Public Health

A man developed painful swelling in his right middle finger and right big toe over the course of six weeks, causing the digits to take on a club-like shape. It turned out that the strange swelling was a rare sign of cancer that had spread through his body.

Prior to developing the swelling, the 55-year-old had been diagnosed with metastatic squamous-cell lung cancer, according to a report of the case published July 16 in The New England Journal of Medicine. This type of cancer starts in the flat, thin cells that line the airways, and in this case, the cancer had reached an advanced stage and spread, or metastasized, to other parts of the body.

After noting the swelling in his finger and toe, the man reported to the hospital for examination. Doctors found that the tip of each affected digit was red and swollen. They also noted that an ulcer was forming near the nail of the affected toe. The swollen areas were firm to the touch and tender, the doctors reported.

The nearly 800,000 doses were part of a donation promised under the Biden administration, which was meant to deliver more than 1 million doses. Overall, the US, the European Union, and Japan pledged to collectively provide 5 million doses to nearly a dozen African countries. The US has only sent 91,000 doses so far, and only 220,000 currently still have enough shelf life to make it. The rest are expiring within six months, making them ineligible for shipping.

"For a vaccine to be shipped to a country, we need a minimum of six months before expiration to ensure that the vaccine can arrive in good condition and also allow the country to implement the vaccination," Yap Boum, an Africa CDC deputy incident manager, told Politico.

Politico linked the vaccines' lack of timely shipment to the Trump administration's brutal cuts to foreign aid programs as well as the annihilation of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which administered those aid programs.

A study published last month in The Lancet, estimated that funding and support from the USAID saved the lives of nearly 92 million people in 133 countries between 2001 and 2021, including the lives of over 30 million children under the age of 5. The study projected that the Trump administration's cuts will cost over 14 million lives by 2030—including 4.5 million children under age 5—unless the cuts are reversed.

Gastrointestinal cancers, which include colorectal, stomach and pancreatic cancer, are rising dramatically in younger adults, though doctors aren’t fully sure why. Even some of the possible causes require more research, they say.

According to a review published Thursday in JAMA, gastrointestinal cancers have become the fastest-growing type of cancers diagnosed in adults younger than 50 in the U.S.

The review, one of the most comprehensive looks at gastrointestinal cancer trends, summarized the findings of major international and U.S. cancer databases, plus 115 papers on gastrointestinal cancers published from January 2014 to March 2025.

In 2009, in a context of a shortage of gynecological primary care, France introduced a reform that expanded midwives’ scope of practice to include gynecological care for non-pregnant women, alongside their traditional roles in pregnancy and childbirth

Using administrative data on healthcare utilization among French women, we analyze changes in the probability of consulting a midwife between 2007 and 2017 among non-pregnant women aged 15 to 55. Our results show an increase in midwives’ use following the reform, particularly among recently pregnant women and those living in areas with poor access to healthcare services. Overall, the effect of the reform extending the primary care roles of health professionals on the use of care depends strongly on the provision of information about these new skills to the general public. Furthermore, we show that this reform is likely to strengthen the gynecological primary care supply in disadvantaged areas.

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/post/119938

The appearance of thousands of formulaic biomedical studies has been linked to the rise of text-generating AI tools.

Data from five large open-access health databases are being used to generate thousands of poor-quality, formulaic papers, an analysis has found. Its authors say that the surge in publications could indicate the exploitation of these databases by people using large language models(LLMs) to mass-produce scholarly articles, or even by paper mills — companies that churn out papers to order.

This post is more for researchers, and people interested in research in this area. A summary of what this team did:

Health insurance literacy (HIL) is the knowledge, ability, and confidence to find and understand health insurance information, and choose, purchase and use an insurance plan. Despite the increasing volume of research on HIL, the approaches to this field remain fragmented.

This review paper aims to develop a conceptual framework delineating the attributes, personal contexts, and environmental influences, which either influence or are influenced by an individual's HIL level.

• A Finnish study indicates that signs of Alzheimer’s disease, specifically elevated brain-related biomarkers, may be detectable in blood from middle age.
• The research, involving 2,051 individuals aged 41 to 90, found these biological changes in adults aged 41 to 56, suggesting they begin decades before symptoms typically appear.
• The Study identified a potential hereditary component, with a parent’s biomarker levels, particularly mothers, possibly linked to similar patterns in their children.
• Factors such as increasing age and kidney disease were associated with higher biomarker levels, and the APOE ε4 gene was linked to higher levels in older individuals.
• Researchers cautioned that while promising, these blood tests are not yet suitable for routine diagnosis and require further standardisation and research across different populations.

A sweeping analysis of health data from more than 1.2 million children in Denmark born over a 24-year period found no link between the small amounts of aluminum in vaccines and a wide range of health conditions—including asthma, allergies, eczema, autism, and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The finding, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, firmly squashes a persistent anti-vaccine talking point that can give vaccine-hesitant parents pause.

