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Health

Exposing Brain Tissue to Psilocybin Provides Insights Into Consciousness, Depression and Anxiety

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Summary: Investigating how psychedelics such as psilocybin act on serotonin receptors, researchers shed new light on how the drugs affect consciousness and assist in treating a range of mental health disorders.

Source: Allen Institute

If an epilepsy patient needs brain surgery, their brain surgeon often extracts a piece of tissue the size of a sugar cube from the outermost layer to access the regions responsible for the seizures. This excised lump is typically discarded as medical waste since it is far from the diseased site.

But to neuroscientists like Jonathan Ting, Ph.D., this brain nugget is “the most precious piece of matter in the universe.”

Ting, Associate Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a division of the Allen Institute, and his team receive brain tissue removed during surgery and willingly donated by patients to uncover the workings of living human brain cells. Ting and others at the Allen Institute for Brain Science aim to build a “periodic table” of brain cell types to categorize the brain by its cellular building blocks.

Understanding what happens at the cellular level can help scientists better understand the larger experiences in the mind, including learning, consciousness, and even psychedelic experiences.

For the past two years, Ting and his colleagues have been sending brain samples on trips with magic mushrooms.

By dosing the excised pieces of brain with psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in hallucinogenic shrooms, the team wants to understand how individual neurons respond to the drug.

There is growing evidence and ongoing trials that show psilocybin as a potential therapeutic for depression, anxiety, PTSD and other psychiatric conditions, Ting said. However, little is known about how psilocybin works in the human brain, either its hallucinatory actions or its ability to ameliorate psychiatric disorders.

“It’s striking that all of this work is ongoing in the clinic on human patients without a deep understanding of what the drug does at the mechanistic level,” Ting said. “Our idea is to study them at the single-cell level and try to see what these drugs are doing in specific brain cell types and regions.”

Psilocybin mimics serotonin, a neurochemical messenger that cells release to regulate mood, and binds to certain kinds of serotonin receptors on various brain cells, said Meanhwan Kim, Ph.D., Ting’s colleague and a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science.

To look at what happens to cells exposed to the drug, the team used a technique called Patch-seq to capture electrical activity, 3D shape and gene expression of individual neurons bathed in psilocybin.

They hypothesized that the psychedelic drug would hyperactivate all the cells carrying the specific serotonin receptor, but instead, some of these cells activated, some deactivated and, notably, most did not respond.

These receptors are present in multiple parts of the brain so the scientists are now broadening their search to sample cells from different regions, as well as studying the same neurons in mice, where they’re also developing new tools to home in on these specific cell types.

The team is presenting their findings Saturday Nov. 12 at the Society for Neuroscience 2022 conference in San Diego. Although they don’t have an explanation for these findings yet, bringing awareness to the peculiar cellular mechanisms of psilocybin might lead to further research on how the drug works and what it can be used for.

Can we separate the trip from the medicine?

Psilocybin is a Schedule I substance, deemed by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration as highly addictive and difficult to obtain for medical use and research purposes under the Controlled Substances Act. It took the researchers almost a year to gain the licensing to use the drug, and the team is required to keep it in a passcode-protected safe in the lab.

By dosing the excised pieces of brain with psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in hallucinogenic shrooms, the team wants to understand how individual neurons respond to the drug. Image is in the public domain

But changing perceptions about psilocybin and other psychedelics are driving “a renaissance in psychedelic research,” said Christof Koch, Ph.D., chief scientist of the Allen Institute’s MindScope Program, who is also part of the team studying the drug’s action.

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With the help of psychotherapists, patients using the drug report a dissolution of their sense of self and feel connected with the universe, gaining a positive outlook on life, said Koch. Such actions could underlie psychedelics’ ability to treat conditions like depression and anxiety.

“Having these mystical experiences, the patient is able to overcome their depression or reframe that depression and return to a more baseline mental being,” Koch said. “It really seems to restore sort of the wellness and balance in the life of the patient. It’s quite magical”

Ting wonders if scientists can separate the trip from the medicine. If so, would the stigma against psychedelics resolve? But to Koch, the two features may be inseparable.

“We don’t know yet, but I strongly suspect that you cannot separate the two. Hallucinating is an essential part of the way these drugs work,” Koch said.

It’s not clear yet how long these therapeutic effects last. Many studies only looked up to six months after treatment, Koch said, adding that more research is needed to measure psilocybin’s long-term effectiveness and safety. Psychedelics cause profound experiences and even with their growing scientific interest and social acceptance, they must be approached with caution, he said.

“They’re powerful substances. They’re powerful medicine, so one has to handle them with a great deal of care,” Koch said.

