#infectious testing market

[soumyafwr]

https://carbonfacesocial.org/blogs/79307/Infectious-Disease-Testing-Market-Share-Overview-Competitive-Analysis-and-Forecast

Infectious Disease Testing Market Share, Overview, Competitive Analysis and Forecast 2031

[aishavass]

North America, followed by Europe are the largest regional markets for point of care testing for infectious diseases...

[foldingfittedsheets]

wait what the fuck go back why are there lambskin condoms at all

Yeah so, back in the day people didn’t like getting pregnant. And they didn’t have access to latex for a long time. So lambskin condoms are some of the OG contraceptives, they were better than nothin. The first iterations were made from animal intestines, there’s some debate but that was sometime in the 16th century, though some think it was much earlier.

When latex condoms hit the market in the 1850’s it would have been the death knell for lambskin except! People with latex allergies still needed an option that didn’t make them drop into anaphylaxis. Also animal condoms were still cheaper until the 1920’s. Fun fact: my friend Charlie is allergic to latex but decided to just use latex condoms anyway and got stuck hiding in a closet when the girls parents came home and forgot he had a biohazard on his penis until he started having a seizure and remembered to remove it.

Anyway! The downsides of current lambskin are numerous. First off, it feels an awful lot like wax paper which seems quite unpleasant for both partners. Additionally, it still transmits STIs, because lambskin is just… skin, and is permeable to infectious disease.

Lastly why it’s bad: Modern condoms are checked for microtears and breakage by running a small electrical current through them. That’s how we know they’re safe to prevent all the stuff. But lambskin can’t be subjected to this test, so it can’t even say it’s guaranteed to prevent pregnancy, if there’s microtearing semen are gonna get through.

But noooow there’s a baller new material called polyisoprene that can be tested for breakage, doesn’t smell bad like latex, and is hypoallergenic. They’re basically the best condom in every way, and lambskin should now bow out and stop existing.

[covid-safer-hotties]

The next pandemic is inevitable. Australia isn’t ready - Published Sept 23, 2024

(Before you Americans yell at me, It's already the 23rd in Australia. This is very late-breaking)

I thought this was a really good breakdown of the current situation given the government-approved covid denial we live in. Long, but worth a read.

By Kate Aubusson and Mary Ward

Top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against COVID-19 are sounding the alarm.

NSW is less prepared today to fend off a deadly pandemic despite the lessons of COVID-19, say top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against the virus.

And we won’t have another hundred years to wait.

NSW’s gold standard Test-Trace-Isolate-Quarantine and vaccination strategies will be useless if a distrusting population rejects directives, refuses to give up its freedoms again, and the goodwill of shell-shocked public health workers dries up.

A panel of experts convened by The Sydney Morning Herald called for a pandemic combat agency akin to the armed forces or fire brigades to commit to greater transparency or risk being caught off guard by the next virulent pathogen and misinformation with the potential to spread faster than any virus.

“It’s inevitable,” says Professor Eddie Holmes of the next pandemic. A world-leading authority on the emergence of infectious diseases at the University of Sydney, Holmes predicts: “We’ll have less than 100 years [before the next pandemic].

“We’re seeing a lot of new coronaviruses that are spilling over into animals that humans are interacting with,” said Holmes, the first person to publish the coronavirus genome sequence for the world to see.

“People are exposed all the time, and each time we are rolling the dice.”

The independent review of NSW Health’s response to COVID-19 opened with the same warning: “No health system or community will have the luxury of 100 years of downtime.”

Pandemic preparedness needs to be a “permanent priority”, wrote the report’s author, Robyn Kruk, a former NSW Health secretary, “rather than following the path of those that have adopted a ‘panic and forget strategy,’ allowing system preparedness to wane”.

Why we don’t have 100 years to wait for the next pandemic The World Health Organisation has declared seven public health emergencies of international concern since 2014, including the current mpox outbreak.

Climate change is turbocharging the factors that coalesce to create the perfect breeding ground for a pandemic-causing virus, including population increases, bigger cities, and better-connected global markets and migration.

“Animals will be forced into more constrained environments, and humans that rely on those environments will be again constrained in the same environments. There will be more wet markets, more live animal trade that will just increase exposure,” Holmes said.

“It was clear that we weren’t ready [for COVID],” said Jennie Musto, who, after seven years working for the World Health Organisation overseas, became NSW Health’s operations manager for the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, the team responsible for NSW’s COVID-19 contact tracing and containment.

“Everyone had preparedness plans gathering dust on a shelf, but no one was actually ready to respond, and so everyone was on the back foot,” Musto said. “Perhaps none of us really thought this was going to happen. We were waiting 500 years.”

Who would willingly become the next doomed whistleblower? Eddie Holmes, known for his repeated assertion that SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a lab, is deeply concerned that when the next pandemic-causing virus emerges, chances are it will be covered up.

“My worry is that if the virus appeared in a small population, say, somewhere in Southeast Asia, the people involved wouldn’t blow the whistle now, given the fact that you would get blamed,” he said.

Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who tried to raise the alarm about a virulent new virus, was reportedly reprimanded by police for spreading rumours and later died of COVID-19.

The global blame game, culminating in a deep distrust of China and accusations that the virus was grown in a Wuhan lab, is why Holmes believes “we’re in no better place than we were before COVID started, if not worse”.

“I work with a lot of people in China trying to keep the lines of communication open, and they’re scared, I think, or nervous about saying things that are perceived to counter national interest.”

From a vaccine perspective, our defences look strong. There have been monumental advancements in vaccine development globally, driven by mRNA technology. In Sydney this month, construction began on an RNA vaccine research and manufacturing facility.

“But the way I see it is that nothing has been done in terms of animal surveillance of outbreaks or data sharing. The [global] politics has got much, much worse,” Holmes said.

Combat force Conjoint Associate Professor Craig Dalton, a leading public health physician and clinical epidemiologist, called for a dramatic expansion of the public health workforce and the establishment of a pandemic combat force that would routinely run real-time pandemic simulations during “peacetime”.

