FDA and Zyn, Anthropic Claude Science, alcohol consumption: Morning Rounds
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How the alcohol industry is putting its politics on ice
Each year, the American Cancer Society raises hundreds of thousands of dollars from the wine and spirits industry through an annual fundraising gala featuring unlimited alcoholic beverages like pineapple margaritas. This may seem like a strange development for a health nonprofit, given the increase in research on links between alcohol consumption and cancer risk. But it’s just one of many striking examples (“shocking, in fact,” according to a Tufts University professor) that Isa Cueto and Lev Facher identify in their latest dispatch in The Deadliest Drug series—this one focuses on the alcohol industry’s behind-the-scenes tactics to influence public policy.
Read on to find out more like which senator (a Democrat) received more donations from alcohol groups than any other while the industry panicked over possible changes in dietary guidelines and alcohol companies’ surprising ties to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And if you need to catch up on Isa and Lev’s hit drinking series, check out their biggest takeaways so far.
Safety of mRNA vaccines confirmed in large new study
The mRNA vaccines deployed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been the subject of much misinformation and public distrust, particularly from the public. a few members of the Trump administration. A new review published in The Lancet confirms their safety, finding that “[a]Across billions of doses administered, serious adverse events have been rare, well characterized, and consistently outweighed by the substantial protection conferred against severe disease, hospitalization, and death.
As an example, incidents of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart-related inflammatory conditions) were approximately 12.6 cases per million for Pfizer’s Covid vaccine and 35.6 cases per million for Moderna’s. And the risk of developing these diseases from a vaccine was much lower than the risk from Covid infection, particularly in the highest risk group of adolescents. Read the full study.
How Maryland’s governor wants to improve the mental health of young men
Like many people, Maryland Governor Wes Moore (Democrat) is concerned about the well-being of boys and young men in the United States. But he challenges the way it is often talked about. “We must stop treating our young men and boys as problems to be solved, and start treating them as people to invest in,” Moore writes in a new first opinion.
Maryland’s new Young Men and Boys initiative aims to improve the well-being of young men and boys, including a program to recruit more male teachers who can serve as positive role models and a paid year of service option for high school graduates. Find out how Moore suggests taking more active care of the boys and prevent them from falling into crisis.
Claude from Anthropic comes to get the scientists
The first AI titan, Anthropic, shook up the computer programming industry with Claude Code. Now it’s science’s turn.
Claude Science, the new Anthropic app unveiled Tuesday, is a large language model customized for use in scientific laboratories and pharmaceutical research. Anthropic’s efforts in biology are “the most important thing” at the company, its life sciences chief, Eric Kauderer-Abrams, told STAT.
This is the first time a major AI developer has released a separate interface and product for scientists, Matt Herper and Brittany Trang report. Learn more about what this could mean for life sciences and about companies already worried about the impact it could have on their bottom lines.
FDA Says Zyn May Market Its Pouches As Safer Than Cigarettes
Nicotine pouch brand Zyn (owned by Swedish Match USA, which is owned by Philip Morris International) has been wildly successful in the United States, selling 794 million cans last year, more than double its 2023 total. Now the FDA says Zyn may also market 20 of its pouches as safer than cigarettes, authorizing him to claim that the product “puts you at lower risk of oral cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.”
The move is rattling some health organizations, with Lisa Licasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, warning of its potential effects on young people. “[W]We know that the tobacco industry continues to target a new generation with these highly addictive flavored products,” she said in a statement. “The FDA should increase oversight, not open the door to increased marketing of addictive tobacco products.” This news adds to another recent victory for the tobacco industry, and smokeless tobacco products in particular, as demonstrated by the Trump administration. open THE doors with the return of fruity vapors.
What we read
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All of Us tests new approach to collecting real-world data for research, STAT
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The Shilajit Dilemma, Bloomberg
- What the Ebola outbreak and possible Marburg teach us about the next pandemic, STAT
- These church members disagree on politics. Together, they erase medical debt, KFF Health News
- Marburg outbreak reported in Uganda, threatening to complicate Ebola response in region, STAT
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