About this psychedelics and psychopharmacology research news

Author: Leila Okahata
Source: Allen Institute
Contact: Leila Okahata – Allen Institute
Image: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2022

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Health

“Sorry, You Said You Were Allergic”: Server Gets Applauded Online For Exposing Gluten-Free Trend Chaser

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Eating just a tiny amount of food that a person is allergic to can trigger their body, causing digestive problems, hives, or swollen airways. In some people, it can lead to severe symptoms or even a life-threatening situation.

While those who suffer from one would gladly give away their allergy, while others apparently crave one.

A few days ago, Reddit user MichaelShing submitted a story to the platform’s ‘Malicious Compliance‘ community about an annoying customer they had while working at a restaurant who would regularly fake a gluten allergy.

Eventually, the server got so sick and tired of this woman that they called out her attention-seeking behavior.

This server got sick and tired of a regular customer faking a gluten allergy

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)

So they called the woman out while playing by her rules

 

Image credits: Alexander Dummer (not the actual photo)

 

Food allergy affects about 8% of children under age 5 and up to 4% of adults. While there’s no cure, some change as they get older.

The most common food allergy signs and symptoms include:

  • Tingling or itching in the mouth;
  • Hives, itching or eczema;
  • Swelling of the lips, face, tongue and throat or other parts of the body;
  • Wheezing, nasal congestion or trouble breathing;
  • Abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting;
  • Dizziness, lightheadedness or fainting.

So somehow I doubt that the lady would say “Oh, that’s fine,” if she actually ticked this list.

Not to mention that in some people, a food allergy can trigger a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis, which causes symptoms including:

  • Constriction and tightening of the airways;
  • A swollen throat or the sensation of a lump in your throat that makes it difficult to breathe;
  • Shock with a severe drop in blood pressure;
  • Rapid pulse;
  • Dizziness, lightheadedness or loss of consciousness;
  • Emergency treatment is critical for anaphylaxis. Untreated, anaphylaxis can cause a coma or even death.

Food allergy is spreading on a global level, with the greatest rise happening in the US and other industrialized countries.

In fact, the number of people suffering from it in America has doubled each of the last decades. New data suggest that at least 10.8% (>26 million) of US adults are food allergic, whereas nearly 19% believe that they have a food allergy.

About 6 million American children, or roughly 2 kids in every classroom, have an identified food allergy.

Anyone can develop this pesky thing.

In fact, there are findings indicating that the majority (2/3) of children who develop a food allergy do not have a parent with one. (With the rapid rise of food allergies over the past generation, experts believe that increases in allergy susceptibility are being driven, in part, by environmental factors.)

But as we can see, anyone can fake having one, too. How sad do you have to be if this is how you get strangers to notice you?

Both people with and without food allergies loved the way this server handled the situation

 


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Science

Lake Mead water crisis is exposing volcanic rock from eruptions 12 million years ago

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CNN
 — 

Lake Mead’s falling water level has exposed several shocking things in recent months – previously sunken boats, old war ships and human remains. Now scientists are reporting a new discovery on Lake Mead’s dry bed: rocks laced with volcanic ash that rained down on southern Nevada during explosive eruptions roughly 12 million years ago.

The record-low water levels are exposing sedimentary rocks that haven’t been seen since the 1930s when the Hoover Dam was built and Lake Mead filled. Among these rocks, researchers with the University of Nevada in Las Vegas found ash deposits from volcanoes in Idaho, Wyoming and California.

“We knew that these ash units existed, but we were surprised to find so many as the Lake Mead water level lowered,” said Eugene Smith, an emeritus professor of geology at UNLV and co-author of the study.

The West’s climate change-fueled drought and overuse of the Colorado River’s water has pushed Lake Mead levels to unprecedented lows. As of September, the lake’s water level was just 1,045 feet above sea level, or around 27% of full capacity.

Scientists are taking advantage of the low levels to study sediment that hasn’t been exposed in nearly a century.

Smith’s research team found white to gray colored volcanic ash weaving through the formerly submerged rocks. They took samples back to their lab to pinpoint the source of the ash, but it wasn’t from a single eruption.

They found evidence of several volcanic blasts millions of years ago from places like the Snake River Plain-Yellowstone area – a tract of inactive volcanoes that stretches across Idaho along the Snake River and into what is now Yellowstone National Park – and eastern California. They also found ash from eruptions only 32,000 years ago – which is not so long ago in the geological time scale.

Jake Lowenstern, a research geologist with the US Geological Survey who is not involved with the study, told CNN that studying volcanic eruptions of the past can help paint a picture of future risk.

The latest discovery in Lake Mead may be one of the “better” collections of volcanic ash from that period of time, Lowenstern said, and it will “be important in allowing us to reconstruct the geologic history of the region, and to understand the frequency of large volcanic eruptions and their impact on the Southwest.”

