Politics, Science, and Other Assorted Musings
I love helping people understand issues and look at them from a different perspective. In this blog, I hope I can offer you some new insights—bridging the gap between basic science and your medicine chest—as I am still a practicing physician, as well as having had broad clinical research experience. I'm interested in developing new medicines and treatments, as well as caring for patients—and explaining these topics for you.
As medicine has evolved, so have my interests. I have also become increasingly interested in health disparities, social justice issues, and ethics. I invite you to join me as we explore a variety of territories. I hope that reading these posts will encourage you to learn, engage, and above all, work for the forces of good.
If there are topics you'd like to see me cover, please let me know—I welcome your input as to what you would like us to discuss in this column.
Coronavirus - COVID19
Please note that I will be posting Coronavirus Tidbits of news here. You can sign up for updates by clicking the box at the right and subscribe to Covid, Politics, and Science. All Covid posts will go here, and I will upload back issues as I have time. Please share w friends. Thanks!
I’m going to have a reference file here for articles I have found particularly worthwhile, and will update this here as we learn new information. Click on the COVID-19 Resources, below, to expand that.
If you see something terrific, please share. We’re all in this together.
Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Coronavirus Tidbits #24 News: My new post How Much Should You Worry About Your Pets? A Cat Was Confirmed To Be Infected With COVID19 By Its Owner ~ ~ ~ From Orban to Kaczynski, Wannabe Autocrats Love the Pandemic In Hungary and Poland — as in Israel and elsewhere — liberty suddenly seems cheap. Even in a pandemic, it shouldn’t be. bloomberg.com Hungarian legislature adopted an “empowerment law” (which sounds very much like the 1930’s “enabling act” which led to Hitler’s rise. Orban can now rule by decree, with no limits–indefinitely. It is an appalling story, done in the name of the coronavirus emergency. I wonder how many wannabe dictators will follow suit. He has extensive new powers including imprisoning people for “distorting” facts. The author, Andreas Kluth, says Poland and Hungary are providing a user’s manual for such takeovers, a “coronavirus coup.” He says Bibi, Cambodian PM, India’s Modi, and Brazil are following suit. Hungary and Poland have also stacked the court with loyalists who will presumably support their moves, and the EU can’t punish them w/o unanimity….
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Coronavirus Tidbits # News Fauci predicts millions of coronavirus cases in US, and more than 100,000 deaths Trump now agrees to extend the social distancing recommendation until the end of April, after recently saying he wanted the country “opened up and raring to go” by Easter” ~ ~ ~ This morning’s WTH? Pay cuts and withholding back pay for some doctors and nurses as they battle on the front line of #COVID19 https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/27/metro/coronavirus-rages-doctors-hit-with-cuts-compensation/?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe ~ ~ ~ Damning article on #preparedness vs profit: The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of #Ventilators. The Mission Failed. https://nyti.ms/3arXrzD ~ ~ ~ Lack of PPE and ventilators is criminal negligence: ER Doctor Sick With Coronavirus: ‘Nothing Right Now Is Sustainable’ | HuffPost More than 150 health care workers are out ill with COVID19 in Boston hospitals, though these are being attributed to community spread. The question remains, how soon will there be a desperate shortage of HCWs. And in Seattle, as I wrote yesterday, nurses are issuing…
Read MoreNews: Best news of the day: ‘Going full-on MacGyver’ – U of MN doctor creates makeshift ventilators to battle COVID-19 Even better, in some ways, he’s also made the plans OPEN Source and will be updating here Physical Prototype Video: https://youtu.be/3ssVoWEVxw4 CAD Prototype Video: https://youtu.be/RpEqtGa2vTI Diagnostics: Rapid diagnostic tests are winning approval, like this 5-minute coronavirus test by Abbott Laboratories that won emergency FDA approval The problem is that we don’t yet know enough about the accuracy of the tests, known as sensitivity and specificity? In particular, is a negative test really negative. Until we know more, many ID experts recommend assuming someone who has symptoms is infectious, even if the test is negative. Drugs: Trump’s push for risky malaria drugs disrupts coronavirus response “All this buzz is confusing the American public,” said one senior Health and Human Services official involved in drug policy. “Using untested medicines without the right evidence will raise false hope and even do more harm than good — and cause a shortage of essential medicines that are needed to treat other diseases,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization. The battle over chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine: On the one hand: Medical experts and scientists “We need to…
