Multiple Pendulums Swing
But some things never change
Let’s begin today with the COVID pendulum. That arc of disease has been steadily declining since February (that’s why it’s on almost nobody’s mind). My strong suspicion is that the virus has just about reached its nadir for the current cycle and will remain at about this level of activity until the inevitable summer uptick and mini-surge. Why not be more optimistic at this point four and a half years into this saga? I would respond by saying that the virus continues to show robust ability to evolve new mutants, which show increased ability to overcome our current immunity, and also that our level of immunity against re-infection is short lived and constantly decreasing. It matters not how many times you have been vaccinated or infected, there is no long term protection from reinfection, only accumulated protection from critical or fatal disease seems to be long lasting. We should have had second generation vaccines by now whose development was informed by all the things we have learned about this virus, the most intensely studied in history. Topically delivered nasal vaccines to boost the local mucosal immunity on top of the systemic protection offered by prior vaccination and infection were the most promising—where are they? This week Astra-Zeneca quietly announced they are ceasing production of their adenovirus vectored COVID vaccine because there is no demand. Here are the latest CDC graphs of COVID activity in the US, showing what I interpret to be the leveling off into the usual “basal rate”.
The national wastewater COVID data shows a similar trend in this following graph. Obviously there is nothing particularly scientific about my guess here, just eyeballing the various charts and combining that with the historic behavior of the virus over four years and the knowledge that nothing dramatic has occurred recently to change the virus or the status of our immunity.
Another huge pendulum swing this week has been the US government, via HHS and the NIH, rescinding current grant money from Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, and beginning the process of barring this outfit from any future government grants. You probably don’t need the background story that this group’s work with the Wuhan Virology Laboratory has been at the center of the raging controversy over GOF (gain of function) research which MIGHT have created the SARS2-Cov19/COVID Pandemic. HSS (Health and Human Services) has admitted categorically now that: Peter Daszak intentionally misled the NIH about GOF research being performed at the Wuhan lab on the EcoHealth grant; that he failed to notify the NIH of the creation of chimeric bat viruses with enhanced ability to infect and replicate in human cells (a clear violation of then existing US government policy regarding such dangerous experiments); that the Wuhan lab investigators failed to file required updates detailing their experiments, and further that the NIH failed in its requirement to adequately supervise the non-complying grant recipients. None of this means that the Pandemic was definitely started by a lab leak in Wuhan—we will almost certainly never know the truth of COVID’s origin thanks to the Chinese. This result is obviously greatly welcomed by people who agree with me that pathogen GOF experiments are far too dangerous, and highly un-welcomed by scientists who maintain it is too great an infringement on their scientific prerogative. The pendulum’s swing began at its height with our government categorically denying that any such research was taking place with NIH funded grants, and reached its maximum velocity and nadir with the Biden administration colluding with and pressuring Big Tech’s social media platforms to censor and even de-platform individuals exercising their right to suggest such research was in fact conducted in Wuhan with NIH grant funds, and very likely could have been the origin of the Pandemic. Further indication about how seriously this issue is NOW being taken comes in the form of the newly released rules governing such research announced last week by the White House. For starters it greatly expands the categories and definitions of pathogens which will be subject to such oversight by US government funding agencies. This is also most welcome, but I have my reservations about the effectiveness of its implementation since review of cases will still be in the hands of government bureaucrats and scientists, who’s research and careers in some cases are heavily invested with various aspects of GOF research. Following is the title of the new rules, which can be found via the link if you wish to delve into the details.
United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern, and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/USG-Policy-for-Oversight-of-DURC-and-PEPP.pdf
Another long awaited reversal occurred this month when the WHO issued a very detailed report on the air born transmission of respiratory pathogens. This analysis is the work of about 50 experts from many fields including virology, aerosol physics, bio-engineering, epidemiology and many others. It is an unstated and belated acknowledgement of the grave mistakes made by the WHO and the CDC regarding their insistence that COVID was transmitted by droplets and contaminated surfaces. That insistence was rooted in long standing public health and infectious disease dogma, which was not based on any firm scientific evidence, and critically ignored new, irrefutable experimental evidence of aerosol transmission early in the Pandemic. The report is comprehensive, and details the complexity of calculating infection risk in any given indoor environment from an aerosolized pathogen. Some of us were quick to demonize the vaccine hesitant after vaccines became available, accusing them of killing other people—in many cases long after it became clear that vaccinated folks also became infected and transmitted the virus. No one is likely to perform an analysis of how many people were hospitalized or died as a result of the CDC and WHO willfully ignoring the evidence of aerosol transmission for so long, and recommending basically useless interventions like standing and sitting six feet apart and covering your face with a simple piece of cloth. The big question now is will the CDC change it’s direct recommendations for isolation and infection control in hospitals? Nurses and other hospital workers are up in arms that the CDC has not already done this—but then there is lots of money at stake if the new understanding of aerosol transmission were to be implemented into improved respiratory pathogen control.
