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Category: Health

EPA opts against limits on toxic water contaminant tied to fetal damage

EPA opts against limits on toxic water contaminant tied to fetal damage

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration will not impose any limits on perchlorate, a toxic chemical compound that contaminates water and has been linked to fetal and infant brain damage, according to two Environmental Protection Agency staff members familiar with the decision. The decision by Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the E.P.A., appears to defy a court order that required the agency to establish a safe drinking-water standard for the chemical by the end of June. The policy,…

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The value of leaders who can lead

The value of leaders who can lead

The Atlantic reports: In March, when the severity of the coronavirus pandemic was becoming clear but many of the world’s leading nations had yet to formulate a response to it, one country was springing into action. Within 10 days of identifying its first case, it went into lockdown: Its borders were sealed, schools and restaurants were closed, and face masks were made mandatory in public places, with some of the country’s most visible public figures, including its president and prime…

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CDC is ‘almost certainly underestimating’ Covid-19 death toll but Trump wants numbers even lower

CDC is ‘almost certainly underestimating’ Covid-19 death toll but Trump wants numbers even lower

The Daily Beast reports: President Donald Trump and members of his coronavirus task force are pushing officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change how the agency works with states to count coronavirus-related deaths. And they’re pushing for revisions that could lead to far fewer deaths being counted than originally reported, according to five administration officials working on the government’s response to the pandemic. Though he has previously publicly attested to the accuracy of the COVID-19 death…

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Former vaccine chief Rick Bright warns of ‘darkest winter in modern history’ without ramped up coronavirus response

Former vaccine chief Rick Bright warns of ‘darkest winter in modern history’ without ramped up coronavirus response

CNN reports: Dr. Rick Bright, the ousted director of a key federal office charged with developing medical countermeasures, will testify before Congress on Thursday that the Trump administration was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic and warn that the the US will face “unprecedented illness and fatalities” without additional preparations. “Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented…

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Sweden’s coronavirus strategy isn’t what it seems

Sweden’s coronavirus strategy isn’t what it seems

Ishaan Tharoor writes: As societies battened down the hatches and imposed quarantines, one European country appeared to take a different approach. In Sweden, there have been no invasive lockdowns to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Restaurants and even nightclubs are operating, though under guidelines to enforce social distancing. Schools for students under the age of 16 remain open. Large gatherings are restricted to a maximum of 50 people, a far cry from the enforced confinement imposed on entire cities…

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Scientist who fought Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death from Covid-19

Scientist who fought Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death from Covid-19

Science reports: Virologist Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, fell ill with COVID-19 in mid-March. He spent a week in a hospital and has been recovering at his home in London since. Climbing a flight of stairs still leaves him breathless. Piot, who grew up in Belgium, was one of the discoverers of the Ebola virus in 1976 and spent his career fighting infectious diseases. He headed the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS…

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Fauci warns against triggering ‘an outbreak that you may not be able to control’ by reopening too soon

Fauci warns against triggering ‘an outbreak that you may not be able to control’ by reopening too soon

The Week reports: Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Tuesday warned the Senate about the dangers of states reopening too quickly amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying this could result in more “suffering and death.” Fauci, a member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force, remotely testified before the Senate on Tuesday and said that the “consequences could be really serious” if states reopen their economies too quickly without following the White House’s guidelines,…

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Unreleased White House report, at odds with Trump’s declaration, shows coronavirus rates spiking across America

Unreleased White House report, at odds with Trump’s declaration, shows coronavirus rates spiking across America

NBC News reports: Coronavirus infection rates are spiking to new highs in several metropolitan areas and smaller communities across the country, according to undisclosed data the White House’s pandemic task force is using to track rates of infection, which was obtained by NBC News. The data in a May 7 coronavirus task force report are at odds with President Donald Trump’s declaration Monday that “all throughout the country, the numbers are coming down rapidly.” The 10 top areas recorded surges…

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Trump’s America-first push for a coronavirus vaccine

