UK
Government to pay two thirds of wages at businesses forced to shut during coronavirus lockdown

Chancellor Rishi Sunak vows to help businesses hit by local measures to slow coronavirus pandemic

By Alistair Houghton Business Live Editor 9 OCT 2020


VIDEO 

https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/government-pay-two-thirds-wages-19079628


Chancellor Rishi Sunak says the Government’s Jobs Support Scheme will be extended to support businesses forced to close by any new coronavirus restrictions or lockdowns.

Mr Sunak this afternoon, Friday October 9, said that any firms whose premises are “legally required to shut” due to local or national restrictions will get grants worth up to two thirds of each employees’ salary (or 67%), up to a maximum of £2,100 a month.

The Government says that under the expanded JSS scheme, employers will not be required to contribute towards wages but will have to cover National Insurance and pension contributions.

The Government says: “It is estimated that around half of potential claims are likely not to incur employer NICs or auto-enrolment pension contributions and so face no employer contribution”.

Businesses will only be able to claim the support while subject to restrictions. Employees must be off work for a minimum of seven consecutive days.

The support will start on November 1 and run for six months, with a review in January.

Payments will be made in arrears through an HMRC claims service that will be available from early December.

The scheme is UK-wide and the Government has pledged to work with devolved administrations. The Government has also pledged to work with local elected mayors and political leaders over proposed local lockdowns, following criticism in some areas over a lack of consultation.

The Government has also increased the cash grants for businesses required to close in local lockdowns.

Up to £3,000 per month will be available, compared to £1,500 previously.

Mr Sunak said: “Throughout the crisis, the driving force of our economic policy has not changed.

“I have always said that we will do whatever is necessary to protect jobs and livelihoods as the situation evolves.

“The expansion of the Job Support Scheme will provide a safety net for businesses across the UK who are required to temporarily close their doors, giving them the right support at the right time.”

But in Wales it's already feared that some local firms could miss out on the benefits of the scheme.

In the north, where local lockdowns are likely, Northern Powerhouse Partnership director Henri Murison said: "This news will undoubtedly come as a huge relief to many communities and businesses across the whole of the North.

“Further lockdowns must go hand in hand with further support packages from the government and this scheme will help to save businesses and livelihoods for up to hundreds of thousands of people.

“However, the help can’t stop here. We wrote to the Chancellor today to urge more support in both the short and long-term. We can’t let Covid undo all our efforts to rebalance the economy in recent years.

“Instead we must give local leaders more tools to meet the needs of the people who elected them and invest back into Northern cities - if we are ever to achieve real levelling-up.”

Liverpool Chamber of Commerce chief executive Paul Cherpeau said: "The measures from the chancellor offer some support to businesses that once again through no fault of their own have to close their doors.

"We welcome the support of wages, however the £3,000 figure will not even cover the rents of some businesses let alone revenue loss and again we fear for the future of our leisure and hospitality which is the fuel of the region.”

Jaeger and Peacocks owner Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group on the brink of administration

Normal trading "impossible" due to coronavirus impact as boss blames "false rumours" for hitting reputation

birminghampost

The Edinburgh Woollen Mill group also owns Jaeger and Peacocks (Image: Hertfordshire Mercury)



The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group is on the brink of administration - affecting around 24,000 workers at fashion brand including Peacocks and Jaeger.

The group's boss said tough trading since the pandemic had been followed by "false rumours" about trading that had hit its ability to get credit insurance.

EWM dates its history back to 1046. As well as Peacocks and Jaeger, its brands include Ponden Home and the James Pringle Weavers site in Anglesey.

The group has now filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators to give it breathing space. All stores will continue trading for now.

EWM Group chief executive Steve Simpson said: “Like every retailer, we have found the past seven months extremely difficult.

“This situation has grown worse in recent weeks as we have had to deal with a series of false rumours about our payments and trading which have impacted our credit insurance.

“Traditionally, the group has always traded with strong cash reserves and a conservative balance sheet but these stories, the reduction in credit insurance – against the backdrop of the lockdown – and now this second wave of Covid-19 and all the local lockdowns, have made normal trading impossible.

“As directors we have a duty to the business, our staff, our customers and our creditors to find the very best solution in this brutal environment.

“So we have applied to court today for a short breathing space to assess our options before moving to appoint administrators.

“Through this process I hope and believe we will be able to secure the best future for our businesses, but there will inevitably be significant cuts and closures as we work our way through this.

“I would like to thank all our staff for their amazing efforts during this time and also our customers who have remained so loyal and committed to our brands.”

Norway oil strike ends after wage agreement

By Nerijus Adomaitis

OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian oil firms struck a wage bargain with labour union officials on Friday, ending a 10-day strike that had threatened to cut the country’s oil and gas output by close to 25% next week, negotiators for each side told Reuters.

