The year conspiracy theories yielded deadly consequences

It started with a riot and ended with people believing vaccines don't work.


Oscar Gonzalez

CNET 
Dec. 22, 2021 

Conspiracy theories aren't new. Theories about the JFK assassination have persisted for more than 50 years. Flat Earth has thousands of believers including a surprisingly significant percentage of millennials. This year, however, conspiracy theories yielded deadly consequences.

In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic dragged on. Along with health and economic hardships, it also appears to have brought a growing interest in conspiracy theories.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has seen an explosion of disinformation online, around vaccinations, lockdowns and other health measures," said Simon Copland, a Ph.D. candidate at the Australian National University who studies misinformation on social media. "Much of this disinformation stems from other conspiracy theories, and there are now many more people being brought into the fold of these ideas after two years of frustration."

Those conspiracy theories flourished on social media and across the internet. While companies such as Facebook and Twitter put in place new policies meant to combat misinformation, it doesn't look like the problem will be going away.

Conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and COVID-19 vaccines stood out among the sea of crazy ideas this year for their real-world impact. While not all fringe-y ideas on their own are dangerous, conspiracy theories, fueled by misinformation on social media, contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 Capital riot and to hesitancy and outrage over COVID-19 vaccines and health policies meant to combat the pandemic.

A riot to ring in the new year

This year started with what both media members and former President Donald Trump have referred to as "The Big Lie," though for different reasons. Trump lost the 2020 election, but falsely claimed that the loss resulted from voting fraud. Social media platforms played whack-a-mole trying to curb the volume of election fraud posts but had a hard time keeping up.

Then-President Trump speaking at the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6. It was shortly after his speech that the rally-goers stormed the Capitol. Getty Images

On Jan. 6, the day Joe Biden was to be sworn in as president, thousands of Trump fans stormed the US Capitol after gathering for a "Stop the Steal" rally. Along with hundreds of injuries sustained by rioters and police, four attendees died: two from heart attacks, one from an accidental overdose and another from a fatal shot. All four were Trump supporters who believed the conspiracy theory that the former president didn't lose the election. There were also five Capitol police officers who have died since the riot: one from a stroke the day after, and four by suicide in the following months.

Some of the people at the riot were also confirmed supporters of QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory purporting that Trump was engaged in a secret war against a cabal of Satanist Democrats and Hollywood celebrities. The QAnon movement continued on even when Biden took office, with some declaring multiple times that Trump was the secret president of the US. Some Q believers also spent part of November waiting for the return of John F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the assassinated president, who has been dead since 1999. In August, a man alleged that the QAnon conspiracy led him to kill his own children.

The pandemic some didn't believe was happening

But the conspiracy theories weren't just political. Even as COVID-19 vaccines started becoming more widely available in the US early in the year, public health officials worried they wouldn't have enough shots for everyone. Instead, they came across another problem: people spreading anti-vaccine misinformation that the shots were ineffective or even dangerous.

Factually incorrect memes and videos about vaccines spread on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, which has surged in popularity during the pandemic. Both medical professionals and frauds spreading misinformation shot up in popularity, finding an audience of people seeking voices that opposed the mountain of evidence showing vaccines are effective at preventing hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

The anti-vax conspiracy theories started off somewhat inane, with some claiming the vaccines contained magnets that caused metal to stick to their arms where they received the shot. This was debunked fairly easily.
An anti-vax rally in New York City on Dec. 5.Getty Images

Conspiracy theorists ramped up the misinformation, claiming falsely that the vaccines were killing more people than they were saving. As "proof," some pointed to reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a public health surveillance program to "detect unusual or unexpected reporting patterns of adverse events for vaccines." While VAERS does list cases of individuals experiencing side effects after vaccination, including death, the system doesn't confirm the vaccine was at fault.

Make no mistake, there can be side effects to the vaccines. The vast majority consist of flu-like symptoms, but some reactions do require a trip to the hospital. Still, the benefits of the vaccines far outweigh the risks of being unvaccinated and contracting COVID.

Misinformation about COVID-19 treatments also spread on social media, with the most popular concerning the antiparasitic drug ivermectin. There were some studies suggesting the drug could help those infected with the recovery process, but many of those were found to have inaccurate info, leading them to be redacted. More studies have shown ivermectin has no effect on COVID.

That didn't stop celebrities such as comedian Joe Rogan, UFC promoter Dana White and Aaron Rogers of the Green Bay Packers from telling people they took ivermectin after being infected with COVID. While these celebrities and others have taken a version of the drug for humans, there was an alarming number of people who took the livestock version, leading to an increase in calls to poison centers and two deaths due to overdose.

It's not possible to draw a clear line of causation between misinformation about COVID-19 and deaths from the virus. One board on Reddit purports to offer some insight on people who consumed these conspiracy theories. Called r/HermanCainAward -- a reference to the former Republican presidential candidate who died from COVID after attending a Trump rally -- the subreddit is filled with posts about people who shared misinformation about COVID-19 and later died from the virus, often told through screenshots of social media posts. They tend to follow a pattern: multiple screenshots of a person sharing misinformation about COVID, followed by posts where the individual says they've tested positive. The final image is usually of a family member or friends confirming the person died from the virus.

Will things be different in 2022?

It's apparent that conspiracy theories aren't going anywhere. Even if they get debunked, like those about the 2020 election and COVID vaccines, these theories have already spread too far, and it appears there's no stopping them.

"It would be really difficult to predict whether disinformation on social media platforms will get better or worse in the next year or so, but the indications are not good," Copland said, "These groups are becoming more intense. There is a good chance this will continue to grow."

When will Democrats do their job and protect Black people’s right to vote?

Basic civil rights do not take a holiday, so neither should those entrusted to safeguard those rights

Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown

‘Voting rights is not just about election day; it’s a 365-day mission.’ 

