Public health advice on the safe consumption of glycerol-containing slush ice drinks, also known as slushees, may need revising, conclude researchers after carrying out a detailed review of the medical notes of 21 children who became acutely unwell shortly after drinking one of these products.

Their findings, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, show that in each case the child became acutely unwell with a cluster of symptoms soon after drinking a slush ice drink, which the researchers refer to as glycerol intoxication syndrome.

The clinical and biochemical features were similar in all of these children and included reduced consciousness, a sudden sharp drop in blood sugar (hypoglycemia), and a build-up of acid in the blood (metabolic acidosis).

Such symptoms, when they occur together, can indicate poisoning or inherited metabolic disorders, prompting further investigations.

Brightly colored slush ice drinks are designed to appeal to children, note the researchers. While the ingredients vary, most of those available in the UK and Ireland are ‘no-added sugar’ or ‘sugar-free’ products and contain glycerol (E422, also known as glycerin), they add.

Glycerol stops the ice from fully freezing, so maintaining the slush effect in the absence of a high sugar content, they explain.

With a view to informing public health policy and guidance for parents, the researchers scrutinized the medical notes of 21 children who had become acutely unwell after consuming a slush ice drink and had initially been diagnosed with hypoglycemia after their arrival in emergency care.

Apart from one child referred in 2009, all the others were referred for further review between 2018 and 2024.

Diagnosis was informed by lab test confirmation of at least two of the following: hypoglycemia; metabolic acidosis; glyceroluria (high levels of glycerol in the urine), and backed up by negative biochemical, enzyme, and/or genetic test results for underlying inherited metabolic disorders.

Information on sex was available for 18 of the children, just over half of whom (10; 56%) were male. Their average age was 3.5, but ranged from 2 to nearly 7.

How quickly they became ill was known for 15: in 14 (93%) this was within 60 minutes. Similarly, the state of consciousness was known for 17, and in 16 this was significantly and suddenly reduced. One child had a seizure. Urgent neuroimaging was carried out in four (33%) out of 12 children.

Twenty children had documented hypoglycemia (blood glucose 2.6 mmol/l or below); but in 13 (65%) this was even lower, indicating severe hypoglycemia. Metabolic acidosis was present in 16 of the 17 children for whom this information was available.

Twelve of 16 children had low levels of potassium, and eight out of nine in whom this was measured had falsely high blood fat levels (pseudohypertriglycerideremia). The researchers concluded that the children had glycerol intoxication syndrome.

All the children recovered quickly after initial resuscitation and stabilization of their blood glucose. They were discharged with advice to avoid slush ice drinks. Twenty did so and had no further episodes of hypoglycemia.

But one drank another slush ice drink at the age of 7 and developed symptoms within an hour, rapidly progressing to vomiting and drowsiness. The parents gave the child a glucose drink, and called an ambulance. When the paramedics arrived, the child’s blood glucose was back to normal and symptoms were already resolving.

Most of the cases in the series presented for emergency care between 2018 and 2024. And the researchers suggest, “A cause of the recent apparent surge in cases may be the reduced sugar content of these drinks, secondary to two main factors: first, public health and parental concerns about high sugar ingestion, and second, the introduction of a ‘sugar tax’ on high sugar (>5%)-containing drinks in Ireland and the UK in 2018 and 2019, respectively.”

These drinks, sold in countries where there’s no sugar tax, contain a much higher glucose content and often don’t contain any glycerol at all, they add.

Based on some of the cases in this series, the UK Food Standards Agency recommended that young children (4 and under) shouldn’t be given slush ice drinks containing glycerol, and that those aged 10 or younger should not have more than one.The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) followed suit with similar guidance in 2024.

But the researchers believe that these recommendations may no longer be enough.

“There is poor transparency around slush ice drink glycerol concentration; estimating a safe dose is therefore not easy. It is also likely that speed and dose of ingestion, along with other aspects, such as whether the drink is consumed alongside a meal or during a fasting state, or consumed after high-intensity exercise, may be contributing factors,” they write.

“Food Standards Scotland and the FSAI suggested that 125 mg/kg of body weight per hour is the lowest dose that is associated with negative health effects. For a toddler, this may equate to 50–220 ml of a slush ice drink. The standard size drink sold in the UK and Ireland is 500 ml,” they point out.