A general view of the drilling platform, the first out of four oil platforms to be installed at Norway's giant offshore Johan Sverdrup field during the 1st phase development, near Stord, western Norway September 4, 2017. REUTERS/Nerijus Adomaitis

Brent oil prices fell by more than 1% on the news to $42.67.

Six offshore fields shut on Monday and a further seven had been scheduled to follow in the coming days, with the oil and gas outage set to grow to 966,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boed) by Oct. 14, the industry had said.

“We have a deal, there will be no (more) strike (action),” negotiator Jan Hodneland of the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association (NOG) said after the talks ended.

The Lederne trade union confirmed the news.

“The strike is over,” union chief Audun Ingvartsen said.

Oil firms and union officials met on Friday with a state-appointed mediator to try to end the strike in western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producing nation.

Friday’s meeting was the first with the state mediator since the strike was announced on Sept. 30, although informal talks had been taking place.

Under the wage deal for offshore workers, Aker BP AKERBP.OL and Equinor EQNR.OL both agreed to include provisions for land-based staff at their onshore control rooms, the NOG said, a key demand of Lederne.


RELATED COVERAGE
Factbox: How Norwegian oil workers' pay compares to other countries

The settlement also included a commitment from oil firms to sign a broader, long-term agreement by April 1, 2021, the NOG added.

Wages will also increase, according to Lederne, although this was in line with what other workers in the industry had obtained, the union said.

The strike's first production outage began on Oct. 5, amounting to 330,000 boed, with an additional shutdowns due this weekend at six fields operated by Equinor, ConocoPhillips COP.N and Wintershall Dea.

Equinor’s Johan Sverdrup oilfield, the North Sea’s largest with an output capacity of up to 470,000 barrels per day, had been scheduled to close on Oct. 14 as a result of the strike.

Norwegian oil workers are among the highest paid in Europe but earn less than those in Australia or North America, a review of the latest available data shows. (Graphic: Norway's gas exports 2019, )

Additional reporting by Nora Buli, writing by Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik; editing by Kirsten Donovan and Susan Fenton

#QUACK   #SNAKEOIL

Donald Trump won't answer this very simple question about his health

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Fri October 9, 2020


(CNN)On Thursday night, President Donald Trump did what he often does on Thursday night: Watch football Call into Sean Hannity's Fox News show.
Hannity began the interview with a very basic question about Trump's testing regimen for the virus -- especially since his positive test last Thursday night. Here's the exchange that occurred:

Hannity: Have you been tested recently?

Trump: Fortunately, the -- yes, I just saw the doctors today. They think I'm in great shape. I'm in great shape.

Hannity: Did you test negative?

Trump: I know when I'm in good shape or not. And I will tell you, I took this Regeneron. It's phenomenal. And Eli Lilly has something very comparable. It's phenomenal. And it's a whole new day. It's a whole -- and if you go back a few months, nobody ever even thought about this stuff. We came up with it. And I'm going to have it delivered to every hospital where you have sick people with the Covid, or the China virus, as we call it. And we are going to make people better.

It actually made me better. I went in. I could have left a day later. I'm telling you, Sean, it was incredible. So, that's Regeneron. But, again, Eli Lilly has something similar. The kind of things we're coming up with now are incredible, remdesivir, but that's a little bit different, works much differently, actually. But these things are absolutely incredible.

I think I'm going to try doing a rally on Saturday night, if we can -- if we have enough time to put it together. But we want to do a rally in Florida -- probably in Florida on Saturday night. Might come back and do one in Pennsylvania in the following night. And it's incredible, what's going on. I feel so good.

Hannity: Have you had a test since your diagnosis a week ago?

Trump: Well, what we're doing is probably the test will be tomorrow, the actual test, because there's no reason to test all the time. But they found very little infection or virus, if any. I don't know that they found any.

So, not going to answer the question then, I guess? Remember that Trump is not, in fact, a medical doctor. Nor is he an infectious disease expert. Which means that when Hannity asks Trump if he has tested negative and he responds, "I know when I'm in good shape or not," well, that means absolutely nothing.

Trump's evasiveness came just hours after Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, who has his own struggles with telling the truth about Trump's condition, released a memo arguing that Trump was now free to resume in-person activities on Saturday.
"Saturday will be day 10 since Thursday's diagnosis, and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the President's safe return to public engagements at that time," wrote Conley.

