Conflicts of Interests or Crooked Deals with Taxpayer Dollars? Do they make Democracy a pipe dream?

Deaths and hospitalization rates are the two measures available to the US public to best assess Covid extent and severity. Hospitalization rates are definitely down; see CDC’s graph below.  Mortality rates have held steady at 1000/day for the whole of the past month. I have no data on how treatment patterns have changed over time…

CDC just published new guidelines for treatment of anthrax exposure and anthrax disease in pregnancy and the postpartum period.  It is said the guidelines are based on meetings  “of national subject matter experts to review key clinical elements of anthrax prevention and treatment for pregnant, postpartum, and lactating (P/PP/L) women.” A lot of effort was made…

Over the past months, I have been dismayed, and then alarmed, by the continuing erosion of civil liberties in the United States.  My recent op-ed noted that of the ten guaranteed freedoms granted by our Founders in the Bill of Rights, at least four have been regularly trampled (if not completely trashed) by the federal…

I guess 53 beds (located in 35 hospitals) is progress, but not a lot of progress… when you consider that in Africa there have been more than 53 cases from a single town. From the WaPo: … The 35 designated hospitals will have total treatment capacity of 53 beds.In trying to establish a network of…

From today’s (2/29/20) NYT: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Saturday that it was authorizing American laboratories to develop their own coronavirus tests, which should significantly increase the country’s testing capacity.The effect could be rapid. About 80 labs and private companies have applied for emergency approval for tests they have already created. If they…

Men enter the Arlington Convention Center to receive their H1N1 flu vaccinations in Arlington, Texas November 24, 2009. Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi From Reuters: Doctors and minorities still have a dangerous mistrust of vaccines that became painfully clear during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday… In…