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‘Our Daughter Should Not Have Died From Covid Jab’
The parents of a young woman who died after being given an AstraZeneca Covid jab have accused the National Health Service (NHS) of failing to pass on known safety warnings about the vaccine.
Marina Waldron, 21, visited hospital with excruciating headaches three times in the week before her fatal collapse from a brain hemorrhage in March 2021.
Max and Liz Waldron said that despite her deteriorating condition, A&E doctors had seemed unaware of the emerging side-effects associated with the jab and warnings that had been issued.
At Marina’s inquest in December 2023, a coroner determined her death had been caused by a combination of factors: intracerebral hemorrhage, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, and vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis due to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The Waldrons want to know why medical professionals were not informed about the risks associated with the vaccine earlier when other countries were putting a halt on the vaccine and why appropriate diagnostic measures were not taken promptly.
HPV Vaccine Coverage Has Dropped Among Teens Since 2020, CDC Report Finds
The percentage of teenagers who were up to date on their human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines has fallen dramatically since 2020, according to new federal data released Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s report looked at data from the 2023 National Immunization Survey — Teen, a group of phone surveys used to monitor vaccination coverage among teenagers. Similar ones are conducted for children and adults.
There was a notable decrease in the percentage of adolescents who were up to date with HPV vaccination by age 13 among those born in 2010 — who would have turned 13 in 2023 — compared with those born in 2007, who would have turned 13 in 2020.
HPV is a very common STI that infects about 13 million Americans each year, according to the CDC. Nearly everyone will contract HPV at some point in their lives, the CDC says.
There are more than 100 types of HPV, and most HPV infections clear up on their own within two years.
About 10% of infections last longer and can put individuals at risk for some cancers including cervix, vaginal and vulvar cancer; penile cancer; anal cancer; and oropharyngeal cancer, which is a cancer of the back of the throat, according to the CDC.
Exclusive-WHO Says Partners Can Start Talks to Buy Mpox Vaccines Before Its Approval
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday its partners such as Gavi and UNICEF can start buying mpox vaccines before they are approved by the U.N. health agency, to get inoculations to Africa faster as the continent battles an escalating outbreak of the virus.
Traditionally, organizations like Gavi, which helps lower-income countries buy vaccines, can only start purchasing shots once they have approval from the WHO. But the rules have been relaxed in this instance to get talks moving, as the WHO’s approval is due in a few weeks.
Earlier this month, the WHO asked vaccine manufacturers to submit information so it could accelerate its approval process, and grant an emergency licence by mid-September.
However this week, one of the vaccine manufacturers, Bavarian Nordic, said it needed orders immediately from organizations such as Gavi and the WHO to make more shots this year, raising fears that lower-income countries could miss out or be forced to rely on precarious donations from high-income countries, as happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A spokesperson for Gavi said that getting donated doses to countries, and into vaccination programmes, was the first priority.
AstraZeneca Threatens to Move UK Vaccine Production to US, FT Reports
AstraZeneca has warned it could relocate its vaccine manufacturing site from the UK to the United States as talks with the new Labour government over plans to cut state aid have become deadlocked, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves wants to reduce state provisions to the company’s vaccine centre, which will cut the pledge made by the previous administration from about 90 million pounds to 40 million pounds.
Manufacturing could take place in India, where the company has produced vaccines in the past, people briefed on the discussions told the newspaper.
An AztraZeneca spokesperson said: “We are committed to pursuing the opportunity at Speke and are in constructive discussions with the UK government.”
“We have no idea where the comments in some media come from and they do not seem to be based on facts. As an example, there are no discussions in the US or India,” the spokesperson said.
HHS Kicks off Vaccine Awareness Campaign to Reduce Risk of COVID, Flu and RSV
As summer winds down in the U.S. and the colder months creep closer, so too does the annual respiratory virus season, when highly contagious diseases like influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) make the rounds, resulting in hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations.
Hoping to reduce the numbers of infections and hospitalizations from that seasonal triple whammy, often referred to as a “tripledemic,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a new campaign to increase both awareness of and education around the vaccines available to protect against the viruses.
Though it’s aiming to reach a broad audience of Americans, the “Risk Less. Do More.” campaign will specifically target higher-risk populations who face increased chances of serious illness and hospitalization if infected with COVID, RSV or flu.
Those groups include senior citizens, pregnant people and those living in long-term care facilities or in rural areas, plus Black and Hispanic communities and other racial and ethnic groups who experience structural barriers in their access to healthcare information and services.