And soon after that, Trump's campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who himself has Covid-19, released a statement citing Coney's report as proof that "there is no medical reason why the Commission on Presidential Debates should shift the debate to a virtual setting, postpone it, or otherwise alter it in any way." (The Commission on Presidential Debates announced Thursday morning that the second presidential debate, set for October 15, would be virtual -- based on advice from the Cleveland Clinic; Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo he would not participate in a virtual debate soon after the announcement.)

While guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues over the summer does not require a patient to receive a negative test before returning to normal activities, the caginess of Trump and his White House on testing is neither new nor terribly transparent.

The White House has yet to answer repeated questions about when Trump last tested negative prior to his positive test last Thursday. "I don't know when he last tested negative," White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern said Wednesday, the day Trump returned to the Oval Office. "We're not asking to go back through a bunch of records and look backwards."
On Thursday, White House communications director Alyssa Farah told reporters she "can't reveal that at this time," when asked about the last time Trump tested negative. "My understanding is that it's his private medical history." Of course, the White House has released LOTS of other medical information about Trump -- all of which supports their case that he is recovering quickly and well from his Covid-19 diagnosis.

Why does it matter when Trump last tested negative? Because, if officials had that information, they would be able to conceptualize the universe of people that Trump had potentially infected between that last negative test and his positive test eight days ago. According to all reports, Trump was showing symptoms last Thursday but we know that the virus can incubate in the body from anywhere between two and 14 days after exposure -- meaning that Trump could well have been infectious for days before he tested positive. And could have exposed any number of people to the virus.

But the White House won't answer that question. Just like Trump won't answer if he has tested negative for the virus now -- even as he insists he is ready to return to the campaign trial and the debate stage.

Trump and his team are essentially asking the public -- and former Vice President Joe Biden, who would be in the same room as Trump next week for the debate -- to simply take his word for it that all is well. The President's track record on truth, however, suggests we all should be very skeptical of his word.

#QUACK  #SNAKEOIL

Trump's claim to have been "cured" of COVID-19 is "bombastic" and not based in fact, experts say

It is unclear if Trump himself is out of the woods from COVID-19, but he definitely has not found a "cure"

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures upon return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 05, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump spent three days hospitalized for coronavirus. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Trump's claim to have been "cured" of COVID-19 is "bombastic" and not based in fact, experts say

It is unclear if Trump himself is out of the woods from COVID-19, but he definitely has not found a "cure"

Although President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that the special treatment he had received for COVID-19 had "cure[d]" him, scientists agree that the president has not in fact been cured — and that by claiming so on video, he is spreading dangerous disinformation about how COVID-19 is treated and how the novel coronavirus infects the body.

In his video, Trump claimed that his novel coronavirus infection was "a blessing from God" because his treatment proved "much more important to me than the vaccine." He claimed that the experimental antibody cocktail given to him by Regeneron, REGN-COV2, "wasn't just therapeutic, it made me better. I call that a cure." He also claimed that he was going to arrange it so that people could receive this drug for "free."

Salon spoke with a number of doctors and public health experts, all of whom agreed that the notion of Trump having been "cured" by his medical treatment is outrageous.
]

"It would be VERY unusual for him not to still be infected," Dr. Alfred Sommer, dean emeritus and professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Salon by email. "There is always the possibility that the unlicensed cocktail of monoclonal antibodies he received early in the course of his disease was unusually effective; but that would be very unlikely until real data are seen. More likely, he is being 'Trump,' made more bombastic by the heightened sense that the dexamethasone he received commonly causes."

Sommer's comment about dexamethasone refers to how the steroid, which is prescribed to COVID-19 patients when doctors are concerned about severely lowered oxygen levels and want to prevent a patient's immune system from fatally overreacting, can cause side effects; those include severe mood swings, insomnia and nervousness. Less common psychological side effects include confusion, depression, delirium, hallucinations and paranoia.

Dr. Russell Medford, Chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation and Global Health Crisis Coordination Center, told Salon that even if the president misspoke and meant to say he is "immune" to the disease, rather than "cured," even that would not make any sense given what we know about the science of COVID-19.

"What we do know is the president has been infected with COVID-19 and he is currently going through a period in which the disease will run its course," Medford told Salon. "His statement that he is immune is not based on any obvious facts to the case and a full and complete immune response would not be expected to occur until later, if at all, in the course of this disease."

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, echoed these thoughts, writing to Salon that "his claim about being cured is wrong. Nothing currently exists that can cure this disease. Your body has to recover from it. The medications he was given helps his body recover a bit faster and reduces his symptoms. But he has to heal naturally which may take weeks."




Based on known science, the novel coronavirus has an incubation period of roughly 14 days, and the infected who develop symptoms are likely to start doing so within four or five days of contracting the virus. Throughout that two week period, people with COVID-19 remain highly contagious, which is why they are often held under quarantine. While there are ways of treating sufferers, there is no evidence so far that any of them are "cures."

