A bill passed by the state legislature in March then signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis allows Colorado to further uncouple itself from federal guidance.

The law allows health officials to follow the recommendations of national medical groups when making decisions such as purchasing bulk vaccines for the Medicaid program.

“We are insulating our state from the dysfunction coming out of Washington,” said Democratic state Sen. Kyle Mullica, a co-sponsor of the bill and a registered nurse. “We’re going to rely on science.”

“From fighting during the pandemic for Coloradans to get vaccines as quickly as possible to combating the Trump Administration’s barriers to getting vaccinated, we have expanded access to vaccines for Coloradans who want them,” Polis said in a statement when he signed the law.

Colorado is one of at least 29 states that, along with Washington, D.C., have taken steps to bypass the new federal recommendations amid worries that the changes could chip away at public trust in vaccines and erode broad vaccine coverage.

Previously, Colorado, like most states, had followed federal guidance set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In January, CDC advisory panelists, selected by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., removed six pediatric immunizations from the agency’s universal recommendation list.

Last year, doctors, scientists, local leaders, and other supporters came together to form an outreach and advocacy coalition called Colorado Chooses Vaccines.

The group aims to offer a clear, unified voice on the proven benefits of vaccines and reassure residents confused by the many federal changes.

Carol Boigon, a former Denver City Council member, joined the group because she wants more people to hear her own chilling story about vaccine-preventable illness.

“Every summer everybody got sick,” Boigon said, recounting her childhood in 1950s Detroit.

The illness was polio, a highly contagious viral disease that attacks the nervous system, sometimes causing partial or full paralysis.

During the summer of 1953, “the whole block was sick and some of us got crippled, and that was just the way it was,” she said.

New Group Steps Up

Boigon’s personal history will be part of the coalition’s work to educate new generations about the dangers of infectious diseases that were once common in the U.S. but are now relatively rare.

The group, which formed last September, will also compile vaccine information from medical groups and the state health department and advocate for policy proposals with the state government.

“It was in direct response to the federal threats,” said another coalition member, former state lawmaker Susan Lontine. She leads the nonprofit Immunize Colorado.

Another member, public relations specialist Elizabet Garcia, wants more outreach to Hispanics, whose vaccination rates lag behind other groups’.

“A lot of time it’s this fear that they’re going to have to pay out-of-pocket, that their insurance doesn’t cover it, that they might not even have insurance in general,” Garcia said.

Boigon was 5 when she got sick and was hospitalized for six weeks with a fever. The virus attacked her spine.

“None of my limbs worked immediately afterwards,” Boigon said.

Although she regained function in her other limbs, her right arm never fully recovered. She had to adapt, relearning everyday tasks such as reaching out to shake hands with people with her left hand.

In 1955, not long after she got sick, the new polio vaccine became more widely available to the public. As vaccinations took off, U.S. cases of polio, once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, dropped by an estimated 85%-90%.

Increasing Public Trust

State leaders have taken other steps to promote public health. After the Trump administration pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, several states, including Colorado, decided to join the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network on their own.

Colorado also joined a multistate lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

And the new state law has provisions besides allowing the state to diverge from federal recommendations. It codifies pharmacists’ ability to prescribe and give vaccines themselves. It also increases legal protections for healthcare workers who give vaccines.

“This law will provide more clarity to guide all Coloradans, including providers who administer vaccines,” Lontine said.

But the legislation has opponents who say it would interfere with parental choice and claim vaccines might be unsafe or ineffective.

“I just want to make sure we’re not just getting into a big political dispute between the federal recommendations — the CDC and so forth — and different political views in Colorado here,” said Republican state Sen. John Carson, who voted against the vaccine bill.

NPR contacted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services about Colorado’s new law. Spokesperson Emily Hilliard answered in an email: “The updated CDC childhood schedule continues to protect children against serious diseases.”

Preventable Illnesses Surge

The flurry of statewide activity comes as Colorado and the nation have seen surges in illnesses such as flu and measles.

As of mid-May, Colorado had recorded 22 measles cases this year. In 2025, it registered 36 cases, according to the state health department, far surpassing totals from previous years.

Across Colorado, kindergarten vaccination rates for measles were 88% last school year — with only a few counties achieving rates of 95%, the level needed for herd immunity, according to data published by The Washington Post in December.

This has also been Colorado’s worst flu season in recent years.

Vaccination rates for both flu and covid-19 have dropped slightly in Colorado, according to the state health department.

Eight children in Colorado have died this season from flu; one from covid; and one from RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. Vaccines for all three are available for children and recommended by the state’s health department.

Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has defended his decisions to overhaul the recommended schedule for childhood vaccinations.

In March, a federal judge put on hold many of the changes.

“We’re not taking vaccines away from anybody. If you want to get the vaccine, you could get it. It’s going to be fully covered by insurance just like it was before,” Kennedy told CBS News in January.

When a reporter suggested the new changes could result in fewer people getting a flu vaccine, Kennedy said: “Well, that may be, and maybe that’s a better thing.”

Boigon is sometimes incredulous at everything that has happened.

“It’s like we’re going backwards,” she said. “It’s like we have decided we don’t want a modern life; we want to be back in the 1950s, where children are sick and dying.”

This article is from a partnership with Colorado Public Radio and NPR.

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From court decisions, recent analysis challenging vaccine skepticism polling results, and congressional testimony, the past month reflects a vindication of the value of immunization, scientific advancement and plain old common sense over ideology-based medical beliefs untethered from clinical evidence.

It would be nice to think that cooler heads have prevailed and we are seeing a return to science-backed decisions guiding American vaccine policy. But the reality is that a resurgent defense of immunization practices may be driven by two bigger forces: measles and midterms.

As I wrote five years ago, disease can be a powerful change agent. Thanks to the ultra-high effectiveness of the measles vaccine to prevent measles outbreaks, an entire generation of kids, parents and healthcare providers had never seen the disease or knew what kind of devastation it could bring. With measles out of sight and out of mind, it was easy for a small band of vocal critics to cast doubt on the value of the measles vaccine. Instead of building on a culture of collective action against disease, we allowed that small band of critics to grow into a chorus of public health freeloaders.

