Geobiologists shine new light on Earth’s first known mass extinction event 550 million years ago

Work shows a major loss of diversity during the Ediacaran Period, which lasted from 635 million to 540 million years ago

Peer-Reviewed Publication

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: IMPRESSIONS OF THE EDIACARAN FOSSILS DICKINSONIA (AT CENTER) WITH THE SMALLER ANCHOR SHAPED PARVANCORINA (LEFT) IN SANDSTONE OF THE EDIACARA MEMBER FROM THE NILPENA EDIACARA NATIONAL PARK IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF SCOTT EVANS.

A new study by Virginia Tech geobiologists traces the cause of the first known mass extinction of animals to decreased global oxygen availability, leading to the loss of a majority of animals present near the end of the Ediacaran Period some 550 million years ago.

The research spearheaded by Scott Evans, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geosciences, part of the Virginia Tech College of Science, shows this earliest mass extinction of about 80 percent of animals across this interval. “This included the loss of many different types of animals, however those whose body plans and behaviors indicate that they relied on significant amounts of oxygen seem to have been hit particularly hard,” Evans said. “This suggests that the extinction event was environmentally controlled, as are all other mass extinctions in the geologic record.”

Evans’ work was published Nov. 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences. The study was co-authored by Shuhai Xiao, also a professor in the Department of Geosciences, and several researchers led by Mary Droser from the University of California Riverside’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, where Evans earned his master’s degree and Ph.D.

“Environmental changes, such as global warming and deoxygenation events, can lead to massive extinction of animals and profound disruption and reorganization of the ecosystem,” said Xiao, who is an affiliated member of the Global Change Center, part of the Virginia Tech Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “This has been demonstrated repeatedly in the study of Earth history, including this work on the first extinction documented in the fossil record. This study thus informs us about the long-term impact of current environmental changes on the biosphere.”

What exactly caused the drop in global oxygen? That’s still up for debate. “The short answer to how this happened is we don't really know,” Evans said. “It could be any number and combination of volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate motion, an asteroid impact, etc., but what we see is that the animals that go extinct seem to be responding to decreased global oxygen availability.”

The study by Evans and Xiao is timelier than one would think. In an unconnected study, Virginia Tech scientists recently found that anoxia, the loss of oxygen availability, is affecting the world’s fresh waters. The cause? The warming of waters brought on by climate change and excess pollutant runoff from land use. Warming waters diminish fresh water’s capacity to hold oxygen, while the breakdown of nutrients in runoff by freshwater microbes gobbles up oxygen.

“Our study shows that, as with all other mass extinctions in Earth's past, this new, first mass extinction of animals was caused by major climate change — another in a long list of cautionary tales demonstrating the dangers of our current climate crisis for animal life,” said Evans, who is an Agouron Institute Geobiology fellow.

Some perspective: The Ediacaran Period spanned roughly 96 million years, bookended on either side by the end of Cryogenian Period — 635 million years ago — and the beginning of the Cambrian Period — 539 million years ago. The extinction event comes just before a significant break in the geologic record, from the Proterozoic Eon to the Phanerozoic Eon.

There are five known mass extinctions that stand out in the history of animals, the “Big Five,” according to Xiao, including the Ordovician-Silurian Extinction (440 million years ago), the late Devonian Extinction (370 million years ago), the Permian-Triassic Extinction (250 million years ago), the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction (200 million years ago), and the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction (65 million years ago).

“Mass extinctions are well recognized as significant steps in the evolutionary trajectory of life on this planet,” Evans and team wrote in the study. Whatever the instigating cause of the mass extinction, the result was multiple major shifts in environmental conditions. “Particularly, we find support for decreased global oxygen availability as the mechanism responsible for this extinction. This suggests that abiotic controls have had significant impacts on diversity patterns throughout the more than 570 million-year history of animals on this planet,” the authors wrote.

Fossil imprints in rock tell researchers how the creatures that perished in this extinction event would have looked. And they looked, in Evans’ words, “weird.”

