Tag Archives: HEARCA

Business

Twitter restores suicide prevention feature after Reuters report

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NEW YORK, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from some users and consumer safety groups over its removal.

Reuters reported on Friday that the feature was taken down a few days ago, citing two people familiar with the matter, who said the removal was ordered by the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk.

After publication of the story, Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin confirmed the removal and called it temporary. “We have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that,” Irwin said in an email to Reuters.

“We expect to have them back up next week,” she said.

About 15 hours after the initial report, Musk, who did not initially respond to requests for comment, tweeted “False, it is still there.” In response to criticism by Twitter users, he also tweeted “Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide.”

The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. It listed contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.

Its elimination had led some consumer safety groups and Twitter users to express concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users of the platform.

In part due to pressure from consumer safety groups, internet services including Twitter, Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) and Meta’s Facebook (META.O) have for years tried to direct users to well-known resource providers such as government hotlines when they suspect someone may be in danger of harming themselves or others.

In her email, Twitter’s Irwin said, “Google does really well with these in their search results and (we) are actually mirroring some of their approach with the changes we are making.”

She added, “We know these prompts are useful in many cases and just want to make sure they are functioning properly and continue to be relevant.”

Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a recently dissolved Twitter content advisory group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was “extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing.”

Even if it was only temporarily removed to make way for improvements, “normally you would be working on it in parallel, not removing it,” she said.

Reporting by Kenneth Li in New York, Sheila Dang in Dallas, Paresh Dave in Oakland, and Fanny Potkin in Singapore; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

U.S. FDA advisers overwhelmingly back Moderna COVID vaccine for ages 6-17

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A pharmacist holds a vial of the Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine in West Haven, Connecticut, U.S., February 17, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Segar

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June 14 (Reuters) – Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday unanimously recommended that the agency authorize Moderna Inc’s (MRNA.O) COVID-19 vaccine for children and teens aged 6 to 17 years of age.

Around 77 million people in the United States have received at least a two-dose course of Moderna’s vaccine, which has long been available for people aged 18 and older.

The committee of outside experts is scheduled on Wednesday to consider the Moderna shot for children under 6, and Pfizer (PFE.N) and BioNTech’s (22UAy.DE) COVID vaccine for children under 5 – and in both cases as young as 6 months.

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There is unlikely to be significant immediate demand the Moderna shots for 6- to 17-year olds. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was authorized for children aged 5 to 11 in October, and approval for teenagers preceded that by months.

Yet only around 30% of those ages 5 to 11 and 60% of 12- to 17-year olds are fully vaccinated in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“I’d like to give parents as many choices as possible, and let them make the decisions about this for their children,” committee member and UC Berkeley professor Dr. Arthur Reingold said at the meeting.

The FDA – which generally follows the recommendations of its advisers but is not obligated to do so – is likely to authorize the Moderna vaccine for ages 6-17 soon. The CDC also needs to recommend the vaccine’s use. A committee of its advisers is scheduled to meet Friday and Saturday.

There have long been concerns that the Moderna vaccine, which is given at a higher dose than the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, may cause types of heart inflammation known as myocarditis and pericarditis at higher rates, primarily in younger males.

Some countries in Europe have limited use of Moderna’s vaccine for younger age groups after surveillance suggested it was tied to a higher risk of heart inflammation, and the FDA delayed its review of the shot to assess the myocarditis risk.

U.S. regulators presented data at the meeting on Tuesday suggesting that Moderna’s vaccine may have a higher risk of heart inflammation in young men, but said the findings were not consistent across various safety databases and were not statistically significant, meaning they might be due to chance.

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Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Michael Erman in New Jersey; Editing by Jason Neely and Bill Berkrot

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US

U.S. man with transplanted genetically modified pig heart dies

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March 9 (Reuters) – A 57-year-old man with terminal heart disease who made history as the first person to receive a genetically modified pig’s heart died on Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), the hospital said.

David Bennett received the transplant on Jan 7. read more

His condition began deteriorating several days ago, the hospital said in a statement on Wednesday, and he was given “compassionate palliative care” after it became clear that he would not recover.

