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Background Announced in March 2016 and implemented in April 2018, the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) aims to incentivise the reformulation of soft drinks. The SDIL has successfully decreased the amount of sugar in UK soft drinks, and purchased in soft drinks. Consequently, the SDIL has been widely applauded as a policy success. SSB taxation in other countries, however, has not been as successful and in some cases the policy was retracted. We aimed to develop an understanding of why the SDIL was deemed successful by analysing parliamentary debate two years before its announcement until two years post-implementation (2014–2020). Methods Searches of Hansard were conducted for parliamentary debate transcripts discussing the SDIL across three key time periods: Pre-Announcement (01/01/14–15/03/16), Announcement – Implementation (16/03/16–5/04/18), and Post-Implementation (6/04/18–16/03/20). 218 transcripts containing eligible search terms were identified, and 179 included in the analysis after screening for relevance. Applied thematic analysis was conducted in 5 stages: familiarisation and creation of initial codebooks, independent second coding, codebook finalisation through team consensus, final coding of the dataset to the complete codebook and theme finalisation through team consensus. Results Common issues raised in discussions across the timeline were: the ring-fencing of SDIL funds for pro-social causes, the scale of the health problems associated with excess sugar consumption, and the role of celebrities in making the SDIL a high profile issue. MPs acknowledged that the SDIL is not a ‘silver bullet’ for obesity prevention: it was positioned as either a ‘good start’ with other interventions required or that other interventions were needed instead. Distinct themes were that, due to early reformulation, the SDIL was discussed as ‘having worked’ one year prior to implementation. This notion persisted until the end of the timeline. These themes will be further refined to identify temporal patterns and trends. Additional results will be submitted before the June 28th deadline. Population Health Relevance The SDIL is unique: it is a flagship policy for the UK Childhood Obesity Strategy and has cross-party support. Understanding why and how the SDIL made it onto the statutes, and why it was politically successful is vital for using policy instruments to improve population health in future. This work will aid understanding of the parliamentary process surrounding the SDIL, and could provide insight for those wishing to extend the SDIL to other products or implement SSB taxes elsewhere.

Climate change’s particular ‘perfect storm’ problem-nature requires educators and communicators to acknowledge that a single ‘silver bullet’ intervention that eliminates ignorance and denial regarding global warming may never emerge. However, diverse kinds of information-hunks and educational initiatives do incrementally increase acceptance (and alarm) regarding climate change, thus decreasing ignorance/denial. We herein describe advances in several climate education realms, including in-school and extra-school youth learning––along with post-school, general public, climate change communications. Our review includes lenses on socio-emotional learning, social justice, and techniques for addressing misinformation. Finally, we describe a particular set of ten hunks of experimentally vetted information, generally taking less than five minutes, that our laboratory has shown effective in boosting acceptance that global warming is occurring and concerning.

Most daunting threat for humankind is the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Various vaccine production platforms are available, each with distinct advantages and obstacles. Pharmaceutical formulation science plays a critical role in the race for a safe, effective coronav virus disease vaccine (COVID)-19. The target population of vaccinees includes high-risk individuals over the age of 60, those with chronic co-morbid conditions, frontline healthcare workers, and those involved in critical industries. Once a safe and reliable vaccine policy becomes available, pre-pandemic normalcy will never return. As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on people's health and livelihoods around the world, the prospect of an effective vaccine may appear to be a silver bullet. Despite this, a number of challenges remain, each of which necessitates careful and ongoing debate to ensure that vaccination strategies are safe, appropriate, and realistic. So the best way forward is simply to register oneself on Aarogya Setu and get vaccinated as soon as possible, regardless of Covishield or Covaxin. Keywords: Vaccine, Pandemic, COVID, Corona virus 19

We are currently experiencing the realities of the most severe pandemic within living memory, with major impacts on the health and economic well-being of our planet. The scientific community has demonstrated an unprecedented mobilization capability, with the rapid development of vaccines and drugs targeting the protection of human life and palliative measures for infected individuals. However, are we adequately prepared for ongoing defense against COVID-19 and its variants in the post-pandemic world? Moreover, are we equipped to provide a satisfactory quality of life for individuals who are recovering from COVID-19 disease? What are the possibilities for the acceleration of the recovery process? Here, we give special consideration to the potential and already-demonstrated role of probiotics and traditional medical approaches to the management of current and potential future encounters with our major virus adversaries.

