Study: Kids born during COVID-19 pandemicdon't have higher autism risk

 HealthDay News

Sept. 23, 2024 

Kids born during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have no higher risk of autism, even if they were exposed to COVID in the womb, a new study finds. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Kids born during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have no higher risk of autism, even if they were exposed to COVID in the womb, a new study finds.

The study offers reassurance to doctors and parents who've been worried about the developmental health of children born during the pandemic, said senior researcher Dr. Dani Dumitriu, an associate professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City.

"Autism risk is known to increase with virtually any kind of insult to mom during pregnancy, including infection and stress," Dumitriu explained in a university news release. "The scale of the COVID pandemic had pediatricians, researchers and developmental scientists worried that we would see an uptick in autism rates."

"But, reassuringly, we didn't find any indication of such an increase in our study," Dumitriu added.

For the study, researchers tracked the health of nearly 2,000 children born at two NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and Allen Hospital, between January 2018 and September 2021.

Parents filled out screening questionnaires designed to help pediatricians assess a toddler's behavior and development.

Researchers found no difference in autism screenings between children born before and after the onset of the pandemic.

"COVID is still quite prevalent, so this is comforting news for pregnant individuals who are worried about getting sick and the potential impact on autism risk," Dumitriu noted.

Based on these results, Dumitriu thinks it's unlikely an uptick in autism related to COVID will occur.

"Children who were in the womb early in the pandemic are now reaching the age when early indicators of autism would emerge, and we're not seeing them in this study," Dumitriu said. "And because it's well-known that autism is influenced by the prenatal environment, this is highly reassuring."

It is important to note that the study didn't look directly at diagnoses of autism, only at the risk of autism assessed by the screening questionnaires, Dumitriu added.

"It's too early to have definitive diagnostic numbers," she said. "But this screener is predictive, and it's not showing that prenatal exposure to COVID or the pandemic increases the likelihood of autism."

Previous studies of babies born in the wake of other pandemics, natural disasters, famines and wars have shown that developmental conditions like autism can be potentially triggered by a mom's exposure to stress, researchers noted.

Those conditions often don't emerge until the teen years or even young adulthood.

"We need to acknowledge the unique experience and environment of children who were born during the pandemic -- including parental stress and social isolation -- and continue to monitor them for potential developmental or psychiatric differences," said lead investigator Morgan Firestein, an associate research scientist in psychiatry at Columbia.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the pandemic and autism diagnosis.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Massive ocean sunfish washes up in Oregon

Sept. 23 (UPI) -- A giant fish described as looking "like the invention of a mad scientist" washed up on an Oregon beach -- the third such incident since June.

The Seaside Aquarium said on social media that a mola mola, also known as an ocean sunfish, was found at Hug Point State Park in Clatsop County.




The fish "has been dead for some time" and measured nearly 7 feet long, the aquarium said. The species can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh up to 5,000 pounds.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium describes the fish as looking "like the invention of a mad scientist," with a "tiny mouth and big eyes."

The discovery comes after a mola tecta, or hoodwinker sunfish, washed up in Oregon in June and another mola mola washed up in the state August.

WOMAN LIFE FREEDOM

Study: Surrogate pregnancies have higher rate of complications

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

HealthDay News
Sept. 24, 2024 

Surrogate moms have a higher risk of pregnancy complications than other pregnant women, a new study finds. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Surrogate moms have a higher risk of pregnancy complications than other pregnant women, a new study finds.

About 8% of surrogate mothers developed a severe complication like high blood pressure or serious bleeding during delivery, Canadian researchers report.

By comparison, only 2% of women who conceive naturally and 4% of women who conceive via IVF develop similar complications, researchers found.

This is one of the first large-scale studies to compare outcomes between the three different types of pregnancy, they noted.

"Clinicians involved in the care of individuals and couples who need a gestational carrier to build their family should counsel their patients and the gestational carriers about the potential risk during pregnancy and early postpartum," said lead researcher Dr. Maria Velez, an adjunct scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Services in Kingston, Ontario.

For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 863,000 births in Ontario, Canada, between 2012 and 2021. Nearly 98% of pregnancies involved natural conception, compared with 1.8% conception with IVF and 0.1% a surrogate.

Overall risk of complications is higher for surrogates, researchers found, and surrogates have a specifically higher risk of high blood pressure and bleeding after delivery.

