Sponsorship of paediatric associations by manufacturers of breastmilk substitutes

No abstract available

Gaza, armed conflict and child health

Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccines (PCVs) have substantially reduced the burden of disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus). However, protection is limited to vaccine serotypes, and when administered to children who are colonized with pneumococci at the time of vaccination, immune responses to the vaccine are blunted. Here, we investigate the potential of a killed whole cell pneumococcal vaccine (WCV) to reduce existing pneumococcal carriage and mucosal disease when given therapeutically to infant mice colonized with pneumococci. We show that a single dose of WCV reduced pneumococcal carriage density in an antibody-dependent manner. Therapeutic vaccination induced robust immune responses to pneumococcal surface antigens CbpA, PspA (family 1) and PiaA. In a co-infection model of otitis media, a single dose of WCV reduced pneumococcal middle ear infection. Lastly, in a two-dose model, therapeutic administration of WCV reduced nasal shedding of pneumococci. Taken together, our data demonstrate that WCV administered in colonized mice reduced pneumococcal density in the nasopharynx and the middle ear, and decreased shedding. WCVs would be beneficial in low and middle-income settings where pneumococcal carriage in children is high

BGEM: An In Situ Hybridization Database of Gene Expression in the Embryonic and Adult Mouse Nervous System

This article describes an open-access gene expression database analyzed for more than 2,000 genes on mouse nervous system tissue in the coronal, sagittal, and transverse orientation representing multiple developmental ages

Conflicts of interest are harming maternal and child health : time for scientific journals to end relationships with manufacturers of breast-milk substitutes

► Forty years after the World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, inappropriate marketing of breast-milk substitutes persists and puts infants and young chil- dren at risk of malnutrition, illness and death. ► The formula industry is large and powerful and has used various ‘medical marketing’ strategies to influ- ence scientists and health professionals as to the purported benefit of breast-milk substitutes. ► The examples provided in this commentary show how a manufacturer is using a leading scientific journal to market breast-milk substitutes through paid advertisements and advertisement features. ► By receiving funding from breast-milk substitute manufacturers, journals create a conflict of interest, whereby the publisher and readers of the journal may favour corporations consciously or unconsciously in ways that undermine scientific integrity, editorial in- dependence and clinical judgement. ► Conflicts of interest have previously been identified in infant and young child nutrition science and in journal advertising policies and have been criticised by public health experts, yet the practice continues. ► All scientific journals and publishers should stop ac- cepting funding from manufacturers and distributors of breast-milk substitutes, in accordance with global public health guidance. Public health must come be- fore profit.The DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security.https://gh.bmj.comhj2022Paediatrics and Child Healt

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead