(2020-12-15). From TMAP to Warp Speed: How Big Pharma Algorithms Fast-Track Unapproved Drugs and Vaccines. dissidentvoice.org Five of the pharmaceutical companies developing COVID-19 vaccines through the USA's Operation Warp Speed have paid out a total of nearly $6 billion to settle lawsuits charging them with fraud related to "off-label" marketing of atypical antipsychotics and antidepressants that were mandated through the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), which evolved into President George W. …
(2020-12-15). COVID's Covert Reengineering of Humanity. "Genetically Modified" Vaccines? globalresearch.ca The first Covid vaccines now being rushed onto the market are genetically modified products. However, they are not publicly referred to as such, because that would likely scare off a high percentage of would be recipients. | Nevertheless, the public …
(2020-12-15). Global Regulators Set Standards for Safe Vaccines. jamanetwork.com The International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are collaborating to create standards that ensure safe and equitable access to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) medicines and vaccines.
(2020-12-15). Workers Struggles: The Americas. wsws.org Health care workers in Ontario, Alberta and other provinces have protested inadequate COVID-19 safety measures while the disease is once again infecting hundreds at meatpacking plants.
(2020-12-15). Warning! Seniors and Healthcare Workers First in Line to Get the Experimental COVID Vaccine! globalresearch.ca With the FDA giving emergency use authorization (EUA) for the experimental Pfizer COVID mRNA vaccine, doses are currently in route to all 50 States and U.S. Territories. | In most of these states it is being reported that the first doses …
(2020-12-15). Association Between Depressive Symptoms and Incident Cardiovascular Diseases. jamanetwork.com This international study pooled individual-participant data from several long-term prospective studies to evaluate the relationship between depressive symptoms and incident cardiovascular disease.
(2020-12-15). Experts Discuss COVID-19: Vaccine Allocation, Placebo Groups, and More. jamanetwork.com This JAMA Live Highlights feature provides comments about the coronavirus 2019 pandemic from experts in clinical medicine, public health, and health policy expressed during livestream interviews with JAMA Network Editor in Chief Howard Bauchner, MD.
(2020-12-15). Conversational Agents in Health Care—Reply. jamanetwork.com In Reply Dr Darcy and colleagues from Woebot Health cite 2 references when suggesting that the CA field is more developed than our Viewpoint suggested. However, we find the use of these references as being off target for 2 reasons. First, both articles address symptom checkers. Symptom checkers typically ask patients preset questions and permit structured or limited free-text replies. Thus, we would not consider symptom checkers to be CAs. Our Viewpoint focused on technologies that accept and interpret a broad range of typed or spoken words, phrases, and sentences and that offer natural-sounding language response…
(2020-12-15). Exome Sequencing as Part of a Multidisciplinary Approach to Diagnosis. jamanetwork.com To the Editor The Viewpoint by Dr Friedman and colleagues on whole-exome sequencing claimed that the diagnosis of many genetic diseases cannot be based solely on molecular results but requires a multidisciplinary approach for a final diagnosis. The authors stated "Genomic variants classified as pathogenic or likely pathogenic may be seen in healthy people." This phenomenon has been described for genetically related kidney diseases in particular. We agree with the authors about using a multidisciplinary approach in the field of adult genetically related kidney diseases, in which the pretest probability of a geneti…
(2020-12-15). Patient Consumerism, Healing Relationships, and Rebuilding Trust in Health Care. jamanetwork.com This Viewpoint discusses barriers to building trust between physicians and patients and offers recommendations to increase that trust, including minimizing emphasis on patient consumerism, promoting authentic partnerships, and accelerating select payment and delivery system reforms.
(2020-12-15). Human-Centered Design and Trust in Medicine. jamanetwork.com This Viewpoint discusses how human-centered design (HCD) that involves all stakeholders can improve patient trust in physicians and health care systems, describes its methods, and provides examples of its successful application.