“These organisms occur so early in the evolutionary history of animals that in many cases they appear to be experimenting with different ways to build large, sometimes mobile, multicellular bodies,” Evans said. “There are lots of ways to recreate how they look, but the take-home is that before this extinction the fossils we find don't often fit nicely into the ways we classify animals today. Essentially, this extinction may have helped pave the way for the evolution of animals as we know them.”

The study, like scores of other recent publications, came out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because Evans, Xiao, and their team couldn't get access to the field, they decided to put together a global database based mostly on published records to test ideas about changing diversity. “Others had suggested that there might be an extinction at this time, but there was a lot of speculation. So we decided to put together everything we could to try and test those ideas.” Evans said. Much of the data used in the study was collected by Droser and several graduate students from the University of California Riverside.

Dickinsonia+Andiva 

Impressions of the Ediacaran fossils Dickinsonia (at left) and related but rare form Andiva (at right) in sandstone of the Ediacara Member from the Nilpena Ediacara National Park in South Australia.

CREDIT  Photo courtesy of Scott Evans.

Media assets here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VHWbN0UMe53Ki8AIomogoeOmvSOScuOO?usp=sharing

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of NAS RA Earth Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2207475119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Nov-2022

How dangerous is digital media for democracy?

New systematic review in Nature Human Behaviour summarizes studies conducted worldwide

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Some believe that digital media are a threat to democracy; others argue that they represent an opportunity for increased political participation. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, the Hertie School, and the University of Bristol have conducted a systematic review of studies investigating whether and how digital media impacts citizens’ political behavior. The empirical studies show that some effects may be beneficial for democracy. For example, digital media can increase political knowledge and diversity of news exposure. However, they can also have detrimental effects, such as fostering polarization and populism.

What’s more, the way effects such as increased political mobilization and decreasing trust in institutions play out depends largely on the political context. Such developments are beneficial in emerging democracies but can have destabilizing effects in established democracies. “The advantage of our systematic review—against the background of a divisive and often partisan debate—is that it allows objective conclusions to be drawn,” says author Philipp Lorenz-Spreen of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. At the institute’s Center for Adaptive Rationality, he studies how new technologies can help to promote participatory democracy online. While the impact of digital media on democracy cannot be judged as simply ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ the results clearly show that digital media can have several negative effects on political behavior, he continues.

In their review, the researchers synthesize causal and correlational evidence from nearly 500 articles on the relationship between digital media and democracy worldwide. They structure their analysis along the 10 most researched political outcome variables: political participation, knowledge, trust, news exposure, political expression, hate, polarization, populism, network structure, and misinformation. “When studying complex political and social phenomena, it is important to determine whether there is in fact a causal relationship,” explains author Lisa Oswald from the Hertie School in Berlin. With this in mind, the researchers focused on the subset of articles reporting causal evidence of a relationship between digital media and democracy. These include large-scale field experiments conducted on social media platforms and articles in which causal conclusions could be drawn due to factors such as data having been collected at different points in time.

The research findings can also help to clarify important issues in the young research field, such as whether the much-discussed phenomenon of echo chambers—in which people tend to encounter only like-minded people online—really exists. The results depend heavily on the digital media in question. There was no evidence of echo chambers in studies looking at news exposure, for example, but they do seem to emerge within social media networks.

“Our analysis covered studies conducted all over the world, allowing us to shine a light on how the effects of digital media differ across political systems,” says co-author Ralph Hertwig, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. The positive effects of digital media on political participation and information consumption were most pronounced in emerging democracies in South America, Africa, and Asia. Negative effects—in terms of increasing populism and polarization and decreasing political trust—were more evident in established democracies in Europe and the United States, for example. “In short, the findings show that social media have a significant impact around the world, but that the effects are complex. Further research including synthesis and analysis of existing studies is thus required”, says co-author Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Bristol. Already, though, research findings would reveal some clear trends and indicate that governments and civil societies need to take steps to better understand and actively shape the interplay of digital media and democracy.