Photograph: Nathan Posner/REX/Shutterstock

Wed 22 Dec 2021 

Voting rights are under assault by Republican state lawmakers, clearly afraid of the power of the Black electorate and empowered by the gutting of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. The federal response, or lack thereof, will affect not only Black voters but the power of all Americans to shape our government with our votes. Endemic racism obscures the obvious: an attack on Black voters is an attack on the foundation of our democracy.

With two voting rights bills held hostage in the US Senate by threat of a Republican filibuster, Democrats are not fighting back with the same vigor that Republicans have used to trample on the rights of voters. A failure of US Senate Democrats to move on the passage of voting rights will ultimately be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they fail to secure rights for the voters who put them into office, their base for the midterm elections will shrink and open a path for a Republican takeover in 2022.

However, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, recently pointed out in a speech on the Senate floor that when the will is there, Congress changes its rules to allow legislation to pass. He noted that the Senate recently enabled a vote on raising the national debt ceiling to prevent a default on government financial obligations and uphold the full faith and credit of the US government.

Warnock shone a light on the hypocrisy of changing Senate procedure for financial legislation but not to combat the suppression of Black voters. “We’ve decided we must do it for the economy, but not for the democracy,” he said, pointing out that Democrats are hiding behind technicalities to avoid an ugly confrontation. But racism cloaked in the relic of the filibuster cannot prevail over our hard-won right to shape our democracy.

Since Black voters showed up in record numbers in the 2020 election, trying to save a democracy that has not always protected us, the political backlash from Republican state houses has echoed throughout 2021. The result is that Black voters have less protection today than we had at this time last year.

Yet Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress have not used the power that Black voters secured for them to protect our rights. They have expended their political capital on the infrastructure and Build Back Better bills, when the basis of democracy should be their most urgent priority.

The failure of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to pass in a Democratic Congress shows the lengths to which Republicans will go to keep Black voters away from the polls. Yet even without federal voting protection, in the 2021 “off-year” elections, Black people came out in strong numbers to prevail in local elections throughout the south. Black Voters Matter (BVM) has been in the streets, on the phones and connecting with our partners to mobilize for elections, showing that there is no off-year when it comes to voting.

The basis of democracy should be their most urgent priority

In the recent November races for city council, mayor and the statehouse of representatives throughout Georgia, where new state laws have taken direct aim at the Black electorate, we mobilized Black voters to make our voices heard. With on-the-ground canvassing and voter outreach caravans, we turned out Black voters in Warner Robins, Georgia, for a crucial city council race. Our texting and phone banking campaigns in Hinds County, Mississippi, helped to secure a major victory in a local judge’s race. And this summer, on our Freedom Ride for Voting Rights, we started mobilizing Black voters from New Orleans to Washington DC months before important local elections took shape.

And our movement is still gaining momentum. Last week, as the president convened leaders from around the world for his Global Democracy Summit, BVM partnered with local and national advocacy organizations on coordinated voting rights actions across the country to point out the administration’s hypocrisy.

Holding a global summit on democracy is a slap in the face to the millions of citizens in Biden’s own backyard who still face significant obstacles to the polls. In response, we held nearly a dozen events nationwide, including a student hunger strike led by Un-Pac Arizona, calling on Biden and the Senate to pass voting rights legislation before Congress goes into holiday recess. Actions also took place in California, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia and Washington DC.

Basic civil rights do not take a holiday, so neither should those entrusted to safeguard those rights. We will continue to push and build a movement to demand #RightsBeforeRecess.

Voting rights is not just about election day; it’s a 365-day mission. We have responded to attempts to block us from the ballot with more community organizing, more education, more outreach and even more energy. And it’s now time for congressional Democrats to respond by clearing the way to pass laws that protect not only Black voters but the rights and freedoms of all of us.


Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown are co-founders of Black Voters Matter

We Mobilized Young People to Support Biden. He’s Failing Us.

Sunrise and United We Dream youth organizers trusted Biden and the Democrats to really get things done. They are failing to follow through on campaign promises.

By Varshini Prakash and Greisa Martínez Rosas

President Joe Biden speaks on November 17 at General Motors' Factory ZERO electric vehicle assembly plant in Detroit, Mich., about the Infrastructure and Jobs Act.

 (Photo by Nic Antaya / Getty Images)

Most days it feels like the deck is stacked against young people—rising rent and evictions, a worsening climate crisis, loved ones being deported and denied citizenship, and insurmountable student debt. And while young people are trying to survive in a system that has neglected them for decades, President Joe Biden and Democratic leadership are caving to Senator Joe Manchin, a coal baron from West Virginia who profits off poisoning our communities, and racist, undemocratic Senate rules—all at the expense of young people and our futures. The time for bold, progressive change is now, and if Democrats don’t deliver, young people will elect new leaders in 2022 and 2024 who will.

When we mobilized young people to the polls last year, we handed Democrats everything they needed: a governing majority and a popular mandate. We risked our lives to knock on doors through a pandemic. We agitated, organized, and convinced our communities, who were skeptical because they have been let down time and time again by the Democratic Party, to vote for Biden and Democrats across the country. Young people trusted Democrats to really get things done. Yet, not even a full year into his presidency, Biden and congressional Democrats are failing to follow through on their campaign promises because of the Jim Crow filibuster, an unelected parliamentarian, and corporate Democrats like Joe Manchin.

This reconciliation package, the Build Back Better plan, symbolizes more than the legislative prowess of the Democratic Party. A reconciliation package that includes a pathway to citizenship and bold investments to communities on the frontline of the climate crisis symbolizes that the Democratic Party actually gives a damn about our communities and our futures. Futures where we don’t have to fear that our loved ones will be taken from us in the middle of the night by a brutal deportation force. Futures where we don’t have to flee our homes due to deadly storms or other natural disasters. Futures where we don’t have to take it day by day, but can thrive and prosper. 

