Alzheimer’s society calls on doctors to use newer early diagnostic testing due to improvements
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(NEW YORK) — New treatments and simple blood tests could change how doctors detect and treat Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new report from the Alzheimer’s Association.
Blood tests to detect Alzheimer’s are not yet approved for everyday use, but in research studies, they have improved the accuracy of diagnosis by up to 91%. Right now, doctors rely on brain scans called PET scans to find amyloid plaques or do a spinal tap to check for abnormal levels of proteins like beta-amyloid and tau.
These tests are expensive, invasive and not always easy to access. Blood tests could make it much simpler to find early signs of the disease and be more widely available.
“If you get a diagnosis early, you’re actually able to access treatments that you cannot take later on in the disease process,” Elizabeth Edgerly, PhD, a clinical psychologist and Alzheimer’s Association spokesperson, said in an interview with ABC News.
The report highlights that diagnosing Alzheimer’s earlier could open the door to treatments when they have the best chance of working, helping people stay mentally sharper for longer and giving families more time to plan for the future.
In the past two years, the FDA has approved two new drugs — Leqembi and Kisunla — that can slow the progression of early Alzheimer’s. While they are not cures, they can help people preserve memory and thinking skills longer, offering more time with a better quality of life.
This marks a major shift from older Alzheimer’s treatments, which could only manage symptoms without slowing down the disease much. However, these new drugs carry significant challenges, including high costs, the need for frequent brain scans to monitor serious side effects and the risk of swelling or bleeding in the brain. In addition, only people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s are eligible to receive these treatments.
“Ultimately, we would love to see an array of treatments that are available that tackle different aspects of Alzheimer’s, different factors that are contributing to it,” Edgerly said.
She noted that more than 140 different treatments are now in development, aiming to target different symptoms and stages of the disease.
The report also lays out an updated understanding of Alzheimer’s risk factors, dividing them into two categories. Some risks — like age, genetics and family history — cannot be changed. Others — including diet, exercise, blood pressure, cholesterol, hearing and vision health — are within a person’s control. Addressing the modifiable risks can have a significant impact on a person’s Alzheimer’s risk, the report noted.
In fact, Edgerly said that nearly half of all dementias could be preventable by taking better care of modifiable risks earlier in life.
“I could help reduce my risk of getting Alzheimer’s in later life if I’m really good about treating high blood pressure in my 40s and 30s,” she explained.
The report also announced the launch of ALZ-NET, a new nationwide tracking system that follows patients in real time to collect data on the long-term safety and effectiveness of the new medications, and to better understand who benefits most from early intervention.
Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia, is a neurodegenerative condition that can start developing 20 years before symptoms appear. It is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S.
Currently, more than 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, many of whom remain undiagnosed, according to the report. By the year 2060, that number is expected to grow to more than 13 million.
Edgerly said she hoped that faster diagnosis and earlier access to treatment will improve care for Alzheimer’s and other dementia patients.
“The opportunities it would present to find people earlier in the process without having to go through six months or a year to get to that diagnosis would make a huge difference in helping people access treatments during the timeframe where they could be helpful,” she said.
Dr. Allen Chang is the chief resident of the Geriatric Medicine Subspecialty Residency Program at Dalhousie University and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(WASHINGTON) — Measles is continuing to spread across the United States, as outbreaks grow in western Texas and New Mexico.
Between the two states, 256 cases have been confirmed as of Thursday, mostly in those who are unvaccinated or with unknown vaccination status, according to state health officials. At least one unvaccinated school-aged child in Texas has died and another suspected death is being investigated in New Mexico in an unvaccinated adult. At least 10 other states have also confirmed cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As health care professionals work to care for patients, they are also attempting to combat the proliferation of misinformation about how to prevent and treat the disease, some tell ABC News.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been one of the prominent voices on measles, making comments that public health experts say are not accurate.
In multiple interviews, Kennedy has claimed that vitamin A and cod liver oil are effective treatments for measles. He also said that poor diet contributes to severe cases of measles and that — while vaccines prevent illness — they also cause severe illnesses and even death.
Some public health experts told ABC News these statements are not rooted in scientific evidence and could be quite dangerous for the public.
“I think it’s really important to try to stay away from these ideas of fringe theories or ideas that have not been scientifically proven,” Kirsten Hokeness, director of the school of health and behavioral sciences at Bryant University, in Rhode Island, told ABC News.
Vitamin A as a form of treatment
During an interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Kennedy said that HHS was currently providing vitamin A to measles patients for treatment. He claimed vitamin A can “dramatically” reduce measles deaths.
The World Health Organization recommends two doses of vitamin A in children and adults with measles to restore low vitamin A levels, which can help prevent eye damage and blindness.
However, experts who spoke with ABC News said it is not an antiviral treatment against measles (meaning it does not prevent infections), nor is there one available.
“Because it has been described that patients with vitamin A deficiency can have a more severe course, the WHO recommends low doses of vitamin A for children diagnosed with measles,” Dr. Carla Garcia Carreno, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Medical Center Plano in Texas, told ABC News. “This is a supplementation in case of deficiency, and it is not intended to treat the virus. High doses of vitamin A can have serious consequences.”