"COVID-19 has some established and emerging treatments for it and has a variety of clinical manifestations even without treatment, including complete resolution," Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California–San Francisco, wrote to Salon. "There is not yet evidence that a particular treatment — e.g. the monoclonal antibody that President Trump received — cured him of COVID-19."
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Trump's most prominent adviser in dealing with the pandemic, expressed similar thoughts to The New York Times. As Fauci explained to the publication, "I think it's a reasonably good chance that the antibody that he received, the Regeneron antibody, made a significant difference in a positive way in his course." At the same time, when you have only one case study, "you can't make the determination that that's a cure. You have to do a clinical trial involving a large number of individuals, compared either to a placebo or another intervention."

Science aside, Trump's statements regarding his medical treatments, and their accessibility to the general public, are similarly misinformed. The medical treatments he received are unlikely to be available to the average American. REGN-COV2 has not yet been authorized for production by the Food and Drug Administration, and Trump was only able to access the drug because of a compassionate use permission request made by Trump's staff. Trump's elite status as president seems to have played into the decision to authorize use: "When it's the president of the United States, of course, that gets — obviously — gets our attention," Regeneron's CEO told the New York Times.

In addition to dexamethasone and REGN-COV2, Trump also received an antiviral drug called remdesivir, which is thought to possibly hasten recovery time in patients. Although Trump claims he would make this free for Americans, the medication regimen that he received is extremely costly and would likely only be available to all Americans if they had access to the same military health care system that Trump used — which is, in effect, a single-payer health care system specifically for the military and veterans.

"[It's] way too expensive" for ordinary Americans, as Dr. William Haseltine, the founder and former CEO of Human Genome Sciences, told Salon. "In addition, you have to be in a hospital where they're going to stick a needle in your arm and infuse it over a long period of time. And the same thing is true for that five day course of remdisivir. You've got to infuse that in the hospital over a five day course. So he was getting two drugs that required intrusions, the kind of stuff that makes you feel like a pin cushion."

There are also ethical concerns about Trump's repeated touting of Regeneron. Trump's video caused a 4.7% increase in Regeneron stock. The president used to own stock in the company and he is friendly with its CEO, Leonard Schleifer, who is a member of one of Trump's golf clubs and whom the president calls "Lenny."

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD

QUACK 

Trump’s doctor has become a menace to public safety


October 9, 2020
By AlterNet- Commentary

Dr. Sean Conley. (CNN screenshot)


White House physician Sean Conley confirmed on Thursday that President Donald Trump is now free to make a “safe return” to public events beginning on Saturday. However, medical experts are now questioning Conley’s assessment and swift clearance of the president.

The president’s doctor released a memo about the president’s health insisting his condition has stabilized as he completed therapy for COVID-19. According to Conley the president is said to have responded the therapy “extremely well.

“Since returning home, his physical exam has remained stable and devoid of any indications to suggest progression of illness. Overall he’s responded extremely well to treatment, without evidence on examination of adverse therapeutic effects,” Conley wrote.

“Saturday will be day 10 since Thursday’s diagnosis, and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the President’s safe return to public engagements at that time,” he continued.

The latest news came as Trump announced his intent to resume with campaign rallies over the weekend as he insisted on holding a rally in Florida on Saturday and another in Wisconsin on Sunday. Conley is now facing criticism for his overall assessment of Trump’s coronavirus case.

Last week, Trump was airlifted to Walter Reed Medical Center where he was hospitalized for COVID. The White House faced scrutiny for its inconsistencies and lack of transparency regarding the president’s health. Although Conley often painted a relatively pleasant picture of Trump’s health, the medications he was administered suggested that the president may have been battling a severe case of COVID. Despite speculation, Conley defied odds by allowing the president to discharge from the hospital in just three days.

Now, he has given Trump the green light despite the president being COVID-positive for just one week. Conley’s continued efforts to trample public health norms undermines the expertise of health experts which further diminishes the severity of the coronavirus. Despite Conley’s stance on Trump, there are 7.8 million coronavirus cases and each person’s response to the virus is different. More than 217,000 Americans have died from coronavirus.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/10/trump-symptom-free-has-covid-19.html

MORE TRUMP QUACKERY

HIS SO CALLED DOCTOR IS A BONE CRUNCHER,

A CHIROPRACTOR BY ANY OTHER NAME 

#SNAKEOIL #QUACK

Fact Check: Here's the Deal With Trump's Antibody Cocktail and Fetal Cells

Tom McKay
and Shoshana Wodinsky
Yesterday 6:17PM
•

The inevitable happened, and Donald Trump wound up hospitalized with covid-19. But now Trump is supposedly recovered and back to his usual business, like recording galaxy-brain videos calling his infection a “blessing from God.” One thing that the president has said may well be true: that he recovered with the help of a still-experimental monoclonal antibody cocktail produced by drugmaker Regeneron, called REGN-COV2.