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JOURNAL

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-022-01460-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Nov-2022

New research suggests political events impact sleep

Study finds association between elections and sleep, alcohol consumption and overall public mood

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER

BOSTON – Major political and societal events can have dramatic impacts on psychological health and impact sleep and emotional well-being. While conventional wisdom suggests these highly anticipated events, such as elections, can cause stress and disrupt well-being, little research has been published exploring this relationship.

Now, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and colleagues show how major sociopolitical events can have global impacts on sleep that are associated with significant fluctuations in the public’s collective mood, well-being, and alcohol consumption. The findings, published in the National Sleep Foundation’s journal Sleep Health show that divisive political events negatively influenced a wide variety of factors related to public mood.

“It is unlikely that these findings will come as shock to many given the political turbulence of the last several years,” said corresponding author Tony Cunningham, PhD, director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at BIDMC. “Our results likely mirror many of our own experiences surrounding highly stressful events, and we felt this was an opportunity to scientifically validate these assumptions.”

As part of a larger study exploring the sleep and psychological repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team surveyed 437 participants in the United States and 106 international participants daily between October 1–13, 2020 (before the election) and October 30–November 12, 2020 (days surrounding the November 3 U.S. election). Participants reported on their duration and quality of sleep, alcohol consumption and subjective experience of overall stress. Their responses revealed reduced sleep quantity and efficiency coupled with heightened stress, negative mood and alcohol use in the period surrounding the election. While these results were observed at a lower level in non-U.S. participants, worsening health habits were significantly correlated with mood and stress only among U.S. residents.

The daily surveys—delivered each morning at 8:00 am local time—asked respondents to assess the previous night’s sleep by recording their bedtimes, time required to fall asleep, number of awakenings through the night, morning wake time and time spent napping during the day. They also recorded the previous night’s alcohol consumption. Mood was assessed using a validated questionnaire as well as questions from a standard depression screening tool.

With regard to sleep, both U.S. and non-U.S. participants reported losing sleep in the run-up to the election; however, U.S. respondents had significantly less time in bed in the days around the election. On Election night itself, U.S. participants reported waking up frequently during the night and experiencing poorer sleep efficiency.

U.S. participants who ever reported drinking alcohol significantly increased consumption on three days during the assessment period: Halloween, Election Day and the day the election was called by more media outlets, Saturday, November 7. Among non-U.S. participants, there was no change in alcohol consumption over the November assessment period.

When the scientists looked at how these changes in behavior may have affected mood and well-being of U.S participants, they found significant links between sleep and drinking, stress, negative mood, and depression.

Analysis revealed that stress levels were largely consistent for both U.S. and non-U.S. participants in the assessment period in early October, but there was a sharp rise in reported stress for both groups in the days leading up to the November 3 election. Stress levels dropped dramatically once the election was officially called November 7. This pattern held for both U.S. and non-U.S. residence, but changes in stress levels were significantly greater in U.S. participants.

U.S. participants reported a similar pattern with depression that their non-U.S. counterparts did not experience; however, non-U.S. participants reported significant decreases in negative mood and depression the day after the election was called.

“This is the first study to find that there is a relationship between the previously reported changes in Election Day public mood and sleep the night of the election,” Cunningham said. “Moreover, it is not just that elections may influence sleep, but evidence suggests that sleep may influence civic engagement and participation in elections as well. Thus, if the relationship between sleep and elections is also bidirectional, it will be important for future research to determine how public mood and stress effects on sleep leading up to an election may effect or even alter its outcome.“

The authors emphasize that the interpretation of their results are limited in that the experience of the majority of participants was the buildup of election stress and subsequent response dependent on their preferred political candidate. Further research with a more representative and diverse sample is needed to confirm the impacts of political stress on public mood and sleep for the general public.

