News from the USA, United States of America

Chandelier said:
Nursing Excluded as 'Professional' Degree By Department of Education
Click to expand...
detail from that article:
To clarify who can access that money as a professional student, the Department of Education categorized the following programs as professional:
  • Medicine
  • Pharmacy
  • Dentistry
  • Optometry
  • Law
  • Veterinary medicine
  • Osteopathic medicine
  • Podiatry
  • Chiropractic
  • Theology
  • Clinical psychology
Notably excluded from that list?
Nurse practitioners, along with physician assistants and physical therapists.
Click to expand...
I find it extraordinary that some of those fields e.g. chiropractic are on the list and yet graduate nursing is not. It really illustrates some of the mindsets we are up against.
 
news.uthscsa.edu

New center launches with focus on chronic infectious diseases - UT Health San Antonio

The University of Texas at San Antonio marked the launch of its new Center for Chronic Infectious Diseases on Nov. 14 with an inaugural symposium highlighting research on post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (long COVID), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis (TB) and endemic...
news.uthscsa.edu news.uthscsa.edu

The University of Texas at San Antonio marked the launch of its new Center for Chronic Infectious Diseases.
 
stanmed.stanford.edu

Innovations to help chronically ill people thrive

Stanford Medicine experts are developing innovative approaches to preventing, diagnosing and treating chronic diseases so people can live healthier lives.
stanmed.stanford.edu stanmed.stanford.edu

Article about Ron Davis:

Renowned geneticist has spent the past 12 years focused on the disease that has taken so much from his son​


Ron Davis, a genetics pioneer at Stanford Medicine, has spent more than a decade studying ME/CFS, driven by his son Whitney Dafoe’s severe illness. Dafoe, who once relied entirely on a feeding tube and remains largely bedridden, has recently shown some improvement from an off-label medication, though he is far from cured.

ME/CFS affects at least 3.3 million people in the United States, yet treatments remain limited to symptom management, and federal research funding has been sparse. Many patients encounter disbelief from medical professionals. Since 2013, Davis has relied largely on private donations to launch extensive research, including a major “big data” project profiling severely ill patients and healthy volunteers. Completed in 2018, the dataset revealed numerous metabolic abnormalities.

Davis’ research points to disruptions in metabolism, possibly triggered by infections that permanently alter energy production via the metabolite itaconate. He also sees parallels between ME/CFS and long COVID. Another line of investigation focuses on nitric oxide production and related gene mutations.

Despite the need for further testing, Davis is encouraged that existing drugs target these pathways. A few patients have improved on a JAK-STAT inhibitor, giving him hope that ME/CFS might ultimately be treatable.
Click to expand...
 
chicagoreader.com

After a diagnosis of long COVID, cellist Joshua Roman builds community around Immunity - Chicago Reader

The concert is free to all with an RSVP, but it’s intended first and foremost for audience members living with long COVID and other chronic illnesses.
chicagoreader.com chicagoreader.com

Cello concerto in Chicago, free entry for pwME:
Joshua Roman Mon 12/8, 7 PM, the Arbory, 2219 W. Grand, reservations available, face masks encouraged, free, all ages

AI Summary:
The piece describes how cellist and composer Joshua Roman—known for joking that Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude is “a cellist’s way of saying hello”—had to rediscover his craft after long COVID left him too weak to play. Now recovered enough to perform and having released his debut album Immunity, he focuses on concerts for people with long COVID and other chronic illnesses, including a free Chicago performance featuring both his own works and pieces by other composers.
Click to expand...
 
FDA appoints Tracy Hoeg as acting director of drug evaluation center (Reuters)

The appointment of Hoeg, a COVID vaccine skeptic and close aide to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, comes as U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. makes stark changes at the agency.
Click to expand...

Hoeg, who opposed key U.S. health policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and questioned the use of some childhood vaccines, was named a special assistant to Makary in April.
Click to expand...

A physician and epidemiologist, Hoeg has also practiced physical and interventional spine and sports medicine before joining the FDA as senior adviser for clinical sciences in the office of the commissioner and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
Click to expand...

Both Hoeg and Makary expressed contrarian views on U.S. COVID policies, including opposition to mask requirements for children and universal vaccine mandates for the public, while supporting vaccination in general as a key public health measure.
Click to expand...

Lead author of How methodological pitfalls have created widespread misunderstanding about long COVID (2023)
 
An article from CIDRAP (University of Minnesota) talking about the CDC meeting on vaccines that's planned for later today.