This treatment was made possible in part thanks to fetal tissue research that happened over 40 years ago, though no actual embryonic stem cells were used in its production or development. The hypocrisy here is that the Trump administration halted federal fetal tissue research in 2019, a blow to medical science.

Some of Trump’s critics have taken this connection a little too far. Take Democratic Representative Ted Lieu, for example, who tweeted out documents Regeneron has posted to its web site:

The representative’s claim spread far and wide, racking up over 28,000 retweets and over 64,000 likes as of Thursday afternoon. A search for “human embryonic stem cells” on Twitter shows that it has been a near-constant subject of discussion all week. One tweet making the claim REGN-COV2 was “made with stem cells” and has 81,000 retweets and over 324,000 likes, while another has over 5,300 retweets and 11,800 likes. Numerous other identical claims have gone viral on Twitter, and stem cell claims are circulating on Facebook, too, sometimes with the implication that Trump’s recovery hinged on some relatively recent abortion.

To be clear, Regeneron’s antibody cocktail wasn’t produced using any human embryonic stem cells, though it was tested with the help of line of cells that was originally derived from aborted fetal tissue more than 40 years ago. This particular cell line—which, again, was never actually in a fetus—is widely used in scientific research and has been cultured again and again over the decades.

Neither of the two companies working to develop monoclonal antibodies effective against the SARS-CoV-2 virus have used embryonic stem cells in the process.

Per Science Mag, Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody cocktail and another being made in collaboration between AstraZeneca and Vanderbilt University were developed via a technique that involves harvesting B cells from consenting adults (or laboratory mice) who had recovered from the virus, then identifying which produced antibodies are effective against it. They then injected the genes to produce those antibodies into epithelial cell lines derived from the ovaries of Chinese hamsters. (“Chinese hamster” is the common name for the species C. griseus and does not suggest anything about where the hamsters were necessarily located.) Hamster ovary cells are utilized in a broad spectrum of medical research. That part of the process doesn’t involve anything related to a human fetus.

Lieu described the posted document as showing that “Regeneron, the experimental drug” relies on “human embryonic stem cells.” The document he posted is actually a position statement from Regeneron—the corporate entity, not its as-yet-unnamed drug—on the use of stem cells published in April 2020, when the company was in the early stages of its research on covid-19 antibodies. The statement merely establishes that Regeneron conducts stem cell research in general. It also states that when Regeneron conducts such research, it more commonly relies on mouse or adult human stem cells than it does on embryonic stem cells created by in vitro fertilization.

That document isn’t referring to Regeneron’s treatment, company spokesperson Alexandra Bowie wrote via email to Gizmodo, because it doesn’t use stem cells.

“... This is our general position statement on stem cell use,” Bowie wrote. “This particular discovery program (REGN-COV2) did not involve human stem cells or [embryonic stem cells].”

Lieu’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo asking what sources they had to back up the claim the antibody cocktail “relied on ‘human embryonic stem cells.’” However, some science-minded folks on Twitter noticed that Regeneron’s own supplementary research material referenced human embryonic cells—specifically a derivative of the widely utilized HEK 293 line, HEK293T, with HEK standing for “human embryonic kidney”—as playing a role in production.

To a layperson, the technical language used to describe the process may read as indicating fetal cells are an ingredient in REGN-COV2. Back in 1972, a team of Nordic researchers working with the FDA to crank out the first vaccines for HIV originally cultivated HEK 293 from the kidneys of an aborted fetus, just like the name suggests.

This isn’t the first time that the origins of this specific cell line have made headlines. Back in 2011, pro-life groups lost their shit after discovering that a San Diego-based biotech company that helps create the flavors behind Pepsico and Kraft’s products was actually using HEK to do so. As Snope’s article on the topic points out, these rumors swirled around for years, leading an entire longstanding mythos that your mac and cheese or diet soda might contain fetal tissue. The claims, in many ways, sound nearly identical to the current yelling about REGN-COV2.

Suffice to say, the Pepsico and Trump cocktail rumors are off base. As science writers at the time explained, HEK is a cell culture, meaning that it’s the result of embryonic cells pulled from a single aborted fetus back in 1972 doing what those embryonic cells are particularly adept at doing: multiplying, and multiplying fast. The HEK cells used by the San Diego company were engineered to mimic taste receptors and quickly test new flavors in a laboratory setting; they never came anywhere close to a production line. In Regeneron’s case, the HEK 293T cells were used to cultivate pseudoparticles that mimic the “spike” protein of the coronavirus, which helps the virus invade cells.