Ash from even moderately explosive volcanic eruptions can travel hundreds of miles, blanketing areas as far away as several meters with heavy material. Recent eruptions have showed a couple of millimeters of damp ash can disrupt electricity transmission. And when inhaled, the tiny but sharp grains in the ash pose a significant health risk.

“These ashfall events can disrupt transportation and supply networks, close airports, and potentially be a health hazard,” Smith said. “It’s important for local governments to develop plans to deal with this sort of event, like they have for earthquakes and flooding.”

Smith said their latest analysis could help society prepare for future volcanic events, even if from far away volcanoes – as well as “present and future climate change.”

“Studying the past is the key to understanding the future,” Smith said. “By understanding past volcanic events, we can better understand how a future event may affect a large metropolitan area. We can also develop plans to deal with a volcanic eruption when one occurs in the future.”

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Health

Polio virus reappears in rich economies, exposing gaps in immunisation

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Public health authorities in wealthy economies are racing to head off a return of polio, after the virus has turned up in several countries where it had been all but stamped out.

Health authorities in New York City on Friday said they detected polio in samples taken from the sewage system. Last month a man in suburban New York was diagnosed with the US’s first case since 2013.

In London, health officials this week said they would offer polio vaccine boosters to hundreds of thousands of children after the virus was detected in London waste water. Israel earlier identified its first cases since 1988 and there has been a cluster in war-torn Ukraine, where health services are under huge strain.

The situation is raising concerns that vaccine hesitancy and global conflicts could allow a disease that was on the brink of global eradication to make a comeback.

For much of the 20th century polio, which is short for poliomyelitis, was one of the most feared childhood diseases, killing and disabling tens of thousands of people every year. But vaccine development in the 1950s and a global campaign against the disease begun in 1988 slashed the number of infections to just 175 cases by 2019 and reduced the number of countries where it is endemic to two — Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But its re-emergence in Europe and the US, along with the disruption of inoculation programmes — by the Covid-19 pandemic, and by war in places such as Ukraine and Afghanistan — have caused public health officials to raise the alarm.

“There has been a huge dip globally in the routine immunisation coverage, as countries were engaged in the Covid-19 pandemic response. If you scratch the surface, this shows the vulnerability of countries’ immunisation systems,” said Siddhartha Datta, the World Health Organization’s regional adviser for vaccine-preventable diseases in the European region.

Last month the WHO and Unicef released data showing the largest sustained decline in childhood vaccinations in three decades, with at least 25mn infants missing out on life-saving jabs in 2021. Slightly less than 7mn children missed their third dose of polio vaccine last year when compared to 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic.

New York health officials warned on Friday that hundreds of people may have already contracted the virus following a diagnosis of polio on July 21 in an unvaccinated man who developed paralysis in Rockland county, about 30 miles north-west of New York City.

The suburban county has one of the lowest immunisation rates in the US. Authorities have set up vaccination hubs, distributed leaflets urging people to get jabs and are considering offering polio booster shots to top up people’s immunity.

Dr Mary Leahy, chief executive of Bon Secours Charity Health System, one of the largest hospital groups in Rockland, said the virus had probably infected a lot of people without their knowledge because three-quarters of those with infections do not show any symptoms.

“They have polio, but they’re walking around and do not know that they have it. Only about 25 per cent develop flu-like symptoms . . . less than 1 per cent go on to develop paralysis.”

Genetic studies of the New York case have linked it to the polio viruses in Israel and London, suggesting ties across borders. The detected viruses are examples of vaccine-derived polio, which is a strain related to the weakened live poliovirus contained in the oral polio vaccine. They can cause illness and paralysis if they are allowed to circulate in populations with unvaccinated people for long enough and then mutate.

Rockland county has a vaccination rate of 60 per cent for children at two years of age, well below the statewide average of 78 per cent. The WHO says 95 per cent vaccination coverage is required to provide herd immunity.

Rockland is home to a large and growing Orthodox Jewish population. Dorrit Reiss, professor of law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, said the Orthodox community in the Rockland area had been actively sought out by national anti-vaccine campaigners, who have held rallies and distributed leaflets raising fears about immunisation.

“There is nothing in Judaism that is against vaccines, but some specific Jewish Orthodox communities have concerns. They live a closed life in multigenerational homes with large numbers of kids, so in a very real sense it is an area that is vulnerable to an outbreak,” she said.

Local tensions over vaccination remain high after a measles outbreak in 2018 and 2019 which infected hundreds of people, centred in Rockland’s ultra-Orthodox community.

New York Jewish Week and other local publications have reported the man who contracted polio in Rockland is Orthodox, although local health officials have not confirmed this due to concerns about stigmatising the community.

