Mike Davis: Jim Jordan Has To Step Up Immediately

 "Article III Project" founder Mike Davis calls for Rep. Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary and "Weaponization Of Government" Committees to take action to investigate people bringing criminal cases against Donald Trump

"This is a criminal conspiracy. Let's start bringing in these witnesses and their documents, get them down on paper with staff depositions," Davis said during a conversation with Steve Bannon on "War Room."

"This judge is going to put Trump in prison if he can. And this is why Jim Jordan and this Weaponization Committee need to step up immediately with aggressive subpoenas, with staff depositions, with public hearings -- go on offense," he urged. "So the House Republicans, the Weaponization Committee must step up, what the hell did they set up this committee to do if they're not stepping up right now?"

MIKE DAVIS: I have not heard any indication whatsoever that Jim Jordan is hamstrung by the prior Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, or the current Speaker Mike Johnson on his investigation. He has full authority under the Judiciary Committee and the Weaponization Committee to move forward and move forward fast. So let's just put that on the table right now.

What Jim Jordan needs to be doing is issuing subpoenas immediately, immediately for both documents and for witnesses. And you call in these witnesses to staff depositions and you should be having these staff depositions every day or every other day. And so you bring in these key players and figure out what the hell is going on.

This is obviously a conspiracy with the Biden White House. You had Matthew Colangelo going from the Biden Justice Department to Bragg's office to bring this case that passed over by the prior Manhattan DA, the Manhattan US attorney, the Federal Election Commission, and Bragg himself until Colangelo went to the Manhattan DA's office to bring this zombie case, to resurrect the zombie case.

You had Nathan Wade billing 16 hours for his meetings with the Biden White House, including the White House counsel before Fani Willis brought her indictment. You had Jonathan Su and Jay Brat orchestrating the Mar-a-Lago rate, right? This is a criminal conspiracy. Let's start bringing in these witnesses and their documents, get them down on paper with staff depositions.

Let them try to plead the Fifth Amendment, let them try to claim executive privilege, bring them in and make them do this right? And then fight it in court. We need to be more aggressive.

Again, we're in week four of this criminal trial. This Judge Juan Merchan donated to Biden. His adult daughter, Lauren, has raised tens of millions of dollars off this criminal prosecution.

When Trump raises this evidence of bias, bias that even a former federal Clinton judge in the Southern District of New York said on Kaitlan Collins' show on April 5th on CNN that this required Merchan's recusal. How did Merchan respond? He expanded this illegal, unconstitutional gag order on Trump. So he can't even talk about this. And now he's threatening to throw Trump in prison.

This judge is going to put Trump in prison if he can. And this is why Jim Jordan and this Weaponization Committee need to step up immediately with aggressive subpoenas, with staff depositions, with public hearings -- go on offense. It's a zero-sum game. If we're on offense, they're on defense and vice versa.

STEVE BANNON: Your point you're trying to make is that [the House] Judiciary [Comnmittee] is fully empowered by kind of mandate to go do something like this. They don't need to get signed off, so they can go do everything you just said the subpoenas, the documents, subpoenas for documents, for testimony to do under oath, videotaped depositions, all of it. Correct?

DAVIS: Yes. I would say to Jim Jordan, I'll go volunteer for you if you need help. Like, let's get moving on this. We are in week four of this criminal prosecution, they're going to put Trump in prison if they can. This judge is already threatening this. This is illegal lawfare and election interference by these Democrats. This is a conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241.

It's a very serious civil rights felony that Biden, his White House, including his White House Counsel, his Justice Department, including Garland and Colangelo. Jonathan Su in the White House Counsel's Office, these Democrat DAs like, you know, like Alvin Bragg and Fannie Willis and her dumb boyfriend, Nathan Wade and Big Tish James in New York and the Arizona Attorney General. This is a criminal conspiracy.

