Planned Parenthood Stealth-Edits Website To Match Stacey Abrams 'Heartbeat' Claim

 Planned Parenthood, founded by eugenicist Margaret Sanger, stealth-edited their website to match comments made by Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who claimed that unborn children do not have detectable heartbeats at six weeks, the Washington Examiner reports.

"There is no such thing as a heartbeat a six weeks," said Abrams. "It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman's body.."

Shortly after, Planned Parenthood altered its website without any acknowledgement to say that under the five to six-week mark of pregnancy "a part of the embryo starts to show cardiac activity. It sounds like a heartbeat on an ultrasound, but it's not a fully-formed heart — it's the earliest stage of the heart developing."

The website had previous said that "a very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop," as National Review's John McCormack noted on Twitter.

As the Post Millennial points out, Mayo Clinic says "A baby's cardiovascular system begins developing five weeks into pregnancy, or three weeks after conception. The hearts starts to beat shortly afterward."

More via the Post Millennial's Libby Emmons:

In 2021, in response to the pro-life laws that were proposed then passed in Texas, that prohibited abortions from taking place after a fetal heartbeat could be detected, a post on Planned Parenthood read "In truth, the 'fetal heartbeat' talking point is misinformation intended to deceive the press and public. As gynecologist Dr. Jennifer Gunter explains, at six weeks of fetal development, there is no 'heart' that beats — instead, there is detectable activity within a four-millimeter wide growth known as a fetal pole."

In 2017, The Atlantic reported that "At six weeks, the 'heartbeat' is not audible; it is visible, a flickering that takes place between 120 and 160 times per minute on a black-and-white playback screen. As cardiac cells develop, they begin to send electrical pulses that cause their neighbors to contract. Scientists can observe the same effect if they culture cells in a petri dish." This article, too, was in response to pro-life laws being written in some states.

Prior to these laws being proposed, there appears to have been broad consensus that fetal heartbeats began somewhere around 5 or 6 weeks post conception, and that the beating heart was visible on ultra-sounds, and could be audible as well.

"If you're wondering when you'll hear baby's heartbeat, fear not," Parents Magazine reports, "The answer may be sooner than you think. In fact, the 'whoosh whoosh' of your little one's little organ is one of the first things doctors look (and listen) for. A fetal heartbeat may first be detected by a vaginal ultrasound as early as 5 1/2 to 6 weeks."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/planned-parenthood-stealth-edits-website-match-stacey-abrams-heartbeat-claim

Newer clot-busting drug improves patient outcomes, lowers cost in treating ischemic stroke

 A newer-generation clot-busting drug called tenecteplase outperforms the traditional treatment for ischemic strokes in several key areas, including better health outcomes and lower costs, according to a new study published today in the American Stroke Association's journal Stroke.

The study was led by a team of neurologists at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin and was carried out over a 15-month period at 10 Ascension Seton hospitals in Central Texas starting in September 2019.

"The Dell Med Neurology Stroke Program was one of the first in the United States to make this change," said Steven Warach, M.D., lead author of the study and director of the Stroke Program for Dell Med and Ascension Texas. "Based on even the earliest results from this study, other experts across the country were convinced and made the switch from alteplase to tenecteplase at their own stroke centers, including at Ascension hospitals nationwide."

Nearly 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke every year. The vast majority of those strokes (about 87%) are ischemic, meaning they occur when a vessel supplying blood to the brain is obstructed by a blood clot. This can result in a corresponding loss of neurologic function.

Both tenecteplase and alteplase are federally approved for use in dissolving clots in blocked heart arteries. But the newer drug tenecteplase is also being used by clinicians, off-label, to treat ischemic strokes, because clinical trials in stroke suggest that it may be at least as good as alteplase and it is easier to administer. Tenecteplase is administered by a single five- to 10-second intravenous injection. The researchers compared its performance with the standard drug for stroke, alteplase, which is injected over 60 minutes.

"When it comes to treating patients with a stroke, every second matters," said Warach, who is also a professor of neurology at Dell Med. "The shorter preparation and injection time with tenecteplase not only eliminates a lot of dosing errors related to alteplase, but it's also more efficient. We were able to deliver the clot-busting medicine more quickly after patients arrived in the emergency department, and for patients who needed to be transferred to another hospital for more advanced care after receiving the clot buster, we were able to initiate the transfer sooner in those treated with tenecteplase."

For patients who come into the emergency department after a stroke, Warach's study found that the "door-to-needle" time -- the time between patients' arrival and the moment they receive treatment -- was on average six minutes quicker with tenecteplase. And for patients who also required a thrombectomy, the surgical removal of a blood clot causing the stroke, tenecteplase sped up the process of transferring the patient to a thrombectomy-capable stroke center by 25 minutes.

Researchers also saw improvements in clinical outcomes for patients given tenecteplase, including:

• A 5% increase in patients who were able to walk independently at time of hospital discharge to home.
• A 4% decrease in occurrences of bad events such as brain hemorrhages, discharge to hospice care or death.

The third major improvement: cost. The research team found that tenecteplase treatment cost the hospitals about $2,500 less than alteplase per patient.

"If this price differential continues, the magnitude of savings could equate to in excess of $150 million every year in the U.S.," said David Paydarfar, M.D., co-author of the study and chair of the Department of Neurology at Dell Med. "This is a great example of value-based care -- better care for less money."

The Dell Med Neurology Stroke Program is now working with colleagues in the state-funded Lone Star Stroke Research Consortium to disseminate its study findings across the state, helping more stroke centers make the switch to tenecteplase. Warach is also working with Lone Star Stroke colleagues to build a statewide database to further confirm their results and answer lingering questions.

"For example, we have such a large Latinx population in Texas. I'd like to know if we're seeing the same advantages from tenecteplase in that community as we are in the larger population," said Warach. "The more data we have, the more questions we can answer."

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Texas at Austin. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Steven J. Warach, Adrienne N. Dula, Truman J. Milling, Samantha Miller, Leigh Allen, Nathan D. Zuck, Collin Miller, Christine A. Jesser, Lotika R. Misra, Jefferson T. Miley, Manzure Mawla, Ming-Chieh Ding, John A. Bertelson, Annie Y. Tsui, John R. Jefferson, Holly M. Davison, Darshan N. Shah, Kent T. Ellington, Matthew M. Padrick, Alan S. Nova, Vivek R. Krishna, Lisa A. Davis, David Paydarfar. Prospective Observational Cohort Study of Tenecteplase Versus Alteplase in Routine Clinical Practice. Stroke, 2022; DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.122.038950

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220923090942.htm

Pfizer CEO tests positive for COVID

 

Pfizer Inc Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said on Saturday he had tested positive for COVID-19.

The chief executive said in a statement that he was feeling well and is symptom free.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/PFIZER-INC-23365019/news/Pfizer-CEO-tests-positive-for-COVID-41855549/

Links between particular brain circuits and different aspects of mental well-being

 Associate Professor Miriam Klein-Flügge and colleagues looked at brain connectivity and mental health data from nearly 500 people. In particular, they looked at the connectivity of the amygdala—a brain region well known for its importance in emotion and reward processing. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to consider seven small subdivisions of the amygdala and their associated networks rather than combining the whole region together as previous studies have done.

The team also adopted a more precise approach to the data on mental well-being, looking at a large group of healthy people and using questionnaires that captured information about well-being in the social, emotional, sleep, and anger domains. This generated more precise data than many investigations which still use broad diagnoses such as depression or anxiety, which involve many different symptoms.

The paper, published in Nature Human Behaviour, shows how the improved level of detail about both brain connectivity and well-being made it possible to characterize the exact brain networks that relate to these distinct aspects of mental health. The brain connections that mattered most for discerning whether an individual was struggling with sleep problems, for example, looked very different from those that carried information about their social well-being.

Associate Professor Miriam Klein-Flügge of the Department of Experimental Psychology, based at the Wellcome Center for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), said, "Understanding how changes in the brain relate to changes in well-being is an important step in the journey towards more targeted mental health treatments."

"We looked at the brain in much finer subdivisions than previous research, which more closely resembles how the brain is organized, and our findings indicate that it may one day be possible to develop very precise and non-invasive ways to target specific areas of the brain, making future treatments much more refined."

The researchers also found that the nature of the identified brain networks differed. For example, they discovered that connectivity in the evolutionarily older subcortical circuits was related most strongly to the tendency to experience negative emotions, while connectivity of the amygdala with both newer cortical and older subcortical circuits clearly contributed to social well-being.

