内容摘要：Within six months, the team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine, along with their partners, created a therapy designed to correct KJ’s faulty gene. They used CRISPR, the gene editing tool that

Within six months, the team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine, along with their partners, created a therapy designed to correct KJ’s faulty gene. They used CRISPR, the gene editing tool that

AP’s Lisa Dwyer reports there are new requirements for COVID vaccines for healthy adults and children.“For many Americans we simply do not know the answer as to whether or not they should be getting the seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth COVID-19 booster,” said Prasad, who joined the FDA earlier this month. He previously spent more than a decade in academia, frequently criticizing the FDA’s handling of drug and vaccine approvals.

It’s unclear what the upcoming changes mean for people who may still want a fall COVID-19 shot but don’t clearly fit into one of the categories.“Is the pharmacist going to determine if you’re in a high-risk group?” asked Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The only thing that can come of this will make vaccines less insurable and less available.”The nation’s leading pediatrics group said FDA’s approach will limit options for parents and their children.

“If the vaccine were no longer available or covered by insurance, it will take the choice away from families who wish to protect their children from COVID-19, especially among families already facing barriers to care,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 47,000 Americans died from COVID-related causes last year. The virus was the underlying cause for two-thirds of those and it was a contributing factor for the rest. Among them were 231 children whose deaths were deemed COVID-related, 134 of them where the virus was the direct cause -- numbers similar to yearly pediatric deaths from the flu.

The new FDA approach is the culmination of a

under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.This massive first-of-its-kind building bears no resemblance to a farm. It’s more like a pharmaceutical plant. And part of it is closed to all but certain carefully chosen employees who take a timed shower, don company-provided clothes and shoes, and then enter an enclave where piglets are growing up.

Behind that protective barrier are some of the world’s cleanest pigs. They breathe air and drink water that’s better filtered against contaminants than what’s required for people. Even their feed gets disinfected – all to prevent them from picking up any possible infections that might ultimately harm a transplant recipient.“We designed this facility to protect the pigs against contamination from the environment and from people,” said Matthew VonEsch of United Therapeutics, Revivicor’s parent company. “Every person that enters this building is a possible pathogen risk.”

The Associated Press got a peek at what it takes to clone and raise designer pigs for their organs – including a $75 million “designated pathogen-free facility” built to meet Food and Drug Administration safety standards for xenotransplantation.Thousands of Americans each year