Measles had other ideas. With our weakening herd immunity – a result of declining vaccination rates – it didn’t take much for the virus to quickly reintroduce itself. Since the start of the year, there have been more than 1,700 cases of infection across 19 outbreaks throughout the country. We haven’t seen case numbers this high in 35 years. And if the deaths of American children from measles aren’t tragic enough, we are now on the verge of losing our status of officially eliminating measles. As a preeminent leader in immunology science, it is a startling embarrassment for the U.S. to accept this public health defeat.

Americans of all political stripes now seem to be paying attention. Following a decade of significant decline in vaccination, particularly among Republicans, there now is a push to back away from hardline anti-vaccine rhetoric ahead of the midterm elections. It’s easy to see why: at a time when measles outbreaks are a highly visible example of failed policy by the incumbent ruling party, politicians are not willing to risk being associated with practices that are out of step with the direction in which most U.S. voters want to go.

It’s telling that 66% of MAGA voters support vaccination as a requirement for kids to attend school. The measles outbreak has done a lot to educate people on the value of vaccines, which may be one reason why last week’s congressional testimony by RFK Jr., in which he was forced to admit that the measles vaccine is both safe and effective, and the timely appointment of Dr. Erica Schwartz, a physician and vaccine supporter, to lead the CDC may reflect the political liability posed by alternative vaccine doctrine in the months leading up to the midterm elections.

With growing distrust in federal vaccine messaging, there is a vacuum of credible sources for Americans to turn to for vaccine guidance. That void may actually be an opportunity in disguise for vaccine communicators.

Health care providers, including pharmacists, are still the most trusted source for reliable vaccine information: 4 out of 5 Americans look to these professionals to provide the right mix of personalized, empathetic communication with credible safety and efficacy information. Their stories can carry the power of connection, compassion and candor that we need right now.

Vaccination may seem like a black and white decision for a lot of us, but health care providers know that many parents need help navigating the gray areas. How we tell those stories – and who tells them – is essential to strengthening the national conversation around immunization.

Working more closely together, vaccine makers, innovators in antibody science, medical institutions and non-profit advocacy groups can create more compelling, unified communications that reach people when they are closest to making immunization decisions. This can be done by leveraging the voices of medical professionals to convey the emotional value of protecting our children against preventable disease instead of defaulting to statistics-heavy, complex messaging; pulling those stories through in coordinated media and policymaker engagement; and linking back to credible research sources that feature more prominently in online searches.

If the current measles epidemic in the U.S. is a crisis of our own making, it’s our responsibility to leverage the harsh health and economic lessons from this experience. We must act, not for the political convenience of the midterm elections, but to create better, more durable immunization policies and communications that again can unite Americans against our common disease enemies.

The post Of Measles and Midterms appeared first on Medika Life.

Medika Life has covered the halls of JPMorgan in San Francisco, ViVE in Nashville, and the Digital Health Summit in Boston. But the outreach received before BIO—from stakeholders in Austin, Belfast, Milan, Riyadh, and Tulsa—suggested something seismic was shifting. At BIO 2025, that story came into focus: a world where health innovation is no longer limited by geography but defined by vision, investment and intention.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization isn’t just where technologies are launched and global biotech identities are shaped. What we witnessed in Boston this year wasn’t just presence, but purpose. From Riyadh to Milan, leaders arrived not merely to exhibit, but to engage. They came to say, ‘We are here. We are investing. We are innovating.’ BIO 2025 stood out for its sheer scale and energy—a mosaic of emerging voices ready to help steer the next wave of life science breakthroughs.

Global Trends: Infrastructure, Incentives and Inclusion Drive Expansion

A common thread across these rising biotech regions is the power of public-sector catalysts. Investment in R&D tax credits, translational research centers, and workforce training has de-risked innovation for early-stage companies. Regions like Oklahoma and Northern Ireland exemplify how government partnerships with academia and industry can create a vibrant life sciences pipeline.

In parallel, digital innovation is enabling smaller regions to leapfrog traditional limitations. AI-led discovery, digital twins, and virtual trial platforms are reducing costs and increasing speed-to-data. This convergence of science and software is helping new hubs like Austin and Riyadh accelerate globally competitive capabilities in diagnostics, personalized medicine, and regulatory science.

“We’re not competing with Boston—we’re complementing it,” said a delegate from Invest Northern Ireland. “In a connected world, biotech ecosystems aren’t isolated—they’re collaborative nodes on a global grid.”

Meanwhile, leaders from Italy’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Saudi Arabia’s SFDA emphasized the importance of regulatory agility. Their message was clear: modern biotech requires modern policy. Whether through centralized ethics boards, digital review platforms, or alignment with international standards, regulatory transformation is essential to scale innovation.

These developments signal a broader inflection point—biotech is no longer about place. It’s about purpose, policy, and partnerships.

Austin: Where Tech Meets Translational Medicine

Austin is no longer just the city of live music and digital startups. With more than 300 life science companies and a 74% employment boom in biotech over the past five years, it’s transforming into a powerhouse of translational medicine.

Heavyweights like Thermo Fisher, Natera, and Luminex now call Austin home, joined by trailblazers such as Paradromics, Elligo Health Research, and Prophase Biostudios. These companies blend biotech, medtech, and AI in ways that are shaping the next frontier in diagnostics, therapeutics, and digital health.

“As one of the country’s fastest-growing emerging life sciences hubs, the Austin region is responsible for a significant portion of the biotechnology sector’s growth in Texas,” said Ed Latson, CEO of Opportunity Austin. “Our tech talent, VC ecosystem, and institutions like UT Austin are driving an uptick in innovations, with over 350 life science patents issued to Austin companies in the past five years.”

Austin’s 4.4 million square feet of science innovation space—plus another 1.1 million square feet under construction—signals that this rise is more than momentum. It’s movement.

Italy: From Scientific Legacy to Global Scale

Italy’s BIO 2025 pavilion was both a showcase and a statement: this country is stepping into biotech leadership. Long known for its academic excellence, Italy is now connecting its research infrastructure to industrial manufacturing and global markets.

With 770 production sites and the largest Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization output in Europe (€3.6B), Italy is scaling up innovation across oncology, AI diagnostics, and organ-on-chip development. Companies like BiomimX, Math Biology, Genenta Science, and InSilicoTrials are bridging cutting-edge science with clinical utility.

“Italy’s presence at BIO Boston reflects years of work by the Italian Trade Agency to promote an integrated system of scientific expertise, high-tech supply chains, and a talent-rich ecosystem,” shared Erica Di Giovancarlo, Director of the ITA New York Office.