They timed this lawfare, these indictments and these civil prosecutions, to go after Trump during the election season to interfere in the election. And there are outside actors too that are part of this conspiracy. People like Andrew Weissman, right? And so the House Republicans, the Weaponization Committee must step up, what the hell did they set up this committee to do if they're not stepping up right now?

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/05/06/mike_davis_jim_jordan_has_to_step_up_immediately.html

How To Talk About Election Integrity

 Election administration is like industrial food production. The average person doesn’t really know — or care to know — how the sausage gets made, but he cares very much the moment it smells fishy.

A Morning Consult poll commissioned by the Public Affairs Council last fall found that just 37 percent of Americans believe the 2024 election “will be both honest and open to all eligible voters.” A University of Central Florida exit poll in January found that a third — 33.5 percent — of voters were either “not very” or “not at all” confident the 2024 election would be conducted fairly.

Many Americans instinctively recognize that without free and fair elections, our representative government and the freedoms it guarantees are jeopardized. And yet, start talking with your neighbors about the nuances of election law and administration (or just mention the word “audit” or “provisional ballot”) and their eyes probably glaze over.

Some are terrified of being slapped with the idiotic but intimidating smear of “election denier.” The corporate media have done their best to elevate the small minority of outlandish conversations about election security while pretending sincere and articulate concerns don’t exist.

But you don’t have to be a legal expert to understand the most fundamental things about what makes elections free and secure. If you can articulate these five basic points, you’re already way ahead of the majority of corporate media.

Chaos Is Bad

Confusion creates opportunities for both intentional and unintentional wrongdoing. Lax policies that make it more likely election officials don’t know who a voter is, where he lives, whether he is eligible to vote, or even whether he has already voted invite chaos and undermine order. Bad actors can more easily take advantage of bad election laws, and innocent Americans can also unknowingly err when the rules aren’t clear and precise.

When ballot traffickers dump piles of ballots they’ve supposedly collected from individual voters into unsupervised ballot boxes, it complicates each ballot’s chain of custody. When voter registration forms are automatically and indiscriminately mailed, including to people who aren’t eligible to vote, it creates room for error or misuse. When voter rolls are bloated and never cleaned, it makes elections messier and therefore less secure.

Illegitimate Votes Cancel Legal Votes

If the right to vote is sacred, that surely includes a voter’s right to know his vote will count. But when laws are bent or relaxed to allow votes that shouldn’t be counted, those votes dilute the votes of legal Americans.

Do you think a foreign national who lies on his voter registration form should be able to cancel out your vote? How about a person who lives in a different state but used the address of a mail-forwarding service in your state to cancel out your vote for your local school board? Or a vote that a nursing home employee cast “for” a mentally incapacitated resident?

You don’t really care about voting rights if you don’t see a problem with the votes of eligible Americans being canceled out.

If Some Vote Is Going to Cancel Yours, He Should Verify Eligible

To avoid these illegitimate votes, some sort of verification process is required. Because people often lie, documentary evidence is generally the best way to prove a person really is who he says he is. That’s why voter ID is popular.

Each vote ultimately has the potential to affect how you are governed. If enough of your neighbors vote to raise your taxes, your tax bill goes up. If enough of your neighbors vote to criminalize jaywalking, your rogue street-crossing habits can get you slapped with a fine or even thrown in jail. Anyone who wants this kind of power over you should be able to comply with common-sense provisions that require him to show who he is, where he lives, and that both of those factors make him eligible to vote.

No One Else Should Be Responsible for Your Act of Self-Governance

There was a time when voters went to their polling place on Election Day, received a ballot, filled it out with a pen, and turned it in. These voters didn’t worry that their ballots might get lost, stolen, or delayed in the mail, or rejected for a missing signature or date. They didn’t worry about a ballot in their name that they never requested being automatically sent to whatever new resident might now live at their old address. They didn’t entrust their ballots to political operatives who go house-to-house and collect voters’ ballots by the bundle.

