NIH

Congress Prepares to Vote on Bill That Would Speed up Drug Approval

Congress will vote today on a nearly 1,000-page bill that holds drastic changes for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If the bill is approved, it would speed up the approval of new drugs and medical devices. The House has been heavily criticized for allegedly rushing piece of legislation through without sufficient scrutiny. [1]
Source: National Center for Health Research

What the Top 10 Foods on Twitter Say About America’s Health and Habits

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) gave the University of Utah College of Health more than $700,000 to study mentions of food on Twitter to find out about Americans’ relationship with food. Guess what? Kale didn’t make the list; far from it, actually. [1]
Researchers, led by assistant professor Quynh Nguyen, collected 80 million tweets from 2015-2016, and found out that nearly 5% of them were about food. [2]

NIH Official Warns that Zika Virus Could “Hang Around” for 2 Years

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) official says the end of the Zika virus could still be a year or 2 away, and that Gulf Coast states, besides Florida, are most vulnerable to the spread of the disease.
Anthony Fauci, the director the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s “This Week”:

“I would not be surprised if we see cases in Texas and Louisiana, particularly now where you have the situation with flooding in Louisiana. There are going to be a lot of problems getting rid of standing water.” [1]

Scientist Create Human-Pig Embyros to Help Provide Organ Transplants

In the U.S., 77,500 people are on the organ transplant waiting list. Every 10 minutes, someone is added to that list. On average, 22 people die each day awaiting a transplant. The numbers certainly are discouraging. To try and tackle the problem, scientists at UC Davis have developed embryos that are part human and part pig, and are implanting them in sows. [1] [2]