Background: Despite the growing attention given to the political process of evidence-based policymaking (EBPM), we still know little about how evidence is processed at the early stages of the policymaking process, especially at the agenda-setting stage. Whether and when political elites pay attention to evidence-based information is crucial to the study of EBPM but also essential to the well-functioning of democracy. Aims and objectives: The aim of this paper is to cover this gap, by asking whether evidence increases policymaker attention to policy proposals. The working hypothesis is that everything else being constant, evidence should increase policy-maker attention. Methods: To test this hypothesis, this paper relies on a field experiment embedded in a real-life fundraising campaign of an advocacy organisation targeted at the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The field experiment is embedded in a real-life fundraising campaign of an advocacy organisation targeted at the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Findings: Results show that information type matters to policy-maker attention, but evidence is not effective in this respect. Findings also suggest that there are no important differences between political groups and, crucially, that previous policy support does not have an impact on policy-maker attention. This paper shows that that while evidence is essential to the policy process, ideas are key to attract policymakers’ attention at the individual level in the absence of prior demand. Discussion and conclusion: Overall, findings suggest that empirical information is not a quick pass for policy-maker attention. In this context, other types of information and framing are likely to make a difference. Future studies should analyse how framing may alter political elites’ predisposition to attend empirical evidence.

As conventional forms of wealth redistribution have diminished under the neoliberal consensus of both Democrats and Republicans in the United States, education reform has become a bipartisan issue....

Several continental and global development initiatives have been evolved to trigger development in Africa, the latest being Agenda 2063 and sustainable development goals (SDGs). This paper draws on relevant materials to examine the challenges of sustainable development, especially within the context of the serious structural adjustment challenges in Africa. Against the backdrop of the continent’s earlier dismal experiences with development initiatives, the paper assesses the promises of both Agenda 2063 and SDGs to motorize sustainable development in the continent. The paper contends that the feasibility of sustainable development in Africa is contingent upon the institutionalization of the active state. The imperative of the active state in development architecture is because of its indispensability in charting critical pathways for all-round sustainability.

RATIONALE: Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a mortal clinical syndrome without effective therapies. We recently demonstrated in mice that a combination of metabolic and hypertensive stress recapitulates key features of human HFpEF. OBJECTIVE: Using this novel preclinical HFpEF model, we set out to define and manipulate metabolic dysregulations occurring in HFpEF myocardium. METHODS AND RESULTS: We observed impairment in mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation associated with hyperacetylation of key enzymes in the pathway. Down-regulation of sirtuin 3 and deficiency of NAD(+) secondary to an impaired NAD(+) salvage pathway contribute to this mitochondrial protein hyperacetylation. Impaired expression of genes involved in NAD(+) biosynthesis was confirmed in cardiac tissue from HFpEF patients. Supplementing HFpEF mice with nicotinamide riboside or a direct activator of NAD(+) biosynthesis led to improvement in mitochondrial function and amelioration of the HFpEF phenotype. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, these studies demonstrate that HFpEF is associated with myocardial mitochondrial dysfunction and unveil NAD(+) repletion as a promising therapeutic approach in the syndrome.

The private sector has been assigned a leading role in the construction of a global knowledge economy (GKE), and public–private partnerships (PPPs) have been portrayed as the silver bullet that wil...

Populist and authoritarian leaders are increasingly coming to power in large countries. They often have a climate sceptic approach and do away with mitigation policies when coming to power. Increasing impacts of extreme meteorological events linked to climate change could lead to a situation where the supporters of the populist leader or elites crucial for the survival of an authoritarian regime are pushing to do something to address climate change. In order not to lose power, the leader may look for quick and cheap solutions. In such a context, solar radiation modification (SRM), for example, by stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), will become very attractive as it is likely to have low costs and rapid effects. Populist or authoritarian governments are unlikely to care for negative impacts of SRM abroad as they often act nationalistically with an explicit disdain for multilateral solutions. We discuss the incentive structure and political economy that populist and authoritarian leaders may face regarding unilateral use of SRM and elaborate how the international community could try to prevent or at least ‘contain’ such unilateral uses of SRM. Unfortunately, such ‘containment’ is contingent on the most powerful states not being populist or authoritarian regimes.