No, not us, right?

Prosperity like no one have ever seen

Special alert for MAGA dudes

Getting sick from COVID may impair male fertility, but vaccination shows no negative effect

Laine Bergeson

COVID-19 infection may meaningfully affect male reproductive health, while having limited consequences for female fertility or assisted reproductive technology (ART) outcomes, according to a new umbrella review published this week in Vaccine. In contrast, COVID vaccination showed little impact on fertility in either men or women. 

The review, led by a team at the Department of Reproductive Medical Center at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, assessed the effects of COVID infection and COVID vaccination on fertility and ART outcomes by analyzing data from 14 studies with 40 different fertility and ART outcomes. 

Impaired male fertility persists 3 months after infection

Among men, the data suggests, COVID infection is associated with reductions in semen quality, including lower semen volume and concentration, and total sperm count, viability, and motility. COVID infection was also associated with elevated levels of the hormones estradiol and prolactin in men, though it did not appear to significantly affect testosterone levels. 

These negative fertility outcomes in men persisted after infection. “Notably, even after recovery (over 90 days), sperm concentration and motility remained lower compared to uninfected individuals,” they write. 

New study shows some plant-based diets may raise heart disease risk

When plant foods are ultra-processed, the advantage disappears—and can even backfire

INRAE - National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment

Previous studies have indicated that eating large amounts of ultra-processed foods^[1] is linked with a higher likelihood of developing cardiovascular diseases. Other research^[2] has found that diets centered on plant-based foods can lower this risk when those foods offer balanced nutrition and are consumed in appropriate proportions.

To explore how nutrition relates to cardiovascular health in more detail, scientists from INRAE, Inserm, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, and Cnam examined more than whether foods came from plant or animal sources. Their assessment also incorporated the nutritional makeup of foods, including factors such as carbohydrate, fat, and antioxidant vitamin and mineral content, along with the level of industrial processing involved.

Universal vaccine to treat colds, flu and COVID developed – and a new study suggests it just might work

Can it get past Bobby Jr. and his anti-vaxxers?

Neil Mabbott, University of Edinburgh

Cocaine seems to be the only thing Bobby Jr.
 wants up is nose

Vaccines have traditionally worked by teaching the immune system to recognise a specific virus or bacterium – in effect, showing it a wanted poster for a single suspect. But what if one vaccine could protect against dozens of different infections at once? Researchers have now developed a potential candidate for such a vaccine, and a new study in mice, published in the journal Science, has given promising results.

What is this new vaccine, and how does it work?

Most vaccines work by introducing the immune system to a specific pathogen – a weakened version of it, or a key protein from its surface – so that the body can recognize and fight it if encountered later.

This vaccine takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than targeting any one bug, it contains molecules that mimic the signals the body naturally produces when it is under attack from a virus or bacterium. The effect is to put certain immune cells into a prolonged state of high alert, ready to respond rapidly to a wide range of threats, rather than being trained to spot just one.

However, the consequences to dialing up the immune system beyond its normal state won’t be known until human trials are conducted.

Why is it given as a nasal spray rather than an injection?

The nose, throat and lungs are lined with what scientists call mucosal surfaces – the moist tissues that act as the body’s main point of contact with the outside world, and its first barrier against infection. The immune system in these tissues responds more powerfully when a vaccine is delivered directly to them, rather than into a muscle in the arm.

That principle already underlies the routine flu vaccine given to young children in the UK, which comes as a nasal spray. Research has also shown that COVID vaccines can block infection more effectively in animals when delivered this way, rather than by injection. Spraying the new vaccine into the nose allows it to reach immune cells deep in the lungs.

Trump somehow got worse on public health after covid

He's incapable of learning lessons and actively resists it.

Noah Berlatsky

In the Trump administration’s latest assault on public health, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crankified FDA refused to review the first mRNA flu vaccine developed by Moderna.

The FDA’s official reason was that the trial of the vaccine had been inadequate. But since Moderna had already discussed trial design with officials, this is pretty obviously an excuse meant to provide cover for Kennedy’s longstanding gibbering anti-vax quackery.

This is bad news for Americans who would like to avoid the (sometimes deadly) flu virus. But the implications are much wider than that.

At the end of January, even before the latest RFK-engineered setback, Moderna’s CEO Stéphane Bancel said that the company was planning to pull back on crucial investments in late-stage mRNA vaccine trials.

“You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the US market,” he explained.

What this means is that RFK’s position as Trump’s chief snake-oil death dealer could affect global development of new vaccines for shingles, herpes, and the Epstein-Barr virus, the latter of which has been linked to some cancers.

