Vaccine news – highlighting the unique/old method China is doing vs. the rest of the world – https://www.inkstonenews.com/science/chinas-leaders-covid-19-vaccine-race-use-method-shunned-west/article/3089814

“It is the only country pouring resources into the use of inactivated viruses, a technique used in vaccines against numerous diseases in the past – including hepatitis A, influenza and polio – but largely shunned in new vaccine development.

The technology is simple and involves growing a virus strain in the laboratory and then using heat or chemicals to destroy its ability to replicate. Once injected as a vaccine, the immune system recognizes the antigens in the inactive virus and reacts by making antibodies.”

“Of the five vaccine candidates undergoing clinical trials in China, all but one involve inactivated viruses. There are a further 126 potential vaccines in preclinical evaluation around the world and, again, only five of these are based on the decades-old technique. Two are being developed by Chinese companies, with scientists in Japan, Kazakhstan and France working on the others.

Most Western scientists are turning to newer technologies, with many putting their energy into experimental nucleic acid vaccines based on genetically engineered virus DNA, despite there being – as yet – no licensed human vaccine using this technique.”

“One reason developed countries have shown little interest in trialing inactivated vaccines is that immunity can be of limited duration, with more doses required over time. Another problem, according to scientists, is the higher risk of adverse reaction – known as an enhanced disease response – because the entire virus strain is used, which may contain harmful antigens.”

“In separate reports, published in April and May respectively, researchers working on two inactivated vaccine candidates went to some length to address these concerns. The two teams – one a joint project between the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and state-owned Sinopharm, and the other from privately owned Sinovac Biotech – found no enhanced disease response in testing on rhesus macaques.”

““If inactivated vaccines are effective in field trials and there is no evidence of enhanced disease, I would not foresee obstacles for licensing for use,” said Peter Smith, professor of tropical epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a WHO advisor on vaccine development.

“In the present situation, even a vaccine with short-term efficacy would be preferable to not having a vaccine.”

Petousis-Harris said it was important for scientists around the world to explore different options.”

Potentially great trend for the US – not sure many will take it well but there are a lot of externality cost to allow society to overindulge – https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/18/men-cut-back-alcohol-federal-recommendation-328893

“Men should cut back their alcohol intake to one drink per day rather than two, according to an influential panel that is advising the government on new dietary guidelines due out this year.

And Americans should also further cut back on added sugars, said the panel of outside experts convened once every five years called the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.”

““For those who drink alcohol, recommended limits for better health are up to 1 drink per day for both women and men,” the committee said in its draft report.

Consuming the current limit of two drinks per day for men is associated with a “modest but meaningful increase” in death rates due to all causes, compared with just one drink per day, the panel found. The recommended advice would be unchanged for women.

The conclusions — a notable departure from what the federal government has recommended since the 1980s — are seen as surprising to some who worried the Trump administration-appointed committee would be too industry-friendly.

Since it was convened late last year, the committee has been criticized for having too many connections to food and beverage companies and being hamstrung by the Trump administration. But the recommendations look pretty similar to those during the Obama administration, except they go further on alcohol and sugar.”

“The latest conclusions, which were unveiled Wednesday during a lengthy webinar that lasted more than eight hours, are still in draft form. The final scientific advisory report is expected to be publicly released in mid-July.”

“The last iteration of the guidelines, crafted during the Obama administration, recommended that consumers not get more than 10 percent of their calories from added sugars.

The latest panel recommends that the government go further. A limit of 6 percent of calories from added sugars is “more consistent with a dietary pattern that is nutritionally adequate while avoiding excess energy intake,” the committee concluded.”

“The expert panel did not touch on the issue of environmental sustainability, something that was a major controversy during the last round of the guidelines. In 2015, the advisory committee recommended that sustainability be part of the guidelines, something that the meat industry saw as a major threat.”

“The guidelines are aimed at preventing diet-related diseases, not combating them — which means the advice is not geared toward a majority of the U.S. population.”

““A Dietary Guidelines that does not address the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or have obesity is, in our view, a nutrition policy that lacks relevance to much of the general public and reflects an insufficient review of the science,” the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics said in a comment to the panel this week. The group represents more than 100,000 dietitians and other nutrition professionals in the health field.”

The last points are important to note these guidelines will help not get to an issue IF you are in an issue(obesity, diabetic, etc..) you have to do more. I will say evidence does show eating a whole diet will yield improvements. Meat does make the goal of staying whole easier – but it can be done without meat to.

Another tough day for Brazil. India big drop down not sure what the surge of reporting was about.

California is the leader in US deaths at 84.

St. Louis is showing up in the county death map but looks like it is due to backlog not a sudden surge – https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-missouri-increase-st-louis-area-decrease/63-f706f60f-f27f-458c-8f1d-768fc15e4dff

“Missouri health department spokeswoman Lisa Cox said in an email that the state “received a backlog of deaths from St. Louis County at once. That happened yesterday and again today. We haven’t recently seen a day with a big spike in deaths that all occurred in the past 24 hours."

Interesting dip in India, Sweden, Switzerland….not sure what is driving this perhaps backlogs?