Six on History: The 'Rona
panaritisp
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"Over the past year, ordinary medical research nearly ground to a halt as researchers focused on coronavirus vaccine trials and treatments. Single-mindedness paid off. Drugmakers developed lifesaving vaccines in record time, and now a third of Americans are at least partially vaccinated.
But ultimately, the pandemic is a once-in-a-century crisis that may force health professionals and medical schools to look beyond the traditional tools of modern medicine and think more broadly about how we train doctors to grapple with public health catastrophes.
There were signs of a reckoning at the very start of the pandemic. When Covid-19 hit the Northeast, the Yale School of Medicine moved classes online and pulled many students off clinical rotations. “The dean sent an email that said, go home, take this time to study,” Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako, a Yale medical student, told me. “I thought, oh my God, I can’t imagine studying for an exam right now.” Mr. Tiako and a small number of the faculty and students worked together to create new courses that students could take instead, including an intriguing elective called “Covid-19: A History of the Present.”
The class — convened over Zoom, of course — gave the 65 students who signed up an opportunity to document and analyze their pandemic experiences. Some were helping friends and family sift through unreliable medical information; others were caring for children or volunteering in underserved communities in New Haven. But the course was also a beachhead for the medical humanities, a broad field that includes disciplines ranging from philosophy and history to visual art, creative writing and film. The medical humanities focus on a question: “What does it mean to make a healer, to train people who can attend to suffering?” Joanna Radin, a Yale historian who helped teach the new class, told me."
I’m gonna push back on this article a bit.
Here are the facts that I think would warrant more investigation. I am not saying that there’s anything conclusive on either side of the argument.
- Gain of Function research resumed in 2017 after a ban under the Obama administration as it was deemed a pandemic risk. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/nih-to-resume-funding-controversial-gain-of-function-research
- Wuhan lab, sponsored by CDC, used gain of function research on Corona bat viruses: https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments-that-may-have-started-coronavirus-pandemic-1500503
- Not all experts are so sure there’s no lab leak involved. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/18/1021030/coronavirus-leak-wuhan-lab-scientists-conspiracy/
Again, I remain skeptical and am not claiming anything conclusive here.
From: Panaritis Philip <panar...@yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, April 12, 2021 at 9:25 AM
To: Panaritis Philip <panar...@yahoo.com>, Me <jelf...@gmail.com>
Subject: Commentary: Keep alert against sinister political manipulations on COVID-19 origin tracing research, ECNS.CN
"Political manipulations on COVID-19 origin tracing are as deadly as the virus as they damage the two most needed elements in the arduous anti-pandemic fight -- global solidarity and scientific spirit.
Some Western media have published two open letters recently denying the conclusion of the World Health Organization (WHO) experts on COVID-19 origin tracing research, dealing another baseless attack on China.
Smearing China-WHO cooperation and spreading ill-motivated assumptions, the letters are full of fallacies, which are in essence political manipulations with a sinister intention and should be alerted against.
Mainly drafted by people without medical or other scientific backgrounds like Jamie Metzl, a former member of the White House National Security Council, both letters despicably call the joint study of WHO and China an "investigation" with a presumption of guilt.
On March 30, after a field study in China's central city of Wuhan by a group of international experts, the WHO issued a report saying animals probably transmitted the novel coronavirus to human beings in two scenarios, yet the tracing of the virus's origin remains underway.
Through their scientific research on the virus's origin, Chinese and WHO experts have expanded humanity's knowledge in this regard.
However, just because the results practically denied the unfounded speculation that the pandemic was caused by a leak from a lab in Wuhan, making the pedlars of conspiracy theories disappointed, the latest so-called open letter challenged the scientists' integrity by disregarding the fact that the members of the international expert group participating in the field study were widely representative and scientifically independent.
The timing of the two letters, with the first published before the release of the WHO report and the second after, was hardly a coincidence.
Actually, such manipulations are just another clumsy ploy of those habitual China-bashers, who have been stubborn in seizing any chance to attack Beijing.
When the global health crisis caught the world off guard, they were so eager to blame Beijing that they totally ignored the WHO warning and thus missed the window to control the pandemic. When China started to cooperate with WHO on tracing the virus's origin, they still addicted themselves to criticizing China with groundless allegations.
Shamefully, acts like distorting facts, shifting blames, defying scientific results and smearing China's cooperation with WHO and other countries have distracted the global fight and disrupted international cooperation against the coronavirus.
China's contribution to the anti-pandemic fight is undeniable. Take the virus origin tracing effort as an example. Despite difficulties in epidemic prevention and control at home, Beijing invited WHO experts to come to China twice for the endeavor. ... "
"Emergent BioSolutions, the troubled manufacturer at the heart of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine production problems, gave its chief executive officer a 51 percent increase in total compensation in 2020, to $5.6 million, according to a public filing Friday.
The annual proxy disclosure by the publicly traded company said CEO Robert Kramer received $893,000 in salary, a $1.2 million bonus, $2.1 million in stock awards, and $1.4 million in stock options.
The company said in its filing for investors that Emergent’s response to the pandemic last year played a role in Kramer’s bonus, citing the expansion of its contract manufacturing business and other advances, including a successful bond offering. It had a 41 percent increase in revenue in 2020. Kramer rose to the top job at the company in 2019 after serving in a number of other high-level executive jobs there since 2012.
Emergent did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.
As a federal contractor specializing in biodefense and emergency response, Emergent’s 2020 financial success was fueled in large part by a burst of federal spending to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
It received $628 million in a federal contract to upgrade and reserve cacpacity. It also signed vaccine manufacturing agreements with Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca at its Baltimore manufacturing facility as those companies raced to develop and produce vaccines to fulfill government orders.
But manufacturing problems at Emergent became public on March 31 after Emergent ruined a large volume of Johnson & Johnson’s raw vaccine substance — representing up to 15 million doses. Federal officials said it was contaminated with ingredients from the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The mishaps have compounded delays in the FDA’s certification of the plant for Johnson & Johnson vaccine production. Until that certification is granted, raw vaccine substance made there cannot be released to the public, forcing Johnson & Johnson to rely on a trickle of imports from a production plant in the Netherlands.
The government has slashed the amount of vaccine allocated to states from Johnson & Johnson and the company has backed off its previous pledge to deliver 24 million doses of vaccines to the federal government in April. Emergent’s stock price reached a high this year of $125 in February; on Friday it closed at $77.40.
An April 2020 FDA inspection report at the plant documented concerns, The Washington Post reported this month. Some employees had not been properly trained, records were not adequately secured, and established testing procedures were not being followed. Additionally, a measure intended to “prevent contamination or mix-ups” was found to be deficient.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that a federal official had warned in June 2020 that Emergent would have to be closely monitored in its vaccine work because of concerns about operations there, including insufficient staffing levels and training gaps.
Emergent has not publicly discussed the nature of problems at its plant in any detail. It told The Post on April 1 that since the negative FDA findings in April 2020, it hosted two subsequent FDA visits that included "reviews of the progress on the items cited in past FDA visits.”
In response to the manufacturing problems, Emergent has received another $23 million from the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to purchase more vaccine manufacturing equipment that will allow for the potential expansion of Johnson & Johnson operations. Emergent has said it is working with the government and AstraZeneca to "on a mutually agreed ramp-down of manufacturing for AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine bulk drug substance.''
“Emergent’s top priority continues to be the strengthening of the supply chain for Johnson & Johnson’s vitally needed COVID-19 vaccine,” Kramer said in an April 4 company press release. “We have been working closely with Johnson & Johnson and welcome the additional oversight and support at our Bayview facility.''
