With monkeypox help hard to find, queer communities turn to one another

Tri Vo knew he had monkeypox before his test came back — painless pimples turned itchy, then felt like glass underneath his skin. He wanted Tpoxx, the only medication available to treat it, but his primary care doctor and then a clinic were no help. So Vo vented on Twitter — and found help in the form of a new doctor and Tpoxx the same day.

Monkeypox is now a national public health emergency, but as STAT’s Theresa Gaffney reports, people within the queer community are turning to each other for critical information to prevent and treat the virus. “Because we oftentimes are not prioritized for our health by government organizations, we have to take charge ourselves,” said Kyle Planck, a Ph.D. candidate in pharmacology at Cornell studying infectious diseases and, according to his Twitter bio, an “unintentional monkeypox microinfluencer.” Read more.

Polio vaccine boosters offered to London children after more virus found in wastewater

Responding to more evidence of poliovirus found in London wastewater, health authorities are recommending polio vaccine booster doses for all children age 1 through 9 throughout the city. Type 2 poliovirus was detected in north and east London, neighborhoods where vaccination rates are low. So far, no cases of polio have been reported, the U.K Health Security Agency said in a statement yesterday. Last month a man in his 20s in Rockland County, N.Y., became paralyzed by polio, STAT’s Helen Branswell reported. His virus is linked to viruses detected in sewage in Jerusalem and London.

“In London it is just good luck that nobody has been paralysed,” David Salisbury, chair of the WHO Global Commission for Certification of Polio Eradication, said in a statement. “It is those people who are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated who are at risk.”

What's 'immune evasion' and how does the coronavirus keep doing it?

(HYACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)

We’re all buckled in for whatever ride Covid is taking us on, but if you’re wondering what the next curve in the road might be, watch this video from STAT’s Hyacinth Empinado and Andrew Joseph on immune evasion. They explain how the coronavirus that causes SARS-CoV-2 evolves, invoking the quick-change artistry of a master criminal to describe it and including a clip of WHO’s Maria van Kerkhove to warn us about each variant’s increasing transmissibility.

How does this keep happening? What about our antibodies? Do we have other defense mechanisms? Will boosters help? Watch here.

Closer look: In Mexico, working to diversify genomic data — and end 'parachute science'

(ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images)

There is a stunning amount of human genetic diversity among people from Mexico, but there is an equally jaw-dropping dearth of data. Latin Americans make up around 8% of all people on the planet, yet they constitute 0.25% of genetic studies, according to GWAS Diversity Monitor. There have been massive research efforts to reverse that imbalance, but projects to sequence people from Mexico and other underrepresented populations also have a long history of “parachute science” or “helicopter research.”

That’s when researchers from wealthier nations visit low- and middle-income countries to collect data and samples, analyze them back at home, and publish the results with little or no involvement of local scientists. STAT contributor Emiliano Rodríguez Mega reports on Mexican geneticists striving to get their hands on genomic data, including work by a team of Oxford and Mexican scientists. Read more about how they are meeting those challenges.

New research says blood tests can predict severe outcomes of brain injury

After a traumatic brain injury, predicting who is likely to die and who might survive with severe disability may become easier with simple blood tests done on the day of the injury, a study published yesterday in Lancet Neurology suggests. The two tests, which look for protein biomarkers in certain brain cells, are already FDA-approved to gauge structural brain damage and help doctors decide whether to order CT scans. Now scientists associated with the brain injury research initiative TRACK-TBI have shown that the assays are not only diagnostic, but also prognostic.

“Right now it’s sort of a guess with brain injuries,” Gretchen Brophy of Virginia Commonwealth University told STAT’s Akila Muthukumar. Not involved in the study, she serves on the steering committee of TRACK-TBI. “The biomarkers will help us be a little bit more definitive in speaking with the families of the patients, and also the patients.” Read more about some cautions and limitations.

Where Americans' life expectancy falls short

Americans die young, at least compared to people in middle- and high-income countries, and in some cases they don’t have to. A new report from the Commonwealth Fund looking at pre-Covid life expectancy and deaths that could be prevented by better access to health care charts differences among the 50 states. Here’s how they stack up next to peer countries, defined as OECD members:

The best: In California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, average life expectancy is 80 to 81, lower than in most OECD countries.
The worst: In Mississippi and West Virginia, life expectancy is under 75, lower than in Mexico, which has the lowest life expectancy among OECD countries.
Deaths health care could have avoided: Mississippi and West Virginia had the most, more than any other OECD country, including Mexico, Lithuania, Latvia, and Hungary.

What to read around the web today

How effective is the monkeypox vaccine? Scientists scramble for clues as trials ramp up, Science
Their mentor was attacked. Now young OB-GYNs may leave Indiana, NPR
FDA authorizations of breakthrough medical devices are accelerating, STAT
The long, long wait for a diabetes cure, New York Times
Opinion: PCR testing can help clarify confusion over Covid-19 rebound and isolation, STAT