Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Pfizer to launch trial of Omicron-targeted COVID vaccine
Pfizer and BioNTech say they have started a clinical trial to test a new version of their vaccine specifically designed to target the COVID-19 Omicron variant, which has eluded some of the protection provided by the original two-dose vaccine regimen.
Banking on volunteers in the United States, the companies plan to test the immune response generated by the Omicron-based vaccine both as a three-shot regimen in unvaccinated people and as a booster shot for people who already received two doses of their original vaccine.
They are also testing a fourth dose of the current vaccine against a fourth dose of the Omicron-based vaccine in people who received a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine three to six months earlier.
The companies plan to study the safety and tolerability of the shots in the more than 1400 people who will be enrolled in the trial.
“While current research and real-world data show that boosters continue to provide a high level of protection against severe disease and hospitalisation with Omicron, we recognise the need to be prepared in the event this protection wanes over time and to potentially help address Omicron and new variants in the future,” Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development, Kathrin Jansen, said in a statement on Wednesday AEDT.
Depending on the amount of clinical trial data required by regulators, it may not be possible to realise a current plan to launch an Omicron-targeting vaccine by the end of March, BioNTech said.
Pfizer has said that two doses of the original vaccine may not be sufficient to protect against infection from Omicron, and that protection against hospitalisations and deaths may be waning.
Still, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says a third dose of an mRNA vaccine like the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has provided 90 per cent protection against hospitalisation due to COVID-19.
Some countries have already started offering additional booster doses, but a recent study from Israel showed that while a fourth dose of an mRNA vaccine boosted antibodies, the level was not high enough to prevent Omicron infection.
DATA The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday that international regulators want data from clinical studies like the one being done by Pfizer and BioNTech before approval of a new vaccine.
EMA said these studies should show that the new vaccines elicit more neutralising antibodies in the blood than current vaccines and might also protect against new variants of concern.
BioNTech declined to comment on what type of data it was asked to file with regulators.
It said an analysis of antibodies elicited by its Omicron-targeted booster should help answer whether shots will be needed that address more than one variant at a time. It hopes to show the antibodies neutralise a spectrum of variants.
Still, some scientists question whether any change is currently needed.
“The goal of this vaccine is to protect against serious illness,” said Dr Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at the University of Pennsylvania. “To date, these vaccines do that, including protection against Omicron.”
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Growing up poor affects your BRAIN: Children in low-income households show slower activity in key neural regions linked to thinking and learning, study reveals
This study of cognitive development in neonates is interesting but its generalizability is low. We know that IQ measured in young children shows negligible correlation with IQ in adulthood, for instance. And the lesson from HeadStart is that early improvements fade over time
Children who grow up in poorer households show slower activity in key brain regions linked to both thinking and learning, a study has warned.
Experts from Columbia University found that the brain development of infants in low-income families varied with the amount of financial support they were given.
Scans at age one showed faster brain activity in kids whose families were given $333 (£250) of support monthly compared to those given only $20 (£15) per month.
It is unclear if the differences in brain activity will persist as the children age, or how they might influence cognitive and behavioural growth.
However, in older children, activity in the regions in question has previously been linked to the development of learning skills.
The researchers are now investigating how the payments benefited the children, with possibilities including facilitating better nutrition, or relieving parental stress.
Either way, they said, the results suggest that interventions designed to reduce poverty could benefit infant brain development and improve later outcomes.
The investigation was undertaken by neuroscientist Kimberly Noble of New York's Columbia University and her colleagues.
'The brain changes speak to the remarkable malleability of the brain, especially early in childhood,' said Professor Noble.
'We have known for many years that growing up in poverty puts children at risk for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health.
'However, until now, we haven't been able to say whether poverty itself causes differences in child development, or whether growing up in poverty is simply associated with other factors that cause those differences.'
In the study, the researchers measured brain activity levels among a subset of 435 one-year-old children who were participating in the so-called 'Baby's First Years' trial.
