England's National Health Service has drafted new guidelines for treating transgender youth that would call for local authorities to be alerted in some cases where young people have obtained puberty blockers and hormone therapies on the private market, according to a copy of the guidelines reviewed by Reuters.
The guidelines are part of a wide-ranging review of treatment for young transgender people seeking NHS care. The current approach, which can include medical interventions, has been criticised by some practitioners who said it rushed people onto medication, and by families who complained the service could not manage fast-growing demand.
Asked about the draft by Reuters, the NHS declined to comment on its contents. The service has said previously it would soon share its preliminary guidelines with the public to allow for feedback and revision. It says the changes are necessary to provide timely care for young people who seek medical help, while ensuring that the system is robust and treatments safe.
The draft prepared by NHS England seen by Reuters stressed that "there is now an urgent need" to finalise the guidelines and help set up new services for transgender youth "as quickly as possible." It was briefly uploaded to the NHS England website at the end of September, with plans for a 45-day public comment period, but later removed. An NHS spokesperson declined to say why, or when a finalised and fuller version will be made public.
In England, a years-long wait for gender care has led some young people to seek medications through unregulated online pharmacies, or privately. These include therapies that block the onset of puberty or hormone treatments for older people, which are used to help transgender adolescents develop secondary sexual characteristics aligned with their gender identity. GenderGP, a private provider of treatments for transgender patients, told Reuters it has prescribed such medications to hundreds of youth.
A new study by researchers in Ireland has concluded that babies born during the COVID lockdown were less likely to be able to speak before their first birthday than children born previously.
The study, led by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, found that children were less likely to be able to reach so called development milestones including waving ‘goodbye’ and pointing at objects.
The study, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, focused on 309 babies born in the first three months of lockdown in Ireland between March and May 2020, and tested for ten behavioural milestones at their first birthday, with results then compared against 2000 babies born between the years 2008 and 2011.
Researchers believe that face masks limited the children’s ability to see people’s mouths and become accustomed to facial expressions, leading to enhanced difficulties learning to speak.
In addition, prohibiting relatives and friends of the parents from visiting the children is thought to have contributed to the stunting of social development.
“Lockdown measures may have reduced the repertoire of language heard and the sight of unmasked faces speaking to [infants],” a statement from researchers reads.
It continues, “It may also have curtailed opportunities to encounter new items of interest, which might prompt pointing, and the frequency of social contacts to enable them to learn to wave bye-bye.”
“They were still more likely to be crawling… which might be because they were more likely to have spent more time at home on the ground rather than out of the home in cars and strollers,” the statement also noted.
While the study was observational only, it adds to other evidence that lockdowns and masking in particular have had massively detrimental impacts upon children.
A study in Britain found that many children entering elementary school have severely underdeveloped verbal skills, with many are unable to even say their own name.
According to speech therapists, mask wearing has caused a 364% increase in patient referrals of babies and toddlers.
Another study revealed how mean IQ scores of young children born during the pandemic have tumbled by as much as 22 points while verbal, motor and cognitive performance have all suffered as a result of lockdown.
“Children turning two years old will have been surrounded by adults wearing masks for their whole lives and have therefore been unable to see lip movements or mouth shapes as regularly,” states the report.
Another study out of Germany which found that the reading ability of children has plummeted compared to pre-COVID times thanks to lockdown policies that led to the closure of schools.
Johns Hopkins University concluded that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
Yet, many are advocating bringing back restrictions:
As we highlighted last week, a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report highlights a record number of children are also now being hospitalised with common colds due to weakened immune systems.
The CDC data is consistent with research by scientists at Yale who warned that it is not normal to see children with combinations of seven common viruses, including adenovirus, rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus, influenza and parainfluenza, as well as COVID-19.
As we previously highlighted, there has also been a global outbreak of hepatitis cases in children, with the media asserting the cause is “unknown.”
Biden administration officials have continuously pushed for children to keep wearing masks in schools, and there are still hordes of hypochondriacs forcing their children to do so, despite COVID posing virtually no risk to the health of children in normal circumstances.
Those who have continually pushed masking on children are the often the first ones to discard the masks themselves when they think no one is watching:
Germany's Bayer said on Friday it plans to legally challenge a jury verdict awarding $275 million to a group of people claiming they suffered from exposure to PCB, a chemical that Bayer's Monsanto business produced until 1977.
Bloomberg and other media outlets on Thursday reported the verdict before the King County Superior Court in the U.S. state of Washington in favour of 13 plaintiffs who blame their illnesses on exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, at the Sky Valley School in Monroe County.
"We respectfully disagree with the divided jury verdict reached in this 13-plaintiff case and plan to pursue post-trial motions and appeals based on multiple errors and the lack of proof at trial," Germany's Bayer said in a statement.
