Republicans are morally bankrupt

 By Drew Sheneman

No vaccine for stupidity

 By Dave Whamond

Marx and the Seldon paradox

 From David Brin, the SF author

[...] There is another, related concept – the Seldon Paradox, named after Hari Seldon, the lead character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation universe, who develops mathematical models of human behavior that are sagaciously predictive across future centuries. In that science fictional series, Seldon’s methods are kept secret from the galaxy’s vast human population – on twenty-five million inhabited worlds – because the models will fail, if everyone knows about them and uses them.

This effect is well-known by militaries, of course. It is also why so many supposed tricks to predict or game the Stock Market – even if they work at first – collapse as soon as they are widely known. 

But the Seldon Paradox goes further. A good model that stops working, because of widespread awareness, might later-on start to work again, once that failure becomes assumed by everyone.

One example would be what happened in my parents’ generation, that of the Depression and the Second World War. At the time, everyone read Karl Marx. And I do mean almost everyone. Even the most vociferous anti-Marxists could quote whole passages, putting effort into understanding their enemy. 

You can see this embedded in many works of the time, from nonfiction to novels to movies. All the way to Ayn Rand, whose entire scenario can be decrypted as deeply Marxist! Though heretically-so, because she cut his sequence off at the penultimate stage, and called the truncated version good.

Indeed, Asimov’s Hari Seldon was clearly (if partially) based upon Marx.

Particularly transfixing to my parents' generation were Marx’s depictions of class war, as power and wealth grew ever more concentrated in a few families, leading – his followers assumed – to inevitable revolt by the working classes. So persuasive was the script that, in much of the wealthy American caste, there arose a determination to cancel their own demise with social innovations!

One, innovation, in particular, the Marxists never expected was named Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose game plan to save his own class was to fork over much of the wealth and power by investing heavily to uplift the workers into a prosperous, educated and confident Middle Class. One that would then be unmotivated to enact Karl's scenario.

Or, as Joe Kennedy was said to have said: "I'd rather have half my fortune taken to make the workers happy than lose it all, and my head, in revolution." (Or something to that effect.)

== It worked, SO well that eventually... ==

Whether or not you agree with my appraisal here, the results were beyond dispute. The GI Bill generation built vast infrastructure, supported science, chipped away at prejudice, and flocked to new universities, where the egalitarian trend doubled and redoubled, as their children stepped forth to confidently compete with the scions of aristocracy. And thusly brought a flawed but genuinely vibrant version of Adam Smith's flat-fair-open-competitive miracle to life! That is, until…

…until all recollection of Karl Marx and his persuasive scenarios seemed dusty, irrelevant, and mostly forgotten. Until the driving force behind Rooseveltism – to cancel out communism through concentrated egalitarian opportunity – became a distant memory. 

At which point, lo and behold, conditions of wealth and power began shifting back into patterns that fit into Old Karl’s models with perfect snugness! With competition-destroying cartels and cabals. With aristocracies greedily and insatiably vampiring the system that had given them everything. (Ayn Rand's elite 'looters.") With the working classes fleeced, like sheep. And then (so far figuratively) eaten.

At which point the writings of Marx – consigned for 80 years into the dustbin – have regained interest from disgusted, formerly upward-mobile classes. Books that are now flying off the shelves, all over the world, pored-over eagerly… 

...but not by those who need awareness the most. Surrounded by sycophants and flatterers, they will deem themselves to be demigods, until the tumbrels come for them. Or until another FDR rescues them, in the nick of time. (Don't count on it.)

Because of the Seldon Paradox. 

== And yes, the anti-vax movement is another example ==

There are reasons why the Greatest Generation adored FDR above all other living humans. And the next American so-beloved? His name was Jonas Salk. The Man Who Gave Kids Back Their Summer....

...because until the miracle of his vaccine, parents terrified of polio kept their children away from public parks and swimming pools... and I barely remember parent-talk of their joy and relief, letting me stroll the neighborhood and nearby streets in safety.

How does this relate? Childhood vaccinations worked so well that most citizens forgot how much people suffered from two dozen lethal and "non lethal" diseases such as measles, mumps, etc. And they forgot the horrors of polio and diphtheria and tetanus (reputed to be the very worst way to die.)  And yeah. The Anti-Vax movement well resembles phase one of the Seldon Paradox. 

And woefully we are already seeing signs of phase two. 

[....]

Some other pieces I have written on this subject:

People try to help one another 

Most political unrest caused by soaring inequality

Big scary radical left agenda

The richest Americans get even richer

In the US, they think we're communists

Where Adam Smith went wrong

Anti-vax is based on a faked paper

RFK jr, Minister (Secretary) of Health in the USA

From The Guardian, 15 years ago:

The Lancet today finally retracted the paper that sparked a crisis in MMR vaccination across the UK, following the General Medical Council's decision that its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, had been dishonest.

The medical journal's editor, Richard Horton, told the Guardian today that he realised as soon as he read the GMC findings that the paper, published in February 1998, had to be retracted. "It was utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false," he said. "I feel I was deceived."

Many in the scientific and medical community have been pressing for the paper, linking the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab to bowel disease and autism, to be quashed. But Horton said he did not have the evidence to do so before the end of the GMC investigation last Thursday.

In 2004, when concerns were first raised about the conduct of the study, the Lancet asked the Royal Free hospital, where Wakefield and his fellow authors worked, to investigate. But Professor Humphrey Hodgson, then vice-dean of the Royal Free and University College school of medicine, wrote to the journal to say it had found no problems. "We are entirely satisfied that the investigations performed on children reported in the Lancet paper had been subjected to appropriate and rigorous ethical scrutiny," he said at that time.

The GMC last week disagreed. Children had been subjected to invasive procedures that were not warranted, a disciplinary panel ruled. They had undergone lumbar punctures and other tests solely for research purposes and without valid ethical approval.

Wakefield "was dishonest", said Horton. "He deceived the journal." The Lancet had done what it could to establish that the research was valid, by having it peer-reviewed. But there is a limit, he said, to what peer-review can ascertain.

"Peer review is the best system we have got for checking accuracy and acceptability of work, but unless we went into the lab or examined every case record, we can't ever finally rule out some element of misconduct. The entire system depends upon trust. Most of the time we think it works well, but there will be a few instances – and when they happen they are huge instances – where the whole thing falls apart."

When journals have suspicions of fraud or misconduct, they have to refer them to the institution employing the scientists. "We rely on the processes within institutions to investigate allegations of fraud, and if they are found to be wanting, that is extremely disappointing," he said.

Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, author of books on the MMR scare, said the retraction was "good news – only 10 years too late".

I was given the MMR vaccine, as were my children.  And I'm glad of it. 

 

Another measles death

 By Bill Bramhall

So this is what red America looks like

 By Bill Bramhall

Measles

 Apposite, because JFK jnr, a virulent anti-vaxxer, has been appointed secretary for health in the USA.

Vaccines cause autism!!!!

 From Pat Bagley.

RFK junior is a noted anti-vaxxer, as well as being the new Secretary for Health.  He also has admitted to having a brain-worm.

Wegovy dramatically cuts cancer risk

From The Guardian

Weight-loss drugs offer a new weapon in the global fight against cancer, with “enormous potential” to [both] prevent new cases and shrink tumours, doctors said as research showed the jabs can cut the risk of developing the disease by a fifth.

Blockbuster injections such as Wegovy [Ozempic] have revolutionised the treatment of obesity, and recently been approved for use in other areas of medicine, including reducing the risk of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular-related deaths.

Now experts say they increasingly believe weight-loss drugs could play a big role in preventing and treating cancer, the second leading cause of deaths globally.

A study presented at the world’s largest cancer conference found patients taking the drugs were 19% less likely to develop 13 obesity-related cancers, including ovarian, liver, colorectal, pancreatic, bowel and breast cancer.

The research involving 34,000 people, led by the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, also found patients were half as likely to die over 15 years compared with patients not taking the jabs, also known as GLP-1 receptor agonists (RA).

The study co-authors, Dr Cindy Lin and Dr Benjamin Liu, said: “Our findings are significant in that they could change the paradigm of obesity management by suggesting early intervention with GLP-1 RAs could delay or prevent obesity-related cancer development.” There could be “multiple” ways in which the drugs cut the risk of cancer – not just by helping people to lose weight, they added.

A second study published at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting suggested weight-loss drugs could reduce the risk of cancer coming back in breast cancer patients – and boost their prospects of long-term survival. Researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York said the jabs could cut the risk of cancer recurrence and be a “new tool” against the disease.

A third paper released at ASCO and led by Yale University, also looking at breast cancer patients, suggested taking weight-loss drugs reduced the chances of the disease returning.

Speaking in Chicago at ASCO, Dr Mitchell Lazar, the director of the institute for diabetes, obesity and metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said: “GLP-1 based therapies are highly effective at producing weight loss, and thus one of the fundamental mechanisms by which they improve cancer outcomes is via the impressive weight loss that they produce.

“Obesity is a risk factor for nearly all cancers, in both men and women. Thus the revolution in the medical treatment of obesity has enormous potential to prevent new cancers, reduce the severity and growth rate of existing tumours, and synergise with new cancer-specific therapies.”

Dr Jennifer Ligibel, a senior physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who was not involved with the studies, said: “These are exciting, preliminary findings of a link between use of GLP-1 RAs and cancer risk.” They added to previous work suggesting the drugs could reduce cancer risk, she added.

A study published last December showed they were associated with a 50% reduced risk of bowel cancer in people with type 2 diabetes. “Individuals with diabetes who were prescribed a GLP-1 RA had a lower risk of colorectal cancer as compared with individuals who were not prescribed one of these drugs,” Ligibel said.

Dr Julie Gralow, the chief medical officer of ASCO, said the evidence was not clear yet as to whether the potential benefits of weight-loss drugs in reducing cancer risk were just as a result of weight loss – or whether there were other, unknown factors at play.

Gralow, a world-renowned cancer expert who was named woman oncologist of the year in 2023, said she was absolutely certain the jabs would become a much greater focus of cancer prevention research in the future. “The more we can do to reduce the risk factors and prevent cancer, the better,” she added.

“I do think that there are so many potential and already proven health benefits to these drugs, that it would be icing on the cake if we saw that they were also reducing cancers.

“I am very hopeful about overall improvements in health from this class of drugs.”

Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, Prof Charles Swanton, cautioned it was still “early days”. There have been suggestions the drugs could even raise the risk of certain cancers, although recent research on thyroid cancer and pancreatic cancer has cast doubt on those concerns.

“Well-designed prospective trials with randomised data will provide more clarity on the potential and safety of weight-loss drugs to lower people’s risk of cancer,” said Swanton.

One wonders what the antiscience and antivaxxers think about this.  Will the far right take us back to the middle ages, more than just socially?

The war on science

From ClimateCrocks

When major corporations realized that mainstream science was a threat to their business models, they began the now 50 year long global War on Science – mustering the vast resources of the richest organizations the world has ever known, and the most sophisticated psychological tools of influence, they have destroyed the ability for a large part of our population to distinguish what is real, and what is not.

They wanted us to believe that cigarettes are fine, that acid rain was overblown, and that climate change was a hoax, perpetrated by evil scientists who wanted to control us. They’ve been wildly successful, and that success has bled over into a number of related areas.

Financial Times (paywall):


It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when the Republican party became the anti-science party, but the process probably began in the 1980s, when the Christian right first emerged as a major force in conservative American politics.

Since then, the journey has been smooth and swift. In 1982, 50 per cent of self-identified Republicans told the US general social survey they had “a great deal of confidence” in the scientific community. Twenty years later 50 per cent had become 40, and last year just one-third of Republicans held that view, compared to two-thirds of Democrats.

It would be easy to dismiss this trend as merely exasperating — an obstacle to progress on climate change and a source of irritation at extended family gatherings — but over the past 18 months, the politicisation of attitudes to science may have directly cost as many as 60,000 American lives.
This is the stark implication of a new study from the Yale school of public health, which found that since Covid vaccines became widely available in the US, the mortality rate of registered Republicans in Ohio and Florida climbed by 33 per cent during America’s winter Covid wave last year, compared with just a 10 per cent rise among Democrats.

Since vaccines became available, Covid death rates are now almost three times higher in Republican areas than Democrat-dominated ones. With pandemics likely a recurring part of our future, anti-vaccine attitudes and the populist movements that carry them will continue to hamper public health campaigns across the world. But no developed country has a problem as entrenched and as lethal as the US.

I'm fighting tyranny

 I can't read the signature, and a Google search didn't turn up any plausible candidates, so I can't give due credit for this cartoon.  If you recognise it, let me know in a comment. [Update, 26/6/22: It's Ted Littleford.  Thanks to Calamity Jean.]

A visual argument for vaccines

 From a Twitter thread by Rachel Clarke

A ward of polio victims, incarcerated inside "iron lungs" in 1950s America. Many are children, their lungs paralysed, unable to breathe unaided. Thanks to vaccination, no-one has caught polio in the UK since the 1980s.

How effective are 3 doses of vaccine?

 From The Conversation

Since Omicron was detected in South Africa in late November, the SARS-CoV-2 variant has spread to more than 165 countries and is now the dominant strain.

Omicron has more mutations than other strains: 72 in total, the most concerning of which make the virus more transmissible and better able to evade the immune system and vaccines.

So how does Omicron differ to Delta in infectiousness, symptoms, severity and vaccine protection.

The basic reproduction number (R0) is one gauge of the infectiousness of a virus. It tells you how many susceptible people a single infected person will themselves go on to infect.

Danish researchers estimate the effective reproduction number of Omicron is 3.19 times more than that of Delta, which had an average R0 of 5 (ranging from 3.2 to 8).

Similarly, Japanese research concludes Omicron is 4.2 times more transmissible than Delta early on.

So, in a fully susceptible (unvaccinated and uninfected) population, one person with Delta would, on average, infect five other people, while one person with Omicron could transmit the virus to about 20 others.

This makes Omicron one of the most infectious agents known.

Another practical indicator of a virus’s infectiousness is how easily it spreads within households. This is known as the secondary attack rate.

Studies from various countries have consistently shown Omicron has a higher secondary attack rate in households than Delta. In a household with Omicron, householders have a 14-50% chance of getting infected.

Omicron’s varied mutations allow it to evade the immunity generated by both previous infections and vaccination.

Studies have also shown Omicron infects and multiplies in the upper airways 70 times faster than Delta.

There also seems to be more asymptomatic infections with Omicron. This probably facilitates transmission, as people don’t realise they’re infected and will move around normally.

Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta. Part of this may be due to Omicron being less able to infect lungs as it does the upper airways.

The risk of hospitalisation and ICU admissions from Omicron are 40-80% lower than with Delta.

The risk of death is about 60% less with Omicron than with Delta.

Yet despite the reduced severity, this wave of Omicron has been associated with higher rates of hospitalisations in many countries because of the sheer numbers of those infected.

The only silver lining has been how the Omicron wave peaked within a few weeks in numerous countries, with hospitalisation and daily case numbers quickly coming down.

After 20 weeks, two doses of either mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna), reduced the risk of infection with Omicron by only around 10%.

By the same point in time, two doses of AstraZeneca essentially provide no protection against infection with Omicron.

However, two doses of vaccine still prevent severe disease, with a vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation of up to 35% six months later. This is less than half as effective as the protection offered against hospitalisation with Delta.

A booster dose of vaccine improves your protection against Omicron. Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation is 83% ten or more weeks after the booster.

Protection against symptomatic disease increases too. Vaccine effectiveness is 65-75% two to four weeks after the booster, reducing to 45-50% ten weeks after the booster.

Pfizer and Moderna have also developed an Omicron-specific vaccine which they are about to test in clinical trials and could be available in the second half of 2022.

Boosters work

 From a Twitter post by Edouard  Mathieu, Head of Data at Our World In Data

Update: Switzerland now reports deaths by booster status.

Compared to unvaccinated people, the COVID mortality rate is:

• 9x lower after full vaccination

• 48x lower after a booster

Note that this is the weekly death rate

Why haven't you ended the pandemic?

 A cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Vaxx refuser

 A cartoon by Matt Davies

The anti-vaxxers cry

There have been violent protests by "tradie" and far-right anti-vaxxers in Melbourne.  Their cry: "I don't want to put any fucken foreign matter into my body"

Note the beer bottle in his right hand!

Now they tell me

 A cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Don't shove your vaccines down my throat

 A cartoon by Pat Bagley

That's *my* job

 A cartoon by Kevin Siers