Yes Health Please

Top Portugal court nixes euthanasia law, says it’s imprecise

Portugal’s Constitutional Court on Monday blocked a law passed by parliament introducing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill and gravely injured people. The court said in a statement that the law is imprecise in identifying the circumstances under which those procedures can occur. The judges rejected the law in a 7-5 ruling. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa…

How well do COVID vaccines protect after organ transplant?

In this Dec. 29, 2020 file photo, Penny Cracas, with the Chester County, Pa., Health Department, fills a syringe with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in West Chester, Pa. A new study raised questions about how well COVID-19 vaccines protect organ transplant recipients—and what precautions people with suppressed immune systems should take after the shots. On Monday, March 15, 2021 researchers at…

Gilead, Merck team up to develop long-acting HIV drug

Gilead will pay 60% of the development costs for the new HIV treatment being developed with Merck (MSD) American pharmaceutical companies Gilead and Merck announced Monday they have partnered to develop a new HIV therapy that could see daily medications replaced by a treatment that can be taken at longer intervals. The companies aim to combine two of their existing medications to “provide new,…

Doctors at Spectrum Health in Michigan posted photos of patient’s organs for ‘Price Is Right’ guessing game

“The other game we play in the OR is guess that weight,” read the Instagram post that showed the organ. “It applies to much more than just babies. As always, ‘Price is Right’ rules apply so if you go over then you’re out!” The residents referred to the television game show where contestants guessed the value of a prize. Spectrum Health, a health care network that operates 14 hospitals in…

Slovenia halts AstraZeneca jab as precaution

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Slovenia’s government said on Monday it was joining other European nations in suspending use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 jab as a precaution over blood clot fears. Germany, France, Italy and Spain have all previously announced similar decisions, following several Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Ireland and Bulgaria. Health Minister Janez Poklukar said the government…

Abuse in childhood and adolescence linked to higher likelihood of conduct problems

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Children who are exposed to abuse before they are eleven years old, and those exposed to abuse both in childhood and adolescence may be more likely to develop conduct problems (such as bullying or stealing) than those exposed to abuse in adolescence only and those who are not exposed to abuse, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry. A…

Increased weight gain with HIV-therapy TAF medication

Catrina Mugglin MD, MSc, Department of Infectious Diseases, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital Credit: C. Muggli Research team Inselspital and University of Bern found an above average weight gain associated with increase blood lipids after switching HIV-therapy from TDF to TAF. Additional individual counseling will be necessary to avoid harm after therapy switch. In Switzerland about 17,000…

Use of AI to fight COVID-19 risks harming ‘disadvantaged groups’, experts warn

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Rapid deployment of artificial intelligence and machine learning to tackle coronavirus must still go through ethical checks and balances, or we risk harming already disadvantaged communities in the rush to defeat the disease. This is according to researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) in two articles,…

Vulnerable newborns being separated from their mothers in COVID-19 pandemic

Credit: CC0 Public Domain The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the quality of care given to small and sick newborn babies in all regions of the world and threatening implementation of life-saving interventions, suggests new research published in BMJ Global Health. The study is the first published survey to focus on small and sick newborns during the pandemic. It was conducted by a global…

Ebola Survivor May Have Started Latest Outbreak — 5 Years Later

A new, preliminary genetic analysis suggests that the current Ebola outbreak in Guinea may have originated with a survivor of the 2014-2016 West African Ebola outbreak, rather than from an animal-to-human transmission. According to the pre-print report, the outbreak likely started with the survivor infecting a sexual partner with the deadly virus through semen — after the virus lay dormant in…

New research reveals possible cause of mystery condition that leaves people paralysed

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Researchers believe they may have discovered a possible cause of a mystery condition that can leave sufferers suddenly unable to walk, talk or see. It’s hoped the study—led by the University of York and Hull York Medical School and supported by Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust—will pave the way for new treatments for Conversion disorder which affects around…

Blight may increase public health risk from mosquito-borne diseases

Study area in the Garden District neighborhood, Baton Rouge, LA, showing census block groups by median income, overlaying census blocks, key streets and adjudicated properties.  Credit: Louisiana State University Louisiana State University researchers recently published findings that blight leads to an increased abundance of disease-carrying mosquitoes. The researchers investigated the presence…

Several Countries Suspend Use of AstraZeneca Vaccine

March 15, 2021 — A number of nations have paused using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine because of reports the vaccine might be linked to blood clots. Germany, France, Italy, and Spain have become the latest countries to suspend using the vaccine, joining Ireland, Denmark, Thailand, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Congo, and Bulgaria. AstraZeneca issued a statement saying that 15 cases of DVT…

Portugal suspends AstraZeneca jabs

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Portugal has followed the lead of other EU countries and stopped rolling out AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine after reports of “serious but rare” side effects, health chief Graca Freitas said on Monday. The decision was taken “as a precaution” pending advice from the EU’s regulator, said Freitas, head of Portugal’s public health agency the DGS. The European…

Cancer in children and young people – what do the statistics tell us?

We have published the first UK-wide report on children, teenage and young adult cancers in almost a decade. The report combines data on cancer incidence, survival and mortality from cancer registries in the four UK countries. This work is a collaboration between PHE and the national cancer registries in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The data looks at all the main types of cancer in young…

Brazil orders 100 million doses of Pfizer vaccine

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Brazil has ordered 100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and another 38 million of Johnson & Johnson’s, the health minister said Monday, seeking to accelerate the hard-hit country’s lagging immunization campaign. Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said Brazil had secured a total of 563 million vaccine doses by the end of the year—some single-…

Death in the prime of life: Covid-19 proves especially lethal to younger Latinos

Was the risk of venturing across the border worth it? Yes. Even as the virus tried claiming Quintero as a casualty, it infected her son, husband and grandson, too — infections Quintero believes she carried into their home. At last count, 15 friends and family members have been taken from Quintero’s life by the coronavirus. “People get to the point of where my uncle was. He waited until he…