Journalists

The former Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, announced a few days ago at a press conference the creation of new medical specialities. The first to "begin the process" will be emergency medicine, which had caused "controversy in different autonomous communities and scientific societies" and for whose implementation a consensus has been reached. It will be followed by other specialities such as Clinical Genetics and Infectious Diseases, as announced in the Senate in February.

Research published in The BMJ has compared the information on cancer drugs available to regulatory authorities with that officially received by doctors and patients. According to the authors, important information is often omitted. In particular, "none of the package inserts communicated information about the benefits of the drug that patients could expect based on the results of the studies". In addition, doubts raised by European evaluators about the reliability of the evidence "were rarely communicated to physicians, patients or the public," they say.

Babies who are exposed to dogs and cats during foetal development and early childhood have a lower risk of food allergies up to the age of three, according to a Japanese study published in PLoS ONE. Previous work has focused on the beneficial effect of dogs in this period, while this analysis, based on retrospective data from more than 66,000 children, also includes other pets such as cats and hamsters. According to the study, exposure to dogs is associated with a lower incidence of egg, milk and nut allergies, while contact with cats is linked to a lower incidence of egg, wheat and soy allergies. However, exposure to hamsters is associated with a higher incidence of nut allergy.

The human population could break longevity records in the next few decades, according to a study based on cohort data from 19 industrialised countries - including Spain - that cover records from as far back as the 19th century. Throughout history, mortality has tended to compress, with occasional episodes of delayed mortality, something the authors say suggests that we are still far from maximum human longevity. The research, published in PLoS ONE, points out that cohorts born from 1900 to 1950 will only be able to break longevity records if policies continue to support the health and well-being of older people, and if the political, environmental and economic environment remains stable.

A health impact study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) concludes that implementing green axes throughout the city of Barcelona would lead to a "considerable reduction" in the mental health problems suffered by the adult population and in the direct and indirect costs associated with them. The study is published in the journal Environment International.

A sperm donor in the Netherlands has allegedly fathered more than 550 children in at least 13 clinics in the Netherlands and other countries. One of the mothers of these children and the Donorkind Foundation (Netherlands) have sued him. In Spain, there is a national registry of gamete and pre-embryo donors, and the law on assisted human reproduction techniques does not allow more than six babies to be born from the same donor. 

More than two thirds of Spanish citizens think that artificial intelligence presents a very high or high risk that we will be manipulated with our data by companies or governments. However, just over a third believe that artificial intelligence will have an impact on improving the quality of public services and companies. These are some of the results gathered in the 2022 edition of the Survey of Social Perception of Science and Technology published today by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), carried out among more than 6,000 people with face-to-face interviews in the 17 autonomous communities.

Scientists at the University of Granada question whether regular exercise has cognitive benefits as previously thought. Their work, published in Nature Human Behaviour, has analysed 24 meta-analyses and 109 primary studies on the subject.

The current government delegate in Galicia, José Manuel Miñones Conde, will be the new Minister of Health, as announced on Monday by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, from La Moncloa. Miñones replaces Carolina Darias, head of the PSOE list in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the elections on 28 May. Sánchez has also announced that Héctor Gómez, former PSOE parliamentary spokesman, will be the new Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, replacing Reyes Maroto, the PSOE's candidate for mayor of Madrid.

The International Athletics Federation has decided to ban transgender athletes who have transitioned after puberty from participating in international women's competitions. Although there are currently no trans athletes competing on the international circuit, the Federation "decided to prioritise the fairness and integrity of women's competition before inclusion", according to the statement issued. At a press conference, its president, Sebastian Coe, said: "We will be guided by the science that will inevitably develop in the coming years around physical performance and male advantage. As more evidence becomes available, we will review our position.