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Business Standard
16-05-2025
- Health
- Business Standard
Brazil confirms first bird flu case on farm, raising global supply fears
Brazil, the world's largest chicken exporter, on Friday reported its first case of highly pathogenic avian influenza - also known as bird flu - on a commercial farm, triggering fears over global poultry supply chains. The disease has spread around the globe in the past years, leading to hundreds of millions of poultry being culled. It has also been reported in dairy cows, cats, and humans. Bird flu is a viral disease spread mainly by birds which can also affect mammals, including humans. The disease, of which there are many strains, is highly contagious between birds. WHY IS THE CASE IN BRAZIL IMPORTANT? Friday's case is the first time an outbreak has been reported on a commercial farm in Brazil. The South American country accounts for 35 per cent of the global chicken trade, shipping $10 billion worth of the poultry in 2024. Brazil sends chicken to some 150 countries around the world, with China and Japan among its top customers. China immediately banned imports from Brazil following the news, and other countries could follow. In 2023, Japan banned chicken imports from Brazil's Espirito Santo state after bird flu was found on a non-commercial farm there. Eggs could also be affected. In March, Reuters reported that the US had almost doubled imports of eggs from Brazil amid sky-high egg prices there following a spike in US bird flu cases. WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE NUMBER OF CASES? As of April 30, just under 1,200 outbreaks of highly pathogenic bird flu had been reported in poultry around the world in the current season that runs from October 2024 to September 2025, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health. That compares with 786 outbreaks in the whole of the 2023-2024 season, and 1,971 cases in the season before that. At the same time, during the 2024-2025 season more than 1,400 cases have been reported in wild birds, compared to 1,062 cases and 3,975 cases in the whole of the 2023-2024 and 2022-2023 seasons respectively. WHAT OTHER SPECIES CAN GET BIRD FLU? Bird flu has also been reported in dozens of mammal species, including dairy cows, sheep, cats - including some house cats - and humans. The virus is typically transferred direct from birds to humans. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says limited human-to-human transfer has occasionally been reported around the world, though not in the US IS THERE A VACCINE? There is no vaccine for cases of bird flu in humans. Vaccines are available for birds. In March this year, France's government said its poultry flocks will be allowed outdoors again after a lull in bird flu infections, which it attributed to a vaccination program. In January, the US Department of Agriculture said it would rebuild a stockpile of bird flu vaccines to combat the current outbreak, which began in 2022.
ABC News
02-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Robert F Kennedy Jr revives misleading measles vaccine claims as US nears 900 infection cases
United States Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has reprised his misleading claims about vaccines, including that the measles jab contains cells from aborted foetuses, at the same time the country is battling one of its worst outbreaks of the infection in 25 years. Mr Kennedy's comments come as the US nears 900 cases of the measles nationwide and scientists have warned that the country is at a tipping point for the return of endemic measles, declared eradicated nationally in 2000. Two children and an adult have died and hundreds more have been infected in the outbreak in Texas, which is centred in a Mennonite community and has spread to several neighbouring states, including New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Hundreds of Americans have been infected in the US'S latest measles outbreak in Texas, which has spread to neighbouring states, including New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. ( Reuters: Sebastian Rocandio ) The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC)'s confirmed measles case count is 884 — triple the amount seen in all of 2024. The three-month outbreak in Texas accounts for the vast majority of cases, with 663 confirmed as of Tuesday. North America has two other ongoing outbreaks, including one in Ontario, Canada which has resulted in 1,020 cases from mid-October through to April 23. The Mexican state of Chihuahua had 786 measles cases and one death as of Wednesday, according to data from the state health ministry. Health officials in Mexico and the US say all three outbreaks are of the same measles strain. Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that's airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs and is preventable through vaccines. Mr Kennedy, who became the nation's top health official in February as part of the new Trump administration, has for decades helped sow doubts regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, contributing to a decline in vaccination rates. He says he is not opposed to vaccines, but has begun to revive some of the unproven or debunked theories he promoted as a lawyer and public figure, now from his perch at the US Health and Human Services Department. Photo shows close up of robert kennedy jr pointing to the camera Mr Kennedy Jr is a prominent vaccine sceptic and will now oversee vaccine recommendations and food safety as well as health insurance programs for roughly half the country. "There are populations in our country, like the Mennonites in Texas, [who] were most afflicted, and they have religious objections to the vaccination, because the MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles, so