A federal judge ruled Medicare can negotiate prices for prescriptions this fall
The US pays 2.4x the avg of industrialized nations for prescriptions
Brand name drugs make up 84% of total drug costs in the US—but account for only 8% of drugs sold
Tecartus +$25000 inc over 1yr
Fluconazole +1101% inc over 1yr
Lisinopril +539% inc over 1yr
Pfizer $10B revenue '22
Johnson & Johnson $95B revenue '22
You start working on a cure for high drug prices
We'll start working on a cure for MBAs
Congrats to my colleagues Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman on the Nobel Prize!
My favorite part of this news is knowing that more people (including kids) will get to hear and be inspired by the story behind the science and scientists (especially Kariko).
#COVID19 #vaccination 💉
#france 🇫🇷
Covid-19: la nouvelle campagne de vaccination, avancée de 15 jours, débute ce lundi
This thread (by a compsci PhD I think) helps explain why we need 3 antigen tests over 4 days to get a reliable diagnosis of infection, and why you are highly, highly likely to get a false negative test if you only test once - even if you have symptoms.
The tests rely on detecting nucleocapsids, which is good for their longevity as the virus continues its blistering pace of mutation, but bad for timely diagnoses.
Sadly, it doesn’t mention FDA guidance to test 3 times.
https://progressives.social/@Wikisteff@mastodon.social/111143881142304564
Attached: 1 image However, the tests need nucleocapsid protein there to detect, which only appears later on in infections at high volumes. Early on in an infection, tests don't work great. Symptoms usually appear on Days 2, 3, and 4 after infection; however, RAT tests only have about a 34% sensitivity on Day 3, rising to 67% on Day 4, and 80% on Day 5 for symptomatic individuals. That's because most people have antibodies now, and our immune systems respond at lower doses than RAT tests.
Good morning, fedi. Do you know anyone currently studying (or carefully searching for) coordinated influence campaigns on federated networks?
ETA: I have a reasonably good sense of who the people are who study this elsewhere, but I’m wondering if I’ve missed any known and especially homegrown/born on-fedi work on influence campaigns in federated spaces. Many thanks!
Net Neutrality Returns to FCC Agenda Under Democrat Majority, and Immediately Draws Criticism
#Variety #News #Fcc #NetNeutrality
https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/net-neutrality-fcc-agenda-democrat-criticism-1235736049/
NIH asking for public comment on potential changes to the Policies for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) and the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO) Policy Framework. If you do work with pathogens or potential pathogens you may want to take a look at the proposed language. The rules could apply to any US institution or foreign institutions that accept US gov't funding.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/share-your-views-proposed-revisions-biosafety-policy
Please check out our new preprint on antigenic imprinting in SARS-CoV-2 infections: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.12.23295384v1
There has been concern in some circles that prior vaccine- or infection-induced immunity prevents antibody responses from adapting to mutated epitopes on SARS-CoV-2, and in some cases using this as justification to avoid getting the booster shots. TLDR, we don't think this is much of an issue.
Vaccine-induced immunity may impact subsequent de novo responses to drifted epitopes in SARS-CoV-2 variants, but this has been difficult to quantify due to the challenges in recruiting unvaccinated control groups whose first exposure to SARS-CoV-2 is a primary infection. Through local, statewide, and national SARS-CoV-2 testing programs, we were able to recruit cohorts of individuals who had recovered from either primary or post-vaccination infections by either the Delta or Omicron BA.1 variants. Regardless of variant, we observed greater Spike-specific and neutralizing antibody responses in post-vaccination infections than in those who were infected without prior vaccination. Through analysis of variant-specific memory B cells as markers of de novo responses, we observed that Delta and Omicron BA.1 infections led to a marked shift in immunodominance in which some drifted epitopes elicited minimal responses, even in primary infections. Prior immunity through vaccination had a small negative impact on these de novo responses, but this did not correlate with cross-reactive memory B cells, arguing against competitive inhibition of naive B cells. We conclude that dampened de novo B cell responses against drifted epitopes are mostly a function of altered immunodominance hierarchies that are apparent even in primary infections, with a more modest contribution from pre-existing immunity, perhaps due to accelerated antigen clearance. ### Competing Interest Statement Sana Biotechnology has licensed intellectual property of D.B. and Washington University in St. Louis. Gilead Sciences has licensed intellectual property of D.B. and Stanford University. Clade Therapeutics has licensed intellectual property of D.B. and University of Arizona. D.B. is a co-founder of Clade Therapeutics. D.B. served on an advisory panel for GlaxoSmithKline. B.J.L. has a financial interest in Cofactor Genomics, Inc. and Iron Horse Dx. Geneticure Inc. has licensed intellectual property of R.S. and R.S is a co-founder of Geneticure Inc. M.W. has received consulting fees from GLG on SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic. ### Funding Statement This work was supported by NIH grants R01AI099108 and R01AI129945 (D.B.) and a research grant from the Arizona Board of Regents (M.W. and D.B). This project has been funded in part with Federal funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N93021C00015 (M.W.) The HEROES-RECOVER cohort is supported by the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (contracts 75D30120R68013 to Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, 75D30120C08379 to the University of Arizona, and 75D30120C08150 to Abt Associates). ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: IRB of The University of Arizona gave ethical approval for this work. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE242775>
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Variety
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