Surrogates were also more likely to have a preterm birth, results show.

The new study was published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Further study is needed to figure out why surrogate moms are at greater risk for complications, researchers said.

"There are guidelines about the eligibility criteria to minimize the risk of pregnancy complications among gestational carriers," Velez said in an institute news release. "However, these guidelines are not always strictly followed."

More information

Yale Medicine has more on surrogacy.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Psilocybin may curb mental illness linked to eating disorders

By Dennis Thompson, 

Sept. 24, 2024 

HealthDay News


Psilocybin could help people suffering from a mental health problem that can lead to eating disorders, a new study suggests. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Psilocybin could help people suffering from a mental health problem that can lead to eating disorders, a new study suggests.

Psilocybin, the active chemical in "magic" mushrooms, significantly reduced symptoms in people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), researchers reported Tuesday in the journal Psychedelics.

BDD causes an obsessive preoccupation with perceived flaws in one's physical appearance, and is frequently tied to eating disorders and other unhealthy behaviors, researchers said.

For this pilot trial, eight people with hard-to-treat BDD received a single 25-milligram dose of psilocybin.

Brain scans showed that the psilocybin treatment increased levels in connectivity between different brain regions related to emotional processing, cognitive activity and feelings and thoughts about oneself.

People who had the greatest strengthening in these connections experienced the most improvement in their BDD symptoms within a week, results show.

The findings "align with a growing body of evidence indicating that psychedelic compounds like psilocybin can promote mental health by enhancing the brain's capacity for flexibility and integration," concluded the research team led by Chen Zhang, a research assistant with the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

"By facilitating communication within and between brain networks that are often dysregulated in psychiatric disorders, psilocybin may help restore more adaptive cognitive and emotional functioning," the research team said in a journal news release.
Advertisement

However, more studies in larger groups of people with BDD are needed to verify the effectiveness of the treatment and how long it will last, the researchers noted.

More information

Johns Hopkins Medicine has more on psilocybin therapy.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Sanders tells Ozempic drugmaker's CEO to stop 'ripping off' Americans

Novo Nordisk charges $969 per month for Ozempic --- in the United States. 

The drug can be purchased for $155 in Canada, $122 in Denmark and $59 in Germany.

The CEO of Novo Nordisk is on Capitol Hill Tuesday to testify before a Senate committee about the high costs of its drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. 

 Photo by Ida Marie Odgaard/EPA-EFE

Sept. 24 (UPI) -- The CEO of Novo Nordisk is on Capitol Hill Tuesday to testify before a Senate committee about the high costs of its drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.

Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during his opening comments, had a simple message for Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, after highlighting the costs of his drugs are as much as 15 times higher in the United States than other countries.

"All we are saying, Mr. Jørgensen, is treat the American people the same way you treat people all over the world," Sanders said. "Stop ripping us off."

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions began its investigation of the Danish drug company earlier this year. Jørgensen is the only witness testifying in Tuesday's hearing.

The hearing is live streaming on the Senate committee's website.

Sanders called the prices for Ozempic and Wegovy "outrageously high."

During his opening remarks, Sanders speculated that Jørgensen would argue that lowering the costs of his company's drugs would result in pharmacy benefit managers not covering them.

"I'm delighted to announce today that I have received commitments in writing from all of the major PBMs that if Novo Nordisk substantially reduces the list price of Ozempic or Wegovy they would not limit coverage," Sanders said. "In fact, all of them told me they would be able to expand coverage for these drugs if the list price was reduced."

Sanders submitted the letters he received from PBM's, along with more than 200 letters from doctors warning that tens of thousands of their patients will die or experience a significant decline in their quality of life if these drug prices were not substantially reduced.

"Over 40,000 lives a year could be saved if Wegovy was made widely available and affordable to Americans," Sanders said.

While Sanders grilled Jørgensen over the "corporate greed" involved in the high prices for Ozempic and Wegovy, he noted that Novo Nordisk is not breaking any laws. Instead it is a symptom of America's broken healthcare system.

"What they're doing is lawful. They are taking advantage of the fact that the U.S., until recently, is the only major country in the world not negotiating our drug prices," Sanders said. "Novo Nordisk can charge us as much as the market can bear. And that is precisely what they are doing."

