“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
I used to believe that the FDA, NIH, and CDC were working for the people, not big pharma. I thought that if we could just re-purpose already known, safe drugs for emerging infectious diseases, we could quickly find ways to reduce the death rate. I thought that drug and vaccine development were regulated by the […]
I think one of the most misused words in the English language is “expert.” Experts are often cited by media outlets that are always searching for people to interview for their news stories and programs. Governments also regularly seek counsel from experts on policy decisions or ideas. Perhaps nowhere are experts as popular as in the field of […]
What if you realized your family doctor’s been lying to you? … Giving you shots you don’t need, prescribing you unnecessary prescriptions, not telling you about the possible side effects. Clearly, not giving you all the information you need. Would you ever trust him again? Of course not. You’d run for the hills and get […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the U.S. government’s major operating components, an agency under the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC’s mission statement reads, “CDC increases the health security of our nation. … CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats.” The agency also pledges to […]
On Mar. 29, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a second booster dose (a fourth shot) of the Pfizer/BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) biologic BNT162b2 (“Comirnaty”) and Moderna/NIAID mRNA-1273 (“Spikevax”) for people 50 years of age and older, as well as younger individuals who are immunocompromised. The second booster would be given no […]
There has been an increase in suicide attempts by adolescents aged 12-17 years old during the COVID-19 pandemic according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The longer the lockdowns that included social isolation and compulsory masking continued, the number of suicide attempts increased, especially among adolescent girls. From July through August […]
In an interim report published on Mar. 11, 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the effectiveness rate of the influenza vaccine at 16 percent during 2021-2022. The rate, which the CDC termed as “not statistically significant,” is based on a study involving 3,636 children, adolescents and adults in the United […]
For the last 27 years, I have been a professor at Boston College, teaching a mix of literature and writing courses to thousands of students. Then along came the booster mandates. When the initial vaccines came out, my wife and I received ours. We had strong reservations about the mRNA vaccines and had decided we […]
In 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with local health departments and launched the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) to track SARS-CoV-2 virus levels in wastewater around the country. The goal was to help health officials quickly implement policies to mitigate the spread of the virus.1 The CDC recently confirmed […]
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been declining throughout the United States during the past month. On Feb. 9, 2022, CNN reported that, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS), the number of beds being used by COVID patients had dropped by 38 percent to under 100,000 from two weeks prior when COVID […]