This process also required voters to take some kind of responsibility for their roles in governing themselves. You had to be invested enough that you remembered to vote and got to the polls (or requested an absentee ballot). You might even have had to register to vote instead of being registered automatically. Voting was a more intentional affair than filling out a customer service survey on your phone.

Of course, some voters will be out of town on Election Day and need an absentee ballot, or some may have physical restrictions that keep them from heading to their polling place. There’s nothing wrong with laws accommodating these exceptions. But when the voting system makes third parties more responsible for the casting of your ballot than you are, it cheapens your participation in self-governance.

Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant

When media outlets mock or belittle voters’ sincere concerns about election integrity, you should wonder why they don’t want you asking any questions. When bureaucrats refuse to turn over voter rolls to good government groups, or when political operatives drag private citizens who raise concerns about election administration into court, what are they trying to hide or silence?

When ballot counters force volunteer poll watchers to stand so far away they can’t meaningfully observe tabulation, or allegedly tell them to go home and then secretly start counting ballots again, what is it they don’t want the poll watchers to watch? When people push for unsupervised ballot drop boxes, what behaviors don’t they think need to be supervised?

A good indicator that something is being hidden is the fact that someone is trying to hide it.

Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women's Forum. 

https://thefederalist.com/2024/05/02/how-to-talk-to-your-normie-neighbor-about-election-integrity/

Republicans Attempt Rollback Of Electric Truck Rule

 By John Gallagher of FreightWaves

The Biden administration’s recent final rule setting new carbon emissions standards for truck makers could be overturned if Republicans in Congress get their way.

Senate and House Republicans on Wednesday introduced a resolution of disapproval of the Environmental Protection agency’s Phase 3 greenhouse gas emissions rule for heavy-duty trucks.

Co-authored by Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Rep. Russ Fulcher of Idaho, the resolution invokes the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a legal maneuver created in 1996 that allows Congress to nullify a federal rule.

If a CRA joint resolution of disapproval passes both houses of Congress and is signed by the president — or if Congress overrides a presidential veto — the rule cannot go into effect. If it has already taken effect, it goes out of effect immediately when the resolution is enacted and “shall be treated as though such rule had never taken effect,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

The Phase 3 trucking rule, published in the Federal Register on April 22, takes effect June 21.

“Biden’s latest effort to push electric vehicles is completely out of line and will eliminate consumer choice, grow our reliance on foreign adversaries, directly impact transportation for Idahoans, and have lasting impacts on the U.S. supply chain,” Fulcher said.

“These vehicles consume roughly seven times as much electricity on a single charge as a typical home does in a day and charging centers can require as much power from the electrical grid as a small city. [Charging] infrastructure aside, electric trucks cost roughly twice as much as diesel trucks, and these vehicles are not able to haul nearly as much.”

Trucking praises tactic

In support of the resolution, Ed Gilroy, the American Trucking Associations’ chief advocacy and public affairs officer, said the rule’s post-2030 truck model-year targets are “entirely unachievable” given the state of zero-emission technology and the lack of charging infrastructure.

The resolution “highlights the need for EPA to include the operational realities of trucking in their final regulation.”

Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said small truckers could be “regulated out of existence” if EPA’s rule goes into effect.

“This could have devastating effects on the reliability of America’s supply chain and ultimately on the cost and availability of consumer goods. Local mom and pop trucking businesses would be suffocated by the sheer cost and operational challenges of effectively mandating EV trucks.”

CRA successes rare

According to the Congressional Research Service, the CRA has been used to overturn 20 rules: one in the 107th Congress (2001-2002 under President George W. Bush), 16 in the 115th Congress (2017-2018 under President Donald Trump) and three in the 117th Congress (2021-2022 under President Joe Biden).

The law firm Covington & Burling points out that a unique feature of the CRA is a 60-day “lookback period” that allows next year’s Congress time  to review rules issued near the end of the last Congress. “This means that the administration must finalize and publish certain rules long before Election Day to avoid being eligible for CRA review in the new year,” the law firm noted in recent blog post.