“No one is upset with fire brigades spending most of the time not fighting fires. They train. A lot. And that’s probably how we need to move,” he said.

“We need exercise training units so that every major player in pandemic response is involved in a real-time, three to four-day pandemic response every three to five years at national, state and local [levels].”

The federal Department of Health and Aged Care recently ran a health emergency exercise focused on governance arrangements involving chief health officers and senior health emergency management officials, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Mark Butler said. The outcomes of this exercise will be tested later this year.

Dalton said desktop simulations and high-level exercises involving a handful of chiefs didn’t cut it, considering the thousands of people working across regions and states. He instead suggested an intensive training program run in the Hunter New England region before the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provided a good model.

“We were ringing people, actors were getting injections, just like a real pandemic,” said Dalton, who once ordered a burrito in a last-ditch effort to contact a restaurant exposed to COVID-19.

Our heroes have had it The expert panel was emphatic that our pandemic response cannot once again rely on the goodwill of the public health and healthcare workforce.

According to the Kruk review, what began as an emergency response ultimately morphed from a sprint into an ultra marathon and “an admirable (yet unsustainable) ‘whatever it takes’ mindset”.

They were hailed as heroes, but the toll of COVID-19 on healthcare workers was brutal. Workloads were untenable, the risk of transmission was constant, and the risk of violence and aggression (for simply wearing their scrubs on public transport in some cases) was terrifying.

“We got through this pandemic through a lot of people working ridiculous hours,” Dalton said.

“You talk to a lot of people who did that and say they could not do it again.”

Tellingly, several expert personnel who worked at the front lines or in the control centre of NSW’s pandemic defences were invited to join the Herald’s forum but declined. Revisiting this period of intense public scrutiny, culminating in online attacks and physical threats, was just too painful.

So long, solidarity Arguably, the biggest threat to our pandemic defences will be the absence of our greatest strength during COVID: the population’s solidarity and willingness to follow public health orders even when it meant forfeiting fundamental freedoms.

The public largely complied with statewide public health orders, including the stay-at-home directive that became the 107-day Delta lockdown, and other severe restrictions prevented many from being at the bedside of their dying loved ones, visiting relatives in aged care homes and attending funerals.

“My worry is that next time around when those sorts of rules come out, people may say, ‘Well, don’t worry about it.’ They relax it in the future. Why don’t we just not stick to the rules?” said Professor Nicholas Wood, associate director of clinical research and services at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.

“I’m not sure we quite understand whether people [will be] happy with those rules again,” he said.

Dalton was more strident.

“I tend to agree with Michael Osterholm … an eminent US epidemiologist [who] recently said the US is probably less prepared for a pandemic now than it was in 2019, mostly because the learnings by health departments in the COVID pandemic may not make a material difference if faced with a community that distrusts its public health agencies,” he said.

“If H1N1 or something else were to spill over in the next couple of years, things like masks, social distancing and lockdowns would not be acceptable. Vaccination would be rejected by a huge part of the population, and politicians might be shy about putting mandates in.”

As for the total shutdown of major industries, people will struggle to accept it unless the next pandemic poses a greater threat than COVID, said UNSW applied mathematician Professor James Wood.

The risk of the virus to individuals and their families will be weighed against the negative effects of restrictions, which are much better understood today, said Wood, whose modelling of the impact of cases and vaccination rates was used by NSW Health.

“Something like school closure would be a much tougher argument with a similar pathogen,” he said.

A previous panel of education experts convened by the Herald to interrogate pandemic decision-making in that sector was highly critical of the decision to close schools for months during NSW’s Delta lockdown.

Greg Dore, professor of infectious diseases and epidemiology at the Kirby Institute, said the public’s reluctance to adhere to restrictions again may, in part, be appropriate.

“Some of the restrictions on people leaving the country were a bit feudal and too punitive,” he said. “Other restrictions were plain stupid, [for instance] limitations on time exercising outside.”

Meanwhile, the delays to publicly recognise the benefits of face masks and the threat of airborne transmission “ate away at trust”, Dalton said.

“We shouldn’t make those mistakes again,” he said.

Transparent transgressions Uncertainty is not something politicians are adept at communicating, but uncertainty is the only constant during a pandemic of a novel virus.

Vaccines that offered potent protection against early iterations of the COVID virus were less effective against Omicron variants.

“[The public], unfortunately, got hit by a rapid sequence of changes of what was ‘true’ in the pandemic,” James Wood said.

Political distrust can be deadly if governments give the public reason to suspect they are obfuscating.

The expert panel urged NSW’s political leaders to be far more transparent about the public health advice they were given before unilaterally enforcing restrictions.

There was a clear line between public health advice and political decision-making in Victoria. The Victorian chief health officer’s written advice was routinely published online.

In NSW, that line was blurred as Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant stood beside political leaders, most notably former premier Gladys Berejiklian, at the daily press conferences.

Public health experts said that they looked for subtle cues to determine the distinction between the expert advice and the political messaging during press conferences, paying attention to body language, who spoke when and who stayed silent.

“It is fine for public health personnel to have a different view to politicians. They have different jobs. What is not OK is to have politicians saying they are acting on public health advice [when they are not],” he said.

The ‘whys’ behind the decisions being made were missing from the daily press conferences, which created “a vacuum for misinformation”, said social scientist and public health expert Professor Julie Leask at the University of Sydney.

“The communication about what you need to do came out, and it was pretty good … but the ‘why we’re doing this’ and ‘what trade-offs we’ve considered’ and ‘what dilemmas we’ve faced in making this decision’; that was not shared,” Leask said.

The infodemic In the absence of transparency, misinformation and disinformation fill the vacuum.

“We had an ‘infodemic’ during the pandemic,” said Dr Jocelyne Basseal, who worked on the COVID-19 response for WHO in the Western Pacific and leads strategic development at the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute, University of Sydney.

