Hello #Mastodon! I am making the jump from X to here. Too many of my #science and #medicine buddies left X. If you switched from X, how do you like it here? #introductions
"Moderna is quadrupling the cost of covid vaccines, from $26/dose to $110-130. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel calls the price hike "consistent with the value" of the mRNA vaccines. Moderna's manufacturing costs are $2.85/dose, for a 4,460% markup on every dose...
What will Moderna do with the billions it reaps through price-gouging? It won't be research. To date, the company has spent >20% of its covid windfall profits on stock buybacks and dividends, manipulating its stock price, with more to come...
It's not an outlier. Big Pharma is a machine for commercializing publicly funded research and then laundering the profits with financial engineering. The largest pharma companies each spend more on stock buybacks than research."
Dr. Peter Hotez, professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine has been attacked all weekend by Musk and Rogan on the bird site. Dr Hotez is a vaccine scientist and a threat to disinformation con artists like the two twits mentioned above. He will have a new book out soon and it is important to spread his book title message far and wide. #FactsMatter#DisinformationKills#VaccinesWork#Science#Medicine#Canada#USA
Onesimus, a Boston enslaved man, saved hundreds of people from the horrors of smallpox in 1721. His contributions to science reverberate to this day b/c his knowledge led to what became the 1st vaccine-related study in America. Onesimus’s story illustrates the degree to which reputable men of science depended on the testimony & experience of Africans in dealing with a dreaded disease.
For the first time in the world researchers at Tel Aviv University have encoded a toxin produced by bacteria into mRNA (messenger RNA) molecules and delivered these particles directly to cancer cells, causing the cells to produce the toxin—which eventually killed them with a success rate of 50%.
Huge life-saving breakthrough: The first Malaria vaccine has cut #Malaria deaths in kids under 5 by 13%. The results of this huge trial (hundreds of thousands vaccinated already) could mean that more than 60,000 children could be saved per year in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
@delfuego , for helping me correct my initial hasty post.]
@ProPublica reporters will be tracking this hashtag and following up with information on how you can request the internal notes and audio surrounding the claim.
wife tested positive for covid. It's bad. Online Doc refused to prescribe #Paxlovid citing she's <50yrs. Said LongCovid isn't real and pretty much gaslit the thing.
PCP offices are closed.
CVS w/o prescription requires labwork that we don't have handy.
Another health professional has broken confidentiality and shared some of the most personal details of her clients therapy sessions with Bari Weiss' Free Press.
I don't like to go in for hyperbole, but I have no words other than to say I'm sickened by the contempt and disgust this social worker has shown for the three transmasculine clients whose stories she shares, without consent. #trans#science#medicine#news#journalism
“United Healthcare pressured its medical staff to cut off payments for seriously ill patients in lockstep with a computer algorithm’s calculations, denying rehab care for older & disabled Americans as profits soared.”
A child at our neighborhood school just died from Covid. Don't let anyone tell you Covid is over. Kids should not be dying from a preventable disease. Nobody should.
One thing that really stands out in the data on transgender people who've had surgery is how unusually rare regret is among trans people, as compared to other patients who have surgery.
Now, researchers are starting to ask why, and consider whether there are lessons to be learned in the way trans people are prepared for surgery that could help other patients too. #trans#medicine#journalism#research#science
The good news: We have a breakthrough cure for sickle-cell disease, using CRISPR and gene-editing technology.
The bad news: It’s owned by a private company that will charge $2.2M for a course of treatment.
Pharmaceutical research should be publicly-funded, and its results should go directly into public domain, where private providers can compete on price for manufacture and distribution. For a fraction of the money we spend on missiles and remote military bases, we can save so many lives instead.
“FDA approves cure for sickle cell disease, the first treatment to use gene-editing tool CRISPR”
Anti-trans activists, helped by their allies in the right-wing press, are attacking a World Health Organization committee tasked with setting guidelines for gender-affirming care.
Vivien Thomas overcame obstacles imposed by a segregated society. Despite lacking formal medical education, he developed techniques & devised instruments that shaped modern heart surgery. Around the world there are skilled surgeons who trained under Vivien Thomas's guidance and they carry out critical life-saving procedures in operating rooms everywhere.
Dr. Ruth Gottesman, on donating $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine so all students can attend tuition-free:
Dr. Gottesman’s husband died in 2022 at age 96. “He left me, unbeknownst to me, a whole portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock,” she recalled. The instructions were simple: “Do whatever you think is right with it."
Researchers induce cancer cells to 'commit suicide' with a self-produced bacterial toxin (phys.org)
For the first time in the world researchers at Tel Aviv University have encoded a toxin produced by bacteria into mRNA (messenger RNA) molecules and delivered these particles directly to cancer cells, causing the cells to produce the toxin—which eventually killed them with a success rate of 50%.