Initiatives like the Montalcini Global Biotech Tour and policy instruments from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs support this ambition.

“Pharma is one of Italy’s top global exports,” noted Mauro Battocchi, Director General. “That would be unthinkable without a strong base in R&D, regulation, and manufacturing.”

Northern Ireland: Precision Science with Global Reach

With 250+ companies and $2.5 billion in revenue, Northern Ireland’s life sciences sector has grown 75% in just three years. The delegation to BIO was led by Invest Northern Ireland and featured companies from drug discovery (AMPLY), CRO services (Almac, Celerion), and diagnostics (Randox).

Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University deeply anchored the region’s ecosystem. Global companies are noting that Celerion recently relocated its UK Phase I operations to Belfast’s new iREACH facility, betting on local talent and translational research capacity.

From scientific rigor to export capability—145+ countries and counting—Northern Ireland proves that locale doesn’t limit global vision.

Oklahoma: Equity-Focused Innovation with Local Roots

Oklahoma’s biotech renaissance is rooted in intentionality—it is focused on equity, local workforce development, and community-based innovation. Biosciences now contributes more than $16 billion to the state’s economic impact, with more than 750 companies and 42,000 jobs.

The Oklahoma delegation at BIO emphasized sustainability, manufacturing, and health equity, with standout organizations including Wheeler Bio, BioTC, ParaNano, and Utopia Plastix.

“We’re not here to be a branch office,” one delegate told me. “We’re here to bring Oklahoma’s soul to the bioscience table.”

With significant support from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology (OCAST), OKBioStart, and the University of Oklahoma, this state is redefining what it means to be an innovation hub.

Saudi Arabia: A New Powerhouse for Biotech Partnerships

Saudi Arabia came to BIO with a clear strategy and global ambitions. Led by His Excellency Prof. Dr. Hisham Saad Aljadhey, CEO of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), the Kingdom made its voice heard across two key sessions.

At “Global Biotechnology at a Crossroads,” Dr. Aljadhey discussed Saudi Arabia’s modernization of clinical trials and regulatory frameworks, aligning with international standards. At “Partnering for Progress,” he showcased the Kingdom’s integrated biotech ecosystem, spanning R&D, data, manufacturing, and patient care.

Beyond BIO, the SFDA delegation engaged with Harvard University and global pharmaceutical leaders and joined a private sector roundtable hosted by BIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These engagements reflect Saudi Arabia’s commitment to cross-border collaboration, secure supply chains, and sustainable innovation infrastructure.

With leaders from the Saudi Ministry of Health, King Faisal Specialist Hospital, and the National Institute of Health also in attendance, the message was clear: Saudi Arabia is ready to be a regional biotech hub with global reach.

The New Map of Global Innovation

This isn’t just a reshuffling of zip codes. It’s a redrawing of the innovation map—pushed forward by ecosystems committed to inclusion, science, sustainability, and scale.

These five rising regions aren’t simply showing up. They’re standing up—challenging legacy thinking, collapsing silos, and reminding the world that leadership in life sciences doesn’t require a familiar address. It requires ambition, alignment, and action.

At BIO 2025, the message was unmistakable: where you innovate matters less than why you innovate—and for whom.

From Austin’s AI-powered translational medicine to Saudi Arabia’s regulatory reinvention, the next wave of breakthroughs will be shaped not by old borders but bold commitments.

Expectations are high. Patients in Milan and Muskogee, Belfast and Boston, Riyadh and Rochester are not waiting for innovation to trickle down. They are looking globally—for the fastest path to solutions that sustain and save lives.

The future of biotech is already in motion. It’s inclusive. It’s intentional. And it’s unstoppable.

The post BIO – Biotech Without Borders  appeared first on Medika Life.

I always get my vaccinations in my left arm. Not because I anticipated the intriguing new study results.

Rather, I sleep on my right side and don’t want the discomfort associated with vaccination on my compressed arm.

Before we examine sidedness and vaccinations, I must share that winter has begun in Seattle. I define the season as dark and rainy.

Chilled-looking people walking along the riverside, the snow beginning, faintly, to pile up on the roofs of cars, the bare trees shaking their heads left and right, dry leaves tossing in the wind. The silver of the metal window sash sparkled coldly. Soon after, I heard sensei call, “Mikage! Are you awake? It’s snowing, look! It’s snowing!” “I’m coming!” I called out, standing up. I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again. — Banana Yoshimoto

Arm-Sidedness and COVID Vaccination

I read the title of a recent article and thought, “Really?” But as you will see, there is a logic to the finding. Here’s the title:

Differences in SARS-CoV-2 specific humoral and cellular immune responses after contralateral and ipsilateral COVID-19 vaccination.

In other words, individuals may get more protection against COVID-19 if they get their vaccinations and boosters in the same arm.

The Study

German researchers examined health data for 303 people who got the mRNA vaccine and a subsequent booster shot. None had a history of COVID-19 infection.

They measured the antibody levels of the subjects two weeks after the second shot.

Here are the surprising results:

The number of protective “killer T cells” was higher in the 147 study participants who got both shots in the same arm.

Scientists found killer T cells in 67 percent of cases when both shots entered the same arm. This number compares to 43 percent of cases with different arms.

My Take

Same-arm vaccinations may work better because the cells providing the immune response are in nearby (underarm) lymph nodes.

There may be a more vigorous immune response if the immune cells in the nearby nodes are restimulated in the same location.

Since this study does not represent high-level evidence, we need more studies to validate the results. Moreover, we don’t know if the findings apply to other vaccines, including the flu.

Still, I will continue to get my vaccinations in my left arm. I sleep on my right side, so it is for the best.

The post Is Getting COVID Shots in the Same Arm Better? appeared first on Medika Life.

In an effort to get ahead of a potential tripledemic this winter of COVID-19, flu, and RSV that could overwhelm hospitals, health officials have re-booted an important program: making COVID test kits free again. Those kits will be available by mail to households starting September 25.

Next comes the hard part: convincing enough people to get the kits and then persuading them to follow quarantine guidelines if they or their family members get sick.

This is not the time to roll out stale messaging delivered by a carousel of health officials trying to convince the public to get the test kits. Americans are weary of being told to keep their guard up against a disease that many view as more of an inconvenience than a threat. If the sales pitch to get the kits is off, health officials may find that the test kits no longer serve as an effective public health tool. Instead, they could become another partisan symbol of perceived government overreach, further impeding people’s freedom to live as they want.