“The public has been so confused. Where do we go for trusted information [when] everyone can now write absolutely anything, whether on Twitter [now called X] or [elsewhere] on the web?” Basseal said.

A systematic review conducted by WHO found misinformation on social media accounted for up to 51 per cent of posts about vaccines, 29 per cent of posts about COVID-19 and 60 per cent of posts about pandemics.

Basseal’s teenage children recently asked whether they were going into lockdown after TikTok videos about the mpox outbreak.

“There is a lot of work to be done now, in ‘peacetime’ … to get ahead of misinformation,” Basseal said, including fortifying relationships with community groups and teaching scientists – trusted and credible sources of information – how to work with media.

In addition to the Kruk review’s six recommendations to improve its pandemic preparedness, NSW Health undertook a second inquiry into its public health response to COVID-19, which made 104 recommendations.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said: “We are working hard to ensure the findings and recommendations from those reports are being implemented as quickly as possible.”

The expert panellists spoke in their capacity as academics and not on behalf of NSW Health or WHO.

The ‘As One System’ review into NSW Health’s COVID-19 response made six recommendations 1. Make governance and decision-making structures clearer, inclusive, and more widely understood 2. Strengthen co-ordination, communication, engagement, and collaboration 3. Enhance the speed, transparency, accuracy, and practicality of data and information sharing 4. Prioritise the needs of vulnerable people and communities most at risk, impacted and in need from day one 5. Put communities at the centre of emergency governance, planning, preparedness, and response 6. Recognise, develop and sustain workforce health, wellbeing, capability and agility.

[felinefractious]

hi! love your blog, i love getting to see all these cool cat colors i didnt even know were a thing LOL like i didn’t know there was such a thing as lilac or cinnamon but theyre so pretty.

ive been looking into getting a ragdoll in the future, the ones i have met have been the sweetest cats and they’re so pretty.

ive been doing research into possible health concerns they can have, and all im really seeing is the same things your typical random little guy could have when improperly cared for and things like that. kidney disease while on a bad diet, issues with hairballs when not brushed and groomed properly due to being long haired, etc. ive seen a few places say that they’re more prone to respiratory issues and heart disease, but the latter also seems to be something that breeders work to make sure their cats are safe from? at least in my research.

i guess im basically just wondering if you know anything else that can affect ragdolls specifically, or if there’s anything horribly unethical that’s totally swept under the rug or hidden about them! additional things to research and places to look would be appreciated, i never know where to research stuff like this reliably and you seem to know where to find some good info and stuff on cat breeds :)

thank you in advance for any help you can give, i hope have a good day!!

I’m glad you enjoy the blog and are learning about some new colors!

Ragdolls are definitely cool cats and they’re a pretty health breed, one of the major things to be mindful of is that this assessment only applies to well-bred individuals from good breeders.

Common breeds mean a lot of breeders which, unfortunately, also means a lot of scammers and bad breeders.

And the Ragdoll is a very common breed so there are a lot of not so good breeders out there… and the temperament and health of these backyard bred cats is a gamble, one that can end in heartbreak.

Now with that warning out of the way the big thing to worry about with the breed is Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. Fortunately the mutation responsible for this condition in the breed has been identified and can be tested for. Staying on top of heart health is an absolute must for a good breeder, this means regular echocardiogram’s as well as DNA testing.

The other big ones are Polycystic Kidney Disease and Progressive Retinal Atrophy, both of which can be tested for. These are common inherited disorders in the purebred population, you’ll have a hard time finding a breed which neither of these have been documented in.

Mucopolysaccharidosis VI is a storage disease that has been documented in the Ragdoll breed but it can be tested for and I’m not sure how common it is in current breeding populations.

A breeder shouldn’t cut corners when it comes to health testing, there are several commercially available tests which look for a wide variety of inherited disorders. Optimal Selection is becoming increasingly widely used, although personally I would feel most comfortable with testing submitted through somewhere like UC Davis.

But HCM is the big big one because heart disease is a silent killer. With the other conditions clinical symptoms will be apparent but a cat with HCM could appear normal and you wouldn’t know without testing. And remember - not all cardiac cases will have a heart murmur, either!

The other thing to keep in mind with Ragdolls is they seem to be more prone to developing Feline Infectious Peritonitis. This one is a little more complicated.

FIP occurs due to mutations in the feline coronavirus, which is a common viral infection in cats. Until recently FIP was considered nearly 100% fatal but thanks to Dr. Niels Pederson we now have a promising cure. One of our patients was actually one of the original study cats and has been doing well all this time, she’s amazing to work with - like a piece of living history!

One of the big problems with the treatment is the legality of it… for a long time it was only available through the black market and could easily run you thousands of dollars. Treatment is gradually becoming available through legal venues but it depends on where you live.

Anyways, the point is that we don’t know exactly why these mutations occur in some cats and not others but there’s strong evidence that there’s a genetic component - it’s common for related cats to develop FIP, we’ve seen this multiple times with littermates. We also know that it occurs at a higher incidence in some breeds than others…

And presumably your kitten wouldn’t have been exposed to feline coronavirus at the cattery but it’s not unlikely that they would be exposed at some point in their life given they don’t reside in a bubble… and if or when this happens what are the chances it’ll become the dreaded FIP?

So mitigating this risk when purchasing from a breeder can be a little more complicated… it’s not something I think should turn you off of the breed but it is something to keep in mind - and if you look into a breeder that seems good but has a lot of reviews or reports of their graduate kittens and cats developing FIP? Probably best to keep looking.

I think that’s a pretty good summary on the breed’s health but people are always welcome to chime in!

[springsheep]

War of Faith Notes Ep. 1 - 10

Ep 1 -> Wei Ruo Lai's intro, stock market

shen jinzhen the sniper appears.

Shen Jinzhen meets Wei Ruolai (rickshaw), Li Qin in pastel pink is soo pretty

Wei Ruolai sneaks in through the roof hahaha

Wei Ruolai is given a coat, goes to do the exam for Central Bank

Ep 2 -> Wei Ruolai doing the test (the fire).

