With winter rapidly approaching, Brandeis has begun preparations for flu season. To combat the spread, the Golding Health Center is administering flu vaccinations to all undergraduate and graduate students. According to its website, the flu outbreak typically peaks in January or February, with outbreaks occurring through May.
In a Sept. 15 email, the Health Center announced that it will be hosting flu clinics every Wednesday from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., effective Sept. 27 until Dec. 20. Students can schedule appointments on their online patient portals or call the Health Center at 781-736-3677. The online portal displays a calendar with all the available dates and times. The Health Center also sends communication for seasonal vaccines to students through the Electronic Health Record, a repository of electronic records with patient health information.
The Health Center is also hosting flu vaccine pop-ups on Oct. 17 in the International Lounge from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.; Oct. 24 in the Shapiro Campus Center from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.; Oct. 26 in Gosman Sports and Convocation Center from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.; and Oct. 31 in Feldberg Lounge from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Although registration is recommended, walk-ins are welcome while supplies last.
Massachusetts State Regulations 105 CMR 220.600 requires students to have documentation of required vaccinations or proof of immunity through antibody blood titers prior to coming to campus. Examples of required vaccinations include MMR, Hepatitis B, and polio. The influenza flu vaccine is not mandatory but recommended.
The Health Center states that approximately 5% to 20% of the U.S. population is infected with the Influenza virus every year. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that people with the flu are most contagious in the first three to four days after they initially contract the virus. According to the World Health Organization, there have been multiple influenza pandemics throughout history, with the four most recent ones occurring in 1918-1919, 1957-1958, 1968-1969, and 2009-2010.
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Over half of US state and territorial public health preparedness directors (PHPDs) surveyed said they experienced shortages of flu antiviral drugs such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) during the 2022-23 respiratory virus season, forcing many to turn to national or state stockpiles, according to a research letter published late last week in JAMA.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials surveyed 38 PHPDs from states, territories, and large independent metropolitan health departments from January to August 2023.
The 38 PHPDs represented all 10 US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regions, although the anonymous nature of the survey precluded identifying specific jurisdictions.
In December 2022, the CDC issued a public health advisory encouraging prioritization of oseltamivir for hospitalized flu patients, as well as outpatients at increased risk for severe illness. HHS's Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response for the first time allowed jurisdictions to access Tamiflu from state, territorial, or national stockpiles.
Twenty respondents (52.6%), including at least one in each HHS region, said certain formulations of oseltamivir, baloxavir, and zanamivir were in limited supply.
Sixteen respondents (42.1%) said that, amid the shortages, local clinicians and public health officials promoted flu vaccination. Thirteen PHPDs (34.2%) reported flu outbreaks in long-term care facilities, with no access to oseltamivir for symptomatic residents or prevention in those exposed to the virus.
It is possible that local antiviral shortages were due to earlier and higher than expected influenza activity in the 2022-2023 influenza season compared with the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 influenza seasons,
Of 22 PHPDs in states or territories with stockpiles for pandemic flu, 10 (45.5%) reported obtaining stockpiled oseltamivir in response to shortages. Seven of 15 respondents (46.7%) in jurisdictions with no stockpile said they requested oseltamivir from the Strategic National Stockpile.
"It is possible that local antiviral shortages were due to earlier and higher than expected influenza activity in the 2022-2023 influenza season compared with the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 influenza seasons, with consequent higher demand for oseltamivir," the study authors wrote, adding that the results highlight the need to monitor local and national antiviral supply distribution.
In a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers used blood and airway sampling of morbidly obese individuals and murine models to elucidate the mechanisms underpinning severe cases of influenza among the obese population.
Study:Obesity dysregulates the pulmonary antiviral immune response. Image Credit:Jarun Ontakrai/Shutterstock.com
Their findings reveal that obesity induces deficits in pulmonary antiviral responses and airway metabolomes, thereby increasing leptin concentrations.
The overexpression of leptin incapacitates antiviral type 1 interferon, increasing severe influenza risk. This study may provide insights into therapeutic interventions, such as leptin manipulation, that may benefit higher-risk obese individuals in the future.