In short, we have a messaging challenge ahead of us, and if we haven’t taken to heart the lessons learned during the worst early days of the pandemic, we’re doomed to repeat mistakes that cost lives.

How can we be more thoughtful about containing COVID and other dangerous diseases? To generate greater public compliance for fighting an endemic disease, communicators must provide a credible and compelling case of the risk of inaction and convince people that ignorance – of not knowing your infection status – is greater than the cost of knowing. These can be very high bars to clear since people have different thresholds for risk and for being informed.

It’s likely we won’t clear those hurdles with the roll-out of the free test kits. Because the perceived risk of COVID-19 infection and severity is low, many people have adopted a “no test, no stress” attitude, especially in light of the potential personal disruption that COVID infection causes. It’s a dangerous direction and one of the reasons why we will continue to see cases spike.

For communicators to overcome the twin challenges of infection risk perception and status aversion, they must use convert communicators – people who are credible to specific audiences and have changed their views to support disease intervention. There is mounting data showing that people who identified as Republicans were far likelier to get infected by COVID and die from the disease than those from left-leaning political parties. Messaging that taps into this research could point to breaking through to these audiences.

Successful public health interventions rely on a strong majority of the population participating in disease mitigation efforts, which means spotlighting conservative voters who see the value of COVID testing and can serve as credible messengers to similarly ideologically inclined individuals. This is where digital storytelling, data visualization and engagement of champions outside of the health sector can be potent measures to build the case for supporting new public health tools.   

It is also important to truly understand the pain points that different audience segments cite as reasons for not wanting to know their infection status and to provide targeted counterpoints. Most people can’t afford to miss work, even with a mild case, and families can be heavily impacted when a parent must choose between going to work or keeping their kids home. In these and other scenarios, the test result becomes the thing people may begin to dread more than the disease itself.

To ensure that people do not feel like they must choose between a host of the least bad options when COVID comes to their home, the government must consider new incentives for reporting positive test results and adhering to public health guidelines. These can range from reinstituting protected sick leave that was available as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) during the pandemic to encouraging more employers to use the tax credits available through the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) to reimburse for employee sick leave. Without putting these and other options on the table, people will feel penalized even when they do the right thing.

The post It’s Time to Up Our Messaging Game Ahead of Another Winter with COVID appeared first on Medika Life.

We live in a very exciting time! Alzheimer’s medications that are more promising than past drugs are starting to hit the shelves, with others on the way. Eli Lilly’s new daratumumab medication has been suggested to slow the progression of early Alzheimer’s by up to 35%. So if it took someone five years to progress to more serious Alzheimer’s without medication, this could slow it, so it could instead take seven years, meaning more years being more present with one’s family. Lecanemab (Leqembi), from Eisei and Biogen, was also found to reduce cognitive decline, keeping our parents or ourselves fully present as we traverse life’s journey together!

In this article, I will talk about why these drugs offer society hope yet will also cause a big problem, at least in the short term (i.e., until generics become available when the drugs’ patents expire). As for my background, I earned my M.D. in the United States to soon earn my Ph.D. in Canada, focusing on Genetics. Today, I work as a postdoctoral scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, studying the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease. In my medical training, I have seen the tragedy that can happen to people’s parents or themselves as they face newly diagnosed dementia and late-stage disease.

To be clear, these medications are a good thing. They could help many of those around us, whether a parent, sibling, or ourselves. Dementia is a horrible disease; until now, not much could be done about it. A family member is diagnosed with the disease in the office and told that they are showing signs of this illness and that very little can be done to help them. Over time, their personality changes, and they slowly become less like themselves daily, aware of what is happening.

This can cause significant distress for those with this illness and their family and friends. We spend years with these people. We are forced to watch, unable to make a difference, as they lose their ability to function and lose who they are. These medications could slow these changes, finally offering some semblance of hope for those with these diseases.

As with any medication, these drugs do not come without risks. One in four people who received Leqembi had a “transfusion reaction,” which in most people means that they may have had redness and swelling in the arm they received the medication. While such reactions can be severe, causing one’s airway to close up in an anaphylactic reaction, these responses are generally uncommon. Some individuals who received Leqembi or Donanemab experienced swelling in their brain, known as cerebral edema. While not necessarily a problem, in that it does not necessarily produce symptoms, one in four people who took Donanemab developed this swelling, one of four of which had symptoms. So if we considered a group of 1000 people who took this drug, using the study’s results, about 60 in 1000 could experience headaches or confusion. Some of these 60 individuals may develop bleeding in their brains. Around two could die from the swelling or bleeding. While concerning, 940 of these hypothetical 1000 people had no side effects. Even if you took this med and experienced side effects, you could be sure that your doctor would do everything they could to keep you safe, including discontinuing the medication that often resolves adverse effects.

So it sounds like my opinion is that these drugs sound promising. Why the doom and gloom article title? This is because these are or will be very expensive drugs. The price for a single person to receive enough Leqembi for a single year is forecasted to be $26,500. While Donanemab does not yet have an official cost, it is predicted to be over $26,000 annually. Think about that amount of money for a moment. The federal poverty line for a family of four, which could include a couple, a child, and a grandparent, is $30,000. More than one in 10 people in the United States are impoverished and struggling to make ends meet. This number is likely even higher, considering you do not have to be impoverished to have financial difficulty. What would happen if a couple’s loving grandmother or grandfather started showing signs of dementia?

While the elderly are entitled to Medicare, would Medicare cover such an expensive drug when it has to care for the entire country’s elderly population? Even if it pays for it, how much of it? After consulting physician colleagues of mine, we think it is unlikely that Medicare as is would pay this much. It would be great if they did, but there are likely not enough Medicare dollars to permit this.

Families could face impossible decisions or immense stress once these medications are more broadly available, and they have hope in front of them, yet this hope is financially inaccessible. While some private insurance may help pay for these cutting-edge treatments, perhaps with Medicare offering a small contribution, insurance is expensive, and we sadly do not all have health plans that enable us to not think about how we are going to make managing our health work, alongside taking care of supporting children, family, and parents.

