Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Re-Learning the Obvious

Focus better than scatter gun approach – in vaccines, as in life.

CRAIN'S COMMENTS

In my first year of college, I was taught a painful lesson about writing. If you want to be successful in making a point with a limited number of words, you need to define your point very specifically and narrowly, so that you can do it justice with limited resources.

We always have limited resources, whether it’s time, or the reader’s attention span, or the supply of a vaccine.

The opposite of focus is the broad generalization, which is typically neither accurate nor meaningful, but is the kind of thing in which most politicians seem to specialize. Broad goals are also less likely to be met.

The need for focus is brought home again in an analysis of COVID vaccination rates in the US. Simply stated, the states that have rushed to make a larger percentage of their population eligible for vaccination have been less effective in actually delivering the…

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Vaccination by inhalation | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In addition to protecting against pathogens that infect the lungs, these types of inhaled vaccines could also be used to treat cancer metastasizing to the lungs or even prevent cancer from developing in the first place, the researchers say.

The researchers also tested a mucosal vaccine against cancer. In that case, they used a peptide found on melanoma cells to immunize mice. When the vaccinated mice were exposed to metastatic melanoma cells, T cells in the lungs were able to eliminate them. The researchers also showed that the vaccine could help to shrink existing lung tumors.

 

This kind of local response could make it possible to develop vaccines that would prevent tumors from forming in specific organs, by targeting antigens commonly found on tumor cells.

 

“In both the virus and the tumor experiments, we’re leveraging this idea that, as other people have shown, these memory T cells set up shop in the lungs and are waiting right there at the barrier. As soon as a tumor cell shows up, or as soon as a virus infects the target cell, the T cells can immediately clear it,” Irvine says.

 

This strategy could also be useful for creating mucosal vaccines against other viruses such as HIV, influenza, or SAR-CoV-2, Irvine says. His lab is now using the same approach to create a vaccine that provokes a strong antibody response in the lungs, using SARS-CoV-2 as a target.

Source: Vaccination by inhalation | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Puerto Rico cracks down on tourists flouting pandemic rules – The Washington Post

They come from New York, Illinois, Michigan, and authorities say too many of the tourists are flouting Puerto Rico’s pandemic health measures, including the mask mandate, the nightly curfew and a requirement to stay in isolation pending coronavirus tests. So officials are cracking down, with nearly a dozen visitors arrested over the past six days. They include three men from New York who were not wearing face masks and got into an argument with a teenager while visiting a popular beach on the island’s northeast coast, authorities said Tuesday. But most of the arrests have been been in the San Juan metropolitan area, and a couple of them remain in jail.

Source: Puerto Rico cracks down on tourists flouting pandemic rules – The Washington Post

Bizarre reasoning aside, Erdogan’s exit from Istanbul Convention is unconstitutional | NRS-Import | DW | 23.03.2021

Women’s rights groups go to court

Her appeal was heard. An organization fighting for the rights of women and children in Turkey has already filed a suit against the government. The group is arguing that the president does not have the power to invalidate an international agreement that was passed by parliament, simply by decree.

Many in Turkey have little sympathy with President Erdogan’s decision to leave the convention, especially when considering the country’s high femicide rates. There is widespread criticism that too little is done to protect women in Turkey from violence.

Thanks to social media and women’s groups, the pressure is now being turned up on the government, which together with law enforcement authorities refuses to acknowledge that a problem even exists – despite that fact that 300 women were killed in Turkey last year alone, according to the organization “We will stop the murder of women.” An additional 171 deaths last year were flagged by the authorities as “suspicious.” Many of those deaths were registered as suspected suicides.

Source: Bizarre reasoning aside, Erdogan’s exit from Istanbul Convention is unconstitutional | NRS-Import | DW | 23.03.2021

Coronavirus ‘long haulers’ feared they would never recover. Then they got the vaccine – ABC News

A woman with medium-length brown hair stands in front of mountains After a year of crippling fatigue, kidney problems, bleeding gums and other strange symptoms, Ms Bempeki woke up one day and felt “99 per cent improved”.

She’d received the AstraZeneca vaccine several days earlier.

In the United States, many so-called long haulers — a term people suffering from long COVID call themselves — say they are feeling better after receiving a vaccine.

It also doesn’t seem to matter which vaccine the patient receives. Reports are similar among people who get the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca shot.

Source: Coronavirus ‘long haulers’ feared they would never recover. Then they got the vaccine – ABC News

UNHRC Resolution: A Ray of Hope for Sri Lanka – Groundviews

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution “Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka” was adopted with 22 members of the council voting in favour of the resolution, 11 members voting against it and 14 members abstaining. The passing of the resolution marks the strongest action ever taken by the UNHRC regarding the human rights violations by Sri Lanka, calling for an extensive series of actions for correcting past wrongs. It also recognises the deteriorating human rights situation in Sri Lanka over the past year, which has warning signs for the future, including accelerating the militarization of civilian government functions, the erosion of the independence of the judiciary and key institutions responsible for the promotion and the protection of human rights and ongoing impunity and political obstruction of accountability for crimes and human rights violations in emblematic cases. Source: UNHRC Resolution: A Ray of Hope for Sri Lanka – Groundviews

Corona strategy darkens Sweden’s image in the Nordics – Radio Sweden | Sveriges Radio

  • A negative image of Sweden is growing in the Nordic countries, according to a survey by the Swedish Institute.
  • Around 4 out of 10 respondents had a worse image of Sweden in the past year, and the coronavirus strategy is a big reason.
  • “The Nordic countries are like a family, and sometimes you can see tension in the family ,” says Madeleine Sjöstedt at the Swedish Institute.

Source: Corona strategy darkens Sweden’s image in the Nordics – Radio Sweden | Sveriges Radio

COVID-19 ‘long haulers’ need dedicated clinics, experts say | CIDRAP

The United States should create multispecialty COVID-19 clinics dedicated to treating patients still experiencing serious multiorgan effects of infection well after recovery from acute illness, say the authors of a comprehensive review of literature on so-called coronavirus “long-haulers” published yesterday in Nature Medicine. Source: COVID-19 ‘long haulers’ need dedicated clinics, experts say | CIDRAP

Facebook guidelines allow for users to call for death of public figures | Facebook | The Guardian (do no harm, threaten no harm at minimum or just rake in the money?)

Facebook’s bullying and harassment policy explicitly allows for “public figures” to be targeted in ways otherwise banned on the site, including “calls for [their] death”, according to a tranche of internal moderator guidelines leaked to the Guardian.

Public figures are defined by Facebook to include people whose claim to fame may be simply a large social media following or infrequent coverage in local newspapers. They are considered to be permissible targets for certain types of abuse “because we want to allow discussion, which often includes critical commentary of people who are featured in the news”, Facebook explains to its moderators.

Source: Facebook guidelines allow for users to call for death of public figures | Facebook | The Guardian