Mass Ivermectin Administration Can Reduce Malaria Transmission, Study Finds
The authors of the paper said ivermectin, which saw its popularity increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, can kill mosquitoes that feed on people who have been treated with the drug. Due to the prevalence of mosquito-borne illnesses, ivermectin could be a novel solution for dealing with the transmission of malaria, they said.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Crews deployed to battle invasive 'vampire fish' in Great Lakes
Crews are out in the field, working to keep sea lamprey populations under control this summer, according to a recent social media post from Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Work began back in April in Lake Erie in Ontario and is expected to continue into October. That's good news, because when left to multiply, sea lampreys can cause big problems and threaten the Great Lake's $5.1 billion fishing industry. Yikes! (Canva) There are four native lamprey species in the Great Lakes - the American brook lamprey, the chestnut lamprey, the silver lamprey, and the northern brook lamprey. The sea lamprey is invasive, and it can devastate local ecosystems. That has a lot to do with its size. Sea lampreys are big compared to naive species -- up to four times bigger. And in the Great Lakes, they have almost unlimited food availability, practically unlimited spawning grounds, and no natural predators. Sea lampreys posing for the camera. (Fernando Losada Rodríguez/Wikipedia) CC BY-SA 4.0 COVID-19 restrictions caused a spike in sea lamprey population COVID-19 safety restrictions paused the ongoing work needed to control sea lamprey populations in the Great Lakes. A March 2025 study found this caused sea lamprey numbers to "skyrocket," highlighting the need for ongoing control measures. Experts say the invasive lampreys can kill more fish than humans in the Great Lakes. Vampire fish Sea lampreys can inflict gruesome damage on their prey, earning these eel-like parasites the nickname "vampire fish." Only about one in seven fish attacked by a sea lamprey will survive. They will suction themselves to a fish, creating a seal that's nearly impossible to break off. They have about 100 teeth, which they use to suction to the side of a fish, and a sharp tongue that drills through its scales. They secret an enzyme that prevents blood from clotting. Once attached, the sea lamprey will spend the next several months feeding off the blood and fluids of the host animal. Lake trout with lampreys attached. (Great Lakes Fishery Commission/Wikipedia) Just in case you're wondering, sea lampreys can accidentally latch on to humans, usually when people are swimming. A bite won't be fatal, but it can be painful, and untreated wounds could lead to infection. Sea lampreys don't pose a threat to people though - they aren't interested in us and human bites appear to be rare. In their native environment, the Atlantic Ocean, sea lampreys don't often kill their host. In the Great Lakes, where sea lampreys have not co-evolved alongside native species, they are a significant threat. Shipping canals transport more than just ships Sea lampreys entered the Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean through man-made shipping canals, popping up in Lake Ontario in the 1830s. When the Welland Canal deepened in 1919, sea lampreys gained access to all the Great Lakes -- and they remain there to this day, although their numbers are falling. In the 1950s, the U.S. and Canada teamed up to implement population control measures), and they have worked. Several strategies, including traps to capture adult lampreys, lampricides to target sea lamprey larvae, and installing barriers and traps are a few tactics in use. So far, it's working. Today, sea lamprey populations are down by around 90 per cent in the Great Lakes. Header image: Cheryl Santa Maria for The Weather Network, using elements from Canva Pro and the public domain.
Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Government sues Silver Cross Hospital over mandatory COVID-19 vaccines; ex-employees say rights violated
Silver Cross Hospital violated federal law when it fired two employees in 2021 who did not comply with the New Lenox hospital's mandatory policy that all employees be vaccinated for COVID-19, lawsuits from the allege. The employees had asked for, and been denied, reasonable accommodation when they asked to be exempt from the vaccination policy due to religious and disability reasons, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged in lawsuits filed Thursday in federal court in Chicago. A spokeswoman for Silver Cross said Friday the hospital does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation or employment-related matters. 'As a regional healthcare provider, Silver Cross Hospital's foremost responsibility is to ensure the health and safety of our patients, our staff and the communities we serve,' she said in an email. One employee, Sarah Kotan, who worked in the hospital's lab, requested a religious accommodation because taking the COVID-19 vaccine conflicted with her religious beliefs and practices, one of the EEOC's lawsuit alleges. Debra Phillips, who worked in the hospital's insurance department, requested an accommodation based on disability after she had a severe allergic reaction to the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the EEOC said in her lawsuit. Silver Cross denied their requests for accommodation and fired them, even though the hospital could have put safeguards in place, such as requiring both to undergo weekly COVID-19 testing, the EEOC lawsuits say. Kotan and Phillips are seeking unspecified monetary damages, including back pay, according to the complaints. Silver Cross enacted a policy in September 2021 requiring all employees be vaccinated by the end of October of that year, but allowed for employees to seek exemptions, the lawsuits say. The EEOC said Kotan and Phillips had their exemption requests denied, and when they appealed those were denied as well. The EEOC said it tried negotiating with the hospital in both cases in order to avoid a lawsuit, but was unable in either instance to secure a settlement agreeable to the commission. Krotan was fired from her lab job in October 2021, and Phillips from her insurance department job in December 2021, although she was never told she had been fired after being placed on unpaid leave from Silver Cross, according to the EEOC. Phillips' lawsuit alleges that she didn't find out she had been fired and believed she was still on unpaid leave until February 2022, when she asked the hospital for a copy of her personnel record. 'Absent an undue hardship, civil rights laws affirmatively require employers to accommodate an employee's disability and religious practices,' said Andrea Lucas, the EEOC's acting chair, in a news release Friday announcing the lawsuits. 'Unfortunately, many employers' vaccine mandates turned a blind eye to these long-standing civil rights laws. However, the novelty of the COVID-19 pandemic is not a shield for employers to engage in garden variety discrimination.'
Vogue
2 hours ago
- Vogue
What We'd Lose Without Public Radio
After Roben Farzard read Greg Franklin's posts, in late 2020, he decided to do something unusual. Farzad had met Greg Franklin the year before, when they sat next to each other on a bench watching their kids' basketball game at the local JCC. Less than a year later, Farzad was reading Franklin's account of his wife's COVID, her seizures, her intubation. To care for his wife and two kids, Franklin had had to leave his job at a real estate asset management company, initially under the Family and Medical Leave Act and then for good in August 2020. By the time Farzad got involved, Franklin's wife was home and stable, and Franklin was finally able to consider starting his job search. Farzad offered to host a live Zoom show, to 'leverage' the 'hive mind' of the audience of his radio show, Full Disclosure. After some hesitation—Franklin felt sheepish about asking for help, since, in 2020, everybody needed help—he agreed. He told his story and listeners called in to offer their networks, to suggest tactics, to request a follow-up meeting with ideas, leads, and offers. 'All these people just showed up—people who felt sad, who felt otherwise hopeless and trapped indoors,' says Farzad. 'It just showed me how vital that community thing was.' Franklin found a new job in April, one he's been in ever since. 'Having that community reach out was really uplifting,' he says. To me, his story represents the rawest and most special element of public radio: it's hyperlocal, invested in the community it serves, and in keeping that community healthy and informed. Farzad's show is distributed by Radio IQ, a public radio station based in Virginia's Appalachian mountains. After the recent rescission bill, that station has just lost $600,000 in funding that it had been apportioned by Congress. The bill claws back $1.1 billion worth of funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for the next two years, which channels federal funding to NPR—my employer—as well as PBS, and our member stations like Radio IQ. NPR's structure is a little weird, a little antiquated, mostly vestiges of the CPB's creation in 1967 when President Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act into law; NPR was incorporated in February 1970. But NPR produces the news shows Morning Edition and All Things Considered as well as programs like my podcast, Planet Money, and member stations buy the content we make (as well as that of American Public Media–they have Kai Ryssdal, not us!) to broadcast on their airwaves. Only a small percent of NPR's budget is directly from the federal government, but a lot more of it—some 30%—comes from those fees for our programs from our approximately 1,000 member stations. And many of those really rely on federal money.