Wei Ruolai interview with the Shen guy.

Poor Wei Ruolai, failed the interview becuz of his background

Wei Ruolai sneaks into Shen's party, sees Shen Jinzhen playing the piano. Wei Ruolai watches from afar.

Wei Ruolai tells Shen Tunan he has solved the Kunseng riddle.

Ep 3 -> Wei Ruolai is accepted!!! yesss

Wei Ruolai don't drink too much!! Shen Jinzhen watching them. Wei Ruolai: I'm really not a communist.

Wei Ruolai eating and drinking so much hahaha, Wei Ruolai is a bit drunk, playing violin.

Wei Ruolai's friends (from the "slums") celebrate his job.

Wei Ruolai's weird grandpa friend: In the financial world, it doesn't matter who can make more money or who can make money faster, what's important is, who can live longer. You win, when you don't lose.

Congyun doesn't like Wei Ruolai... hmmm

Shen Jinzhen infiltrating a hotel to kill someone. Shen Jinzhen 好帅啊啊 wearing pink dress tsk tsk so pretty

Wei Ruolai using binoculars to monitor the stock exchange

Lin Qiao Song interrogating Li something

Wei Ruolai understands what Mr. Shen is doing (I don't grr)

Ep 4 -> that guy's name is Lin Qiaosong.

Oh no, i think the Lonely Star is Wei Ruolai's brother... Secretary Huang is evil. Wei Ruolai learning how to identify real vs fake coins.

那个姓黄的再欺负我宝贝啊。hmph

Aaaaah poor Wei Ruolan, his brother got shot and fled to his apartment and he's bleeding everywhere. Wei Ruolan is begging his brother to go to the hospital...

Aaaah poor wei ruolan... wang yibo's crying is so infectious damn it.

Wei Ruolan buries his brother. Wei Ruolan's bro is supposed to bring the gold for the Communists. Wei Ruolan after seeing the gold: =_=

#poor Wei Ruolan's bro who only lived for 4 episodes

Ep 5 -> secretary huang is a biatch

Wei Ruolan thinks of his bro. Shen Jinzhen eats with Lin QIaosong.

Wei Ruolan stops the rich guy from emptying the vault. The Zhang guy was holding him at gunpoint grrr....

Shen Tunan arrives in time to save him (I'm starting to ship these two damn it)

Wei Ruolai posts the newspaper ad, will meet the handler.. aka Shen Jinzhen...

fuckfuckfuck Lin Qiaosong cracked the code also!!!! Fuckfuck

Ep 6 -> Shen Jinzhen and Wei Ruolai pass by each other, Shen Jinzhen scolds him to save him from Lin Qiaosong.

Shen Jinzhen fails to contact Wei Ruolai with the password, Lin Qiaosong starts to suspect Shen Jinzhen

so... the bro's name is Wei Ruochuan.

Li Shengda attacks Wei Ruolai, tells him his brother is a communist.

exam time (Wei Ruolai please get good grades arghs)

Shen Tunan (to Secretary Huang): Do you want him to leave or stay?

Ep 7 -> Everyone compete against Huang Congyun. Someone needs to kick him off his high horse (someone aka my baobei ofc)

Wei Ruolai: Secretary Huang said I need to be on standby for you 24 hours, so I missed some classes...

Shen Tunan glaring at Huang guy lololol

Wei Ruolai Vs. Congyun.

Wei Ruolai is so hardworking argh

He's been studying late into the night. Wei Ruolai wins (ofc)

Li SHengda acting bitchhh Wei Ruolai nooooo don't believe himmmmmm

Noooo Wei Ruolai told him about the 20 gold bars. whyyyy

Wei Ruolai suspects Li Shengda (thank god omggg)

Li Shengda is a piece of shit.

Ep 8 -> Wei Ruolai meets the correct handler.

Wei Ruolai swears revenge for his brother.

Li Shengda is killed (finally).

Shen Jinzhen is happy.

Lin Qiaosong wants to convict Wei Ruolai of being a Communist, but LOL Wei Ruolai is prepared. He 1) called the the police to report Li Shengda before, and 2) "turned himself in" by writing a report.

Shen Tunan looks so pleased lol, Lin Qiaosong is pissed obviously.

Everything is under Wei Ruolai's control (dis boi got plans hahaha).

Shen Tunan protecting Ruolai hahaha. Shen Tunan: I'll bear the consequences.

Mr. Kang is mad at Lin Qiaosong. Poor guy... he got whipped.

aww shen tunan's wife doesn't want to leave him.

Ep 9 -> Lin Qiaosong has a wife(?) girlfriend or something. She's upset to see his wounds. (I thought this guy was single).

Wei Ruolai 真的有本事啊

Wei Ruolai has photographic memory(?) Shen Tunan is preparing to make some big moves, tells Wei Ruolai to memorize the imports and exports blablabla.

The Central Bank is making big moves (tarrifs), people protest the Central Bank.

Shen Tunan (to Wei Ruolai）： It might be dangerous by my side, are you afraid?

Wei Ruolai expressed his thoughts, Shen Tunan praised him. halfway to sucess for the tariff reform.

Wei Ruolai asks for a gun from the Qian gang.

Mr. Qian: It's okay, i'll give you an axe instead. It's made of Manganese Steel. Wei Ruolai: =_=

Wei Ruolai visits a club(???) following the Zhang guy. Wei Ruolai what are you planning...? ohno don't kill him

Wei Ruolai stole Zhang Mingquan's gun and starts writing smth? and dismantles the gun and tries it out.

Ep 10 -> Su Cishu's acting ('nonono')

The Shen family's so cuteee lol and the Shen siblings bickering hahaha

Shen Jinzhen gave her brother a bulletproof vest.

Zhang and Yu want to assassinate Shen Tunan...

fuuck Shen Tunan is late for the tariff voting event, Wei Ruolai is gonna make a speech on his behalf (to delay the voting, cuz STN isn't there yet).