“Neither vitamin A nor cod liver oil will treat measles,” she concluded.
Poor diet linked to severe measles disease
Kennedy has claimed that poor nutrition plays a role in causing severe measles disease and that a healthy diet can lessen severity.
While malnutrition can be a factor in severe disease, malnutrition and nutritional deficits in measles patients have historically been seen in underdeveloped countries, according to experts.
Additionally, studies have found that mass nutritional supplementation “followed by an increase in vaccination coverage” can reduce measles infection and mortality.
“Certainly, good nutrition can promote a healthy immune system, and it’s a good idea for everyone to try to maintain good nutrition, but it’s certainly not a substitute for vaccination,” Dr. Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told ABC News. “There’s no evidence that it can prevent infection, no evidence that it can prevent an infected person from spreading the virus and contributing to one of these outbreaks.”
“So, I want to be very clear, good nutrition is absolutely no substitute for vaccination to prevent someone’s own risk for developing severe, maybe fatal, measles,” he added.
Claims about the safety of the measles vaccine
The CDC currently recommends that people receive two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says. Most vaccinated adults don’t need a booster.
Kennedy has said vaccines do “stop the spread of the disease” but also said they cause “adverse events.”
“It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself [causes], encephalitis and blindness, et cetera,” he told Hannity, without providing evidence.
Weaver said there is no vaccine that is without risks but that the MMR vaccine is incredibly safe and effective.
“There’s no evidence that it has severe outcomes … similar to what the measles virus infection causes,” he told ABC News. “It certainly can cause very minor reactions at the site of injection, like just about every vaccine, but it’s one of the safest vaccines that’s ever been developed.”
Weaver added that the risks of complications from a measles infection far outweigh any risks from the MMR vaccine.
As for Kennedy’s unfounded claim that the MMR vaccine causes death, a 2015 CDC review published in the journal Vaccine found such claims are deaths reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System – a voluntary reporting system “that accepts any submitted report of an adverse event without judging its clinical significance or whether it was caused by a vaccination.”
The review found that many of the deaths reported to VAERS claiming to be linked to the MMR included children who has serious underlying medical conditions or had deaths that were unrelated to the vaccine, including accidental deaths.
“These complete VAERS reports and any accompanying medical records, autopsy reports and death certificates have been reviewed in depth by FDA and CDC physicians and no concerning patterns have emerged that would suggest a causal relationship with the MMR vaccine and death,” the review stated.
Questioning ‘benefits’ of measles and fatality rate
Kennedy claimed in an interview with Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Seigel over the weekend that is “almost impossible” for measles to kill a healthy individual.
Some people who contract measles may suffer severe complications as a result of infection. While those most at risk include children younger than age 5, pregnant people and those with weakened immune systems, anybody can experience complications.
About in 1 in 5 unvaccinated people who contract measles are hospitalized and about 1 in 20 children with measles develop pneumonia, which is the most common cause of death in young children who get infected.
About one in 10 children infected with measles develop ear infections as well, which can lead to hearing loss, data shows.
Additionally, about 1 out of every 1,000 children with measles will develop encephalitis — which is the swelling of the brain and can lead to brain damage — and up to 3 out of every 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications, the CDC says.
Recently, Texas health officials reported the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, the first death from measles recorded in the U.S. in a decade. The child was healthy and had no preexisting conditions, officials said.
“The CDC estimates that 1 in 5 people [who] get infected with measles ends up in the hospital,” Hokeness said. “So, this approach to relying on sort of this natural immunity doesn’t make sense when we have a vaccine which prevents it in the first place.”
“But, in short, there’s really no benefit to this idea of natural immunity and naturally acquiring the virus. That’s why we’ve developed the vaccines that work so well,” she added.
Kennedy also claimed in his interview that natural immunity from measles may protect against cancer and heart disease. There is no evidence to suggest either of those are true, experts said.
“If you want to take your chances with getting natural infection, hoping that there might be some very small benefit to that, it’s a very big risk to take, because you may very well get severe measles infection,” Weaver said.
Overall, experts advised relying on scientifically proven medical information.
“We should leverage the knowledge that we’ve gained over the years and not spend our time focusing on alternative possibilities,” she said.
(LUBBOCK, Texas) — When the first measles cases were confirmed in western Texas, health officials said the infections primarily affected the Mennonite community.
Mennonites, who are part of the Anabaptist Christian church, have a small presence in the United States — and Texas in general — but they have a large presence in the South Plains region the state, and in Gaines County, which is the epicenter of the outbreak.
Many Mennonite communities are close-knit and under-vaccinated, which may have contributed to the spread of measles among members of the community.
But health officials are starting to see cases spread beyond the Mennonite population.
It is spreading beyond this community, “unfortunately,” Katherine Wells, director of public health for the city of Lubbock — which is located in western Texas — told ABC News. “West Texas is where the spread of these cases are right now, and we need to make sure that everybody in West Texas is getting vaccinated and is aware of measles and understands the precautions that we need to take.”
The outbreak in western Texas is continuing to grow with a total of 327 cases in at least 15 counties, according to new data published Tuesday.