“The 2020 election took place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Cunningham. “Despite the chronic stress experienced during that time, the acute stress of the election still had clear impacts on mood and sleep. As such, research exploring the impact of the pandemic should also consider other overlapping, acute stressors that may exert their own influence to avoid inappropriately attributing effects to the pandemic.”

Co-authors include senior author Elizabeth A. Kensinger of Boston College, Eric C. Fields of Brandeis University, Dan Denis of University of Notre Dame, Ryan Bottary of Harvard Medical School, and Robert Stickgold of BIDMC.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants T32 HL007901, T32 NS007292), Boston College and the Sleep Research Society Foundation.

The authors reported no financial or non-financial conflicts of interests to report in relation to this work.

About Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and consistently ranks as a national leader among independent hospitals in National Institutes of Health funding. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,800 physicians and 36,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.

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JOURNAL

Sleep Health

DOI

10.1016/j.sleh.2022.08.009 

Willingness to use video telehealth increased during pandemic

Increase greatest among Black Americans and people with less education

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RAND CORPORATION

Americans’ use and willingness to use video telehealth has increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising most sharply among Black Americans and people with less education, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

 

Following a representative survey panel of Americans from March 2019 through March 2021, researchers found that the willingness to use video telehealth increased overall from 51% in February 2019 to 62% in March 2021.

 

Some of the largest changes occurred in subgroups that had the lowest levels of willingness to use video telehealth before the pandemic, rising from 42% to 67% among Black adults and from 30% to 56% among adults with less than a high school education.

 

The study is published in the November edition of the journal Health Affairs.

 

“Our findings suggest that more Americans are becoming comfortable with telehealth and using video technology,” said Shira H. Fischer, the study’s lead author and a physician scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “This is important because there are concerns that lack of access to or willingness to use video telehealth may exacerbate disparities in the delivery of high-quality health care.”

 

Use of telehealth has increased rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic as health care providers offered telephone or video visits to reduce the potential for virus spread and have generally maintained that access.

 

Before the pandemic, some groups including Black Americans, people with lower incomes and adults with lower educational attainment, were less willing to engage in video telehealth. While the reasons are uncertain, researchers say some people have a lower trust of technology and lower rates of access to high-quality internet service.

 

While audio-only telehealth visits can increase access to care, experts say this may come at the expense of quality. Evidence of the quality of audio-only visits is scant and many clinicians report that audio-only visits are not as effective.

 

Studies have shown that clinicians can miss visual cues and struggle to establish rapport with patients, and audio-only visits are shorter. Some insurance companies and other health care payors have signaled they may stop reimbursing for audio-only visits when the public health emergency ends.

 

The new RAND study followed about 1,600 adults who participate in the RAND American Life Panel and completed surveys during February 2019, May 2020, August 2020 and March 2022 about their use and attitudes toward telehealth.

 

The RAND study found that in May 2020, 12% of people had used video telehealth since

the beginning of the pandemic, which was more than three times the proportion who had reported having used it when asked in February 2019.

 

The percentage of those who reported having video telehealth visits increased to almost 20% by August 2020 and 45% by March 2021.

 

RAND researchers found that over the course of the study period, the willingness to use telehealth increased among all subgroups, with the exception of people who were uninsured and those in the non-Hispanic/other race and ethnicity category, whose willingness remained unchanged.

 

Researchers found that increased exposure to telehealth triggered by the pandemic,

as well as positive experiences with the modality, may have influenced people’s willingness to use video telehealth.

 

Further, people may have become more willing to use video telehealth because telehealth was suddenly delivered by patients’ trusted providers (in addition to telehealth-only providers) and in the context of hybrid (in-person and telehealth) care models that could leverage the advantages of both modalities.

 

“As telehealth establishes a more permanent place in the delivery of health care, it will be important to address sources of variation in patients’ willingness to use video telehealth to ensure equitable access to quality care,” Fischer said.

 

Other authors of the study are Zachary Predmore, Elizabeth Roth, Lori Uscher-Pines, Matthew Baird and Joshua Breslau.  

