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Rotaviruse infections are common in children and are dangerous or life-threatening in some cases. RotaShield was an early vaccine that successfully prevented infection or moderated its severity in most cases. Unfortunately, after the vaccine was approved and in widespread use, a rare condition called intussusception was revealed to occur about twice as often in vaccinated vs unvaccinated kids. The vaccine was yanked, even though the risk of harm from intussusception was tiny compared to the public health risks of associated with rotavirus infection, because of the optics for the vaccine approval process. In other words, public health took a back seat to political pressure. When people cite the RotaShield story as evidence for the dangers of vaccines, you can remind them that there is no such thing as eliminating all risk. The point to a vaccine is to shift the risk away from disease. “ The concept of the “elimination of risk” also obscures the trade-offs related to the risks and benefi...

By now, everyone knows that the early claims by Trump and his administration that COVID-19 is just like the flu, would go away when the weather gets warm and was no more deadly were just lies. Not merely false, but lies, since Bob Woodward showed that Trump knew otherwise at the time. But somehow, people still seem to want to compare SARS-CoV-2 to the flu virus, both in terms of the epidemiology and in terms of the value of vaccination. There are valid concerns about the rate of viral evolution in terms of immunity. Immunity to a natural infection may or may not confer immunity to the same virus in the future if the virus evolves variants that escape immune surveillance. Same with vaccines: a vaccine may not be protective in future years to variant viruses. This is a huge problem with flu. Not so much with smallpox, yellow fever, polio, measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella or tetanus. With viral pandemics, it is important to understand the sources of variation and the selection pressur...

  I love predictions. In essence, that’s what science is about: reaching a sufficient mechanistic understanding that we can predict the future. The physical sciences have accomplished the most in distilling “laws” that allow us to understand the world. Biology, and in particular, the social science, are struggling to catch up. History has its share of prophets, most of which are rightly seen as oddballs and cranks. But some general principles have been advanced that have the whiff of plausibility. Enter Peter Turchin, a Russian trained as a mathematical ecologist who trained his computer algorithms on bugs and now believes they can tell us what the future portends for America in the next 10 years. As H.L. Menken famously observed: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” As this article describes, Turchin has his logic, his predictions and his critics. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether they belong to Turchin’s “elite...

  Recently, some of my FB friends have been pushing a couple of films/videos on the insidious way AI is used on FB to sell stuff. I haven’t watched them, because my friends’ reports tell me there’s nothing surprising or pernicious going on. OTOH, QAnon is a pernicious phenomenon. People with guns are being told that their fellow Americans are pedophiles and, in some cases, have acted violently because of it. To me, the QAnon phenomenon—that so many people are willing to embrace deeply nonsensical and dangerous beliefs—has been surprising in 21st century America. Then, I read this link posted by FB friend Shane Dyer, and I guess I should no longer be surprised. QAnon has been using well-tested gamer techniques to motivate people to abandon critical thinking and Occam’s razor in favor of exotic and implausible plotlines. “In fact, the difference between apophenia and science is just the scientific process and the reliance on proof [actually no, science doesn’t rely on “proof,” it rel...

  I have for years advocated celebrating only those birthdays in the Fibonacci series. To recap, you get 1,2 and 3, before you have to skip one to get to 5 (first taste of anticipation, deferred gratification). Then 8. Then 13, which is the first teenage birthday and the age of Bar Mitzvah. Then, 21, which is the age of majority when you get all the adult things you’ve waited your whole life for. After that, it’s only 34, 55 and 89, but after 21, there’s no reason to hurry getting older and you can focus on all the other interesting and personal benchmarks of maturity. I’m still a long ways out from my next Fibonacci birthday, but Linda pointed out this link, which endorses the Fibonacci birthday thinking. I don’t know about the “golden age” stuff at the end, though. I figure it’s up to me to make the years that remain as “golden” as chance, experience and maturity allow. Carpe diem! https://medium.com/@craigscott39/the-fibonacci-birthday-bedd29362a4c

  Recently, Pfizer announced that their COVID-19 afforded >90 protection in their phase III clinical trial. Today, Moderna reported results that suggest 95% protection for their vaccine, also in phase III trials. Both vaccines use SARS-CoV-2 spike protein mRNA. One potentially significant difference is that the Pfizer vaccine requires storage at -70C, while the Moderna vaccine only requires storage at -20C, the temperature of a typical household freezer. This distinction could become significant when it comes to vaccine distribution, since -70C freezers are currently more rare and expensive, and dry ice, which can substitute for shipping purposes and temporary storage, is apparently hard to get these days. Of course, a serious crash vaccination program would fund freezers and dry ice, and there are plenty of vendors that can meet the demand. Neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna trial are challenge trials. The study design in each case calls for subjects in both arms to acquire nat...

  Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA vaccines that target the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. My guess is that if the Pfizer vaccine is protective, so is the Moderna vaccine. While I I have a high titer of spike antibody, I don't know how protective that will be now or in the long run. Needless to say, it is too soon to predict how durable any protection from these vaccines will be. As for the effectiveness claims: " . . . key information about the vaccine is not yet available. There is no information yet on whether the vaccine prevents severe cases, the type that can cause hospitalization and death. Nor is there any information yet on whether it prevents people from carrying the virus that causes Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, without symptoms. Without more information, it’s too early to start predicting how much of an impact the vaccine could make, said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy. “I don’t want ...

  I remember the exhilaration I felt when Jimmy Carter won and we turned the page on the corrupt Nixon era. I recall the excitement when Clinton won and we closed the disastrous Reagan chapter. I remember the optimism I felt when I learned that Obama won and bookended the calamity that was the GW Bush presidency. And we celebrated Biden’s victory chez Eissenberg last night, as it rung down the curtain on the pernicious and corrupt Trump term. All of these elections seemed at the time to me to represent turning points. But then the country turned back to the sunny fictions that hid the divisive agenda of the GOP. Now, Biden wants to be a healer (something Trump never claimed) and a president for all Americans (something the GOP never wanted). But he faces an opposition party that will continue to interfere with representative democracy at the ballot box and that wants to return to a time when government controls reproductive choice and allows people to die because they cannot pay fo...

  The Moderna trial has reached its enrollment goal of 30,000 subjects and at least 75% have already received both injections. This is not a challenge trial, but it is expected that many subjects in the vaccine and placebo arms will be infected and these will be tracked. Power calculations suggest that only a few dozen infections are necessary to determine whether there is a benefit to the vaccine over placebo. So far, the number of infected subjects is at or ahead of what they expected. The trial lasts two years, so there is plenty of time to collect data. There is, of course, understandable urgency to push out some vaccine ASAP. I’m in the Moderna trial, which tests the efficacy of injecting the messenger RNA for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (the surface protein that gives coronaviruses their corona) directly into muscle. The protein is made in muscle cells and then (a) secreted and (b) presented to immune cells to stimulate the adaptive immune system. Technically, it is a double...