Agency rules submitted to Congress before May 22 likely will not be subject to CRA review by the new Congress in 2025, the law firm noted, because it gives the current Congress enough time to take up the legislation. That would make a rollback of the EPA rule unlikely given that the Senate currently is controlled by Democrats who presumably would vote against the resolution. 

Sullivan, however, is confident that enough Senate Democrats will vote for the resolution.

“Senator [Joe] Manchin [D, W.Va.] is fully supportive, and I think it’s likely we’ll get other Democrats to support this because they’re hearing from their constituents,” Sullivan said at a press conference on Wednesday. “Then we’ll see if Joe Biden vetoes what the vast majority of the members of the House and Senate want.”

Legal challenge remains an option

A CRA is not the only option for those looking to overturn the rule. “Legal action is also a possibility,” OOIDA told FreightWaves, referring to a court challenge which, according to a Clean Air Act requirement, would have to be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In addition, because EPA intended for all the standards finalized in the rule to be entirely separate from each other, based on both the model year and the type of truck, “if a court were to invalidate any one of these elements of the final rule, we intend the remainder of this action to remain effective,” EPA stated in the rule.

“For example, if a reviewing court were to invalidate the MY 2027 standards for [light-heavy duty] vocational vehicles, the other components of the rule, including the other Phase 3 GHG standards, remain fully operable as the remaining components for the rule would remain appropriate and feasible.”

Those opposing the rule can also file a petition asking the EPA administrator to reconsider the rule. Doing so, however, “does not affect the finality of the action for the purposes of judicial review,” EPA states, “nor does it extend the time within which a petition for judicial review must be filed and shall not postpone the effectiveness of such rule or action.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/republicans-attempt-rollback-electric-truck-rule

Some Patients Suffered Psychiatric Issues After Ozempic Initiation

 Some patients who newly started a GLP-1 receptor agonist quickly developed psychiatric symptoms, a few case reports detailed here.

One case involved a female, age 42, with a history of bipolar I disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), morbid obesity, and type 2 diabetes. Because of her psychiatric history, she was deemed not a candidate for bariatric surgery and was started on semaglutide (Ozempic).

Just 3 weeks into semaglutide treatment, the patient suddenly developed behavioral disruptions, protracted nihilistic delusion, and then attempted to self-strangulate, reported Shahan Syed, MD, of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus, New Jersey, at the American Psychiatric Associationopens in a new tab or window (APA) annual meeting.

But after the patient stopped semaglutide, the suicidal ideation and behavior slowly reversed.

"I suspect that we're going to see much more of these sorts of cases, unfortunately, just because of how commonplace the prescribing is of these medications," Syed told MedPage Today. "Even those patients who are prescribed [GLP's] who may not have a [psychiatric] history should be evaluated once a week just to check in on their mood, their sleep, their appetite, and especially their anxiety."

"This is becoming such a popular medication and it has a lot of great effects," he continued. "It works on fat cells primarily, but it also works on muscles. And the brain is essentially all that. Would this be affecting the brain? We don't know."

A slew of reports just like this case have been reported, prompting the FDA and European Medicines Agency (EMA) to look into the link between GLP's and suicidality. But just last month, the EMA issued its final conclusionopens in a new tab or window following a 9-month review of reports and data, clearing this popular class of agents of having a causal link with suicidal thoughts. The FDA is still currently reviewing the issueopens in a new tab or window, but released its preliminary evaluation in January saying these drugs "likely" don't cause suicidality.

Agents in the GLP-1 agonist class include exenatide (Byetta, Bydureon BCise), liraglutide (Victoza), dulaglutide (Trulicity), lixisenatide (Adlyxin), semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy), and tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound), a dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist. These agents carry indications for treating type 2 diabetes, obesity, or both.

Though there isn't one currently, Syed said he thinks these agents should carry a boxed warning for bipolar disorder. He also said clinicians should prescribe these agents ultimately on a case-by-case basis.

