With NIH support, scientists across the United States and around the world conduct wide-ranging research to discover ways to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. Groundbreaking NIH-funded research often receives top scientific honors. In 2021, these honors included Nobel Prizes to five NIH-supported scientists. Here’s just a small sample of the NIH-supported research accomplishments in 2021.

COVID-19 spread and vaccines

Drug Delays Type 1 Diabetes Onset 

Gene Therapy effective in Human Trials 

Low Fat Diet compared to Low Carb Diet 

Supplement Targets Gut Microbes to Boost Growth in Malnourished Children 

Test May Help Reduce Racial Disparities in Kidney Disease 

and more 

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Despite important advances in the understanding and treatment of oral diseases and conditions, many people in the U.S. still have chronic oral health problems and lack of access to care, according to a report by the National Institutes of Health. Oral Health in America: Advances and Challenges, is a follow-up to the seminal 2000 Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General. The new report, which is intended to provide a road map on how to improve the nation’s oral health, draws primarily on information from public research and evidence-based practices and was compiled and reviewed by NIH’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) and a large, diverse, multi-disciplinary team of more than 400 experts.

The report updates the findings of the 2000 publication and highlights the national importance of oral health and its relationship to overall health. It also focuses on new scientific and technological knowledge – as well as innovations in health care delivery – that offer promising new directions for improving oral health care and creating greater equity in oral health across communities. Achieving that equity is an ongoing challenge for many who struggle to obtain dental insurance and access to affordable care.

“This is a very significant report,” said NIH Acting Director Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D. “It is the most comprehensive assessment of oral health currently available in the United States and it shows, unequivocally, that oral health plays a central role in overall health. Yet millions of Americans still do not have access to routine and preventative oral care.”

Full article here> 

Download PDF of report here> 

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The recent surge in COVID-19 cases is causing several universities across the country to react, some canceling winter graduation ceremonies while others are requiring all students to receive a booster shot. [Medscape 12.20.2021]

For instance, the University of Maryland on Thursday announced that it canceled its winter commencement ceremonies and put safety measures back in place because of the surge.

"Our COVID-19 dashboard was updated to show 98 positive cases from university testing plus an additional 12 self-reported cases (these results are from tests taken since Monday) and we expect to see another high number of cases from today's testing," university President Darryll J. Pines, PhD, wrote in a letter to the campus Thursday. "These are the highest case counts we've seen this fall semester."

The main graduation ceremony scheduled for Monday has been called off, as have departmental ceremonies on Tuesday and Wednesday, Pines said.

"We know how important this time is for our winter graduates and their families, but our first responsibility must continue to be the health and well-being of our community. All winter graduates will be invited to the spring ceremony in May," he said.

Students taking in-person final exams will be required to wear KN95 masks, and all

dining halls will transition to takeout options only, Pines said. Basketball, volleyball, and some other sports will be suspended at campus recreation facilities. Students must leave their dorms 24 hours after taking their last exam.

Earlier this week, Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, reported more than 900 new COVID cases, with a "very high percentage" of them from the Omicron variant in fully vaccinated people. In response, the university moved final exams online. Social events and the winter graduation ceremony were also called off.

Other colleges made changes because of an increase in COVID cases.

• Stanford University will require all students to provide proof of booster shots by Jan. 31. Students will take online classes the first 2 weeks in January before going back to in-person learning Jan. 18.

• Emory University in Atlanta said that all students, faculty, and staff are required to get a booster shot by Jan. 19. The school said it already had a 97% vaccination rate.

Sources

University of Maryland. "Important COVID-19 Actions: Effective Immediately."

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An internal review sheds new light on what went wrong with the first COVID tests distributed by the CDC during the early days of the pandemic.

Previous investigations said contamination was the major reason tests shipped to health labs in early 2020 produced inconclusive reports and false positives.

But the CDC's internal review published in Plos ONE says a design flaw also caused problems with the testing kits.

The test kits were designed to detect the virus with primers, which bind to and copy targeted sequences, and with probes that emit a fluorescent signal when copies are made, The New York Times reported. The fluorescent signal means the virus's genetic material is present.

The probes and primers were not supposed to touch or bind to each other, but that happened sometimes in the faulty kits. And this created the false positives, The New York Times said.

By early February 2020, the CDC admitted the tests weren't working and redesigned them with the help of outside laboratories, The New York Times said.

"Since the rollout of the initial Covid-19 test, C.D.C. has implemented corrective measures and remains dedicated to the highest quality laboratory science and safety," the CDC said in a statement.

