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Science

Overall healthy adults with the Moderna COVID vaccine had 93% vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization over five months compared to those with 88% protection with Pfizer and 71% from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, a new report out Friday from the CDC shows. 

Why it matters: The report comes as the Food and Drug Administrations meets Friday to consider whether to endorse a contentious plan for booster shots among the fully vaccinated. 

The higher effectiveness of Moderna could be due to the higher mRNA content or the difference between the timing between doses, the authors note. 

Still, all three vaccines provided “substantial protection," the CDC says, despite both mRNA vaccines providing "more protection” than the J&J shot.

The big picture: The real-world data coincides with previous findings of how Moderna may maintain higher effectiveness over time than the other shots available in the United States. 

The waning effectiveness in Pfizer may raise future questions about whether the two mRNA vaccines should be treated the same way policy-wise, Axios' Caitlin Owens reports. 

By the numbers: The sample size was from nearly 3,700 people at 21 hospitals in 18 states from March 11 to Aug. 15. Patients with immunocompromising conditions were excluded from the report.

About 13% were fully vaccinated with Moderna, 20% were fully vaccinated with Pfizer and 3.1% had J&J. 

Vaccine effectiveness for those 14-120 days after the second dose of Moderna was 93% and dropped to 92% after about four months, the data show.

What they're saying: "Understanding differences in [vaccine effectiveness] by vaccine product can guide individual choices and policy recommendations regarding vaccine boosters," the study's authors wrote.

"All FDA-approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide substantial protection against COVID-19 hospitalization," they added.

CDC: Moderna vaccine most effective against hospitalization in U.S.

All three vaccines provided “substantial protection," the CDC says.

Illustration of descending bar chart made of syringes gradually shrinking in size.

COVID-19 vaccines

Coronavirus

The U.S. faces a range of health care flashpoints — unaffordable drugs, opioids, vaping — as we debate whether to adopt universal care. For now, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, but Republicans want to issue it a final death blow.

Health

Axios Science

Fish, seaweed and other aquatic food from the world's oceans and freshwater could help reduce malnutrition around the globe, a major new assessment reported this week.

Why it matters: The world is on two trajectories — the environment is being degraded and obesity and undernourishment continue to rise. 

Those trends are fueled by resource-intensive food production and inadequate diets, underscoring the need for food systems that can deliver nutrition while minimizing further damage to the planet, researchers say. 

Blue foods — algae, seaweed, fish and other aquatic animals rich in micronutrients — that have been largely overlooked or lumped together by food policymakers could be part of the solution, researchers with the Blue Food Assessment write.

The big picture: "People view food as agriculture and agriculture as land-based food systems," says Christopher Golden, an epidemiologist and ecologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and lead author of one of the papers published in Nature.

Land-based animal agriculture largely revolves around cows, chickens, pigs, lamb and a handful of other animals. 

"But with aquatic foods, there are thousands of potential species with different nutrient profiles and environmental impacts," Golden says.

People's willingness to eat small nutritious fish like sardines or bivalves with a low environmental impact will play a big role in whether aquatic foods are leveraged for nutritional and environmental benefits, Beatrice Crona at the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden, told the New Scientist. Crona co-wrote a paper that found demand for fish is already expected to nearly double by 2050.

Key takeaways: A new database quantifies omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins A and B12, calcium, iodine, zinc, calcium and other nutrients in 3,753 species of aquatic foods — an unprecedented level of detail.

The researchers, led by Golden, found bivalves like clams, as well as salmon, carp, and small fish like sardines, herring, and anchovies, are all more rich in those seven nutrients than beef, lamb, chicken and the other land-based animals at the heart of our food systems. 

They also found high growth in aquatic food production by 2030 — spurred by innovation and investment in farming aquatic foods — could lead to an 8% increase in production each year and a 26% decrease in price.

More consumption of aquatic foods would prevent about 166 million people from not getting enough micronutrients, they write.

The researchers also found that increasing the consumption of aquatic foods is likely to benefit women and children in particular, as nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids are important for fetal and child growth and development. 

Some of the most nutritious aquatic foods also have fewer environmental impacts, according to a separate study led by Jessica Gephart, an environmental scientist at American University.