The Trump administration is a disaster not just for public health in the US, but worldwide. There has been a great deal of discussion of the ways in which Trump’s reckless foreign policy has put global security at risk with his threats to Greenland, Canada, Europe, and general violent unpredictability.

But US abandonment of public health leadership may well be even more consequential. It will quite possibly lead to tens of millions of needless deaths over the next decades.

Leave my tariffs alone!

 

The Don of Justice

MIT scientists find a way to rejuvenate the immune system as we age

It's based on mRNA technology hated by Bobby Kennedy Jr. and defunded by Trump

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

While Trump could benefit, he and Bobby Jr. OPPOSE mRNA 

Researchers used mRNA to turn the liver into a short-term immune factory, reviving T-cell production that normally fades with age. Credit: Shutterstock

As people get older, the immune system often becomes less effective. Populations of T cells shrink, and the remaining cells may respond more slowly to germs. That slowdown can leave older adults more vulnerable to many kinds of infections.

To address this age related decline, scientists from MIT and the Broad Institute developed a method to temporarily reprogram liver cells in a way that strengthens T cell performance. The goal is to make up for the reduced output of the thymus, the organ where T cells normally mature.

In the study, the team used mRNA to deliver three important factors that support T cell survival. With this approach, they were able to rejuvenate the immune systems of mice. Older mice that received the treatment produced larger and more varied T cell populations after vaccination, and they also showed improved responses to cancer immunotherapy.

The researchers say that if this strategy can be adapted for patients, it could help people stay healthier as they age.

"BPA-Free" doesn't mean safe

Scientists question the safety of BPA-free packaging

McGill University

“BPA-free” food packaging may be hiding new risks. A McGill University study found that several BPA substitutes used in grocery price labels can seep into food and interfere with vital processes in human ovarian cells. 

Some triggered unusual fat buildup and disrupted genes linked to cell repair and growth. The results raise concerns that BPA replacements may be just as troubling as the chemical they replaced.

Chemicals used as replacements for bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging may have concerning effects on human ovarian cells, according to researchers at McGill University.

In a new study, scientists analyzed several substances commonly found in price stickers attached to packaged meat, fish, cheese, and fresh produce. Their experiments revealed early warning signs of possible toxicity linked to these chemicals.

The results, published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, raise new questions about whether BPA-free packaging is truly safer and whether existing regulations provide enough protection for consumers.

How COVID and H1N1 swept through U.S. cities in just weeks

Trump's denials didn't help

Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

Public health scientists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health used advanced computer simulations to trace how the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic spread across the United States. Their results show how quickly respiratory pandemics can expand and why stopping them early is so challenging. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research is the first to directly compare how these two pandemics moved through U.S. metropolitan areas.

Both outbreaks had major consequences in the United States. The 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic led to 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic has been even more devastating, with 1.2 million confirmed deaths reported so far.

Even though undocumented immigrants can't collect Social Security, SSA plans to give ICE details about beneficiary appointments

ICE terrorism coming to Social Security offices

Jake Johnson

Leaders at the Social Security Administration are reportedly instructing agency employees to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with information about in-person beneficiary appointments.

Wired reported that the instructions were “recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices.” 

The outlet quoted an unnamed employee with direct knowledge of the orders who said that “if ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time.”

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Social Security benefits, though they do contribute tens of billions of dollars per year to the program through payroll taxes. Noncitizens can qualify for Social Security, but Wired noted that they are “required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.”

Not many of us live on Wall Street

Priorities

Tanning beds triple melanoma risk, potentially causing broad DNA damage

Study is first to show how tanning beds mutate skin cells far more than ordinary sunlight

By Ben Schamisso

Tanning bed use is tied to almost a threefold increase in melanoma risk, and for the first time, scientists have shown how these devices cause melanoma-linked DNA damage across nearly the entire skin surface, reports a new study led by Northwestern Medicine and University of California, San Francisco.

Melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer, kills about 11,000 in the U.S. each year. Despite decades of warnings, the precise biological mechanism behind tanning beds’ cancer risk remained unclear. The indoor tanning industry, which is making a comeback, has used that uncertainty to argue that tanning beds are no more harmful than sunlight.

This new study “irrefutably” challenges those claims by showing how tanning beds, at a molecular level, mutate skin cells far beyond the reach of ordinary sunlight, according to the authors.

“Even in normal skin from indoor tanning patients, areas where there are no moles, we found DNA changes that are precursor mutations that predispose to melanoma,” said study first author Dr. Pedram Gerami, professor of skin cancer research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “That has never been shown before.”

The study was published in Science Advances.