The findings indicate the potential benefit of considering mental well-being and the involved brain networks at a finer scale than before—a scale that more closely matches the brain's functional organization. Although more research is needed, in the future it might be possible to target treatments to the brain circuits most relevant for an individual's key symptoms. This possibility is becoming more tangible with current progress in non-invasive deep brain stimulation methods such as ultrasound, for example.

The paper, "Relationship between nuclei-specific amygdala connectivity and mental health dimensions in humans," is published in Nature Human Behaviour.

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Dissociation between connectivity of social brain network and real-world social network in people with social anhedonia

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More information: Miriam C. Klein-Flügge et al, Relationship between nuclei-specific amygdala connectivity and mental health dimensions in humans, Nature Human Behaviour (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01434-3

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-reveals-relationship-brain-circuits-aspects.html

COVID-19 tied to rise in new diagnoses of type 1 diabetes in youth, by as much as 72%

 Children who were infected with COVID-19 show a substantially higher risk of developing type 1 diabetes (T1D), according to a new study that analyzed electronic health records of more than 1 million patients ages 18 and younger.

In a study published today in the journal JAMA Network Open, researchers at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine report that children and adolescents who contracted COVID-19 were more prone to developing T1D in the six months following their COVID diagnosis.

The findings showed a 72% increase in new diagnoses of T1D in COVID-19 patients 18 years old and younger—although the research emphasized that it is unclear whether COVID-19 triggers new onset of T1D.

About 187,000 children and adolescents younger than 20 live with T1D nationally, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Type 1 diabetes is considered an autoimmune disease," said Pamela Davis, Distinguished University Professor and The Arline H. and Curtis F. Garvin Research Professor at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, a study corresponding author. "It occurs mostly because the body's immune defenses attack the cells that produce insulin, thereby stopping insulin production and causing the disease. COVID has been suggested to increase autoimmune responses, and our present finding reinforces that suggestion."

The team analyzed the de-identified electronic health records of nearly 1.1 million patients age 18 years and younger in the United States and 13 other countries diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 infection between March 2020 and December 2021 and also those diagnosed with a non-COVID-related respiratory infection during that same period.

The study population was further divided into two groups: patients up to age 9 years and those age 10–18 years. After careful statistical matching to account for age, demographics and family history of diabetes, there were 285,628 in each group for a total of 571,256 patients.

Study findings

The research team found that among the more than 571,000 pediatric patients:

• Within six months of SARS-CoV2 infection, 123 patients (0.043%) had received a new diagnosis of T1D, compared to 72 patients (0.025%) who received a new diagnosis following a non-COVID respiratory infection, an increase of 72% in new diagnoses.
• At one, three and six months following infection, the risk of diagnosis of T1D was substantially greater for those infected with SARS-CoV2 compared to those with non-COVID respiratory infections. Similar results were reported with patients in the infant-9-year-old and 10- to 18-year-old age groups.

"Families with high risk of type 1 diabetes in their children should be especially alert for symptoms of diabetes following COVID, and pediatricians should be alert for an influx of new cases of type 1 diabetes, especially since the Omicron variant of COVID spreads so rapidly among children," Davis said. "We may see a substantial increase in this disease in the coming months to years. Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong challenge for those who have it, and increased incidence represents substantial numbers of children afflicted."

Rong Xu, also a corresponding author, professor of Biomedical Informatics at the School of Medicine and director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery, said further research is needed to examine if the increased risk of new onset T1D following SARS-CoV2 infection in pediatric patients will persist, who are vulnerable, and how to treat COVID-19 associated T1D in children.

"We are also investigating possible changes in development of type 2 diabetes in children following SARS-CoV2 infection," Xu said.

T1D is most common in children while type 2 diabetes (T2D) is known as "adult-onset diabetes" and develops over time, often as the patient becomes resistant to the effects of insulin and later, as the pancreas stops making enough insulin, according to the CDC.

The Case Western Reserve research team also included David Kaelber, professor of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, and medical students Ellen Kendall and Veronica Olaker.

Previous COVID-related studies led by the CWRU team have found that the risk factor for Alzheimer's disease increases by 50–80% in older adults who caught COVID and that people with dementia are twice as likely to contract COVID.

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Risk factor for developing Alzheimer's disease increases by 50-80% in older adults who have had COVID-19

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More information: Association of SARS-CoV-2 infection with new onset type 1 diabetes in children, 2020-2021, JAMA Network Open (2022).

