Good Day BIO: Air pollution kills

We end May with new studies showing links between air pollution and health and what pop star Lance Bass says about Arthritis Awareness Month—plus, news on the Senate’s FDA user fee reauthorization bill. (722 words, 3 minutes, 36 seconds)

Air pollution kills

New research highlights links between air pollution, disease, and death, reports Bio.News—more evidence of the need to advance biotechnology to combat emissions and climate change.

Study #1: Air pollution caused more than 12% of premature deaths in 2019, according to a recent study in The Lancet Planetary Health. Pollution in all forms (including air particles and gases, toxic chemicals, and water pollution) caused 9 million deaths, with 6.7 million from air pollution alone.

Study #2: “Short-term exposure to ambient air pollution” increased the likelihood and severity of COVID-19 infections, according to a study of young adults in Sweden, consistent with other studies in the last two years.

What’s climate change got to do with it? “Air pollution is entwined with climate change because the emissions driving both development problems come largely from the same sources (eg, fossil fuel or biofuel burning),” said The Lancet study. “Burning fuels results in fine and ultrafine particulates … long-lived greenhouse gases, and short-lived climate pollutants,” which “are simultaneously air pollutants and climate warmers." 

Biotech offers solutions that can help reduce carbon emissions and pollution, from sustainable transportation fuels that emit less carbon, to carbon capture technology that can help eliminate existing carbon, to bioplastics and biochemicals to minimize other types of pollution.

These solutions, like sustainable aviation fuels, are already here, as BIO President and CEO Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath recently wrote in the Seattle Times.

What we need now is “investment and policy support,” she said, to incentivize adoption of these kinds of tools, as BIO commented to a House Committee last week.

More Agriculture and Environment News:

World Economic Forum: Biosolutions: A clear path to fighting climate change
“While the technology to achieve and realize these critical benefits exists, transformative biosolutions face long approval processes before they can be released on the market. As a result, developing new and more sustainable products becomes less attractive,” write executives from BIO member Novo Nordisk.

Bye, bye, bye to undiagnosed psoriatic arthritis

As Arthritis Awareness Month comes to a close, Amgen and Lance Bass (of NSYNC fame) want to raise awareness of psoriatic arthritis symptoms and available treatments. 

Arthritis, by the numbers: Arthritis affects 53 million adults and 300,000 infants, children and teens in the United States, where it is the number one cause of disability, according to the Arthritis Foundation.

Psoriatic arthritis develops in about 30% of patients diagnosed with psoriasis,according to BIO member Amgen. A chronic, inflammatory form of arthritis, psoriatic arthritis causes swelling stiffness and pain around the joints.

Lance Bass is among them.The pop star never expected to think about arthritis in his 30s—and thought the joint stiffness and pain in his knees and neck were due to years of dancing, until he discussed it with his doctor.

If you have symptoms, do a “Double Take”—his boy band-approved dance move—to check your head, heels, knees, and nails for signs.

Biotech offers a lot of arthritis solutions—but many patients can’t access them, due to a drug pricing system that discriminates against the sickest patients, explained a recent episode of the I am BIO Podcast featuring the Arthritis Foundation. 

Watch:Julie Eller, an arthritis patient and advocate at the Arthritis Foundation, discusses her childhood diagnosis and why she advocates for patients.

More Health Care News: 

Bio.News: Rwanda fights cervical cancer with information
“BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) has joined an effort to address [misinformation], and offer screenings and treatment, in Africa, where cancer is deadlier than malaria.”

The Atlantic: We got COVID shots in one year. Why did a malaria vaccine take 35?
“According to researchers involved in the development of RTS,S, the answer involves the challenges of developing a vaccine against a vexing parasite—and the chronic lack of urgency and funding behind malaria research, which stymied the logistics of research trials at every step.”

President Biden’s Tuesday: He will hold what Bloomberg calls a “rare Oval Office meeting” with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, to discuss inflation. He’ll also hold a bilateral meeting with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and meet with popular K-pop band BTS to discuss Asian inclusion and representation and anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: ICYMI, before the holiday weekend, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee leadership introduced their version of the FDA user fee reauthorization legislation, with a markup expected in the coming weeks—here’s the press release from Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Richard Burr (R-NC).