Overweight and obesity present some of the world's biggest clinical and economic burdens today. Over 13% of the world's adult human population and over 1 billion people are estimated to suffer from obesity, problems which today's sedentary lifestyle and overconsumption of the Western diet are compounding.
The 2009 swine flu (H1N1) pandemic highlights obese individuals' heightened risk of developing severe respiratory tract infections, contributing to increased hospitalizations and mortalities.
Seasonal influenza research has corroborated these findings, with the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic providing the final evidence that obesity is associated with adverse viral outcomes.
Scientists have hypothesized that obesity may function via altered lung mechanics, cardiovascular disease and other comorbidities, and immunometabolic effects. However, studies have not confirmed the mechanical influences of abnormal body weight on viral susceptibility.
In the present study, researchers employ a multi-compartment sampling strategy of the peripheral blood and airways of morbidly obese patients with ongoing bariatric surgery.
The cross-disciplinary approach combines in vitro metabolomic investigations with in vivo functional murine models and clinical case-control human studies to elucidate the association between obesity and perturbed viral immunity in these patients.
The study's participants (N = 30; 15 cases and 15 controls) were recruited from the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Morbidly obese patients with body mass index (BMI) greater than 35 kg/m2 and normal body weight controls (BMI = 20-25 kg/m2) were age, gender, and ethnicity matched and underwent anthropometric characterization.
Clinical sampling involving blood, nasal synthetic absorptive matrix (SAM) sampling, and bronchoscopy were conducted.
For ex vivo virus infection experiments, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), bronchial epithelial cells (BECs), or plasmacytoid dendritic cells (DCs) were infected with select influenza virus strains - A/Eng/195, A/Eng/691/10 or B/Florida, following which RNA extraction and protein quantification were carried out.
In vivo, experiments were conducted on 6-8 week-old female BALB/c mice and comprised intranasal administration of recombinant mouse leptin followed by intranasal infection with influenza virus strain X31.
In vitro experiments included protein assays, RNA and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), flow cytometry, and metabolomics.
Statistic analyses used Mann-Whitney U tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and Dunn's multiple correction test for evaluating human obesity data retrieved from the Mechanisms of Severe Acute Influenza Consortium (MOSAIC) study. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were used to compare case-control data across human and animal evaluations.
Initial author hypotheses regarding bronchial epithelial cell responses altered by obesity-mediated effects were proven incorrect, as findings revealed no statistically significant differences between case and control participants.
Interleukin (IL) response experiments corroborated these findings in airway inflammation experiments pro-inflammatory cytokine responses were found to be uniform between obese cases and normal controls, suggesting unaltered epithelial inflammation during influenza infection of overweight individuals.
In contrast, BAL macrophages did show significant perturbations in their antiviral responses. BAL cells infected with H1N1/09, H3N2, and B/Florida influenza strains depicted reduced interferon-alpha (IFN-) induction in obese patients compared to their control counterparts.
Similarly, IFN- and IFN- induction was severely hampered in obese individuals, impairing type I and III IFN antiviral protection. BAL cell pro-inflammatory cytokine production of IL-6, IL-8, and TNF also showed reduced efficiency in obese versus normal adults.
Evaluations of BECs revealed that these cells are not affected by obesity, with no differences in cell activation patterns between normal and obese individuals.
Ultrahigh Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) analyses of BAL fluid metabolite abundances presented that 15 metabolites were significantly downregulated in obese patients, and two adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and glycerol were upregulated in this cohort.
"bronchosorption concentrations of leptin negatively correlated with the magnitude of BAL cell IFN- responses to all three influenza strains tested in our ex vivo experiments, with greater concentrations of leptin being significantly associated with weaker induction of IFN- by each virus strain. This indicated a possible causal link between raised leptin concentrations and impaired antiviral immunity in obesity, potentially through perturbed fatty acid metabolism."
In vivo, exogenous leptin administration experiments in mice revealed that the obese mice models presented upregulated suppressors of cytokine signaling 3 (Socs3) mRNA.
SOCS-3 is a known negative modulator of type I IFN signaling, severely impacting obese individuals' early response to viral infection. These results were corroborated when analyzing results from both whole lung expression and BAL macrophages.