A New York state senator last month also identified the infected polio patient as an Orthodox Jew and alleged that some private Jewish schools had a history of non-compliance with vaccination requirements. He later retracted his statement following objections from Jewish groups.

“One thing about this polio case is it’s in Rockland country, which had a massive measles outbreak two years ago — so that suggests there is vaccine hesitancy,” said Dr Marny Eulberg, a retired physician and polio survivor who has studied the disease for decades.

“That’s a problem because these days many young parents haven’t seen polio, it isn’t part of their consciousness. And the reality is once you get polio, the treatment now is no better than it was in the 1950s: so the best response is to get vaccinated.”

Health providers in Rockland say fears about polio are prompting some previously hesitant people to come forward to get vaccinated.

“We have seen one mother who was anti-vax and has not given other vaccinations, that brought her two children in for the polio vaccine, because the paralysis scares her,” said Amanda Salzman, director of communications at Refuah Health in Rockland.

Salzman said the clinic had administered almost 500 polio vaccines so far, out of a total of 2,000 across the county.

Health experts say the latest cases demonstrate the need for vigilance on vaccination efforts and for governments to support global eradication efforts on polio. This programme is seeking $4.6bn in funds to complete vaccination efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“There is a huge need to identify funding,” said Dr Jay Wenger, who leads a polio eradication programme at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “The importance of getting that is then we won’t have these episodes of viruses in New York, in London or anywhere.”

Additional reporting by Donato Paolo Mancini in London

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Business

China home sales drop in July, exposing fragile market

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The housing market in China has recorded a sharp drop-off in home sales throughout July as underlying economic troubles make themselves more apparent.

Sales dropped 39.7% in July from the same period last year, marking a roughly $77.6 billion — or 523.14 billion yuan — decline. Just from June to July saw a drop of 28.6%, which ended a two-month rally.

Apartment sales had increased in May and June over the previous months, but July largely blunted those gains, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

“China’s economy has been slowing for quite some time,” Craig Singleton, a fellow at the nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies, previously told Fox News Digital. “What we’re witnessing now is a rapid economic slowdown.”

GEN. KELLOGG: IT’S TIME TO PUSH BACK ON CHINA

Singleton argues that while COVID-19 has played a part in the initial troubles, China’s recovery slowdown has resulted from “deeper structural, systemic problems.”

An aerial view shows the construction site of the new campus of New York University, NYU Shanghai, in Shanghai, China, Feb. 16, 2022.
(Fang Zhe/Xinhua via Getty Images)

“One of them happens to be … China’s hyper-leveraged property market by some conservative estimates,” he said. “China’s property sector makes up 30% of Chinese GDP, so even small deviations in that market can have outsized impact on China’s broader global domestic product and its broader growth.”

CHINA ANNOUNCES LIVE-FIRE NAVAL EXERCISES AHEAD OF POSSIBLE PELOSI TAIWAN VISIT

The Chinese real estate market saw a sales boom driven by debt-funded building projects that sold homes before they were built. The lack of completed projects led to protests from angry would-be homebuyers who refused to pay their mortgages. 

FILE – Under-construction apartments are pictured from a building during sunset in the Shekou area of Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, Nov. 7, 2021.
(Reuters/David Kirton)

Hundreds of buyers from roughly 320 projects across the country as of July 29 have refused to pay their mortgages. Those prospective buyers have turned instead to buy second-hand homes or newly built state-owned homes, which can come at a cheaper cost. 

Even cutting interest rates and down payments or outright offering cash subsidies haven’t helped prompt enough activity to prop up the sagging housing market. Local authorities have considered offering full-on relief funds for cash-strapped developers.

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“The sector won’t stabilize if developers’ liquidity crunch is not relieved,” said Song Hongwei, a research director of Tongce Research Institute.

Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news. 

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World

Twitter users are exposing pro-Russian sentiment in China, and Beijing is not happy

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Scores of screen-grabbed posts from China’s most popular social media platforms have been translated and shared on Twitter in recent weeks, offering Western audiences a rare glimpse into the Chinese internet.

The posts appear courtesy of anonymous Twitter users who say their aim is to expose Western audiences to the true extent of pro-Russian or nationalistic content on China’s heavily censored platforms.

They often come under the hashtag of “The Great Translation Movement,” or shared by account with the same name run by a decentralized, anonymous team that crowdsources the collection and translation of popular posts on Ukraine and other hot topics, according to an administrator interviewed by CNN. Many, but not all, appear to have been widely liked or shared within China — selection criteria cited by the administrator.

Since the account’s launch in early March it has already made plenty of friends and enemies — attracting both 116,000 followers (and counting) and a slew of criticism from China’s state-run media.

