Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Researchers Find Protein Clues In Blood Samples Of Long Covid Sufferers
Stat: Test For Long Covid? Researchers Find New Clue In Blood Samples
Long Covid has long eluded scientists looking for its cause. Not knowing what triggers its persistent and distressing symptoms makes the condition challenging to treat; it’s hard to even say definitively who has it. New research published Thursday in Science has identified proteins present in the blood of people with long Covid that could point the way to a much-needed diagnostic test and possibly to future therapeutic targets. (Cooney, 1/18)
The Mercury News: Long Covid Creates Changes In The Blood, Aiding Detection: New Study
An international team of scientists has found distinct changes in the blood of people with long COVID, suggesting a potential strategy to diagnose and perhaps treat a mysterious condition that takes many forms. The study, published on Thursday in the journal Science, adds to our understanding of long COVID, the lingering and often debilitating symptoms experienced by some people. One significant finding revealed shifts in proteins the body produces in response to inflammation that may persist months after infection. Another detected blood clots and tissue injury. (Krieger, 1/18)
Long covid patients testify on Capitol Hill —
CIDRAP: Patients, Experts Take Center Stage At Senate Long-COVID Hearing
Before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) committee today, patients battling long COVID and the mother of a teen patient detailed the day-to-day struggles with the condition and the obstacles in getting care. Also, healthcare providers and researchers described the challenges in managing and studying a condition with a wide spectrum of health impacts and debilitating effect on patients. Today's hearing attracted a large crowd of patients and their advocates that spilled over into a second room. (Schnirring, 1/18)
Roll Call: Long COVID Advocates Ask Congress To Improve Federal Response
“We are living through the largest mass disabling event in modern history,” Angela Meriquez Vázquez, a long COVID patient from Los Angeles, testified to the committee. ... Witnesses outlined ways in which Congress and the administration could improve the national response. Tiffany Walker, an internist and long COVID researcher with Emory University, testified that clinical trials run by the National Institutes of Health’s $1.15 billion RECOVER initiative were valuable, but were too slow and siloed to address long COVID in real time. (Clason, 1/18)
The Atlantic: Long COVID Is Now The Biggest Pandemic Risk For Most People
Although tens of thousands of Americans are still being hospitalized with COVID each week, emergency rooms and intensive-care units are no longer routinely being forced into crisis mode. Long COVID, too, appears to be a less common outcome of new infections than it once was. But where the drop in severe-COVID incidence is clear and prominent, the drop in long-COVID cases is neither as certain nor as significant. (Wu, 1/18)
More on the spread of covid —
Stat: Head Of FDA's Diagnostics Center, Who Led Through Covid, Retires
Timothy Stenzel, the federal regulator who led the Food and Drug Administration’s diagnostics division during the chaotic time of Covid-19 pandemic, has left the agency. The FDA confirmed Thursday that Stenzel, who led the FDA’s office of in vitro diagnostics, retired at the end of 2023. (Lawrence, 1/18)
PBS NewsHour: As COVID Cases Rise, Doctors Worry About The Consequences Of Misinformation
This week, speaking before a crowd of Republicans in New Hampshire, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis laid out another falsehood about COVID vaccines. “Every booster you take, you’re more likely to get COVID as a result of it,” said DeSantis, one of several political leaders who have consistently and without evidence challenged the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Public health experts and doctors are worried that this kind of misinformation is still shaping how people perceive the virus and tools designed to protect individuals and communities against COVID’s worst outcomes. (Santhanam, 1/18)
San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco To Close Remaining Community COVID Vaccination Sites
San Francisco will close its remaining community COVID-19 vaccination sites next month. The city’s health department, citing a lack of funding and demand, confirmed on Thursday that it will permanently cease giving shots at the six remaining neighborhood health centers in mid-February. “Throughout the last four years, we received state and federal funding that allowed us to innovate and make San Francisco a model for mounting a response to COVID-19,” said Asa King, deputy director of community health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. “We led the way in terms of having low deaths.” (Vaziri, 1/18)
On covid treatments —
CIDRAP: Oral Antiviral Simnotrelvir Shows Promise For Treating Mild COVID-19
Today in the New England Journal of Medicine Chinese researchers have published positive trial results of simnotrelvir, an oral antiviral that can shorten the duration of mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms. Unlike with Paxlovid or other antivirals tested against the virus, the simnotrelvir trial was conducted on mostly healthy young adults, none of whom had severe symptoms. The study included 1,208 patients enrolled at 35 sites in China; 603 were assigned to receive simnotrelvir, and 605 to receive placebo. The study ran from August to December 2022. (Soucheray, 1/18)
Reuters: Ex-Pfizer Employee Convicted Of Insider Trading On COVID Drug Trial
A former employee of Pfizer Inc was convicted of insider trading on Thursday for buying stock options in November 2021 just before Pfizer announced clinical trial results for the COVID antiviral drug Paxlovid, federal prosecutors said. A federal jury in Manhattan found Amit Dagar, 44, of Hillsborough, New Jersey, guilty on one count of securities fraud, prosecutors said. Prosecutors alleged Dagar had traded and tipped a friend on Nov. 4, 2021, the day before the drug maker announced that Paxlovid had performed well in the trial. (1/18)
