Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Snippets from Nature’s past.

Letter to the Editor

Despite meeting a clinical and societal need for snakebite antivenom development, VenomAb folded after four years, propelling co-founder Andreas Laustsen-Kiel to a role that combines entrepreneurship and academia.

As mpox becomes a global health emergency, global health leaders must better coordinate their plans and pharmaceutical companies must be prepared to make vaccines affordable.

The UN wants to put communities at the heart of its data-collection efforts in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. Now governments must step up.

If the European Medicines Agency takes an overly cautious approach to selecting specialists to advise on new medicines, people could be left without treatments.

Sources say the nations are close to a deal, but the looming US presidential election is likely bogging it down.

Rejuvenated eggs were more likely to result in healthy offspring.

The first face transplant to also include an eyeball was a surgical coup — but restoring vision remains a challenge.

Scientists come together for unexpected discoveries and ‘collateral happiness’. Plus, ways to persuade a climate sceptic and how the brain knows whether you should cough or sneeze.

England’s suicide prevention strategy still needs to be backed by sufficient resources, writes Ella Fuller A year has passed since the publication of a new national suicide prevention strategy for England.1 In that time, the political landscape has shifted and we now have a new government in place, but national data on deaths by suicide are still showing worrying trends. As outlined in last year’s

The World Health Organisation says that air pollution contributes to seven to eight million premature deaths a year, but only one person, Ella Kissi-Debrah, has ever had air pollution on their death certificate. She has it on her death certificate because of a long struggle led by her mother, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, supported by doctors and lawyers. On Saturday 7 September, International Day of Clean

“… a range of collective failures in leadership” (page 3) “… a clear lack of accountability and due process.” (page 4) “[T]here is a pervasive lack of trust and confidence in the College’s governance.” (page 4) “The Council is not operating effectively.” (page 4) “When the evidence did not … match the apparent pre-conceived views of those behind the survey [of members], it led to the results being

I agree with Finn and colleagues that the four year undergraduate medical degree will only hinder accessibility for those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.1 A shorter degree would result in more intense hours of study, preventing …

The Cass review of the care of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria was a wake up call.1 Having commissioned several peer reviewed, systematic reviews of evidence, paediatrician Hilary Cass’s team drew on four years’ comprehensive engagement with service users, parents, clinicians, researchers, and advocacy groups, finding that most children’s gender dysphoria in historical cohorts resolves

Finn and colleagues highlight the potential unintended consequences of shortened medical degrees—particularly regarding access to medicine, degree attrition rates, and reduced global recognition of the UK medical degree.1 Of particular concern is “paradoxically rising unemployment.” Increasing medical student and foundation year doctor cohorts, without concomitant increases in senior posts, will exacerbate

Lightning is responsible for over a third of deaths by natural disasters in India. And it disproportionately affects the poorest people, write Majid Alam and Rishabh Jain On the morning of 6 July, 48 year old Leela Devi went to harvest moong beans near her house in Bihar, northeast India. She was struck unconscious by a powerful thunderbolt and despite being rushed by relatives to the nearby government

Reducing the prevalence of obesity requires multifaceted intervention, and system-wide modelling would support a move away from current piecemeal policy making towards an equitable and cost effective strategy, argue Joanna McLaughlin and colleagues Despite longstanding government rhetoric of a commitment to tackling obesity, UK policies have not provided an adequate and coherent response. A 2021 analysis

Analysis of data related to the Ukraine famine of 1932–1933 shows that in utero exposure to famine increases the risk of adult type 2 diabetes by more than twofold.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

As the only ocularist in Uganda, Franklin Wasswa produces customized prosthetic eyes for people who’ve lost their own to injury or disease.

Large-scale evaluation permeates the UK university system, but some countries are rejecting harsh judgements and emphasizing strategic development.

The Pathoplexus database has sequences from Ebola, West Nile virus and another dangerous pathogen.