There is also the concern that these medications may offer more benefit to those of certain ancestral groups, as reported by Reuters. This was not because the study’s designers or the company sought to exclude non-whites. For medical research to be approved, generally, one must communicate how the research will benefit a more diverse group. Describing how people are recruited into appropriately designed clinical trials and why medications may help people of European descent more than those of African descent is its own article, so I will not touch on this here. This is important because non-whites have higher rates of Alzheimer’s and have historically had less access to healthcare resources.

Such a financial predicament is not unique to these upcoming new medications (or healthcare in general in the United States). Research and development of new medications often cost over $2 billion when a new treatment is available for the general public. Companies need to give treatments a price that enables them to make up for what they spent and enable their other projects, which can also provide hope for better health management. While this approach is understandable (companies need to avoid going bankrupt. Even non-profits need to do that), it can still limit our access to treatments that could save or improve our lives.

The only fix that could address these issues is legislation, which the American Medical Association is consistently striving to improve people’s health in the United States, including driving healthcare reform and expanding (versus cutting) Medicare coverage. Your doctors are not just treating you in the office. They are going to Washington, D.C., and suffering the stresses of politics to improve your lives!

In conclusion, we have reasons to be optimistic about these new drugs. We are also facing the same problems that we have in the past, with promising treatments often being beyond the reach of those with less financial resources and those who have historically had limited access to treatments that could mitigate suffering.

The post New Alzheimer’s Drugs Will Worsen Inequality appeared first on Medika Life.

Satanic rituals, urban legends and abducted kids are all familiar topics to most of us and with the release of the Sound of Freedom, a Mel Gibson backed movie exposing child trafficking, the topics are on everyone’s lips. Adrenochrome, not so much, that is until Sound of Freedom, ably abetted by actor Jim Caviezel, breathed life into it again.

Depending on who you choose to believe, adrenochrome is either an important, yet not fully understood element of the disease, schizophrenia – that’s the medical version – or it’s the life prolonging, fountain of youth obtained from the terrified body of a young child sacrificed for this very purpose– the urban myth.

Here first, is what some of the villagers choose to believe about Adrenochrome and then we’ll check in on the real world.

Harvesting the “Elixir of Youth”

Adrenochrome is produced by our bodies when we are in a state of heightened fear or terror. According to the urban legend, this byproduct of adrenalin, when consumed, melts away wrinkles, takes years off your face and if the stories are to be believed, is nothing short of the fountain of youth. Hollywood, they claim, are the main consumers of adrenochrome.

Enter the children, abducted and taken to remote areas where they are, according to Caviezel, tortured and literally scared to death. At this point the adrenochrome the children have produced is harvested from their lifeless bodies and sold on the black market for huge profit. For people without scruples or the brain capacity to critically analyze the urban legend, you can see why the business model would be appealing.

For every idiot vendor there is, of course, an even stupider client. People with more money than sense, who will literally try anything to arrest or reverse the ageing process. Combine the two and voilà, you have a supply chin and customers, all thanks to crazy online, self-fulfilling horseshit, none of which happens to be true.

We have developed a love affair with conspiracy theories over the last few decades. Most are harmless. For instance the secret (obviously not so much anymore) Nazi base in the center of the earth, accessible through a hidden entrance in the Arctic, isn’t going to overrun the world tomorrow with an army of highly trained penguins. No harm there. Insanity in buckets, but no harm.

Some theories are however incredibly dangerous. They pose a real threat to the well-being of our communities, the safety of our person and our children. The adrenochrome urban legend is right up there in terms of risk. Extremely so, and Gibson, with his latest foray into supporting “cinematic story telling” may be unwittingly contributing to the market value of street urchins.

His support, however well intended, has allowed Caviezel a platform to conflate the movie with adrenochrome, imbuing it with powers it does not posses. In short, Sound of Freedom’s Jim Caviezel is trying to breathe life into an urban legend.

Let’s examine exactly what Adrenochrome is, what it does and where it comes from. This is essential in understanding how the urban legend evolved and as with all urban legends, there is a sliver of reality mixed in with the fairy tale.

The Discovery of Adrenochrome

In short, this compound was first isolated in a laboratory in the fifties and researchers initially believed its absence in Schizophrenia patients was important.

It is created naturally as a byproduct in our bodies by the oxidation of adrenaline. We release adrenaline when we experience fear or our body feels threatened in some way. That explains the need described above for terrifying innocent street waifs. Showing them Disney movies isn’t going to get the adrenaline pumping.

Scientists are currently studying a derivative of adrenochrome that offers promise in the field of surgery by increasing the bloods ability to clot, thus reducing bleeding.

The only clinical tests of adrenochrome were in the fifties, and they were both brief and inconclusive. We did however establish that the long term affects of ingesting the compound led to psychotic episodes and serious mental issues. Adrenochrome doesn’t appear to agree with our brains.

There is ZERO evidence in the scientific literature of anything to support the anti-aging and psychedelic affects ascribed to the compound, in fact, quite the opposite. Adrenochrome just doesn’t live up to all the hype, so where then does all the craziness come from?

Say Hello to Fear and Loathing

Hunter S. Thompson and Aldous Huxley most likely share the blame. Both referred to the compound in their writing. Both made fictitious claims about the compound, Huxley out of ignorance and Thompson, well he was just being Thompson. Gonzo, full steam ahead. He was creating his style of fiction.

In the movie Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, based on Thompson’s book by the same title, Johnny Depp’s character is shown using an ampule of ‘adrenochrome’ in one of the drug fueled binges that permeate the movie. If you haven’t watched , you should. It’s a cult classic.

Gonzo journalism, the writing style Thompson invented, is based around the fictionalization and exaggeration of real-life events. In the DVD commentary of the 1998 movie adaptation, director Terry Gilliam said Thompson told him he made the whole adrenochrome thing up.

It could have been any compound, Thompson simply chose adrenochrome, possibly motivated by the fact little was known of it.

In Aldous Huxley’s 1954 essay “The Doors of Perception”, written about his experiences with mescaline, Huxley discusses the possibility that adrenochrome is a compound with similar effects to the psychedelic cactus.

He had not used it and had no idea how to obtain it, other than saying it was spontaneously produced by the human body. He described it as “a product of the decomposition of adrenaline”, which is, surprisingly, correct.

A little truth mixed in with a lot of fiction.

That seems to be the fate of adrenochrome. It is destined, along with 5G, Elvis, Nazi penguins and hollow moons to become the stuff of urban legend.

