News Roundup - News from around the CTSA Program Consortium 

AI shows attitude toward COVID-19 is more ‘infectious’ than the disease itself Know the facts before you retweet about COVID-19 or you may be adding to a growing snowball of misinformation.
And politicians are as influential as scientists when it comes to public health beliefs about COVID-19.
That’s the message from a new study about social media and public attitudes about the pandemic. It found public attitude toward COVID-19 and its treatments is more "infectious" than the disease itself. The new Northwestern Medicine study used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze tweets about the virus.
NUCATS Institute Chief AI Officer Yuan Luo was an author on this study.

Washington University ICTS investigators find new evidence COVID-19 antibodies, vaccines less effective against variants New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that three new, fast-spreading variants of the virus that cause COVID-19 can evade antibodies that work against the original form of the virus that sparked the pandemic. With few exceptions, whether such antibodies were produced in response to vaccination or natural infection, or were purified antibodies intended for use as drugs, the researchers found more antibody is needed to neutralize the new variants.

New research at UC Davis Health seeks to reduce birth injury causing shoulder, arm and hand paralysis A team of UC Davis Health scientists is working to identify factors that could predict brachial plexus birth injury (BPBI), the leading cause of infants’ upper extremity paralysis. They are developing a predictive risk model of maternal and hospital factors associated with the condition. Their work seeks to inform better prevention strategies and shift the current standard practices for this condition.