Given that these drinks don’t confer any nutritional or health benefits, “recommendations on their safe consumption therefore need to be weighted towards safety,” they suggest.

And they conclude, “To ensure safe population-level recommendations can be easily interpreted at the individual parental level, and given the variability across an age cohort of weight, we suggest that recommendations should be based on weight rather than age. Alternatively, the recommended age threshold may need to be higher (8 years), to ensure the dose per weight would not be exceeded, given normal population variation in weight.”

Earth’s largest iceberg has run aground off the coast of South Georgia Island, a common rendezvous spot for large icebergs, new satellite images show.

Measuring 1,240 square miles (3,460 square kilometers), the Antarctic iceberg A-23A has come to a grinding halt after a long and winding journey across the Scotia Sea, also known as “iceberg alley.”

Satellite images taken at the beginning of March show the iceberg parked on a shallow underwater shelf off the coast of South Georgia Island, which is a British overseas territory in the South Atlantic Ocean and the largest of nine islands that make up the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands.

The new images of A-23A were taken by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Earlier observations suggest the iceberg’s northward drift slowed suddenly in late February, according to a statement from NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Republican South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden signed a bill Thursday banning the use of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines, ensuring land protections for farmers across the state. [emphasis, links added]

The bill, HB 1052, prohibits the government seizure of land for C02 pipelines. This leaves the fate of Summit Carbon Solutions’ $9 billion, 2,500-mile pipeline project potentially hanging in the air, as South Dakota was a key player in the plan.

Summit’s pipeline was to transport captured C02 from five Midwest states to an underground storage spot in South Dakota, which has been referred to as the world’s largest carbon capture project.

“South Dakota landowners feel strongly that the threat of involuntary easements for the proposed carbon dioxide pipeline infringes on their freedoms and their property rights,” Rhoden wrote in a letter to the legislature and to the people of South Dakota.

“I have said many times that Summit needs to earn back the trust of South Dakota landowners. Unfortunately, once trust is lost, it is a difficult thing to regain.”

“Here is my open message to Summit Carbon or anyone else who wants to try to come abuse our fellow South Dakotans,” Republican South Dakota House Speaker Jon Hansen wrote on X.

“Your green new deal boondoggle; your lawsuits; your threats; and your intimidation against our people, our counties, and our grassroots commissioners ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.”

Summit spokesperson Sabrina Zenor said in a statement that “it’s very unfortunate that, despite our approvals in Iowa, North Dakota, and Minnesota, South Dakota changed the rules in the middle of the game.”

“The governor has made it clear that HB 1052 targets one company – Summit Carbon Solutions,” Zenor continued. “It’s unfortunate that a piece of legislation has been framed around a single company rather than addressing broader infrastructure and economic policy.”

“This is definitely a win for the little guy,” Steve Milloy, a Senior Legal Fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told the DCNF.

“Carbon capture is economically, politically, and physically impossible.” He said, referring to carbon capture as “totally bogus” and that “the only reason it’s happening is because oil companies can get taxpayer subsidies for it.”

Read rest at Daily Caller

On March 11 2020, as COVID continued to spread rapidly around the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared a pandemic.

More than 7 million people have since died from COVID. The virus, and the public health measures enacted to control it, have had far-reaching effects on societies around the world.

Five years on, the virus continues to circulate. But, thanks to vaccines and immunity acquired from infections, hospitalisations and deaths due to COVID are vastly less frequent than in previous years.

Meanwhile, long COVID continues to have a major impact on people’s lives. Estimates suggest more than 400 million people around the world have had or are currently living with long COVID.

At this point, Australia and the world must take the lessons of COVID – in areas from surveillance, to outbreak response, to vaccines and therapeutics – to be better prepared for the next pandemic.

Some areas we went right – and wrong

Our diagnostic laboratories across Australia were well prepared. Laboratories at the Doherty Institute diagnosed the first case of COVID in Australia and were the first to isolate and share the virus globally in early 2020.

At the same time, a national public health response was quickly put in place. This involved measures such as closing borders, setting up testing centres, and limiting gatherings.

