Public Health

People who consume the artificial sweetener sucralose are less likely to respond to cancer immunotherapy, suggesting the sweetener may blunt the treatment’s effects.

Immunotherapy helps the immune system detect and destroy cancer cells, making it a crucial treatment for numerous cancers. “When it works, it works very well. Patients can be disease free and go about their lives and live for years and years,” says Abigail Overacre-Delgoffe at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. “Unfortunately, immunotherapy doesn’t work for all patients, and in many cancer types, it only works for the minority of patients.”

It isn’t clear why that is, though numerous studies indicate the gut microbiome plays a role, as it helps regulate immune responses. Previous research has also shown that artificial sweeteners can change the composition of gut microbes in humans.

One person is dead and at least 22 people have become sick from a Legionnaires’ disease cluster in New York City since last Friday, health officials said.

The New York City Health Department provided an update on Thursday into its investigation of a community cluster of Legionnaires’ disease in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City and the surrounding communities.

Two months after first going to hospital, a 65-year-old woman was dead – and her doctors are blaming the cosmetic creams she used on her face and body for decades.

The anonymous patient, from Togo, is one of a string of recent cases reported in medical journals of cancers in black African women linked to skin-lightening creams and lotions, prompting dermatologists to call for better regulation.

The melanin found in darker skin typically offers some protection against the sun damage which can cause cancers.

“Patients with black skin have a natural SPF of about 15, just by having pigmented skin,” says Prof Ncoza Dlova, head of dermatology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa,. “If they remove that melanin [with skin lightening creams], they’re actually removing the natural protection.”

Estimates of skin lightening product use in African countries range from 25% to 80% of women. Lighter skin is often seen as more desirable, in a trend with complex drivers including values imported in the colonial era.

On October 20, 2023, health officials in the County of San Diego, California, put out a press release warning of a Salmonella outbreak linked to raw (unpasteurized) milk. Such an outbreak is not particularly surprising; the reason the vast majority of milk is pasteurized (heated briefly to kill germs) is because milk can easily pick up nasty pathogens in the farmyard that can cause severe illnesses, particularly in children. It's the reason public health officials have long and strongly warned against consuming raw milk.

At the time of the press release, officials in San Diego County had identified nine residents who had been sickened in the outbreak. Of those nine, three were children, and all three children had been hospitalized.

On October 25, the county put out a second press release, reporting that the local case count had risen to 12, and the suspected culprit—raw milk and raw cream from Raw Farm LLC—had been recalled. The same day, Orange County's health department put out its own press release, reporting seven cases among its residents, including one in a 1-year-old infant.

Both counties noted that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), which had posted the recall notice, was working on the outbreak, too. But it doesn't appear that CDPH ever followed up with its own press release about the outbreak. The CDPH did write social media posts related to the outbreak: One on October 26, 2023, announced the recall; a second on November 30, 2023, noted "a recent outbreak" of Salmonella cases from raw milk but linked to general information about the risks of raw milk; and a third on December 7, 2023, linked to general information again with no mention of the outbreak.

But that seems to be the extent of the information at the time. For anyone paying attention, it might have seemed like the end of the story. But according to the final outbreak investigation report—produced by CDPH and local health officials—the outbreak actually ran from September 2023 to March 2024, spanned five states, and sickened at least 171 people. That report was released last week, on July 24, 2025.

Link to article: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2836434

Importance Estimating global lives and life-years saved is important to put into perspective the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination. Prior studies have focused mainly on the pre-Omicron period or only on specific regions, and lack crucial life-year calculations and often depend on strong modeling assumptions with unaccounted uncertainty.

Results In the main analysis, more than 2.5 million deaths were averted (1 death averted per 5400 vaccine doses administered). Eighty-two percent were among people vaccinated before any infection, 57% were during the Omicron period, and 90% pertained to people 60 years or older. Sensitivity analyses suggested 1.4 to 4.0 million lives were saved. Some sensitivity analyses showed a preponderance of the benefit during the pre-Omicron period. An estimated 14.8 million life-years were saved (1 life-year saved per 900 vaccine doses administered). The sensitivity range was 7.4 to 23.6 million life-years. Most life-years saved (76%) were among people 60 years or older, but long-term care residents contributed only 2% of the total. Children and adolescents (0.01% of lives saved and 0.1% of life-years saved) and young adults aged 20 through 29 years (0.07% of lives saved and 0.3% of life-years saved) had very small contributions to the total benefit.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/34970724

Archived link

False and misleading claims about extreme weather events spread unchecked on social media are putting lives at risk, new research suggests

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) - which analyzed viral posts on the social media platform X, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook - found that when a storm of false and misleading claims about extreme weather events, the platforms' algorithms amplify conspiracy theorists while sidelining life-saving information.

CCDH looked at the 300 most-liked posts on X, YouTube, and Meta about extreme weather events in the U.S. like Texas floods, Hurricane Helene and the LA wildfires.