"I would really like all healthcare providers -- irrespective of psychiatry -- neurology, endocrine, to do a thorough family history and psychiatric history," Syed advised.

"This particular patient escalated quickly and within 2 to 3 weeks she was having hypomanic-type symptoms: irritability, mood lability, sleep disturbances, she wasn't sleeping for about 2 to 3 days," he explained. "That resulted in [what] could be akathisia, could be restlessness, but subsequently anxiety is the biggest factor that tips us over the edge doing something impulsive, which this patient particularly did."

This wasn't the only case report from the meeting linking GLP's with psychiatric behaviors.

A male patient, age 72, who was previously described as "highly functional" was started on semaglutide for type 2 diabetes, explained Jodie Nghiem, MD/MBA candidate at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. In addition to diabetes, he also had a history significant for depression, normal pressure hydrocephalus status post ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VPS), prolactinoma on cabergoline, and hypothyroidism.

But 6 weeks into semaglutide treatment, his wife noticed a drastic change in his behavior -- described as manic. This involved a sudden swing towards goal-directed activities like cleaning house and an "almost nihilistic delusion" that neighbors were dead.

"[It was] just very different from his baseline activity," Nghiem told MedPage Today. "He was admitted for the thought of encephalitis because it was so acute of a change."

But his hospital work-up was notable for normal prolactin, thyroid hormone, with functioning VPS, and unremarkable autoimmune panel. A primary psychiatric disorder like psychosis or mania was also deemed unlikely because of the patient's age, though he was ultimately discharged from the hospital on an antipsychotic.

Nghiem echoed a similar sentiment as Syed, agreeing that as GLP-1 receptor agonists continue to grow in popularity, that healthcare providers across all specialties should be aware of potential adverse effects. Providers should also be aware of any patient-specific factors, like age in this case, that may make patients more vulnerable to adverse effects, she suggested.

Disclosures

Syed and Nghiem disclosed no relationships with industry.

Primary Source

American Psychiatric Association

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowKakarlapudi R, et al "Semaglutide-induced suicidal ideation in a patient with psychiatric comorbidities: a case report" APA 2024; Poster P03-006.

Secondary Source

American Psychiatric Association

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowNghiem J, et al "Metabolic mania: a case report of Ozempic-induced psychosis and literature review of the neuropsychiatric side effects of GLP-1 agonists" APA 2024; Poster P05-013.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/apa/109972

'With Help From AI, Randy Travis Got His Voice Back After Debilitating Stroke'

 With some help from artificial intelligence (AI), country music star Randy Travis, celebrated for his timeless hits like "Forever and Ever, Amen" and "I Told You So," has his voice back.

In July 2013, Travis was hospitalized with viral cardiomyopathyopens in a new tab or window, a virus that attacks the heart, and later suffered a strokeopens in a new tab or window. The Country Music Hall of Famer had to relearn how to walk, spell, and read in the years that followedopens in a new tab or window. A condition called aphasiaopens in a new tab or window limits his ability to speak -- it's why his wife Mary Travis assists him in interviews. It's also why he hasn't released new music in over a decade, until now.

"Where That Came Fromopens in a new tab or window," which released Friday, is a rich acoustic ballad amplified by Travis' immediately recognizable, soulful vocal tone.

Cris Lacy, Warner Music Nashville co-president, approached Randy and Mary Travis and asked: "'What if we could take Randy's voice and recreate it using AI?,'" Mary Travis told the Associated Press over Zoom last week, Randy smiling in agreement right next to her. "Well, we were all over that, so we were so excited."

"All I ever wanted since the day of a stroke was to hear that voice again."

Lacy tapped developers in London to create a proprietary AI model to begin the process. The result was two models: One with 12 vocal stems (or song samples), and another with 42 stems collected across Travis' career -- from 1985 to 2013, says Kyle Lehning, Travis' longtime producer. Lacy and Lehning chose to use "Where That Came From," a song written by Scotty Emerick and John Scott Sherrill that Lehning co-produced and held on to for years. He believed it could best articulate the humanity of Travis' idiosyncratic vocal style.