                                                                                                                        
This past November’s off-year elections should be a warning to Democrats in office: Young people won’t mobilize for politicians that uphold a broken status quo. They’ll mobilize instead for bold leaders who aren’t afraid to challenge institutional power structures to deliver real, material change. Democrats cannot ignore our demands in office and then ask us for our votes come Election Day. We are not a bottomless well of support that can be siphoned for votes every two to four years.

The urgency of now cannot be understated: the shrinking window of a full Democratic majority, the code red from climate scientists around the world, a seemingly never-ending pandemic, and the rise of deportations and detentions with reports of inhumane conditions at detention centers across the country. It’s because of this that our generations feel the urgency to fight for the changes that we need to secure a future where we can all live and thrive. From protests to bird-dogging, to hunger strikes, we’re mobilizing and agitating because the stakes couldn’t be higher for our generation and future generations to come.

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The legislative decisions that Democrats make in the coming weeks will galvanize our generations. The outcomes of those decisions, however, will determine whether we’re galvanized for or against them. Will Biden cater to the interests of Joe Manchin, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and other corporate Democrats who refuse to listen to their constituents and obstruct his popular agenda, the very same one that young people have fought and starved for? Or will he stand up for young and marginalized communities, and fight for an agenda that saves lives?

Let’s be clear: No one will remember who Joe Manchin is, or what the Senate procedures are, but they will remember that Democrats were in power when student loan payments restarted, aid for working families stopped, and the party failed to pass robust legislation that would help millions of people.

Democrats cannot deny young people’s impact in voting, base building, and advocacy. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer must bring the legislation up for a vote and if it fails to pass the Senate, if the Democrats cannot deliver, President Biden must take immediate executive action that meets the moment of the crises we are in. If they fail to act, they will face a young, powerful electoral block that will mobilize for politicians who will fight for them.

It is time for President Biden and Democrats to play hard ball within their caucus and deliver for the young people that took a chance on them.


Varshini PrakashVarshini Prakash (@VarshPrakash) is the executive director and cofounder of the Sunrise Movement, a member of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Climate Change, and coauthor of Winning a Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can.

Greisa Martínez RosasGreisa Martínez Rosas is the executive director of United We Dream Action, the leading national network fighting for dignity and justice led by immigrant youth and allies.

STUDENT LOAN DEBT

Millennial Voters Are Most Likely to Back Total Federal Student Loan Forgiveness for All Americans

Nearly half of baby boomers and half of Republicans say the U.S. government shouldn’t forgive student loan debt at all

Activists gather at the White House on Dec. 15, 2021, to call on President Joe Biden to not resume student loan payments in February and to cancel student debt. A Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 19 percent of voters think the federal government should forgive all student loan debt for all Americans. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images)

BY CLAIRE WILLIAMS
December 22, 2021 

After a nearly two-year break from paying student loans, borrowers could be required to resume payments on Feb. 1, when President Joe Biden was planning to lift the pause.

But student loan borrowers could get an early holiday surprise. Politico reported Tuesday that the Biden administration could extend the relief.

Among registered voters, a new Morning Consult/Politico poll shows dramatic generational and partisan splits over whether the federal government should enact some sort of student loan relief.

What the numbers say

Generationally, millennials are the most likely cohort to believe that student loans should be forgiven entirely among all Americans (34 percent).

Gen Z adults – many of whom haven’t had to make a student loan payment due to COVID-19 forbearance – are the group most likely to be undecided: More than a quarter of the generation said they don’t know or have no opinion on student loan forgiveness.
Baby boomers were by far the generation most opposed to student loan forgiveness: 45 percent said no debt should be forgiven at all.

Partisan differences broke down predictably: 85 percent of Democrats support some kind of student loan forgiveness, while among Republicans, nearly half said no student loan debt should be forgiven.


The survey was conducted Dec. 18-20, 2021, among 1,998 registered voters, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

“Do You Hear What I Hear” was actually about the Cuban Missile Crisis

By Reba A. Wissner | December 22, 2021
 

A star dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite: An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launched during a test at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on February 5, 2020. US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Clayton Wear


We often take Christmas carols at face value. But at least one holiday favorite, “Do You Hear What I Hear,” contains more than what first meets the ear.

Written during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the song contains references to the fear of a nuclear attack. Many of the phrases it contains, such as “a star, dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite” can be interpreted in two ways: as the bright star of Bethlehem that leads the Magi to the baby Jesus—or as the sight of a nuclear missile in flight. “The star was meant to be a bomb,” the composers’ daughter, Gabrielle Regney, explained to GBH News, the magazine of the Boston public radio station, in 2019.

October 16 to November 20, 1962 was a tense month. Americans had discovered a store of Soviet missiles housed in Cuba, leading to the nuclear standoff known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The world was on edge, unsure if the Soviet Union would attack the United States. On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation, apprising them of the situation and letting them know how much danger they would be in should the missiles, with their advanced capabilities, be launched. Many people frequently listened to their radios to hear whether or not an attack had begun.

Partial lyrics to “Do You Hear What I Hear” courtesy of WGBH

One of those people was Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne’s record producer, who had asked that the songwriting pair compose a Christmas carol as the B-side to a single they had coming out, according to an interview Regney later gave to the Connecticut newspaper The Ridgefield Press.

Such a request was tempered by the current political climate. Regney, a composer, had fought in his native France during World War II and seen the horrors of war firsthand. He braced himself for what could come next should the Soviet Union attack the United States and a third world war begin. On his way home from the record studio in New York City, Regney pondered the request, considering the pervasive threat of nuclear war and his disdain for the recent commercialization of Christmas. As Regney traveled, he passed women wheeling strollers on the street. He saw that the innocent children were looking at each other and smiling—which inspired the song’s first line: “Said the night wind to the little lamb,” reported The Atlantic in 2015.

