Novak Djokovic Makes His Feelings Crystal Clear on COVID-19 Vaccination 3 Years After Australian Open Deportation Saga
Novak Djokovic gave his thoughts on the COVID-19 vaccine three years following his controversial deportation from Australia ahead of the 2022 Australian Open. The Serb spoke about how he chose to exercise his freedom of choice on what he put into his body.
Djokovic, a record 24-time Grand Slam champion and among the greatest male tennis players ever, was initially detained upon landing in Australia since he had not taken the COVID-19 vaccine, then confined to a hotel room for a couple of days before he was cleared to train, albeit under strict supervision. However, with just a few days left for the commencement of the Melbourne Major, the Serb’s visa was canceled and he was deported.
Three years since the incident, the 37-year-old once again clarified his feelings on the deportation saga in an interview with GQ. “My stance is exactly the same today as it was a few years ago. I’m not pro-vaccine. I’m not anti-vax. I am pro-freedom to choose what is right for you and your body,” he said.
Kentucky Reaches $110 Million Deal With Kroger To Settle Opioid Lawsuit
Kentucky will receive $110 million to settle its lawsuit accusing one of the nation’s largest grocery chains of helping fuel the opioid epidemic, the state’s attorney general said Thursday.
The state will use the money it is getting in its settlement with The Kroger Co. to combat an addiction that has ravaged communities and given the state some of the nation’s highest overdose death rates.
“This massive grocery chain that asked for our trust and our business allowed the fire of addiction to spread across the commonwealth, leaving pain and leaving so much brokenness in its aftermath,” Attorney General Russell Coleman said in announcing the settlement.
With Kentucky putting the settlement money toward prevention and recovery efforts, the company has “agreed to become part of the solution,” the Republican attorney general added. Kroger, a leading grocery chain in Kentucky, didn’t immediately respond to a Thursday email seeking comment.
Study Pinpoints Factors Driving COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Among Black Women
Three main factors contributed to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Black women, according to a qualitative study using interviews conducted in 2021.
Among the 54 Black women interviewed, three primary themes emerged: mistrust in healthcare and government due to past medical exploitation; concerns about vaccine safety and long-term effects, especially relating to reproductive health; and “ineffective and coercive” communication about and promotion of the vaccine, reported Brittany C. Slatton, PhD, of Texas Southern University in Houston, and co-authors.
“Participants expressed deep-rooted skepticism about being treated as ‘expendable’ in medical research, fears about the rapid vaccine development process, and frustration with coercive vaccine advertisements,” they wrote in JAMA Network Open.
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US Travel Clinics Don’t Offer Many Patients Pneumococcal or Flu Vaccines, Study Suggests
At nearly 117,000 pre-travel health consultations over 10 years at 31 U.S. sites, 68% of eligible travelers weren’t offered the pneumococcal vaccine and 15% weren’t offered the flu vaccine — even if their destination was experiencing its flu season, Harvard Medical School researchers and their colleagues reported yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.
The team analyzed online questionnaires completed by Global Travel Epidemiology Network patients and providers at pre-travel health consultations and developed multivariable logistic regression models to identify characteristics tied to receiving the vaccinations from July 2012 through June 2022.
Pre-travel health consultations focus on counseling and ensuring that travelers are up to date on routine vaccinations. The average age of the travelers evaluated was 38 years, 57% were female, and the most common destination was Africa (42%). Most (59%) planned to travel for at least 2 weeks. “Infections by Streptococcus pneumoniae and influenza viruses are vaccine-preventable diseases causing great morbidity and mortality,” the researchers wrote. “Influenza is a top travel-related risk, with an estimated incidence of at 1% per month of travel.”
Fueled by New Launches, US Drug Prices Poised To Continue Trending Upward: Cowen Report
Despite recent developments in the fight to corral high U.S. drug prices, the trend toward consistently rising costs — which has held true for years — is likely to persist for the foreseeable future.
That’s according to TD Cowen’s annual report on the near-term outlook for U.S. drug prices. This year’s report, which incorporates findings from a survey of 27 health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals, provides a clear conclusion: The price tags of branded medicines should continue to increase in the coming years thanks to steady influx of new, high-value treatments.
Breaking down the numbers, per-unit costs for branded drugs increased by an average of 7% in 2024, Cowen said in its report, a slight increase from 5% in 2023.
Verdiva Starts up With $411M and a Portfolio of Obesity Drugs From China
Verdiva joins a long list of obesity drug startups launched over the last year, including Metsera, Antag Therapeutics, SixPeaks Bio, Pep2Tango Therapeutics and Kailera Therapeutics, which emerged from stealth just months ago with a $400 million financing. All of the newcomers are eyeing the booming market for obesity drugs dominated by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. And they’re promising to offer better options in the form of pills or longer-lasting alternatives to the injectable medicines that are now raking in billions of dollars.
Verdiva says it has an experimental treatment in the same GLP-1 class as Novo’s Wegovy and Lilly’s Zepbound that can be administered once a week and is ready for Phase 2 testing. It’s also developing a once-weekly oral medicine known as an amylin agonist that could be used alone or in combination with a GLP-1 treatment, as well as a long-acting injectable amylin agonist.
The new company is part of a growing trend in the industry, looking to China to pluck effective medicines to develop or build a company around. Verdiva licensed its portfolio from China’s Sciwind Biosciences and has rights to the drugs outside greater China and South Korea.
