Month: June 2021

In the summer of last year, two Pune scientists, Monali Rahalkar and husband Rahul Bahulikar, wrote a paper titled ‘Lethal Pneumonia Cases in Mojiang Miners (2012) and the Mineshaft Could Provide Important Clues to the Origin of SARS-CoV-2’. The research, first reported by TOI on June 16, 2020, theorised a link between Covid-19 and a pneumonia-like illness that claimed the lives of three miners in China’s Yunnan province. Their probe into the deaths and the bat coronavirus RaTG13, discovered in 2013 and currently the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2, soon became a key part of investigations by DRASTIC, a group of scientists and analysts looking into the origins of Covid-19. The couple’s work gained momentum after a member of this group — known as ‘The Seeker’ — found other vital infor...

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"This under-the-skin injection is the first approved drug for chronic weight management in adults with general obesity or overweight since 2014," the FDA said in a statement Friday. Studies have shown the once-a-week injection, called semaglutide, can help people lose up to 12% of their body weight over about a year and a half compared to people given a placebo shot, and 15% of their body weight overall. Semaglutide, to be sold under the brand name Wegovy by maker Novo Nordisk, affects a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 and increases the production of insulin. But it also appears to suppress appetite by acting on the brain, the FDA said. The FDA said new obesity treatments are needed. "Approximately 70% of American adults have obesity or overweight. Having obesity or overweight ...

Before he became a fixture of COVID-19 news coverage, Dr. Anthony Fauci was best known for his work to combat the AIDS crisis, which emerged not unlike the coronavirus as a mysterious and alarming new sickness in the late 1970s. Saturday marks 40 years since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified the first cases of AIDS in the nation: five men ranging in age from 29 to 36, described as “active homosexuals” living in the Los Angeles area. Four had no previous health troubles. The agency’s weekly mortality and morbidity report, dated June 5, 1981, called their affliction “unusual” and suggested that “some aspect of a homosexual lifestyle” contributed to their shared condition. The patients were found to have a rare form of pneumonia generally limited to people with ...