Bivalves and seaweeds, which don't have to be fed, and some fish — specifically sardines and cod — had the lowest impact on water and land use and on greenhouse gas, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions. Farming bivalves and shrimp generates lower emissions than catching them in the wild.

But while nutrient-rich farmed carp and salmon have low emissions, carp farming uses the most water whereas salmon farming uses the least land and water among farmed fish. "We start to see tradeoffs," Gephart says.

Yes, but: Improving global nutrition through blue foods depends in part on aquaculture, according to the model by Golden, and aquaculture of some species currently carries other environmental costs.

Farming salmon, for example, has been tied to water pollution, the spread of parasites to wild fish and overfishing of sardines and other small fish that go into salmon feed, the New Scientist notes.

The environmental impact study also doesn't look at how blue food production could affect ecosystems and their biodiversity, which land and water use decisions should take into account, Gephart says.

Climate change also threatens the potential benefits of blue food systems, especially for wild-capture fisheries in Africa, south and southeast Asia, and small island states in the Indo-Pacific, a separate paper finds. 

What they're saying: "These papers show the unmet potential the world’s waters have in meeting at least some of our nutritional needs," Lawrence Haddad, executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), tells Axios in an email. 

"A large number of the different food sources are often neglected but deserve more attention from researchers, governments, businesses and consumers," he says.

"It is important to get ocean food systems into the global conversation about ending hunger," says John Virdin, who directs the Oceans and Coastal Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University and wasn't involved in the research. 

What to watch: How prominently blue foods are featured at the first United Nations Food Systems Summit next week.

How aquatic food could serve us

Blue foods have been largely overlooked in food policy, the authors of a new study say.

Illustration of a restaurant dining table with checkered tablecloth placed in the middle of a body of water

Food

Axios Space

SpaceX's all-civilian Inspiration4 mission made history Wednesday night when it launched into orbit. 

Why it matters: It's the first time a crew of amateurs has launched to orbit without a professional astronaut onboard. The mission also signals the start of a new era in space — one defined by an industry pushing to launch many more private people to orbit in the coming years. 

State of play: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Inspiration4 crew members launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at  8:02 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Chris Sembroski will now live in their Dragon capsule in orbit for the next three days, before coming in for a splashdown somewhere off the Florida coast. 

"We're very aware of how lucky we are, to be part of this history that SpaceX is creating right now," Isaacman told said at a news conference Tuesday ahead of the launch.

Catch up quick: Isaacman is the commander of the Dragon and the brainchild of Inspiration4, chartering this flight from SpaceX.

Arceneaux was chosen for this flight by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, her employer and the place she was treated for childhood cancer. St. Jude is also the beneficiary of a $200 million fundraiser associated with Inspiration4. 

Proctor was picked through a reality TV-style competition for entrepreneurs, and Sembroski was selected as part of a raffle anyone could enter. 

All four crew members spent a little more than five months training together with SpaceX, far less than the usual time a professional astronaut trains before flying to orbit.

What's next: The crew will now spend three days living in orbit — experiencing weightlessness, staring at Earth and the stars and performing experiments. 

They've also taken some of the comforts of home up to space with them.

Sembroski, Arceneaux, Isaacman and Proctor will be able to eat cold pizza and other relatively fresh foods their first day in orbit, and they have movies and TV shows to watch while in space as well. 

The big picture: SpaceX hopes to one day make space travel like air travel, with very little training necessary for folks flying to orbit and even beyond. 

The company also hopes to bring about a future in which there are a significant number of people living on Mars, which would require opening up space travel to many more people.

The bottom line: If the space industry wants to bring about a future where there's a city on Mars and people living in space, more and more missions like Inspiration4 will need to start flying.

🎧  Go deeper: Listen to the new season of Axios' How it Happened: The Next Astronauts here.

Private companies are changing who gets to go to space

Wrestling with the risks of private missions to space

 Editor's note: This article has been updated with details of the launch time and comment from Isaacman.

All-civilian Inspiration4 launches on 3-day mission in orbit

It's the first time a crew of amateurs has launched to orbit without a professional astronaut onboard.

A screenshot of the rocket launching. Photo: SpaceX

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Friday's science stories

CDC: Moderna vaccine most effective against hospitalization in U.S.

How aquatic food could serve us

All-civilian Inspiration4 launches on 3-day mission in orbit