Analyses of MOSAIC cohort data elucidate that immune dysregulation in obese patients is restricted to the upper airway mucosa without any significant perturbation within the systemic circulatory system.
The present study utilizes ex vivo experiments and in vivo murine models to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the increased susceptibility of obese individuals to severe influenza infections.
The results of these cross-disciplinary analyses comprising metabolomics, RNA sequencing, HPLC, and flow cytometry reveal that obesity significantly alters the upper airway mucosa of overweight individuals versus their normal BMI counterparts.
This results in upregulated SOCS-2 production and correspondingly attenuated IFN production. Type I and III IFN regulation perturbs normal early infection responses, allowing influenza to present more severe infections in obese individuals.
"In conclusion, our study uncovers insight into mechanisms driving susceptibility to severe influenza infections in obese individuals. Future work should focus on whether sustained weight loss leads to a restitution of this impaired antiviral immunity, especially given that epidemiological evidence indicates that the clinical risk of influenza infection diminishes following bariatric surgerand impaired mononuclear cell type II IFN responses in obese individuals can be corrected by weight loss."
These findings may form the basis for research into leptin manipulation or IFN administration interventions that help obese individuals better cope with influenza and other viral respiratory tract infections in the future.
Torontos Board of Health is asking the province for an additional $5.1 million to add to their budget in order to prepare for the fall and winter virus season as COVID-19, RSV and flu cases are already popping up.
Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, said the extra annual funding would be used for Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) hubs that help prevent and mitigate the impacts of outbreaks, particularly in long-term care and retirement homes, shelters and group homes.
[The hubs] are absolutely crucial to the response particularly within congregate settings congregate living settings like long-term care homes, where people live together and where you have people who are at higher risk and how those hubs work, said Dr. de Villa.
She said they are expecting the extraordinary COVID-19 funding provided by the province for the last few years to wrap up despite the city still facing challenges.
This is the kind of thing that we anticipate is going to be needed on an ongoing basis. We certainly have seen the value. What were seeking is funding to ensure that that value is still in place and that we protect health as best as possible, Torontos top doctor said.
I hope the province recognizes the importance of this and puts their money where their mouth is and provides the $5.1 million that were asking for, added city councillor and member of the Board of Health Chris Moise.
The Ministry of Health tells CityNews since 2020, the government has invested over $100 million in IPAC hubs and has increased funding to public health units by 16 per cent.
The government has also provided a one per cent increase in base funding per year for Torontos Public Health Unit beginning in 2024.
Vaccines are currently available for the RSV virus for those 60 years of age or older. The flu vaccine is being administered to high-risk individuals and will soon become available to the general public.
The updated COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech has been approved by Health Canada and is expected to be released across pharmacies on Oct. 30.
Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch said its always hard to predetermine what flu season will be like in Canada.
The key with the flu is we always say its predictably unpredictable.I think the truth is that yes,were going to have one.Yes, vaccines are going to roll out soon.Its not quite clear how severe its going tobe, butwe know what we can do to protect ourselvesagainst this threat thats going to be coming, he said.
Dr. Bogoch said to expect cases to start to trickle up this week, but vaccines are essential.
Its hard to know what level of protection the influenza vaccine is going to provideagainst getting the infection.But we know from decades of experience thatinfluenza can impact every single age and cohort, the youngest and the oldest are moresignificantly impacted, but the flu can reallypack a punch, he said.
The flu shot, while notperfect, still provides decent protectionagainst infection. [It offers] decent protection against moremanifestations of the virus, including hospitalization and death.Its really important for people to get the flushot.
He adds strong community outreach and access to these vaccines is key.
People have to know whats going on,its massive.You can have all the vaccines in the world.But if people dont know theyre around or have difficulty accessing them,were obviously going to get low uptake.
We know that lowering these barriersto vaccination and improving the vaccine ratedoes tremendous good, he added.
As for masking without mandates, its up to the individual person to make that decision for themselves.
Theyre not perfect,but they certainly can help reduce ones riskof getting infected if theyre in an indoor setting where we know the vast majority ofthese respiratory viruses are transmitted.