"I never even thought about another song," Lehning said.

Once he input the demo vocal (sung by James Dupree) into the AI models, "it took about five minutes to analyze," says Lehning. "I really wish somebody had been here with a camera because I was the first person to hear it. And it was stunning, to me, how good it was sort of right off the bat. It's hard to put an equation around it, but it was probably 70, 75% what you hear now."

"There were certain aspects of it that were not authentic to Randy's performance," he said, so he began to edit and build on the recording with engineer Casey Wood, who also worked closely with Travis over a few decades.

The pair cherrypicked from the two models, and made alterations to things like vibrato speed, or slowing and relaxing phrases. "Randy is a laid-back singer," Lehning says. "Randy, in my opinion, had an old soul quality to his voice. That's one of the things that made him unique, but also, somehow familiar."

His vocal performance on "Where That Came From" had to reflect that fact.

"We were able to just improve on it," Lehning says of the AI recording. "It was emotional, and it's still emotional."

Mary Travis says the "human element," and "the people that are involved" in this project, separate it from more nefarious uses of AI in music.

"Randy, I remember watching him when he first heard the song after it was completed. It was beautiful because at first, he was surprised, and then he was very pensive, and he was listening and studying," she said. "And then he put his head down and his eyes were a little watery. I think he went through every emotion there was, in those three minutes of just hearing his voice again."

Lacy agrees. "The beauty of this is, you know, we're doing it with a voice that the world knows and has heard and has been comforted by," she says. "But I think, just on human terms, it's a very real need. And it's a big loss when you lose the voice of someone that you were connected to, and the ability to have it back is a beautiful gift."

They also hope that this song will work to educate people on the good that AI can do -- not the fraudulent activities that so frequently make headlines. "We're hoping that maybe we can set a standard," Mary Travis says, where credit is given where credit is due -- and artists have control over their voice and work.

Last month, over 200 artists signed an open letteropens in a new tab or window submitted by the Artist Rights Alliance non-profit, calling on AI tech companies, developers, platforms, digital music services, and platforms to stop using AI "to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists." Artists who co-signed included Stevie Wonder, Miranda Lambert, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Peter Frampton, Katy Perry, Smokey Robinson, and J Balvin.

So, now that "Where That Came From" is here, will there be more original Randy Travis songs in the future?

"There may be others," says Mary Travis. "We'll see where this goes. This is such a foreign territory. There's likely more on the horizon."

"We do have other tracks," says Lacy, but Warner Music is being selective. "This isn't a stunt, and it's not a parlor trick," she added. "It was important to have a song worthy of him."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/strokes/109976

Early Assessment Fairly Accurate for Flagging Cerebral Palsy

 Early neurodevelopmental assessments effectively identified infants with cerebral palsy and predicted its severity in extremely small or preterm infants and those with encephalopathy, according to a study adding real-world support to prior findings.

Among 116 infants, the accuracy of diagnosis of cerebral palsy or high risk of cerebral palsy at a corrected age of 3 to 4 months was 85% (95% CI 77-91) overall and 81% (95% CI 73-88) for predicting moderate-to-severe cases when compared with results at 24 to 36 months' corrected age, reported Abdul Razak, MD, of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues.

However, when it came to predicting cognitive impairment, the accuracy of early neurodevelopmental assessments was "notably limited," ranging from 44% to 60%, the authors wrote in JAMA Network Openopens in a new tab or window. The findings were also presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies meetingopens in a new tab or window in Toronto.

Prior studies using observational data had supported feasibility of early neurodevelopmental assessments for diagnosing cerebral palsy at an early stage, but they hadn't directly compared early data with long-term outcomes, Razak and colleagues noted.

The real-world setting was important, Razak told MedPage Today in an email. "Our study supports adaptability of these assessments in clinical practice worldwide."