they don't want to take it," Mr Kennedy said in an interview on Wednesday. Mr Kennedy was referring to the combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine. The vaccines do not contain "foetal debris" from abortions or intact fetal cells, vaccine experts said. The rubella portion of the vaccine is produced from a foetal cell line originating from an abortion that took place in the 1960s. The MMR vaccine does not contain the cells in its final form. The cells are derived from foetal cells that have been replicated over decades in test tubes in laboratory settings, thousands of times removed from the original ones. "The virus is grown in these cells, then this virus is purified, meaning everything other than the virus is filtered out, and all that's left is this attenuated virus that can't make you sick," Dr Miriam Laufer, the Interim Director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland, said. According to a fact sheet on how vaccines are made from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, the amount of DNA involved in final vaccine preparation is minimal, at billionths or trillionths of a gram. "While the final vaccines do not contain intact foetal cells, they may contain trace amounts of cell-derived materials, such as fragments of DNA," Dr Paulo Verardi, a professor of Virology and Vaccinology at the University of Connecticut, said. The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment. Mr Kennedy also said this week that the mumps portion of the vaccine does not work and that there were safety concerns over it. "The problem is really with the mumps portion of the vaccine and the combination. That combination was never safety tested," he said on Monday at a live televised town hall event. Two doses of the MMR vaccine provide around 86 per cent protection against mumps, according to the CDC. While it is true that vaccine protection can wane over time, the rate varies depending on the disease and vaccine, Dr Verardi and other vaccine experts said. "For mumps in particular, immunity can decline, so adults vaccinated in childhood may become susceptible again," he said. " Still, vaccinated individuals generally experience a milder illness if infected, which is still a key benefit of vaccination. " Reuters
CNN
31-03-2025
- Business
- CNN
23andMe's rise and fall, in four charts
Genetic testing service 23andMe said on March 23 that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — an effort to keep the company running while reorganizing its debts. The company is navigating an uncertain future, as consumer advocates are urging its 15 million customers worldwide to delete their data to prevent it from being accessible to potential buyers. These are the latest challenges for the California-based company, founded in 2006, which dramatically cut its workforce last year and has struggled financially since it went public in 2021. Here's a look at 23andMe's rise and fall in four charts. Just months after it started trading on the Nasdaq in June 2021, the company was valued as high as $5.8 billion. But by the end of that year, it had lost nearly half its value. Then, in 2023, hackers accessed profiles and genetic information on millions of users. As of Friday, the firm's shares were worth less than a dollar. One of the company's primary challenges is finding a sustainable business model. Its core revenue comes from direct-to-consumer sales of saliva collection kits for genetic testing, priced from $99 to $499, with the higher end including optional subscription services. After customers buy kits and send in samples, most of the transactions are complete. Although the cumulative number of customers has increased over the years, the growth has started to lag — and new subscriptions haven't kept pace. This has contributed to the company's declining revenue and net losses that have gotten worse. Last year, the company cut 40% of its workforce and last week its CEO and co-founder, Anne Wojcicki, resigned. In 2018, the company struck a four-year collaboration deal with pharmaceutical giant GSK 'to gather insights and discover novel drug targets driving disease progression and develop therapies,' according to the London-based company's website. In addition to co-funding the activities within the collaboration, GSK invested $300 million in 23andMe. However, the company has never turned a profit since it went public in 2021 and reported a $666 million loss last fiscal year, according to its financial statements. For the first nine months of fiscal 2025, which ended on Dec. 31, 2024, the company reported a $174 million net loss, according to those filings. 23andMe's saliva-based testing goes beyond tracing ancestry. It can also reveal genetic predispositions to conditions ranging from diabetes to certain cancers. While this information can help customers with health-related decisions, it also raises privacy concerns – especially as the company faces a potential sale. Many of the leading causes of death in the US are related to disease, according to the US Centers for Disease Control, making genetic information valuable and potentially vulnerable to exploitation, consumer advocates fear. Last week, attorneys general in New York and California urged users to delete their data from the company. California Attorney General Rob Bonta told ABC News that he struggled to delete his own information from the platform, suggesting the website glitches he encountered were evidence that hordes of customers were doing the same thing. On the day of 23andMe's bankruptcy announcement, there were 376,000 visits to the site's help pages related to deleting data, and the following day there were 480,000 visits to those pages, according to web analytics company Simliarweb. CNN's Clare Duffy contributed to this report.
