Diseases And Disorders

"We recently developed a chimeric flavivirus vaccine technology based on the novel insect-specific Binjari virus (BinJV) and used this to generate a chimeric ZIKV vaccine (BinJ/ZIKA-prME) that protected IFNAR-/- dams and fetuses from infection. Herein, we show that a single vaccination of IFNAR-/- mice with unadjuvanted BinJ/ZIKA-prME generated neutralizing antibody responses that were retained for 14 months. At 15 months post vaccination, mice were also completely protected against detectable viremia and substantial body weight loss after challenge with ZIKVPRVABC59. BinJ/ZIKA-prME vaccination thus provided long-term protective immunity without the need for adjuvant or replication of the vaccine in the vaccine recipient, both attractive features for a ZIKV vaccine."

"Zika virus (ZIKV) was discovered in Africa in 1947 and was first detected in Asia in 1966, yet its potential effect on public health was not recognized until the virus caused outbreaks in the Pacific from 2007 to 2015 and began spreading throughout the Americas in 2015. ... The ability of ZIKV to cause congenital defects in fetuses and infants, as exemplified by the microcephaly epidemic in Brazil, is an unprecedented feature in a mosquito-borne viral infection. ... Although transmission of ZIKV has declined in the Americas, outbreaks and infection clusters continue to occur in some regions, such as India and Southeast Asia, where there are large populations of women of childbearing age who are susceptible to the virus."

"The Zika virus protease NS2B-NS3 catalyses the processing of the viral precursor polyprotein as an essential step during viral replication. Since the epidemic Zika virus outbreak in the Americas, several inhibitors of this protease have been reported. Substrate-derived peptides revealed important structural information about the active site, whilst more drug-like small molecules have been discovered as allosteric inhibitors."

"The current Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak is associated with neurological malformations and disorders in neonates. Areas of increased incidence of malformations may overlap with dengue-hyperendemic areas. ZIKV infection is enhanced by antibodies against dengue virus (DENV) in cell culture and inbred mice. Sufficiently powered clinical studies or primate studies addressing the enhancement of fetal ZIKV infection after previous dengue infection are not available. The human placenta is susceptible to ZIKV in vitro, but it is unknown whether antibody-dependent enhancement of ZIKV infection occurs at the placental barrier. Here we studied ZIKV infection in placental tissue in the presence of DENV-immune sera. Explants from the amniochorionic membrane, the chorionic villi, and the maternal decidua were infected with ZIKV in the presence of DENV type 1-, 2-, or 4-immune sera, or controls. Presence of DENV antibodies of any type enhanced the percentage of successful infections of organ explants between 1.42- and 2.67-fold, and led to a faster replication as well as significantly increased virus production. No enhancement was seen with yellow fever or chikungunya virus control sera. Pre-existing DENV antibodies may pose an increased risk of trans-placental ZIKV transmission."

"Acquired brain lesions can alter the anatomical pattern of epileptic susceptibility by selectively lowering or raising seizure thresholds in specific cerebral areas. Reactive seizures induced by nonspecific precipitating factors can have focal features when such lesions exist. For instance, cortical scars are common in alcoholics who have experienced multiple episodes of head trauma. When these scars are not sufficiently epileptogenic to cause spontaneous ictal events, they can generate focal seizures during alcohol withdrawal. These are reactive seizures and should not be considered evidence for a chronic focal epilepsy disorder ... Another common example is the elderly stroke patient with hemiparesis and a systemic toxic or metabolic insult. If the damaged brain has an elevated threshold for seizure generation or perhaps a decreased ability to generate motor manifestations of the seizure, ictal symptoms of a generalized reactive epileptic event can be limited to the side contralateral to the hemiparesis."

"It is important to distinguish dysphagia, which is the abnormal transit of solids and/or liquids, from odynophagia, which is pain during swallowing. As with dysphagia, odynophagia can be due to pain anywhere from the oropharynx to the esophagus. Odynophagia can also present alongside dysphagia, as the causes of dysphagia can also cause pain during swallowing."

"Odynophagia usually occurs during the transit of the bolus and disappears once the swallowed material has left the esophagus. It can be of such intensity that the patient refuses to swallow any solids or liquids and expectorates saliva. On the other hand, odynophagia may be mild in intensity, so that the patient is merely aware of the location of the swallowed bolus. Odynophagia can be due to involvement of the mucosa by reflux, radiation, viral or fungal infection, or can be a manifestation of carcinoma, Schatzki ring and webs, or of a localized ulcer caused by a lodged tablet."