Small amounts of aluminum salts have been added to vaccines for decades as adjuvants, that is, components of the vaccine that help drum up protective immune responses against a target germ. Aluminum adjuvants can be found in a variety of vaccines, including those against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and hepatitis A and B.

Despite decades of use worldwide and no clear link to harms, concern about aluminum and cumulative exposures continually resurfaces—largely thanks to anti-vaccine advocates who fearmonger about the element. A leader of such voices is Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the current US health secretary and an ardent anti-vaccine advocate.

In a June 2024 interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Kennedy falsely claimed that aluminum is "extremely neurotoxic" and "give[s] you allergies." The podcast has racked up nearly 2 million views on YouTube. Likewise, Children's Health Defense, the rabid anti-vaccine organization Kennedy created in 2018, has also made wild claims about the safety of aluminum adjuvants. That includes linking it to autism, despite that many high-quality scientific studies have found no link between any vaccines and autism.

While anti-vaccine advocates like Kennedy routinely dismiss and attack the plethora of studies that do not support their dangerous claims, the new study should reassure any hesitant parents.

A massive spike in young children accidentally ingesting nicotine pouches has alarmed poison control researchers, with a 763% rise reported between 2020 and 2023. Unlike other nicotine products, these pouches have quickly become the most dangerous form ingested, often leading to hospital visits. Experts say appealing packaging and flavors are part of the problem and they're pushing for tougher safety measures, including childproof storage and flavor bans.

From the article:

An increase in vapes contaminated with synthetic drug Spice has led to secondary school children being rushed to hospital.

The lab-made drug which mimics the effects of cannabis but with much stronger consequences, can cause breathing problems, heart attacks and seizures.

Other symptoms include feeling dizzy, vomiting, heart racing, sweating, anxiety, and paranoia.

Police have warned of a national increase in vapes being contaminated with spice in secondary schools and in severe cases children have been taken to hospital.

The number of young children sickened after getting their little hands on nicotine products like pouches and vape e-liquids has skyrocketed in recent years.

From 2010 through 2023, U.S. poison centers reported 134,663 cases of nicotine poisonings among kids under age 6, according to a study published Monday in Pediatrics, a journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Nearly all occurred at home.

The cases included exposures to nicotine pouches, chewing tobacco, regular cigarettes, vapes and nicotine replacement products like gum and lozenges.

But it’s nicotine pouches, like the wildly popular Zyn, that are behind the most significant rise in accidental nicotine poisonings among young kids.

The new research found that the rate of poisonings involving nicotine pouches among kids under 6 rose from 0.48 per 100,000 children in 2020 to 4.14 per 100,000 in 2023.

A child with measles has died at a Liverpool hospital.

The individual was being treated at Alder Hey Children's Hospital after becoming ill with measles and other health problems.

It comes as the NHS hospital said it is "concerned" about the increasing number of children and young people who are contracting the highly contagious virus.

It said it has treated 17 cases of the effects and complications of measles since June.

• A person in Northern Arizona has died from the plague, confirmed by health officials after an autopsy revealed the presence of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague. The victim was taken to hospital with severe symptoms and died the same day.
• This fatality occurred amid a significant die-off of prairie dogs near Flagstaff, prompting Coconino County officials to investigate the link and collect fleas for testing.
• Plague remains rare in modern America, with an average of seven human cases annually, primarily affecting rural areas of the Western U.S.
• Symptoms include fever, chills, and swollen lymph nodes, but prompt antibiotic treatment, ideally within 24 hours, offers a high survival rate for bubonic plague.
• Public health officials urge residents to report sick or dead rodents, use flea control on pets, and seek immediate medical care if symptoms develop after potential exposure.

A 57-year-old woman spent six days in the hospital for severe liver damage after taking daily megadoses of the popular herbal supplement, turmeric, which she had seen touted on social media, according to NBC News.

The woman, Katie Mohan, told the outlet that she had seen a doctor on Instagram suggesting it was useful against inflammation and joint pain. So, she began taking turmeric capsules at a dose of 2,250 mg per day. According to the World Health Organization, an acceptable daily dose is up to 3 mg per kilogram of weight per day—for a 150-pound (68 kg) adult, that would be about 204 mg per day. Mohan was taking more than 10 times that amount.

Eight people have been arrested in China after more than 200 children in the northwestern province of Gansu were found to have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.

The children fell ill with symptoms including stomach and leg pain, loss of appetite, and hair loss, according to online media outlets Jimu and The Cover, which cited parents.

All the children are pupils at a privately owned kindergarten in Tianshui, Gansu, which was established in 2022 with 251 enrolled students.

Investigations revealed lead contamination in food served to the students, China's state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Authorities are continuing to investigate the kindergarten's staff, including its principal and legal representative.