 

RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries. 

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JOURNAL

Health Affairs

DOI

10.1377/hlthaff.2022.00118 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Use Of And Willingness To Use Video Telehealth Through The COVID-19 Pandemic

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Nov-2022

Why some Latino communities fear the COVID-19 vaccine, and what can be done to help

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RICE UNIVERSITY

 

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, some people in medically underserved Latino communities avoided getting vaccinated due to fears of side effects, mistrust of health officials and vaccine manufacturers and discrimination from health care workers, according to a new study from Rice University.

 

These findings are reported in “Vaccination for COVID-19 among historically underserved Latino communities in the United States: Perspectives of community health workers,” which focuses on communities near the U.S.-Mexico border. The article appears in the latest edition of Frontiers in Public Health.

Lead researcher Luz Garcini, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice, points out  a disparity reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though COVID-19 vaccination rates are higher among Latinos (65% have had at least one dose) than whites (54%), U.S. Latinos are 1.5 times more likely to be infected and 2.3 times more likely to be hospitalized when compared to whites.

 

“Given this information, we really wanted to get to the bottom of what is keeping individuals in these communities from taking the vaccine,” she says.  

 

Garcini and her fellow authors used online surveys and focus groups to gather information from 64 community health workers and promoters. They found that about 44% said patients believed vaccines can have harmful side effects, and approximately 28% said patients feared illness or death as a result of taking the vaccine.

 

Patients also cited the following reasons for not taking the vaccine:

 

· Discrimination or stigmatization from health care professionals administering the vaccine.

 

· Fear of exploitation or manipulation by the government or health authorities.

 

· Fear of having personal information mishandled and/or undocumented status disclosed.

 

· Limited information about vaccines or logistical hurdles to access.

 

Garcini said targeted, culturally sensitive efforts are needed to reduce the risk of infection in these communities.

 

The study was coauthored by Arlynn Ambriz, Alejandro Vázquez, Cristina Abraham, Vyas Sarabu, Ciciya Abraham, Autumn Lucas-Marinelli, Sarah Lill and Joel Tsevat. It is online at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.969370/full.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Public Health

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Vaccination for COVID-19 among historically underserved Latino communities in the United States: Perspectives of community health workers

THE VITIMS ARE COMATOSE 

At overdose events, arrests by police and combative behavior are rare, study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — While police officers are often dispatched alongside other first responders when drug overdoses are reported, an analysis of hundreds of overdose events in one Rhode Island city found that there were scant incidents that actually needed involvement from law enforcement.

“It was surprising and promising to find that arrests only occurred in about 1% of all cases of overdoses attended by police,” said Alexandria Macmadu, study co-author and a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Epidemiology at Brown University’s School of Public Health. “The research shows that there were few situations that truly required law enforcement presence due to safety concerns.”

The first responders who are dispatched to an overdose incident often include police, fire rescue personnel and emergency medical services, Macmadu said. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of overdose response and prevention trainings for police, and officers are now often equipped with naloxone, a medicine that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose.

However, limited research has documented the role of police in responding to overdose events. The nature of their role is important, Macmadu said, because police presence may have unintended harmful effects on people in an overdose situation.  

“We know from decades of research, both in Rhode Island and across the country, that fear of police involvement and arrest for things like drug possession can strongly deter people who use drugs from calling 911 when an overdose happens,” Macmadu said. “Because every minute matters during an overdose, this delay in seeking help can cost lives.”

The researchers wanted to understand what happens when police arrive on scene to an overdose, especially how often arrests are made and how often reports describe people experiencing overdoses as combative.

“Research has told us that some police attending an overdose see their role as protecting other first responders from people who use drugs who become combative after being revived from an overdose,” Macmadu said. “So we wanted to understand how often this combativeness is actually encountered by police.”

Understanding the actions of police at overdose events is also critical from a racial justice lens, Macmadu said, as people of color are disproportionately impacted by police surveillance, non-violent drug-related arrests and drug-related offenses across the U.S.