Exposing antibodies to these pseudoparticles allows scientists to study how the antibodies might respond to an actual invading coronavirus. It’s not part of the produced drug, just like body armor (usually) doesn’t come with bullets stuck in it.

“The 293T cell line was originally derived from human embryonic kidney cells (back in the 1980s at Stanford University), but is an immortalized epithelial cell—again, not a stem cell,” Bowie told Gizmodo. “These cells were transfected and used in production of a ‘pseudoparticle’ that mimics the virus’ spike protein and allowed us to test neutralization ability of our antibodies against the virus.”

“The HEK293 cell lines are common research tools used to express many kinds of proteins, as briefly described here,” Antibody Society executive director Janice M. Reichert, an expert on antibody therapeutics, wrote to Gizmodo. “By now, there are numerous derivatives of the original cell line. HEK293 cell lines are typically purchased (e.g., from ATCC) by labs, not generated de novo using the method described in the original paper.”

In any case, HEK 293 has been cultured so many times over multiple decades that its origin barely matters—unless, of course, you are vehemently opposed to any kind of fetal tissue research. Its versatility has made this line a staple of medical science. HEK 293T has itself been further modified and cultivated. Neither is a line of stem cells, which are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells with the ability to develop into specialized cells. The distinction is important, as the ability of pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into pretty much anything offers hope for novel treatments for everything from physical trauma to genetic and/or degenerative conditions.

As Snopes put it in its Pepsico debunker:

Saying that possessing a digitized image of a photocopy of a picture of a Beethoven manuscript is the same as “owning a document in Beethoven’s own handwriting” — the original is not present in substance, only in a multi-generational, representational form.

The underlying criticism of Trump—that he is the beneficiary of research he opposes—is fair. In June 2019, the Trump administration moved to cut off federally funded research at the National Institutes of Health utilizing fetal cell tissue collected after an elective abortion. It also forced scientists receiving grants from the NIH to go through a more exhaustive review process, including a “Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board” stocked with opponents of fetal tissue research. An investigation by Democrats in Congress later found, unsurprisingly, that the White House’s decision was motivated almost entirely by political concerns and impeded critical medical research, including coronavirus treatments.

Tom McKay
"... An upperclassman who had been researching terrorist groups online." - Washington Post
Shoshana Wodinsky
I cover the business of data for Gizmodo. Send your worst tips to swodinsky@gizmodo.com.

DISCUSSION
lkodl
Yesterday 6:31PM
their website mentioned development of REGN-COV2 was aided by mice which have been genetically modified to have a human immune system, and i didn’t know that we could do that. sounds so sci-fi.

#SNAKEOIL  #QUACK

Trump’s COVID ‘Cure’ Was Developed Using Fetal Tissue

By Claire Lampen 
HYPOCRISY OCT. 8, 2020

Oops. Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images

When President Donald Trump came down with an apparently very serious coronavirus infection last week, his medical team responded with an experimental drug cocktail that the president has since touted as nothing short of miraculous. Trump likes one of these drugs so much that he released a little hype video on Wednesday, calling the treatment a coronavirus “cure.” (This is only according to Trump — one doctor told the New York Times that there is “one million percent no” chance that it could have “cured” him in 24 hours, as he has claimed.)

In a rambling five-minute video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, a conspicuously bronzed Trump said his COVID infection was a “gift from God” because it introduced him to the drug Regeneron. It sure sounds like no one told him that this particular treatment is developed using fetal tissue, a crucial research avenue Trump’s administration has harshly condemned, and tried to restrict as part of its war on abortion rights.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT! pic.twitter.com/uhLIcknAjT— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

According to the New York Times, Regeneron is made by cultivating monoclonal antibodies from a cell line called 293T, which stem from the kidney tissue of a fetus aborted in the 1970s. (The 293T cells are used to test “the antibodies’ ability to neutralize the virus,” per a company rep.)

The Times notes that both Moderna and AstraZeneca are using 293T cells in producing their coronavirus vaccines. The cells are reportedly also involved in testing the antiviral Remdesivir, another of the drugs seemingly enabling the president to record blustery PSAs mere days after being infected.

The Trump administration first cracked down on “new acquisition of fetal tissue from elective abortions” in summer 2019, limiting the federal funds available to critical National Institutes of Health–partnered research projects — the University of California San Francisco’s work on an HIV cure, for example. According to a great many of the country’s leading research institutions and medical bodies, fetal cells have clear advantages over adult cells, namely their high replication speed and ability to become any type of cell in the body. They have been used for medical research since the 1930s, and are responsible for such significant advances as the polio vaccine.

