Opioid Overdose Deaths; Plus, ‘Stealth’ Omicron
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Happy Groundhog Day! Sadly the Pennsylvania prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil noticed his shadow, so, if you happen to imagine in a groundhog’s capacity to foretell the climate, we’re six extra weeks of winter.
Simply launched this night: Greater than 1.2 million individuals will die from opioid overdoses within the U.S. and Canada by 2029 if no motion is taken to deal with the rising epidemic, a bunch of main well being specialists on the Stanford–Lancet Fee on the North American Opioid Disaster warn in a brand new report, in accordance with Forbes reporter Robert Hart. There have been 70,168 overdose deaths in the US in 2020, up 37 % from the earlier 12 months. Greater than 538,000 individuals within the U.S. died of overdoses from 1999-2020.
Whereas there isn’t a singular power driving the epidemic, the report criticizes aggressive and deceptive advertising campaigns by pharmaceutical corporations mixed with lax regulatory oversight. Earlier this week, Native American tribal leaders reached a tentative $590 million settlement with opioid producer Johnson & Johnson and distributors AmerisourceBergen, McKesson and Cardinal Well being. “Pharma corporations are all being sued, and so they need to be sued, however we’ve got to recollect they exploited weaknesses in our well being care regulatory system which can be nonetheless there,” says Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford College who chaired the fee.
This Startup Raised Over $9 Million To Make Medical Implants Cost Wirelessly
Wi-fi charging know-how developed by Resonant Hyperlink.
Resonant Hyperlink
Resonant Hyperlink is bringing wi-fi charging know-how to medical units with the intention of serving to guarantee sufferers don’t must bear invasive procedures for battery recharge and alternative. Wi-fi chargers are mostly used to recharge telephones batteries and work on centuries outdated rules of physics. The charger, often known as the transmitter, incorporates a metallic coil which generates a magnetic area when electrical energy runs by way of it. The receiver within the system that wants charging collects this magnetic vitality and converts it into electrical energy and the system will get charged. Resonant claims its patented know-how can cost units, in some circumstances, ten occasions sooner than at the moment used know-how. Learn extra right here.
Offers Of The Week
Well being Tech: League, a startup providing the backend software program infrastructure for corporations to deploy consumer-facing healthcare purposes, has raised $95 million led by TDM Development Companions. The corporate, which counts Humana, Shopify and Buyers Drug Mart amongst its clients, has raised $205 million so far.
Digital Pharmacy: Alto Pharmacy raised a $200 million Series E led by Softbank Imaginative and prescient Fund. The announcement comes a month after the net pharmacy startup entered right into a partnership with New York Metropolis to assist distribute its provide of Covid-19 antivirals generally with same-day supply.
Biogen Offloads Biosimilars: Biogen and Samsung Biologics reached a deal during which Biogen will promote its fairness stake within the three way partnership Samsung Bioepis for $2.3 billion. Biogen, which entered into the three way partnership to fabricate biosimilars in 2012, has confronted mounting stress over the approval and sluggish adoption of its controversial Alzheimer’s drug.
Noteworthy
Humana will make investments $1 billion in its Medicare Benefit enterprise after its 2022 enrollment numbers fell in need of expectations.
Right here’s how the Cleveland-based inventors behind Nottingham Spirk (creator of the Swiffer SweeperVac) went from shopper merchandise to medical units.
A document 14.5 million People bought particular person medical health insurance protection on the marketplaces established by the Inexpensive Care Act this 12 months.
Can a brand new ldl cholesterol drug restore Merck’s prominence in coronary heart medication?
Coronavirus Updates
How harmful is the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2? Figuring this out is a difficult course of, researchers Roby Bhattacharyya and William Hanage write in a piece published in The New England Journal of Drugs immediately. Although described as being “milder” than different Covid variants, the US however faces a scenario the place over 2,300 individuals per day have been dying from Covid over the previous week, and hospitalizations are at document highs. One of many points, the authors write, is that omicron has “been proven to be much better than earlier variants at infecting individuals who have a point of pre-existing immunity.” Individuals who have that immunity due to vaccination or a earlier Covid an infection are higher protected in opposition to hospitalization and extra extreme illness, however this additionally means it’s harder to tease out how the variant impacts individuals who don’t have that immunity and aren’t vaccinated.
When scientists right for a few of the confounding components like pre-existing immunity, the authors write, one of the best research up to now estimate that omicron is “about 75% as doubtless as delta to trigger hospitalization in an unvaccinated particular person with no historical past of SARS-CoV-2 an infection.” In different phrases, omicron seems to trigger extreme illness about as usually as the unique pressure of the coronavirus and the alpha variant that unfold final winter. However as a result of the virus each reinfects and seems to contaminate vaccinated individuals extra usually than earlier variants, because of this the illness turns into rather more widespread. That places those that are unvaccinated at a lot better threat than earlier variants, which helps clarify why hospitals proceed to be overrun as omicron spreads all through the world.
‘Stealth’ Omicron Sub-Variant Detected In 57 Nations, WHO Says
Getty Photographs
The mutated model of the omicron Covid variant—generally known as BA.2 and termed “stealth omicron” by some scientists—has been present in 57 nations, in accordance with the World Well being Group, which mentioned early knowledge signifies it’s extra infectious than different variations of omicron. Learn extra right here.
Different Coronavirus Information
Researchers are engaged on a potential antiviral therapy for Covid that “tips” the virus into binding to a decoy protein as a substitute of a affected person’s cells.
The U.S. authorities’s cope with Pfizer for doses of its Covid antviral drug Paxlovid features a “value match assure” that permits the U.S. to match a cheaper price per dose if Pfizer negotiates one with different rich nations.
A majority of U.S. corporations have already or will quickly undertake a Covid vaccine mandate regardless of the current U.S. Supreme Courtroom blocking the Biden administration from implementing a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for giant employers.
The U.S. Military will start discharging troopers who refuse to be vaccinated in opposition to coronavirus, which might have an effect on tens of hundreds of service members.
Eleven staffers linked to the 2022 Beijing Olympics have been hospitalized with Covid-19 since January 23.
Solely 30.5% of kids ages 5 to 11 have acquired not less than one vaccine dose, in accordance with the CDC, whereas 21.8% are absolutely vaccinated.
Throughout Forbes
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What Else We’re Studying
Colleges Struggle to Recruit Therapists for Students in Crisis (Kaiser Health News)
Scientists deliberately gave people COVID — here’s what they learnt (Nature)