Which, as I suggested earlier, is all good and well, except that in this instance it poses a very real danger to children. Whilst you and I are able to comprehend the difference between fairy tales and fact, many cannot.

As long as we live in a world where people drink bleach, ban abortions, wear tinfoil hats and vote for Trump (again), we need to suppress dangerous lies.

Society needs to filter out the untruths we feed each other to avoid the loss of even one child’s life. Social media companies need to address these threads, remove them and warn their users. Spreading lies, even if you believe them to be true, can cost lives. By tweeting your fictitious fairy tales, you are simply providing the seeds for the harvesting of more children for profit. Stop it.

Lastly, a parting thought for supporters of the urban legend. The oxidation reaction that converts adrenaline into adrenochrome occurs both in vivo and in vitro. In other words, you can produce adrenochrome in a body or a test tube. I suspect the test tube may be cheaper, quicker and a lot less illegal than abducting children.

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That said, it is clear that vaccination against SARS CoV-2 also comes with risks. It is not completely benign. That is also indisputable. Specifically, vaccination against SARS CoV-2 has been associated with myocarditis/pericarditis, especially in adolescent and young adult males.

The mechanism of this very rare, albeit very real, complication (estimated to be between 0 to 35.9 cases per 100,000 across age groups and mRNA vaccine cohorts) has been thought to be either an allergic reaction, an autoimmune reaction from the vaccine, or a cross-reaction from the antibodies generated by the vaccine itself.

Researchers from Yale University have elucidated the actual cause of myocarditis. They studied 23 patients with vaccine-associated myocarditis and/or pericarditis. They did extensive and exquisite studies on these patients, and here their conclusions:

our results demonstrate up-regulation in inflammatory cytokines and corresponding lymphocytes with tissue-damaging capabilities, suggesting a cytokine-dependent pathology, which may further be accompanied by myeloid cell–associated cardiac fibrosis. These findings likely rule out some previously proposed mechanisms of mRNA vaccine–-associated myopericarditis and point to new ones with relevance to vaccine development and clinical care.

Thus, it is the actual immune system itself – revved up by the vaccine – that directly damage the heart muscle itself. Now, this raises a number of questions: why more often in young males? Why the heart and not other organs? If there could be scarring in the heart, then what are the long-term effects? What does this mean for future mRNA vaccines? Hopefully, these and even more questions will be answered with further research.

Yes, the cohort is quite small, and it may be difficult to extrapolate these findings to all patients with vaccine-induced myocarditis. Nonetheless, the findings are an important contributor to the literature. It emphasizes the great importance to follow these patients long-term to make sure they don’t have any long-term complications. In addition, it is quite important to highlight what the researchers themselves pointed out about their findings:

It is also critical to contextualize the rare risk of adverse events and potential clinical sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in comparison with the greater risks of sequelae (including myocarditis), hospitalization, and/or death resulting from infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Indeed, according to the CDC, the risk of cardiac complications of the infection itself far far outweighs the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine:

Hopefully, further research will add to this study’s important body of knowledge and help us develop even safer vaccines for the next pandemic.

Study Reference: Anis Barmada, et al. Cytokinopathy with aberrant cytotoxic lymphocytes and profibrotic myeloid response in SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine–associated myocarditis. Sci.Immunol.8,eadh3455(2023). DOI:10.1126/sciimmunol.adh3455

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If you want to proffer an armchair opinion (and almost everybody does) on the efficacy and safety of the mRNA Covid shots, you cannot offer a considered opinion without understanding what we currently know about genomics. Consider this article to be a ready reference guide, Genomics 101, made simple and you need to read it in its entirety before you utter another word on mRNA.

I’d recommend most medical professionals do the same, as clearly, most do not understand what science understands about genomics, so, without further ado, a brief refresher course. Some of it may appear a little hairy to the uninitiated, but trust me, stay with it.

Technology Breeches the Genome Bottleneck

Nearly 100,000 highly diverse whole genome sequences are now available through the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program. In a decade, our sequencing bandwidth or capability has gone ballistic, enabling us to evaluate all RNA/DNA at a single cell level and in thousands of cells, all in parallel.

As we became more adept and effective at sequencing, the associated costs of investigating our individual genetic codes went from prohibitive to ridiculously cheap, illustrated very effectively by the graph below.

You can clearly see the first inflection point in 2007 with the first generation of NGS (454, SOLiD, Illumina). Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a massively parallel sequencing technology that offers ultra-high throughput, scalability, and speed. The technology is used to determine the order of nucleotides in entire genomes or targeted regions of DNA or RNA.

Fast forward to the second inflection point in 2016, less dramatic, but of equal importance, with the maturation of the long read sequencers at PacBio and Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT). These platforms are able phase genomes (untangle mother and father genomes when sequencing diploid cells) and treat every human genome like it’s a de novo (new) assembly problem. They can find novel content unrelated to the original reference sequence.

Let’s unpack some of the technical stuff here.

Diploid is a term that refers to the presence of two complete sets of chromosomes in an organism’s cells, with each parent contributing a chromosome to each pair. Humans are diploid, and most of the body’s cells contain 23 chromosomes pairs. Human gametes (egg and sperm cells), however, contain a single set of chromosomes and are said to be haploid.

Flip this graphic upside down, and that shows you what long read sequencers are capable of. They can take your diploid cell and unravel it into its original components, basically mum’s contribution and dad’s contribution. Unravel the diploid cells of your parents and grandparents, and you have all the required chromosomes to build your family line from scratch.

You can also identify all sorts of genetic issues you may have been gifted with, so its a really useful tool, both to identify existing and potential conditions and predict genetic outcomes.

Technological Iterations

The first generations of NGS sequencers were short read sequencers. They operate by looking for differences between your sample and a genome provided as reference. If your sample has novel genes that are not in the reference genome, then those are typically overlooked. How did we arrive at a reference genome?

The original human reference genome comprised a pool of 20 volunteers but resulted in 70% of the genome being derived from one African American donor. Those 100,000 genomes were sequenced on short read sequencers (50bp-500bp) and mapped back to this reference genome.