"Tuberculosis of the epiglottis is universally recognized to be the most fatal as well as the most painful laryngeal localizaton of the disease, the odynophagia itself being responsible, in great degree, for the high mortality."

"Epilepsy is one of the most common serious brain conditions, affecting over 70 million people worldwide. Its incidence has a bimodal distribution with the highest risk in infants and older age groups. Progress in genomic technology is exposing the complex genetic architecture of the common types of epilepsy, and is driving a paradigm shift. Epilepsy is a symptom complex with multiple risk factors and a strong genetic predisposition rather than a condition with a single expression and cause. These advances have resulted in the new classification of epileptic seizures and epilepsies. A detailed clinical history and a reliable eyewitness account of a seizure are the cornerstones of the diagnosis. Ancillary investigations can help to determine cause and prognosis. Advances in brain imaging are helping to identify the structural and functional causes and consequences of the epilepsies. Comorbidities are increasingly recognised as important aetiological and prognostic markers."

"... microcephaly is only one possible adverse outcome among a spectrum of conditions that may be part of congenital Zika syndrome. A population-level increase in central nervous system anomalies has been observed in both French Polynesia and Brazil."

"You can't be a one-finger typist and not look at the keyboard. You just can't get oriented. You don't have a home position. And when you watch children who are F/C – facilitated communication – users, they may not be looking at the language board, but the facilitators are not taking their eyes off it. They're fixed on it."

"Anne McDonald could communicate. She proved this beyond dispute in the Supreme Court of Victoria by passing a message that I hadn’t seen in front of the Court’s Senior Master."

"FC is not a valid form of communication. It gives only the illusion of communication and denies people with disabilities access to their human rights of autonomy, self-determination, and freedom of expression."

"The obligation of an investigator into a new technique is to show how it works. With FC, there's this basic assumption of "What can it hurt?" The Storch trial is living proof of how dangerous it is to embrace new science before it has been tested."

"These early studies suggested that FC was susceptible to a somewhat unusual kind of abuse: Allowing others to impose their own wishes, fears, hopes, and agendas on nonspeaking individuals."

"The intensity of animal and human contact is becoming much greater as the world develops. This makes it more likely new diseases will emerge but also modern travel and trade make it much more likely they will spread. [...] We have these outbreaks and the international community flies in but in the case of Ebola the disease went under the radar for four months. It’s really crucial we start to change that and make sure local health care infrastructure is better developed. People on the ground are vital. They are our first line of defence."

"To study whether spillover of SARS-CoV-2 is happening, our team at Tufts is partnering with veterinarians and licensed wildlife rehabilitators across the U.S. to collect samples from and test animals in their care. Through the project, we have tested nearly 300 wild animals from over 20 species. So far, none – from bats to seals to coyotes – have shown any evidence of COVID-19 by swab or antibody tests."

"Social distancing has become the primary strategy to contain the coronavirus outbreak, with countries such as Italy enforcing complete restrictions, and others like India issuing a range of advisories on avoiding non-essential contact, and restricting large gatherings and events. Social media is also abuzz about how to avoid boredom at home. However, there are a variety of occupations, mostly informal, which involve acute social contact and are still running full swing around us. Consider, for instance, auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers, staff in private buses, barbers, janitorial staff, lift operators, traders in wholesale markets, street food vendors, construction workers, loading and unloading workers, sex workers, garment factory workers, and so on. For these workers, social distancing is contradictory to the very nature of the job. Wishing to keep a ‘safe distance’ from people by staying at home would mean losing income, perhaps the job altogether. There are three key dimensions involved – health, income and employment. It is possible for some, such as tech workers, to take health precautions (social distancing), receive income as paid and still be able to retain their jobs. The experiences in informal employment are mixed. Some, such as s or home-based workers, may be able to stay at home and lose income but with some marginal assurance of retaining their jobs. Others may go out and earn, retaining their jobs but risking their health. While tech workers and other white-collar professionals enjoy a ‘win-all’ with health, income and employment, there are large swathes within the informal workforce who face a ‘lose-all’ on all three fronts. Win-alls constitute a small privileged minority of the and would lose little. However, the health-income-employment triple insecurity faced by the lose-alls grows exponentially as they live in densely-populated urban neighbourhoods where diseases spread much faster, generating further income losses and job uncertainties."

"The government’s advisories about restricting social contact are indeed important but such measures are economically risky for so many who face a choice between the devil and the deep-sea. Social distancing is impractical for the tens of millions without social security."

"Every major news event comes drenched in rumours and propaganda. But COVID-19 is “the perfect storm for the diffusion of false rumour and fake news”, says data scientist Walter Quattrociocchi at the Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy. People are spending more time at home, and searching online for answers to an uncertain and rapidly changing situation. “The topic is polarizing, scary, captivating. And it’s really easy for everyone to get information that is consistent with their system of belief,” Quattrociocchi says."

