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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,084

COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In ‘Disconcerting’ Move

Okay now I agree that Hyroxychloroquine works. Ventilators have a mortality rate of 80% yet people keep trashing this drug, while people like that French doctor say it works.

Doctors at nursing home: “It’s actually going well. People are getting better,” Armstrong told NPR, adding that after just a handful of days, some of the 39 patients on the medication are showing signs of improvement.”

“Paid Professionals:

But scientists argue that relying on observational, uncontrolled evidence can be misleading and that the only way to truly prove a drug is working is through carefully controlled clinical trials. And, contrary to Armstrong’s assertion that hydroxychloroquine “has virtually no side effects,” it is known to have serious negative health impacts. That is why so many in the medical community worry about prescribing it without such proof.

Final Russian rocket launched NASA Astronaut, now SpaceX will ignite a new era in American spaceflight

Featured Image Source: NASA

NASA has been highly dependent on booking Russian spacecraft for almost a decade. Ever since the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded in 2011, the United States has not conducted manned flights to space. Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, a final Russian Soyuz rocket launched a NASA Astronaut for the last time to the International Space Station (ISS). On April 9, the Soyuz-2.1 rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russia, at 4:05 a.m. Eastern time. Then the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft was deployed into orbit about 9 minutes later. After a 6-hour trip, the spacecraft docked to the orbiting laboratory. Onboard the Soyuz spacecraft were American Astronaut Chris Cassidy, and Russian Cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. They all makeup Expedition 63, the crew will stay at the orbiting laboratory for 6 months. Due to the coronavirus, staff during the launch was limited in order to avoid spreading the COVID-19 respiratory illness. Governments from across the world have issued ‘stay at home’ orders to avoid straining healthcare systems. NASA and Roscosmos took extra precautions by limiting contact with Astronauts so they would not take any illnesses to ISS. “I knew I was going to be in quarantine these two weeks, but what’s really different is everybody else around us is in quarantine, too,” Cassidy said in a prelaunch interview on NASA TV. “It’ll be a really, really skeletal crew in the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which will be quite different.”

After the successful Soyuz launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine stated:

Snowden warns: The surveillance states we’re creating now will outlast the coronavirus

Governments around the world are using high-tech surveillance measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak. But are they worth it?

Edward Snowden doesn’t think so.

The former CIA contractor, whose leaks exposed the scale of spying programs in the US, warns that once this tech is taken out of the box, it will be hard to put it back.

How the military secured a coronavirus drug that has yet to win FDA approval

Among the drugs being investigated is remdesivir, an experimental antiviral made by the US drug company Gilead Sciences. It has been characterized as one of the most promising by health authorities, including WHO officials —though that optimism is inspired only by anecdotal information. US data on remdesivir’s performance in controlled clinical trials is expected next month, and data from late-stage trials conducted in China will be released by the end of April.

The US military, however, has already secured access to remdesivir for its service members.

On March 10, the Pentagon announced a deal with Gilead Sciences in which the pharmaceutical company would supply the military with the intravenous drug at no cost. “Together with our government and industry partners, we are progressing at almost revolutionary rates to deliver effective treatment and prevention products that will protect the citizens of the world and preserve the readiness and lethality of our service members,” Army Brig. Gen. Michael Talley, commanding general of the US Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) and Fort Detrick, Maryland, said in a media statement at the time.

Low plasma citrulline levels are associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome in patients with severe sepsis

The role of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) in the pathophysiology of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is not well understood. Inducible NOS is upregulated during physiologic stress; however, if NOS substrate is insufficient then NOS can uncouple and switch from NO generation to production of damaging peroxynitrites. We hypothesized that NOS substrate levels are low in patients with severe sepsis and that low levels of the NOS substrate citrulline would be associated with end organ damage including ARDS in severe sepsis.

Plasma citrulline, arginine and ornithine levels and nitrate/nitrite were measured at baseline in 135 patients with severe sepsis. ARDS was diagnosed by consensus definitions.

Plasma citrulline levels were below normal in all patients (median 9.2 uM, IQR 5.2 — 14.4) and were significantly lower in ARDS compared to the no ARDS group (6.0 (3.3 — 10.4) vs. 10.1 (6.2 — 16.6), P = 0.002). The rate of ARDS was 50% in the lowest citrulline quartile compared to 15% in the highest citrulline quartile (P = 0.002). In multivariable analyses, citrulline levels were associated with ARDS even after adjustment for covariates including severity of illness.

Inhibition of SARS-coronavirus infection in vitro

2004…

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(04)00052-9/fulltext

“During the SARS epidemic, Chen and colleagues included inhalation of NO gas in the treatment of a number of SARS patients. Medicinal NO gas, a gaseous blend of nitric oxide (0.8%) and nitrogen (99.2%), was given for three days or longer, initially at 30 ppm and then at 20 and 10 ppm on the second and third day (unpublished data). Their findings suggest not only an immediate improvement of oxygenation but also a lasting effect on the disease itself after termination of inhalation of NO.

NO is a key molecule in the pathogenesis of infectious diseases. In a variety of microbial infections, NO biosynthesis occurs through the expression of an inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS). This molecule has been reported to have antiviral effects against a variety of DNA and RNA viruses, including mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), a murine coronavirus.4 In a recent study, replication of two SARS-CoV isolates (FFM-1 and FFM-2) was shown to be greatly inhibited by glycyrrhizin, an active compound of liquorice roots.5 Glycyrrhizin upregulates the expression of iNOS and production of NO in macrophages.”

Introduction: The recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) warrants the search for effective antiviral agents to treat the disease. This study describes the assessment of the antiviral potential of nitric oxide (NO) against SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) strain Frankfurt-1 replicating in African Green Monkey (Vero E6) cells.

Results: Two organic NO donor compounds, S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP), were tested in a broad range of concentrations. The non-nitrosylated form of SNAP, N-acetylpenicillamine (NAP), was included as a control compound in the assay. Antiviral activity was estimated by the inhibition of the SARS-CoV cytopathic effect in Vero E6 cells, determined by a tetrazolium-based colorimetric method. Cytotoxicity of the compounds was tested in parallel.

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