What happens when leaders defend pharmaceutical monopolies in a pandemic -- more strongly than they defend lives?
🚨My podcast airs again this week @BiPiSci w/@mollycbentley🙏🏼 @pulitzercenter
http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/vaccine-inequity
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rxmjbqywSe12sd47LdCdb Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vaccine-inequity/id73329638?i=1000586910937
You know something is off when PFIZER accuses MODERNA of "misappropriating the hard work and independent research performed by an entire field of research in the years before COVID-19 emerged."
https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2023/01/12/covid-vaccine-patents-moderna-pfizer-biontech/
Lego models of invertebrates: needs to reach 10,000 supporters to enter production.
“This set features four arthropod model organisms: the fruit fly #Drosophila melanogaster, the red flour beetle #Tribolium castaneum, the amphipod crustacean #Parhyale hawaiensis, and the two-spotted cricket #Gryllus bimaculatus.”
The LEGO account setup accepts throwaway emails, so no need to commit to endless spam.
#entomology #lego #invertebrates #insects #crustaceans
https://ideas.lego.com/projects/c629ad44-59f8-452a-bfba-2b6b96e29f54
The U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published a roadmap today for research on information integrity:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Roadmap-Information-Integrity-RD-2022.pdf
They outline four priority areas: 1) modeling & analyzing info ecosystems; 2) investigating safeguards (e.g. media literacy) to support healthier engagement with information; 3) envisioning technical approaches to support information integrity; 4) developing/evaluating strategies for addressing manipulative information campaigns.
Billionaire techies & tech investors who shape media have been pushing the lab-origin hypothesis.
No evidence here. Instead, the rhetoric is laced with anti-government, anti-science & anti-China rhetoric. What could go wrong?
Nearly 13 million genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2, from 215 countries & territories, are now on GISAID.
This includes a surge of data from Beijing, Fujian, Guangzhou, Sichuan Province in China and Mongolia.
Countries can't seem to work together, but it's nice to see a shared data platform that's not perfect, but still pretty remarkable.
"Americans remain shaken by the covid experience, including the government’s feeble and at times counterproductive responses. The coronavirus cost more than 1 million Americans their lives and left millions more disabled by extreme fatigue, neurological issues and other symptoms of long covid. At the same time, people are angry that government efforts to keep covid from causing even more harm cost many their jobs, set children back in academic development, and led to an uptick in depression and poverty.
Better public health policies could have prevented this devastation."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/21/congress-pandemic-preparedness-budget-deal/
This pandemic, including measures to control it, have caused more devastation than war.
This week, Congress has a chance to pass legislation to help ensure we do better next time.
My latest @washingtonpost https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/21/congress-pandemic-preparedness-budget-deal/
Timothy B. Lee
Albert Cardona
Kate Starbird
Thiago Carvalho
Taylor Lorenz