Key points:

• False or misleading claims about extreme weather were viewed 221 million times across all platforms.
• Community Notes or fact checks are almost entirely absent on viral posts spreading false claims during major disasters.
• Social media companies are profiting from lies about extreme weather events.
• On X, 88% of misleading extreme weather posts were from verified accounts. The platform enables paid subscriptions for five of these accounts – which combined have 14 million followers
• On YouTube, 73% of posts were from verified accounts. YouTube displayed ads next to 29% of misleading extreme weather videos.
• On Facebook and Instagram, 64% of posts were from verified accounts. Meta is sharing ad revenue with three content creators pushing misleading claims, enabling them to share in Meta’s revenue from ads near their posts.
• ‘Superspreaders’ of false claims and conspiracies online, like Alex Jones [a U.S. far-right radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist], get more views than official information during extreme weather events like the LA wildfires.
• Alex Jones’ false claims about the LA wildfires amassed 408 million views on X – more than the combined views of posts from 10 major news outlets and 10 key emergency agencies.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/30885735

Some excerpts to cover what the title is referring to, please see the article for the original text in case my excerpt selection introduced any unintended biases:

Decades of gold mining at Giant Mine in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, has left a toxic legacy: 237,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide dust stored in underground chambers.

As a multi-billion government remediation effort to clean up the mine site and secure the underground arsenic ramps up, the Canadian government is promising to deal with the mine’s disastrous consequences for local Indigenous communities.

In March, the minister for Crown-Indigenous relations appointed a ministerial special representative, Murray Rankin, to investigate how historic mining affected the treaty rights of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.

The story begins when prospectors discovered a rich gold ore body at Giant Mine in the 1930s. While mining started at the nearby Con Mine in the late 1930s, Giant’s development was interrupted by the Second World War. Only with new investment and the lifting of wartime labour restrictions in 1948 did Giant Mine start production.

Mining at Giant was a challenge. Much of the gold was locked within arsenopyrite formations, and to get at it, workers needed to crush, then roast the gold ore at very high temperatures.

This burned off the arsenic in the ore before using cyanide treatment to extract gold. One byproduct of this process was thousands of tonnes per day of arsenic trioxide, sent up a smokestack into the local environment.

Throughout the 1960s, public health officials continually downplayed concerns about arsenic exposure in Yellowknife, whether via drinking water or on local vegetables.

By the 1970s, however, latent public health concerns over arsenic exposure in Yellowknife became a major national media story. It began with a CBC Radio As it Happens episode in 1975 that unearthed an unreleased government report documenting widespread, chronic arsenic exposure in the city. Facing accusations of a cover-up, the federal government dismissed health concerns even as it set up a local study group to investigate them.

Some excerpts:

Corruption—commonly defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain—is a pervasive threat to health, health systems, and societies worldwide.1 Corruption compounds inequities, disproportionately harms marginalised populations, and undermines the right to health and the health system by diverting resources from their intended purpose and limiting access to essential services.

Corruption can affect countries at every income level. High-income countries have experienced major corruption scandals, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.10 These same countries are often complicit in enabling global corruption by hosting financial institutions and tax havens that allow illicit profits to be hidden.

Despite decades of reform, anti-corruption efforts have had limited success.11 Most initiatives emphasise transparency and legal enforcement, yet overlook deeper institutional and political drivers. Focusing solely on sanctioning individuals fails to address underlying systemic incentives and structural weaknesses,1 many of which originate from outside of the health sector. Tackling corruption effectively, therefore, requires engaging with the broader political economy.

The Lancet Global Health Commission on anti-corruption in health will respond to this challenge with a novel approach. Corruption is not merely a moral failure but a deeply embedded structural issue that requires evidence-based, context-specific solutions. We recognise that health systems are shaped by both formal rules and by informal networks, kinship ties, and political allegiances. Tackling corruption could involve high political and practical costs and might even worsen conditions in the short term. The Commission will move beyond punitive approaches to champion pragmatic, politically realistic solutions that build trust, strengthen institutions, and drive progress towards universal health coverage.

The Commission will highlight the mechanisms linking corruption to health outcomes, making it harder for policy makers to ignore root causes. We will examine how governance structures, labour rights, and economic conditions interact with health policy. Our recommendations will address the incentives facing actors at every level—from rural clinics to global financial hubs—and promote the role of civil society in holding power to account. We will identify the opportunities that prompt actors to engage in corruption and will propose ways to strengthen appropriate checks and balances in health systems and beyond. Health institutions need to embed safeguards and early warning mechanisms to foster integrity and resilience. Addressing low pay and poor working conditions is crucial to curbing misconduct driven by desperation. Above all, proposed measures should consider unintended consequences, including the misuse of anti-corruption policies to target political opponents.

Our commissioners, drawn from diverse backgrounds, will rely on evidence synthesis, exemplar case studies (especially those that have had demonstrable results), and extensive stakeholder consultations. By engaging policy makers, health workers, civil society, and researchers, we aim to ensure that our recommendations are practical and adaptable across all contexts. This approach will support stakeholders in navigating political realities and implementing effective, evidence-informed responses to corruption.

We will measure our success not by the publication of a report, but by the movement we want to spark—a movement that catalyses sustained action, fosters accountability and resilience, and ensures that health resources reach those who need them most.

A pediatric patient in a South Carolina hospital has died from a rare brain-eating amoeba.

The Prisma Health Children's Hospital patient recently died after contracting Naegleria fowleri, which infects the brain and destroys tissue, Pediatric Infectious Disease Physician Anna Kathryn Burch said Tuesday.

The hospital declined to share more details about the patient, and officials have not said where the infection occurred. State authorities say there is no broader risk to the public.

A case of Naegleria fowleri was confirmed in South Carolina during the week of July 7, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. There have been only 167 reported cases of the infection in the US between 1962 and 2024, the CDC reports. However, just four people have survived the infection.