In collaboration with Project Weber/RENEW, a nonprofit that provides peer-led harm reduction and recovery support services for people who engage in drug use or sex work, the Brown-led research team accessed the data through a public records request, and Macmadu developed the methodological and research frameworks to answer the research questions. The analysis, which was published in the Harm Reduction Journal, reviewed 200 overdose events during one year in an unnamed Rhode Island city between September 1, 2019, and August 31, 2020.

The researchers found that police administered naloxone in approximately 10% of incidents. In most incidents, police were the last group of first responders to arrive on scene (59%), and most often, naloxone was administered by others (65%). Police were significantly more likely to administer naloxone when they were the first professionals to arrive, when naloxone had not been administered by others, and when the overdose occurred in public or in a vehicle. Arrests at overdose events were rarely reported (1%), and people who overdosed were rarely (1%) documented in incident reports as being combative.

“Municipalities often exceptionalize the response to overdoses compared to other medical emergencies by co-dispatching police and EMS,” said Annajane Yolken, study co-author director of strategy at Project Weber/RENEW. “The research highlights that most often overdoses in the community are handled effectively by emergency medical services, who most often show up first on scene and are the first to administer naloxone.”

The researchers recommended that considering the findings, all jurisdictions should ideally have sufficient first-responder staffing and resources to ensure a rapid response to overdoses, with police rarely or never being dispatched to respond to standard overdose incidents. Until that ideal can be achieved, they added, any available responders should be dispatched at the same time as the police, with police instructed to resume their patrol once other professional responders also arrive on the scene.

Macmadu also made the point that warrant searches of people at the scene of an overdose should be prohibited, since these those searches discourage people from calling 911 for medical emergencies.

The results make the case for a new, and potentially more effective, approach to overdoses, Macmadu said.

“We think that this research presents municipalities with an opportunity to reframe the thinking about a reliance on a dual response to overdoses by both EMS and police, when it appears that the police presence not only might be unnecessary, but also might have a negative impact on the person who has overdosed and others who are on scene,” Macmadu said.

Additional collaborators include Alexandra B. Collins, Brendan P. Jacka, Brandon D. L. Marshall, Roxxanne Newman and Jai’el R. Toussaint from Brown; Lisa Frueh from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the COBRE on Opioids & Overdose with funding from National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the NIH.

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JOURNAL

Harm Reduction Journal

DOI

10.1186/s12954-022-00698-2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Characteristics of events in which police responded to overdoses: an examination of incident reports in Rhode Island

Contact tracing and exposure investigation framework helped to mitigate spread of monkeypox in the U.S.

Findings should inform estimates of exposure risk, requirements for monitoring, and recommendations for postexposure prophylaxis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS

A large contact tracing investigation of a patient with monkeypox virus (MPXV) infection found no secondary cases in community or health care settings. The creation of a framework for assessing specific risk scenarios permitted ease of application by employee occupational health staff and application across the various settings and the findings have important applications for informing future infection prevention efforts, including the administering of postexposure prophylaxis, or PEP. The paper is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

In May 2022, the first case of MPXV infection in the United States in the current global outbreak was identified. Until the case patient was identified as a person under investigation for monkeypox, he received care in many locations without specific precautions. As part of the public health and health care facility response, a contact tracing and exposure investigation was done.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Lahey Health and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health describe a framework of contact tracing, exposure identification, risk stratification, administration of PEP, and exposure period monitoring for contacts of the index patient, including evaluation of persons who developed symptoms possibly consistent with MPXV infection. Those with high-risk exposures were offered PEP, and 3 elected to have it. Among those with intermediate-risk exposures for which PEP was offered as part of informed clinical decision making, 2 elected to receive PEP. No transmissions were identified at the conclusion of the 21-day monitoring period, despite the delay in recognition of monkeypox in the index patient. Public health authorities and health care facilities should consider how these findings may inform revised estimates of exposure risk, requirements for monitoring, and recommendations for PEP.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Addison Dunlap at adunlap@acponline.org. To speak with an author, please contact:

• Noah Brown, MGH, at Nbrown9@partners.org
• Teresa Herbert, BILH, at teresa.herbert@bilh.org
• Alison Cohen, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, at alison.b.cohen@mass.gov.

