-
Current Therapeutic Research, Clinical... 2024The Kingdom of Bahrain has reported more than 696,000 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 1548 associated deaths as of December 26, 2022. (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
The Kingdom of Bahrain has reported more than 696,000 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 1548 associated deaths as of December 26, 2022.
OBJECTIVES
To better inform responses to future public health threats, this narrative review documents the challenges and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
METHODS
A PubMed search was conducted focusing on severe acute respiratory syndrome or COVID-19 in Bahrain. Additional relevant references were also included from the authors' personal reference collections.
RESULTS
The search indicated that Bahrain achieved well-established control of the pandemic through robust public health measures, including an early, comprehensive vaccination program. Bahrain was among the first countries to grant emergency authorization for COVID-19 vaccines; as of December 2022, nearly 73% of the eligible population has been fully vaccinated, and approximately 60% has been boosted. Low case rates in recent months highlight Bahrain's successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
CONCLUSIONS
Early organization, robust and systematic protective measures, and a comprehensive vaccination program were key components of the Kingdom's response to the pandemic; traveler quarantines and attempts to combat misinformation were of little or no benefit. These lessons provide guidance for future preparedness to minimize the public health impacts of another pandemic. (. 2024; XX:XXX-XXX).
PubMed: 38947880
DOI: 10.1016/j.curtheres.2024.100733 -
Gaceta Sanitaria Jun 2024
PubMed: 38944897
DOI: 10.1016/j.gaceta.2024.102412 -
Cell Jun 2024A number of species have recently recovered from near-extinction. Although these species have avoided the immediate extinction threat, their long-term viability remains...
A number of species have recently recovered from near-extinction. Although these species have avoided the immediate extinction threat, their long-term viability remains precarious due to the potential genetic consequences of population declines, which are poorly understood on a timescale beyond a few generations. Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) became isolated on Wrangel Island around 10,000 years ago and persisted for over 200 generations before becoming extinct around 4,000 years ago. To study the evolutionary processes leading up to the mammoths' extinction, we analyzed 21 Siberian woolly mammoth genomes. Our results show that the population recovered quickly from a severe bottleneck and remained demographically stable during the ensuing six millennia. We find that mildly deleterious mutations gradually accumulated, whereas highly deleterious mutations were purged, suggesting ongoing inbreeding depression that lasted for hundreds of generations. The time-lag between demographic and genetic recovery has wide-ranging implications for conservation management of recently bottlenecked populations.
PubMed: 38942016
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.033 -
Gaceta Sanitaria Jun 2024
PubMed: 38941884
DOI: 10.1016/j.gaceta.2024.102411 -
Expanding Access to Contraception for Adolescents-Reproductive Justice and the Emergency Department.JAMA Network Open Jun 2024
Topics: Humans; Adolescent; Emergency Service, Hospital; Female; Health Services Accessibility; Contraception; Social Justice; Pregnancy; United States; Pregnancy in Adolescence
PubMed: 38941102
DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.18194 -
JAMA Health Forum Jun 2024Sponsorship of promotional events for health professionals is a key facet of marketing campaigns for pharmaceuticals and medical devices; however, there appears to be...
IMPORTANCE
Sponsorship of promotional events for health professionals is a key facet of marketing campaigns for pharmaceuticals and medical devices; however, there appears to be limited transparency regarding the scope and scale of this spending.
OBJECTIVE
To develop a novel method for describing the scope and quantifying the spending by US pharmaceutical and medical companies on industry-sponsored promotional events for particular products.
DESIGN AND SETTING
This was a cross-sectional study using records from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid's Open Payments database on payments made to prescribing clinicians from January 1 to December 21, 2022.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
An event-centric approach was used to define sponsored events as groupings of payment records with matching variables. Events were characterized by value (coffee, lunch, dinner, or banquet) and number of attendees (small vs large). To test the method, the number of and total spending for each type of event across professional groups were calculated and used to identify the top 10 products related to dinner events. To validate the method, we extracted all event details advertised on the websites of 4 state-level nurse practitioner associations that regularly hosted industry-sponsored dinner events during 2022 and compared these with events identified in the Open Payments database.
RESULTS
A total of 1 154 806 events sponsored by pharmaceutical and medical device companies were identified for 2022. Of these, 1 151 351 (99.7%) had fewer than 20 attendees, and 922 214 (80.0%) were considered to be a lunch ($10-$30 per person). Seven companies sponsored 16 031 dinners for the top 10 products. Of the 227 sponsored in-person dinner events hosted by the 4 state-level nurse practitioner associations, 168 (74.0%) matched events constructed from the Open Payments dataset.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
These findings indicate that an event-centric analysis of Open Payments data is a valid method to understand the scope and quantify spending by pharmaceutical and medical device companies on industry-sponsored promotional events attended by prescribers. Expanding and enforcing the reporting requirements to cover all payments to all registered health professionals would improve the accuracy of estimates of the true extent of all sponsored events and their impact on clinical practice.