Damn an angry Wei Ruolai is shuaii hahaha

Wei Ruolai is making an impromptu speech letsgooooo

Shen Tunan is shot(?) in the arm. He fainted after the voting is finished.

Shen Jinzhen and Shen Tunan's wife are worried.

[blithe--spirit]

2 Richards

In the early 80s I was working for my dad (a self-employed builder and plumber) in a big lodging-house in Paddington (West London). There were a lot of students living in the property, and one had recently vacated one of the rooms, in which I found a copy of Richard’s Bicycle Book.

I hadn’t been on a bike for about five years, but I read this tatty old paperback from cover to cover over the following couple of days, and Richard Ballantine’s enthusiasm for cycling was so infectious I was consumed with the urge to get back on the saddle as soon as possible.

Richard Ballantine

So I bought a Raleigh Ace road bike from Club Row market in East London for £79 and became a cyclist. Thank you, Richard, you changed my life for the better.

Raleigh Ace (with me on it), 1984

A couple of years later I met Richard Dyer, who bumped my enthusiasm up a few more notches by introducing me to the London To Brighton Bike Ride and once again the passion was infectious. Once my eyes were opened to this wonderful two-wheeled world, there was no looking back. My half-hearted intentions to learn to drive and pass the driving test and get a car were abandoned and have never returned.

Richard Dyer (now a transport and climate campaigner for Friends Of The Earth). This photo is from 1985, and he still rides the same bike today.

Now I’m in my sixties and have been a “serious” cyclist for nigh on forty years and still cycle every day and this is in part thanks to the two Richards above.

Richard Ballantine's contibution to the world of cycling can’t be overstated. If you ride a bicycle - in any capacity - you owe it to yourself to hunt down a copy of Richard’s Bicycle Book and any of his other fine titles.

[moontyger]

Kuiken said his concern about the risk that infected raw milk poses is not so much that the practice might somehow help the virus to mutate in ways that would allow it to spread easily to and among people — in other words, trigger a pandemic. But he believes it would likely seriously sicken people who drink raw milk from an H5N1-infected cow. Reports of the amount of virus present in infected udders is higher than anything he’s seen in studies where he’s experimentally infected animals with H5N1 to chart the illness the virus wreaked, Kuiken said.

Jürgen Richt, a veterinarian and director of the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, spoke with a note of disbelief in his voice about the amount of dead viruses or viral particles being found in commercial milk that tested positive for the virus.

“From [results] I have seen, I wouldn’t want to drink raw milk,” Richt said. “And I wouldn’t feed it to my cats, nor my dogs, nor my calves, if I’m on a farm.”

The FDA is urging consumers not to drink raw milk or eat raw milk cheeses. That is a position the agency has long held, because of the other health risks these products hold, but it has re-emphasized it in the current context.

It has also recommended the dairy industry not “manufacture or sell raw milk or raw milk products, including raw milk cheese, made with milk from cows showing symptoms of illness, including those infected with avian influenza viruses or exposed to those infected with avian influenza viruses.”

Kuiken said he is less concerned about raw milk cheeses, saying the various processes involved in cheesemaking are “not conducive to survival of infectious virus.” He did suggest, though, that raw milk cheesemakers could be at risk, if they were inadvertently using milk laced with H5N1 virus.

Whether herds owned by farmers who sell raw milk have been infected by the virus isn’t publicly known. While authorities and scientists believe outbreaks are occurring over a much broader swathe of the country than has been detected, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has only confirmed infections of 34 herds in nine states — Texas, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Idaho, Ohio, South Dakota, North Carolina, and Colorado. It has not given any details about the operations on which infected animals were found.

But the USDA has admitted some farmers have been refusing to test their animals. And analysis of the genetic sequences of viruses retrieved from cows combined with evidence of H5N1 RNA in commercial milk found in a number of U.S. markets — the FDA said Thursday that about 1 in 5 samples tested for H5N1 from across the country have been positive — bolster the argument that this has been going on for longer than has been recognized and likely involves far more herds than have tested positive.

The testing of commercial milk was done by polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. In PCR testing, the concentration of a pathogen is estimated by how many cycles the test has to run to find it. The lower the cycle threshold — known as a “Ct value” — the higher the concentration. Anything with a cycle threshold of 29 or lower is considered a strongly positive result. Some milk testing has shown a Ct value of below 10, Kuiken said.

[oliolioxenfreewrites]

Time's Eden

Chapter 1: The Awakening Garden

As the day relinquished its last light to the embrace of twilight, the sprawling greenhouses of Ottawa’s National Botanical Research Facility glimmered faintly against the dimming sky. This sanctuary, a fortress of science amidst the world’s chaos, was where I, Alex Navarro Vexler, dedicated my life to combating the scars left by ecological neglect.

Every corridor and lab bench in our facility is a testament to our tireless efforts to revive the once-thriving wilderness of Canada. Unfortunately, with global warming at an all-time high, we are now facing the consequences of some individuals' ignorance. Public health is dismal, and finding fresh produce outside our local farmers' markets is becoming increasingly difficult.

Our new desolate and barren landscapes test humanity's tenacity and perseverance. Residents of Canada and the whole world struggle to maintain a sense of community, supporting each other through thick and thin. However, even in the darkest moments, stirring tales of courage and unity emerge, glimmers of hope reminding us of the indomitable human spirit.

Today’s work had centered on indigenous species, those relics of a verdant past now teetering on the edge of extinction. As the facility’s chief botanist, I pulled these species back from oblivion, using a blend of ancient horticultural wisdom and the latest scientific advances.

My colleague, Monique Thérèse Dubois, had departed earlier with her usual spirited farewell, her words lingering in the cool lab air.

“Alex, don’t forget, we test the Arctic willow hybrids tomorrow. It could be a milestone for the rewilding efforts up north!” Her optimism, as always, was infectious. Leaving me the botanical laboratory to me, I couldn't ask for a better end to a boring Thursday night.

