once did when those individuals were younger.

However, it is not a simple matter of medications and illnesses that may result in hospitalizations. Jamming everything into one number, i.e. hospitalizations, fails to recognize all of the other factors that come to play.

Considering that many elderly may be living alone, depending on relatives or neighbors, or may have a visiting aide or nurse or some other healthcare professional visiting intermittently, you can quickly see one factor; the ability to access resources in the community. In addition, how many of the elderly are aware of the gravity of the current situation? We’re getting conflicting information from health officials who are bickering regarding whether or not people should wear masks, where they should wear them and if we can consider going back to the office.

I live in a large complex where we recently had a water main break which resulted in E. coli getting into our drinking water. The six affected towns and our complex sent out emails and posted notices on their websites to alert individuals of this dangerous situation and indicated all water for drinking or washing dishes had to be boiled first. Does every elderly person have access to a computer and Internet? Come to think of it, suppose the power goes down?

Being on somewhat meager incomes, many people have had to cut themselves off from a variety of services. If they had Internet access, it may have proven too much of a burden and they may have canceled it. If they don’t have a computer and don’t have Internet access and don’t have a cell phone, how did they get the information? In our buildings, notices were posted in English on the main entrance, but suppose someone doesn’t read English?

Do people realize how large swarths of the United States are deficient in Internet access? Twenty-one million people still don’t have access. Go to poverty pockets and see how many don’t have an Internet connection. Where do the elderly live? Not usually in luxury condominiums.

The information that was sent out over the Internet in our area was only in English, and we live in an area that is multicultural where people speak several languages, prominent ones being English, Korean, Chinese, and Spanish. I did not see one notice that was in Chinese or Korean, or even Spanish.

Years ago, there was a book that attempted to put a fresh face on the world of statistics. It was “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America.” I know it has been updated since its original 1976 publication, but the facts remain, statistics say whatever you want them to say. Statistics can be twisted or fail to tell the whole truth, and they shouldn’t be accepted at face value (or as we say, “face validity”).

Next time you see the covid hospitalization stats and they say the greater number are elderly, stop and think: How many could have been prevented from being hospitalized if they had been given the information and help they needed?

The post Why Are the Elderly the Greater Number Hospitalized with Covid? appeared first on Medika Life.

Our white blood cells, including T-cells, are central players in our immune response to infections (such as the flu) and cancer.

Did you know that the infection-fighting T-cells are better able to do their job if you get sufficient sleep?

Sleep: Are you getting enough?

Do you underestimate the importance of getting adequate sleep? The United States Centers for Disease Control offers that adults ages 18 to 60 years should get seven hours or more of sleep, while those 61 to 64 seven to nine hours. If you are 65 or older, the CDC points to 7 to 8 hours as optimal.

The Sleep Foundation points to five key elements to getting sufficient sleep:

• A quiet environment. Consider calming sounds or music. Avoid loud, abrasive sounds.
• A focus of attention. A word, phrase, mantra, breathing pattern, or mental image may draw your attention and reduce thinking about external issues.
• A passive attitude. Accept that it is normal for your mind to wander.
• A comfortable position.
• A comfortable mattress.

In addition, the Sleep Foundation suggests consideration of mindfulness practices such as meditation or controlled breathing. Here’s one option, known as the Andrew Weill 4–7–8 method:

1. Place your tongue tip close to the ridge behind your front two teeth and hold it in this location throughout the breathing practice.
2. Mouth closed, slowly inhale through your nose as you count to four.
3. Hold your breath and count to seven.
4. Open your mouth and exhale as you count to eight. Because of the location of your tongue, exhalation should cause a whooshing sound.
5. Repeat this 4–7–8 cycle three more times.

Here are other suggestions for improving your sleep:What To Do When You Can’t Sleep | Sleep FoundationIf you’re one of the millions of Americans who struggle with insomnia, you may find your mind racing and your body…www.sleepfoundation.org.

Sleep and the immune system

As noted above, good quality sleep can boost your immune system’s T-cells to fight off infection. Sufficient sleep improves by enhancing the T-cells’ ability to adhere to and destroy cells infected by pathogens such as viruses.