Newer longer read sequencers (10,000- 1Mb reads) do not need to rely on a reference genome, but can instead build a hypothesis-free genome from each individual. This allows the discovery of novel(new) content. If you have the time and the desire, this article in science chronicles the history of our genetic journey to this point. The quote below is taken from the same article, entitled “The complete sequence of a human genome”

Since its initial release in 2000, the human reference genome has covered only the euchromatic fraction of the genome, leaving important heterochromatic regions unfinished. Addressing the remaining 8% of the genome, the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium presents a complete 3.055 billion–base pair sequence of a human genome, T2T-CHM13, that includes gapless assemblies for all chromosomes except Y, corrects errors in the prior references, and introduces nearly 200 million base pairs of sequence containing 1956 gene predictions, 99 of which are predicted to be protein coding. The completed regions include all centromeric satellite arrays, recent segmental duplications, and the short arms of all five acrocentric chromosomes, unlocking these complex regions of the genome to variational and functional studies.

Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.abj6987

You’ll note the use of the terms predicted, functional studies, errors and other language confirming what we seemed to have glossed over in our haste to rebuild the human. While we now have a complete parts list (we think so) and we have a map to assemble the parts, we still don’t know how the different parts interact, which bits are dependent on others bits, and how, introducing novel laboratory synthesized parts will impact the whole.

To illustrate this more clearly, lets look to some of the most recent genetic discoveries (post mRNA Covid jabs) to understand just how clueless we actually are. You understand of course that by using the term discovery, we are indicating that we are still exploring and by it’s nature, that term indicates risk.

Microscopes and Genetics

In 1665 Micrographia was published by Robert Hooke. Microgaphia was filled with drawings of objects Hooke had observed with his compound microscope. He was the first person to use the word “cell” when describing living organisms.

Fast forward to 2008 and the debut of the TEAM 0.5. It is the world’s most powerful transmission electron microscope and is capable of producing images half a ten-billionth of a meter.

As our tools and technology improved, we were gradually able to peel back layer upon layer of interdependent worlds hidden within each human on a cellular level. With each new discovery, came the realization that we are actually far more complex than we had ever imagined. Then, in the last few decades, wonder was replaced with hubris, humility a blood soaked victim left to die on the battlefields of commercialized science.

No longer do we wonder at the complexities unravelling before our eyes, our thoughts now focused entirely on the field of genetics as they key to untold wealth. Master the human genome and you can combat aging, perhaps even arrest it completely. You can, at the cellular level, target any disease and, in theory, irradicate it. The potential to engineer children’s physical traits as they grow in the womb isn’t a reach, it is without doubt being explored by scientists.

We are not searching for the Holy Grail anymore. We have decided it is easier to simply build it ourselves, and it this hubris that led to mRNA treatments for Covid being released on the general public, but I digress. Back to proteins, novel human RNA ligase and other exciting discoveries.

In the last few days the National Human Genome Research Institute has announced the completion of a 47 human ‘pangenome’ project. This is 47 diverse genomes sequenced Telomere to Telomere and properly phased with the new longer read sequencers. These are sequenced to a far higher standard than the initial Human Genome project, which used Sanger and BAC end sequencing.

This amazing achievement represents phased perfect hypothesis free genomes, all cross compared to each other from diverse genetics around the world. A true and representative map of all humanity. Wonderful, I hear you say, inspiring. So where is the rub?

Even with the amazing sequencing developments, we are still discovering the functionality of some of the esoteric genes discovered 2 decades ago. Our process of reading DNA far outstrips our capacity to understand what it means and many genes in the human genome are homeless. In other words, we can guess at their roles, but we do not understand their function.

So, we have our map, we have all the working parts (that we can see given our current technology – remember the microscope) but we still don’t fully understand the workings of the functional machine.

Which, some people may feel, is sufficient to justify us tinkering with the bits and pieces, all the while adding in novel “laboratory engineered” extras. The problem is we’re dealing with life, and mistakes at a genetic level can potentially have species wide impact. Forget asteroids and solar flares, science has now acquired the ability to end us all on an macromolecular level.

As melodramatic as that may sound, it is a very real risk and the custodians of this technology have over the last three years proved themselves to be less than completely trustworthy.

Discovering a Human RNA Ligase

Meet C12orf29, a Human RNA Ligase. A what? Let’s explain first what an RNA Ligase is. Without getting to technical, RNA ligases participate in repair, splicing, and editing pathways that either reseal broken RNAs or alter their primary structure. They play an important role and can have dramatic impact on how RNA interacts in a cell. Scientists have just identified a new one, or rather figured out what one we discovered a while ago, actually does.

Remember all the genes we discovered, the purposes of which we are still investigating? Genomics use the acronym Open Reading Frame (ORF) in their name and a chromosome name (C12 = chromosome 12) to refer to these. This particular one, C12orf29 was discovered in 2003 in a large full length cDNA cataloging project in Japan. Two decades passed with this gene remaining in the realm of mystery. We had no idea as to its purpose, until now.

At first glance, C12orf29 looks like just another enzyme that modifies nucleic acids, but it turns out it is far more important than that. Enzymes like this had never been identified in vertebrates prior to this discovery. This paper, post mRNA global distribution, underscores how little we truly understand about RNA processing in the cell.

What does C12orf29 actually do then? Cells are able to survive without it, but once you raise ROS in the cell (Reactive Oxygen Species) as occurs with an immune response, your RNA breaks down more readily. C12orf29 comes in to repair some of that damage. So people with LoF mutations – gene loss that occurs through natural loss-of-function (LoF) – in this gene might be very susceptible to transcriptomic dysregulation during infection.

Immediately the questions begin to pile up. We just injected billions of people with modified RNA and only afterwards discovered a major human RNA ligase that we were blind to before injection. We don’t know how the RNA modification in the mRNA vaccines will interact with this newly discovered RNA Ligase. Will it concatenate (link together) them? Will the cell turn the modRNA into miRNAs and then RNA Ligases join miRNAs into longer pieces with different RNAi footprints?

To put this into proper context, Moderna and Pfizer developed a product that uses mRNA without being aware of many processes that unfold in the cell, the various genes that can and do interact on the RNA, and the potential consequences of the myriad unknowns in their model. It is the engineering equivalent of equipping a racing car with faulty brakes and releasing it at the top of a steep cliff with dodgy brakes.

The odds of it arriving unscathed at the base are so small as to be negligible. You and I are that car and we’re all headed hell for leather down the hill, with no brakes, to the painful conclusion of an experiment that may take generations to unravel.