Science is under attack these days, and some of the assault is from an unlikely quarter. You may be aware of the dramatic increase in retractions of published peer reviewed scientific papers over the last several years. It was tempting to ascribe this to the torrent of papers being published, and perhaps the haste to deliver crucial information during the Pandemic, but there is a much more fundamental problem at work. An entire industry has developed which is flooding the world with fake science. While there have always been (heaven forbid) occasional dishonest scientists who alter or fake scientific results in order publish and advance their careers, the explosion of pay-to-publish science journals in recent years has exponentially increased the problem. For those of you not in the race, it may come as a shock that academics can routinely receive solicitations to publish a paper from any of a myriad of these pay-to-publish journals. They purport to be peer reviewed, but that is a joke, and for a fee your work will be published and added to your bibliography, securing perhaps your tenure and enhancing grant status. Some of these published articles have been likened to “AI generated gobbelty-gook with occasional technical phrases thrown in”. Even worse perhaps are the retractions which have been forced by highly respectable journals, when, sometimes years after publication, another person in the field becomes suspicious and discovers that a prominent researcher has been using the same data to justify results of multiple supposedly different experiments. Below is a link to a WSJ article for further exploration of the magnitude of this problem.
Flood of Fake Science Forces Multiple Journal Closures - The Wall Street Journal.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-wall-street-journal./id364387007
We all need science to be legitimate, accurate and inviolate. The Scientific Method is not on trial here, but rather the all too human failings of some scientists, and of course corporate greed. Sometimes it’s easy to spot the charlatans, the manipulators, those out for likes on social media, political advantage, or with critical parts of their brain “eaten by a worm”. On the other hand it is easy to follow the exhortation to “follow the science” from someone who wouldn’t know scientific truth if it mugged them in the subway. The uncertainty and the scandals breed distrust and contempt among the public already bombarded with disinformation; if the scientific community doesn’t step up and police its own bailiwick they bear some responsibility for the results.
Here is the editorial department with more examples of pendulum swings.
By Presidential decree we will now allow only 4,000 illegal immigrants, migrants, newcomers, cultural ambassadors, etc. to cross the border per day. (Unclear how that number was chosen). This apparently was not possible for the last three and a half years until polls swung the pendulum.
College administrations are beginning to ask the police to deal with and arrest anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrators, who harass and intimidate fellow students, block access to campus buildings and destroy university property—in other words “peacefully protest”.
Ivy League presidents continue to be forced to resign with Cornell the latest—it used to be a plum job, now you get about as much thanks as the Jehovah’s witnesses at your door on Sunday morning.
The US government said it will share intelligence with Israel regarding the location of the top leaders of Hamas in exchange for Israel not mounting a large scale invasion of Rafah. I didn’t have any idea that we were not sharing that information previously so I guess it’s a pendulum swing. In any event sharing with friends is always nice.
In the biggest swing of all, rumors are circulating that Donald Trump, who is notoriously unforgiving of disloyalty, and Nikki Haley have agreed to have her become the Vice Presidential candidate. Trump will ensure her success in office if elected by having her build on Kamala Harris’ program to secure border and also she will be charged with solving the Federal debt problem. The other big swing rumor that Trump and Stormy Daniels will form a children’s film production unit with Kristi Noem starring in a remake of the family favorite “Old Yeller”, has been fact checked and labeled highly unlikely.
Share “Clear and Present Thinking” with your friends and enemies, and don’t even ask for anything in return. Cheer the scientists who behave in a way befitting that great contribution to the world which is the Scientific Method.