Employers Foresee Higher Health Costs Next Year Due to Rising Pharmacy Spend
Large employers are bracing for a substantial increase in healthcare costs next year, driven by higher spending on medicines like the popular GLP-1 drugs for obesity, according to the Business Group on Health’s (BGH) annual survey of its members.
The predicted 7.8% spending increase is the highest projection in more than 15 years, per the group, which this summer surveyed large employers that collectively cover about one-tenth of the more than 160 million Americans who receive insurance through their job.
The survey results are the latest evidence employers are preparing for a major jump in healthcare costs next year.
Employers have grappled with coverage decisions for the drugs, which carry list prices between $1,000 and $1,400 per month.
More than three-fourths of employers report being “very concerned” about overall pharmacy cost, BGH found, while a majority expressed concerns about business practices in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Mpox Vaccine Maker Gets European Order for 440,000 Doses
Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said Wednesday it had signed a contract to supply 440,000 doses of its mpox vaccine to an “undisclosed European country”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared the rapid spread of the new, more dangerous mpox strain, dubbed Clade 1b, a public health emergency of international concern – the highest alarm the UN agency can sound.
Bavarian Nordic said the order was anticipated and included in the company’s projections for the year.
“The latest order was planned as part of our original guidance for this year, and as such, will not impact the remaining capacity that is available to support governments and organizations to address the current WHO declared Public Health Emergency of International Concern for mpox,” Paul Chaplin, CEO of Bavarian Nordic, said in a statement.
The vaccine maker said last week that it was ready to supply up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by the end of 2025.
Johnson’s Baby Powder Mesothelioma Lawsuit Ends in $63M Verdict for Plaintiff
A jury in South Carolina has ordered Johnson & Johnson and American International Industries to pay $63.4 million to a man who developed mesothelioma from Johnson’s Baby Powder, following years of exposure to asbestos particles in the talc-based product.
The verdict came in a case brought by Michael Perry, who presented evidence at trial that the manufacturer knew that talc used in Johnson’s Baby Powder was contaminated with asbestos, but failed to warn consumers about the potential health risks associated with exposure to the toxic substance.
Johnson & Johnson has faced tens of thousands of Baby Powder lawsuits and Shower-to-Shower lawsuits in recent years, with most of the claims brought by women diagnosed with ovarian cancer. However, a number also involve other talcum powder users diagnosed with mesothelioma, which is a rare form of cancer only known to be caused by exposure to asbestos.
Johnson & Johnson currently faces an estimated 60,000 talcum powder-related lawsuits that are working through the U.S. court system, and several of the cases that have already gone to trial against the company have resulted in billions of dollars in damages being awarded to former consumers.
EU Approves Moderna’s RSV Vaccine for Over 60s
The European Commission on Friday approved Moderna’s respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for older adults — the first time the bloc has authorised an mRNA shot against a disease other than COVID-19.
RSV is a highly contagious seasonal virus that can cause severe symptoms in infants and the elderly — one in 20 of whom contract it each year in Europe, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
In the European Union (EU), Norway and United Kingdom, RSV leads to the hospitalization of around 158,000 adults each year, as well as some 213,000 children under five, according to ECDC data.
“Vaccination saves lives,” the EU’s commissioner for health and food safety, Stella Kyriakides, said in a statement announcing the approval of Moderna’s mResvia vaccine.
“We are determined to ensure that everyone has access to the protection that they need against serious diseases.”
“This approval of the first mRNA vaccine against RSV clearly shows the importance of innovation when it comes to protecting the health of our citizens,” Kyriakides said.
Thailand Confirms Its First Case of New, Deadlier Mpox Version
Health officials in Thailand said on Thursday that they had confirmed a case of the version of mpox that prompted the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency. It’s the second time that the new and deadlier version has been found outside Africa.
The announcement of the case in Thailand is likely to stir concerns about the virus spreading more widely, especially after the version was discovered in Sweden last week.
Previously the outbreak had been concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The version of the mpox virus detected in these recent cases is known as Clade Ib. Health officials are particularly concerned about it because it has a death rate of 3 percent, much higher than the 0.2 percent death rate observed in a 2022 outbreak.
That earlier outbreak was driven by a version called Clade IIb, which is spread predominantly through sexual contact.
Men who had sex with men proved to be the most at risk, but behavioral changes and vaccinations curbed the spread.