CNN
30-03-2025
- Business
- CNN
23andMe's rise and fall, in four charts
Genetic testing service 23andMe said on March 23 that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — an effort to keep the company running while reorganizing its debts. The company is navigating an uncertain future, as consumer advocates are urging its 15 million customers worldwide to delete their data to prevent it from being accessible to potential buyers. These are the latest challenges for the California-based company, founded in 2006, which dramatically cut its workforce last year and has struggled financially since it went public in 2021. Here's a look at 23andMe's rise and fall in four charts. Just months after it started trading on the Nasdaq in June 2021, the company was valued as high as $5.8 billion. But by the end of that year, it had lost nearly half its value. Then, in 2023, hackers accessed profiles and genetic information on millions of users. As of Friday, the firm's shares were worth less than a dollar. One of the company's primary challenges is finding a sustainable business model. Its core revenue comes from direct-to-consumer sales of saliva collection kits for genetic testing, priced from $99 to $499, with the higher end including optional subscription services. After customers buy kits and send in samples, most of the transactions are complete. Although the cumulative number of customers has increased over the years, the growth has started to lag — and new subscriptions haven't kept pace. This has contributed to the company's declining revenue and net losses that have gotten worse. Last year, the company cut 40% of its workforce and last week its CEO and co-founder, Anne Wojcicki, resigned. In 2018, the company struck a four-year collaboration deal with pharmaceutical giant GSK 'to gather insights and discover novel drug targets driving disease progression and develop therapies,' according to the London-based company's website. In addition to co-funding the activities within the collaboration, GSK invested $300 million in 23andMe. However, the company has never turned a profit since it went public in 2021 and reported a $666 million loss last fiscal year, according to its financial statements. For the first nine months of fiscal 2025, which ended on Dec. 31, 2024, the company reported a $174 million net loss, according to those filings. 23andMe's saliva-based testing goes beyond tracing ancestry. It can also reveal genetic predispositions to conditions ranging from diabetes to certain cancers. While this information can help customers with health-related decisions, it also raises privacy concerns – especially as the company faces a potential sale. Many of the leading causes of death in the US are related to disease, according to the US Centers for Disease Control, making genetic information valuable and potentially vulnerable to exploitation, consumer advocates fear. Last week, attorneys general in New York and California urged users to delete their data from the company. California Attorney General Rob Bonta told ABC News that he struggled to delete his own information from the platform, suggesting the website glitches he encountered were evidence that hordes of customers were doing the same thing. On the day of 23andMe's bankruptcy announcement, there were 376,000 visits to the site's help pages related to deleting data, and the following day there were 480,000 visits to those pages, according to web analytics company Simliarweb. CNN's Clare Duffy contributed to this report.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr, Dr Oz and weight-loss drugs: A high-price health clash may be looming
Trump's nominees for top health jobs agree that Americans need to lose weight, but they disagree on whether they should provide drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy to achieve that aim - especially when those medicines are quite so expensive. As a weight management doctor, Mollie Cecil has seen first-hand how the latest weight-loss drugs help her patients. She knows from personal experience, too. After a year on one medication, the West Virginia doctor lost 40 pounds. Her cholesterol and arthritis improved, allowing her to be more active with her young children. "I just felt like a new person on them," she said. But she worried about the same obstacle facing many of her patients - losing insurance coverage - so she tapered off the drugs as a precaution. It turned out she was right. Dr Cecil later learned her new non-profit insurance plan could not afford to cover the cost of the drugs. She gradually gained back most of the weight she lost. The latest class of weight-loss drugs - also known as GLP-1 agonists - are "the most potent weight-loss medications we have ever had", Dr Cecil said. "But when I can't get them to [my patients], as a physician who really cares about taking care of people … it just feels helpless," she said. The new class of drugs - often not covered by private insurance - can cost $1,000 (£809) a month on average. Federal law bans Medicare from covering the drugs when used for weight loss, though they usually are covered when used to treat diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Only 13 states provide coverage under Medicaid for weight loss purposes. To make them more accessible, then-President Joe Biden recently proposed that Medicare and Medicaid cover them, but now that will be up to President Donald Trump's new administration. Its