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But he also considered what would happen to those same children should the United States be attacked. By the time Regney arrived home, he had written the song in his head. But Regney was dissatisfied with the melody he had composed. (He usually did the melodies while his wife, lyricist Gloria Shayne, wrote the words.) As a result, they swapped their normal duties and Regney wrote the words while Shayne wrote the music, Regney explained in a 1985 interview with the New York Times.

In the way I read the song—I’m a musicologist at a university, with an emphasis on popular culture—almost everything in it has a double meaning or serves as an allegory for something else: the lamb a call for peace and the children Regney passed on the street, the child shivering in the cold referring to the children who would most certainly be killed in a nuclear attack, silver and gold as the human cost of war. The song contains many of the same elements found in traditional Christmas songs—strophic form (every stanza of text is set to the same music), call and response elements, and shifts in volume and pitch in each stanza—making its hidden meaning all the more indistinguishable.

Long-exposure photo of the first atomic bomb test, taken at 5:29:45 a.m. on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The test was code-named “Trinity.”

Each line begins with a question that is pitched low and the answer is found in the notes that are higher in the scale later in the stanza. Each stanza sees the story pass from person, thing, or animal to someone else: the night wind to the little lamb in stanza one, the little lamb to the shepherd boy in stanza two, the shepherd boy to the king in stanza three, and the king to the people—us—in stanza four. Important contextual and symbolic words—lamb, see, star, kite, boy, king, hear, know, song, child, sea, say, (every)where, light—fall on long sustained notes, a technique used as far back as medieval Catholic chants. The word “everywhere” is the only one that has its final syllable sustained and the rest of the word broken among three notes (a possible symbol for the Trinity) but also draws attention to the pair’s call for universal peace sung at its highest volume and called for by the king in the song.

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Regney and Shayne penned the song as a call for peace during a time of uncertainty, said Regney’s 2002 obituary in the New York Times—would there even be a world after the Cuban Missile Crisis? The song’s message was so poignant that the pair had difficulty singing through it without crying. Regney and Shayne’s favorite version of the song, in fact, was performed by Robert Goulet because he nearly shouted the line “pray for peace,” which was the real message of the song, Regney told the Times.

The song’s first recording was by the Harry Simeone Chorale, the same group that popularized another Christmas favorite, “The Little Drummer Boy,” shortly before Thanksgiving 1962. “Do You Hear What I Hear” had an initial pressing of 250,000 copies that sold out within the first week of its release. Luckily, only a few days before the song was released, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended, though fear of nuclear war was still in the air.

Most people do not know how recent the song is or what its message really entails. In a 1985 interview, Regney made a remark that still holds true today: “I am amazed that people can think they know the song and not know it is a prayer for peace. But we are so bombarded by sound and our attention spans are so short that we now listen only to catchy beginnings.”

Since its 1962 release, there have been over 151 versions of the song released in multiple languages, the most recent performed by The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan in a live coffee house show on December 19, 2021. However, probably the most famous version was recorded by Bing Crosby one year after its initial release; it remains a staple of the holiday season, selling over a million copies upon release. (And Regney became the first Noël to have a Christmas hit in the United States.)

The circumstances behind the song are still as relevant today as they were in 1962—only now, the Doomsday Clock sits at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to nuclear apocalypse. And that, certainly, is not a thought full of Christmas cheer.

 

Jesus' birth to a single mom signals prophetic challenge to patriarchy

Dec 22, 2021

by Christine Schenk

 

Spirituality

Theology

12.22.21 NCR Schenck_Unsplash.jpg

(Unsplash/Jonathan Cooper)

At the Christmas Eve vigil Mass, ask your pastor to read all 25 verses in Matthew's Gospel rather than using the shorter form that skips over the genealogy. I know proclaiming Matthew's genealogy can be tedious to contemporary ears, yet it contains critical information about the amazing — and at times unsettling — unpredictability of God.

Genealogies were important in antiquity. They sought to explain a person's significance in light of the overarching history of those who had gone before and helped establish the identity and authenticate the status of an important person, such as that of a king or priest. If certain ancestral traits reappeared in descendants, a genealogy could reveal something about that person's character as well.

Matthew's genealogy works hard to link the birth of Jesus to Joseph and the proud Davidic patriarchal lineage from which every good Jew knew the Messiah would come (see Jer. 23:5-6.) The first line speaks volumes: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Immediately we know that Matthew is saying that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah and his lineage can be traced to David and then to Abraham.

There is one problem with this: Jesus is the son of Mary, not Joseph.

Genealogy of matriarchs

To trace Jesus' ancestors through Mary (Miriam) and the matriarchs, click here for a genealogy compiled by the late Loretto Sister Ann Patrick Ware

Matthew himself quietly spells this out in verse 16: "and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah."

So here we have an elaborate and painstaking genealogy created to prove Jesus' ancestral links to the male kings and patriarchs of Israel when in fact, as verse 19 explains, he was born to Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit. Not through Joseph. Not through patriarchal potency.

It is enough to make any self-respecting feminist laugh.

Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech arguing for female voting rights pretty much nails it:

Then that little man in black there [presumably a preacher], he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

"Man had nothing to do with Him." While this makes for rather fun rhetoric in the 21st century, it didn't work so well for first-century pastoral sensibilities. For the sake of the Jewish-Christian community for whom he wrote, Matthew needed to connect Jesus to the Hebrew patriarchs and to explain the unusual events surrounding Mary’s pregnancy — all within the context of Jewish tradition and history.

He succeeds in doing so and it is nothing short of masterful.

