by the We Can Do This COVID-19 Public Education Campaign

(NAPSI)—Questions and misinformation about the effect of COVID-19 vaccines on fertility and pregnancy have left some people uncertain about getting vaccinated if they are pregnant or hoping to get pregnant, but the facts should be reassuring.

“It’s understandable that parents and those who hope to become parents are cautious about COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Daniel Diekema, a hospital epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Healthcare. “However, it should be comforting to know that the vaccines are safe and effective during pregnancy. Growing data and science demonstrate that the benefits of getting vaccinated far outweigh any risks, and we have a long history with vaccines that makes it clear they do not affect future fertility.” Here are key facts about fertility, pregnancy, and the COVID vaccines:

Getting vaccinated protects you during and after pregnancy. COVID-19 can be especially dangerous for people who are pregnant or have recently been pregnant as cases during pregnancy are more likely to be severe. COVID is dangerous for the unborn child too. A recent study found COVID infections are associated with an increased risk of stillbirth. Safety monitoring systems and studies have shown that the COVID vaccines are safe for people who are pregnant, and vaccination reduces the risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Growing data continues to reinforce that the risks from getting COVID-19 at any stage of pregnancy are far worse than potential side effects from vaccines.

Getting vaccinated protects your unborn or nursing child. Data from safety monitoring systems continues to show vaccines are safe for pregnant people and their babies and getting vaccinated is much safer than contracting COVID. If you’re breastfeeding, getting vaccinated could even help protect your baby, as recent reports have shown that some breastfeeding parents have antibodies in their breast milk after they’ve been vaccinated.

COVID vaccines will not interfere with getting pregnant. No evidence exists of COVID vaccines causing problems with fertility. In a recent study, people who had gotten the COVID vaccine had the same pregnancy success rate as people who had not been vaccinated. Vaccines are carefully studied and monitored, and it is clear they are safe for people who are pregnant or who want to become pregnant. If you are trying to become pregnant, you do not need to avoid pregnancy after receiving a COVID vaccine. If you get pregnant after your first shot, you should get the second shot and a booster on schedule for the most protection possible.

Knowing the facts about COVID vaccines can provide confidence and comfort. Anyone with concerns should ask questions of a trusted health professional, such as a family physician, pharmacist, or nurse. The benefits of vaccination far outweigh potential risks. Vaccines are the best way of getting this pandemic under control.

For more information and to find a vaccine, visit www.vaccines.gov.

(NAPSI)—Entering the second holiday season of the COVID-19 pandemic, Idahoans are eager to reconnect with family and friends and return to treasured holiday traditions. Some simple steps can keep family and friends healthy through their fall and winter celebrations.

“Every family has unique traditions, and they are eager to enjoy time with loved ones this year, especially if they skipped or changed their holiday plans due to COVID-19 in 2020,” said Dr. ­Catherine Oliphant, co-chair of pharmacy practice and administrative sciences and professor at Idaho State University College of Pharmacy. “With a little care and planning, it is possible to enjoy these special holiday traditions while making sure everyone stays healthy.”

As generations gather to celebrate, the No. 1 way to avoid spreading COVID-19, including to grandparents, young children and others who may be vulnerable, is to make sure everyone who is eligible gets vaccinated against COVID-19. Children ages 5-11 are the most recent group eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. Learn more at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus.

People can take these additional steps to ensure they safely enjoy family, friends and special connections they may have missed recently, even as people from different households and different parts of the country gather.

Assess travel plans. Consider delaying travel until you’re fully vaccinated. Remember, masks that cover your nose and mouth are required for everyone on planes, buses, trains and other public transportation. If you’re unvaccinated, plan to get tested one to three days before your trip within the United States and three to five days after you return. Plan to self-quarantine for seven days, even if the test is negative. If you travel by car, be aware that you and your travel companions could be exposed to the virus on stops for gas, food and bathroom breaks. Remember to wear a mask, wash your hands frequently and maintain social distancing at these locations. If traveling internationally, especially to places where vaccination rates are low and COVID-19 is spreading, visit the CDC’s website for recommendations on international travel.

Get tested. If you’ve been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19, or if you’re not feeling well before the holidays, especially if you have COVID-19 symptoms, get tested. Tests are widely available at pharmacies and doctors’ offices. Getting tested can provide security, knowing that you won’t infect your friends and relatives and everyone can enjoy a stress-free holiday. If in doubt, consider staying home and joining festivities virtually. This will allow you to enjoy the fun while staying safe.

