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Heart Risks, Data Gaps Fuel Debate Over COVID Boosters for Young People
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo ignited a furor this month when based on a state analysis purporting to show COVID-19 vaccines were linked to cardiac deaths in young men, he advised men ages 18 to 39 to steer clear of the shots. Scientists slammed his warning and decried the eight-page analysis, which was anonymous and not peer-reviewed, for its lack of transparency and flawed statistics.
Still, COVID-19 vaccines do have a rare but worrisome cardiac side effect. Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that can cause chest pain and shortness of breath, has disproportionately struck older boys and young men who received the shots. Only one out of several thousand in those age groups is affected, and most quickly feels better. A tiny number of deaths have been tentatively linked to vaccine myocarditis around the world.
But several new studies suggest the heart muscle can take months to heal, and some scientists worry about what this means for patients long term. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ordered vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna to conduct a raft of studies to assess these risks.
As they parse emerging data and fret over knowledge gaps, scientists and doctors are divided over whether such concerns should influence vaccine recommendations, especially now that a new COVID-19 wave is looming and revamped boosters are hitting the scene.
Nearly all urge vaccinating young people with the first two vaccine doses, but the case for boosters is more complicated. A key problem is that their benefits are unknown for the age group at the highest risk of myocarditis, who are at lower risk of severe COVID-19 and other complications than older adults.
Biden Admin Unveils New Pandemic Preparedness and Biodefense Strategy
President Joe Biden is expected to sign a national security memorandum Tuesday that aims to ensure the U.S. is ready to detect and respond to the next large-scale viral or biological threat.
The plan pulls from goals set by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy that focus on the U.S. investing in research and development of tools that would help expand the country’s early warning systems.
The strategy could take years to implement, another senior administration official said on Monday, noting that the U.S. needs time and resources to develop shots, drugs and tests for potentially dozens of pathogens.
In his 2023 budget, Biden asked Congress for $88 billion over five years to help combat pandemics and biological threats. The funding has yet to be approved, but the administration is moving forward with its expansive plan with the idea that Congress will sign off on the money to help the country prepare for another virus like COVID-19.
New Lab-Made Coronavirus at Boston University Raises Questions
This was one of those should-have-seen-it-coming moments. On October 14, a team of researchers posted on bioRxiv a preprint that described how they had created a new hybrid version of the COVID-19 coronavirus in their lab at Boston University and used this lab-created virus to infect mice, which ended up killing 80% of the mice. These days, if you think that posting something that talks about a lab-created virus killing mice wouldn’t create a commotion, then in the words of the heavy metal band Judas Priest, you’ve got another thing coming.
Yep, it wasn’t too long before GOF claims about this research began on social media, with GOF in this case meaning “gain of function” rather than “go on friend.” For example, Senator Roger Marshall, MD, (R-Kansas) tweeted, “This research must stop immediately. It is unconscionable that NIH sponsors this lethal gain-of-function virus research through Boston University and EcoHealth Alliance in densely populated areas, creating the potential to kill more people than any singular nuclear weapon.”
So what’s the truth? Was this truly gain-of-function research where an even more deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was created? Or was this perhaps loss-of-function research that was indeed of public benefit that could lead to better therapeutic interventions? Or was it something in between? And should the team led by Mohsan Saeed, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University, have taken more precautions before conducting the research and posting the preprint?
Researchers Speed Efforts for Vaccine Against Virus Linked With Mono, MS
Maybe you’ve never heard of the Epstein-Barr virus. But it knows all about you. Chances are, it’s living inside you right now. About 95% of American adults are infected sometime in their lives. And once infected, the virus stays with you.
Scientists have spent years trying to develop vaccines against Epstein-Barr or EBV. But recently several leaps in medical research have provided more urgency to the quest — and more hope for success. In just the past year, two experimental vaccine efforts have made it to human clinical trials.
And just as crucial to the momentum: Advances in vaccine science spurred by the pandemic, including the mRNA technology used in some COVID vaccines, could accelerate the development of other vaccines, including ones against Epstein-Barr, said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Hotez co-created a low-cost, patent-free COVID vaccine called Corbevax.
Some researchers question the need for a vaccine that targets a disease like multiple sclerosis, that, while debilitating, remains relatively rare. Eliminating Epstein-Barr would require vaccinating all healthy children even though their risk of developing cancer or multiple sclerosis is small, said Dr. Ralph Horwitz, a professor at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.