Topics: Humans; Cross-Sectional Studies; United States; Drug Industry; Marketing; Conflict of Interest; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.
PubMed: 38941087
DOI: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.1581 -
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience Jun 2024With over 16 years of experience in clinical, research, and educational activities related to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), I have written this article... (Review)
Review
With over 16 years of experience in clinical, research, and educational activities related to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), I have written this article exploring the ethical dimensions of TMS. This article aims to provide valuable and informative content for those unfamiliar with TMS as well as those just starting in the field. Specifically, this article elaborates on four principles of medical ethics, including those applicable to TMS therapy, the disparity between public medical insurance coverage and medical indications in private practice for TMS therapy, and issues concerning research ethics in practice. I also provide recommendations regarding roles and strategies for adoption by academia and those in this field dedicated to making TMS therapy accessible to a larger patient population in a suitable manner. Lastly, it is my hope that this article will serve as a contemporary "Ethics of TMS Neuromodulation", resonating with the inherent human pursuit of "truth, goodness, and beauty" for a sound mind and spirit.
Topics: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; Humans; Ethics, Medical
PubMed: 38940094
DOI: 10.31083/j.jin2306112 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2024Children autonomously make sound moral judgments based on internal criteria, but they tend to make erroneous judgments in the presence of social influences, and the...
Children autonomously make sound moral judgments based on internal criteria, but they tend to make erroneous judgments in the presence of social influences, and the reasons for these errors are not well understood. Thus, the current research investigated how the presence of observers who can see and listen to 3-year-old children's judgments but who do not present their opinions influences children's conformity in moral judgment behavior. In Experiment 1, the children ( = 30) were presented with pictures depicting prosocial behaviors and asked whether the behaviors were acceptable. The children's tendency to change their answers after hearing the counterintuitive opinions of informants was then measured. The results showed that the children's moral judgments were more likely to conform to that of the group in the presence of observers. Experiment 2 aimed to determine the reason children were more likely to conform to a group when being watched by observers in Experiment 1. Children ( = 30) were randomly assigned to two conditions with different observer conditions as follows. Observers were either wearing headsets, indicating that they could not hear the children's responses, or had them hanging around their necks, indicating that they could. The results showed that children's conformity behavior depended on whether observers could hear what they were saying. The current findings are expected to help elucidate not only social factors that affect children's moral judgments but also the developmental mechanism of an observer effect.
PubMed: 38939221
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1289292 -
Journal of Extracellular Biology Jul 2023Interest in the use of extracellular vesicles (EVs) as biomarkers of disease is rapidly growing. However, one main unsolved issue in the EV field is finding a technique...
Interest in the use of extracellular vesicles (EVs) as biomarkers of disease is rapidly growing. However, one main unsolved issue in the EV field is finding a technique able to eliminate non-EV contaminants present in biofluid samples in a one-step isolation protocol. Due to the expansion and value of size exclusion chromatography (SEC) as one of the best EV isolation methods, we have tested several agarose resins with different agarose percentages, bead sizes and crosslinking features to optimize EV isolation. For this optimization of SEC, we first employed conditioned media from a melanoma cell culture, a simpler sample in comparison to biological fluids, but which also contains abundant contaminants such as soluble protein and lipoproteins (LPPs). The distinct agaroses and the combinations of resins with different agarose percentages in the same column were tested. Soluble protein, EVs and LPPs levels from the different eluted fractions were quantitated by immunodetection or absorbance measurements. Samples were also analysed by NTA and TEM to verify the yield and the LPP contamination. Different percentages of agarose resins (2%, 4% and 6%) yielded samples with increasing LPP contamination respectively, which was not improved in the columns that combined them. Crosslinking of the agarose did not affect EV isolation yield nor the LPP contamination. In contrast, reducing the bead size greatly improved EV purity. We thus selected 4% Rapid Run Fine agarose beads as the resin that more efficiently isolated EVs with almost no contamination of other particles. Using blood plasma samples, this resin also demonstrated an improved capacity in the isolation of EVs from LPPs in comparison to the agaroses most commonly used in the field and differential ultracentrifugation.
PubMed: 38939075
DOI: 10.1002/jex2.100 -
JACC. Advances Mar 2024
PubMed: 38938843
DOI: 10.1016/j.jacadv.2024.100847