This randomised controlled trial into the benefits of poverty reduction has seen 1,000 low-income mothers recruited from postpartum wards in four US metropolitan areas — New Orleans, New York City, Omaha, and Minneapolis–Saint Paul.
The mothers, who were primarily Black or Latina and not college educated, were then given a cash gift of either $333 (£250) or $20 (£15) per month to spend it whatever way they chose.
While these results come from one year into the interventions, the trial is still ongoing, and the mothers will continue to receive the monthly cash gifts until their children are four years and four months old.
Each child's brain activity was measured using an electroencephalography, or 'EEG', machine via an electrode-bearing cap that was placed on the child's head.
The researchers found that children whose mothers were given $333 per month had around 20 per cent more high-frequency brain activity than those whose parents were only given $20 of support monthly.
High-frequency brain activity in the frontal region has previously been linked to both the development of learning and thinking skills.
Professor Noble explained that children’s brains naturally adapt to their experiences. 'All healthy brains are shaped by their environments and experiences, and we are not saying that one group has "better" brains,' she said.
'But — because of the randomized design — we know that the $333 per month must have changed children's experiences or environments, and that their brains adapted to those changed circumstances.'
'Families are all different, and the potential promise of money as a way of directly supporting families is that it allows parents to make choices about what their children most need,' said paper author Katherine Magnuson. 'Thus, there may not be just one way in which money positively affects families; —money may matter in a lot of small ways.
'We hear from the mothers in our study how challenging it is to raise children without enough money. 'A few hundred dollars a month has the potential to do a lot of good for these families, and we are grateful that we will continue to learn from them about how the money has helped them meet their goals.'
'Global evidence is thin on how children are affected by cash transfers, especially with respect to very young children,' said fellow paper author and applied economist Lisa Gennetian of North Carolina's Duke University.
'This is mostly because it is so hard and expensive to objectively capture children's development. This study's findings on infant brain activity are unprecedented.'
The outcomes seen, she added, 'really speak to how anti-poverty policies — including the types of expanded child tax credits being debated in the US — can and should be viewed as investments in children.'
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Biden Forced To Bend The Knee To Trump, Admit He Was Right
Joe Biden (well, the people calling the shots for Joe Biden) have made such a mess out of the Southern border that it’s not even funny.
The media fell over itself to label Trump’s border policy a failure, yet have nothing to say when Biden fills cages with kids, to 1700% of capacity … during what we are told is a pandemic.
It really is not even funny. The number of rapes and abuse of children that this administration is responsible for are mind boggling. This administration has committed crimes against humanity not seen since the Obama/Biden admin ran guns to drug cartels.
Things have gotten so bad that Biden has been forced to concede that Trump was right … but you won’t hear this on the TV ‘news’
Conservative Treehouse reported:
‘The JoeBama administration are pathetic in their manipulation of policy.
After taking apart the Trump agreement with central American nations (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador) to secure their own northern border the mass migration toward the United States began…. a crisis created. However, once the crisis turns public opinion against them, the JoeBama administration then proposes to return to the exact same policy President Trump initiated and Biden destroyed.
The White House and the media then herald the return of the Trump agreement as a groundbreaking new policy initiative instituted by JoeBama. It would be funny, if it were not so ridiculous to watch it in real time.’
CNN repoerted – The Biden administration has secured agreements for Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala to tighten their borders and stem the flow of migration, Special Assistant to the President for Immigration for the Domestic Policy Council Tyler Moran told MSNBC Monday.
“We’ve secured agreements for them to put more troops on their own border. Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala have all agreed to do this. That not only is going to prevent the traffickers, and the smugglers, and cartels that take advantage of the kids on their way here, but also to protect those children,” Moran said.
The Biden administration has struggled to keep up with the influx of migrants coming to the border and as there has been a major spike in the number of migrant children in US custody. (read more)’
They did not ‘struggle’ they created this situation on purpose. They don’t care about all the lives that were and are yet to be ruin from their policies. The left wants everyone equally poor, so poor that they can not revolt.
Unfortunately, they are well on their way to making that a reality.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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