To better understand how sleep improves our ability to stave off infection, in 2019, German researchers examined a group of molecules called “Gαs-coupled receptor agonists.” These substances can suppress the immune system. But how?

To better understand the relationship between sleep and immune system-suppressing Gαs-coupled receptor agonists, the scientists obtained samples from volunteers who had had a good night’s sleep.

They also got blood from a separate group that stayed up all night. Here are the findings:

T cells taken from the sleeping volunteers had much higher “integrin activation” levels than T cells obtained from the up-all-night group members. Put in more simple language, the T cells from the sleep group performed better at attacking cells infected with a virus.

Sleep can improve the efficiency of T-cell responses to infection and may also help lower the risks of chronic stress, aging, depression, etc. Get some good sleep; your well-rested pathogen-fighting T cells will thank you.

The post One Trick to Dropping Covid Risk appeared first on Medika Life.

We are unwittingly aiding and abetting our greatest common enemy: disease.

Our advancement as a species has been driven by our ability to cooperate at a global level. In our best moments, this quality has allowed us to build societies and economies, preserve world order and improve life for billions of people, especially children. Strong public health programs and scientific achievement lie at the heart of our capacity to meet our most pressing health challenges, providing us with the policy guidance and coordination to overcome disease outbreaks with increasingly sophisticated tools.

Yet, the best public health plan paired with the most innovative medical discoveries cannot overcome our human tendency to complicate how we fight disease threats. Instead of banding together and fostering collaboration, we inadvertently fuel outbreaks. Among the barriers that we put in place to confront disease threats effectively, four issues routinely arise.

First, we blame and stigmatize the source of an outbreak. Viral diseases can happen anywhere, at any time. Spillover events — when viruses transfer from animals to humans — are as likely to occur among species in Asia or Africa as they are in the Americas. But in our efforts to provide an explanation for natural phenomena, it is far easier to assign blame on the failures of a foreign government or community, which dramatically hinders a global, coordinated response.

Few Americans supporting restrictions against China for serving as the source of the coronavirus are aware that the tables were turned a century ago: evidence suggests that the deadliest pandemic in modern history, which infected half a billion people and killed 50 million worldwide, may have originated from a pig farm in southwestern Kansas. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic, as it’s now known, was not linked to the United States because of strict news embargo during World War I; it was called the Spanish Flu only because neutral Spain did not follow the news blackout practiced by countries fighting in the war. With nationalism on the rise again, spurred on by social media, partisan politics and 24/7 news cycles, the impact of isolating and penalizing countries for naturally occurring disease outbreaks can cost lives and economic stability.

Second, we apply inconsistent standards for monitoring, reporting and countering disease threats. When countries know that they will be penalized for reporting outbreaks, what is their incentive to be transparent? And even when governments play by the rules and apply the best practices for reporting disease outbreaks — as South Africa did with the detection of the Omicron variant in November — they are subject to unfair and counterproductive penalties.

The development and application of a disease surveillance and reporting protocol that is used effectively by all countries can speed response to outbreaks before they have a chance to reach pandemic proportions. This is not to say there’s been an absence of such protocols; the WHO and national health agencies have coordinated through the decades to address novel disease strains, frequently blunting the potential for a virus to reach its worst-case impact. However, as the conditions for novel pathogens to emerge, it’s time for new approaches to be considered.

We are witnessing the loss of wildlife habitats, increased proximity of humans and animal disease hosts, accelerated global travel and climate change, each of which play a role in disease transmission. Covid-19’s lessons should produce a universal system that prioritizes timely, accurate disease surveillance and rewards reporting transparency.

Third, when we prioritize vaccines and treatments for wealthy countries and place greater value on profits instead of a collective response to a pandemic, it is an expression of 21st century Apartheid. Both the Sars-Cov-2 and Influenza viruses have a powerful ability to mutate, developing new variants that take advantage of weaknesses in our global immunity levels. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. famously noted that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, the same applies to epidemiology in our world today: a novel viral threat in a remote corner of the world is a danger everywhere.

Our inability to provide equitable protection for communities beyond our national borders is another form of injustice, plain and simple.