Pay attention to ventilation. When celebrating with your families, try to avoid crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. Consider moving celebrations outdoors, especially if you are planning a large get-together. Have a cookout or roast marshmallows. If you attend family festivities indoors where some guests may not be vaccinated, wear a well-fitting mask over your nose and mouth, remembering that you should never put a mask on a child under the age of 2. The CDC also recommends mask wearing in public indoor settings regardless of vaccination status.

Consider your health status. If you or someone in your household has a health condition or someone is taking medications that weaken the immune system, you should take extra precautions, even if you are fully vaccinated. The CDC recommends that those with weakened immune systems follow similar guidelines for unvaccinated people, like such as mask-wearing and social distancing.

The winter holidays are a time to reconnect and celebrate with people we care about. There are many ways to make this year’s festivities a time to remember. Following these safety measures can allow Idahoans to gather together and practice traditions that make the holidays so special. Safe practices are key and the most effective way to ensure a joyful holiday is to get vaccinated.

For more information and to find a vaccine, visit www.vaccines.gov.

(NAPSI)—Children and teens are catching and spreading COVID-19 at an increasingly high rate. Even if your child or teen has not yet contracted COVID-19, they are at risk, especially with the low number of vaccinated residents in North Dakota.

“In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, older people were most likely to get the virus. Now it is affecting everyone, and children and teens are also at risk of contracting the virus and experiencing long-lasting impacts,” said Dr. Avish Nagpal, Medical Director for Infection Prevention at Sanford Health and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of North Dakota. “We need to do everything we can to keep all our kids safe, and the best way to do that is to get more people vaccinated.”

Parents and other adults in a child or teen’s life can take steps to protect young people and themselves.

Get Your Child Vaccinated When Eligible

The best way to protect your children from COVID-19 and all the potential complications is to get them vaccinated as soon as they are eligible. The COVID-19 vaccine is free, widely available, and highly effective in preventing hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Like most vaccines, some minor side effects may occur, such as a sore arm or slight fatigue, but the symptoms and long-term impact of contracting COVID-19 are much more serious. Ultimately, it is much safer for children and teens to get a COVID-19 vaccine than getting the disease itself.

Practice Prevention

If your children are not eligible to be vaccinated, you can still keep them safe from COVID-19 by practicing recommended prevention methods such as physical distancing when possible and continuing to wear a mask, especially in crowds or while indoors. Even people who have been vaccinated should wear a mask in crowds and public indoor places. Most children can safely and effectively wear face masks, so it’s important to remind them that it keeps them safe and to set an example by wearing a mask, too.

Encourage Adults In Your Child’s Life To Get Vaccinated

Ensuring that those who spend time around your child are vaccinated helps keep an unvaccinated child from getting sick or spreading COVID-19 to other vulnerable people. Talk to the adults in your child’s life—grandparents, friends’ parents, and teachers—about getting vaccinated to protect themselves and your child.

Children and teens are just as susceptible to COVID-19 as adults, and they can spread the virus to others who are at even greater risk. A growing number of children and teens have been hospitalized with COVID-19. Getting all eligible children and teens vaccinated and following simple prevention measures will protect them, their families, and friends, and get everyone one step closer to getting this pandemic under control.

Learn More

For more information and to find a vaccine, visit www.vaccines.gov.

(NAPSI)—After a year and a half of remote learning and social distancing, kids are back to socializing after school and between classes. A return to school also means kids are once again exposed to the dangers of vaping and flavored tobacco products, which could worsen with a return to in-person learning.

The Problem

The tobacco industry knows flavored tobacco is highly addictive—and that’s why it targets kids. Among high school kids in California, 96% of teens who vape use flavored products. By giving vapes and smokeless tobacco products such kid-friendly flavors as Blue Razz, Pegasus Milk, and Menthol Freeze, the tobacco industry falsely markets them as less harmful than cigarettes.

Flavors might mask the harsh taste of tobacco but they don’t hide the toxic chemicals that can damage lungs and the nicotine that is poisonous to developing brains.

Nicotine addiction is especially dangerous for kids. It rewires the brain to crave more of it, creating nicotine withdrawal symptoms including headaches, mood swings and the inability to concentrate. Nicotine even changes the way connections form in the brain and can also interfere with attention and learning.

Big Tobacco understands these harms, yet it still uses flavored products to target youth to turn them into lifetime addicts. Many vape brands now use a highly concentrated form of nicotine called nicotine salts that’s engineered for vaping. These ‘salts’ let higher concentrations be inhaled more easily, and absorbed more quickly, than regular nicotine—addicting kids even faster.