Use of fetal tissue is subject to a stringent code of ethics that, among other things, bars physicians and scientists from financially incentivizing abortion to advance their work. Despite the facts, the claim that “Planned Parenthood sells baby parts” for profit remains a favorite refrain of anti-choice extremists on the religious right. That ideology appears to be a motivating factor behind the Trump administration’s decision to establish a fetal-tissue ethics review advisory board in June of last year, one predictably stacked with abortion opponents. The Department of Health and Human Services explained in a statement that “promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,” per the Times.

Given that the cell line on which Regeneron’s antibody therapy relies dates back to the 1970s, its research efforts wouldn’t run afoul of NIH funding guidelines. It would, however, fly in the face of anti-abortion zealots, who decry fetal-tissue research on the grounds that it “violate[s] the bodies of aborted babies by commodifying them for use in medical research.”

Still, as one member of the ethics advisory board — Lawrence Goldstein, a senior faculty member at the University of California at San Diego, and a scientist who has used fetal tissue for research — told the Washington Post, “a lot of the opponents have looked the other way” on Regeneron. Goldstein (correctly) labeled this selective blindness “blatant hypocrisy,” but what else could we conceivably expect?

Trump Attacks Whitmer After Feds Foil Plot To Kidnap Her, Complains She Hasn’t Thanked Him

President Donald Trump participates in the first presidential debate against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland 

By Cristina Cabrera
|
October 9, 2020 8:59 a.m.

President Donald Trump ranted about Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday night after the FBI announced they had thwarted a right-wing conspiracy to kidnap and possibly kill Whitmer.

Following the FBI’s announcement on Thursday, Whitmer had slammed Trump over his refusal to denounce right-wing extremist groups, particularly white supremacists, during the first presidential debate less than two weeks ago.

“Hate groups heard the President’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action,” said the governor.

In response, Trump tweeted that Whitmer “has done a terrible job” with her emergency restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic; restrictions that had allegedly infuriated the 13 charged suspects in the FBI case to the point where they allegedly devised a scheme in which they would kidnap Whitmer and put her “on trial.” Several of the suspects allegedly floated the possibility of killing the governor.

The President also complained about Whitmer’s lack of gratitude toward him personally after the feds foiled the kidnapping plot on Thursday.

“My Justice Department and Federal Law Enforcement announced today that they foiled a dangerous plot against the Governor of Michigan,” he tweeted. “Rather than say thank you, she calls me a White Supremacist—while Biden and Democrats refuse to condemn Antifa, Anarchists, Looters and Mobs that burn down Democrat run cities.”

Trump attacked Whitmer again during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night.

“I see Whitmer today, she’s complaining, but it was our Justice Department that arrested the people that she was complaining about,” the President said. “It was my Justice Department that arrested them, but instead she goes and does her little political act.”

He ranted again that the Michigan governor is doing “a horrible thing to the people” by imposing requirements on masks and indoor capacity limits to keep COVID-19 from spreading.

Whitmer’s office did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.

Listen to Trump below:
Trump attacks Whitmer and complains she’s ungrateful to him after feds foiled plot to kidnap her. pic.twitter.com/ilFo1GgI9q
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 9, 2020

MUG SHOTS OF GUN RIGHTS TERRORISTS

 AND TRUMP SUPPORTERS 

Cristina Cabrera (@crismcabrera) is a newswriter at TPM based in New York. She previously worked for Vocativ, USA Today and NY1 News.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer says Trump should not provide hate groups “a rallying cry”

By THE OAKLAND PRESS | theoaklandpress@medianewsgroup.com |
PUBLISHED: October 9, 2020                            
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the state.

After the charges announced by both federal and state authorities Thursday about a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, she mentioned some of the president’s rhetoric in recent weeks and months.

Whitmer, while thanking law enforcement agencies and personnel as well as praising Michigan’s people and their grit, did address some of what President Donald Trump has said and not said, particularly declining to denounce hate groups, such as the Proud Boys.

Quickly, Trump’s campaign slammed the governor, calling her statements “shameful, according to Mediaite.com.

Meanwhile, the story of the arrests and raids throughout Michigan has made national news, including landing near the top of the DrudgeReport.com in the late afternoon and at the top of the NYTimes.com and near the top of the Wall Street Journal.
drudge report on michigan gov and trump.jpgThe featured headlines at the top of the Drudge Report on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, seen in this screen shot of the popular new aggregator site as the election approaches.

Read the full statement from Michigan’s governor here:

——

Good afternoon. Earlier today, Attorney General Dana Nessel was joined by officials from the Department of Justice and the FBI to announce state and federal charges against 13 members of two militia groups who were preparing to kidnap and possibly kill me.