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said the committee must balance reining in prescription drug costs and maintaining a financial incentive that encourages innovation. He added that going after "big pharma" is not a silver bullet solution to bringing down drug costs.

"We still have to preserve the profit incentive for the creativity, for the drug companies to invest in developing drugs that are going to positively affect the burden of disease in our country," Cassidy said.

According to a press release from Sanders published before the hearing, Novo Nordisk charges $969 per month for Ozempic -- a drug prescribed to adults with type 2 diabetes -- in the United States. The drug can be purchased for $155 in Canada, $122 in Denmark and $59 in Germany.

A month's prescription for Wegovy in the United States costs $1,349, compared to $186 in Denmark, $140 in Germany and $92 in Britain.

Sanders alleges that three CEOs of generic pharmaceutical companies have said they could sell a generic version of Ozempic for less than $100 per month and make a profit. Novo Nordisk has made about $50 billion in sales from the sale of Ozempic and Wegovy alone.

Telegram agrees to turn over IP addresses of users with arrest warrants


Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Monday that his messaging app has made changes and will turn over IP addresses of users with warrants.

File Photo by Nick Lubushko/Wikipedia Com

Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Telegram announced it will give authorities the IP addresses and phone numbers of users who have search warrants against them or other legal action, as its founder Pavel Durov faces scrutiny over crime on the messaging platform.

Durov said in a post Monday that the updates to its privacy policies that would hand over data of users in response to "valid legal requests" should "discourage criminals."

"While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk," Durov said in a post on Monday.

French authorities arrested Durov over suspected criminal activity on Telegram that included gang activity, trafficking and the platform's previous position not to cooperate with law enforcement during investigations. He was released on a hefty $5.56 million bond.

Durov said in other changes being made by Telegram, moderators and artificial intelligence will help find and remove "problem content" from public search features.

"Search on Telegram is more powerful than in other messaging apps because it allows users to find public channels and bots," Durov said. "Unfortunately, this feature has been abused by people who violated our Terms of Service to sell illegal goods."

"Telegram search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods," he added.

The concessions announced Monday came after Durov said earlier this month that his arrest by French authorities was "misguided" and "surprising."

He argued at the time that he could not be held responsible for Telegram posts connected to criminal activities and that French authorities should have sued the company rather than targeting him personally.

Law enforcement agencies in the United States and other countries have argued that Telegram has become the messaging app of choice for criminals, allowing drug gangs, human traffickers, and extremist groups to communicate freely.

Survivors of sexual abuse in Belgium urged Pope Francis to take stronger action against abusers and advocate for deeper reforms within the Catholic Church, just days before his visit to Brussels.

 

U.S. home insurance rates rising fast -- climate change plays big role

By Andrew J. Hoffman, University of Michigan
THE CONVERSATION

Sept. 24, 2024 

For millions of Americans, homeowners insurance premiums have grown as coverage shrinks. Nationwide, premiums rose 34% between 2017 and 2023, and they continued to rise in 2024. 

Photo by Kelly/Pexels

Millions of Americans have been watching with growing alarm as their homeowners insurance premiums rise and their coverage shrinks. Nationwide, premiums rose 34% between 2017 and 2023, and they continued to rise in 2024 across much of the country.

To add insult to injury, those rates go even higher if you make a claim -- as much as 25% if you claim a total loss of your home.

Why is this happening?

There are a few reasons, but a common thread: Climate change is fueling more severe weather, and insurers are responding to rising damage claims. The losses are exacerbated by more frequent extreme weather disasters striking densely populated areas, rising construction costs and homeowners experiencing damage that was once more rare.

Parts of the United States have been seeing larger and more damaging hail, higher storm surges, massive and widespread wildfires, and heat waves that kink metal and buckle asphalt. In Houston, what used to be a 100-year disaster, such as Hurricane Harvey in 2017, is now a 1-in-23-years event, estimates by risk assessors at First Street Foundation suggest. In addition, more people are moving into coastal and wildland areas at risk from storms and wildfires.

Just a decade ago, few insurance companies had a comprehensive strategy for addressing climate risk as a core business issue. Today, insurance companies have no choice but to factor climate change into their policy models.

Rising damage costs, higher premiums

There's a saying that to get someone to pay attention to climate change, put a price on it. Rising insurance costs are doing just that.