(2020-12-15). Russia Begins COVID-19 Vaccination Throughout Its Territory. telesurenglish.net Russia's Health Minister Mikhail Murashko on Tuesday announced the start of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country, adding that his institution has settled a national network for the transportation of the Sputnik V vaccine. | RELATED: | Besides announcing that President Vladimir Putin's administration will seek to attract new companies for the production of the vaccine, he explained that the conservation of Sputnik V will b…
(2020-12-15). Immediate action is needed after review finds male doctors are paid more than female colleagues. thecanary.co 
A doctors' union is calling for immediate action after a review found that male doctors are still being paid more than their female colleagues.Gender gap: The British Medical Association (BMA) said that the review, which is due to be published on 15 December, showed that, based on full-time equivalent pay: | Female doctors in hospitals are paid nearly 9% less than their male counterparts. | Female GPs are paid 15% less. | Clinical academics 11.5% less. | The review is titled Department of Health and Social Care's Mend The Gap: The Independent Review Into Gender Pay Gaps In Medicine In England. It's been re…
(2020-12-15). Northern Ireland hospital forced to treat patients in parked ambulances as Covid-19 cases surge. rt.com 
With no free beds available inside, a hospital in Northern Ireland resorted to treating patients in the back of ambulances pulled up at its car park, a medical official said, as the health service struggles amid the pandemic. | Northern Ireland is witnessing a spike in Covid-19 cases after it exited lockdown last week. Hospital capacity across the region reached 104 percent on Tuesday, according to local authorities. | Queues of ambulances have been spotted outside emergency departments across the country, with the worst situation being in the Mid and East Antrim districts. | A line of more than a dozen ambula…
(2020-12-15). As COVID Surges Behind Bars in California, Why Is San Quentin Transferring Hundreds of Prisoners? democracynow.org 
Prisons across the U.S. are facing their greatest swell in COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Nearly a quarter-million incarcerated people in the U.S. have been infected with COVID-19, according to the Marshall Project, and advocates are pushing for incarcerated people to be prioritized in the country's vaccine rollout. All of California's state prisons have active coronavirus cases, but the California Department of Corrections is continuing to transfer incarcerated people between institutions. San Quentin State Prison has begun the transfer of nearly 300 incarcerated people to other institutions…
(2020-12-15). The Enduring Importance of Trust in Leadership of Health Care Organizations. jamanetwork.com This Viewpoint discusses the declining trust in the US health care system, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the importance that maintaining public trust should hold in the culture of health care organizations.
(2020-12-15). Addressing Medical Misinformation in the Patient-Clinician Relationship. jamanetwork.com This Viewpoint describes why health misinformation spreads, characterizes a broader set of misinformation types, and discusses solutions to this problem.
(2020-12-15). Exome Sequencing as Part of a Multidisciplinary Approach to Diagnosis—Reply. jamanetwork.com In Reply Dr Doreille and colleagues share our opinion that a genetic disease diagnosis cannot be made on the basis of an exome-sequencing result alone but requires consideration of all of a patient's clinical features and consistency with the spectrum of clinical manifestations that occur in the disease being considered.
(2020-12-15). Conversational Agents in Health Care. jamanetwork.com To the Editor The Viewpoint by Dr McGreevey and colleagues drew attention to the increasing use of conversational agents (CAs) in health care. However, they suggested a less mature field than we find in practice, and their call for CA-specific regulations risks creating confusion.
(2020-12-15). To end the pandemic, WHO says $28 billion ACT project is 'the best deal in town'. news.un.org An international coalition aiming to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic needs $28 billion, a bargain price for stopping the damage done by a virus that has run rampant for the past year, a senior UN World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Tuesday.
(2020-12-15). 'US impeding imports of Covid-19 vaccine to Iran'. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Dec. 15 (MNA) — Explaining the details of financing the imports of the Coronavirus vaccine to Iran, the CBI Gov. Abdolnaser Hemmati said the US can revoke its permit to buy the vaccine at any moment it desires.
(2020-12-15). Warehouse Workers Are on the Front Lines of the Covid Crisis. zcomm.org They're Worried They'll Be Passed Over for the Vaccine…
(2020-12-15). The discussion about Corona. indybay.org Corona can only become a kairos if we gain the theoretical capacity of recovery and create the conditions for a transformation. Taking the healthcare system away from the markets and obliging large companies to be oriented in the common good would be steps to infrastructure socialism.