"The undisputed evidence in this case does not support the conclusions that plaintiffs were exposed to unsafe levels of PCBs at the Sky Valley Education Center or that these exposures are responsible for their alleged health issues" it added.
While Monsanto's weedkiller Roundup has been a far larger litigation burden for Bayer, the diversified healthcare and agriculture company has also been trying to resolve lawsuits related to PCBs. The chemical was used in commercial products until Monsanto voluntarily ended production in 1977.
Verona Pharma plc (Nasdaq: VRNA) (“Verona Pharma” or the “Company”), announces additional exacerbation* subgroup analyses from the Phase 3 ENHANCE-2 (“Ensifentrine as a Novel inHAled Nebulized COPD thErapy”) trial in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (“COPD”). Top-line results from the trial are available on Verona Pharma’s websitehere.
As previously reported, in the overall study population, ensifentrine demonstrated a 42% reduction in the rate of moderate to severe exacerbations over 24 weeks compared to those receiving placebo (p=0.0109). Results of the subgroup analyses confirmed positive effects consistent with the exacerbation reduction observed in the overall population across all subgroups analyzed over 24 weeks. ENHANCE-2 was not powered for exacerbation rate in subgroups.
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) posted better-than-expected third quarter earnings Friday, powered once again by double-digit gains from its Optum division, while boosting its full-year profit forecast.
UnitedHealth said adjusted profits for the three months ended in September came in at $5.79 a share, up 28% from the same period last year and 37 cents ahead of the Wall Street consensus forecast.
Group revenues, UnitedHealth said, rose 11.8% to $80.9 billion, again topping analysts' estimates of an $80.5 billion tally, while Optum revenue rose 17.1% to $46.6 billion.
Looking into the final months of the year UnitedHealth forecast adjusted earnings between $21.85 to $22.05 per share, up from a prior forecast of $21.40 to $21.90 per share.
“The strength of our performance reflects the diligence and determination of our colleagues to improve people’s experience across the health care system and make high-quality care simpler, more accessible and more affordable,” said CEO Andrew Witty.
UnitedHealth shares, a Dow component, were marked 0.32% higher in pre-market trading immediately following the earnings release to indicate an opening bell price of $511.55 each, a move that would trim the stock's six-month decline to around 4.4%.
Last month, Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a request from the Department of Justice to block UnitedHealth's proposed merger with healthcare technology group Change Healthcare (CHNG) .
The DoJ had raised antitrust concerns over the $8 billion deal, first unveiled in January, and argued that it would give UnitedHealth access to healthcare plans offered by rival such as Humana (HUM) and Anthem, while allowing the combined group to service around 95% of the top health insurance companies in the country.
Judge Nichols, however, allowed the deal go ahead, provided UnitedHealth completes the agreed $2.2 billion sale of Change's claims edit subsidiary, ClaimsXten, to a private equity group.
Most patients with COVID-19 who have lingering symptoms at 12 months are likely to still have symptoms at 18 months, new data suggest.
The findings are drawn from a large study of 33,281 people in Scotland who tested positive for the coronavirus. Most of the results are in line with those from earlier, smaller studies.
Among a subset of 197 survivors of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections who completed surveys at 12 months and 18 months, most reported lingering symptoms at both time points, researchers reported in Nature Communications.
Rates of no recovery at 12 months were 11% with 51% partial recovery and 39% complete recovery. Rates at 18 months were 11% no recovery, 51% partial and 39% complete.
Asymptomatic infections were not associated with long COVID. But among the 31,486 people with symptomatic infections, nearly half reported incomplete recovery at six to 18 months.
A total of 3,744 participants with symptomatic infections completed questionnaires twice over the following year. At six months, 8% reported no recovery, 47% reported partial recovery, and 45% reported complete recovery. Those rates had barely changed at 12 months, with 8% reporting no recovery, 46% partial recovery and 46% complete recovery.
One in 20 patients with a symptomatic infection reported no recovery at the most recent follow-up, researchers said.
"Our study is important because it adds to our understanding of long COVID in the general population, not just in those people who need to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19," study leader Jill Pell of the University of Glasgow said in a statement.
Long COVID was more likely in patients who had been hospitalized and in those who were older, female, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and with pre-existing health conditions. The most common lingering symptoms included breathlessness, chest pain, palpitations, and confusion and "brain fog."
Vaccination before infection appeared to protect against some long-term symptoms, the researchers also found.
The researchers also surveyed nearly 63,000 individuals with only negative COVID tests, to distinguish between health problems that are due to COVID-19 and health problems that would be expected in the general population.