Biden COVID Officials Scramble to Plan for Omicron Subvariant Threat
Top Biden health officials are increasingly concerned about the rise of new COVID variants in the U.S. that appear to evade existing treatments used to protect immunocompromised people from severe illness, according to three senior administration officials.
The variants — known as BQ1 and BQ1.1 — have spread swiftly throughout the U.S. over the past few weeks, and now account for more than 11% of all cases nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly double the proportion they represented a week earlier.
The emergence of the “BQs,” as health officials have referred to the variants internally, represents a fresh threat to Biden’s broader pandemic strategy, which has increasingly hinged on shielding vulnerable populations while encouraging a return to normalcy for most other Americans.
The rapid growth of the variants puts them on track to become the dominant strains of COVID within the next month, officials said. While the vaccines and the administration’s main COVID treatment, Paxlovid, still work against those strains, the development could leave hundreds of thousands of people with compromised immune systems vulnerable to a winter wave without the two therapies that they’ve come to rely upon.
The XBB Family of Omicron Has Landed in the U.S. Here’s What It Means for This Fall’s COVID Wave
XBB — a new, extremely immune-evasive Omicron variant surging in Singapore — hasn’t yet been detected in the U.S. But its child has. XBB.1 was first detected in the U.S. on Sept. 15 and comprised 0.26% of cases that were genetically sequenced over the past 15 days, Dr. Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., told Fortune.
He cited data from GISAID, an international research organization that tracks changes in COVID and the flu virus. Only 16 XBB.1 cases have been detected in the U.S. so far, and most have been found in New York — considered a bellwether state due to its volume of incoming international travelers and robust genetic sequencing capabilities, Rajnarayanan said.
XBB is a combination of two different Omicron spawns. It, along with BQ.1.1, is considered to be the most immune-evasive COVID variant so far, surpassing the immune-evasiveness of shared ancestor BA.5, which was dominant across the globe this summer.
Scientists, including top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, expect a fall and winter wave of cases in the U.S. that begins to surge in October and peaks in January. It’s still unclear which COVID variant may fuel that wave.
U.S. Life Expectancy Drops as Europe Shows Signs of Recovery After COVID, Study Finds
In 2020, most countries around the world experienced a shocking decline in life expectancy as COVID-19 wreaked havoc on society. But as some countries show signs of recovery, a new study found the United States continues to see its life expectancy in free fall.
Researchers examined data from 29 countries around the world and found seven countries in Western Europe saw a significant increase in life expectancy in 2021, according to the study published Monday in Nature Human Behavior. Four of those countries — France, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden — returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, the U.S. reported the third-largest decline in life expectancy, following closely behind Bulgaria and Slovakia.
The study is the latest example of how issues relating to the U.S. healthcare system, policies and public behavior, which affected life expectancy before COVID-19, were exacerbated by the pandemic, experts say.
Ports Reveal Unprecedented Surge in Harmful Emissions; Officials Blame COVID Logjam
As a veil of gray exhaust settled over the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Janet Schaaf-Gunter worried about how much more diesel pollution she and her neighbors would be inhaling during the shipping logjam.
At the Port of Los Angeles, cancer-causing diesel particulate matter rose 56% compared with 2020. The emissions of nitrogen oxides, the precursor to smog, increased by 54% while lung-irritating sulfur oxides rose by 145%.
Last year, both ports witnessed a 16% rise in cargo movement as the COVID-19 pandemic stoked demand for e-commerce goods. However, ocean-faring ships tarried in San Pedro Bay as crews struggled to keep up with the pace.
The workforce was also hampered by COVID and pandemic-related precautions that limited the number of crews moving cargo from ships to trucks and trains. Farther inland, some warehouses and distribution centers had also reached storage capacity and suffered labor shortages.
Monkeypox Cases in U.S. Fall, Hit Lowest Level Since June: CDC
Monkeypox cases are continuing to decline in the United States as the outbreak keeps showing signs of receding. Trends seen in cities across the country mirror those nationwide.
In New York City — the epicenter of the outbreak — the seven-day average has fallen to 2 as of Oct. 11 from the city’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. This is a sharp decline from the peak of 73 recorded in late July and early August.
