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New York City Joins WHO’s Global Outbreak Response Network After US Exit
New York City’s health department said on Feb. 4 it has joined the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, becoming the latest Democratic-led jurisdiction to link up with the United Nations-coordinated public health system following President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the WHO.
The move places New York City alongside California and Illinois, whose leaders have said they will participate in the global outbreak network despite the federal government’s formal exit from the WHO last month. The WHO-coordinated Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) links hundreds of public health institutions worldwide to detect and respond to emerging disease threats.
“By joining GOARN, New York City gains access to a global network of over 360 institutions and organizations that respond to acute public health events with the deployment of staff and resources to affected countries,” the New York City Health Department said in a statement.
FDA Moves to Ban BHA — an Additive Used in Processed Foods Such as Meats and Bread
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday took steps toward banning BHA, a food additive used in processed foods such as meats and bread. BHA, or butylated hydroxyanisole, has been used in the food supply for decades. The FDA first listed it as “generally recognized as safe” in 1958 and approved it as a food additive in 1961. It’s used to prevent fats and oils in food from spoiling and can show up in products such as frozen meals, breakfast cereals, cookies, ice cream and some meat products.
The agency said it’s launching a new safety review of the chemical, pointing to long-standing concerns that the food additive might cause cancer in humans.
In the 1990s, the National Toxicology Program — a federal program that reviews whether certain chemicals may cause harm — identified BHA as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” based on animal studies.
It’s been listed as a known carcinogen under California’s Proposition 65. A handful of studies linking BHA to cancer in animals date back to the 1980s and 1990s, although research in humans is thin.
US Cancer Institute Studying Ivermectin’s ‘Ability to Kill Cancer Cells’
The National Cancer Institute, the federal research agency charged with leading the war against the nation’s second-largest killer, is studying ivermectin as a potential cancer treatment, according to its top official.
“There are enough reports of it, enough interest in it, that we actually did — ivermectin, in particular — did engage in sort of a better preclinical study of its properties and its ability to kill cancer cells,” said Anthony Letai, a physician the Trump administration appointed as NCI director in September.
Letai did not cite new evidence that might have prompted the institute to research the effectiveness of the antiparasitic drug against cancer. The drug, largely used to treat people or animals for infections caused by parasites, is a popular dewormer for horses.
“We’ll probably have those results in a few months,” Letai said. “So we are taking it seriously.”
Lawmakers Want Answers on CDC-Funded Hepatitis B Vaccine Trial in Africa
US lawmakers have sent a letter to federal health officials demanding answers on how and why a controversial vaccine trial in West Africa received federal funding. The letter from Democratic members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Acting Director Jim O’Neill asks for all documentation regarding the decision to award a five-year, $1.6 million grant to a team of Danish researchers conducting the study, which aims to assess the overall health impact of the hepatitis B vaccine birth dose in Guinea-Bissau.
Half of the estimated 14,000 newborns enrolled in the randomized controlled trial will not receive the birth dose of the vaccine. CIDRAP News first reported on the study in December, shortly after it was announced in the Federal Register. The trial has been widely criticized as unethical, given the known efficacy of a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine and the high prevalence of chronic hepatitis B infection in Guinea-Bissau.