Nearly all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. At least 40 people have been hospitalized so far.
Just two cases have occurred in people fully vaccinated with the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, according to the data.
Wells acknowledged that it may be easy for people to assume measles is only affecting a small and insular group like Mennonites and that nobody else is at risk.
“West Texas, you might say we’re small and insular compared to Dallas and some other areas,” she said. “But no, this has, unfortunately, moved into many, many different populations.”
“So unfortunately, it is growing and continues to grow,” she continued.
Marlen Ramirez, a community health worker and program coordinator at Vaccinate Your Family, which is an advocacy group based in Eagle Pass, Texas, shared a statement with ABC News, saying, “As a Community Health Worker living and working in a rural border town, I see firsthand how quickly diseases like measles can spread when vaccination rates are low and access to care is limited.”
“While the initial measles outbreak in western Texas affected members of the Mennonite community, the virus easily spreads wherever communities are under-vaccinated—and right now, we’re seeing cases reach into rural parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Kansas,” Ramirez added.
“In many of these areas, vaccination rates are below 90%, well below the 92-94% needed for community or “herd” immunity. That’s what has allowed this outbreak to grow to over 300 cases so quickly. We fear the number of actual cases may be much higher than reported due to confusion and delays in the outbreak response,” she said.
A spokesperson for DSHS confirmed to ABC News that the first cases in the outbreak were among Mennonite community members, but this is no longer the case.
“Since 90% of unvaccinated people exposed to the measles virus will become ill, there are many cases in people who are not part of the Mennonite community,” the spokesperson said. “We do not ask a person’s religious affiliation as part of our case investigation process, so we have no way of counting how many cases are part of the Mennonite community and how many are not.”
Why the Mennonite population was hit hard by measles cases Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, told ABC News that culturally conservative and Old Order Mennonites have traditionally been under-immunized or partially immunized.
He said there are no religious teachings or bodies of religious writings that prevent Mennonites from being vaccinated. The DSHS spokesperson also added that that Mennonite religion is not “widely against vaccination.”
“Reasons are not religious but reflect everything from less frequent engagement with health care systems (for those who are more rural) to a traditional outlook that replicates practices of parents and grandparents more than the most current practices,” Nolt said via email.
For example, culturally traditional Mennonites may have participated in mid-20th century vaccination campaigns against diseases like smallpox, leading to their children and grandchildren trusting those vaccines compared to more recent additions to the immunization schedule, Nott said.
He added that Mennonites may also be influenced by the opinions of their neighbors, which may play a role in lack of vaccination.
Nolt also explained that the Mennonites who live in Seminole, Texas, a city at the center of Gaines County — a community known as Low German Mennonites, due to the language they speak — “lived in relative isolation in Mexico from the 1920s to the 1980s.”
“They missed out on the mid-century public health immunization campaigns in the U.S., be they polio or smallpox or whatever (the Mexican government had a reputation for not engaging with the Low German Mennonites at all),” he wrote. “Thus, they are starting from a different place than other culturally conservative Mennonites whose ancestors have been here since the 1700s.”
Nott went on, “My point is, the so-called Low German Mennonites from Mexico, now in west Texas, don’t have that minimum baseline of mid-20th century vaccine acceptance that we see among Old Order Mennonites and Amish in the U.S. because the folks in Seminole missed the whole mid-century immunization push, as they weren’t in the U.S. at that time.”
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(WASHINGTON) — Sixteen state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday over its cancellation of research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, argues the cancellation of the grants is “unlawful” and the attorneys general “seek relief for the unreasonable and intentional delays currently plaguing the grant-application process.”
The defendants named in the suit include the NIH, almost all of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers, NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Department of Health and Human Services and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The NIH told ABC News it does not comment on pending litigation. The HHS did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
“Once again, the Trump administration is putting politics before public health and risking lives and livelihoods in the process,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Millions of Americans depend on our nation’s research institutions for treatments and cures to the diseases that devastate families every day.”
“The decision to cut these funds is an attack on science, public health, and medical innovation — and I won’t stand for it. We are suing to restore these critical funds because the people of New York, and the entire nation, deserve better,” the statement continued.
Over the past several weeks, active research grants related to studies involving LGBTQ+ issues, gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have been canceled at the NIH because they allegedly do not serve the “priorities” of President Donald Trump’s administration.
As of late March, more than 900 grants worth millions of dollars have been terminated, an NIH official with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named, told ABC News.
In previous termination letters, viewed by ABC News, they state that, “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities. It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize these research programs.”
“The premise…is incompatible with agency priorities, and no modification of the project could align the project with agency priorities,” the letters continue.
The plaintiffs argue that the terminations, “if left unchecked,” could cause “direct, immediate, significant, and irreparable harm to the plaintiffs and their public research institutions. “
The attorneys general are seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction asking the defendants to review delayed applications and barring them from carrying out terminations of grants.
Earlier this week, researchers who had millions of dollars’ worth of grants terminated by the NIH sued the agency, the HHS, Bhattacharya and Kennedy in the hopes of stopping any further research cancellations.
