Latest news with #MultisystemInflammatorySyndrome
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Health
- The Hindu
Death of man who tested positive for COVID-19 causes concern in Vizag
The death of a man, who tested positive for COVID-19, at a private hospital in Visakhapatnam has brought the focus back on the need to adopt COVID-appropriate behaviour, especially in crowded places. Padilam Kashinath, 64, hailing from the city, was admitted to a private hospital with complications of Parkinson's Disease, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, Pneumonia and COVID-19 on May 28. The death report mentioned that the patient was suffering from the four diseases. The cause of death was, however, mentioned as 'viral pneumonia respiratory failure'. Kashinath died while undergoing treatment on Thursday morning. The news spread rapidly, though the doctors and the officials concerned were initially tight-lipped about the case. They refused to admit that the victim had COVID-19 as it was not confirmed by the Virology Lab at the King George Hospital (KGH). They said that the patient had co-morbid conditions. Attempts to contact the District Medical & Health Officer failed as he could not be reached over the phone. The first case of COVID-19 positive case of the city was a woman, and it was confirmed a week ago. Subsequently, her relative and the doctor who treated her contracted COVID-19. However, all three have recovered.
Boston Globe
04-04-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Government memo reveals research projects targeted in Harvard review
That contract is just one of many on the list for Boston Children's Hospital. In total, the hospital's contracts now under review are valued at more than $122 million. The list also includes $98 million of contracts with Harvard University itself, including the School of Public Health contract. The memo was sent to Harvard's leaders on March 31 by the US General Services Administration, one of the agencies participating in the antisemitism task force. Advertisement It put Harvard on notice that nearly $9 billion of funding would be placed under review. The vast majority of the funding, $8.7 billion, was in the form of 'multi-year grant commitments,' but no other details were provided. By contrast, the memo provided a specific list of federal research contracts, and said the government was prepared to issue 'Stop Work Orders' for all of them. Advertisement It also invoked a broad authority to cancel any contract 'for convenience.' Many federal contracts include clauses that grant the government broad discretion to cancel them. The contract for tuberculosis funding with the Harvard School of Public Health supports labs across the country working on vaccine development, according to publicly available data on federal research contracts. Another contract with Boston Children's Hospital funds studies on whether the Covid vaccine reduces Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in children, according to publicly available records. There is also a contract with Boston Children's funding development for a vaccine to prevent opioid addiction. One contract with Mass General Brigham worth $8 million, according to the memo, came from the US Special Operations Command, which hired the hospital to provide research and technical services related to traumatic brain injuries, according to publicly available records. On Thursday, the Trump administration sent Harvard a list of demands detailing what the school's leaders must do to avoid cancellation of federal funding. The list included: shuttering diversity offices, implementing 'merit-based' admissions and hiring practices, cooperating with federal immigration authorities, and altering student disciplinary procedures. The Trump administration contends those measures will help combat antisemitism and reduce what officials have described as illegal race-based discrimination. In a He also said: 'We fully embrace the important goal of combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry' and that Harvard would 'engage with members of the federal government's task force to combat antisemitism to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism.' Advertisement The institutions targeted in the review include Harvard University itself and its affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutions, such as Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, and the Broad Institute, according to the list of contracts included in the memo. The memo describes the $255 million as a 'ceiling value.' That may be a reference to the fact that some of the contracts have already been partially paid out and at least one has already been canceled in a separate round of federal research funding cuts, according to a Globe review of federal contract data. The antisemitism task force says its goal is to investigate universities that have violated civil rights laws by allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment related to the campus protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war. At Columbia University last month, the task force used threats to federal funding to compel the school's leaders to accept a list of demands related to antisemitism and campus protest. Some have questioned the legality of the task force's methods. Although the government may legally withhold federal funding for civil rights violations, there was no public process to adjudicate the the accusations against Columbia before the task force paused $400 million of funding for the school last month. Tyler Coward, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, said the Trump administration's reliance on the convenience clause in federal contracts may be a way for the task force to bypass the formal process that would require the government to present evidence for its claims. Advertisement Neena Hagen of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Mike Damiano can be reached at
New York Times
30-01-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Fact-Checking Health Claims in Kennedy's 2nd Day of Confirmation Hearings
Day 2 of confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become the country's next health secretary kicked off with heated discussions about the safety of vaccinations, chronic illnesses and Covid-19. Here is a running list of key health claims, fact-checked by our reporters. Prioritizing chronic disease 'There has never been an H.H.S. secretary who came in to do this,' Mr. Kennedy said, answering a question about his goal of focusing on fighting chronic disease as secretary for health and human services. Research into chronic disease has been a major focus of the National Institutes of Health, an agency under the H.H.S. umbrella, for many years. The N.I.H. spends tens of billions of dollars on research into chronic diseases, operating institutes dedicated to studying diabetes, obesity, neurological disorders and heart disease. Furthermore, the Biden administration championed a cancer 'moonshot' program to fund research into cancer, one of the most common chronic diseases. Covid-19 in Children Mr. Kennedy asserted for the second day in a row that Covid does not pose a risk to young children. Senator Rand Paul echoed those statements, saying that no healthy children had died from Covid. That is incorrect: While children with underlying health conditions are at greatest risk from the illness, those without chronic conditions have still died from the virus. A study published in the fall examined 183 cases of children who died from Covid between 2020 and 2022, and found that around one-third of these children did not have another medical condition beyond Covid at their time of death. Between 2021 and 2022, Covid was the eighth leading cause of death among children in the United States. 'Nobody would dispute that you want to address one of the leading causes of death,' said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who emphasized that the risk Covid posed to children was 'really not zero.' Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also showed that in 2023, more than 100 children in the United States developed Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, or MIS-C, a rare but serious condition that typically occurs weeks after a Covid infection. The vast majority of MIS-C cases were in children who were eligible to be vaccinated, but were not. Roughly 1 to 2 percent of those children have died, according to the C.D.C. Diabetes and Children Mr. Kennedy said diabetes rates were rising among children. That's true. It was a correction of statements he has made in the past that 48 percent of teenagers in the country are diabetic. That number is wrong by orders of magnitude. For instance, Type 2 diabetes occurs in 0.35 percent of Americans under the age of 20, according to the American Diabetes Association. Hepatitis B Vaccinations Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, cast doubt about the hepatitis B vaccines, questioning whether infants need protection against a virus that is often sexually transmitted. 'You're telling my kid to take a hepatitis B vaccine when he's 1 day old,' he said. 'That's not science.' Mr. Kennedy did not respond to Mr. Paul's statement. But, in fact, the vaccine is given to infants because their mothers can pass it to their babies. Hospitals often don't test pregnant women for it. The infection, which can lead to permanent liver damage and cancer, used to infect about 18,000 children each year, about half of them at birth. Since vaccination became routine, hepatitis B has become extremely rare among U.S. children.