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Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-2721
 

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JOURNAL

Annals of Internal Medicine

DOI

10.7326/M22-2721 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Contact Tracing and Exposure Investigation in Response to the First Case of Monkeypox Virus Infection in the United States During the 2022 Global Monkeypox Outbreak

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Nov-2022

Digital marketing of formula milk linked to unhealthy parental feeding practices

Exclusive breastfeeding less likely; processed foods and sugary drinks more likely. Tighter regulations needed to protect young children’s nutrition and health, say researchers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Digital marketing of formula milk and commercial baby foods is linked to unhealthy parental feeding practices, suggests research published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

Mums exposed to extensive digital marketing were less likely to exclusively breastfeed within the first 6 months and more likely to give their children processed foods and sugary drinks, the findings show, prompting the researchers to call for tighter regulations to safeguard young children’s nutrition and health.

The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (Code) stipulates that any informational and educational material should state the benefits and superiority of breastfeeding, as well as instructions for the proper use of infant formula, and should not contain visuals idealising the use of breast milk substitutes.

The Code also states that no company should seek direct or indirect contact with pregnant women or parents and caregivers, including through social media channels.

The researchers wanted to estimate the exposure of Mexican parents with infants aged under 24 months to digital marketing of formula and baby food, its association with the purchase of these products, and breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices.

Parents (1074) were recruited from a nationally representative market research panel, and surveyed about the brands, products, and digital platforms where they reported seeing ads for formula milk and baby foods between December 2020 and January 2021. 

The survey included questions about how and why purchases were made, and how feeding practices were influenced by digital marketing. Parents’ knowledge of the Code, their views of digital marketing regulations, and whether the ads made them think that formula milk and commercial baby foods were as good or better than breast milk were also captured.

Exposure to digital marketing of formula and baby foods was classified as the weekly frequency with which parents reported observing advertisements and the number of advertised products they reported seeing over the past month. 

Nearly two thirds (62%) of the participants were women. On average, they were 28 and had 2 children, half of whom were under 12 months of age. They were mostly educated to degree level and relatively affluent. 

A third of the mums (33%) exclusively breastfed their infants under 6 months and nearly half (45%) continued breastfeeding after 12 months. 

Among children up to 23 months, 58% were given formula milk, 43% consumed sugary drinks, and nearly three quarters (72%) had eaten processed foods the day before the survey.

During the preceding month, most (82%) parents said they had bought formula milk or baby foods. The main reasons given were nutritional content (45%), convenience (37%), and shelf life (22.5%). 

In all, 94% of parents reported seeing digital marketing on at least one site in the preceding month, with 86% reporting weekly frequency. Marketing was seen primarily on social media (77%). 

The average number of advertised products reported was 26; the most advertised formulas on digital media were infant formulas (0-6 months; 92%) and growing-up milk (12-36 months; 89%). Porridge (77%) and yoghurt (71%) were the most commonly advertised baby foods. 

Only 13% of parents knew about the Code, and only around half (48%) felt that the existing regulations for marketing formula and baby foods were inadequate. Close to 55% felt that advertising portrayed formula as equal to or better than breast milk.

Ninety-five parents were asked to make three 10-minute screen recordings of their mobile device while browsing the internet or checking their social media and smartphone apps.

The number of ads for formula and baby food products seen in each recording were counted and classified as intentional or unintentional searches.

Eighty-nine (94%) observed at least one formula and/or baby food ad in their 30 minutes of recordings, with an average of around 7 ads seen in each recording during an intentional search, and around 2 during unintentional searches. 

The most advertised product seen was growing-up milk (42%), although advertising for infant formulas (0–6 months) was also identified (20%). In each recording, at least one ad for infant formula or baby food was identified and all contained Code violations. 