Don't get me wrong I savored the solitude of the lab, a quiet sanctuary where I felt most attuned to my purpose. But tonight, as I was about to leave, my eye caught an unusual shimmer in the shadows of the archival room. Amidst the stacks of outdated files and botany records, I saw a shimmering object.

Drawn by mundane curiosity, I approached and discovered an ornately engraved pocket watch, its surface adorned with delicate botanical motifs, mysteriously warm to the touch. Never seen this before in the lab, I thought maybe opening it could reveal its owner. Opening the cover, I found it stopped at 3:07; beneath it, an inscription: “Tempus Eden.”

Time’s Eden? What a peculiar name for a watch.

Beside that, partially obscured by a pile of dusty periodicals from previous scientists, another book, seemingly more personal and less scientific. I brushed off the cover and opened it to find it filled with detailed sketches and notes. It wasn’t plants that caught my eye this time, but rather the sketches of a person—Jordan Pike the author of these journals from the inscriptions written below them.

The drawings captured him in various poses, his stunning Egyptian features detailed with an artist's affection, hinting at an almost palpable allure. Each stroke of the pencil conveyed a layered sense of Jordan's mysterious presence, an allure that felt timeless and exhilarating. Who was lucky enough to draw these?

Despite myself, I felt a surge of unexpected, very inappropriate feelings as I traced the lines of Jordan's Tarzan-like figure with my gaze, wondering about the person behind these intimate portraits.

The images stirred a mix of admiration and a more profound, visceral reaction that I quickly had to shake off, reminding myself of the professional boundaries of my research. Although I'm at least 100% sure this man is daddy. The reward at hand was this resourceful discovery from past scientists that graced this lab.

Yet, as I flipped through the pages, the plants that Jordan was associated with—rare, almost mythical species—seemed to pale compared to the mystery of the man himself. His connection to these botanical wonders hinted at secrets that were not only scientific but deeply personal.

Securing both the watch and the journal, I left the archives with a newfound sense of excitement. The night outside had deepened into a star-filled canvas, reflecting the storm of thoughts whirling through my mind. The journey home was a blur, my thoughts consumed by the sketches and the cryptic messages woven throughout the journal.

Once home, the watch ticking filled my room's silence, growing louder, more insistent. As I laid the watch on my nightstand, it suddenly sprang to life, hands spinning wildly. A surge of energy filled my room; the ground beneath me seemed to tremble, and everything went white.

When my vision cleared, I was no longer in my room but in an expansive, lush forest, untouched by human devastation—a stark contrast to the barren tracts I so tirelessly worked to restore.

Though my surroundings were unfamiliar and the path ahead uncertain, the adventure was undoubtedly underway. The watch on my wrist continued to tick, a reminder of substantial risks in the temporal journey I had unwittingly stumbled upon.

[gumjrop]

The Weather

A study in Clinical Infectious Diseases reported “that the risk of developing symptomatic illness within 14 days was 5 times greater when contacts were exposed to an asymptomatic [COVID]-positive child in their household.” Nearly 11% of household contacts developed symptoms within 14 days of exposure. The study also found, during a 3-month follow-up, that 6 out of 77 asymptomatic children developed Long COVID. The likelihood of developing symptoms from asymptomatic exposure is higher than we might expect. Continue to spread awareness of asymptomatic spread and advocate for increased infection control measures at your local schools.

COVID wastewater levels are decreasing. As of 3/29/24, New Mexico is “Very High,” Arkansas and Kentucky are “High,” and the rest of the states are “Moderate” to “Low” levels of SARS-CoV-2 detected in wastewater. 

Wastewater levels continue to show a downward trend in the provisional data (gray shaded area) in all regions. The national wastewater levels are overall indicated as “Low.” While lower wastewater levels indicate decreased spread, it is important to continue to take precautions against infection. Holidays and spring breaks may bring people in closer proximity, so be sure to wear a mask to protect yourself and your community.

Wins

As we work to take more actions against the removal of vital public health measures, we remind you that you can still watch the recording of the People’s CDC press conference from March 13 and read the press release here. We would also like to remind you of the pre-proof of the People’s CDC External Review in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine Focus. The publication highlights the shortcomings of the CDC’s approach to public health and recommends a more equitable pandemic response.

News sources have published articles about the frustrations of people who continue to take COVID precautions. Time Magazine published an article presenting “both sides,” highlighting protest from people working with the CDC and concern from citizens and experts alike. While we are glad to see our voices be published in popular media, we are also saddened that “returning to normal” under economic and political pressure is so valued.

Treatments

Invyvid has received an FDA emergency use authorization for Pemgarda, a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for people with immunocompromising conditions. Pemgarda is approved for people 12 and older with moderate to severe immunocompromise who are less likely to produce an adequate immune response to COVID vaccination alone. According to a press release from Invyvid, Pemgarda will release to market “imminently.”

Pre-exposure prophylaxis is commonly used for folks at high risk for exposure to HIV. As access to PrEP for HIV has been instrumental in keeping people safe, we hope that PrEP for COVID will be a useful tool for our community members with immune compromise. We also urge you to continue to wear high-quality masks and take other precautions to protect those most vulnerable.

Long COVID

People Magazine recently published an article highlighting an essay by Ziyad Al-Aly, physician and clinical epidemiologist, that pools data from several studies showing that COVID infection has lasting impacts on brain health. The review points out several impacts to cognitive functioning, including memory loss, spatial reasoning, and planning. Additionally, imaging studies have shown significant impact to brain tissue from inflammation, among other processes. The publication may be validating to those who experience lower cognitive function following COVID infection, including brain fog and memory dysfunction.

Take Action

We know that taking precautions–including masking, testing, and improving air quality–helps prevent the spread of airborne viral infection. Introducing more stringent precautions slowed outbreaks in the hematology ward of a hospital. The CDC recently released tips to improve ventilation. Help us urge the CDC to take other measures, including reinstating isolation periods. 