When I put my hand on the bible and took the oath of office 22 months ago, I knew this job would be hard, but I’ll be honest – I never could’ve imagined anything like this.

I want to start by saying thank you to law enforcement. Thank you to the fearless FBI agents. And thank you to the brave Michigan State Police troopers who participated in this operation – acting under the leadership of Col. Joe Gasper.


I also want to thank Attorney General Nessel and US Attorneys Birge and Schneider and their teams for pursuing criminal charges that hopefully will lead to convictions, bringing these sick and depraved men to justice.13 people charged in plot to kidnap Gretchen WhitmerSix men have been charged by federal law enforcement authorities with plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at her Elk Rapids vacation home as well as attacking police, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday and unsealed Thursday in federal court.

As a mom with two teenage daughters and three stepsons, my husband and I are eternally grateful to everyone who put themselves in harm’s way to keep our family safe.

2020 has been a hard year for all of us. Hard for our doctors and nurses. Truck drivers and grocery store workers. It’s been hard for teachers and students and parents. Hard for those who have had to stay isolated to stay safe. And it’s not over yet.

But here’s what I know: we are Michiganders. We have grit. We have heart. And we are tough as hell.

We made it through the Great Recession.

We made it through auto bankruptcies.

We made it through floods and polar vortexes.

But none of us has faced a challenge like COVID-19. Not in our lifetimes.

I’ve said it many times – we are not one another’s enemy. This virus is our enemy. And this enemy is relentless. It doesn’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. Young or old. Rich or poor.

It doesn’t care if we’re tired of it.

It threatens us all – – our lives, our families, our jobs, our businesses, our economy. It preys on our elderly and medically vulnerable residents. And it has exposed deep inequities in our society.

This should be a moment for national unity. Where we all pull together as Americans to meet this challenge head-on – with the same might and muscle that put a man on the moon. Seeing the humanity in one another and doing our part to help our country get through this.mich gov on top of nytimes.jpgA screen shot of the New York Times on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, after arrests were announced alleging a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by right-wing militia groups.

Instead – our head of state has spent the past seven months denying science. Ignoring his own health experts. Stoking distrust and fomenting anger. And giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.

Just last week, the President of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups – like these two Michigan militia groups.

“Stand back, and stand by,” he said to them.

“Stand back, and stand by.”

Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a rallying cry. As a call to action.

When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight.

When our leaders meet with, encourage, or fraternize with domestic terrorists they legitimize their actions – they are complicit. When they stoke and contribute to hate speech – they are complicit.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan spoke to the NAACP’s annual convention and his comments stand in sharp contrast to what we have seen on the national and state level from his own beloved party in 2020.

He said: “A few isolated groups in the backwater of American life still hold perverted notions of what America is all about.” “Recently in some places in the nation there’s been a disturbing reoccurrence of bigotry and violence.”

Then, Reagan sent a direct message to those “who still adhere to senseless racism and religious prejudice.”

“You are the ones who are out of step with our society,” he said. “You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because of what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct.”

So let me say this loud and clear: hatred, bigotry, and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan.drudge report on michigan gov plot.jpgA screen shot of the Drudge Report at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, with headlines about the alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

And if you break the law, or conspire to commit heinous acts of violence against anyone – we will find you, we will hold you accountable, and we will bring you to justice.

For the past seven months, I’ve made the tough choices to keep our state safe. These have been gut-wrenching decisions no governor has ever had to make.

And I get it: life has been hard for us all.

When I get out of bed every morning, I think about the high school seniors like my daughter who missed graduation ceremonies, or those Michiganders who have missed weddings and funerals. I think about all the moms who are working from home, making breakfast every day, logging kids into their zoom class, and doing laundry. I think about the small business owners who spent a lifetime building something great, who are now hanging on by their fingernails just to keep the lights on.

The disruption this virus has caused to our daily lives is immeasurable.

It has already taken the lives of more than 210,000 Americans – including over 6,800 right here in Michigan.

As painful as these losses are, our hard work and sacrifices have saved thousands of lives. We have one of the strongest economic recoveries in the nation.

Make no mistake: there will be more hard days ahead.

But I want the people of Michigan to know this: As your governor, I will never stop doing everything in my power to keep you and your family safe. You don’t have to agree with me. But I do ask one thing: never forget that we are all in this together.

Let’s show a little kindness. And a lot more empathy. Give one another some grace. And let’s take care of each other.

Wear your mask. Stay six feet apart. Wash your hands frequently. And look out for your neighbors.

We are Michiganders. I know we can get through this. We will get through this.

So let’s get through it together.