The movement was formed in response to China’s alleged hypocrisy in portraying itself as neutral on Ukraine, even while its state and social media circulated pro-Russian narratives, the administrator told CNN.

“We want the outside world to at least know what is going on inside, because we don’t think there could be any change made from inside,” said the administrator, who requested anonymity due to security concerns.

In bad faith?

China’s state media has lashed out against what it decries as “cherry picked content.” The overseas arm of the People’s Daily — the mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party — has claimed the translators behind the movement are guilty of attributing the “extreme remarks” of some netizens to the “whole country.”

The nationalistic Global Times newspaper has accused the group of being “Chinese-speaking bad faith actors” and one of its opinion writers claimed the group included “foreign hostile forces” perpetuating “psychological warfare against China.”

Outside China, media experts caution the posts do not show a holistic view of public opinion in China and appear to at least partially be selected for shock value, but could still be useful in bringing these elements of China’s media sphere to light. Critics also say the group’s tweets show evidence of its own bias — such as in posts that use a term comparing China to Nazi Germany.

Posts which gain traction on China’s social media must be seen in light of its highly censored environment, where nationalistic voices thrive and liberal ones have largely retreated or been censored, experts say.

But the administrator who spoke to CNN said the point was to highlight the visibility of such posts — some coming from popular influencers, comments receiving thousands of likes or from prominent commenstators, and even government-backed news outlets.

“Our goal is to raise awareness about the state of public opinion in China, whether it is purely the result of spontaneous interactions (or) the result of government censorship,” the administrator said.

“We want to counter the effort of the Chinese state-affiliated media by showing the West some content they do not want to show.”

Dual messaging

The resistance against the group from China’s state media highlights the sensitivities around how China wants to present itself on the world stage, especially at a time when it has been attempting to walk a diplomatic tightrope between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

China has often sought to present two different narratives — one for domestic audiences and another for those overseas. This is made possible through both a language barrier and an online ecosystem that bans apps like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The Great Translation Movement breaks down both of these barriers.

“Even before the social media era, the way China talks internally through its state media is something it doesn’t appreciate being parsed and translated for the world,” said David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project, a research program in partnership with the Journalism & Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong.

And when it comes to Ukraine, China has sought to portray itself — at least to overseas audiences — as unaligned and invested in calling for peace. But its media coverage back home tells a different story, Bandurski said.

“If you just look at (state) media coverage, it’s really hard to talk about neutrality … Everything they have said is amplifying disinformation and aligning with Russia in terms of narratives.”

While the tone of state-backed media is clear, experts say it is difficult to gauge public opinion in China simply by looking at social media, even when it comes to popular influencers or viral posts.

Like anywhere in the world, views on social media can be extreme. In China, heavy manipulation and censorship often amplifies select voices.

“The authorities certainly have an interest in promoting their preferred narrative online, and they have the technical and political means to unapologetically ‘guide public opinion,'” said Florian Schneider, director of the Leiden Asia Center in The Netherlands.

“We should also not underestimate the power of social media algorithms: as pro-Russia statements become mainstream, they receive ever more likes and shares, which makes them more visible,” he said.

Suppressed voices, echo chambers

The situation is complicated: Beijing too has reason to be wary of ultra-nationalist voices, which platforms sometimes censor. And while nationalist rhetoric has become more dominant online in recent years, the loudest voices may not show a majority.

Bandurski said that an analogy would be looking at ultra-conservative voices in the US media environment, and assuming that was representative of the American perspective.

“So the danger is this kind of echo chamber of content, which we might assume is representative of China and its perspective, and it’s really a lot more complicated than that,” he said.

Maria Repnikova, director of the Center for Global Information Studies at Georgia State University, said when it comes to Ukraine there have been “alternative voices talking about the war…but they’re not as dominant or as loud or as visible.” Their posts may either be censored or hard to detect as social media users may express dissenting views through code and allusion.

She also asks if things would be different if images of bombarded cities of Ukraine or the atrocities in Bucha were not restricted in China.

“If people could see all of those images and scenes, would that be a different story? Would different voices pick up?”

The Great Translation Movement administrator said they hoped that the movement could help push Beijing to tone down the rhetoric on these platforms so that there would be room for more voices.

“In today’s Chinese mainstream discourse there is a very limited space for people who have a rational mind to speak,” the administrator said.

“Even if you speak out and if it doesn’t get deleted, you are still going to be spammed…and people are going to say you are a spy… the dignity of people themselves is destroyed.”

CNN’s Beijing bureau contributed to this story.

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Business

Irishman faces 20 years in jail after exposing himself on flight to New York | Ireland

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An Irishman who refused to wear a Covid mask during a flight from Dublin to New York and exposed his rear end to a flight attendant faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of assault, the US justice department said on Friday.

