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It's otherwise impossible to search on the mobile site, unless you access the desktop version.
This doesn't work if you're using the [Android] app. In the app you can search more easily, but the archive is unfortunately inaccessible.
HIGHLY recommend getting titer testing done if you can, especially if you don't know whether you've been vaccinated for measles or how long ago it was. It's possible your antibodies are low, as mine were. I got an MMR booster: it was easy and unremarkable.
This is not a disease to fuck around with.
P.S. more Novavax (2024 formulation) is also available at many CVS now, for biannual vax.
(You can search this blog for Novavax or Measles info.)
Covid is the number 1 cause of MECFS right now, an incurable disease affecting millions of people where expending any amount of energy can leave you permanently bed bound or dead. Watch this video
Including Taylor's text because it's pretty succinct and important.
It reminded me of being asked "what's up with COVID" in a "why is it something to worry about" way. People still don't understand what "long COVID" can actually entail.
It's not "just" some random symptoms for a few months. Some people with ME/CFS are left with such poor quality of life that not only are they unable to work or partake in anything they did in their previously healthy lives, but some even call it "worse than death".
Or maybe, like some of my previously-young-and-healthy friends, you'll be "lucky" and "only" suffer semi-reparable organ damage: heart, eyes, brain.
COVID is not the only one, it's just the worst we've dealt with in recent years. Even a bad flu can result in post-acute sequelae / chronic illness, even ME/CFS. Measles can lead to encephalitis, pneumonia, deafness, blindless...
And yet the government we must now contend with in the US threatens to dismantle every last protection we have against diseases like these. The push to "vax-n-relax" was already bad enough on its own, with many states attempting mask bans.
Now there's RFK Jr. at the helm of Health & HS: a hypocrite who spreads anti-vax messaging (while actually vaccinating his own children), tried to revoke the life-saving COVID vaccines, with blood on his hands from an outbreak he caused, and says we'll just give disease research "a break".
The American healthcare system has issues, for sure. But this certainly will not fix them. This regime is positioned to do so much harm, and already has.
I had titer testing done found that my MMR and Tdap vaccines needed updating, with my doctor’s guidance.
I’d suggest for anyone who’s able to do the same. It may be in Texas now, but our world is fairly borderless thanks to travel. This absolute failure of “leadership” will allow previously-controlled diseases to spread; look out for yourselves.
Government webpages across all sectors are being edited or removed, so here’s an archived link to the CDC vaccination schedule:
Screenshot:
The government is reviewing proposals to shut down the program that ships free covid tests to American households and has been considering destroying 160 million tests.
COVID is still an enormous problem with no real solution for the long-term chronic illness that can develop after any acute case, currently afflicting 10-20% of people. Destroying these tests, which could have gone out to Americans for free, is an unbelievable waste.
UPDATE: a judge blocked this for now: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ce
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These grants account for more than 10% of the GDP. 3 trillion – wiped out.
From the article:
The funding freeze by the Republican administration could affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in health care research, education programs and other initiatives. Even grants that have been awarded but not spent are supposed to be halted.
“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” said a memo from Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.
(Use of that language, that entire segment, "Marxist equity ... policies" is disgusting. If you think you're wary of propaganda and you do not see the enormous red flags in that statement, I do not know how to help you. If you're not beyond it, maybe pick up a history book — the 1930s are particularly pertinent.)
The average person may not understand just how far-reaching this is, how many programs and services are covered by grants, that regular people rely on all across the US and globally.
Not to mention how many people just had their livelihood demolished.
Researchers, for example, spend months and years writing grant proposals, their work and income relies on these cycles. So even if this is "temporary", a lot of people are going to struggle.
This is not just a few people in lab coats somewhere, working on something you don't care about. Government-funded research is released to the public, since we paid for it, and is very typically about things the public will want to know:
Seriously, if you wanted any of those things to get better — you wanted lower rates of cancer and other deadly and disabling disease? You worry about trusting public health guidelines because you're concerned about bias and vested interests in research? You want "small government" that doesn't interfere with people's bodies based on a small group's religious dogma, with zero basis in factual, verifiable reality?
Then you should have voted to keep this administration out of government.
Because their idea — which is outlined in Project 2025, and they are following it closely — is that research will be required to rely 50% on private funding.
Guess what private funding introduces a ton more of: private interests, private bias. The interests of stakeholders who do not give a shit if you are being killed by their product, as long as line goes up in the short run.
But even beyond scientific researchers — and those who rely on that work, e.g. journalists, science communicators, public health advocates, scientific artists —
grants fund others like: teachers, police, farmers, women's and homeless shelters, native orgs, medical workers, and on the list goes.
