“There is that misconception, people say that it can give you the flu or the disease. The virus is dead, so it cannot transmit the disease,” said Leroux, who added that while some people may experience temporary side effects, including fatigue, muscle soreness, and pain at the injection site, vaccines do not cause influenza. “It’s better to take the vaccine and maybe have side effects for two days than having like 10 days of coughing, and you’d give the flu to other people as well,” said Leroux.
IntroductionProstate cancer is the most common malignancy in men that accounts for 10% of male cancer-related deaths and is expected to increase in incidence in the coming decades1. Its clinical trajectory is highly variable, with disease courses ranging from localised disease with long indolent phases that often require no therapy, to early-onset cancer that typically necessitates definitive treatment with curative intent2 and life-threatening metastatic prostate cancer3. The management of newly diagnosed prostate cancer is primarily based on established clinical and pathological information along with small gene or mRNA panels. The most pressing unmet clinical needs include reliable prognostic approaches to minimize overtreatment and the identification of therapeutic targets4. This is especially challenging due to the considerable molecular heterogeneity of the disease. Its genomic landscape is dominated by structural variation (SV) and copy-number alteration (CNA) drivers, while in contrast, drivers involving small mutations including single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) and insertions-deletions (indels) are relatively infrequent5,6.
CommentaryGuest CommentaryFederico Varese16 October 2026clock8 Minute ReadOpioid threat: Italian Armed Forces and Carabinieri involved in the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking in San Pasquale. Image: NurPhoto SRL / Alamy StockItaly’s low fentanyl death toll reflects Europe’s distinct opioid market history, not mafia restraint – but synthetic opioids such as nitazenes are a growing threat. Italy has recorded very few deaths involving fentanyl. A September 2026 article in The Economist invokes The Godfather films to suggest that ‘the country’s mafias seem to have collaborated to keep fentanyl out of their territory,’ protecting their established markets from a substance that kills customers and attracts police attention. Such a hypothesis had already been put forward by Roberto Saviano in La Repubblica. While it is an intriguing theory, there is no evidence for it. To understand the absence of an American-style fentanyl crisis in Italy as well as in other parts of Europe, we need to look at the history of opioid markets, rather than assume that godfathers hailing from unnamed ‘mafias’ are out there to protect their fellow countrypeople.
CommentaryGuest CommentaryFederico Varese16 October 2026clock8 Minute ReadOpioid threat: Italian Armed Forces and Carabinieri involved in the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking in San Pasquale. Image: NurPhoto SRL / Alamy StockItaly’s low fentanyl death toll reflects Europe’s distinct opioid market history, not mafia restraint – but synthetic opioids such as nitazenes are a growing threat. Italy has recorded very few deaths involving fentanyl. A September 2026 article in The Economist invokes The Godfather films to suggest that ‘the country’s mafias seem to have collaborated to keep fentanyl out of their territory,’ protecting their established markets from a substance that kills customers and attracts police attention. Such a hypothesis had already been put forward by Roberto Saviano in La Repubblica. While it is an intriguing theory, there is no evidence for it. To understand the absence of an American-style fentanyl crisis in Italy as well as in other parts of Europe, we need to look at the history of opioid markets, rather than assume that godfathers hailing from unnamed ‘mafias’ are out there to protect their fellow countrypeople.
GENEVA, Oct. 15: Childhood obesity is emerging as a major global public health challenge, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to call for a comprehensive approach that combines healthier eating habits, regular physical activity, behavioural support and emotional care.
In its first global guidelines on childhood obesity, released on October 7, the WHO outlined a broader strategy for addressing the condition among children and adolescents. The recommendations recognise that weight-related health problems are influenced by several interconnected factors and cannot be addressed effectively through dietary restrictions alone.
(Toronto, October 16, 2026) — JMIR Publications this week released three News and Perspectives features on the latest digital health news: stories on how informed consent must be rethought for clinical trials involving AI; Canada’s proposed Safe Social Media Act and the Canadian Medical Association’s support; and a promising new autonomous oxygen titration device for health care. Designing Informed Consent for AI TrialsIn "Informed Consent in the AI Age: Why and How Documentation Must Change", JMIR Correspondent and researcher Hankun Su argues that traditional informed consent frameworks, which tend to assume that risks to patient safety are static and that clinicians will be able to fill in any gaps in understanding, are inadequate for clinical trials that use AI. “Documents must anticipate questions clinicians cannot answer and provide accessible responses within the text itself,” he writes. Su and his colleagues developed an informed consent framework for AI-related clinical trials that mandates transparency and disclosure, uses tiered standards based on risk, and employs dynamic consent mechanisms—one of many possible frameworks.
IntroductionThe age-adjusted rate of drug-involved deaths in the US was ~250% higher than two decades ago1, despite a 24% reduction in overdose-related fatalities between 2023 and 20242. Adverse outcomes from overdoses extend beyond fatalities to other forms of measurable harm, including increased strain on the medical system. In 2024 alone the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) reported more than 8.4 million nonfatal drug-related emergency department (ED) visits in the US3. Meanwhile, the National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) identified parallel social media conversations around emerging drugs separately linked to increased ED visits in 2025, including synthetic opioids (e.g., nitazenes), opioid-like compounds (e.g., kratom), and polydrug-use combinations (e.g., benzodiazepines, kratom, or ketamine combined with fentanyl)4. Proactively addressing drug harm requires clinicians, health professionals, and policymakers to understand contemporary and evolving drug use trends as they emerge. Yet traditional epidemiologic surveillance systems (e.g., DAWN and others) contain built-in lags ranging from months to years5.