Shane McInerney, 29, from Galway, was alleged to have caused the disturbance on a Delta Airlines flight on 7 January.

He appeared before a judge in New York a week later and was charged with “intentionally assaulting and intimidating a member of a flight crew”, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Friday.

It said the suspect repeatedly refused to wear a mask, threw a beverage can and hit a passenger in the head, and “pulled down his pants and underwear and mooned a flight attendant and passengers”.

A court spokesman said that if convicted of this felony charge, McInerney could be sentenced to 20 years in prison.

McInerney was headed to Florida to take up a job at a football academy.

He was released on $20,000 bail as he awaits trial.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in January 2021 it would observe a zero-tolerance policy toward people who reject federal rules mandating mask-wearing on US domestic flights.

This came as flight attendants reported a high number of incidents of verbal and physical abuse from travellers who refuse to wear a mask.

An American Airlines jetliner headed from Miami to London turned around in mid-flight on Thursday because a passenger refused to wear a Covid mask.

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Business

A man was arrested after allegedly exposing himself to a Delta Air Lines flight flight attendant and passengers

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On an eight-hour flight traveling from Dublin, Ireland to New York City on January 7, Shane McInerney, 29, allegedly refused to wear a face mask despite being asked several times to do so by the flight crew, according to an affidavit and complaint unsealed Friday.

The Galway, Ireland, native allegedly threw an empty beverage can, hitting another passenger in the head, according to the complaint. Court documents also said McInerney had an exchange with the flight captain, who was on a break, and twice placed his own cap on the captain’s head. The affidavit says McInerney held his fist near the captain’s face and said, “Don’t touch me.”

At one point during the flight, McInerney allegedly pulled down his pants and underwear, exposing his buttocks to a flight attendant, according to the complaint.

McInerney also did not remain seated when the airplane was on its final approach to the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the complaint read.

McInerney is facing a felony charge of intentionally assaulting and intimidating a member of a flight crew, according to John Marzulli, spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison, Marzulli said.

McInerney’s attorney, Benjamin Zev Yaster, had no comment.

McInerney was released on a $20,000 bond and remains in the US as a condition of his bond, according to Marzulli.

No date has been set for McInerney’s arraignment, but he had his initial appearance in Brooklyn Federal Court on January 14, Marzulli said.

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Health

Wisconsin wedding leads to Omicron super spread in Oakland, exposing medical professionals

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A Wisconsin wedding was found to be the source of a COVID Omicron ‘super-spread’ now taking Oakland by storm, leaving 38 hospital workers and patients exposed as the variant has now been spotted in half of U.S. states. 

Debra Furr-Holden, 47, the associate Dean of Public Health Integration at Michigan State University, said she attended the Milwaukee wedding on November 27 after she was assured nearly all 100 guests, many of whom were medical experts, were vaccinated. 

But the medical professional noted that as the celebration went on, many guests took their masks off and mingled, causing Furr-Holden and more than a dozen others to be infected with COVID-19, including 11 people who work for Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland Medical Center. 

While Furr-Holden confirmed that she went on to infect her daughter, Jordan, Kaiser Permanente officials said the infected employees may have exposed a total of 38 co-workers and patients at two Oakland, California hospitals.  

‘I’ll give people a cautionary tale,’ Furr-Holden told ABC. ‘If a group of medical professionals and public health professionals can’t prevent spread at a social gathering, it’s just the luck of the draw for everybody.’ 

The super-spreader event comes as large holiday celebrations continue across the U.S., including the infamous SantaCon in New York City, where thousands gather for a massive pub crawl, despite the rise in COVID-19 cases and the Omicron variant.   

Debra Furr-Holden, the associate Dean of Public Health Integration at Michigan State University, confirmed she contracted the virus after attending a wedding in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 27

The Omicron COVID-19 variant has now been sequenced around 80 times in at least 25 U.S. states, half of America

Wisconsin public health officials are investigating the outbreak and have yet to find any local positive cases among the wedding guests. They said one guest had recently returned from an international trip. 

Kaiser Permanente officials told the San Francisco Chronicle that the 11 infected employees were fully vaccinated and had received booster shots. 

Some of the infected did not exhibits systems before going to work after the wedding ceremony, exposing eight patients and another eight coworkers to the virus. 

As of December 8, 13 of those exposed have tested negative for COVID-19. Kaiser Permanente would not provide further details on the remaining tests. 

‘The few affected staff members, who are in patient-facing roles, worked briefly prior to being symptomatic or tested and all adhered to COVID-19 infection prevention guidance while in the facility,’ the medical company said in a statement. 

