Become healthier at the cash register and in the alcohol department

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It is Brittany who replaces Theresa on this beautiful Monday. Thanks for all the excellent song recommendations from the weekend. If you’d like to check out my road trip playlist, here’s where you can find it here.

In today’s newsletter we introduce you to neffy, the nasal spray alternative to the EpiPen. To me it looks a bit like Microsoft’s Clippy, but for allergies.

Meet Neffy, the nasal spray version of the EpiPen

CDC raises bird flu alert – but only slightly

From Helen Branswell of STAT: The CDC on Friday released a new risk assessment of the H5N1 bird flu virus circulating among dairy cows, slightly increasing its estimate of the virus’s likelihood of causing a pandemic. But the new assessment, developed using the agency’s influenza risk assessment tool (IRAT), still measures risk in the lower half of the moderate rate. Previous assessments of some swine flu viruses and of the H7N9 bird flu virus scored higher based on the IRAT risk assessment.

Vivien Dugan, director of the CDC’s influenza division, told STAT that this tool is designed to help the federal government prioritize its efforts to prepare for pandemics, and is not intended to predict whether a particular flu virus will be a will cause a pandemic. The virus analyzed in the new assessment came from the first human H5N1 case in the US this year, a farm worker in Texas whose infection was reported in early April. The previous H5N1 risk assessment was based on a 2023 outbreak of H5N1 in mink in Spain. Read more from Helen here and stay up to date with STAT’s H5N1 coverage here.

Reducing the amount of candy in the checkout aisle

What is your favorite candy to look at in the checkout aisle? Or do you prefer chips? In March 2021, Berkeley, California, became the first city in the world to implement a “healthy checkout policy,” which set standards for what items can be displayed in that high-engagement area within three feet of a checkout. registry.

The policy only allows beverages without sweeteners (calorie-free or not) and foods with five or fewer grams of added sugars and 200 or fewer milligrams of sodium per serving in the following categories: sugar-free gum and mints, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes , yogurt or cheese and whole grains.

A recent one study in JAMA Network Open showed that after one year, the increase in healthy food and drink displays compared to cities without the policy went from 29% to 62%, suggesting that similar policies would be effective in increasing the health of checkout lines in stores.

Don’t miss a STAT First Opinion on this topic from Anne Thorndike, a Mass Gen primary care physician not involved in the study.

The fight for better alcohol risk labels

You may be surprised to learn that most alcohol products are not regulated by a health-related agency like the FDA. Instead, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau – a division of the Treasury Department – ​​is responsible for alcohol labels. But it doesn’t have a public health burden like warning consumers about the health risks of alcohol or requiring nutrition facts. Its main function is that of a tax collection agency.

As such, the TTB has not shown much interest in changing the warnings in the fine print on alcohol bottles to something like the colorful “Alcohol can cause cancer” labels, which a Canadian study has found to be effective in changing the alcohol purchasing behavior of consumers. But that could change soon.

STAT’s Isa Cueto takes us on a journey through the two-decade battle by consumers and public advocacy groups to get stronger alcohol warning labels, the science that supports alcohol warning labels, and how the alcohol industry is fighting back. Read the story here.

Have a great summer – beware of rabies

Another from Helen Branswell of STAT: Campers wake up to bats in their tents. Cattle in Minnesota succumb to rabies, likely transmitted by skunks. A local health department warns of a rabies-infected raccoon. It’s no surprise to see stories like this at this time of year; the risk of exposure to rabies increases in the summer, Ryan Wallace, head of the rabies program at the CDC, told STAT. That risk extends to both people and pets, underscoring the importance of vaccinating dogs and cats. Of the more than 7,000 rabid dogs and cats detected in the U.S. over the past two decades, 99% were not vaccinated, Wallace said.

Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in rabies detections this year: skunks in Minnesota and Iowa, and gray foxes in Arizona, New Mexico and California. Wallace said about 60,000 people in the U.S. each year need a rabies vaccination after exposure. The country’s efforts to reduce the risk of rabies are enormous and expensive, but they have real consequences. Not a single case of rabies has been discovered in humans in the past 2.5 years, Wallace said. “I’m knocking on wood.”

Help stem cells move out of their bone homes

For anyone donating stem cells for a bone marrow transplant (or becoming their own donor, as recipients of the new gene therapies for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia are doing), it is necessary to undergo stem cell collection.

However, it is difficult to convince enough stem cells to leave their niches in the bone marrow and enter the bloodstream, where they can be collected. New research in science looking at mouse and human cells explains one way blood cells resist entering the bloodstream. The study found that cells with certain macrophage markers on their surfaces were better able to remain in the bone marrow and that cells could use a process called trogocytosis to attach these sticky markers to themselves. However, drugs used to push stem cells out of the bone marrow help turn off trogocytosis, and this new insight provides a new target for future drugs that could improve the efficiency of stem cell collection.

What we read

• Three MDMA therapy papers have been withdrawn over data integrity concerns – following the FDA’s rejection of the psychedelic treatment for PTSD, STAT
• Judge orders CDC to stop deleting emails of departing staff, calling it ‘probably unlawful’. Politics
• This athlete’s favorite part of the Olympics? Free healthcare, The 19th
• Why Trump’s mifepristone comments were a gift to the Harris campaign, STAT
• In South Africa, long Covid is a side issue after tuberculosis, The sick times
• Is COVID endemic yet? Yes, says the CDC. This is what that means, NPR