Human advancement is reliant upon our ability to overcome our inherent tribalism. This runs counter to millions of years of evolution. We’re hard-wired to focus on our community’s interests first. The problem is that Covid-19 may likely be a dress rehearsal for worse pandemics in the near future and our failure to overcome tendencies to prioritize vaccination in some regions over others could foreshadow harsher outcomes ahead.

Despite some initial shortcomings, the COVAX facility and initiatives taken by individual vaccine manufacturers could provide a blueprint for rapidly scaling vaccine production and distribution to reach rich and poor countries alike. These are important steps in the right direction.

Fourth, pandemics thrive on chaos. And for the past 24 months, we have inadvertently fostered a haphazard response at the local, national and global levels through a pattern of fumbled communications on public health guidance. All too frequently, the U.S. and other nations have undermined confidence in vaccines and medical science, health agencies and government policy by failing to deliver clear messaging that communities, businesses and everyday people can understand.

Miscommunication has plagued pandemic responses throughout the past 100 years, but the inability for national government health agencies — most particularly the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — to anticipate messaging issues may prove to be a principal driver for the erosion of trust that citizens have in their leaders.

There is no shortage of excuses for why miscommunication during the pandemic has been so rampant. Nonetheless, global health leaders and the communications advisors supporting them must take a hard look at how to improve communications practices moving forward.

We need to see consistent application of a simple standard for health communications: ensure guidance is grounded in science; make sure it is so simple that school children understand it; and think about how guidance can be followed in the real world, outside of policymaker echo chambers. Then, run every possible scenario past a merciless band of reviewers whose job is to think about how health guidance could be misunderstood or ignored and fix issues before anything is publicly communicated.

These four issues are nothing new. Like so many other problems coming to a boiling point during Covid-19, they have been recurring challenges in past efforts to respond to pandemic threats. Yet global public health leaders, policymakers and communicators have an opportunity and an obligation to minimize the impact of stigma, haphazard disease mitigation standards, nationalism and miscommunication on pandemic response. Covid-19 has been a horrific reminder of the importance of collaboration, transparency and clarity. Our generation may not be given the same latitude during the next pandemic. We need to show we can apply the lessons now.

The post Aiding and Abetting a Virus appeared first on Medika Life.

Fortunately, a booster dose appears likely to restore most of the protection. These are the conclusions of a recent study from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Omicron aggressively spreading

Explosive. That’s the word I would use to describe the growth and spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. The virus has been discovered in 89 countries and has a doubling rate of 1.5 to 3 days in regions with community transmission. These are observations from the World Health Organization (WHO) today.

Is the rapid growth secondary to the variant virus’ ability to evade our immune systems, or is it secondary to increased transmissibility for other reasons? We don’t know.

Let’s take a quick look at the preliminary evidence regarding the lack of effectiveness of vaccination without a booster shot. The Boston region researchers tested blood from people who had received the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines against a pseudovirus engineered to look like the Omicron variant.

There appeared to be very little (if any) neutralization of antibodies of the variant from any of the vaccines. However, the blood from those who recently had a booster shot neutralized the variant.

These research observations are in line with some other recent reports. In a study announced earlier this week, Oxford University (England) researchers tested subjects’ blood samples 28 days after their second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

When the scientists introduced Omicron to the samples, there appeared to be a substantial fall in the neutralizing antibodies that fight Covid. Some recipients failed to neutralize the virus at all. This response appears inferior to that seen against earlier variants of the coronavirus. Here is the take of the study’s authors:

“This will likely lead to increased breakthrough infections in previously infected or double vaccinated individuals, which could drive a further wave of infection, although there is currently no evidence of increased potential to cause severe disease, hospitalization or death.”

The researchers reported this pre-print study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, on the MedRxiv server.

Good news

BioNTech and Pfizer said last week that a three-shot course of their COVID-19 vaccine neutralized the new Omicron variant in a laboratory test. However, the two doses resulted in significantly lower neutralizing antibodies.

Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have not released their data about the vaccines against the new variant.

I am glad that I got a booster vaccine shot. Thank you for joining me today.

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