Research in Africa found a one-time dose of an experimental drug protected adults against malaria for at least six months, the latest approach in the fight against the mosquito-borne disease.
The World Health Organization is rolling out the first authorized malaria vaccine for children, but it is about 30% effective and requires four doses.
The new study tested a different approach — giving people a big dose of lab-made malaria-fighting antibodies instead of depending on the immune system to make enough of those same infection-blockers after vaccination.
The experimental antibody, developed by researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, was given by IV — difficult to deliver on a large scale. But the encouraging findings bode well for an easier-to-administer shot version from the same scientists that’s in early testing in infants, children and adults.
The Columbia Journalism Review unveiled a tool on Thursday that calculates the number of stories a missing person’s disappearance would net, based on demographics.
The exercise is designed to call attention to “missing white women syndrome,” the tendency of news organizations to pay relatively little attention to missing people who don’t fit that category.
Black people accounted for 22% of the missing people in the data examined but just 13% of the news stories. White people, who made up 47% of the missing person cases, were featured in 70% of the stories.
According to the calculator, the disappearance of a 22-year-old white woman in New York would generate 67 stories. If she were three years older, that number would drop to 19. And a missing 25-year-old Black woman from New York would get eight. A 50-year-old Black man in the same city would net six.
“We have to place a spotlight on the way that the media functions and the way in which we devalue — inadvertently or not — the lives of people that we’re supposed to cover,” said Jelani Cobb, dean of the Columbia Journalism School.
A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to threatening a U.S. senator, according to federal prosecutors.
Brendon Daugherty, 35, of Coon Rapids, entered the plea to one count of interstate transmission of a threat during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis Tuesday.
FBI agents spoke with Daugherty at his home on Sept. 2. According to court documents, he admitted making the calls and said he did so because the senator was “doing a bunch of stupid (expletive) with gun control,” and that he wants politicians to “feel a little bit pressured.”
A sentencing hearing will be scheduled later.
Rhynn Paulsen can be reached at paul9706@stthomas.edu.