As wildfires become more frequent and severe, efforts to improve the resilience of forests must be grounded in data and led by Indigenous Peoples.

The engagement-fuelled logic of social media has bequeathed us a world in which what’s trending is a yardstick for what’s true.

A dye that helps to give Doritos their orange colour helps scientists look inside tissues. Plus, the first pictures from NASA’s solar sail and how a loss of bats to disease has knock-on effects for human health.

The pandemic’s origins, the lab leak theory, and the blame game have been in the headlines again. Despite another war of words, we aren’t any closer to a definitive answer as to where the novel coronavirus came from. Mun-Keat Looi asks why “Simply preposterous,” said Anthony Fauci, responding in a US congressional hearing to one more in a long line of allegations that he had caused the covid-19 pandemic

Industry influence still threatens the integrity of healthcare and harms patients “To influence physicians from the bottom up” reads an internal company document published in the late 1990s from the drug manufacturer Parke-Davis.1 This memo, outlining the company’s business strategies for a section of its market, became public through litigation around off-label drug promotion. Among the company’s

Consultant radiologist Jumana Hussain talks to Erin Dean about maintaining her identity and culture while working as a doctor From an early age Jumana Hussain was told, “It doesn’t matter what background you’re from, it doesn’t matter who you are or that you’re a woman, you’re going to go and succeed.” Hussain, who works for Everlight Radiology providing radiology reporting, says that teachers have

BACKGROUND Depemokimab is an ultra-long-acting biologic therapy with enhanced binding affinity for interleukin-5 that may enable effective 6-month dosing intervals. METHODS In these phase 3A, randomized, placebo-controlled replicate trials, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of depemokimab in patients with severe asthma and an eosinophilic phenotype characterized by a high eosinophil count (≥300

ImportanceCatastrophic facial injury with globe loss remains a formidable clinical problem with no previous reports of reconstruction by whole eye or combined whole eye and facial transplant.ObjectiveTo develop a microsurgical strategy for combined whole eye and facial transplant and describe the clinical findings during the first year following transplant.Design, Setting, and ParticipantA 46-year-old

This Viewpoint discusses the findings of a recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report suggesting that current health care delivery and accountability structures perpetuate, rather than reduce, health inequities and details several changes needed to address these structural problems.

ImportanceScabies, bedbug, and body lice infestations are caused by organisms that live on or in the skin, on clothing, or in the environment and commonly cause pruritus and rash. In 2021, approximately 622 million incident cases of scabies occurred globally. Data on bedbug infestations are limited. Body lice prevalence ranges from 4.1% to 35% among persons experiencing homelessness worldwide.ObservationsScabies

Food additives that are “generally recognized as safe” — a determination that can be made by manufacturers — aren’t required to be approved by the FDA. This system could pose a threat to public health.

The aquatic mammals disperse seeds of their favourite foods as they migrate, according to a serendipitous study of their poo.

Hear why a commonly used conservation stat could be harmful

‘Sneeze neurons’ activated by triggers such as pollen or a viral infection send an achoo signal, whereas cough neurons induce a hack.

Study in China finds viruses that could infect people are rampant in farms breeding mink, raccoons and foxes for their fur.

Telling people about the consensus among scientists can help, study finds, but experts think that personal conversations are needed, too.

Some are pivoting to alternative social-media platforms and scrambling to rebuild their networks.

The optimum number of units of blood and the associated number of blood donors required to meet a given population's needs remain undetermined globally. Typically, a whole blood donation rate of ten donations per 1000 population, at a minimum, is necessary to meet a country's blood needs. This rate is attributed to a WHO recommendation that 1% of a given country's population should donate blood to

BACKGROUND Leber congenital amaurosis 1 (LCA1), caused by mutations in GUCY2D, is a rare inherited retinal disease that typically causes blindness in early childhood. The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of ascending doses of ATSN-101, a subretinal AAV5 gene therapy for LCA1. METHODS 15 patients with genetically confirmed biallelic mutations in GUCY2D were included