bird flu

H5N1 mutations could make it easier for virus to infect humans

Genomic analysis of a serious bird flu case in British Columbia brings worrisome news from north of the border: The virus has undergone mutational changes that could make it easier to infect humans. 

There’s still no evidence that the Canadian teenager, who remains in critical condition, has infected anyone else, my colleague Helen Branswell writes. But the case continues to garner attention for two reasons. First, it’s still unclear how the teen was infected, and while most human cases to date have been mild, this one is severe. 

More worrisome is the genetic mutation that may have helped the virus’ ability to attach to certain receptors in the human lung. “By no means is this Day 1 of a pandemic,” Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told Helen. “There’s no indication … of human-to-human spread, which is all good. But this is exactly the scenario that we fear.” Read more here. 

cancer

One explanation for rising pancreatic cancer cases in adults under 40

Younger adults have for years been diagnosed with cancer at progressively higher rates, a development that has alarmed and puzzled experts. Pancreatic cancer is no exception to that trend, my colleague Jonathan Wosen writes. But while this rise could reflect a true increase in the incidence of the deadly disease, a team led by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital argues for a different explanation: Doctors are catching nonlethal cases they would have otherwise missed, a phenomenon known as overdiagnosis.

The research team looked back on data from 2001 to 2020 stored in U.S. Cancer Statistics, a database of cancer registries, for adults aged 15 to 39. They found that while the incidence of pancreatic cancer cases and surgery to remove tumors increased, most of the growth came from early-stage cancers. Notably, pancreatic cancer deaths didn’t rise, nor did late-stage disease. The findings, published on Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, don’t definitively answer why doctors are detecting more early-stage disease, though the authors suspect that physicians are catching cases via medical imaging. They add that unnecessary pancreatic surgery risks damaging the organ.

first opinion

Opinion: Whether he thinks so or not, RFK Jr. is an 'anti-vaxxer'

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services could put a known distributor of health misinformation in charge of the nation’s public health infrastructure. And while he’s pledged not to take vaccines away from Americans who want them, he’s spent decades casting doubt on vaccines’ safety and weaponizing certain minority communities’ mistrust of the health system. 

Though he’s often given the more polite label of “vaccine skeptic,” his track record speaks for itself, Jonathan Berman, the author of the 2020 book “Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement,” writes in a new First Opinion for STAT. 

“If someone consistently opposes vaccination, promotes vaccine misinformation, and works to dismantle vaccine programs, then the label ‘anti-vaxxer’ fits, regardless of how they describe themselves,” Berman writes. Read more here.