In addition to Mary, four women are woven into the Matthean genealogy: Rahab, Tamar, Ruth and "the wife of Uriah" (aka Bathsheba). All four women played critical roles in Jewish history and, according to the renowned biblical scholar Fr. Raymond Brown, they came to be seen in post-biblical Judaism as instruments of the Holy Spirit. All four women had something irregular — some would say scandalous — about their unions with their partners.

      What could better witness the power of an unpredictable God 

than to raise up a long-awaited Messiah from the least powerful of humans

 — a child born of an unwed mother?

Rahab (Josh 2:1-24; 6:1-2, 15-25) ran a brothel in Jericho. Joshua sent two men to reconnoiter the city before his planned siege. Rahab had gleaned a great deal of intelligence from her clientele and shared the information with Joshua's spies. She saw that the Hebrews would prevail: "I know that God has given you this land. Fear has fallen upon us. …" Rahab hid Joshua's spies and helped them escape. In return she received safe passage for her entire household and family. Rahab became the mother of Boaz and according to rabbinic tradition was an ancestor of eight prophets, including Jeremiah and Huldah.

Tamar's (Gen 38:6-30; 1 Chr 2:3-6) first husband before she had any children, Er, died. As was the custom, her father-in-law Judah gave her to his second son Onan so his deceased brother would have an heir. But Onan withdrew before his semen could enter Tamar and as punishment he also died. A fearful Judah refused to give his third son to Tamar but neither did he release her from the levirate bond so she could marry again. Since in antiquity a woman's first duty was to produce a male heir, a resourceful Tamar disguised herself as a Temple prostitute and seduced Judah. She also demanded personal items from him as pledge of future payment. Tamar became pregnant and when Judah sought to burn her for being a harlot, she was saved by showing him his pledge. "She is more in the right than I am," said Judah. Tamar bore twin sons, including Perez, who continued the Abrahamic lineage.

Ruth (Ruth 1-4) was a foreigner, a Moabite woman whose mother-in-law Naomi had emigrated from Judah to Moab during a time of famine. After both women's husbands died, Naomi decided to return to Judah. A childless Ruth insisted on returning with her. Her fidelity to Naomi is remembered to this day with the popular wedding hymn "Wherever you go, I shall go," (Ruth 1:16). Upon their return, Naomi encouraged Ruth to seek out a wealthy kinsman, Boaz, in hopes of fulfilling the levirate obligation to beget a child for her deceased husband. Ruth did so and Boaz married her. She gave birth to Obed, the grandfather of David.

Bathsheba (2 Sam 11: 1-27;12:1-25; 1 Kings 1-40; 2:13-25) was the beautiful wife of Uriah the Hittite. As she was bathing one day, King David was out for a stroll along the palace roof and saw her. He summoned her to his chambers, most likely raped and impregnated her. He then tried to cover it up and ordered Uriah home from battle, hoping he would sleep with his wife. But Uriah refused to take pleasure while his fellow soldiers were dying. David then had Uriah sent to the front where he was killed. He took Bathsheba as one of his eight wives and ten concubines. After the prophet Nathan chastised David, the couple's male infant died. David again impregnated Bathsheba and she gave birth to Solomon. Bathsheba subsequently navigated palace intrigues to make sure her son, Solomon, succeeded David as king.

Matthew holds up these four women as examples of how an unpredictable God used female initiative and courage in unexpected ways to affect the lineage of the future Messiah.

In his classic book on the infancy narratives, The Birth of the Messiah, Brown explains:

It is the combination of the scandalous or irregular union and of divine intervention through the women that explains Matthew's choice in the genealogy. … Matthew has chosen women who foreshadow the role of Mary, the wife of Joseph. In the eyes of men her pregnancy was a scandal since she had not lived with her husband; yet the child was actually begotten through God's Holy Spirit, so that God had intervened to bring to fulfillment the messianic heritage.

What could better witness the power of an unpredictable God than to raise up a long-awaited Messiah from the least powerful of humans — a child born of an unwed mother? What better witness than a son with no apparent biological father, and therefore no claim to patriarchal privilege?

In the Women's Bible Commentary, New Testament scholar Amy Jill Levine observes that Jesus' unconventional birth "indicates the restructuring of the human family: outside of patriarchal models it is not ruled by nor even defined by a male head of household."

With such a genealogy, it is no surprise that Jesus — taught by his Magnificat-mother — dedicated his life to raising up the lowly, scattering the proud-hearted and filling the hungry with good things.

In the messianic age, "family" would become newly defined for Christians as deriving from God's power to save through Jesus, rather than through human patriarchal power. The earliest Christian communities saw their kinship-in-Christ as a primary familial identity.

Christmas is a great time to celebrate Jesus' unpredictable God, who often confounds even the most deeply entrenched of our human expectations.

It can be scary. It can also be liberating.

How will you witness to Jesus' unpredictable God in a patriarchal world still so deeply in need of transforming grace?

Christine Schenk

St. Joseph Sr. Christine Schenk, an NCR board member, served urban families for 18 years as a nurse midwife before co-founding FutureChurch, where she served for 23 years. Her book Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity (Fortress, 2017) was awarded first place in History by the Catholic Press Association. She holds master's degrees in nursing and theology.

Those Electrifying Speculators

Electric-vehicle companies, often raising capital through dubious mergers, have a problem with the truth, and it’s a problem for all of us on this planet.


BY DAVID DAYEN
DECEMBER 22, 2021

SINGAPORE PRESS VIA AP IMAGES
Faraday Future displayed their FF91 EV at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Upon the news of the Build Back Better Act’s untimely death (well, it’s mostly dead), electric-vehicle stocks tanked. The bill had incentive payments of up to $12,500 for consumers purchasing an EV, and their loss could crush demand, especially for young companies banking on a robust market.

But the Biden administration’s revised fuel efficiency standard, setting a benchmark of 55 miles per gallon by the 2026 model year, does boost EV fortunes. The only way to get a fleet that green is to expand electrification, and that rising tide should give every company in the space new opportunities. Nationwide charging infrastructure, which was part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, also creates favorable conditions for EVs.

