Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/Ghlw9p02c-c

The FDA and Ferrero USA, Inc.are recalling Kinder Happy Moments Milk Chocolate and Crispy Wafers Assortments & Mix Chocolate Treats Baskets.  These products are contaminated with salmonella.  This bacterium can cause serious and life-threatening infections in the very young, elders, and in those with a suboptimal immune response.  If you purchased these products, do not consume them and sequester them from your children.  Call the Ferrero customer service line at 1-800-688-3552 to arrange a full refund.

https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/ferrero-voluntarily-recalls-kinderr-happy-moments-chocolate-assortment-and-kinderr-mix-chocolate

#ferraro #kinder #chocolate #salmonella #infection #recall

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/XO7Zs_avJDM

The CPSC and Stokke now recall Clikk High Chairs.  The white plastic seats on these units may break creating a risk of fall and injury hazards to those children using them.  About 790 units were sold in the US and 48 were sold in Canada at Target, Buy Buy Baby, and other children’s stores nationwide and online at www.stokke.com and www.amazon.com.  If you bought one of these high chairs, stop using it.  Contact Stokke by phone at 1-877-978-6553 or via email at [email protected] for a free replacement.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2022/Stokke-Recalls-Clikk-High-Chairs-Due-to-Fall-and-Injury-Hazards

#clikk #highchair #children #seat #fall #injury #recall

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/jtJXptWBhMw

The CPSC and Bestar are now recalling Bestar Wall Beds.  These Murphy-style beds may detach from the wall and come crashing down on those nearby leading to serious crush injuries or death.   The models involved in the recall include: the Nebula, PUR, Versatile, Edge, Cielo, Audrea, Lumina, Orion, and the Novello Full and Queen Wall Beds.  About 129,000 of these beds were sold in the US and about 53,000 were sold in Canada online at Wayfair.com, Costco.com, Cymax.com, and Amazon.com.  If you have a Bestar wall bed, contact Bestar at 1-888-912-8458 or via email at [email protected] to find out if your bed requires a repair.  Bestar will arrange for a free inspection and a reinstallation if necessary.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2022/Bestar-Recalls-Wall-Beds-Due-to-Serious-Impact-and-Crush-Hazards-One-Adult-Death-Reported-Recall-Alert

#bestar #wallbed #detachment #crush #injury #death #recall

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/WLLraWCVLIY

The CPSC and the Madar Corporation are recalling biOrigins Sodium Hydroxide Product.  This product contains the caustic lye sodium hydroxide and must be sold in child-resistant packaging in order to prevent the possibility of chemical burns of the skin, eyes, and, if ingested, the mouth, throat, and gastrointestinal tract.  Thirty packages of this extremely dangerous material were sold via amazon.com.  If you have this products at home, immediately store it out of reach of children.  Contact the Madar Corporation by with a collect phone call at 1-315-537-8102 or via the email [email protected] in order to obtain a full refund and a warning label to place on the package. I would store this material in a lockage container.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2022/biOrigins-Sodium-Hydroxide-Products-Recalled-Due-to-Failure-to-Meet-Child-Resistant-Packaging-Requirement-and-Violation-of-FHSA-Labeling-Requirement-Imported-by-Madar-Corporation-Sold-Exclusively-at-Amazon-com-Recall-Alert

#biorigins #naoh #sodiumhydroxide #lye #caustic #burns #children #recall

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/V395dwF4DTs

Short Shorts are quickie reports about cutting edge medical and healthcare discoveries.  They’re worth knowing about this 2nd week of April, 2022.

CAR-T chimeric antigen receptors have proven effective immunotherapy for blood system cancers such as leukemias.  They haven’t worked as well on solid tumors.  Now a Dutch research group working with BioNTech, the developers of the Pfizer CoVid vaccine has found that CAR-T cells kill solid cancers better when they are sensitized to the protein CLDN6 that is found on the surfaces of testicular, ovarian, and endometrial cancer cells.  That sensitization can be now accomplished using mRNA.  A phase 1 trial of 14 patients with advanced cancers showed a 86% response rate.  Very promising.

https://aacr.ent.box.com/s/c5vdgvlj128qojzmuqgwuj2uz8mipqsy

There is a sweet spot for bedtime if you want to have the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease.  A UK study of over 88 thousand Brits shows that those hitting the bedsheets between 10 and 11 pm have a 25% lower risk of heart disease compared with those turning in between midnight or later and a 12% lower risk compared with those retiring for the night between 11pm and midnight.  These numbers are most statistically significant for women.  You’ll have to record your favorite late night talk shows.

University of Pittsburgh developmental biologists have identified a drug cocktail that promises to save the 30% of infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome who typically die before their first birthdays.  One of the drugs in the cocktail is tauroursodeoxycholic acid or TUDCA, used to treat liver disease, and the other is  sildenafil, better known as Viagra and used to treat erectile dysfunction.  These two drugs together help normalize the defective metabolic processes that otherwise lead to progressive heart failure and death in these babies.  The Viagra turns up mitochondrial function in heart muscle cells while the TUDCA prevents the enhanced metabolic activity from overheating these cells.  This therapeutic approach could save many infants who cannot get a heart transplant.

The licorice extract glycyrrhizin is a compound that has been used by healers dating back to ancient times for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.  Biomedical scientists at the University of Illinois are now testing it as a therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of cancer.  The compound also has antiviral effects, and others have tested it as an anti-CoVid drug.  Don’t go wolfing down sticks and sticks of licorice though as glycyrrhizin can raise your blood pressure to dangerously high levels.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043661822000834?via%3Dihub#!