These were primarily absence of statements about the superiority of breastfeeding (96%); lack of warnings on the risks of improper formula preparation (95%) or advice to consult health professionals about the use of these products (93.5%); and invitations to visit websites, social media, or links to purchase their products (70%). 

Overall, parents who reported seeing a higher number of ads were 62% less likely to exclusively breastfeed their children during the first 6 months than those reporting a lower number, and more than twice as likely to feed them breast and other milks.

They were also 84% more likely to give their children formula, more than twice as likely to give them processed foods, and 66% more likely to give them sugary drinks. 

Higher exposure to ads was associated with a two-fold greater chance of purchasing products on the basis of nutritional and organic claims made in digital marketing.

This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause. And the participants were relatively affluent and well educated, so the findings may not be more widely applicable, caution the researchers.

Nevertheless, they conclude: “Marketing regulations should ban breast-milk substitutes and baby food promotion in digital media and the use of health claims, since they may confuse parents about optimal [infant and young child feeding practices]. 

“This call for action is urgent to safeguard the health and right of children to breastfeeding and natural, nutritious, sufficient and quality food.”

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JOURNAL

BMJ Global Health

DOI

10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009904 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Digital marketing of formula and baby food negatively influences breast feeding and complementary feeding: a cross sectional study and video recording of parental exposure in Mexico

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Nov-2022

How female false widow spiders use their ‘spidey senses’ to attract mates - study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

When it comes to spider love, female widow spiders hold the key to attracting mates, potentially adjusting their web’s attractiveness to lure males, according to new research.

A study led by Simon Fraser University’s resident “spider man,” PhD candidate Andreas Fischer, reveals new details about how female false widow spiders (Steatoda grossa) communicate using pheromones—and suggests they can build more attractive webs— to lure mate-seeking males by adjusting the pH level of their pheromone-bearing silk.

Female false widow spiders disseminate pheromone from their webs to attract males and deposit contact pheromone components on their webs that induce courtship by the males once they arrive.

This latest research, published this week in the journal Nature Communications Biology, also identifies the organ that produces these pheromone components— the posterior aggregate silk gland—as well as the chemical structure of the pheromone components involved in attraction and courtship. 

“We also found that female false widow spiders have a sophisticated method to constantly ‘mate call’ by slowly breaking down the courtship-inducing pheromone components to sex attractant pheromone components that lures the males in,” says Fischer, who carries out research in the Department of Biological Sciences’ Gries-lab.

False widow spiders are globally invasive and capable of reproducing year-round but little is known about the reproductive behaviour of this common species of spider, also sometimes called the cupboard spider, which predominantly lives in buildings.

Method of study:

In their latest study, 93 sexually mature, adult virgin female false widow spiders spun webs on wooden triangular prism scaffolds or bamboo skewers. For comparison, 70 immature sub-adult females were also allowed to build webs, though only mature females are known to produce pheromones.

Their webs were then deposited into a glass vial for laboratory analysis. Then, the various pheromone components were identified using the latest state-of-the-art technology, custom created in the laboratory, and tested for their ability to attract and induce courtship behaviour in male false widow spiders.

Can female false widow spiders control their attractiveness to males?

Researchers suggest that female spiders may be able to actively adjust the attractiveness of their web to males. Female spiders can adjust the pH level in their silk and this ability may allow them to actively control the enzyme involved in the transition of contact, courtship-inducing pheromone components to mate attractant pheromone components.

Currently, only insects are known to actively time pheromone production and dissemination, and to modulate the amount of pheromone they emit. Arachnids, such as web-building spiders, may be able to do this as well but future study is needed to determine if this is the case. 

Male false widow spiders will die shortly after mating. The female will lay three or more egg sacs or cocoons containing 200 eggs each that hatch within two to four months.

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-022-04072-7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Origin, structure and functional transition of sex pheromone components in a false widow spider