Additionally, the home Test to Treat program is ending in April 2024. The program provides un-or-underinsured adults with free COVID and flu tests. If a participant in the program tests positive, they can also receive free healthcare via telehealth services. Join us to help save the program that helps so many at-risk people!

[quotesfrommyreading]

Last week, in his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden told the American public that “we have broken COVID’s grip on us.” Highlighting the declines in the rates of COVID deaths, the millions of lives saved, and the importance of remembering the more than 1 million lost, Biden reminded the nation of what was to come: “Soon we’ll end the public-health emergency.”

When the U.S.’s state of emergency was declared nearly three years ago, as hospitals were overrun and morgues overflowed, the focus was on severe, short-term disease. Perhaps in that sense, the emergency is close to being over, Deeks told me. But long COVID, though slower to command attention, has since become its own emergency, never formally declared; for the millions of Americans who have been affected by the condition, their relationship with the virus does not yet seem to be in a better place.

Even with many more health-care providers clued into long COVID’s ills, the waiting lists for rehabilitation and treatment remain untenable, Hannah Davis told me. “I consider myself someone who gets exceptional care compared to other people,” she said. “And still, I hear from my doctor every nine or 10 months.” Calling a wrap on COVID’s “emergency” phase could worsen that already skewed supply-demand ratio. Changes to the nation’s funding tactics could strip resources—among them, access to telehealth; Medicaid coverage; and affordable antivirals, tests, and vaccines—from vulnerable populations, including people of color, that aren’t getting their needs met even as things stand, McCorkell told me. And as clinicians internalize the message that the coronavirus has largely been addressed, attention to its chronic impacts may dwindle. At least one of the country's long-COVID clinics has, in recent months, announced plans to close, and Davis worries that more could follow soon.

Scientists researching long COVID are also expecting new challenges. Reduced access to testing will complicate efforts to figure out how many people are developing the condition, and who’s most at risk. Should researchers turn their scientific focus away from studying causes and cures for long COVID when the emergency declaration lifts, Davids and others worry that there will be ripple effects on the scientific community’s interest in other, neglected chronic illnesses, such as ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome), a diagnosis that many long-haulers have also received.

The end of the U.S.’s official crisis mode on COVID could stymie research in other ways as well. At Johns Hopkins University, the infectious-disease epidemiologists Priya Duggal, Shruti Mehta, and Bryan Lau have been running a large study to better understand the conditions and circumstances that lead to long COVID, and how symptoms evolve over time. In the past two years, they have gathered online survey data from thousands of people who both have and haven’t been infected, and who have and haven’t seen their symptoms rapidly resolve. But as of late, they’ve been struggling to recruit enough people who caught the virus and didn’t feel their symptoms linger. “I think that the people who are suffering from long COVID will always do their best to participate,” Duggal told me. That may not be the case for individuals whose experiences with the virus were brief. A lot of them “are completely over it,” Duggal said. “Their life has moved on.”

Kate Porter, a Massachusetts-based marketing director, told me that she worries about her family’s future, should long COVID fade from the national discourse. She and her teenage daughter both caught the virus in the spring of 2020, and went on to develop chronic symptoms; their experience with the disease isn’t yet over. “Just because the emergency declaration is expiring, that doesn’t mean that suddenly people are magically going to get better and this issue is going to go away,” Porter told me. After months of relative improvement, her daughter is now fighting prolonged bouts of fatigue that are affecting her school life—and Porter isn’t sure how receptive people will be to her explanations, should their illnesses persist for years to come. “Two years from now, how am I going to explain, ‘Well, this is from COVID, five years ago’?” she said.

A condition that was once mired in skepticism, scorn, and gaslighting, long COVID now has recognition—but empathy for long-haulers could yet experience a backslide. Nisreen Alwan, a public-health researcher at the University of Southampton, in the U.K., and her colleagues have found that many long-haulers still worry about disclosing their condition, fearing that it could jeopardize their employment, social interactions, and more. Long COVID could soon be slated to become just one of many neglected chronic diseases, poorly understood and rarely discussed.

  —  Long COVID is the emergency that won’t end

[booksmountain]

5 Points That Makes Veterinary Pathology Book by CBS Publishers & Distributors the Best

Veterinary pathology is a vital branch of veterinary medicine that deals with the study of diseases in animals. Pathology testing aids in the accurate diagnosis and treatment of your pet by your veterinarian. As a result, animals stay healthier for longer and don't experience needless delays in receiving the finest care for their disease.

Additionally, it prevents your pet from experiencing unwanted side effects from ineffective medications and enables you to learn more about how their treatment is working.

Also, veterinary pathology programs for disease screening and prevention that advance the general health and well-being of our community heavily rely on veterinary pathology. The pathology industry is contributing to a healthy future for all animals by minimising the effects of avoidable and treatable diseases in our pets.

All this hard work in veterinary pathology requires excellent knowledge and comprehension. This is why reading veterinary pathology books that help you gain in-depth knowledge regarding the same is extremely important. While there are many great books available in the market, there is a place only for one winner.

The Veterinary Pathology book by CBS Publishers & Distributors is surely it. This book is a comprehensive guide that covers all the essential aspects of veterinary pathology. Here are five points that make this book the best choice for anyone interested in veterinary pathology:

1. Comprehensive coverage: The Veterinary Pathology book covers all the major organ systems in animals, including the respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, urinary, and reproductive systems. It surely is your one-stop solution for all the apprehensions about an animal’s body. It also covers various infectious diseases, neoplastic diseases, and inherited disorders. This is especially beneficial owing to the post covid times, where animals have been seen to undergo several side effects. This comprehensive coverage makes it an excellent resource for veterinarians, veterinary students, and animal health professionals.

