US FDA approves expanded use of Moderna's RSV vaccine for at-risk adults
June 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday expanded the use of Moderna's (MRNA.O), opens new tab respiratory syncytial virus vaccine to a lower group of high-risk adults aged 18 to 59 years.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
43 minutes ago
- The Independent
CVS under investigation for sending text messages to customers lobbying against proposed bill
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has launched an investigation into CVS, probing whether or not the company has been improperly using its customers' personal information to send text messages lobbying against a state law. She said she also plans to issue the company a cease-and-desist letter to halt the texts, according to ABC News. Lawmakers debating the failed bill at the center of the controversy shared images of CVS's texts during a hearing on Wednesday. 'Last minute legislation in Louisiana threatens to close your CVS Pharmacy — your medication cost may go up and your pharmacist may lose their job,' one text said, according to the Associated Press. The bill would have prohibited companies from owning both pharmacy benefit managers and drug stores. CVS owns retail pharmacies as well as CVS Caremark, which is one of the nation's top three pharmacy benefit managers, meaning the law would have directly affected its business. CVS Caremark and other pharmacy managers essentially act as middlemen by purchasing prescription drugs from manufacturers and determining the terms for how those drugs are distributed to customers. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report saying that the managers "may be profiting by inflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies." In Louisiana, CVS's text messages included links to a draft letter asking lawmakers to reject the legislation. 'The proposed legislation would take away my and other Louisiana patients' ability to get our medications shipped right to our homes,' the letter read. 'They would also ban the pharmacies that serve patients suffering from complex diseases requiring specialty pharmacy care to manage their life-threatening conditions like organ transplants or cancer. These vulnerable patients cannot afford any disruption to their care – the consequences would be dire.' State Representative Dixon McMakin said CVS was "lying" and using "scare tactics" to oppose the legislation. CVS reportedly sent "large numbers" of texts to state employees and their families to lobby against the legislation, according to Murrill in her statement. Amy Thibault, a spokesperson for CVS, told ABC News that the texts were sent out in response to a last-minute amendment to the bill on Wednesday without holding a public hearing about the change. 'We believe we have a responsibility to inform our customers of misguided legislation that seeks to shutter their trusted pharmacy, and we acted accordingly,' Thibault said in an email to the broadcaster. 'Our communication with our customers, patients and members of our community is consistent with law.' The bill failed to pass the state Senate, which decided not to take it up for the 2025 session.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Scientists pinpoint way to check if you're going to get early-onset colon cancer with up to 92% accuracy
A little-known at-home test can detect early-onset colon cancer before symptoms develop, increasing the chance of surviving a disease that is surging among young people. The fecal immunochemical test (FIT) costs $49 and screens a person's feces for flecks of blood, a warning sign of the cancer — as tumors cause bleeding. The test is FDA-approved and allows younger people a chance to screen for colon cancer before they reach the recommended age for a colonoscopy, 45 years. If blood is detected, a colonoscopy is performed, increasing the chances of catching colon cancer early when it is more treatable. And the American College of Surgeons says it is generally accurate, able to detect about 80 percent of all cases. If someone opts for the $600 FIT with DNA screening, which checks for abnormal changes in cells' DNA, accuracy rises to 92 percent. A colonoscopy is about 99 percent accurate at detecting all cancers. A recent study found people that use the FIT method between the ages of 40 to 49 years old are 39 percent less likely to die from colon cancer than their peers who wait to get the test until they are 50 years old or above. An increasing number of younger people are seeking screening, as the US experiences a surge in colon cancer among people under 50, with young patients today about twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease than their grandparents. The rising rates are prompting some physicians to urge Americans to start getting screened for the disease before the age of 45 years, which is when US doctors recommend. For the test, which can be ordered online, customers are sent a package containing a collection tube. They are asked to collect a sample of their feces from the toilet bowl, place it in the tube and mail it to a lab. Results take about five days to come back. In the lab, scientists expose the feces to antibodies