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Anti-Vaxxers Are Coupling Up on Apps for ‘Unjected’ Singles
Genna Betros, 27, was scrolling through Instagram four years ago when she came across Unjected, a dating app for people who chose not to receive the covid-19 vaccine. Betros had made the same decision. She was wary of how quickly the vaccine was developed, she says, and distrusting of its government support.
She grew up in a vegetarian, politically independent household in New Jersey. A headache would be treated with peppermint oil before Advil. Her view of the American medical system boils down to, as she puts it, “You can’t trust the doctor anymore.” She believes that some doctors are beholden to the pharmaceutical industry. She had profiles on Hinge and Bumble, but Unjected attracted someone she described as highly questioning who wanted to “stay strong for their family and not submit to whatever the TV says,” she explains.
On Unjected, she matched with Corey Deemer. Betros took two weeks to message Deemer back. When she did, she realized they were only an hour-long drive apart. They met at a bar between Philadelphia and her home in New Jersey. Deemer had a few drinks before Betros arrived. He recalled worrying she might not be real. “But she showed up, and she lit up the room. We sat there and talked, played every board game there,” says Deemer, a 28-year-old apprentice electrical lineman. Like Betros, Deemer was concerned by the “aggressive” push for Americans to receive covid vaccines.
Supreme Court Rejects Legal Battle Over New York’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Healthcare Workers
The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a legal battle involving New York’s now-repealed mandate for healthcare workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic. The dispute arose after the New York Department of Health issued an emergency rule in 2021 that required all licensed healthcare workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to address the spread of the virus in medical facilities and nursing homes.
State officials said the rule allowed healthcare employers to accommodate religious exemptions in certain ways, but did not permit blanket exemptions from the vaccine mandate. The vaccine requirement was repealed as of October 2023 after the Biden administration ended the federal COVID-19 public health emergency.
A group of employees at New York healthcare facilities sought religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate, arguing that their sincerely held religious beliefs prevented them from receiving the COVID-19 shots. But their employers rejected the workers’ requests for religious accommodations and fired them.
GLP-1 Weight-Loss Boom Linked to Surge in Poison Control Calls
U.S. News & World Report reported:
As the use of GLP-1 medications for weight loss surges, so do calls to U.S. poison control centers, according to a new study. A team led by Jordan Miller of the University of Texas at San Antonio analyzed reports submitted to the National Poison Data System involving GLP-1 drugs before and after the 2021 approval of semaglutide for the treatment of obesity.
Prior to approval, the centers recorded roughly 1,000 to 1,500 cases annually. After mid-2021, call volumes nearly doubled. And by 2023, poison centers logged more than 8,000 GLP-1-related calls.
When researchers examined the increase by specific medication, semaglutide accounted for 64% of all GLP-1-related calls, according to the results. One researcher called its dominance “staggering,” though she noted that the finding aligns with the drug’s extensive media attention.
Strange Side Effect Found Among Ozempic Users — and It Has to Do With Smell and Taste
Research published June 25 might leave a bad taste in your mouth and a crinkle in your nose if you’re taking a GLP-1 medication like semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy). Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel examined the medical records of people with type 2 diabetes.
People taking a GLP-1, they found, had a noticeably greater chance of being diagnosed with smell or taste problems than those taking a different diabetes drug. Though the absolute risk appears to be small, more study is warranted to confirm whether GLP-1s can negatively affect some people’s sense of smell and taste, the researchers say. “This study indicates that GLP-1 receptor agonists may be linked to a higher risk of smell and taste disturbances,” study co-author Nir Zontag told Gizmodo.
GLP-1 drugs have greatly improved the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. Yet no drug is completely risk-free. And since GLP-1s have skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years, researchers have identified new, if usually rare, potential side effects linked to them.
Cities and Schools Are Testing Wastewater for Illicit Drugs
A foul odor permeated the early morning heat as city workers in Tempe, Ariz., unlocked a sewage monitoring shed and opened the tap of a collection jug that had been siphoning from the city’s wastewater over the previous day. They filled a jar, packed it in a blue cooler and hurried to the next shed, or “doghouse,” retrieving from 11 in all.
Rushing to prevent the samples from degrading under the glowering sun, they delivered the coolers to a new municipal lab, where chemists test sewage for traces of dangerous drugs. The aim of this citywide effort is to detect drugs as soon as they start infiltrating neighborhoods and to reduce overdoses by alerting citizens and emergency medical responders. A colorful, interactive dashboard broadcasts the latest results: On April 27, xylazine, which can necrotize human flesh, was popping in Collection Area 4; on May 11, fentanyl jumped in Collection Area 6.
“The poop don’t lie,” said Wydale Holmes, director of strategic management and innovation for the city, invoking her office’s mantra. Tempe is among a growing number of local governments that are experimenting with monitoring wastewater for drug use, using methods similar to those widely employed to track the coronavirus during the Covid pandemic.
EU Hits France’s Sanofi With Flu Vaccine Antitrust Probe
The European Commission announced Friday that it was opening an antitrust probe into French pharmaceutical group Sanofi on suspicion it breached the bloc’s competition rules in promoting a flu vaccine. The probe centres on how the firm marketed an enhanced flu vaccine, offered under the brand name Efluelda and designed to provide greater protection for people over 60.
The vaccine in question competes with one marketed by the Australian company CSL Seqirus under the brand name Fluad. “The commission is concerned that Sanofi pursued a misleading communication campaign to disparage Fluad by portraying it as inferior to Efluelda, going against national vaccination recommendations in several member states,” a commission statement said.
The EU executive, acting as the bloc’s competition watchdog, said the campaign primarily targeted healthcare professionals in Germany and France, where Sanofi is considered to hold a dominant position.
