Health Highlights: Oct. 30, 2020

Here’s a list of the latest health news compiled every day by the editors at Healthday:

Trump Rallies Led to Increases in COVID-19 Cases

Many U.S. counties that hosted Trump campaign rallies are now seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases, CNN reported Thursday.

It looked at 17 counties that hosted Trump rallies between Aug. 17 and Sept. 26 and found that 14 (82%) had increased rates of COVID-19 one month later.

Of those 14 counties, eight had declining COVID-19 rates in the month before they hosted Trump rallies, while the other six already had already seen increasing rates, CNN reported.

The rallies included in the analysis occurred in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida.

Use of CRISPR Gene Editing on Embryos Unsafe: Study

CRISPR gene editing poses risks to human embryos, researchers reported Thursday.

CRISPR is a chemical tool that enables scientists to repair defective DNA and holds promise for treating diseases, the Associated Press reported.

In 2018, a Chinese scientist used it on embryos to help make the world’s first gene-edited babies, which drew widespread condemnation.

In this new study, researchers conducted a lab experiment using CRISPR to fix DNA in human embryos. In more than half the cases, the gene editing led to unintended changes, such as loss of an entire chromosome or big chunks of it, the AP reported.

The Columbia University study was published in the journal Cell.

“If our results had been known two years ago, I doubt that anyone would have gone ahead” and tried it on embryos meant for pregnancy, study leader Dieter Egli told the AP.

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