The green vehicle transition, in other words, is under way and inevitable, and large automakers are adapting to this reality. Planned fleets from Ford and Toyota include significant plug-in models. But electric cars will only become widely adopted when they get cheaper. With battery costs rising amid resource wars for the precious materials needed to produce them, that’s not likely to happen immediately. The best way to make EVs affordable over time is with more companies doing research and development, and the subsequent innovation and competition driving down prices.

That makes the crop of EV car and battery companies that have arrived on the scene really important. We know that electrification is the primary solution to mitigating the climate crisis. We are relying on this collection of entrepreneurs to lead the battle against greenhouse gas emissions.

That makes the fact that it’s hard to believe a word most of them say a real stumbling block.

We know that electrification is the primary solution to mitigating the climate crisis.

Nikola was briefly valued higher than Ford before the company was investigated over a host of false claims, including the allegation that its model car was pushed down a hill to make it look like it was steaming along an open road. The founder was later indicted, and Nikola paid $125 million to settle the probe. Lordstown Motors amended its annual report in June to state that it lacks the funds to start commercial production and may not survive the year. Selling its plant to Foxconn in November triggered a rally, but production has been pushed out another year, and it is also under federal investigation. Lucid stock tanked two weeks ago after the company admitted it had received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission about a recent merger.

It’s gotten so bad that Fisker, another EV startup, had to publicly announce that it was not under investigation to satisfy markets.

The common thread with these and many other EV companies is that they went public through a SPAC merger. SPACs, which stands for “special purpose acquisition companies,” are essentially vehicles to circumvent the more arduous process of an initial public offering. Instead, companies merge with the SPAC, which is just a shell company holding investor capital. That erases the paperwork and regulatory requirements necessary in an IPO, along with some legal exposure. One analyst puts the number of EV companies merging with SPACs at 22 since last April.

In theory, SPACs are a godsend for electric-vehicle companies with tremendous up-front funding needs, and no product to sell before realizing their vision. But in practice, EV SPACs have been an environment for any charlatan with a Brooks Brothers suit and an idea to part investors from their money with no hope of a return. And that’s a problem, given the centrality of electrification in a climate mitigation strategy.

The trajectory is by now familiar. The SPAC format allows EV founders to make outsized statements about their companies, including projections on revenue and profit. These projections end up being almost always wrong, typically by a wide margin. Canoo, XL Fleet, and battery maker Romeo Power have all curtailed their projections in recent months, in addition to the aforementioned companies under federal investigation.

SPAC sponsors and their target company enjoy a safe harbor from private litigation by investors, and can therefore fearlessly promote their merger. Sponsors can make out with a payday even if the company fails, creating even more incentive to overhype. “SPACs are havens for highly speculative pre-revenue businesses,” noted Andrew Park, senior policy analyst with Americans for Financial Reform. “You can make these ambitious forward-looking projections, but not be subject to the same liability as under an IPO. You’re monetizing hopes and dreams.”

Park has testified before Congress that nine EV SPACs had combined annual revenue in 2020 of $139 million, but they collectively projected revenues of $26 billion by 2024.

The SPAC format allows EV founders to make outsized statements about their companies, including projections on revenue and profit.

Far too many of the electric-vehicle companies that are going public through SPACs have no business being in the public markets. Take Faraday Future, one of many Chinese companies pushing into the EV space. (That includes, incredibly, Evergrande, the collapsing Chinese real estate firm, which is a large shareholder in Faraday in addition to having its own EV unit.)

J Capital Research, a short seller, released information in October showing that Faraday’s founder has a history of securities fraud and has been banned for life in China from interacting with public companies. Five promised factory locations were later abandoned, lawsuits from suppliers over unpaid bills are piling up, and the reservations for future vehicles are fake. (This was the problem with Lordstown Motors’ reservations as well; Faraday stopped talking about its reservations soon after that was discovered.) It’s unclear what the company has even been spending money on.

Interestingly, the one major EV company to avoid a SPAC is the truck maker Rivian, whose traditional IPO was wildly successful. Even there, however, the company had to cut its overstated production target last week while announcing it lost $1.2 billion in the last quarter, sending the stock to a new low.

In a way, the EV hype machine is just a reflection of its grand master, Elon Musk. Even today, after robust sales, Tesla’s stock price is a function of overheated options trading, and the company’s lies about its Autopilot system habitually face regulatory scrutiny. Meanwhile, overstated claims about production continue—in October, Tesla’s board chair promised 20 million sales annually by 2030, despite selling only half a million this year. Musk may be Person of the Year, but he’s not the best figure to emulate, especially in an industry as vital as EVs.

Unfortunately, outside of Tesla, which survived on public money and energy trading credits for years, the other investor capital in the industry is being showered on companies with little or no track record. This has created a lot of fevered speculation about which EV company will come out on top, which caters to retail investor speculation that is likely to end in a lot of tears.

“There needs to be a distinction between mindless speculation which will exist for the rest of human history, versus investments where people are being exploited, due to asymmetric information,” said Park.

Fortunately, the SEC has finally keyed in on the dangers of SPACs. Chair Gary Gensler gave a speech earlier this month where he said that “the investing public may not be getting like protections between traditional IPOs and SPACs,” and that he would seek proposals to improve investor protection through making better disclosures, barring dubious marketing practices without evidence to back them up, and requiring liability obligations.

That will certainly help to prevent fraud. But what does it do for this critical market? Lost in this hysteria is the fact that government investment kept Tesla alive in the 2010s. There are plenty of ways to direct up-front investment at companies in the public interest. Alternatively, you can do this through financial markets as well, as long as you’re not incentivizing fraud. Some will even fail, and that’s acceptable loss to get to the desired end point.