There you have the latest reveals for the 2nd week of April, 2022.  When additional information about thes

Excellent YouTube video by MinutePhysics.  

video: https://youtu.be/tUU6I7rlAGY

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/o4APXIok6vw

Short Shorts are cutting edge medical and healthcare discoveries not quite ready for the clinic.  They’re worth knowing about now during the 1st week of April, 2022.

In order to improve the chances for couples with infertility problems, a new microfluidic chip developed at Florida Atlantic University effectively separates the olympic swimmers from the duds.  The output of this FAU chip, after only 1 hour, contains almost 100% motile sperm that appear normal microscopically and have significantly lower DNA fragmentation.  These parameters of sperm health predict more successful fertilizations whether the sperm are introduced into the uterus or directly into the egg cytoplasm.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/AN/D1AN02311J

One in every 8 apples may be coated with a deadly fungus for which there is no treatment.  Indian researchers now report that 13% of apples harvested from crops treated with typical agricultural fungicides have the drug-resistant fungus Candida auris present on their surfaces in the thin wax coating that is applied prior to their trip from orchard to your refrigerator.  The infected apples included Red Delicious and Royal Galas.  You’d better scrub your apples well before consuming them.

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00518-22

Nerves and nerve networks within the body, especially in the brain, may be stimulated in the future by a tiny smart electrode delivered to the nerves’ vicinity through the tiniest of blood vessels.  Developed by bioengineers at Texas’ Rice University and tested in pigs, the electrode and its microchip driver are encased in a rice-sized capsule.  The devices once delivered, receives both power and activating data via magnetic fields from an external generator.  The magnetic energy is converted to electric signals by a piezo-electric film. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-022-00873-7

A microRNA can help heal damaged hearts.  In contrast to the much larger messenger RNA that underlies our current CoVid vaccines and triggers our bodies to produce immunizing CoVid spike proteins, this tiny RNA fragment, miR-466c, developed at the University of Eastern Finland, turns on a gene that produces vascular endothelial growth factor.  This so-called VEGFA stimulates vascular growth necessary for healing the ailing heart muscle.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0265948

There you have the latest for the 1st week of April, 2022.  When additional information about these developments becomes available, I’ll pass it on to you.

#sperm #infertility #microfluidics #apples #fungus #candidaauris #magnetoelectric #nervestimulation #brainimplant #microrna #vegfa #heartattack

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/dWtOmzRWZHQ

Vaccinated and boosted individuals suffering an Omicron breakthrough infection generate a broad and powerful immune response not only to Omicron but also to other variants.  This from a collaborative group of German virologists including those at BioNTech, the creators of the current Pfizer CoVid vaccine.

The researchers studied blood from a biobank that included samples drawn before and after vaccination, boosting, and the occurrence of Omicron breakthrough infections.  Those patients experiencing breakthrough infections not only enjoyed formation of robust neutralizing antibodies against the unique Omicron spike antigens, but they also experienced a significant expansion of antibody-producing B lymphocytes that target the spike proteins from all previous variants as well as the original Wuhan strain.

This study suggests that the next and badly needed CoVid vaccine will be based on the Omicron subvariants since they appear to contain antigens that trigger broad protective antibody responses against all CoVid variants known to us so far.  More work is needed on which vaccine components can also ramp up effective cell-mediated immunity.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.01.486695v1.full.pdf

#CoVid #omicron #variants #vaccines #boosters #pfizer

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/PgFTKpzpzdg

The survival of actively-treated very premature infants born at 22 to 23 weeks of gestation rose by a factor of 3 when you compare the recent results with those 6 years earlier.  This heartening statistic is the conclusion of a collaborative study from the 129 academic medical centers that compose the NIH Neonatal Research Network.

Led by University of Rochester neonatologists, the investigation compared the data on 1158 premies born between 2013 and 2018 with 1113 born between 2008 and 2012.  The survival rate to discharge for those born at 22 weeks increased from 7% to 30% and, for those born at 23 weeks, there was an increase from 32% to 55.8%.

This survival boost was due to sharing of best practices.  Additional improvements should come with time not only for survival but also for the elimination of neurodevelopment deficits.  The latest stats show that just over half of the infants had neurocognitive issues at their 2 year followup exams.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2788142

#premies #survival #neurodevelopment #nicu

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/yYmS5vid8Q4

Pregnant women who use marijuana in its various forms give birth to babies who, at nearly 5 years of age, are 8 times fatter than the offspring of non-users.  Epidemiologists at the University of Texas and the Colorado School of Public Health studied 193 mothers whom they tested for serum cannabis metabolites during their pregnancies and their offspring who underwent in-depth metabolic testing at an average of 4.7 years of age.  na

The results of two separate analyses indicate that children who were cannabis-exposed during their fetal development vs those who were not had fat masses that were an average of 2.6 kg higher, fat-free masses that were 13 kg higher, adiposity levels that were 17%age points higher and BMIs that were 15.9 kg/m2 higher.  The exposed children also had fasting glucose levels that were 74.9 mg/dL higher.

The bottom line: marijuana use by pregnant women is associated with heavier children and a possibly higher risk of developing obesity and diabetes.

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgac101/6554396

#cannabis #marijuana #pregnancy #obesity #diabetes