"Efforts to raise the profile of good information, and slap a warning label on the bad, can only go so far, says DiResta. “If people think the WHO is anti-American, or Anthony Fauci is corrupt, or that Bill Gates is evil, then elevating an alternative source doesn’t do much — it just makes people think that platform is colluding with that source,” she says. “The problem isn’t a lack of facts, it’s about what sources people trust.”"

"Wikipedia's main article for Wikipedia, one of the most important (as well as most edited) articles on the project, explains that the ability to lock pages and prevent anonymous public editing on the encyclopedia that anyone can edit was the key to Wikipedia's success in weeding out disinformation on the coronavirus."

"Terrorists – like all criminals – have sought to profit from COVID-19, to make money, strengthen their base and to fuel division."

"You cannot outrun the game clock with this pandemic. This virus will find you and, unfortunately, many of the outcomes are very sad. Look at what's happening right now in the US. We have health care systems around the country, including in my home state of Minnesota, that are hanging on by a thread. We've seen health care systems virtually broken by this pandemic. They just couldn't provide critical care to non-Covid patients."

"In New York, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., the city’s health department put out a set of guidelines entitled, “Sex and coronavirus disease.” One piece of official advice: “You are your safest sex partner.”"

"“We started to see retail workers get sick and put themselves on self-quarantine,” said Kim Cordova, president of the UFCW Local 7 in Colorado, which represents more than 17,000 private sector grocery workers in the state. “They had to use personal time to take time off or go to work sick...Workers felt [hazard pay] was just like a carrot to keep you working during this dangerous health crisis.""

"The true performance of simulations in this pandemic might become clear only months or years from now. But to understand the value of COVID-19 models, it’s crucial to know how they are made and the assumptions on which they are built. “We’re building simplified representations of reality. Models are not crystal balls,” Ferguson says."

"The most challenging aspects of modelling COVID-19 are the sociological components, Meyers says. “What we know about human behaviour up until now is really thrown out of the window because we are living in unprecedented times and behaving in unprecedented ways.” Meyers and others are trying to adjust their models on the fly to account for shifts in behaviours such as mask wearing and social distancing."

""If you were to create a petri dish and say, how can we spread this the most? It would be cruise ships, jails and prisons, factories, and it would be bars," Alozie says. He was a member of the Texas Medical Association committee that created a COVID-19 risk scale for common activities such as shopping at the grocery store."

"There is no disease in the history of humankind that has disappeared from the face of the Earth when zoonotic disease was such an important part of, or played a role in, the transmission."

"One thing about this (COVID-19) that's somewhat unprecedented is the speed at which new data is coming out and becoming available for mass consumption."

"“It’s become clear that cloth masks, even though they’re not as effective as the N95s, are still effective at reducing transmission,” said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. “Even if you’re not achieving that 95 percent reduction, something is better than nothing.”"

"“The idea of just opening a stadium and letting the crowds come back to capacity is clearly really foolish,” says Mark Rupp, chief of infectious disease at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. In an interview, Rupp tells me that while there could be ways of limiting crowds and enforcing safety measures, “I don’t think there is any way of taking the risk out of it completely, quite frankly.”"

"Ten days ago, I issued an appeal for an immediate ceasefire in all corners of the globe to reinforce diplomatic action, help create conditions for the delivery of lifesaving aid and bring hope to places that are among the most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. This call was rooted in a fundamental recognition: There should be only one fight in our world today, our shared battle against COVID-19."

"We spend billions of dollars on vaccines and drugs, but you can't get funding to do research on basics like how effective is this mask versus that mask," he said, adding that was partly because answers to those questions didn't make the problem go away -- they just decreased the risk."

"Aerosols containing Covid-19 can travel as easily as the smoke from a cigarette, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said Friday. "If you want to understand what an aerosol is, just think of somebody smoking," Osterholm told CNN. "If you can smell a cigarette in the location you're at, then you're breathing someone else's air that may have the virus in it.""

"We didn't know until the last 24 hours."

"Virus particles dilute rapidly outdoors. Virginia Tech aerosol expert Linsey Marr has compared it to a droplet of dye in the ocean: "If you happen to be right next to it, then maybe you'll get a whiff of it. But it's going to become diluted rapidly into the huge atmosphere.""

"Enough is enough. go home and stay home."