"Incorporating these assessments to pick up cerebral palsy as early as 3 to 4 months is a game changer, as we may be able to change the neurodevelopmental trajectories of these babies," he said.

Diagnosis of early cerebral palsy or high risk of cerebral palsy -- based on absent fidgety movements, a low score on the Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination (HINE <57), and medical neurological examination -- demonstrated a sensitivity of 92% (95% CI 63-99) and specificity of 84% (95% CI 76-90) for predicting cerebral palsy, Razak and colleagues reported.

The criteria further demonstrated 100% (95% CI 59-100) sensitivity and 80% (95% CI 72-87) specificity for predicting moderate-to-severe cerebral palsy.

Findings also included that the absence of fidgety movements showed an 81% (95% CI 73-88) accuracy in predicting cerebral palsy and that HINE scores "displayed good discriminatory power," with an area under the curve of 0.88 (95% CI 0.79-0.97) for predicting cerebral palsy, Razak and colleagues noted.

As for predicting cognitive impairment and its severity, "[a]lthough the specificity of certain assessments showed modest values, ranging between 76% and 80%, the sensitivity and positive and negative predictive values demonstrated suboptimal performance," Razak and colleagues wrote. The HINE score also "displayed limited discriminatory power" in predicting cognitive impairment, with an area under the curve of 0.62 (95% CI 0.51-0.73), they noted.

For neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI), early assessment correctly identified all infants with cerebral palsy but also yielded false positives, resulting in a lower accuracy of 48% (95% CI 38-57). Predictive accuracy of various early neurodevelopmental assessments was "notably low," ranging from 31% to 59% for predicting NDI and its severity, the researchers added. Sensitivity and negative predictive values were "suboptimal" across the different assessments, while the positive predictive value and specificity were "modest."

Razak and colleagues conducted their study at Monash Children's Hospital in Melbourne, assessing all extremely preterm infants born at less than 28 weeks' gestation, extremely low birth weight infants of less than 1,000 g, and term encephalopathic infants who received therapeutic hypothermia from January 1, 2019, through July 30, 2021.

Early neurodevelopmental assessments were conducted at a median of 13 weeks of age, and long-term neurodevelopmental outcome evaluations were conducted at a median of 33 months of age.

Overall, the prevalence of cerebral palsy was 11%, with 8% occurring among preterm infants and 31% among term infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).

The prevalence of cognitive impairment was 64%, with 60% observed among preterm infants and 87% among term infants with HIE.

Limitations of the study included its relatively small size and that data were sourced from a single center, Razak and colleagues noted.

Also, because most of the infants studied were born extremely preterm, "findings may not be directly applicable to a more diverse range of infant populations," they added.

Disclosures

Razak is supported by a doctoral scholarship from Monash University and the Lions Cord Blood Foundation.

Co-authors reported receiving grants from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia, Lions Cord Blood Foundation, Australian Medical Research Future Fund, and Monash Health Foundation as well as personal fees from GE Australia outside the submitted work.

Primary Source

JAMA Network Open

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowRazak A, et al "Early neurodevelopmental assessments for predicting long-term outcomes in infants at high risk of cerebral palsy" JAMA Netw Open 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.13550.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/pas/109987

Sensus Healthcare Sale of First SRT-100 Vision™ System

 Sensus Healthcare, Inc. (Nasdaq: SRTS), a medical device company specializing in highly effective, non-invasive treatments for both oncological and non-oncological conditions, announces the sale of the first SRT-100 Vision™ (IG-SRT) system in Asia, to Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in Taiwan.  The hospital, which has more than 1,000 beds, is one of the largest private hospitals in Taiwan.

Far Eastern Memorial Hospital also plans to publish research on possible new indications for the SRT-100 Vision (IG-SRT), which may be instrumental in the support of label expansion beyond non-melanoma skin cancer and keloids worldwide.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/05/06/2875786/0/en/Sensus-Healthcare-Announces-Sale-of-First-SRT-100-Vision-System-to-Asia.html