Month: January 2022

Protestors demonstrate against Covid vaccine mandates outside the New York State Capitol in Albany, New York, on January 5, 2022. Mike Segar | Reuters Skepticism toward Covid-19 vaccines could be fueling a "worrisome" rise in broader anti-vax sentiment, doctors have said. Professor Liam Smeeth, a physician and director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told CNBC he was concerned that vaccine hesitancy around Covid was "creeping into" sentiment toward other vaccines. "I'm concerned it's making people think: 'oh, well, maybe the measles vaccine isn't great either, and maybe these other vaccines aren't great,'" Smeeth said in a phone call. "And we don't have to see much of a drop in measles vaccine coverage in the U.K. to get measles outbre...

The North Carolina Zoo is temporarily closing its aviary, which is home to more than 100 exotic birds from 36 species, amid an outbreak of avian flu in wild birds in the state.  Three cases of avian flu were confirmed this month in the Carolinas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  "Closing the Aviary is a preventive, precautionary measure to protect all our bird species at the Zoo as the disease can spread very quickly and is often fatal to them," NC Zoo Director of Animal Health Dr. Jb Minter said this week. "The disease has so far only been found in a very few wild birds in North and South Carolina." Avian flu is common in wild aquatic birds, which usually don't show any symptoms, but it can sicken and kill certain domesticated species, according to the CDC.  SALMON...

Those adverse COVID-19 vaccine side effects your friend told you they experienced may have been all in their head, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The study represents a meta-analysis of 12 vaccine trials with a total of 45,380 participants. The researchers found that 76% of the adverse side effects (such as fatigue or headache) that people experienced after receiving their first COVID-19 vaccination were also reported by participants who received a placebo shot. Such results are known as the placebo (or nocebo) effect — meaning the purported side effects were not caused by the vaccine itself. What’s more, while the study showed that mild adverse side effects were more common among participa...