More details here> 

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WASHINGTON — Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, brings the panel to Chicago for a field hearing Monday on gun violence in the city.

The hearing, titled, “Combating Gun Trafficking and Reducing Violence in Chicago,” will be at the Dirksen Federal Building, 219 S. Dearborn St., and comes as the Chicago area continues to grapple with shootings.

According to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, as of Nov. 30, there were 1,009 homicides in Cook County, with 927 gun related. Most of the homicides were Black victims.

The last time Cook County homicides topped 1,000 was in 1994, with 1,141.

According to the Chicago Police Department, there were 754 homicides in the city through Dec. 4, the most recent data available.

“As Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I felt it was important to bring this hearing to Chicago — a city that is all too familiar with the devastating cycle of gun violence and the trauma it leaves behind,” Durbin said in a statement.

This will be the first time the Judiciary Committee has a Chicago hearing with Durbin wielding the gavel as chairman.

“I’ve worked for years to try to stem the flow of illegal guns and to promote common-sense gun safety measures, and I’m glad we now have a White House that shares this commitment. This hearing also provides an opportunity for a broader conversation about public health approaches to prevent and reduce community violence. We will hear from federal agencies that are playing a key role in these efforts, and I am committed to doing all I can to help make our communities safer,” Durbin said.

AG GARLAND ON SPIKE IN SHOOTINGS: ‘THIS BOTHERS ME VERY MUCH’

In July, Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Chicago native raised in Lincolnwood, and Durbin were in Chicago to launch a new federal effort to combat gun violence across the country.

It was Garland’s first official visit back to Chicago as AG, and he called gun violence an ongoing tragedy: “I feel it particularly in my hometown,” he said. There were three mass shootings that day in Chicago.

At a Justice Department news conference Monday on another issue, Garland took questions and at the end was asked about crime in Chicago, with the question prompted by the Cook County medical examiner’s sad report of more than 1,000 victims in Cook County so far in 2021.

Garland was asked, “What’s the plan?”

He replied, “It is a terrible thing,” noting the rise in crime started last year and continued into this year.

“As you no doubt know, I visited my home city of Chicago and we established gun violence trafficking task force there and I met with the chief of police, I met with all the federal law enforcement and I met with this state and local law enforcement in length.”

Garland also noted that last May, “We announced an anti -Violent Crime Initiative, which focuses very much on establishing these kinds of Joint Task forces with state and local police agencies combined with all of our federal law enforcement so that all the tools available to the department are used to help our state and local partners.

“We also have reinvigorated the Safe Streets task forces, which have been in effect for quite some time, all of which is to say that this bothers me very much and the violent crime increase is one that we must address, that we are putting all of our resources toward.”

Full article here>

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 The cost of complex hospitalizations for COVID-19 ranged from about $49,000 in Maryland to $129,000 in New Jersey, according to a new report by FAIR Health. [MedPage Today 12.15.2021]

In an analysis of private insurance claims spanning March 2020 through July 2021, New Jersey ($128,650) had the highest average allowed amount for complex hospitalizations, while Alaska ($44,239) was the highest for non-complex hospitalizations, and Nevada ($1,538) the highest for outpatient treatment.

Maryland had the lowest average allowed amounts for complex ($49,127) and non-complex ($12,531) hospitalizations as well as outpatients ($580).

Regionally, the west ($117,316) bore the highest average allowed amount for complex cases, and the south ($84,324) had the lowest, according to the report. The west ($38,135) also had the highest average for non-complex hospitalizations, while the south ($20,013) again had the lowest.

Among outpatients, the west ($1,187) was again the highest, while the northeast was the lowest ($937).

The report also looked at other patient characteristics, concluding that among those with complex hospitalizations, 48.4% had five or more comorbidities and 20.6% had no comorbidities.

The most common comorbidity for patients with complex hospitalization was hyperlipidemia and/or hypertension (14.7%), it found.

The median length of complex hospitalization declined from a peak of 13 days in April 2020 to 7 days in July of this year.

While the percentage of COVID patents who died in April 2020 was 1.9%, that figure declined to about 0.5% each month from February to July this year, the report found.

Gender showed varying trends: In non-complex hospitalizations, 57% of patients were female, while 57% of patients with complex hospitalizations were male.

More details here> 

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Genomic surveillance data indicates the omicron COVID-19 variant accounts for about 3 percent of new U.S. cases, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told NBC's Today on Dec. 14. [Becker's Hospital Review] 

The strain has been detected in at least 33 states and accounts for 13 percent of new cases in New Jersey and New York. 