What you need to takeaway from this

C12orf29 is not an outlier, it is one of many unknown quantities impacting interactions at a cellular level. Will we ever understand the full processes at work in our bodies and simply because we don’t yet have the full picture should we avoid intervening in these processes?

In answer to the first question, there can be no doubt that, given enough time, we will in fact completely demystify the human body and the interdependent processes that drive it. It isn’t going to be in the next decade though. Discoveries take time, scientific evaluation and proper investigation and even with the help of iterative AI, we may well be another 50 years away from fully grasping the complexities of our physiology.

The answer to the second part of the question may surprise you. It is also a resounding yes, but in the same breath, a very qualified yes. Where cutting edge medicine is able to utilize delivery vehicles like mRNA to attack diseases like serious, life-ending cancers, the risks are far outweighed by the potential benefits to the patient, namely life and the extension thereof.

Getting offered that car with the iffy brakes when you’re dying, as your only means to get to your family at the foot of the steep cliff, makes sense. Insisting to perfectly healthy patients who’ve already been down the hill on foot, that they must climb in or risk loosing their livelihoods, is ethically and morally reprehensible. Lying about the condition of the cars brakes, simply confounds the sin.

So are all those who’ve been injected with mRNA going to spawn a second head or watch their offspring grow tails? Have we actually damaged our reproductive capacity as a species? Questions abound with no answers, other than the painful reality of having to wait it out. That is the price we now pay as a society for toying with science we don’t as yet fully comprehend.

There is no debate, in my opinion, to be held on the widespread use of mRNA technology or the LNPs utilized to deliver the treatments. If it were a weapon, it would be outlawed by the Geneva Convention as having the potential to end our species. If, after reading this, you’re still comfortable climbing in the car, good luck on the way down. Just please understand that others have elected to walk until a model comes out with reliable brakes.

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Perhaps all we heard from the title and the take away is “I want it now.” When it comes to science and public health, that’s a mega problem. When do I want it? Now!

Clinical Trials Usually Take Years.  Enter Operation Warp Speed

How long do or should clinical trials take – well, it depends – but often years. Science takes time. It demands rigor and objectivity. It’s not a “now” pursuit. It’s why so many potential medicines fail to advance through clinical stages to our medicine chests as physicians and patients work diligently to evaluate their safety, effectiveness and long-term risks in observational studies. 

For example, the research into drugs to reduce life-threatening high cholesterol spans decades.  Many think of the incredible drugs now available as generic, which fueled continued research. Few think of the game-changing Framingham Heart Study or the groundbreaking and Nobel Prize-level work of scientists Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein. There is beauty to science.  In the famed Academy Award-winning movie The Agony and the Ecstasy with Charlton Heston, as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison playing Pope Julius II, Heston’s character is constantly asked by Harrison, when will the Sistine Chapel ceiling be completed.  The artist replies: “When it’s done.”  That’s science!

It’s possible that COVID threw science – the purity of the art of discovery to improve humanity’s lot – out with the peer-review bathwater.  Everyone is at fault in some way. Government agencies, elected officials, public health champions, media, and, yes, the public are all part of the now movement.  We all wanted a biomedical elixir to ward off the virus NOW! We have been conditioned to get what we want quickly.  We order online at Grub Hub or Amazon, and within hours – a day tops – a vehicle pulls up to our doorstep.  NOW!

Now, how about COVID? We expected salvation at warp speed.  Companies no longer wait to share data at peer-review forums or in top-notch journals.  When the public cries out, we send out a press release. We expect answers from pharma, the White House and CDC immediately. We moved to evaluate, approve and move to rally people to access the COVID vaccines a mere 13 months after trial initiation. The mRNA vaccine became the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine on August 23, 2021.  That’s the equivalent of now when it comes to drug development.

It Takes Years to Develop a Vaccine – NOW?

In comparison, the usual vaccine development timeline is five to 10 years and sometimes longer to determine if a product is safe and efficacious in clinical trials, completes the required regulatory approval processes, and a manufacturer has a sufficient quantity of vaccine doses for public access.  COVID broke the previous record of four years set by the development of a mumps vaccine in the 1960s.

But there are reasons we were able to go fast. The infectious disease community is collaborative. There are previous models of engagement, We have technologies that enable us to screen options that didn’t exist in the 1960s. It’s impossible to compare apples to apples or oranges. The times have changed. Science can move faster; however, objectivity and peer review remain musts.

Don’t point the finger of blame at any one institution or segment of the process.  Everyone created and bought into this urge for now!  We were frightened for our survival, mental health and economies.  The White House was responding to public pressure.  Events changed rapidly, and so did the news flow.  Media leaped into the fray to bring out their wagons of consulting experts aboard, with varied opinions to keep eyes glued to screens. Researchers slept at lab benches to sustain the world – to ward off the – then-deadly pandemic. 

We cannot forget that while we criticize the scientific process and unknown long-term effects of these vaccines, the “power of now” drives decisions and actions.  We cannot forget that the ERs were filling up, and people were dying at the start of the pandemic.  We were scared, and fear ignited non-reflective action. Countless public health challenges were pressing – addiction, poverty, isolation and more. We needed a response. Sometimes the process is imperfect. Let’s not forget to evaluate how all this impacted science and apply the learnings in the future.

Tech as a Scientific Accelerator

Technology has become the gas pedal for science.  AI, AR, machine learning, and big data are all variations of the same concept, but technology does enable scientists to move rapidly. The urgency to offer hope tips the hat to companies being permitted to update the public via news releases and later share detailed information in a peer-review setting. Industry scientists yearn to help sustain lives. Everyone had good intentions. However, we need to find better balance and return to a culture that encourages objective reflection and third-party (even uncensored) pushback,

The Power of Now was geared to get us to think beyond the moment.  To consider who we are and our purpose in the world.  However, like most things, we commercialize good ideas. COVID left too many casualties – most important among them precious people and, yes – scientific exchange.  Now is a competitive advantage – often a first-to-market must.  However, science is a reflective task accelerated by technology. 

Let’s Open the Door to the Power of Options

The Power of Now has given way to the Power of Options, a concept shared by David Noble and Carol Kauffman in the recent issue of HBR. Scientists remain societal leaders.  Scientists are curious and explorers.  We must encourage scientists to create their life-saving magic in coordination with the checks and balances of their peer-review culture.

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