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Tag: United States

Topic: heart diseaseView all posts for the topic: heart disease

Covid Can Raise the Risk of Heart Problems for Years

Published November 22, 2024

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Published by: The New York Times
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By Nina Agrawal

Since nearly the start of the pandemic, scientists have known that a Covid-19 infection increases the risk of heart problems. A growing body of research now suggests that this risk can last until well after the infection has cleared.

One recent study, conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California and Cleveland Clinic, found that a Covid-19 infection doubled the risk of a major cardiovascular event for up to three years afterward. What’s more, the study found that infections severe enough to require hospitalization increased the likelihood of cardiac events as much as — or more than — having previously had a heart attack did.

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Topic: pro-virus policiesView all posts for the topic: pro-virus policies

RFK Jr. is a danger to health care in the U.S. — and Canada

Published November 20, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Raywat Deonandan

You would think that the return of a Kennedy scion to the White House would be a moment to celebrate, at least for many of a particular political stripe. But the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the new Trump administration has left many aghast, especially doctors, scientists, and educators.

Despite president John F. Kennedy having famously championed the polio vaccine, his nephew, RFK Jr., is an avowed anti-vaccination zealot, blaming a host of repeatedly unproven ills on such inoculations.

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Topic: human rightsView all posts for the topic: human rights

Masking is a right

Published November 19, 2024

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Published by: The Peak
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By Abigail Streifel

Content warning: brief mentions of genocide.

We’re still in a pandemic nearly five years after the first outbreak of COVID-19, but some places in the US and Canada are criminalizing the use of face masks in public. North Carolina has passed a law that restricts wearing masks, the governor of New York supports similar restrictions, and university campuses in California have enacted policies limiting masks. Here in Canada, people in Toronto have been arrested for wearing masks while protesting. Each of these restrictions seek to stop people from “concealing their identities.” The bans present multiple problems: the first is that they pose a risk to public health, and particularly the safety of disabled people. Second, they specifically target activists protesting against the genocide of Palestinians. Both of these issues are related to the right to keep our communities safe, which should not be questioned.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

California reveals suspected avian flu case in child with mild symptoms

Published November 19, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today said tests have identified a suspected avian flu infection in a child from Alameda County who had mild upper respiratory symptoms and no known contact with infected animals.

If confirmed, the case would mark the second avian flu infection in a child in North America from a yet undetermined source. Last week, health officials in Canada reported an H5N1 infection in a previously healthy British Columbia teen who is hospitalized in critical condition.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Bird flu in Canada may have mutated to become more transmissible to humans

Published November 19, 2024

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Published by: The Guardian
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By Melody Schreiber

The teenager hospitalized with bird flu in British Columbia, Canada, may have a variation of the virus that has a mutation making it more transmissible among people, early data shows – a warning of what the virus can do that is especially worrisome in countries such as the US where some H5N1 cases are not being detected.

The US “absolutely” is not testing and monitoring bird flu cases enough, which means scientists could miss mutated cases like these, said Richard Webby, a virologist at St Jude children’s research hospital’s department of infectious diseases.

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Topic: mpoxView all posts for the topic: mpox

First clade 1 mpox case detected in US, in California

Published November 18, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Stephanie Soucheray

Over the weekend California reported the first known clade 1 mpox case in the United States, which involves someone who recently returned from an affected African country and sought care in San Mateo County.

Health officials from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) have not confirmed if the infection is cause by clade 1b, a more transmissible and severe mpox virus causing a widespread outbreak that started in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

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Topic: science denialView all posts for the topic: science denial

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a “threat to science and health” in the United States

Published November 15, 2024

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Published by: Radio-Canada
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By Mélanie Meloche-Holubowski

The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be a “health disaster” in the United States, warn disinformation experts. His penchant for conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination rhetoric is likely to colour the direction of US health agencies.

Timothy Caulfield, a professor at the University of Alberta who studies health misinformation, would never have imagined that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be at the head of federal health agencies. “I never thought that someone so dangerous and so malicious would be elevated to such a level of power. I’m very concerned.”

He is not alone in fearing the impact on medicine and science in the United States. David Gorski believes that the health of Americans is clearly at stake. “It’s going to cause generational damage and it’s going to reinforce people’s distrust of science,” says the professor of surgery at Wayne State University, an expert in medical misinformation and editor-in-chief of the Science Based Medicine website.

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Topic: Trump regimeView all posts for the topic: Trump regime

RFK Jr condemned as ‘clear and present danger’ after Trump nomination

Published November 14, 2024

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Published by: The Guardian
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By Maya Yang

Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.

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Topic: Trump regimeView all posts for the topic: Trump regime

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a long record of promoting anti-vaccine views

Published November 14, 2024

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Published by: The Associated Press
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By Michelle R. Smith

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was building up a following with his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, and becoming one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.

Now, President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates vaccines.

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Topic: Trump regimeView all posts for the topic: Trump regime

Experts Share What Another Trump Presidency Could Mean For Your Health

Published November 11, 2024

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Published by: HuffPost
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By Jillian Wilson

During his last time in office, Trump botched the pandemic response, he spread misinformation everywhere, he contributed to restricting access to reproductive health care, he tried to repeal [the Affordable Care Act] and he set the world back on climate action. For me, it’s extremely worrying to have someone in charge with such a poor track record on health and science.