(2020-12-14). How to Cure America's Vaccine Paranoia. counterpunch.org 
The end is in sight, we are told. The cavalry has arrived in the form of safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 on the verge of approval and being manufactured for widespread distribution. The stock market has surged in response to every pharmaceutical company's press release of its latest successful clinical trial. Americans are expecting
(2020-12-14). Pandemic Failure, Vaccine Success Indict American Monopoly Capitalism. commondreams.org This vaccine victory is bittersweet. We have lost so many Americans to the virus, who didn't have to die. Many of them died because of stubbornly pro-capitalist public policy. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2020-12-14). Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Warned FDA About Ingredient in Pfizer COVID Vaccine that Likely Caused Life-Threatening Reaction in Two UK Healthcare Workers. globalresearch.ca An investigation this week identified polyethylene glycol (PEG) as the likely reason two people in the UK suffered anaphylaxis after receiving Pfizer's COVID vaccine. In September, CHD Chairman RFK, Jr. warned the FDA that PEG in COVID vaccines could lead …
(2020-12-14). "Digital Vaccine Passports": Yes, Bill Gates Said That. Here's the Proof. globalresearch.ca Gates and his minions insist the billionaire never said we'd need digital vaccine passports. But in a June 2020 TED Talk, Gates said exactly that. Someone edited out the statement, but CHD tracked down the original. | *** | Some chiseler altered…
(2020-12-14). CNN: 'Don't be Alarmed' if People Start Dying After Taking the Vaccine. globalresearch.ca In an article on the COVID vaccine rollout, CNN says that Americans shouldn't be alarmed if people start dying after taking the vaccine because "deaths may occur that won't necessarily have anything to do with the vaccine." | The advisory appeared …
(2020-12-14). Coronavirus Fact-Check #9: Is the Vaccine Safe? globalresearch.ca There are
(2020-12-14). Vaccine Thinking Applied to All of American Life. scheerpost.com Marco Verch Professional Photographer / CC BY 2.0] By Liz Theoharis / TomDispatch Martin Luther King, Jr., offered this all-too-relevant comment on his moment in his 1967 speech "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?": "The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the upper… |
(2020-12-14). South Asian women community health workers demand labor rights and occupational safety. peoplesdispatch.org On the International Day for Universal Health Coverage, Public Services International brought together Community Health Workers from India, Pakistan and Nepal for the launch of the campaign "Community Health Work is Work"
(2020-12-14). Cautionary Tale: This COVID Vaccine Could Heighten HIV Risk for Some, Scientists Warn. globalresearch.ca In a The researchers — from the Fred Hutchinson …
(2020-12-14). Thousands are facing famine in Yemen due to continuing war and lack of foreign aid. thecanary.co Thousands of people in Yemen are on the brink of According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), 13.5m people in Yemen are facing high food insecurity. From analysis during October to December, the IPC found that about 16,500 people are facing a "catastrophe" level of food insecurity. | The IPC projected this to increase in 2021, leading to around 47,000 people enduring the highest level of food insecurity by June.
(2020-12-14). New Analysis of Fracking Science (nearly 2,000 studies) Finds Grave Health, Environmental Justice, and Climate Impacts. commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2020-12-14). Who gets vaccinated for COVID-19 next (and who won't). salon.com Healthcare workers started receiving the approved Pfizer vaccine Monday…
(2020-12-14). NJ Lawmaker Wants Mandatory Corona Shot for All Kids Without Exemption. globalresearch.ca A State Senator in New Jersey wants the coronavirus vaccine made mandatory for all school age children, despite them being the least at risk group. | Middlesex Democrat Senator Joseph Vitale also wants to eliminate exemptions that have been used in …
(2020-12-14). Pandemic Lessons for the Rest of Us. zcomm.org Or Vaccine Thinking Applied to All of American Life…
(2020-12-14). Americans Are Drowning in Debt. Let's Forgive All of It. zcomm.org In the age of Covid-19, it's time to end our debt epidemic once and for all…
(2020-12-14). What if Scientists Already Know How to Prevent the Next Pandemic? thenation.com What if Scientists Already Know How to Prevent the Next Pandemic?
(2020-12-14). US Republicans Four Times Likely Than Democrats to Refrain From Taking COVID-19 Vaccine – Poll. sputniknews.com On Monday, some people in the United States, the world's biggest pandemic hotspot, began receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, developed in cooperation between the US-based Pfizer and the German-based BioNTech SE companies, after the emergency use of the shot was authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday.
(2020-12-13). Covid-19: Bahrain approves vaccine from Chinese drug giant Sinopharm. middleeasteye.net 
Covid-19: Bahrain approves vaccine from Chinese drug giant Sinopharm | Gulf country launches online registration scheme for all residents over 18 to receive the vaccine for free | Sun, 12/13/2020 – 17: 23 | China has four vaccines in development, three of which – including Sinopharm – use an inactivated form of the novel coronavirus to boost immunity (AFP) | Bahrain said on Sunday that it…
(2020-12-13). AZ educators organize sickout amid highest rate of COVID-19. fightbacknews.org Tucson, AZ – When the Chandler Unified School District governing board decided to stay with in-person instruction as Arizona continues to experience another spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths, some educators organized their resistance in the form of a sickout. Over 100 educators in CUSD called in sick on Friday, December 11 to express their opposition to the negligent board. The local union, Chandler Education Association (CEA) had issued a number of demands that include: educator representation on the district COVID committee, use of the more stringent county health metrics, and creating a COVID Task Force of ed…
(2020-12-13). "There is no vaccine to save the planet" indybay.org In the Arctic, 2020 has seen exceptional warmth, with temperatures more than 3 degrees Celsius above average – and more than 5 degrees in northern Siberia. Arctic sea ice in October was the lowest on record – and now re-freezing has been the slowest on record. Greenland ice has continued its long-term decline, losing an average of 278 gigatons a year.
(2020-12-13). Science Magazine Report Praises China's COVID-19 Vaccine. popularresistance.org The Science magazine website has just published a report praising a Covid-19 vaccine China has developed and referred to its "outstanding efficacy data" as a relevant feature, compared to the other vaccines out in the market. The vaccine, developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group (CNPG), had been under phase III trials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since June, involving 31,000 volunteers from 125 countries and regions. | The UAE announced on Wednesday the official registration of the Chinese company's COVID-19 vaccine. According to a statement issued by the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention, th…
(2020-12-12). [World Report] Humanitarian access deal for Tigray. thelancet.com Humanitarian groups will be allowed into Tigray, Ethiopia, where conflict has displaced thousands and strained health services. Sharmila Devi reports.
(2020-12-12). [Articles] Genome-edited, donor-derived allogeneic anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T cells in paediatric and adult B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: results of two phase 1 studies. thelancet.com These two studies show, for the first time, the feasibility of using allogeneic, genome-edited CAR T cells to treat patients with aggressive leukaemia. UCART19 exhibited in-vivo expansion and antileukaemic activity with a manageable safety profile in heavily pretreated paediatric and adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. The results this study are an encouraging step forward for the field of allogeneic CAR T cells, and UCART19 offers the opportunity to treat patients with rapidly progressive disease and where autologous CAR-T-cell therapy is unavailable.
(2020-12-12). [Correspondence] Cardiovascular preventive strategies are not conflicting. thelancet.com We agree with Michael Brainin and Karen Sliwa1 about the urgent need to improve the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease but would like to correct some other points they raise. Brainin and Sliwa suggest that we2 promoted high-risk approaches over population-based approaches; however, we stated that "Too often debate about prevention of cardiovascular disease is polarised between opposing evangelists for the high-risk and population-wide approaches. An agnostic approach based on effectiveness and cost-effectiveness is preferable.
(2020-12-12). [Obituary] Valerie Curtis. thelancet.com Engineer turned hygiene scientist and public health advocate. She was born in Seascale, UK, on Sept 20, 1958, and died of vaginal cancer in Haywards Heath, UK, on Oct 19, 2020, aged 62 years.
(2020-12-12). [Correspondence] Association of SARS-CoV-2 renal tropism with acute kidney injury. thelancet.com In their report on the association of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) renal tropism with acute kidney injury, Fabian Braun and colleagues1 do not appear to have provided evidence for acute kidney injury as defined in the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) clinical practice guidelines—that is, an increase in serum creatinine (SCr) by 26 ∑5 Œºmol/L or more within 48 h; an increase in SCr to 1 ∑5 times or more from baseline, which is known or presumed to have occurred within the previous 7 days; or a urine volume of less than 0 ∑5 ml/kg per h f…
(2020-12-12). [Seminar] Primary biliary cholangitis. thelancet.com Primary biliary cholangitis is an autoimmune liver disease that predominantly affects women. It is characterised by a chronic and destructive, small bile duct, granulomatous lymphocytic cholangitis, with typical seroreactivity for antimitochondrial antibodies. Patients have variable risks of progressive ductopenia, cholestasis, and biliary fibrosis. Considerations for the cause of this disease emphasise an interaction of chronic immune damage with biliary epithelial cell responses and encompass complex, poorly understood genetic risks and environmental triggers.