"We're starting to see some early data that is demonstrating some decreased severity — shorter lengths of stay, fewer people on oxygen, fewer people in the intensive care unit  — but I also want to emphasize if you have more and more people who have disease, even if you have fewer people that get sick from it, you still have a lot of people who are getting sick, so really we want to make sure we keep all those keep prevention measures — vaccination, boosters — in place," Dr. Walensky said. 

Preliminary findings suggest omicron causes less severe illness than earlier variants. It is more transmissible, however, and a new study published Dec. 14 based on information from 211,000 COVID-19 cases in South Africa also supports that indication. The risk of hospitalization among people who contracted COVID-19 during a surge in omicron cases was 29 percent lower relative to the initial wave in March 2020. 

The same study also found omicron was more resistant to Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine, which provided about 33 percent protection against infection. Still, the vaccine offered 70 percent protection against hospitalization.

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The vast majority of the nation’s 54 million adults ages 65 and over participate in Social Security (86%) and Medicare (93%) — social insurance programs designed to provide nearly-universal coverage of the older population.

But what happens when these social insurance benefits, along with retirement payments and savings, are not enough? What about those not eligible for Social Security or Medicare?

They rely on needs-based assistance that support people with limited resources.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 1 in 6 older adults participated in a wide range of needs-based assistance programs, according to an analysis of recently released data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).

These numbers reveal the importance of the social safety net for economically vulnerable older adults, a need that may be amplified by the economic fallout of the pandemic.

These findings provide context about the experiences of adults ages 65 and over prior to the pandemic and will serve as a baseline for comparisons as additional data become available.

Read more> 

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As the winter approaches, U.S. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise, and with the emergence of the new omicron variant, the state of the pandemic could rapidly evolve. 

Health officials have warned for months about the potential of a winter surge, with the current uptick largely driven by the delta variant, which remains the dominant strain in the U.S. It's not yet clear whether omicron will outpace delta or how it could change the pandemic's course. 

The seven-day average for new daily cases nationwide on Dec. 9 was 119,788, a 30 percent jump over the last two weeks, according to data from The New York Times. Hospitalizations have also risen about 21 percent across the last 14 days, with a daily average of 62,971 on Dec. 9. 

The omicron variant had been detected in at least 22 states as of Dec. 9, and while nearly everything health officials know about its transmissibility, illness severity, and vaccines' and treatments' efficacy against it is preliminary, more concrete data is expected to emerge soon. 

As the healthcare industry awaits more definite information, Becker's compiled five updates about early omicron findings and the nation's response: 

1. President Joe Biden unveiled Dec. 2 a new federal strategy to combat the pandemic, aiming to protect against both omicron and delta variants during the winter months. Efforts include encouraging booster shots and expanding free at-home testing for Americans. 

2. As part of the new federal strategy, the CDC tightened COVID-19 testing protocols for air travelers. As of Dec. 6, air travelers entering the U.S. must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 24 hours of their flight to help prevent the omicron variant's spread. The rule applies to all air travelers, regardless of vaccination status or citizenship.  

3. New data from South Africa suggests the omicron variant may cause less severe infections than delta, though more research is needed to confirm this finding. In a Dec. 4 report, the South African Medical Research Council outlined the early experience of 42 COVID-19 patients treated at several hospitals and found 70 percent of patients didn't need supplemental oxygen, and few developed COVID-19 pneumonia. Four patients required a high level of care, and one patient was placed in intensive care. Overall, the average length of stay was 2.8 days compared to the 8.5-day average seen in COVID-19 patients in the last 18 months. 

4. The omicron variant appears to spread more than twice as quickly as delta, according to preliminary findings released by Scientists with the South African COVID-19 Modelling Consortium on Dec. 3. The researchers believe omicron's ability to rapidly spread results from both its contagiousness and ability to dodge the body's immune defenses, though it's unclear how large of a role each factor plays. The findings have yet to be peer reviewed. 

5. Pfizer's COVID-19 booster provided significant protection against the omicron variant during a lab study, the drugmaker said Dec. 8. On average, blood samples from people who received only two doses of Pfizer's vaccine saw a 25-fold drop in antibodies against the variant. Blood samples from people who received three doses saw similar neutralization against the omicron variant as the two-dose series provided against the original coronavirus strain. Following the announcement, the FDA authorized the vaccine booster for emergency use for teens ages 16 and 17, a move the CDC endorsed Dec. 9. 

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