But there are several areas where we could have mobilised more effectively.

During the early stages of the pandemic, there were, at times, challenges with sharing data as well as biological samples and the ingredients for COVID tests between the different states and territories.

For example, there are currently restrictions in place that limit sharing of virus strains between states and territories. But when a new strain emerges, many laboratories need access to it to evaluate their testing capabilities.

One recommendation from an independent 2024 review of the federal government’s COVID response was an Australian Centre for Disease Control. An interim version was launched in early 2024 and the Australian government is investing A$251.7 million in this important initiative.

The goal for the new centre for disease control will be to provide independent technical advice on infectious diseases to government. It will also facilitate rapid integration of data from all states and territories leading to a more unified response.

At the start of a pandemic, we need to understand everything about the new virus and at great speed. This needs systems in place in “peace time”, ready to be mobilised in “war time”.

Back in 2020, we had protocols ready for hospitalised patients and intensive care units to collect specimens and also start new clinical trials. But we were not prepared on many other fronts, for example to collect samples or study how COVID was transmitted in the community or in different key groups.

Every day counts at the start of a pandemic.

Harnessing medical technologies

Relatively recent technological advances in both diagnostics ( RAT tests) and vaccine development (the use of messenger RNA, which gives our body genetic instructions to fight COVID) have put us in a strong position to be at the cutting edge in any pandemic response.

Moderna, one of the two companies that pioneered the mRNA vaccines, has established its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Melbourne. CSL, which made the AstraZeneca COVID vaccines in Australia and manufactures several other vaccines, has now incorporated mRNA in its repertoire.

This capability means Australians could have immediate access to mRNA vaccines in the event of another pandemic. We could also potentially manufacture these vaccines for low- and middle-income countries in our region.

But what if we can’t make an effective vaccine to fight a future pandemic? This is a situation we must be prepared for, as we’ve seen with infections such as HIV, where after 40 years of trying and billions of dollars spent, we still don’t have a vaccine.

In such a situation, we will need to rely on antiviral drugs. The way we currently make antiviral drugs takes significantly longer to develop than vaccines. And although we have some broad spectrum antiviral drugs, the most potent antivirals are very specific – meaning one drug treats only one type of virus.

To be better prepared for future pandemics, many groups around the world are working on developing a library of drugs that work against whole families of viruses that could cause the next pandemic.

Another approach is to develop totally new technologies that are fully tested for one virus, but can be easily adapted to a new virus. This approach could allow more rapid deployment, as the details of safety and dosing would already be understood.

This is one of the major goals of the recently launched Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics based at the Doherty Institute.

These ambitious efforts will require global collaboration, sharing resources and engagement of the private sector.

Once we have a vaccine or drug that works, we need agreed systems in place to ensure widespread equitable access. We fell seriously short of this goal with COVID.

Some low- and middle-income countries received vaccines months or years later than high income countries. For treatments, antivirals such as Paxlovid were never available in many countries.

This is one goal of an agreement led by the WHO, called the “pandemic accord“, to have member states agree on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. But after years of discussion, there remains no binding agreement.

Preparing for the next pandemic

As COVID was (partly due to advances in technology) the most intensively studied pandemic in human history, we have a unique resource in the record of what happened to inform our response to any future pandemic.

And this is likely a matter of when, not if. New infectious disease outbreaks have continued to emerge over the past five years, including mpox, which was declared a public health emergency of international concern in July 2022 and again in August 2024.

Right now, there’s an outbreak of a new viral disease in the Congo, the origins of which have still not been identified.

We know bats, thought to be the source of the coronavirus behind the COVID pandemic, carry an enormous spectrum of viruses that potentially threaten us. But new pandemics can also arise through mosquitoes and close contact with other animals.

Pandemics are global, not national, problems. We are at a pivotal time where countries including Australia must step up their commitments to this global effort. This will need politicians to rely on the evidence and lessons learned from COVID as well as private and public investment.

Unfortunately, five years down the track, we still have a long way to go to be prepared for the next pandemic.

Sharon Lewin, Melbourne Laureate Professor, University of Melbourne; Director, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Peter C. Doherty, Laureate Professor Emeritus, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.