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-covid-diabetes-youth.html

Resistance-breathing training found to lower blood pressure

 A team of researchers with members from the University of Colorado, the University of Arizona and Alma College, all in the U.S., has found that resistance-breathing training can lower blood pressure as much as some medicines and/or exercises. The study is published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Hypertension, also known as chronic high blood pressure, can lead to a wide variety of health problems, from loss of vision to strokes and heart attacks. For that reason, doctors take it seriously. Typically, patients are directed to modify their diet and to exercise more. If that does not fix the problem, medications are prescribed. In this new effort, the researchers looked into a new type of therapy to reduce blood pressure levels—resistance-breathing training.

Resistance-breathing training involves breathing in and out of a small device, called, quite naturally, a POWERbreathe, every day for several minutes. The device forces the patient to use their breathing muscles to push and pull air through it, making them stronger. And that, the researchers found, also reduces blood pressure. The device has been in use for several years as a means to assist athletes, singers and people with weak lung muscles.

Several groups of healthy volunteers practiced the training for a few minutes every day for six weeks. Each was breathed in and out with the device 30 times each session. Each of the volunteers had their blood pressure measured before and after the training.

The researchers found a sustained average drop of 9 mmHg in systolic blood pressure (the top number in blood pressure readings)—normal pressure is defined as 120/80. They describe the change as significant, as much as some patients see with medication. They also note that it is similar to changes in many patients who begin an aerobic exercise regimen, such as walking, cycling or running. They suggest such training could be used by patients of all ages who are unable to exercise to lower their blood pressure.

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How to prevent and treat high blood pressure with exercise

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More information: Daniel H. Craighead et al, A multi-trial, retrospective analysis of the antihypertensive effects of high-resistance, low-volume inspiratory muscle strength training, Journal of Applied Physiology (2022). DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00425.2022

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-resistance-breathing-blood-pressure.html

Economic Outlook For Federal Reserve Policy

 The Federal Reserve is in the spotlight again this week with another interest rate hike to try and squash the inflation beast. Prices are rising just over 8% year-over-year, while wages are rising at a 5% annual rate, a losing proposition for workers and consumers. The Fed has been raising interest rates this year to slow spending. These rate hikes have resulted in higher mortgage rates, but general consumer spending remains solid and that’s a problem. The 10 Year Treasury Bond now yields 4%, the cost of financing the federal debt is rising. The cost of small business loans has tracked that rate for 48 years. Historically low now due to the 0% rate policy which is being abandoned, owners paid an average of 19% for their short-term loans in the early 1980s. Now the rates are 4%-5%, but rising as the Fed raises its rate. So far, the percent of owners complaining that they didn’t get all the credit they wanted and the percent reporting credit as their top business problem are historically low. But that is likely to change as rates rise and the Fed stops buying Treasury bonds.

Small business owners aren’t very confident that these issues will be successfully resolved anytime soon. Asked about business conditions six months out, only 8% said “better”, while 56% said “worse”, among the weakest readings in survey history (48 years). Expected sales are similarly glum, with 20% expected higher real sales volumes, 40% expecting lower. Only 4% thought that the current period was a good time to expand substantially. In 2018, as high as 36% thought so. Recalling that small businesses produce about half of our GDP and employ about as large a share of our workforce, this is not very promising for the rest of the year.

From an investor perspective, if one can earn 4% with no risk of default by lending money to the government, lending money to finance small business expansion must provide a much higher return to compensate for a higher risk of a default on the loan (and similar loans). And, an investment project must provide a much higher return on the money invested (cost reductions, higher sales, etc.). A project that yielded a 5% return might be worth financing with a 4% bank loan, but not a 6% loan. Higher interest rates reduce the number of profitable investment options. And for consumers, the cost of financing large purchases (cars, houses, etc.) also rises, slowing spending.

So, inflation is the top business problem faced by small businesses today. Close second goes to the shortage of qualified workers, as job openings and hiring plans are still historically high (consumer spending has not collapsed). Fed policy raising interest rates will cool spending in many sectors, and consumer spending will fall (that’s the goal), especially as unemployment begins to rise. That’s the economic outlook for the next 12 months.

William Dunkelberg is Chief Economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, where he focuses on entrepreneurship, small business, consumer behavior and the economy. He is also Professor Emeritus at Temple University.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamdunkelberg/2022/09/23/the-economic-outlook-for-federal-reserve-policy/