Public health experts try to ‘prebunk’ misinformation about vaccines ahead of CDC vaccine meeting today
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC’s) vaccine advisory committee, which helps determine the agency's official immunization recommendations, was once admired around the world for its evidence-based, deliberative review of medical science.

But public health experts yesterday warned people not to trust the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which will meet today and tomorrow (December 4-5) to discuss changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. The panel's members were handpicked by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, after he fired all 17 of its previous members in June.

ACIP's recommendations, which heavily influence insurance coverage, can affect access to life-saving vaccinations that have virtually eliminated diseases that once killed or disabled thousands of children a year.
Click to expand...
‘Prebunking’ vaccine misinformation

A number of public health experts, including epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH, have made efforts to "prebunk" vaccine myths that they expect to be mentioned at the meeting.

Prebunking can help inoculate people against misinformation by providing evidence-based information in advance, said Rochelle Walensky, former CDC director and cofounder of the Vaccine Integrity Project (VIP), which has produced comprehensive reviews of vaccine safety and effectiveness. The VIP is an initiative of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), which publishes CIDRAP News.

In anticipation of the ACIP meeting, the VIP published a review of 400 studies of the hepatitis B vaccine earlier this week, concluding there is no reason to delay the first dose of the vaccine.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
From AP News:

A dozen former FDA leaders lambaste claims by the agency’s current vaccine chief
A dozen prior leaders of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike — issued a scathing denunciation of new FDA assertions casting doubt on vaccine safety.

The former officials say the agency’s plans to revamp how life-saving vaccines for flu, COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases are handled — outlined in an internal FDA memo last week — would “disadvantage the people the FDA exists to protect, including millions of Americans at high risk from serious infections.”
Click to expand...

The internal memo by FDA vaccine chief Dr. Vinay Prasad hasn’t been publicly released. The document claimed — without providing evidence — that COVID-19 vaccines caused 10 children’s deaths.
Click to expand...
 
thesicktimes.org

Doctors who refuse to engage with administrative work are abandoning their poorest and sickest patients - The Sick Times

Having a Long COVID or ME doctor who is willing and available to engage with survival admin makes the difference between being able to access necessities and going without, and can be the only lifeline against neglect.
thesicktimes.org thesicktimes.org

2-sentence AI overview:
Doctors who avoid administrative tasks end up cutting off their sickest, poorest patients from essential care, since paperwork is often the only way they can access vital services like home care, transportation, and medical supplies. The article argues that administrative work is patient care, and that neglecting it plunges the most vulnerable patients into dangerous gaps in the healthcare system.
Click to expand...
 
www.newsweek.com

Articles of impeachment introduced against RFK Jr.

The Democrat accused Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr of turning his back on science.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com

Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against RFK Jr.​


Short AI summary:
House Democrat Haley Stevens has introduced articles of impeachment against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing him of abusing his authority, undermining public health, and relying on misleading or nonexistent research. The effort is widely expected to fail in the Republican-controlled Congress, even as controversy swirls around Kennedy’s personnel decisions, funding cuts, and vaccine-related policies. Kennedy has not yet responded publicly to the charges.
Click to expand...
 
(Paywall)

F.D.A. Expands Covid Vaccine Inquiry to Adult Deaths​


Short AI Summary:
The F.D.A. has widened its investigation into potential Covid vaccine–related deaths to include adults, following unsubstantiated internal claims that about 10 children’s deaths were linked to the shots.
Public health experts emphasize that the vaccines remain overwhelmingly safe and that Covid itself has caused far more harm, while warning that proposed broader changes to vaccine regulation could erode public confidence.
Former F.D.A. leaders dispute the claims tying the vaccines to child deaths and criticize the new policy proposals as undermining the agency’s scientific integrity.
Click to expand...
 
"We need less food. More exercise"​

Better quality food would help a lot too, (along with built environments that encourage more exercise, better bike paths, for example).

Simply swapping high fructose corn sugar for conventional sucrose, which they have recently done, is not a significant benefit. Still has lots of fructose in it, and is still sugar.

(Interestingly, one of the more robust findings in medical research is that the rate colo-rectal cancers has a strong correlation, including dose-response, to the consumption of soda (aka soft/pop) drinks sweetened with sugar, but none at all with the zero sugar soda drinks that use other sweeteners. Which is powerful evidence against sugar.)

Apparently the new dietary guidelines coming out under RFK Jr's stewardship are also going to recommend increased consumption of saturated fats and red meat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom