Your veterinarian sends you a reminder to book an appointment for your pet’s vaccinations. This may seem unimportant, but actually it is a very significant part of your pet’s healthcare. Vaccines protect dogs and cats from infectious agents that can cause serious illness or may be fatal. As in humans, vaccines have had a major impact in decreasing infectious diseases and are very safe. Nowadays we don’t see many of these diseases. This is largely due to ongoing and regular pet vaccination. The benefits of vaccinations far outweigh the low risk of adverse reactions. By continuing to vaccinate our pets, we can ensure the health of our companions.
Major Vaccine Preventable Diseases
Rabies is one of the most well-known diseases as it is fatal in animals and humans. Rabies is caused by a virus that infects the nervous system and can lead to increased salivation, aggression and death. Rabies virus is transmitted through animal bites, and is found in wildlife such as bats, raccoons, foxes, and skunks.
Canine distemper virus attacks the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and nervous systems. Distemper can be fatal. Dogs that survive may have lifelong complications. Wildlife such as coyotes, raccoons, skunks, and foxes may also be infected.
Canine parvovirus can cause severe vomiting and diarrhea (often bloody), and can lead to sudden death in unvaccinated puppies. It is one of the most lethal infections of dogs. Parvovirus is transmitted through contact with an infected animal stool.
Canine adenovirus causes coughing, sneezing and infectious canine hepatitis (ICH). ICH clinical signs can range from mild fever to death; it is rare because of effective vaccination programs for dogs. Current vaccines for canine adenovirus protect against both diseases.
Feline parvovirus, also known as panleukopenia, is a highly fatal virus particularly in kittens and causes diarrhea and decreases in white blood cells. The virus is very contagious and can be spread directly from infected feces and fluids.
Feline herpesvirus causes a disease of the upper respiratory tract, also known as viral rhinotracheitis. Kittens and cats may have runny noses and eye infections leading to pneumonia, and cats can be carriers for life. The disease can be fatal, particularly in combination with other viruses or bacteria, and is spread from infected oral, nasal, and ocular fluids.
Feline calicivirus causes clinical signs similar to feline rhinotracheitis; cats may present with mouth sores or lameness.
Women who struggle to get pregnant or use reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF) may be more likely to have preemies and kids with birth defects than their peers who conceive without difficulty, a U.S. study suggests.
Infertility has long been linked to an increased risk of premature deliveries, and the current study offered fresh evidence of this. Compared to women without any fertility issues, women who struggled to conceive were 39 percent more likely to have premature babies, while the increased risk associated with using reproductive technologies was 79 percent.
The study also found women who were “subfertile,” or struggled to conceive, were 21 percent more likely to have babies with birth defects than women who got pregnant without difficulty.
In addition, when researchers accounted for how early in pregnancy babies arrived, they found infants born to mothers with fertility issues or women who used ART were more likely to have congenital abnormalities, cardiovascular conditions, infectious diseases and respiratory problems.
“We think that medical conditions of the mother related to the subfertility are major drivers of adverse outcomes,” said senior study author Judy Stern of Dartmouth-Hitchcock in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
“It’s important to remember that the magnitude of any increase in risk is very small,” Stern said by email. “We are not talking about major differences in rates of disease conditions.”
Pregnancy normally lasts about 40 weeks, and babies born after 37 weeks are considered full term.
In the weeks immediately after birth, preemies often have difficulty breathing and digesting food. They can also encounter longer-term challenges such as impaired vision, hearing and cognitive skills, as well as social and behavioral problems.
For the study, researchers examined data on 336,705 infants born to fertile mothers in Massachusetts from 2004 to 2010, as well as 5,043 babies born to women with fertility problems and 8,375 infants whose mothers conceived using ART.
For some of the earliest preemies in the study, born from 28 to 33 weeks gestation, babies born using ART had a lower risk of birth defects than infants born to women with fertility problems who didn’t use ART, researchers report in Pediatrics.
Women’s fertility status or use of ART, however, didn’t appear to influence the risk that babies would be underweight, develop neurological or blood disorders, or die as newborns.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how fertility problems or ART might directly cause birth defects or certain diseases in babies. Another limitation is that researchers lacked data on some aspects of women’s health records and any fertility treatments that might impact the chance of babies having certain birth defects or health issues, the authors note.
Regardless of whether babies were born naturally or using ART, the vast majority were healthy, noted Logan Spector, a researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School who wasn’t involved in the study.
“There has been a large a large amount of research showing that babies conceived by ART are smaller, have shorter gestations, and more birth defects than babies conceived naturally,” Spector said by email.
“However, a common drawback to these studies has been the difficulty of separating ART treatments from the underlying cause of infertility,” Spector added. “What this study adds is the finding that the health risks of infants born to subfertile mothers and those who had ART treatment are substantially similar, suggesting that subfertility is the common factor.”
EvaluatePharma released its forward-looking report to 2024 that includes predictions of the best-selling prescription drugs.
The report, EvaluatePharma World Preview 2018, Outlook to 2024, said the total global pharmaceutical market in 2024 will have a value of $1.2 trillion. Orphan drugs are predicted to remain one of the fastest growth areas of the global pharmaceutical market, while the rare disease space is predicted to capture 20 percent of the total market in 2024, according to the report. With that being said though, the top five best-selling drugs in 2024 are quite familiar to the industry.
Writing in The Motley Fool, analyst Keith Speights lays out a quick review of the predicted best-sellers.
1. Humira – AbbVie’s Humira is the top-selling drug in the world right now and that’s a spot it is likely to hold onto over the next six years, the report predicts. During the first quarter of 2018 sales of rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira grew 14.4 percent globally, including 11.4 percent growth in the United States. That growth means Humira generated $4.71 billion during the quarter. In 2017 it generates a total of $18.43 billion in revenue, about two-thirds of AbbVie’s revenue. Speights noted that Humira is likely to see a decline in earnings by 2024 to $15.2 billion as it faces increased competition from biosimilars and other products. But that competition isn’t expected to begin in the United States until 2023, so there’s plenty of time for AbbVie to earn billions.
2. Keytruda – Merck will see significant gains from its strong cancer drug, Keytruda over the next six years. EvaluatePharma predicts the checkpoint inhibitor will bring in $12.7 billion in 2024 – up from the $3.8 billion it made in 2017. Part of the reason for the increase is the rapid pace in which Merck is seeking to gain regulatory approval for Keytruda in multiple indications, Speight said. The clinical successes of Keytruda continue to show why the checkpoint inhibitor is a key lynchpin in Merck’s pipeline. The drug is in late-stage trials for multiple types of cancer, including breast cancer, bladder cancer, renal cancer and small-cell lung cancer.
3. Revlimid — Celgene’s blockbuster multiple myeloma drug Revlimid brought in about $8 billion in 2017, Speights said. EvaluatePharma believes that will increase to $11.9 billion in 2024. That prediction though could change as Revlimid continues to be challenged by other drugmakers. Speights noted that it’s likely Celgene, which is highly dependent on Revlimid revenue, will strike deals to hold off potential challengers.
4. Opdivo – Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo, a key rival to Merck’s Keytruda, is projected to double its annual income by 2024. Last year the checkpoint inhibitor earned about $5.7 billion. In six years EvaluatePharma predicts annual revenue of $11.2 billion.
5. Eliquis – Another BMS drug, Eliquis, a Factor Xa inhibitor used as an anticlotting treatment, is projected to bring home about $10.5 billion in 2024. While that is a nice annual return, Speights noted that BMS will share those earnings with Pfizer.
The EvaluatePharma predictions are just that, predictions. Any number of things could happen that alter the revenue projections. While Speights expressed some caution for investors using the predictions as a basis to buy stocks, he also predicted that the future will be especially bright for AbbVie, Celgene, and Pfizer.
Baylor Scott & White Health and Select Medical today announced the opening of a fourth inpatient rehabilitation hospital as part of their newly expanded joint venture. The 36-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital is located in Lakeway, Texas, and will operate under the name Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation – Lakeway; the hospital transaction closed June 26. The expansion also includes 16 Select Medical outpatient rehabilitation clinics and six Baylor Scott & White Health outpatient rehabilitation clinics that were acquired by the joint venture on July 1, and will now operate as outpatient departments of Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation – Lakeway.
The joint venture was originally formed in 2011 in North Texas and now includes 88 outpatient rehabilitation clinics, four inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, and home health rehabilitation services, collectively staffed by more than 1,900 employees.
“We’re excited to expand our joint venture and take our first step into the Austin area caring for more patients with the addition of Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation – Lakeway,” said Select Medical Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital Division President Jeffrey Ruskan. “This opening also increases our national footprint as SelectMedical’s twenty sixth inpatient rehabilitation hospital.”
“These two organizations, each with deep expertise, together will elevate the rehabilitation services offered in the Austin area,” said Jay Fox, president, Baylor Scott & White Health – Austin/Round Rock region. “We continue to grow our footprint for those we serve.”
Baylor Scott & White Health has a long-standing history of providing quality medical care to residents and families in Central Texas, including four medical centers and more than 20 clinics in Travis and Williamson counties. Baylor Scott & White Health most recently expanded into Hays County with a primary care clinic, and its newest medical centers are currently being built in Pflugerville and Buda.
Select Medical is one of the nation’s largest providers of specialized post-acute care with a network that supports more than 100 hospitals and 1,600 outpatient rehabilitation clinics with 42,000 employees.
GSK declined to “comment on legal matters faced by another company”.
Purdue said it “vigorously” denied the allegations.
“The Attorney General claims Purdue acted improperly by communicating with prescribers about scientific and medical information that FDA [the US Food and Drug Administration] has expressly considered and continues to approve,” it said.
“We believe it is inappropriate for the Commonwealth [of Massachusetts] to substitute its judgement for the judgement of the regulatory, scientific and medical experts at FDA.”
It added that it shared “the Attorney General’s concern about the opioid crisis” and that its “opioid medications account for less than 2% of total opioid prescriptions”.
The US is in the grip of an opioid addiction crisis.
Opioids are drugs in a group ranging from codeine to heroin.
Prescription opioids are supposed to be used for pain relief.
The Massachusetts lawsuit alleges that Purdue Pharma, the company behind the drug OxyContin, “created the [opioid] epidemic and profited from it through a web of illegal deceit”.
Ms Lewent was named in the lawsuit as one of those “who oversaw and engaged in a deadly, deceptive scheme to sell opioids in Massachusetts.”
Half of the people named in the lawsuit are Sackler family members.
According to Forbes, in 2016 the Sackler family was worth $13bn, helped by sales of OxyContin, a powerful narcotic.
Purdue has paid out millions of dollars to settle charges from federal prosecutors over OxyContin marketing, and makes billions from the sale of the drug, Forbes said.
According to US reports, Minnesota this week launched a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma over the marketing of OxyContin.
Ms Lewent would not be making a comment, a GSK spokesperson said.
GSK said: “It is not appropriate for GSK to comment on legal matters faced by another company”.
Social media companies are deliberately addicting users to their products for financial gain, Silicon Valley insiders have told the BBC’s Panorama programme.
“It’s as if they’re taking behavioural cocaine and just sprinkling it all over your interface And that’s the thing that keeps you like coming back and back and back”, said former Mozilla and Jawbone employee Aza Raskin.
“Behind every screen on your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers that have worked on this thing to try to make it maximally addicting” he added.
In 2006 Mr Raskin, a leading technology engineer himself, designed infinite scroll, one of the features of many apps that is now seen as highly habit forming. At the time, he was working for Humanized – a computer user-interface consultancy.
Aza Raskin says he did not recognise how addictive infinite scroll could be
Infinite scroll allows users to endlessly swipe down through content without clicking.
“If you don’t give your brain time to catch up with your impulses,” Mr Raskin said, “you just keep scrolling.”
He said the innovation kept users looking at their phones far longer than necessary.
Mr Raskin said he had not set out to addict people and now felt guilty about it.
But many designers were driven to create addictive app features by the business models of the big companies that employed them.
“In order to get the next round of funding, in order to get your stock price up, the amount of time that people spend on your app has to go up,” he said.
“So, when you put that much pressure on that one number, you’re going to start trying to invent new ways of getting people to stay hooked.”
Raskin has set his handset to work in a monochrome mode to minimise its apps’ addictive powers
Lost time
A former Facebook employee made a related point.
“Social media is very similar to a slot machine,” said Sandy Parakilas, who tried to stop using the service after he left the company in 2012.
“It literally felt like I was quitting cigarettes.”
During his year and five months at Facebook, he said, others had also recognised this risk.
Parakilas made headlines when he wrote a newspaper column in 2017, saying that Facebook could not be trusted to regulate itself
“There was definitely an awareness of the fact that the product was habit-forming and addictive,” he said.
“You have a business model designed to engage you and get you to basically suck as much time out of your life as possible and then selling that attention to advertisers.”
Facebook told the BBC that its products were designed “to bring people closer to their friends, family, and the things they care about”.
It said that “at no stage does wanting something to be addictive factor into that process”.
Like’s legacy
One of the most alluring aspects of social media for users is “likes”, which can come in the form of the thumbs-up sign, hearts, or retweets.
Leah Pearlman, co-inventor of Facebook’s Like button, said she had become hooked on Facebook because she had begun basing her sense of self-worth on the number of “likes” she had.
Leah Pearlman worked at Facebook between 2006 and 2010
“When I need validation – I go to check Facebook,” she said.
“I’m feeling lonely, ‘Let me check my phone.’ I’m feeling insecure, ‘Let me check my phone.'”
Ms Pearlman said she had tried to stop using Facebook after leaving the company.
“I noticed that I would post something that I used to post and the ‘like’ count would be way lower than it used to be.
“Suddenly, I thought I’m actually also kind of addicted to the feedback.”
Vulnerable teens
Studies indicate there are links between overusing social media and depression, loneliness and a host of other mental problems.
In Britain, teenagers now spend about an average of 18 hours a week on their phones, much of it using social media.
Ms Pearlman believes youngsters who recognise that social media is problematic for them should also consider steering clear of such apps.
“The first things I would say is for those teenagers to step into a different way of being because with a few leaders, it can help others follow,” she said.
Last year Facebook’s founding president, Sean Parker, said publicly that the company set out to consume as much user time as possible.
He claimed it was “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”.
Sean Parker shared his worries about social media last November
“The inventors”, he said, “understood this consciously and we did it anyway.”
But Ms Pearlman said she had not intended the Like button to be addictive.
She also believes that social media use has many benefits for lots of people.
When confronted with Mr Parker’s allegation that the company had effectively sought to hook people from the outset, senior Facebook official Ime Archibong told the BBC it was still looking into the issue.
“We’re working with third-party folks that are looking at habit-forming behaviours – whether it’s on our platform or the internet writ large – and trying to understanding if there are elements that we do believe are bringing harm to people,” he said, “so that we can shore those up and we can invest in making sure those folks are safe over time.”
Recent reports indicate Facebook is working on features to let users see how much time they have spent on its app over the previous seven days and to set daily time limits.
The Panorama programme also explores the use of colour, sounds and unexpected rewards to drive compulsive behaviour.
Twitter declined to comment.
Snap said it was happy to support frequent creative use of its app, Snapchat. But it denied using visual tricks to achieve this and added that it had no desire to increase empty engagement of the product.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’National Institutes of Health has issued a pre-solicitation (NIAID-NOI-18-1914401) for a MiSeq next-generation sequencer system. The NIH intends to award on a sole source basis to Illumina Inc., San Diego, California.
