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University of Florida Officials Have No ‘Standing’ to Review Ladapo’s COVID Vaccine Guidance
A group of University of Florida medical-school faculty members challenged controversial guidance by state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on COVID-19 vaccinations, but a university official said Wednesday the guidance is outside the scope of Ladapo’s work with the school.
Ladapo, who holds a faculty position in the UF College of Medicine, was tapped in September 2021 by Gov. Ron DeSantis to serve as surgeon general and secretary of the Florida Department of Health. Ladapo has become a controversial national figure because of his positions on issues such as COVID-19 vaccines and mask requirements.
In October, Ladapo issued guidance advising males ages 18 through 39 to avoid getting shots with COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. The Department of Health published an analysis that showed an increase “in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death” among males in that age group roughly a month after receiving the shots.
“As this work was done by Dr. Joseph Ladapo in his role as the state of Florida Surgeon General and not in his role as a UF faculty member, the UF Office of Research Integrity, Security and Compliance has no standing to consider the allegations or concerns regarding research integrity set forth in the Faculty Council task force report,” said David Norton, vice president for research at the university.
Healthcare Workers Cry Foul on FDA Claiming It Didn’t Prohibit Ivermectin for COVID
Jennifer Wright, a nurse practitioner and clinical director who practices in Florida, but can prescribe across state lines, told The Epoch Times she received a letter from the Office of the Attorney General of New York ordering her not to prescribe ivermectin.
“You know, basically threatened me. If I don’t stop prescribing, then they’re going to fine me,” Wright said about the letter, which threatened legal action with fines of up to $5,000 per violation. The citation in the letter appears to be from an FDA advisory issued in March 2021 titled “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.
That advisory and other anti-ivermectin messaging from the FDA are now the subject of a lawsuit brought by three doctors against the agency. The doctors argue that the FDA illegally interfered with their ability to treat patients. The suit was dismissed but an appeal has been filed by the plaintiffs.
During a hearing in 2022, attorneys defending the government argued that the agency’s missives were just a recommendation. “They did not say it’s prohibited or it’s unlawful. They also did not say that doctors may not prescribe ivermectin,” Isaac Belfer, one of the lawyers for the government, said during a Nov. 1, 2022, hearing in a federal court in Texas.
White House Cautions Against Panic as XBB.1.5 Omicron Subvariant Spreads
White House health officials are cautioning against a rush to panic over the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant, which has rapidly grown to account for 40% of U.S. COVID-19 cases, with officials stating it is not yet known if this version is more dangerous.
As of last week, the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant is responsible for at least 40% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. As a recombinant virus, the subvariant carries genetic data from two previous strains that descended from the BA.2 subvariant. Roughly 75% of cases in the Northeast are now attributed to this strain.
Robert Califf, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), posted his own thread on XBB.1.5 in response to what he characterized as “misinformation/disinformation” in an editorial published by The Wall Street Journal earlier this week.
The opinion piece suggested that repeated vaccination could be making people more susceptible to infection due to XBB subvariants and fueling viral mutations.
Here’s What to Know About XBB.1.5 — Its Immune Evasiveness Didn’t Come at a Cost in Transmissibility, Virologist Says
The new Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is growing rapidly in the U.S., becoming the most common strain as the proportion of cases for which it’s responsible for doubled in just a week. XBB.1.5 now accounts for an estimated 41% of COVID cases in the U.S., up from 22% the week prior, according to CDC data. It’s particularly prevalent in the Northeast, found in about three-quarters of infections there, according to the agency.
XBB.1.5 evolved from XBB.1, which evolved from XBB — an Omicron subvariant that emerged in India in mid-August and quickly became predominant there, as well as in Singapore and other regions in Asia, according to a paper in Cell Reports.
XBB involved the recombination of two descendants of the BA.2 variant, according to virologist Jesse Bloom, Ph.D., of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.
Notably, in Singapore, XBB was responsible for a surge in cases, but it didn’t cause an increase in hospitalizations or deaths, Ali Mokdad, Ph.D., of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle, previously told MedPage Today.
The WHO Says It’s Not yet Seeing New COVID Variants in China — but Data ‘Underrepresent’ Deaths
Governments like the U.S. say they’re worried about the rise of new variants in China’s massive COVID outbreak, but the World Health Organization says it has yet to see any new strains in the country. In a statement released Wednesday, the WHO said that a sample of genomic data provided by China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that almost all cases were of BA.5.2 and BF.7 strains, which are two variants of Omicron.
“These variants are known and have been circulating in other countries, and at present time no new variant has been reported by the China CDC,” the WHO said in its statement.
In a separate briefing, WHO officials said that Chinese data minimized the true scope of its COVID outbreak. Current Chinese numbers “underrepresent the true impact of the disease,” especially regarding hospitalizations and deaths, said Mike Ryan, the WHO’s executive director for health emergencies.
U.S. New Drug Price Exceeds $200,000 Median in 2022
After setting record-high U.S. prices in the first half of 2022, drugmakers continued to launch medicines at high prices in the second half, a Reuters analysis has found, highlighting their power despite new legislation to lower costs for older prescription products.
The median annual price of the 17 novel drugs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved since July 2022 is $193,900, down from $257,000 in the first half of 2022, Reuters found. For the full-year 2022, the median was $222,003.
In 2021, the median annual price was $180,000 for the 30 drugs first marketed through mid-July, according to a study published recently in JAMA. The latest numbers imply double-digit year-over-year price growth.
Africa CDC Says Uganda’s Ebola Outbreak Is Coming Under Control
Africa’s top public health body said on Thursday that the Ebola outbreak in Uganda was coming under control, as it had been 39 days since the last confirmed case of the virus had been reported in the country.
Last month Uganda discharged its last known Ebola patient from the hospital and President Yoweri Museveni lifted all Ebola-related movement restrictions, reflecting progress in curbing the spread of the virus.
The Africa CDC’s acting director, Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, told a briefing that if no new cases were reported in Uganda by Jan. 10 then the outbreak would be over.
