Iron with malaria chemoprevention did not help infant cognition, and a higher-dose adjuvanted flu vaccine raised antibody levels

The edition in brief

In the IRMA trial, 2,168 Malawian infants aged about 6 months (71% anaemic) received iron syrup or iron-containing micronutrient powder with malaria chemoprevention, chemoprevention alone, or placebo for six months. Neither iron intervention improved Bayley-III cognitive scores against chemoprevention alone (mean differences −0.52 and −0.85), neither reduced anaemia prevalence despite raising ferritin, and neither increased malaria. Chemoprevention alone reduced malaria against placebo. In a phase 3 trial of 7,699 adults aged 50 and over, an MF59-adjuvanted, cell-derived influenza vaccine with three times the antigen dose gave higher antibody titres than the standard adjuvanted egg-based vaccine for all four strains (GMT ratios 1.22 to 1.73), and matched a recombinant vaccine for three strains but not H3N2; local and systemic reactions were more frequent. An exploratory Japanese study of 222 endoscope reprocessing episodes found surveillance cultures passed 90.5% of the time with acidic electrolysed water against 95.9% with peracetic acid. The FDA recorded a supplemental approval for Baxter's premixed daptomycin in sodium chloride on 24 September; the record does not state what changed. Only IRMA reports clinical outcomes; the vaccine trial measures antibodies, not infection.