All pending "review" by a thoroughly unqualified gang of convicted criminals and cronies.
CW: large photograph of the side profile of the individual declaring said unscientific EO.
Tangential to this blog but relevant, scientifically. Important to read and understand that this EO is not about scientific accuracy / verifiable reality (it is wildly inaccurate and not rooted in fact, as explained within), but about singling out minorities who are useful to scapegoat — a historically repeated tactic of authoritarian regimes.
Research has shown that robust social ties reduce the effectiveness of repression. Therefore, modern-day autocrats use demographic identity as a way to sow division. This tactic also allows autocrats to claim a broad mandate after coming to power with only plurality support.
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As globalization and looser borders force many nations to grapple with questions about national identity, immigrants and refugees have been the targets of far-right populist parties across many backsliding democracies, including the United States.
See also:
Strategies of authoritarian populists
...There’d be the virtuous in-group and the outright evil out-group. This out-group would then be scapegoated for societal problems.Like pure authoritarians, authoritarian populists also stoke moral panics, she said, using the excuse of a perceived existential threat to justify draconian measures. One might spot this tendency in the Trump campaign’s attacks on transgender rights, ...
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Fascists often blamed their countries’ problems on scapegoats. Jews, Freemasons, Marxists, and immigrants were prominent among the groups that were demonized. According to fascist propaganda, the long depression of the 1930s resulted less from insufficient government regulation of the economy or inadequate lower-class purchasing power than from “Judeo-Masonic-bolshevik” conspiracies, left-wing agitation, and the presence of immigrants. The implication was that depriving these demons of their power and influence would cause the nation’s major problems to go away.
CW: A very large close-up of a certain orange face that many of us will be forced to see on repeat for even more of our one, precious life.
Nonetheless, important. Request for those who’ve been affected to contact STAT at the bottom:
Have you been affected by the Trump administration’s pause on communications, science meetings, and reviews, or by the executive orders to stop diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts? Please fill out the form below to share your experience with STAT’s reporters. We will not share your name or story without your permission
A reminder from June 2020:
A reminder from 2023.
It's already normalized. Few people, even of those who are otherwise left / progressive, even care that 10-20% of people are still afflicted with disabilities post-infection or that hundreds still die of this daily. But if you don't hear about it, it's not real and doesn't matter, right? This is a fascist regime that is chiefly interested in maintaining an uninformed public.
Context: "In a [2016] speech to supporters, Trump touted how many different demographic groups he won in Nevada, declaring that "We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated," before exclaiming "I love the poorly educated!"
Trump rescinded Biden policy on lowering costs of prescription medication for people using Medicare and Medicaid.
Biden's order [now rescinded by Trump] directed the Department of Health and Human Services to explore strategies to reduce costs. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) responded to the order with programs to cap the price of certain generic drugs at $2 for Medicare beneficiaries, improve Medicaid access to high-cost cell and gene therapies and to streamline the evidence-gathering process for new drugs.
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"While the immediate impact depends on how pharmaceutical companies respond, this move potentially opens the door for drug prices to rise," Agranoff said. "Biden's order aimed to rein in costs by promoting price transparency and competition, which are critical for making life-saving medications affordable." "Without those measures, companies could have more flexibility to set higher prices," he added. "For many Americans, particularly those on fixed incomes or without comprehensive insurance, this change may lead to increased financial strain and limit access to essential medications."
Abstract:
SARS-CoV-2 causes an acute respiratory tract infection that resolves in most people in less than a month. Yet some people with severely weakened immune systems fail to clear the virus, leading to persistent infections with high viral titres in the respiratory tract. In a subset of cases, persistent SARS-CoV-2 replication results in an accelerated accumulation of adaptive mutations that confer escape from neutralizing antibodies and enhance cellular infection. This may lead to the evolution of extensively mutated SARS-CoV-2 variants and introduce an element of chance into the timing of variant evolution, as variant formation may depend on evolution in a single person. Whether long COVID is also caused by persistence of replicating SARS-CoV-2 is controversial. One line of evidence is detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and proteins in different body compartments long after SARS-CoV-2 infection has cleared from the upper respiratory tract. However, thus far, no replication competent virus has been cultured from individuals with long COVID who are immunocompetent. In this Review, we consider mechanisms of viral persistence, intra-host evolution in persistent infections, the connection of persistent infections with SARS-CoV-2 variants and the possible role of SARS-CoV-2 persistence in long COVID. Understanding persistent infections may therefore resolve much of what is still unclear in COVID-19 pathophysiology, with possible implications for other emerging viruses.