The tobacco industry also experiments with new ways to push nicotine onto youth. In rural communities, it markets smokeless tobacco called chew, and snus—a new product that’s a smokeless tobacco pouch. More than 80% of youth ages 12 to 17 who have ever used snus indicated that the first type of the product they used was flavored.

The industry markets these products, particularly to young men, by showcasing images of rugged cowboys, hunters, and race-car drivers—presenting tobacco use as a rite of passage. This specific targeting may explain why students at rural and town schools have more than double the rates of smokeless tobacco use as those in city or suburban schools.

The Good News

The rate of teens in California who want to quit vaping doubled from 2018 to 2020, and the majority of California teens believe their close friends view vape use negatively. Education about the harms of flavored tobacco products is working, but with kids going back to in-person learning, it is crucial to continue making progress.

Learn More

Kids need support to quit the addictive and deadly products pushed on them by the tobacco industry. Parents and families who want further facts about the dangers of flavored tobacco use or to find quit resources, can visit www.flavorshookkids.org. Californians looking to quit can text “I Can Quit” to 66819 or visit www.NoVapes.org to join the free quit program.

(NAPSI)—Scientists have searched for decades without success for ways to repair the devastating damage caused by neurodegenerative diseases, but there are now new compounds in clinical development that offer hope.

The Problem

When there is a mass die-off of neurons in the body, the central nervous system misfires like a faulty circuit board—one that cannot be fixed without replacing the blown fuses. This major physiological malfunction tends to trigger the onset of some of the hardest-to-treat neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis (MS).

These are terrible afflictions that affect millions of North Americans. They also cost the healthcare system billions of dollars a year, mostly spent on managing physical and mentally debilitating symptoms that inexorably get worse.

What’s more, current treatments can only “modify” (slow down or mitigate) the destructive effects on the human body caused by the mass death of neurons in the brain or spine.

The Search For A Solution

With that all said, many people may be relieved to learn of a small Canadian-headquartered biotech start-up that offers new hope to tens of millions of sufferers of neurodegenerative diseases. With Phase 1 clinical trials already underway, NervGen Pharma believes it’s on-track to become a big breakthrough thanks to its blockbuster drug candidate—NVG-291.

NVG-291 is a peptide (a small protein) that works by targeting the protein tyrosine phosphatase sigma (PTP?) receptor that blocks nerve repair following injury, whether from trauma or conditions such as MS or Alzheimer’s disease. NervGen targets nerve cell repair, while promoting plasticity to create new neural pathways.

NVG-291 is the brainchild of Dr. Jerry Silver, a renowned spinal cord injury and regenerative medicine researcher whose pioneering work addresses a diversity of conditions defined by a damaged central nervous system. These include degenerative diseases, spinal cord damage, stroke and traumatic brain injury.

Researchers are currently conducting trials in healthy volunteers. This will transition to studies for several of these medical aliments. In particular, the company has stepped up its interest in NVG-291’s ability to tackle Alzheimer’s disease.

The company works with Dr. Ksenia Kastanenka of Massachusetts General Hospital—which has a long history of supporting cutting-edge research and innovation in medical research—to study NVG-291 in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s also preparing to enter a Phase 1b clinical trial for Alzheimer’s patients in 2022 following ongoing Phase 1 safety trials for the drug candidate.

An Expert’s Opinion

According to NervGen’s CEO, Paul Brennan, “The multiple preclinical studies that we are conducting, as well as our planned Phase 1b study, are important milestones for our Alzheimer’s program, which, if successful, will provide a meaningful benefit to patients and significant potential for NervGen.

“What differentiates NVG-291 from other drugs in development is that it leverages multiple mechanisms for repairing nerve damage, while most others focus on a single approach. Alzheimer’s disease is a complex condition and likely caused by multiple factors. We believe that a systems approach to treating the disease is an important distinction.”

Brennan adds, “All told, NVG-291’s ability to remyelinate and enhance plasticity is a one-two knockout punch for repairing a damaged central nervous system, which is the end result on a diversity of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as traumatic brain and spinal injuries. NVG-291 could herald a revolutionary new paradigm in treating all of these chronically debilitating conditions.”

The company’s continued strides toward launching this new class of drugs offers renewed hope to millions.

Learn More

For further facts on the research and clinical trials, go to www.nervgen.com.