"I say "possibly" (for the SARS-CoV-2 to more dangerous to humans than the other coronaviruses) because so far, not only do we not know how dangerous it is, we can't know. Outbreaks of new viral diseases are like the steel balls in a pinball machine: You can slap your flippers at them, rock the machine on its legs and bonk the balls to the jittery rings, but where they end up dropping depends on 11 levels of chance as well as on anything you do. This is true with coronaviruses in particular: They mutate often while they replicate, and can evolve as quickly as a nightmare ghoul."

"People think, and so did I when I was young, that ADHD is, "This kid can't pay attention," when in fact what it means is, you are unable to control what you pay attention to. So generally when you have ADHD, you are paying more attention than most people, but to the wrong thing."

"I think many comedians have ADHD. I think many comedians become comedians and are good comedians because they have ADHD, because it's such a perfect environment for ADHD."

"I'm tired of kissin' ass. I can't sit still all day. You know I know your school's a lie. That's why you dragged me here. 'You're a hyperactve child. You're disruptive. You're too wild. We're going to calm you down. Now this won't hurt a bit.' Drag me to the floor Pullin' down my pants Ram a needle up my butt Put my brain into a trance. 'No more hyperactive child. Got too much of a mind. Wouldn't you rather be happy? Now this won't hurt a bit.' Cameras in the halls. No windows, just brick walls. Pledge allegiance to a flag. Now you will obey."

"Binge eating is the rapid consumption of an unusually-large amount of food in a short period of time. Unlike simple overeating, people who binge feel “out of control” during these episodes. This means that one “cannot stop the urge to eat” once it has begun, even after their stomach is full. Binging may “feel good” initially, but it quickly becomes distressing for the person who is absorbed in this behavior. Food is often eaten secretly and quickly. A binge is usually ended only with abdominal discomfort, social interruption or running out of food. When the binge is over, the person with bulimia often feels guilty and will engage in inappropriate behaviors to rid their body of the excess calories that were eaten."

"We document here the first case of bulimia nervosa associated with primary hyperparathyroidism. The binge eating and self-induced vomiting that occurred for more than 10 years disappeared completely after the surgical cure of primary hyperparathyroidism. Depressive and anxiety symptoms also improved dramatically. The possible influence of derangement in calcium metabolism on the neurobiochemical mechanism of bulimia nervosa is discussed."

"This study explored friendship variables in relation to body image, dietary restraint, extreme weight-loss behaviors (EWEBs), and binge eating in adolescent girls. From 523 girls, 79 friendship cliques were identified using social network analysis. Participants completed questionnaires that assessed body image concerns, eating, friendship relations, and psychological family, and media variables. Similarity was greater for within than for between friendship cliques for body image concerns, dietary restraint, and EWLBs, but not for binge eating. Cliques high in body image concerns and dieting manifested these concerns in ways consistent with a high weight/shape-preoccupied subculture. Friendship attitudes contributed significantly to the prediction of individual body image concern and eating behaviors. Use of EWLBs by friends predicted an individual's own level of use."

"Anorexia nervosa is specifically characterised by an excessive exercise engagement with fear of weight gain and aversion of fat, whereas people with bulimia nervosa present with binge eating and purging. These eating disorders are considered one of the most challenging psychiatric conditions to treat, and treatment usually comprises of cognitive–behavioural therapy and pharmacological management. Exercise is usually not recommended for patients with these conditions, mainly due to the belief that it might aggravate the progress of the disorder. However, there is evidence that exercise increases body mass index and reduce depression in people with binge eating. What is uncertain is whether physiotherapy interventions are effective in treating bulimia and anorexia nervosa."

"While abnormalities in central norepinephrine regulation may contribute to abnormal eating patterns in bulimia nervosa, alterations in function of the peripheral sympathetic nervous system could contribute to the decreased metabolic rate and increased anxiety responses previously reported in these patients. To assess beta-adrenergic receptor sensitivity in bulimic patients, we studied cardiovascular and hormonal responses to acute pharmacological challenge with intravenously administered isoproterenol. In comparison to healthy controls, binge-abstinent bulimic patients had significantly reduced mean baseline plasma norepinephrine level, pulse rate, and systolic blood pressure, and significantly increased chronotropic responses to isoproterenol infusion. Decreased sympathoneural activity may contribute to a tendency for bulimic patients to maintain body weight despite low caloric intake."

"There is no one sign of an eating disorder, however there are red flags. These can include excessive “fat, weight or calorie talk,” a pattern of eating a limited choice of low-calorie food or a pattern of occasional binge eating of calorie-dense foods."

"Eating disorders occur in men too. An estimated 10 percent of people with anorexia nervosa and bulimia and a third or more of people with binge eating disorder are male."