weight-loss drug policy would fall to Trump's pick for health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and Mehmet Oz, Trump's choice to lead Medicare and Medicaid services. But this could mean a potential clash: Kennedy is a vocal critic of the weight-loss drugs while Oz is an ardent advocate. The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment about how it would handle the Biden administration's proposal for Medicare - federal insurance for those 65 and older - and Medicaid - government insurance for low-income people - to cover the drugs. Trump's future approach remains unclear, with several people in his inner circle holding contradictory views, said Jonathan Zhang, a professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. "GLP-1, Ozempic, this is a drug that has so much patient demand," Mr Zhang said. "It's really taken on a life of its own on social media. So the Trump administration - or any administration - faces a tonne of pressure to do something about this in the near term." During his presidential run last year, Kennedy made tackling the obesity epidemic a central part of his platform. Over 100 million people in the US are obese, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After dropping out and endorsing Trump, Kennedy launched his "Make America Healthy Again" initiative to reduce obesity by eliminating ultra-processed foods and additives, among other more controversial ideas. But the 71-year-old has been outspoken about weight-loss drugs, telling Fox News in October: "They're counting on selling [weight-loss medications] to Americans because we're so stupid and so addicted to drugs." "If we just gave good food, three meals a day, to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight," Kennedy added. Shortly after Trump chose Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he announced that he selected Oz, a former TV show host and surgeon, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), an agency within HHS that administers the government health insurance. As a television show host, Oz spent years promoting various weight-loss drugs, including more recently, GLP-1 drugs. "For those who want to lose a few pounds, Ozempic and other semaglutide medications can be a big help," Oz posted on Instagram in 2023. "We need to make it as easy as possible for people to meet their health goals, period." Another popular drug, Wegovy, also comes under the semaglutide category to which Oz was referring. Decisions about Medicare and Medicaid drug coverage would likely involve leaders from both HHS and CMS, experts said. Spokespeople for Oz and Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment about how they would handle the policy decision. Neither has been confirmed to their appointments yet. The high price of GLP-1 drugs - which are patented, meaning cheaper copycat versions can't be made - has led to a debate among insurance companies, said Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School. The companies have to decide whether to raise insurance premiums, in general, to cover the costs, or to forgo coverage of GLP-1s altogether, he said. Many have decided not to cover them. Others cut off coverage to patients once they lose weight and reach a body mass index (BMI) below the obesity range of 30 or higher, Dr Cecil said. When Dr Cecil was on a GLP-1 using her previous insurance, she said she wouldn't allow herself to lose as much weight as she wanted to avoid crossing the BMI threshold. "They'll cut off coverage, saying, 'Well, you don't need it anymore. You've lost weight.' But of course, the reason they lost weight is because of the medicine," she said. Getting off anti-obesity drugs too quickly also can cause unpleasant withdrawal effects, and many gain back the weight. Government insurance faces a similar cost predicament when it comes to covering the new weight-loss medications. "Although there's obviously a lot of interest in doing so to make these highly effective drugs more available to patients who need them, the cost of doing so would be enormous because so many people are eligible and because the prices are so high," Dr Rome said. When Biden officials issued the rule requiring Medicare and Medicaid to cover the anti-obesity medications, they did so after the election, knowing it would not be up to them to carry the policy out, said Mark Fendrick, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design. The federal government said last year that it could cost about $25b for Medicare and $11b for Medicaid to provide the drugs over the next 10 years. "How do we pay for that?" Dr Fendrick asked. The Biden-era rule must go through a public comment period before the Trump administration ultimately decides whether to move forward with it, experts said. Dr Cecil said the government and private insurance companies may remain hesitant to foot the bill for such expensive medications. But she believes the savings that would come from tackling obesity for millions of Americans would greatly outweigh the short-term costs. "Five to ten years is when we would really see a huge payoff, because that's when we would really start to see trending downwards for some of these more serious long term complications," Dr Cecil said. "If everyone who needed the drugs could afford them and wanted to take them, it would be pretty game changing." Can RFK Jr make America's diet healthy again? Weight-loss drugs may boost health in many ways
