Prima le donne e i bambini (O's digest – Nature)

Ci sono parecchi articoli da far girare nelle Ong. Innanzitutto l’editoriale su Ebola e le partorienti:

The late stages of pregnancy are a difficult time for most women, but try to imagine what it must be like right now for would-be new mothers in rural areas of Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia. Their eight or nine months of pregnancy have already been over­shadowed by the ravages of the Ebola outbreak. Now, when they start to feel abdominal cramps, they are faced with an impossible choice. (…)
Pregnant women who do brave the journey are often denied care. Some end up delivering their babies alone on floors or in the backs of ambulances. What would you do — would you make the journey?
Now put yourself in the place of the hospital nurse greeting a heavily pregnant woman who arrives at a triage department, weary from her journey, and complaining of abdominal pain. Such pain is, after all, a classic symptom of Ebola, and although the numbers of cases are easing, you have seen colleagues and friends help pregnant women with Ebola, only to contract the virus and die. The woman’s pain worsens and she goes into labour. Would you help? Or, to protect yourself, would you leave her squirming on the floor to deliver the baby herself?

Erika C. Hayden, in “Maternal health: Ebola’s lasting legacy”:

A study conducted on behalf of the UNFPA, for instance, modelled the impact of the reductions on routine care provided to pregnant women in Sierra Leone in the first six months of the epidemic. The preliminary work found that the cuts may have caused 20% more maternal deaths. Now, the maternal death rate is projected to double to more than 1,000 per 100,000 live births in Guinea and Liberia and to more than 2,000 per 100,000 live births in Sierra Leone, returning to wartime levels.
E poi ci sono le ricadute sulla salute mentale, scrive Sarah Reardon. (1)

– altro editoriale sui conflitti d’interesse di Willie Soon et al., sta diventando un’abitudine;

– uno divertente sulla foto di un abito che la redazione vedeva blu, nero, bianco o giallo, e articolo di Ewen Callaway su sinestesia e cibo;

– Harold Varmus mantiene la parola. Dopo 5 anni si dimette da direttore del National Cancer Institute statunitense, ma non per andare in pensione. Avrà un piccolo lab alla Weill Cornell, farà da consulente a una non profit, giardinaggio con la moglie a Central Park, più le solite militanze per l’open access, contro gli abusi della bibliometria ecc.

– Alison Abbott riassume le ultime peripezie dello Human Brain Project:

Europe’s ambitious but contentious €1-billion Human Brain Project (HBP) has announced changes to its organization in a response to criticisms of its management and scientific trajectory by many high-ranking neuroscientists.
On 26 February, the HBP’s Board of Directors voted narrowly to disband the three-person executive committee that had run the project, which launched in October 2013 and is intended to boost digital technologies such as supercomputing through collaboration with neuroscience. 
Henry Markram e i suoi due assistenti diventano “coordinatori”, controllati da una “governance internazionale“, se i circa 85 enti di ricerca associati al progetto sono d’accordo. Dovrebbero farlo sapere entro domani.

Il rapporto che esperti indipendenti hanno consegnato alla Commissione Europea non sarà pubblicato, con tanti saluti alla trasparenza. Si spera che il “comitato per la mediazione” possa pubblicare il suo, con le raccomandazioni dettagliate, tanto per vedere se saranno adottate.

– il paper di Benoit Chassaing et al. sugli emulsionanti alimentari era stato anticipato on-line, ma non l’avevo letto:

in mice, relatively low concentrations of two commonly used emulsifiers, namely carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80, induced low-grade inflammation and obesity/metabolic syndrome in wild-type hosts and promoted robust colitis in mice predisposed to this disorder. (…)  These results support the emerging concept that perturbed host–microbiota interactions resulting in low-grade inflammation can promote adiposity and its associated metabolic effects. Moreover, they suggest that the broad use of emulsifying agents might be contributing to an increased societal incidence of obesity/metabolic syndrome and other chronic inflammatory diseases.

Commento di Sarah Reardon e com. stampa.

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Il Niño è finalmente arrivato, fa sapere la NOAA, troppo tardi e troppo debole per alleviare la siccità in California, sembra. Non è ancora arrivato dice il Bureau of Meteo australiano.

Drew Shindell, pay-walled su Climatic Change, stima con un modello economico l’ammontare dei danni sociali causati dalle emissioni di dieci inquinanti, principali gas serra compresi. Dal commento su Climate Central:

Shindell calculates the total yearly emissions price tag—between transportation, electricity, and industrial combustion—at between $330-970 billion. That wide spread depends on the choice of a discount rate, which reflects the relative value of money over the years and decades of climate change to come.

Primo aprile anticipato, un buontempone chiede alla Casa Bianca di nominare Anthony Watts a capo dell’IPCC…

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(1) Sempre per Ebola
I CDC hanno pubblicato ieri un aggiornamento sulle vittime; l’OMS oggi uno sui trial dei vaccini:

Based on promising data from initial clinical trials in late 2014, WHO with the Health Ministry of Guinea, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Epicentre and The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), will launch a Phase III trial in Guinea on 7 March to test the VSV-EBOV vaccine for efficacy and effectiveness to prevent Ebola. The vaccine was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. A second vaccine will be tested in a sequential study, as supply becomes available.

Il protocollo è diverso, e più difendibile dal punto di vista etico, dicevano a Médecins Sans Frontières;

the trial strategy adopted will be “ring vaccination”, based on the approach used to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. This involves the identification of a newly diagnosed Ebola case – the “index case” – and the tracing of all his/her contacts. The contacts are vaccinated if they give their consent.