If you want to reduce your risk of infection,you can put on a mask.Its really as simple as that, said Bogoch.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) Last year, hospitals saw a surge in the number of children with RSV, also known as respiratory syncytial virus. Lexington health officials say the new vaccines could have a big impact on the upcoming cold-weather virus season. For children, elderly adults, and infants, it can be a difficult time of year.
Professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at the College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Dr. Ilhem Messaoudi, said, Weve known for a long time that RSV can impact really young children and older adults and cause severe disease, especially in premature infants. But for decades, we did not have a vaccine that was efficacious against RSV.
In July and September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended two new RSV vaccinations for adults ages 60 and older and for women 32 to 36 weeks pregnant, to protect their babies. In August, the CDC also recommended Nirsevimab; an antibody as a vaccine to prevent severe RSV in babies and toddlers.
Its an exciting time to have not one but two vaccines, especially after the last year that we had where we saw record numbers of children present to the emergency departments really sick, said Dr. Massoudi. The monoclonal antibody is equally exciting because its approved for really young infants between zero and six months of age and can be used up to infants that are under two years of age.
Massoudi agreed that the new RSV vaccines could make a huge impact this cold and flu season.
I saw numbers released by the CDC recently and flu, COVID, and RSV account for about 40% of all respiratory illness in this country that we measure. So thats a big chunk of it and I think having these vaccines is going to make a really big difference for those populations that are most at risk, Massoudi said.
Massoudi said the new vaccines are widely available but there is a shortage of the ones used to protect toddlers and babies.
The risks of severe neonatal morbidity, neonatal death, and admission to the neonatal intensive care unit were all significantly lower during the first month of birth in infants whose mothers were vaccinated against Covid-19, and protection against the virus continued for up to six months after birth, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.
We hypothesized that this might be because we know that severe Covid in pregnancy is associated with pregnancy complications and so by protecting the mom, you would expect that perhaps incidence would be at a lower risk for some of those severe outcomes, said Sarah Jorgensen, a researcher and pharmacist at the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto and the first author on the study.
Jorgensen, who researches vaccines in pregnancy, added that it could also be because pregnant people who get vaccinated tend to have other characteristics that are related to better outcomes in infants, like coming from areas with higher levels of education and better socioeconomic factors.
This population-based cohort study observed 142,006 infants up to 6 months of age born to mothers who were either vaccinated or not during the first, second, or third trimester. Of those, 85,670 infants were exposed to one or more Covid-19 vaccine doses while in utero. Of note is that in this study, 60% of pregnant people were vaccinated. As a result, the researchers found that after one month, exposed infants were 14% less likely to experience severe neonatal morbidity, and they were also 53% less likely to die and 14% less likely to be admitted to the NICU.
This study adds to the body of research which shows that maternal vaccination, like with influenza, tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap), and most recently RSV, leads to positive outcomes for mother and baby, according to an accompanying editorial.
It looks like more good news about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines, said Sonja Rasmussen, a pediatrician and professor of genetic medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Now we have really strong data in a big study including a lot of women in the first trimester of pregnancy that shows that this vaccine is safe.
However, even though the data shows a positive trend in Ontario, Rasmussen, who was not a part of the study, explained that this might not be the case in the U.S. because of hesitancy and fears that the vaccine could cause birth defects, preterm labor, or spontaneous abortion. According to the editorial, based on the results of this study and similar ones before it, these fears are unfounded. Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in April 2022, about 50% of pregnant women were vaccinated either before or during pregnancy and that number dropped to 46% in October 2022.
We need to continue to make sure that pregnant persons understand that this is a way that they can protect themselves, they can protect their babies from getting Covid-19 in the first few months of life, and that this is safe, said Rasmussen, who is also an expert on infections in pregnancy.
According to the editorial, the best way to encourage pregnant people to get vaccinated is for clinicians to have a strong relationship with their patients, because having a strong recommendation in combination with access to vaccines makes it more likely that a mother will get vaccinated.
People, I think, are reassured when they see these safety data. Physicians are reassured and Im hoping that patients will be reassured too and recognize the importance of protecting their baby by getting the Covid-19 vaccine, Rasmussen said.
Among the studys limitations, Jorgensen and her colleagues pointed out that they could not adjust for things that werent in the databases, such as body mass index, tobacco use, use of other medications, or breastfeeding, which could have had an impact on the study findings.
We did adjust for a lot of things, but there were some things that just werent available in our study, Jorgensen said.
In the future, Jorgensens team will look at these infants and children as they get older and look back when they turn 2 years old.
Well continue to do research on different outcomes, as well as following these kids as they get older, Jorgensen said. So far, the evidence has been reassuring both from our group here in Ontario as well as abroad.
The Covid vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna may be linked to a slight increase in the risk of stroke when administered along with a high-dose flu vaccine, according to a new analysis by the Food and Drug Administration.
The high-dose flu vaccine is usually given to older people, and the risk association is clearest in adults aged 85 and older. But that increase, if real, seems very small, and it is possible that the risk may stem from the flu vaccine alone.
A separate analysis by the agency points to a small increase in the incidence of seizures after Covid vaccinations in children ages 2 to 5. The papers were posted online last week, and have not yet been vetted for publication in a scientific journal. Experts in vaccine safety said the studies were well done.
Neither study is definitive, and even if these links were confirmed, the increases are so slight that the benefits of vaccination still far outweigh the risks, especially in older adults, experts said. Flu and Covid themselves both raise the risk of stroke.
Although the findings do not warrant a change to vaccine recommendations, they are suggestive enough to merit further study, the experts said.
Without these types of efforts, the absence of data, the absence of evidence, just leads to a lot of misperceptions, said Dr. Susan Cheng, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles.
The F.D.A. did not make the researchers available for interviews. In a statement, Cherie Duvall-Jones, a spokeswoman for the agency, said it was making this information known at this time through publication of this paper for transparency.
Both studies are based on observational data, which cannot identify cause and effect. The agency is planning to study the occurrence of seizures in children after vaccination using a more robust design, Ms. Duvall-Jones said.
Sometimes, similar small associations of increased risk are not confirmed upon further investigation, she added.
Administration of flu and Covid vaccines at the same time or with a single shot that combines both, once one becomes available is an increasingly popular strategy with health officials aiming to increase vaccine uptake and ease logistical burdens, said Marco Cavaleri, who heads the office of biological health threats and vaccines strategy at the European Medicines Agency.
Thats the way for the future, Dr. Cavaleri said. We, of course, need to be sure that indeed this is a good strategy also from a safety perspective.
Dr. Cavaleri said he was not yet convinced that the increase in stroke risk was real. Strokes and related health problems occur frequently among those aged 85 or older, he noted. We have to be extremely careful in not overinterpreting data before we get really large data sets, maybe from different regions, that could tell us exactly what is going on, he said.
Officials in the United States first noted a possible association about a year ago. At the time, data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a federal safety surveillance system, suggested that Americans aged 65 or older might be at increased risk of an ischemic stroke, which interrupts blood supply to the brain, within 21 days of receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccine offered last fall.
But federal officials said in January that a deeper investigation suggested that a link was very unlikely, and that other surveillance systems, including those in other countries, had not found a connection.
In the new study, researchers at the F.D.A. and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services analyzed stroke risk among nearly 5.4 million Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years or older. They looked at the health records of those who received a Covid bivalent shot either on its own or along with the flu vaccine between Aug. 31 and Nov. 6, 2022.
Their initial analysis found no statistically significant increases in stroke with the Covid vaccines administered by themselves. When federal researchers broke down the data by age, they found an increased risk of stroke among those who were 85 years or older who got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and in those who were 65 to 74 who got the Moderna vaccine.
The link was most consistent when the bivalent Covid shot was given at the same time as a high-dose flu vaccine or one containing an adjuvant, a chemical added to elicit a stronger immune response.
Those who received both Covid and flu vaccines saw a 20 percent increase in the risk of ischemic stroke with the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent shot, and an increase of 35 percent in the risk of transient ischemic stroke after the Moderna bivalent shot. (The bivalent shots were replaced in September with new formulations.)