Trump’s America-first push for a coronavirus vaccine

Science reports: Conventional wisdom is that a vaccine for COVID-19 is at least 1 year away, but the organizers of a U.S. government push called Operation Warp Speed have little use for conventional wisdom. The project, vaguely described to date but likely to be formally announced by the White House in the coming days, will pick a diverse set of vaccine candidates and pour essentially limitless resources into unprecedented comparative studies in animals, fast-tracked human trials, and manufacturing. Eschewing international…

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The many ways SARS-CoV-2 attacks the human body

The many ways SARS-CoV-2 attacks the human body

The Washington Post reports: Deborah Coughlin was neither short of breath nor coughing. In those first days after she became infected by the novel coronavirus, her fever never spiked above 100 degrees. It was vomiting and diarrhea that brought her to a Hartford, Conn., emergency room on May 1. “You would have thought it was a stomach virus,” said her daughter, Catherina Coleman. “She was talking and walking and completely coherent.” But even as Coughlin, 67, chatted with her daughters…

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How Trump is undermining efforts to find a cure for Covid-19 by cutting vital coronavirus research

How Trump is undermining efforts to find a cure for Covid-19 by cutting vital coronavirus research

  60 Minutes: Peter Daszak is a scientist whose work is helping in the search for a COVID-19 cure. So why did the president just cancel Daszak’s funding? It’s the kind of politics which might seem ill-advised in a health crisis. President Trump is blaming China’s government for the pandemic. The outbreak was first detected in the city of Wuhan. The administration has said, at times, the virus is man-made or that, if it’s natural, it must have leaked out…

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What needs to go right to get a coronavirus vaccine in 12-18 months

What needs to go right to get a coronavirus vaccine in 12-18 months

A coronavirus vaccine is coming, but when? Francesco Carta fotografo/Moment via Getty Images By Marcos E. García-Ojeda, University of California, Merced I, like many Americans, miss the pre-pandemic world of hugging family and friends, going to work and having dinner at a restaurant. A protective vaccine for SARS-Cov2 is likely to be the most effective public health tool to get back to that world. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, cautiously estimates that a…

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Could BCG, a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis, protect against coronavirus?

Could BCG, a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis, protect against coronavirus?

Shutterstock By Kylie Quinn, RMIT University; Joanna Kirman, University of Otago; Katie Louise Flanagan, University of Tasmania, and Magdalena Plebanski, RMIT University This week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced it will donate A$10 million to help fund an Australian trial testing whether a very old vaccine, BCG, can be used against a new threat, COVID-19. So what is the BCG vaccine and what might its place be in the fight against coronavirus? The ABCs of BCG The BCG…

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CEOs in Iowa who came to meet Pence in masks were told to remove them

CEOs in Iowa who came to meet Pence in masks were told to remove them

The Intercept reports: Mike Pence was unmasked in Iowa on Friday, attending two events without covering his face, even though public health officials say masks slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus and one of the vice president’s aides tested positive for Covid-19 just before he departed Washington. Two days later, the recklessness of that behavior came into sharper focus as Bloomberg News reported that Pence had decided to self-isolate at his home in Washington over the weekend — skipping…

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During the pandemic, mutual aid is suddenly getting mainstream attention

During the pandemic, mutual aid is suddenly getting mainstream attention

Jia Tolentino writes: We are not accustomed to destruction looking, at first, like emptiness. The coronavirus pandemic is disorienting in part because it defies our normal cause-and-effect shortcuts to understanding the world. The source of danger is invisible; the most effective solution involves willing paralysis; we won’t know the consequences of today’s actions until two weeks have passed. Everything circles a bewildering paradox: other people are both a threat and a lifeline. Physical connection could kill us, but civic connection…

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Trump’s call to arms: Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do to get me reelected

Trump’s call to arms: Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do to get me reelected

Politico reports: President Donald Trump wants to draft every American to go to war. Encouraging the public to transition out of isolation and into the world, the president is increasingly deploying battlefield rhetoric in asking everyday Americans to confront a raging coronavirus pandemic that has already infected 1.3 million people in the U.S. and killed nearly 80,000 — and this week clawed into the inner circle of his White House. “The people of our country should think of themselves as…

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