that can bind to human hemoglobin - a protein found in red blood cells. If they bind to an area of the feces, a positive test result is issued - and patients are advised to undertake further screening. In the FIT with DNA, scientists also analyze cells found in the stool for abnormal changes - which could indicate cancer. Patients over 45 years old who have an average risk — meaning no family history of the disease — may be recommended the test, which is free for the group under health insurance plans. But people can also buy the test, which is sold by labs like Everlywell for $49, or opt for other tests like Cologuard, which is priced at $121. While the test can be extremely helpful, doctors caution that about five to 10 percent of patients who get a positive result do not have colon cancer or advanced polyps. The number of false positives after a colonoscopy is below one percent. It is important to follow up with a doctor to discuss results. Patients undertaking the test are recommended to do it every year, as this can help to catch early-onset cancers which are typically slower growing. Among patients to have their cancer caught after using an at-home stool-based test is Christine Bronstein, who was diagnosed with the cancer at age 48. The Hawaii local exercises regularly, and avoids sugar and alcohol. But after seeing blood in her stool in 2021, she became concerned and ordered a stool-based test. After results came back positive, she rushed to see her doctor and was eventually approved for a colonoscopy - which led to a stage three colon cancer diagnosis with a two-inch tumor found in her rectum. Bronstein told TODAY: 'I'm very lucky that I did my test when I did. This thing really takes people down right in their prime... I think the problem why this is becoming the No.1 killer for younger people is because their symptoms get denied.' Colon cancer cases are surging among under-50s in the US in an uptick that has stunned researchers, with adults born in the 1980s having double the risk of suffering from the cancer compared to their parents. Among adults aged 25 to 29 years, colon cancer cancer rates have spiked 85 percent in two decades according to CDC data. At the same time, over the last 30 years cases have dropped among over-50s by 30 percent.
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Here's where the national mental health hotline is used the most
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline was launched in 2022 to help strengthen crisis response and has received more than 16 million calls, texts, and chats ever since. It is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and administered by the mental health company Vibrant Emotional Health, connecting Americans with counselors at more than 200 crisis centers who are available 24 hours a day, every day. Now, new data shared by researchers at New York University and Johns Hopkins Medicine reveals the states that have utilized this lifeline the most. 'At the state-level, past-year 988 contact incidence rates ranged from highs of 45.3 and 40.2 per 1,000 population in Alaska and Vermont, respectively, to lows of 12.5 and 14.4 per 1000 population in Delaware and Alabama, respectively,' the authors of the research letter published in the journal JAMA Network Open said. Regionally, the highest number of calls, text messages, and chats was recorded in the West. The lowest volume was in the South, and the same was true for the previous year's estimate. New York and Colorado were also high on the list, according to a map revealing use during that time frame. The authors noted that demographic information was not available when they estimated the 988 use prevalence. 'We then adjusted these prevalence estimates to reflect assumptions about repeat contacts to 988,' the authors wrote. 'Using data on repeat contacts to the Crisis Text Line to inform our assumptions, we adjusted the lifetime prevalence estimate to reflect the assumption that every person who contacted 988 used it a mean of 2.0 times and adjusted the past-year prevalence estimate to reflect the assumption that every person who contacted 988 used it a mean of 1.5 times.' They found that there is still an opportunity to increase use, highlighting that the contact rate is less than half the rate of adult emergency department visits that include a mental health diagnosis. The authors said state variation in use was consistent with state variation in funding and legislative attention. 'Lower rates of 988 use in the South, which is more politically conservative than other regions, is also consistent with prior research showing less favorable attitudes toward 988 among Republicans than Democrats,' they wrote. Notably, funding for the crisis line's specialized services for LGBT+ youth is on the chopping block. Although the Health and Human Services fiscal year 2026 budget proposal maintains funding for the lifeline. Lawmakers have spoken out in opposition to the cuts to the services that they say get an average of 2,100 contacts per day. Some one in four U.S. adults had a mental illness in the past year and nearly three in 10 high school students reported poor mental health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