The researchers then looked more closely at the relationship between the flu vaccine and stroke in nearly 7 million Medicare participants who received a high-dose or adjuvanted flu vaccine. They found a small but statistically significant increase, of about 9 percent, in the risk of stroke after receiving the flu vaccine alone.
The results suggest that the high-dose flu vaccine itself may be responsible for the increase in strokes observed in the study, Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said.
The study found some odd patterns, however for example, an increased risk of some types of stroke with the flu vaccine in those ages 65 to 74 and those 85 or older, but not among those who were 75 to 84.
Thats the sort of thing that would make me wonder if there might be something weird going on in their data, because you would expect there to be more consistency, Dr. Salmon said.
Federal researchers also calculated a separate measure called attributable risk, or the increase in risk that can be attributed to the exposure. Except in those 85 or older, the attributable risk was roughly three additional cases of stroke for every 100,000 people vaccinated with the Covid vaccine.
The numbers are too small to warrant alarm, Dr. Salmon said, especially because the diseases themselves also carry a risk of stroke.
If I tell you that your risk of getting struck by lightning doubled, I wouldnt really sweat it, to be honest with you, because your risk of getting hit by lightning is pretty small, he said. Because the background rate is so small, a doubling of that risk isnt very much.
Experts also said they were not surprised or concerned by the findings regarding seizures among vaccinated children.
In that study, F.D.A. researchers looked at the incidence of 21 health outcomes in more than 4.1 million children after immunization with the original Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax.
The researchers based their analysis on commercial claims in insurance databases, as well as vaccination data from local and state systems.
The analysis confirmed a previously observed risk of uncommon heart problems after the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid shots in children aged 12 to 17.
The study also detected a small rise in the incidence of seizures and convulsions after the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots, but only among children aged 2 to 5.
A consistent trend in seizures across all age groups would have been more worrisome. But young children are prone to seizures when they have a high fever, Dr. Cheng said, and other vaccines that produce fevers are known to induce seizures in very young children.
We know that the Covid vaccines can cause a fever, so its not a terribly surprising finding if its true, Dr. Salmon said of the seizures.
Children are at much smaller risk of Covid than older adults, so many parents have opted not to vaccinate them. The low numbers make it challenging to study potential risks, experts noted.
I commend them for doing the work, Dr. Salmon said of the F.D.A.s research. I do wish they were done earlier, but its great that the studies are being done.
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Brent Sexton, who cited a prior medical condition for his refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine, took issue with Apple Studios' refusal of an offer to undergo daily testing for the virus instead of getting vaccinated.
Brent Sexton
Apple Studios might have discriminated against Brent Sexton when it pulled an offer for him to star in Manhunt after he refused the COVID-19 vaccine due to potential health complications, a judge has ruled.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Linfield declined Apples move to dismiss the lawsuit on free speech grounds, finding that the companys mandatory vaccination policy may have been unconstitutional. The order issued on Oct. 19 marks one of the few rulings advancing a lawsuit from an actor who took issue with a studios refusal to provide accommodations for refusing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
There is a significant difference between the government using its police power to require vaccinations and a company implementing a policy that required vaccinations (without any alternative, and of its own volition) as a condition of employment, stated the order.
Sexton last year accepted a role to play Andrew Johnson in Manhunt, a miniseries following the governments search for John Wilkes Booth after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He was to be paid $85,000, plus incentives, per episode, with a seven-episode minimum, according to the complaint.
At the time, Apple didnt require employees at corporate headquarters or retail stores to get the vaccine, allowing them to get daily or weekly tests. Apple Studios, however, was among the majority of studios in Hollywood that implemented vaccine mandates for a productions main actors, as well as key crewmembers who work closely with them in the highest-risk areas of the set. Sextons deal on the show fell apart after he refused to get immunized, citing a prior health condition that his doctor said makes it dangerous for him to receive the vaccine. He sued after Apple refused to provide accommodations, arguing the companys vaccine policy is unconstitutional.