15 hours agoAngela FergusonNorth WestFamily handoutRonnie, aged 18 months, underwent a stem cell transplant in hospital after an anonymous donor came forwardAn 18-month-old boy with a rare blood condition has been given "a second chance at life" after undergoing a life-saving stem cell transplant, his mum has said. Ronnie, from Wirral on Merseyside, was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia - which is fatal if left untreated - a week before his first birthday in March last year. He underwent the transplant after a suitable anonymous match was found in the US, with Ronnie's mum Laura saying: "I can't describe the feeling of what the donor did for our little boy. "The 31-year-old said Ronnie was "doing absolutely amazing" back home after the transplant in August. She said: "Thank you will never be enough for him [the donor], but I think to say it face to face and even if he was able to meet our little boy, that he's given a second chance at life, it would be amazing. "But no words will ever show our appreciation for him. "Aplastic anaemia occurs when the bone marrow cannot make enough new blood cells for the body to work normally, with about 100 to 150 new cases in the UK every year.
Patients waited 72 hours for cameras to be turned off14 hours agoNikki FoxEast of England health correspondentLampard Inquiry/LIO HealthImages taken from the Oxevision cameras were shown to the inquiry. The blue dot indicates where the infrared monitoring was being aimedMental health patients who objected to cameras monitoring them in their bedrooms had to wait for a clinical team to decide whether they could be switched off, a public inquiry has heard. The Oxevision system was automatically running when patients were admitted to certain wards run by Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) and requests to turn it off could take up to 72 hours to consider. EPUT acknowledged its approach to consent was wrong, introducing an opt-in policy in August 2026. The Lampard Inquiry is examining the deaths of more than 2,000 people who were inpatients in mental health units in Essex in the 24 years to the end of 2023. Zephan Trent, the trust's executive director of strategy, transformation and digital, said: "Consent to use of the Oxevision system should not have been implied at admission, and should have been explicit informed consent.
14 hours agoEmma StanleyNorth WestSophieSophie, from Blackpool, said Bobby has MPS Sanfilippo SyndromeA mum has said she wants her five-year-old son to "experience life as much as he can" after he was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative condition that has no cure. Sophie, from Blackpool, said Bobby has MPS Sanfilippo Syndrome, often called "childhood Alzheimer's" or "childhood dementia. "The 35-year-old said Bobby was diagnosed after a visit to the speech and language therapy team because of a delay in his speech development, which led to a further referral for hearing examinations. "To us he was our baby, you don't notice things that others might call 'abnormalities' you just brush them off because you love your child and you love them however they develop," she said. Sanfilippo Syndrome Type A, also known as Mucopolysaccharidosis type III (MPS III), causes the gradual loss of abilities, such as walking and eating. Sophie, who works at Blackpool Teaching Hospital Trust, said an audiology consultant noticed Bobby had some facial features indicative of the condition.
15 hours agoShannen HeadleyWest MidlandsCCLGLiberty York died aged 19, a year after she first experienced symptoms of an angiosarcoma Liberty York was 19 when she died from a rare form of cancer, two days after her birthday. A year after her death, her mother Hannah York has talked about her strength and the parts of her daughter that existed outside of her illness. "The first thing that comes to mind when I think about Liberty is how kind she was and thoughtful," she said. To Hannah, she was still the same determined teenager throughout the final year of her life, before she died from an angiosarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue sarcoma, a type of cancer which starts in areas of the body such as muscle and fat. The first signs appeared in May 2024 when Liberty, from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, began feeling unusually tired and nauseous. A year earlier she had been diagnosed with Addison's disease, a rare autoimmune condition, so at first the family thought it was possible the two could be linked. Liberty was referred to see a specialist but while the family waited for answers, she developed swelling and pain in her left breast.
16 hours agoKirsteen O'SullivanBanburyBBCDanielle Standen entered early menopause after she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 33For many women, going through the menopause is a huge life change and can have wide ranging health implications. However, every year thousands of women in the UK are plunged into menopause earlier in life due to treatment and surgery. Danielle Standen, 41, from Banbury, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018. She said: "As soon as I started my chemotherapy treatment, they told me that I would become infertile and I would go into early menopause. That was sort of all the information I was given, so I went into it blindsided. "Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said improving care for women experiencing treatment‑related menopause "remains an important priority for us". Danielle StandenDanielle underwent chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in 2018Unlike going through menopause naturally, entering it in a matter of days or weeks, sometimes known as "crash menopause", means symptoms can come on suddenly and be intense, with far-reaching effects. Danielle said: "I felt like I lost myself at 33.
In north-east Nigeria, admissions for malnutrition have risen by nearly a fifth in a single year at six health centres and four hospitals supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They went from around 17,000 cases between January and September 2025 to almost 20,000 cases over the same period this year.
Young children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers are the hardest hit.