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Bennett “wasn’t able to overcome what turned out to be the devastating debilitation” caused by the heart failure he experienced before the transplant, Dr. Bartley Griffith, director of the UMCC cardiac transplant program, said in a videotaped statement.

The transplanted heart functioned “beautifully,” Griffith said.

Bennett was able to communicate with his family during his final hours, the hospital said.

Surgeon Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, MD leads a team placing a genetically-modified pig heart into a storage device at the Xenotransplant lab before its transplant on David Bennett, a 57-year-old patient with terminal heart disease, at University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. January 7, 2022. Picture taken January 7, 2022. University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM)/Handout via REUTERS.

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Bennett first came to UMMC as a patient in October and was placed on a heart-lung bypass machine, but was deemed ineligible for a conventional heart transplant.

After Bennett received a pig heart that had been modified to prevent rejection with the use of new gene editing tools, his son called the procedure “a miracle.”

For Bennett, the procedure was his last option.

“Before consenting to receive the transplant, Mr Bennett was fully informed of the procedure’s risks, and that the procedure was experimental with unknown risks and benefits,” the hospital said.

Researchers have long considered pigs to be a potential source of organs for transplants because they are anatomically similar to humans in many ways. Prior efforts at pig-to-human transplants had failed because of genetic differences that caused organ rejection or viruses that posed an infection risk.

“The demonstration that it was possible – that we were able to take a genetically engineered organ and watch it function flawlessly for nine weeks, is pretty positive in terms of the potential for this therapy,” Griffith said.

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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Nancy Lapid in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bill Berkrot, Caroline Humer and Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Health

Light-to-moderate drinking tied to lower risk of heart attack and death in patients with heart disease

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Bottles of alcoholic beverages are seen for sale in a shop in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, May 1, 2018. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne/File Photo

July 26 (Reuters) – EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:00 PM ET

Light-to-moderate alcohol consumption is linked to a reduced risk of heart attack, stroke and death among those with heart disease, according to a study published in the journal BMC Medicine on Monday.

The largest benefit – a 50% reduction in risk compared with non-drinkers – was seen in people with heart disease who drank an average of 6 grams of alcohol per day. (A standard “unit” of alcohol is 8 grams in the UK, whereas the average drink in the United States contains 14 grams.)

People who averaged 8 grams per day had a 27% lower risk of death from heart attack, stroke or angina, compared with those who did not drink. Those who drank 7 grams per day had a 21% lower risk of death due to any cause.

Drinking higher amounts, up to an average of 15 grams of alcohol daily, were linked with smaller reductions in risk. https://bit.ly/3kV2xN9

“Our findings suggest that people with CVD (cardiovascular disease) may not need to stop drinking in order to prevent additional heart attacks, strokes or angina, but that they may wish to consider lowering their weekly alcohol intake,” said study coauthor Chengyi Ding, a research student at University College London. She noted, however: “Alcohol consumption is associated with an increased risk of developing other illnesses.”

Ding cautioned that non-drinking individuals should not be encouraged to take up light drinking because of known adverse effects on other health outcomes, such as cancers.

The researchers, who assessed more than 48,000 patients with heart disease, found that higher alcohol consumption, up to 62 grams per day, was not associated with increased risks of recurrent heart attack or death compared with no alcohol consumption.

Overall, the alcohol amounts that were linked with benefit are lower than those recommended in most current guidelines. For example, the American Heart Association’s guidelines for heart patients recommend up to 2 U.S. drinks per day for men and 1 per day for women.

A 2019 study found older people with heart failure who consume up to seven drinks a week may live longer than those who completely avoid alcohol. (https://reut.rs/3y5VwwH)

However, researchers in the past have found that heavy drinking was associated with increased levels of blood biomarkers that indicate damage to the heart.

The new study analyzed data from the UK Biobank, the Health Survey for England, the Scottish Health Survey and from 12 previous studies.

The researchers caution that their findings may overestimate the reduction in risk for moderate drinkers with heart disease due to the under-representation of heavy drinkers and categorization of former drinkers who may have quit.

Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Nancy Lapid and Dan Grebler

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