One of the infected workers from the Oakland medical center also worked at the nearby Highland Hospital, where officials there said 11 staff members and another 11 employees were potentially exposed. 

The wedding left 11 employees of Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland Medical Center infected with COVID-19. They potentially exposed a total of 38 coworkers and patients in two hospitals

Furr-Holden said she infected her daughter, Jordan, who tested positive for the virus shortly after. The pair are quarantining away from Jordan’s three-month-old daughter, India

Furr-Holden said she must have infected her daughter, Jordan, who tested positive for the virus shortly after. The pair are quarantining away from Jordan’s three-month-old daughter, India. 

‘We all did the right thing, we got tested in advance. We got our vaccines. Many had boosters,’ Furr-Holden said of the attendees. 

‘And we still ended up infecting each other and then some of us came home and infected our loved ones.’ 

She added that the bride and groom, who were on their honeymoon when they alerted the guests about the outbreak, had also tested positive and are still in a 14-day quarantine.  

The Omicron COVID-19 variant is now in half of U.S. states, after Arizona, Iowa, Michigan and Virginia joined the growing list on Thursday or Friday morning.

Now, 25 states have recorded at least one Omicron case. 

While Omicron dominates headlines, the Delta variant continues its spread nationwide, causing a 30 percent increase in new daily cases and 20 percent increase in deaths over the past two weeks.

America’s worsening COVID situation, combined with the Omicron variant and general apathy the population has for the pandemic at this point has one expert sounding alarms that things may get worse for the nation.

Dr .Gregory Poland (pictured) warns that there are 32,000 Americans alive right now who will be dead because of Covid by the end of the year, and do not even know it yet

Dr. Gregory Poland is one of the nation’s top experts on vaccination and immunology, and works as an epidemiologist for the Mayo Clinic and is editor-in-chief of the scientific journals ‘Vaccine’.

As deaths in America continue to rise, he warns that people should not let their guard down.

‘32,000 Americans who think they’re going to be alive to celebrate Christmas and New Years are, no pun intended, dead wrong,’ he told DailyMail.com, as his calculations show that with the current death rate in America, around 32,000 more people are likely to die between now and New Years.

‘Not one of them believes [they will die].’ 

While early data about the Omicron variant is promising – showing that the highly infectious variant does not cause as severe cases as Delta and other Covid strains – he fears that people will see those messages and expose themselves to the existing dangers of virus.

‘Everybody’s comforting themselves with the idea that Omicron is less severe,’ he said.

‘It may well be but that is very, very, preliminary information that comes from one specific area of the world where Delta has not been as deadly as it has here. 

‘It fascinates me that a tiny little preliminary report like that makes its way around the world. Everybody fixes on that belief. And yet, look at the last year of work trying to get people immunized and they ignore it.’

Poland urges Americans to get fully vaccinated as soon as they can, and for those already fully vaccinated to get their booster shot.

He is echoing the calls of many other health officials since the discovery of the Omicron variant, with Dr. Anthony Fauci – the nation’s top infectious disease expert – even saying earlier this week that the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ would eventually be changed to only include people who have received their booster doses.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report finding the first 43 cases of Omicron sequenced in the U.S. were all mild infections, with no severe complications reported so far.

 

Poland says that much of America’s failures to deal with the pandemic draws back to humans inability to understand the scale as to which how quickly the virus can spread.

‘What we’re fundamentally discussing is a concept called exponential reality… and there are no circumstances in which humans don’t fail in decision making under conditions of exponential reality,’ he said.

Because of the nature of COVID, and especially the more infectious variants like Delta and Omicron, cases can double in a matter of only a few days if spread is not mitigated – meaning a situation that seems controlled can quickly become overwhelming.

Poland supports vaccine mandates and believes that no one should be able to travel into the United States without showing proof of a negative test.

He also supports the ‘pre-emptive’ strike against COVID that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced earlier this week – implementing vaccine mandates on the private sector workforce and requiring proof of two vaccine doses for a person to go to many indoor events and facilities.

‘I thought that was a very wise and courageous action that most people will not want to do, not realizing the value of that to them,’ Poland said. 

Pfizer finds that third shot is needed to protect from Omicron 

The pharma giant Pfizer revealed data Wednesday showing that its two-dose COVID vaccine regimen may not be effective at preventing infection from the Omicron variant

Data published by AHRI on Tuesday found that the jab had 41 times less antibodies effective against Omicron as it had against over variants

Pfizer reports that a booster dose increases Omicron-fighting antibodies 25-fold when compared to only receiving the two-shots

Officials could not say whether the jab is still effective at preventing severe COVID infection

The Pfizer vaccine is the most popular in the U.S., having been administered over 275 million times to fully vaccinate more than 110 million people 

While his outlook on the pandemic is not the rosiest, Poland still thinks it is ok for people to travel for Christmas and New Years this holiday season, as long as they understand they are absorbing some risk in doing so.