— Lucky Tran, a science communicator based in New York
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Topic: anti-vaxxersView all posts for the topic: anti-vaxxers

RFK Jr. is crowdsourcing reams of nominees for Trump’s health administration

Published November 8, 2024

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Published by: STAT
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By Isabella Cueto

Between now and Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump and his allies will have the Herculean task of appointing 4,000 people to staff his administration. Trump campaign surrogate and “Make America Healthy Again” flagbearer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems positioned to exert broad influence on who will run the nation’s health-related agencies. He’s already begun soliciting nominees — albeit in an unconventional way.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

CDC expands avian flu testing for farm workers, notes 7% infection rate in those exposed to infected cows

Published November 7, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

An eagerly anticipated serology study in farm workers exposed to H5N1-infected dairy cattle shows that 7% had antibodies suggesting prior infection, findings that today triggered enhanced testing, prophylactic (preventive) treatment, and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Topic: anti-vaxxersView all posts for the topic: anti-vaxxers

Trump indicates he would consider a ban on vaccines if elected

Published November 4, 2024

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Published by: The Guardian
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By Robert Tait

Donald Trump has suggested vaccines could be banned if he becomes president, in the clearest sign yet of a radical shake-up in public health policy should he put his ally Robert F Kennedy Jr in charge of it.

Trump on Sunday told NBC that Kennedy, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and former independent candidate who dropped out and endorsed Trump, would have a “big role in the administration” if wins Tuesday’s presidential election. Trump said he would talk to Kennedy about vaccinations.

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Topic: science denialView all posts for the topic: science denial

An Idaho health department isn’t allowed to give COVID-19 vaccines anymore. Experts say it’s a first

Published November 1, 2024

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Published by: The Associated Press
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By Devi Shastri

A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.

Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.

Continue readingAn Idaho health department isn’t allowed to give COVID-19 vaccines anymore. Experts say it’s a first
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Topic: science denialView all posts for the topic: science denial

Trump transition team co-chair endorses Kennedy anti-vax theories and says he would be able to access health data

Published October 31, 2024

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Published by: CNN
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By Shania Shelton

The co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team on Wednesday night endorsed vaccine conspiracy theories pushed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and suggested the activist and Trump ally would be given federal data in order to check vaccines’ safety if former President Donald Trump is elected.

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H5N1 avian flu isolate from dairy worker is transmissible, lethal in animalsColourized transmission electron micrograph of avian influenza virus particles. Photo: CDC and NIAID. Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 DEED Attribution 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.
Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

H5N1 avian flu isolate from dairy worker is transmissible, lethal in animals

Published October 28, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

In experiments designed to learn more about the threat from the H5N1 avian flu virus spreading from cows to people, researchers found that an isolate from a sick dairy worker may be capable of replicating in human airway cells, is pathogenic in mice and ferrets, and can transmit among ferrets by respiratory droplets.

The team, based at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Japan, reported its findings today in Nature. Working in a high-containment lab, the researchers used an H5N1 isolate grown from the eye of a dairy worker who had experienced conjunctivitis after exposure to infected cows.

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Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID

‘Do no harm’ is hurting 400 million long Covid patients worldwide

Published October 24, 2024

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Published by: STAT
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By Julia Moore Vogel, Charlie McCone

Imagine, for a moment, that you wake up one morning with a debilitating illness that won’t let go. Weeks and months pass, but the crushing fatigue, constant headaches, and aching muscles remain. You can’t think straight. Simply showering or doing the dishes leaves you floored for days at a time, and the unpredictable symptoms — shortness of breath, dizziness, a racing heart — ebb and flow without warning. You find your life as you knew it slipping away.

This is life with long Covid: a condition that transforms the familiar rhythms of daily life into a living nightmare and constant battle for energy and clarity. But what happens when the only hope of lessening its severity becomes an issue of equity?

We are two of the more than 400 million people worldwide who have experienced long Covid. While we are both over four years into this illness, there is still not a single FDA-approved treatment for this devastating condition. Given the slow pace of research and development, there is unlikely to be proven treatment for years — possibly decades.

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Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID

Rep. Ilhan Omar to Introduce Major Long Covid Bill

Published September 27, 2024

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Published by: Mother Jones
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By Julia Métraux

On Friday, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) will introduce a potentially groundbreaking piece of federal legislation in the House of Representatives—one allocating $10 billion in funding to fight Long Covid, the increasingly widespread, chronic condition that follows many Covid infections. The Long Covid Research Moonshot Act is a companion bill to one that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced in the Senate in August.

“Long Covid is a silent health crisis impacting over twenty-three million Americans, including one million children,” Omar said in a statement to Mother Jones. (Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., is the co-lead on the legislation.) “I’m proud to lead this effort in the House to recognize Long Covid as the public health emergency that it is and invest in countering the effects of this terrible disease.”

Long Covid symptoms often include debilitating fatigue, and many people found to have it have also been diagnosed with conditions like myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. ME/CFS, which is characterized by post-exertional malaise, is known to be associated with other infectious diseases—the CDC states that about 1 in 10 people infected by the Epstein-Barr virus (which 95 percent of adults get) experience ME/CFS-like symptoms. And research shows that repeated Covid infections increase people’s risk of developing Long Covid.

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