Increasing global temperatures lead to more extreme weather, and that means insurance companies have had to make higher payouts. In turn, they have been raising their prices and changing their coverage in order to remain solvent. That raises the costs for homeowners and for everyone else.

The importance of insurance to the economy cannot be understated. You generally cannot get a mortgage or even drive a car, build an office building or enter into contracts without insurance to protect against the inherent risks. Because insurance is so tightly woven into economies, state agencies review insurance companies' proposals to increase premiums or reduce coverage.

The insurance companies are not making political statements with the increases. They are looking at the numbers, calculating risk and pricing it accordingly. And the numbers are concerning.

The arithmetic of climate risk

Insurance companies use data from past disasters and complex models to calculate expected future payouts. Then they price their policies to cover those expected costs. In doing so, they have to balance three concerns: keeping rates low enough to remain competitive, setting rates high enough to cover payouts and not running afoul of insurance regulators.

But climate change is disrupting those risk models. As global temperatures rise, driven by greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use and other human activities, past is no longer prologue: What happened over the past 10 to 20 years is less predictive of what will happen in the next 10 to 20 years.

The number of billion-dollar disasters in the United States each year offers a clear example. The average rose from 3.3 per year in the 1980s to 18.3 per year in the 10-year period ending in 2024, with all years adjusted for inflation.

With that more than fivefold increase in billion-dollar disasters came rising insurance costs in the Southeast because of hurricanes and extreme rainfall, in the West because of wildfires, and in the Midwest because of wind, hail and flood damage.

Hurricanes tend to be the most damaging single events. They caused more than $692 billion in property damage in the United States between 2014 and 2023. But severe hail and windstorms, including tornadoes, are also costly; together, those on the billion-dollar disaster list did more than $246 billion in property damage over the same period.

As insurance companies adjust to the uncertainty, they may run a loss in one segment, such as homeowners insurance, but recoup their losses in other segments, such as auto or commercial insurance. But that cannot be sustained over the long term, and companies can be caught by unexpected events. California's unprecedented wildfires in 2017 and 2018 wiped out nearly 25 years' worth of profits for insurance companies in that state.

To balance their risk, insurance companies often turn to reinsurance companies; in effect, insurance companies that insure insurance companies. But reinsurers have also been raising their prices to cover their costs. Property reinsurance alone increased by 35% in 2023. Insurers are passing those costs to their policyholders.

What this means for your homeowners policy

Not only are homeowners insurance premiums going up, coverage is shrinking. In some cases, insurers are reducing or dropping coverage for items such as metal trim, doors and roof repair, increasing deductibles for risks such as hail and fire damage, or refusing to pay full replacement costs for things such as older roofs.

Some insurances companies are simply withdrawing from markets altogether, canceling existing policies or refusing to write new ones when risks become too uncertain or regulators do not approve their rate increases to cover costs. In recent years, State Farm and Allstate pulled back from California's homeowner market, and Farmers, Progressive and AAA pulled back from the Florida market, which is seeing some of the highest insurance rates in the country.

State-run "insurers of last resort," which can provide coverage for people who can't get coverage from private companies, are struggling too. Taxpayers in states such as California and Florida have been forced to bail out their state insurers. And the National Flood Insurance Program has raised its premiums, leading 10 states to sue to stop them.

About 7.4% of U.S. homeowners have given up on insurance altogether, leaving an estimated $1.6 trillion in property value at risk, including in high-risk states such as Florida.

No, insurance costs aren't done rising

According to NOAA data, 2023 was the hottest year on record "by far." And 2024 could be even hotter. This general warming trend and the rise in extreme weather is expected to continue until greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are abated.

In the face of such worrying analyses, U.S. homeowners insurance will continue to get more expensive and cover less. And yet, Jacques de Vaucleroy, chairman of the board of reinsurance giant Swiss Re, believes U.S. insurance is still priced too low to fully cover the risk from climate change.

Andrew J. Hoffman is a professor of management & organizations, environment & sustainable enterprise at University of Michigan.


This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Who’s to blame when climate change turns the lights off?

TUE CONVERSATION
Published: September 23, 2024 

Deadly Storm Boris has flooded large areas of central Europe and the UK, destroying homes and displacing thousands of people.

With the flooding of sub-stations, the scouring of the foundations of pylons and river embankment failures, the rainstorm has also caused power outages many miles away. This will create yet more disruption as sewage pumping stations stall, train and tram services halt and vehicle charging points fail.