2. Easy to understand: while reading any course book, the primary concern is how easily apprehensive the book is at a solitary level. The book is written in a clear and concise manner, making it easy to understand even for those with little or no knowledge of veterinary pathology. Be it a beginner or a pro, everyone can refer to this book, owing to its high standard of academic adjustments as well as basic knowledge cognizance. It uses illustrations and diagrams to explain complex concepts and processes, making it more engaging and interactive. This is especially beneficial for all the visual learners out there!

3. Up-to-date information: The book is regularly updated with the latest research and advances in the field, ensuring that the information provided is accurate and current. Many researchers and scientists are affiliated with CBS Publishers & Distributors. They make sure that every new version is equipped with the latest and most relevant knowledge. This gives an edge to veterinary pathology professionals, helping them understand everything in a more holistic manner. It also includes case studies and examples to help readers apply the concepts they have learned. A total winner for all healthcare providers.

4. Practical approach: while theoretical knowledge is very important, it cannot beat a practical setting. The Veterinary Pathology book takes a practical approach to teach, making it ideal for the students to have a practical outlook on everything they read. It helps in providing readers with the skills and knowledge they need to apply what they have learned in real-life situations. It includes chapters on diagnostic techniques, such as histopathology, cytology, and molecular diagnostics, helping readers develop the skills they need to diagnose and treat diseases in animals.

5. Comprehensive resources: In addition to the extensive information provided in the book, CBS Publishers & Distributors also offer a range of additional resources to supplement the learning experience. These include online quizzes, study guides, and practice tests, making it easier for readers to test their understanding and prepare for exams. This gives them an edge of advantage over the other available set of Veterinary Pathology books.

Overall, the Veterinary Pathology book by CBS Publishers & Distributors is the perfect one-stop solution book for anyone interested in knowing about veterinary pathology. It is an excellent resource for people who are healthcare animal professionals as well. Its comprehensive coverage, easy-to-understand writing style, and practical approach make it the best choice for veterinarians, veterinary students, and animal health professionals.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Do At-Home COVID-19 Tests Still Work? - Published Sept 6, 2024

These days, many people use at-home COVID-19 tests when they feel ill, rather than going out to get tested by a professional. (That’s when they bother to test at all.) But for all their convenience, the antigen tests commonly used at home have never been as accurate as PCR tests done in a lab—and the continued mutation of the virus raises additional concerns about their performance.

Rapid COVID-19 tests have never been perfect. How are they holding up as new variants emerge?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to monitor the efficacy of the diagnostics it regulates—and as of August 2023, the FDA said none of the antigen tests on the market were expected to have reduced performance against Omicron or its subvariants. (All of the variants that have emerged since late 2021, including recent ones like KP.3.1.1, are relatives of the original Omicron strain.)

The FDA has also collaborated with a U.S. National Institutes of Health task force set up to monitor how variants affect tests. In 2022, well into Omicron's dominant era, that team concluded that DIY diagnostics continued to work well. Task force member Richard Creager wrote in an email to TIME that the tests still seem able to catch the Omicron spinoffs that are circulating now. “The rapid tests are having no issue detecting the variants,” he wrote, noting that the protein that antigen tests look for has remained fairly stable as the virus changes.

Even if tests have remained constant, our immune systems haven’t. Early in the pandemic, an infected person's “viral load”—the amount of virus in their system—tended to peak around the time their symptoms began. So if someone self-tested on the first or second day they felt sick, they likely had enough virus in their body for a rapid test to detect it.

Now that most everyone has prior immunity from multiple vaccines or infections, the timeline seems to be extended. Viral load now tends to peak around day four or five of symptoms, according to a study published in early 2024. That’s likely because the immune system is primed for action by its previous encounters with the virus, so it responds faster, even before lots of virus has built up in the body. A quicker immune response may mean a faster onset of symptoms.

“If your body has seen the virus before, you’re going to react to it and have an immune response more quickly,” explains study co-author Dr. Nira Pollock, co-director of the Infectious Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital. “That immune response can show up as symptoms.”

From an immune perspective, that’s a good thing. But it can complicate testing, because it means someone may not test positive for COVID-19 until they’ve already been feeling sick for days. In their recent study, Pollock and her co-authors estimated that a COVID-19 antigen test is somewhere between 30% and 60% accurate at detecting an infection on someone’s first day of symptoms, but up to 93% accurate on day four.

Based on such findings, Pollock and other researchers cautioned in a recent review article that people who are symptomatic shouldn’t assume they’re COVID-free based on a single negative antigen test result. Although it's a hard sell for people who no longer take precautions, the ideal scenario is for someone to stay isolated—or at least wear a mask when around other people—and test again around day four of symptoms.

“The instructions for these tests are to do serial testing,” Pollock says. “If you’re symptomatic, you should test early. But if you’re negative, you need to repeat it, because the amount of virus in your nose may not be high enough yet to detect.”

One other factor to consider: tests don’t last forever. Many people stockpiled tests when they were previously available for free through government programs and insurance, and those kits may have since expired. (You’ll soon be able to order four more free tests through the government.) The FDA’s website provides up-to-date guidance on determining how long your kits last.

Expired tests can still work, says Dr. Zishan Siddiqui, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He co-authored a 2023 study on Abbott’s popular BinaxNOW tests, which found no major accuracy differences between unexpired tests and those that were five months past expiration. (Siddiqui’s other research suggests unexpired BinaxNOW tests accurately detect COVID-19 cases more than 80% of the time.)

But, although Siddiqui says he isn't too worried about using expired tests, it’s good to remember that their performance can suffer if they’re long past their recommended use dates. If the control line on your test strip doesn’t show up or looks distorted, that’s a good indication that it’s too old to use, he says. Even in Siddiqui's study, which found that expired tests still work, the lines on the old tests showed up more faintly than on fresh tests, making them harder to read.

Whether your tests are old or brand new, it’s good to use some healthy skepticism when interpreting their results. “I trust these tests,” even as the virus evolves, Siddiqui says—but a single result doesn’t always tell the whole story. If you have COVID-like symptoms but test negative, it’s best to be cautious and retest in a few days.