Login
‘Unusual’ Cancers Emerged After Pandemic. Doctors Ask if COVID Is to Blame.
It was 2021, a year into the coronavirus pandemic, and as he slid into a chair, Kashyap Patel shared that he’d just seen a patient in his 40s with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and lethal cancer of the bile ducts that typically strikes people in their 70s and 80s. Initially, there was silence, and then one colleague after another said they’d recently treated patients who had similar diagnoses. Within a year of that meeting, the office had recorded seven such cases.
“I’ve been in practice 23 years and have never seen anything like this,” Patel, CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, later recalled. Asutosh Gor, another oncologist, agreed: “We were all shaken.”
There was other weirdness, too: multiple patients contending with multiple types of cancer arising almost simultaneously, and more than a dozen new cases of other rare cancers.
The uptick in aggressive, late-stage cancers since the dawn of the pandemic is confirmed by some early national data and a number of large cancer institutions. Many experts have mostly dismissed the trend as an expected consequence of disruptions to healthcare that began in 2020.
Birx Says U.S. Making ‘Same Mistakes’ With Bird Flu as COVID
Deborah Birx, a physician who served as former President Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator, warned that the United States is making the “same mistakes” with the bird flu as it did with COVID-19.
“This is why I’m really concerned because we’re making the same mistakes today that we made with COVID. And what do I mean by that? We’re not testing to really see how many people have been exposed and got asymptomatically infected,” Birx told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Tuesday.
Birx served as the coronavirus response coordinator in Trump’s administration and has since sounded the alarm bells on how the U.S. is not doing enough to prevent another pandemic.
A third human case of bird flu was identified in the state of Michigan last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Like other previous cases identified since March, the person is a dairy farm worker who had exposure to infected cows.
“We could be pool testing every dairy worker. I do believe that there are undetected cases in humans because we’re once again only tracking people with symptoms. When we did that with COVID, the virus spread throughout the Northeast undetected, because it took a long time to get to the vulnerable individuals,” she added.
A Des Moines University Cancer Therapy Breakthrough Used COVID Vaccines
Des Moines University (DMU) scientists may have discovered a treatment breakthrough for cervical cancer using COVID-19 vaccine spike proteins, according to findings published in a new study.
The findings open new avenues for treatment across other types of cancer, too, Yujiang Fang, an associate professor at DMU who spearheaded the research, said in an online statement.
State of play: The research builds on earlier work that demonstrated the protein’s ability to diminish certain cancer cells. How it works: COVID-19 vaccines use spike proteins to help people develop an immune response to the virus.
A team led by DMU showed they can also arrest the growth of cervical cancer cells and initiate their death, essentially acting like a “stop” signal, per the statement.
Clinical Trials to Begin for COVID Treatment Developed in South Carolina
State lawmakers approved millions of dollars for research on a new COVID-19 treatment that will soon begin clinical trials, with every step of the research and development to take place completely in South Carolina.
During the 2022-2023 legislative session, lawmakers made a $13 million investment, with future opportunities to invest up to more than $27 million in research on a nebulizer treatment for respiratory illnesses.
It’s a new way to treat COVID by inhaling medicine into the lungs to address respiratory inflammation, compared with the already-developed antiviral pill.
Research is taking place at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and clinical trials are set to start in the Upstate. Strange says if they prove successful, the lung treatment could soon come to critical patients across the state.
Long COVID’s Toll Outlined in New Report
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Long COVID continues to plague millions of Americans as the health costs of the pandemic linger four years later, a new report warns.
In a hefty document released Wednesday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a nongovernmental group that advises federal agencies on science and medicine, detailed the damage that Long COVID has wrought.
“Long COVID can impact people across the life span, from children to older adults, as well as across sex, gender, racial, ethnic and other demographic groups,” it stated. And the damage it inflicts can be widespread and complicated.
“Long COVID is associated with a wide range of new or worsening health conditions and encompasses more than 200 symptoms involving nearly every organ system,” the report added.
Novavax, With a 369% Gain, Tears Ahead Again on a Key FDA Move
Investor’s Business Daily reported:
Novavax (NVAX) stock zipped to a nearly two-year high Thursday after the Food and Drug Administration set a potential approval date for its COVID vaccine in April.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Novavax said the FDA said it completed its filing review of the final portion of its request for approval. The agency is set to make its decision in April 2025.
On Wednesday, Novavax said it plans to launch an updated booster to target the JN.1 variant, in line with the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee’s recommendation. Pfizer (PFE) and Moderna (MRNA) are also planning to prepare JN.1-focused boosters.
The Novavax COVID vaccine has never been officially approved. Instead, the company has racked up sales under an emergency use authorization. Last September, the FDA approved updated boosters from Pfizer and Moderna, but didn’t authorize Novavax’s shot until October.
Australia Hit by ‘Big Wave’ of COVID at Same Time as Increase in Flu
Australia is experiencing a “big wave” of COVID-19 infections that is coinciding with a rise in influenza and other winter illnesses, health authorities and experts are warning.
Deakin University’s epidemiology chair, Prof Catherine Bennett, said there was a direct alignment in the rise of COVID-19 and flu across the nation, which were “both at that critical point of takeoff where you see a rapid escalation.”
The report also said younger age groups in the state were experiencing high rates of RSV and influenza, while pertussis and pneumonia were also “unseasonably high” in school-aged children.
The ACT government announced on Tuesday that due to a steady increase in COVID-19, influenza and RSV case notifications, Canberra Health Services would put in place additional safety measures, including a mask mandate and increasing COVID-19 testing for hospital patients.
