HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

December 21, 2022 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Lead and calcium could be in your dark chocolate (Consumer Reports)
• CRISPR gene-editing improves cancer immunotherapy (NPR) 
• Positive Moderna, Merck cancer vaccine data advances mRNA promise, shares rise

SCIENCE AND TECH

• US scientists reach long-awaited nuclear fusion breakthrough, source says (CNN)
•  Twitter dissolves Trust and Safety Council (Washington Post)
• AI-generated fake faces are being used by bad actors online  (NPR)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

HEALTH

Lead and calcium could be in your dark chocolate (Consumer Reports)

Consumer Reports found dangerous heavy metals in chocolate from Hershey's, Theo, Trader Joe's and other popular brands. Here are the ones that had the most, and some that are safer.

CRISPR gene-editing improves cancer immunotherapy (NPR) 

….On Monday, McGuirk presented the latest results of his research at an American Society of Hematology meeting in New Orleans. McGuirk reported that the approach shrank tumors in 67% of 32 patients with the same kind of cancer Kopp had. Forty-percent experienced a complete remission of their cancer — including Kopp, who's shown no evidence of malignancy for more than two years.

Positive Moderna, Merck cancer vaccine data advances mRNA promise, shares rise

A combination of Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine and Merck & Co's (MRK.N) blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda cut the risk of recurrence or death of the most deadly skin cancer by 44% compared with Keytruda alone in a mid-stage trial, the companies said on Tuesday.

SCIENCE AND TECH

US scientists reach long-awaited nuclear fusion breakthrough, source says (CNN)

For the first time ever, US scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain, a source familiar with the project confirmed to CNN.  The US Department of Energy is expected to officially announce the breakthrough Tuesday.

 Twitter dissolves Trust and Safety Council (Washington Post)

 Twitter on Monday night abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the latest sign that Elon Musk is unraveling years of work and institutions created to make the social network safer and more civil.

AI-generated fake faces are being used by bad actors online  (NPR)

Facebook parent company Meta says more than two-thirds of the influence operations it found and took down this year used profile pictures that were generated by a computer….The fakes have been used to push Russian and Chinese propaganda and harass activists on Facebook and Twitter. An NPR investigation this year found they're also being used by marketing scammers on LinkedIn….