The UK saw this ripple of infrastructure failure in the 2007 summer floods. The compound failures caused by flooding in Gloucestershire alone, a county in south-west England, left 350,000 people without mains water for over two weeks and 42,000 people without power.

Commuters were stranded on the railway network and the M5 motorway. The floods also made thousands of people homeless. Similar floods struck the UK again in 2013 and 2020.

All systems fail occasionally. But infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to disruptions caused by extreme weather, which is being made more severe and frequent as a result of climate change. The UK’s national risk register lists nine impacts of climate change (including storms, heatwaves and wildfires) that could seriously damage infrastructure that is increasingly complex and interconnected. A single failure can create a cascade of them.

Risky business

Your home may not be in the path of the next storm but the infrastructure it relies on might be. So who is responsible for making sure that the power stays on, the toilets can still flush and water keeps running from taps? Whose job is it to ensure infrastructure is resilient to climate change?

People are responsible for their own resilience and that of their homes and private companies are responsible for the resilience of their operations. However, companies that operate services such as public transport, communications networks or utilities are overseen by regulators such as Ofgem (energy) and Ofwat (water).

The resilience of the networks owned by companies is not subject to regulation directly, there is no minimum standard of resilience that must be maintained and no fines for failure. Instead, people affected by power outages, for example, can claim compensation after a certain degree of disruption.

Installations were, generally, designed and built in an earlier climate. David Calvert

/Shutterstock

Within the government, the Cabinet Office takes the lead on planning the country’s resilience and is responsible for the government’s response to emergencies and for producing the national security risk assessment and the national risk register. Each risk is designated a lead government department, which works with agencies and public bodies that fall under its jurisdiction.

For example, flood risk is considered by the Environment Agency which reports to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (or Defra). Advisory bodies like the Climate Change Committee and the National Infrastructure Commission make recommendations to the government and assess its performance but have no powers to enforce action.

There are 427 public bodies and agencies working under the legal frameworks set by the 24 government departments – none have a minimum standard for infrastructure resilience.

The previous government committed to publishing resilience standards by 2025. Such standards would instruct utility companies and infrastructure operators on what measures were needed to prevent power cuts and other failures in the future. Discussions are happening in Whitehall that will shape the quality of life of millions of people for many years to come.

Three futures

Without taking all infrastructure into public ownership, or without all homes generating their own power and somehow meeting their own needs, what does the future look like? Is it down to homeowners to fend for themselves while landlords assume responsibility for the power and water of their tenants? In the worst-case scenario, will people be left to their own devices in a world reminiscent of Mad Max?

There are three possibilities. The first is that society simply accepts more frequent failures and a lower standard of living for most. The second option includes the electricity grid, roads and railways, sewage treatment plants and other national infrastructure being updated and improved, with all the attendant costs.

The third option would see people take direct action by adapting homes and communities to make them less dependent on national infrastructure. In this scenario, services are more localised such that communities or households become self-sufficient to varying degrees, perhaps establishing autonomous off-grid settlements.

Renewable energy technology offers its generators a degree of autonomy. Hazel Plater/Shutterstock

No government would be elected promising to preside over falling living standards. The other options come with many challenges. Option two assumes a great degree of government intervention and a high level of investment in new and improved infrastructure: flood defences, additional power cables, new railway lines. Option three implies less involvement from central government and more power to local authority and community bodies to generate electricity and treat water for example.

The future may well be a combination of these scenarios, but doing nothing isn’t an option. It’s not a question of if serious floods will happen again, but when.

Author

Chris Medland
PhD Candidate in Climate Change Resilience, University of Surrey

 CBS POLL

What voters think about climate change ahead of Election Day 2024

Sep 23, 2024

Climate change affects several aspects of American life — health, economics, the weather and possibly this fall: politics. According to a recent survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 62% of registered voters across parties prefer a candidate who supports action on global warming. Anthony Leiserowitz, who co-authored the study, joins CBS News to unpack the findings.

 

Examining the gap between voters and lawmakers on climate change

Sep 23, 2024

Climate change has not been one of the key talking points this election cycle when compared to other issues like the economy or immigration, but the planet's future is still on the minds of many voters. CBS News national environmental correspondent David Schechter examines why voters' views on the issue don't always match up with those who represent them.