‘I have no problem with that. Just [make sure] they’re fully vaccinated and boosted and they were a proper mask properly,’ he said.

‘We were built for community, we were built for social interaction, we must have that. That question is how to do it safely. And [how to] balance risks and benefits.’  

There is no such thing as doing anything ‘safe’, Poland said, even adding that the act of driving a car can be extremely dangerous, but people could do things ‘safer’ by taking some precautions like wearing a mask and getting vaccinated.

The United States reached 60 percent of its population fully vaccinated earlier this week, a milestone reached only days before the one year anniversary of the first vaccine doses becoming available. 

Some officials are pushing to bring that rate even higher, including New York Gov Kathy Hochul.

On Friday, Hochul announced that all indoor businesses in New York would have to either institute a vaccine mandate or mask mandate, a drastic move that will go into effect on Monday. 

On Wednesday, Pfizer, who manufactures the most commonly used vaccine in the U.S. – used to fully vaccinated over 110 million people – announced it had data showing that the first two doses of its vaccine were not as effective against the new variant.

It came a day after the African Health Research Institute released a study finding that people who were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine had 40 times less antibodies available for fighting Omicron that they did other strains.

Pfizer did say that it had data showing the booster shot would get protection levels back up, though, and increases antibody levels 25-fold. 

On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration expanded eligibility of the Pfizer booster shot to also include people aged 16 and 17.

Nearly 50 million, or 15 percent of the population, has received a booster shot, with half receiving the Pfizer shoot as their booster. 

America is also averaging around 120,000 new daily COVID cases, a 30 percent increase over the past two weeks.

Deaths in the U.S. are up 18 percent over the past two weeks, up to nearly 1,300 per week, and the 62,000 Americans in the hospital due to severe cases of the virus is a 20 percent increase over the past two weeks.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota said this week that he believes Omicron could become the dominant strain within the next few weeks. 

‘I think Omicron is going to be remarkable in how fast it takes,’ Osterhold said. 

‘If you look at what it took for Alpha and Delta to prevail, it took really two months before they became the dominant variants around the world, some countries sooner than others. I think you’re going to see this one become the dominant variant in just a matter of weeks.’

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Health

Starbucks worker contracts hepatitis A, possibly exposing thousands

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A New Jersey Starbucks employee who handled food tested positive for hepatitis A, prompting fears that “thousands” may have been exposed to the highly contagious liver disease.

The incident occurred at the Starbucks outlet at 1490 Blackwood Clementon Road in Gloucester Township, where the food handler had reportedly worked multiple days this month while contagious. The department was notified of the infection on Nov. 17, whereupon it inspected and then subsequently shuttered the coffee shop — despite finding no evidence of food safety violations.

“The county health department has been working closely with the patient and the staff at the Starbucks to address the situation,” Camden County Health Officer Paschal Nwako said in a statement. “The patient is not currently working, and close contacts have been identified.”

That particular Starbucks location, according to the company, “is busy, as most are,” county spokesman Dan Keashen told CNN. “They’re saying they have an average of 600 patrons a day and some are return patrons maybe going multiple times a day … but the exposure is probably in the thousands.”

As a result, anyone who visited the location on Nov. 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 or 13 is being urged to get the hepatitis A vaccine “as soon as possible but no later than 14 days after contact,” per the press release.

“They’re saying they have an average of 600 patrons a day and some are return patrons maybe going multiple times a day.”

To help facilitate immunization, health officials administered 17 hepatitis A vaccines to Starbucks employees on Thursday and established a nearby pop-up vaccine clinic on Friday and Saturday, the Washington Post reported.

“Our highest priority is ensuring everyone involved remains safe and healthy,” said Nwako. “We encourage anyone who may believe they were exposed to get vaccinated against hepatitis A by calling the county health department or your primary care physician.”

So far, 782 patrons and 17 Starbucks employees have received the shot, marking the largest hepatitis A vaccination campaign in New Jersey history, CNN reported.

Thankfully, no one else has tested positive for the highly contagious disease, which is transmitted via close contact with an infected individual or “through consumption of contaminated food or drink,” per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It marked the largest hepatitis A vaccination drive in New Jersey history.
Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Per the site, hep A symptoms can last up to two months and include fatigue, nausea, stomach pain and jaundice — although most people “do not have long-lasting illness.” In rare instances, the disease can result in liver failure or death, but that is generally more common in older people and others with pre-existing afflictions such as liver disease, according to the Washington Post.

The ailment is particularly insidious as people can spread it without exhibiting symptoms.

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