No. 1Cancer
No bowel cancer recurrences after nearly three years in small immunotherapy trial
In the NEOPRISM-CRC trial, 32 patients with stage two or three bowel cancer received up to nine weeks of pembrolizumab before surgery. All had a genetic profile called MMR deficient/MSI-high, found in roughly 10-15% of such cases. After 33 months of follow-up, none had a recurrence. That included patients with small traces of disease left after treatment, whose remaining cancer did not grow or spread. Around 25% of patients on standard surgery plus chemotherapy are expected to relapse within three years. That is a comparison with expected rates, not with a control group in the trial. Researchers also found that tumor DNA disappearing from the blood tracked with no cancer remaining.
No. 2Health
GLP-1 lawsuits allege serious harm, but data on how often is thin
Lawsuits now allege that GLP-1 drugs can cause serious harm, including blindness and pancreatitis. The difficulty is that there is little data on how often such serious side effects occur. That gap makes the question harder to answer both scientifically and in court. Without those numbers, a claim that the drugs can cause harm is hard to weigh against how common the harm actually is.
Why it mattersYou can read claims about these drugs more carefully by remembering that whether harm is possible and how often it happens are different questions.
Full story at NPR Topics: Health →No. 3Weather
Hurricane Isaias kills four and leaves at least 600,000 without power
Isaias made landfall in Florida late Friday with sustained winds of 105 mph, then weakened to a post-tropical cyclone. Two deaths were reported in Alabama and two in Florida. In Florida's Escambia County, a woman died when a tree fell on her house, and a man died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator run in an unventilated garage. At least 600,000 people were without power in several states on Saturday afternoon. The storm is expected to keep weakening as it moves northeast. NOAA warned that the Carolinas and Georgia could see flooding from up to 10 inches of rain, and Charleston urged residents to stay home Saturday night.
Why it mattersYou should take flooding seriously even as the storm weakens, since officials say floodwater is hard to judge after dark.
Full story at BBC News →