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Mothers vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV) before pregnancy are less likely to develop pregnancy complications, especially if immunized before age 17, a large new study finds. Researchers found that women immunized against HPV were 15% less likely than women unvaccinated against HPV to deliver very prematurely, or during the 28th to 31st weeks of a 40-week pregnancy, according to a Swedish study published this week in The BMJ. Babies born before the 37th week of pregnancy are more likely to have poor health or disabilities. (Szabo, 10/8)

The University of Southern Denmark confirmed that it has given the green light to a controversial study in Guinea-Bissau, funded with $1.6 million from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that plans to offer life-saving hepatitis B vaccines to only half of enrolled babies. News of the study, first reported in December by CIDRAP News, prompted an international outcry from health groups and political leaders, who condemned its design as unethical. Those concerns led Guinea-Bissau officials and administrators at the Danish university to place the study on hold for several months. (Szabo, 10/8)

What’s living in your gut determines whether you have a fever reaction to a vaccination, new research shows. Fever is the most common reaction to vaccination and could lead some people to delay or forego future shots, especially for modern vaccines such as the mRNA vaccine developed to fight COVID-19. (Hille, 10/8)

Brandon Luu began thinking about the body’s circadian machinery as a teenager, when he was routinely unable to fall asleep until late, sometimes well past 2 a.m. The schedule made mornings miserable and school harder. But it also left him with a question: What happens when the body’s sense of time falls out of sync with the world around it? (Eunjung Cha, 10/8)

Close to 90% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) well controlled on targeted therapies were able to take 50% dosage reductions without experiencing worsened disease activity in a randomized trial, South Korean researchers said. (Gever, 10/8)

A majority of patients with advanced retinitis pigmentosa (RP) showed preliminary evidence of improved light sensitivity with engineered genes encoding for a light-sensing protein, a small preliminary trial showed. Seven of 10 patients had increased light sensitivity after optogenetics treatment, aided by use of light-stimulating goggles. (Bankhead, 10/8)

Shared pain and a desire to overcome it are among the many things that bring Carissa Kent and her daughter, Angelina, together. Their pain is both emotional and physical; the mother and daughter both have endometriosis, a chronic and painful condition where uterine tissue grows outside of the uterus. (Greiss, 10/8)

Betsy Pleasants was studying one historic disruption to abortion access when a more seismic one emerged. In spring 2022, as a graduate student at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Pleasants was researching the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on abortion services when a leaked draft opinion indicated that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade. (Chen, 10/9)

The notification lit up Michelle’s phone at 5:25 a.m. on the West Coast: a text from her older sister, Deb, who had an idea. Deb had heard on a longevity podcast about a new technology that claimed to measure how quickly a person was aging. For $399, each sister could submit a blood sample and learn how her habits and experiences had affected the ways her genes behaved. The test, called TruAge, could supposedly tell them the functional ages of their brains, hearts, lungs and bodies overall. “I think it would be super interesting to look at test results between siblings,” Deb, 56, had written. “You interested?” (Baumgaertner Nunn, 10/8)