Read MoreNews Wondering if you should seek care for suspected COVID-19? Apple and CDC have a new app and symptom checker with a decision tool. https://www.apple.com/covid19 When can we stop the social distancing? We can’t…at least until there is widespread testing. Then you could monitor and slowly loosen restrictions in selected areas. “To consider letting off on social distancing will require sharp decline in cases, widely available rapid diagnostics wherever pts get clinical care, the right PPE available to all HCWS who need it, safe and good hospital capacity to deal with all pts with COVID.” Tom Inglesby, Johns Hopkins Here’s a thread by Scott Gottlieb that explains more: Our path to safety rests on massive support for our healthcare system to care for sick, and forceful steps by local leaders to break chains of transmission and quell epidemic spread. If we’re smart and aggressive across nation, cases nationally could peak by late April. Then what’s next? We’ll be able to transition away from population based tactics aimed at keeping people at home, to more case based interventions that target people with disease. But we’ll need new public health tools, technology, and tactics to make this transition work…more at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1243333347012751361.html ~~~…
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News: This is very exciting to me and the best news of the day. I met David Fajgenbaum at a conference to launch CURE ID, the Drug Repurposing program I’ve been excited about. Go watch this video, starting at ~3:42:14 of his remarkable story. He’s translated that drive into #COVID19 research now and his team has done remarkable work extracting data in just 6 days! Also go watch ~31:40” for a 10 minute talk from Shira Strongin (I’ve written about her and rare diseases before) on her life before and after a repurposed Hail Mary drug for her rare disease. I’ve been excited about drug repurposing for years for its potential to treat nearly untreatable infections (many of them “Neglected Tropical Diseases” (NTDs) and antibiotic resistant infections. And proud mama moment–daughter is the project lead for this. ~ ~ ~ One of today’s WTH??? While health care workers are using garbage bags for PPE, the Government has 1.5 million expired #N95 masks sitting in an Indiana warehouse and won’t share w hospitals #COVID19 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-government-mask-stockpile/2020/03/26/89d729c8-6f5b-11ea-96a0-df4c5d9284af_story.html #PPE #CBP ~ ~ ~ This is a must watch video: PSA Safe Grocery Shopping in COVID-19 Pandemic – Dr. Jeffrey VanWingen does a terrific job showing how to handle…
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Coronavirus Tidbits # 17 3/23-24/20 News I wrote a new post; I hope you will check it out here. Immigrant Detainees Are Sitting On A COVID-19 Time Bomb – First Infection Reported Mutating? The coronavirus is not mutating significantly according to scientists who are closely studying the novel pathogen’s genetic code. That relative stability suggests the virus is less likely to become more or less dangerous as it spreads, and represents encouraging news for researchers hoping to create a long-lasting vaccine. https://wapo.st/3aj046V https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/coronavirus-sars-cov-2-structure/ ~ ~ ~ At a time when we desperately need more doctors… “The status of more than 4,200 foreign doctors who were chosen to do medical residencies in American teaching hospitals — hospitals that will desperately need their help to cope with Covid-19 — is in doubt because the State Department has temporarily stopped issuing the visas (J1 visas) most of them would need to enter the country, according to a group that sponsors international medical graduates. Drugs/Treatments: New York will be the first state to test using antibody-rich plasma from recovered coronavirus patients in people who are ill. The treatment, known as convalescent plasma, could provide “passive immunity.” This is still several weeks away. For respiratory problems: The…
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With the help of the two Michael Stones, my website, https://www.drjudystone.com/politics-science-and-other-assorted-musings/, will be much more useful. It now has Google site search. Thanks, guys! (No idea what just happened w formatting here) News Health officials in hard-hit areas of the U.S. have a new message on coronavirus: Don’t get tested ~ ~ ~ STAY HOME! or physically away from others “One of the things that terrifies me now is, as this is spread in the west is, there’s this sense of invulnerability among millennials.” Millennials aren’t taking the coronavirus seriously, warns WHO’s Dr. Bruce Aylward https://ti.me/3bgRJ3Y by Sara Paglia photo Carlos Del Rio Doctors are desperate and dying now in NYC. Tell everyone to stay home and protect them and others. ALERT – Call your Congress people: The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023 Cases: Interesting Dataviz—watch the spread of Coronavirus across the country: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/us/coronavirus-us-cases-spread.html Symptoms: Besides loss of smell, which I reported in Forbes, now: COVID-19 may cause ocular (eye) signs and symptoms,…
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