Containing Hunger, Contesting Injustice? Exploring the Transnational Growth of Foodbanking- and Counter-responses- Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

COVID-19 caused levels of household food insecurity to spike, but the precarity of so many people in wealthy countries is an outgrowth of decades of eroding public provisions and labour protections that once protected people from hunger, setting the stage for the virus' unevenly-distributed harms. The prominence of corporate-sponsored foodbanking as a containment response to pandemic-aggravated food insecurity follows decades of replacing rights with charity. We review structural drivers of charity's growth to prominence as a hunger solution in North America, and of its spread to countries including the UK.

Electronic retinal prosthesis for severe loss of vision in geographic atrophy in age-related macular degeneration: First-in-human use.

Background: To date there are yet no available approved therapies for Geographic Atrophy (GA) secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Methods: Single site, non-randomized safety and efficacy study presenting the preliminary results in a cohort of five late stage AMD (GA) patients successfully implanted with the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System (Second Sight Medical Products Inc., Sylmar, CA, USA).

Relative Difficulties of Daily Living Tasks with Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Purpose: To determine the relative difficulty of activity of daily living tasks for people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

Methods: Participants with RP (n = 166) rated the difficulty of tasks (n = 43) underpinning the Dutch Activity Inventory goals of mobility indoors and outdoors, shopping, and using public transport. Demographic characteristics were also determined.

Worldwide Argus II implantation: recommendations to optimize patient outcomes.

Background: A position paper based on the collective experiences of Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System investigators to review strategies to optimize outcomes in patients with retinitis pigmentosa undergoing retinal prosthesis implantation.

Methods: Retinal surgeons, device programmers, and rehabilitation specialists from Europe, Canada, Middle East, and the United States were convened to the first international Argus II Investigator Meeting held in Ann Arbor, MI in March 2015. The recommendations from the collective experiences were collected.

FLORA™: Phase I development of a functional vision assessment for prosthetic vision users.

Background: Research groups and funding agencies need a functional assessment suitable for an ultra-low vision population to evaluate the impact of new vision-restoration treatments. The purpose of this study was to develop a pilot assessment to capture the functional visual ability and well-being of subjects whose vision has been partially restored with the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System.

Methods: The Functional Low-Vision Observer Rated Assessment (FLORA) pilot assessment involved a self-report section, a list of functional visual tasks for observation of performance and a case narrative summary.

How NHS trusts are tackling healthcare-associated infections.

The National Audit Office's third report on the Sreduction of healthcare-associated infection (HAl) rates, published last summer, examines: the extent and impact of HAls; the effectiveness, sustainability and cost of the Department of Health's approach to reducing HAl rates; the effectiveness of action taken in hospitals to prevent and control HAls, and how the barriers to improvement in reducing HAI rates can be overcome. This article reviews its findings and their implications for practice.