In his ruling, Linfield found that dismissal of the case is not warranted under Californias anti-SLAAP statute, which is intended to protect free speech against frivolous lawsuits. He noted that Sextons offer to star in Manhunt was withdrawn last year when the context of the pandemic was quite different compared to 2021.
In March 2022, it might not have been either necessary or reasonable for a company to implement (without any alternative and without a government requirement) a vaccinate-to-work policy, the judge wrote.
A key factor in advancing the lawsuit was Sextons medical condition preventing him from getting the vaccine, according to the order. Linfield said that whether the mandatory vaccine policy is an illegal violation of privacy as applied to the actor is a mixed question of law and fact.
In a letter accompanying Sextons request for medical accommodations, his doctor wrote that his medical recommendation is that it would be too dangerous for our patient to be vaccinated since it is a medical fact that two of the major side effects of Covid-19 vaccines are thrombocytopenia and blood clots. He added, The patient is already suffering from both issues, and any good doctor would agree that vaccinating him would indeed be a great risk to his life.
Additionally, Linfield stressed evidence from Sexton demonstrating that he likely would have been able to safely work on the set of the production had he undergone daily testing for COVID-19.
Defendant argues that Plaintiff would not have been able to adequately perform his performance duties in the historical role of President Andrew Johnson while wearing a mask, the order stated. The Court agrees and assumes that Plaintiff also agrees. Of course, this is a straw-man argument; no one is suggesting that Plaintiff, in the role of Andrew Johnson, should appear wearing a mask.
Apple didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mandatory vaccine mandates led to numerous lawsuits from actors who were denied exemptions, including long-running General Hospital actor Ingo Rademacher and former 911 mainstay Rockmond Dunbar. Unlike Sexton, who cited a medical reason in refusing vaccine, Rademacher took issue with ABCs refusal to provide him a religious exemption. In June, his lawsuit was dismissed.
Is it safe to receive a COVID-19 mRNA vaccination during pregnancy? That question has been on the minds of every expectant parent since the vaccines became widely available.
Now, in one of the largest studies of its kind, scientists in Ontario have endeavored to answer this question.
"Many women are understandably nervous about receiving vaccines during pregnancy," the study's lead author, Sarah Jorgensen, a researcher at the University of Toronto, told Newsweek. "Our study hopefully provides them with some reassurance about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy for newborns and young infants."
Their study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, studied 142,000 live births across Ontario, and 60 percent of the infants had been exposed to one or more COVID-19 vaccine doses while the mother was pregnant.
"We assessed the safety of maternal COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy for newborns and infants and did not find an increase in adverse outcomes," Jorgensen said. "Some of these outcomes were actually improved in infants of mothers vaccinated during pregnancy."
The study concluded that vaccination during pregnancy was associated with lower risks of severe disease during the first 28 days after birth and neonatal intensive care unit admissions. There was also no association between maternal vaccination during pregnancy and hospital readmission during the first 28 days after birth or after six months.
"These improved outcomes might be because the vaccines protect mothers from severe COVID-19 during pregnancy, which, in turn, is associated with pregnancy complications and harms to the fetus/newborn," Jorgensen said. "Or it could be because women who get the vaccine are generally from higher-income areas and have other health-related behaviors associated with improved newborn and infant outcomes. Most likely both explanations are somewhat responsible."
In a previous study, the team also found that COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy protected infants from COVID-19 infection during the first few months of their lives.
"Our research has specifically focused on newborn and infant health effects when mothers get vaccinated during pregnancy, but other researchers have found the vaccines protect mothers from COVID-19 with no increase in pregnancy complications," Jorgensen said.
Compared with previous research, this latest study was able to draw from an extensive and diverse pool of health data from across the Canadian province.
"Ontario has universal health insurance and rich health administrative data on the 15 million residents of the province," Jorgensen said. "The availability of these data allowed us to complete one of the largest studies to date that assesses the safety of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy for newborns and infants."
She continued: "Our study included a larger proportion of women vaccinated during pregnancy, including all trimesters, than most previous studies assessing infant outcomes. We also assessed a wide range of important infant health effects. And we had data on infants up to 6 months of age, which is the longest follow-up to date."
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