We need electric vehicles to succeed. They’re too important to put into the hands of professional liars.



DAVID DAYE is the Prospect’s executive editor. His work has appeared in The Intercept, The New Republic, HuffPost, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and more. His most recent book is ‘Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power.’

More from David Dayen

Comet Leonard's discoverer explains how the unusual object was found

By Samantha Mathewson 

Astrophotographer Chris Schur captured this stunning photo of Comet Leonard on Dec. 4, 2021 from Payson, Arizona using a 10-inch Newtonian telescope and 60-minute camera exposure. (Image credit: Courtesy of Chris Schur)

Discovered nearly a year ago, Comet Leonard is on its final tour of Earth's neighborhood, lighting up the night sky for viewers this holiday season.

Comet Leonard — the brightest and most anticipated comet of the year — was discovered by Gregory Leonard, a senior research specialist at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, in January 2021. The comet was spotted, somewhat accidentally, using the Catalina Sky Survey's 1.5-meter (60-inch) telescope at the Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory, located in the Santa Catalina Mountains in Arizona.

The comet, formally known as C/2021 A1, has since been making its way to the inner solar system, passing near Earth on Dec. 12, Venus on Dec. 17, and now en route towards the sun, expected to reach perihelion on Jan. 3. Here's our telescopes and binoculars guide to see Comet Leonard, and if you're hoping to photograph the comet check out best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography guides.

Related: Comet Leonard will light up the sky this month — here's how to see it

However, this showing is expected to be the comet's last — at least in our solar system (it won't be near Earth again for another 80,000 years). Space.com sat down with Leonard to talk about how the comet was first spotted and what skywatchers can expect to see in the night sky during the last leg of the comet's solar system tour. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Space.com How did you discover Comet C/2021 A1?

Gregory Leonard: I am an astronomer with the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded project based out of the University of Arizona, and we are directed to discover and track near-Earth asteroids — the kind of asteroids whose orbits can bring them close to the Earth and potentially impact the Earth. I discovered Comet C/2021 A1 Leonard — also known to the world as Comet Leonard — on the morning of Jan. 3, 2021. It was a serendipitous, or incidental, discovery in one of our standard survey fields, looking for near-Earth asteroids.

We do occasionally stumble into unknown comets, and that's exactly what Comet Leonard was. I saw the object not as a point or star-like object like most asteroids would appear to us, but this one had the telltale fuzzy coma that comets have — and the coma is that thin, tenuous atmosphere that forms around the nucleus of a comet when it gets close enough to the sun to excite and sublimate, or boil off, the ices that the comet is made of. In addition to seeing that thin coma, or that fuzziness around the comet, I also detected a little stubby tail, and that of course is another telltale sign that it's likely a comet.

Space.com: You mentioned that the comet's discovery was serendipitous or unexpected. Can you explain why?

Leonard: This comet was my 10th comet discovery, and since that time I've discovered three more, so there are actually 13 Comet Leonards out there. Now, I don't name these comets. They automatically assume the name of the discoverer, which in all these cases was me over the last six years. They are unexpected [because] we are looking for near-Earth asteroids and it's only on occasion that we stumble into what appears to be a comet, and then we report those to the Minor Planet Center at Harvard, Massachusetts, which is the clearinghouse for all asteroid and comet observations.

What was unexpected about this comet was its orbit. Unlike most other comets that are discovered throughout the year, this comet is on an orbit that brings it relatively close to the sun and the Earth — close enough for it to potentially be seen from the backyard by casual observers.

Space.com: What is the comet's origin and composition?

Leonard: It's origin is likely from a distant sphere of comets called the Oort Cloud, which is a vast reservoir of millions, or perhaps billions, of comets. The Oort Cloud is really far [from the sun]. It's at least 5,000 astronomical units — an astronomical unit is the sun-Earth distance — and may go out as far as 100,000 astronomical units. This comet likely came from the inner Oort Cloud, 3,700 astronomical units away and it's what we call a long-period comet. The comet has been inbound, on this leg, for the last 40,000 years. [However], if we trace that back, it's really been on an 80,000-year orbit. The last time it would've come [into] the inner solar system would have been 80,000 years ago.

What it's made of is still to be determined. There are most likely telescopes around the planet that have been looking at the spectra from the comet, and I think we'll see some papers and research come out in 2022 talking a little bit more about exactly what [the comet] is made of. I'm sure we'll see some of the usual comet suspects, and that would be water ice, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, some ammonia and maybe some other exotic compounds as well. What's interesting, too, is that when I discovered the comet, it was 450 million miles away — about the distance that Jupiter orbits the sun — and the fact that I spotted a tail is interesting [because] water ice will not sublimate at that distance, in that cold region of space. So it's some other compound that would likely have been boiling away and sublimating, perhaps a carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. I think this comet will be observed after its perihelion — its close passage by the sun on Jan. 3 — as far out as it can be observed by telescopes, and we're going to get a better idea about what it's composed of.

Space.com: You said you discovered the comet on Jan. 3, and now its closest approach is slated for Jan. 3, 2022. Is that just a coincidence?

Leonard: It is. Jan. 3 of this year, 2021, was the actual discovery. So it was discovered exactly one year before perihelion — that is strictly coincidental, but I like coincidence.

Comet Leonard shines bright in this image from the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre using the Calar Alto Schmidt telescope in Spain. It was created by stacking 90 5-second exposure images of the comet taken on Dec. 7, 2021 on top of each other. (Image credit: ESA/NEOCC)

Space.com: Since its discovery, what have we learned from this comet, either about comets in general or about the early solar system?

Leonard: Once we understand better the exact composition of this comet, it will give us some clues and hopefully patch in some holes of knowledge about the conditions that existed at the time of the formation of our solar system. Comets are very, very pristine and they carry this information with them. These were basically unaltered, unaffected, primitive bodies leftover from the formation of all the planets. So this is why they are really exciting for astronomers and researchers to scrutinize to better understand where we came from. Comets, in addition to the near-Earth asteroids that my project looks for, impacted the Earth billions of years ago and likely brought some amount of water, contributing to our oceans and freshwater resources. So, when we look at comets, we're really looking at pieces of our own history; our own formation of our climate, and, in fact, maybe even some of the constituents of what we ourselves are made of.

Space.com: How did Comet Leonard make its way into the inner solar system?

Leonard: The comets that reside in the Oort Cloud are held in a gravitational balance between the feeble tug of the sun's gravity and the entire gravitational tug of our [Milky Way] galaxy. With the slightest bit of gravitational nudging, or disturbance in the galaxy, these comets can either sort of fall out of the Oort Cloud or they can begin their long journey inwards to our sun — and that's exactly what happened in the case of this comet. That's how many long-period comets get their beginning: They're gravitationally nudged or perturbed and the sun wins the battle. So they start cascading inwards toward the sun, taking thousands and thousands of years to do so.

In this case, we have to say hello and goodbye to Comet Leonard. This is its final passage [in our solar system]. It has an escape velocity, moving at 44 miles per second, or 70 kilometers per second, which is sufficient for it to be flung out from our solar system forever. Just like it takes rockets a certain minimal velocity to escape the gravity of Earth, the solar system also has an escape velocity. Comet Leonard has that velocity, so once it passes close to the sun on Jan. 3, it will, from that point forward, be moving away and will leave our solar system and travel millions of years perhaps to stumble into some other stellar system a long time from now.

Space.com: The comet's most recent planetary flyby was at Venus on Dec. 17. What impact do you think the comet had on the planet?

Leonard: That remains to be seen. One thing that we will be looking for is the potential for Venus to pass through the dust stream left by the comet. The comet is going to go past Venus's orbit and then Venus is going to pass through that area. It's possible then that Venus may experience a meteor shower from the dust particles left in the wake of Comet Leonard's passing. It's possible with the geometry of Earth that that could be visible with telescopes from Earth. [Also] the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, has an orbiting spacecraft around Venus right now. It's called Akatsuki … and it's on a Venus climate mapping mission. However, there may be an opportunity for some of the sensors on Akatsuki to look for potential meteors entering the upper Venusian atmosphere. Oh, to be an observer on the night side of Venus, as Comet Leonard cruised by, it would have been breathtaking to see. It passed about 2.6 million miles [4.2 million kilometers] from Venus on Dec. 17 and Dec. 18, which sounds like a long way — and for us on Earth, it is — however, that's really just a cosmic whisker. So it just missed almost clobbering Venus by a couple of days. … [The comet's] Earth flyby was about 22 or 23 million miles [35 or 37 million kilometers], so it was 10 times closer to Venus in its flyby there.

Space.com: What can we expect as the comet heads now towards the sun?

Leonard: Well, I think the only thing that's consistent about comets is their utter unpredictability. A wise comet hunter and discoverer once said comets are like cats: both have tails and both do precisely what they want — and that is true.

It's likely that [Comet Leonard] is going to dim. And that's not so much because it's getting close to the sun, [but because] the Earth is now really receding. Both objects are receding from one another. So typically, when a comet approaches the sun, we tend to see a brightening. If the Earth wasn't moving away from [the comet], we would likely see just that. But we're likely to see it dim only because we're moving away. However, there's always a chance that as it nudges closer to the sun, that there could be some increased activity, maybe some outgassing or some jetting — some outburst that occurs that will brighten the comet's appearance from Earth.

Space.com: And what causes those outbursts?

Leonard: As a comet approaches the sun, you'll get the ices sort of violently sublimating and boiling away. If there's a pocket of material that's suddenly released, which releases pressure, that could be enough to kind of pull the comet apart — they are very fragile objects. Comets have a really low density. The density of water is one gram per cubic centimeter, and the density of a comet is a third of that … so these are very fragile objects and any forces at all, be they gravitational or related to the volatile release from these ices blowing away, is enough to expose more material, and have that material boil away. This could be one cause for a brightening — for an outburst of the comet.

Another recent effect … is a phenomenon known as forward scattering. The comet was very close in angle to the sun and the sunlight shining through, or essentially backlighting, all the dust in the tail has been known to enable comets to brighten considerably by one, two or even three magnitudes. So, it can temporarily brighten for 12 or 24 hours.

RELATED STORIES:

—Comet Leonard may have spawned meteor shower on Venus

—'Outbursts' from Comet Leonard spotted by NASA satellite (video)

Space.com: So we won't see the comet again because of its escape velocity. Where do you think it's going to go?

Leonard: I haven't seen any projections as to which direction it's flying off into our galaxy. It'll be fun to see what potential star system it could bump into many, many years from now. Suffice it to say that this is the final visit [to our solar system]. But there still is an opportunity for folks that really want to see it. What I would recommend is to get away from the bright lights of your town or city, be armed with a pair of binoculars — the larger, the better — or a small telescope, if you have one. It's really beyond naked-eye visibility at this point. … And, if you don't see it, just know that we've had a wonderful cosmic visitor for this winter season.

NEW YORK RATS

The COVID pandemic has had many unforeseen consequences. One of the most unforeseen was the explosion of the rat population in New York City. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.

F...ING BIG RATS

FDA Just Approved The World's First Injectable Medication to Prevent HIV




NICOLETTA LANESE, LIVE SCIENCE
21 DECEMBER 2021

The world's first injectable medication to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency announced Monday (December 20).

The injectable drug – called Apretude or its generic name, "cabotegravir extended-release injectable suspension" – provides an alternative to daily pills for HIV prevention, such as Truvada and Descovy. These pills are up to 99 percent effective at preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, but must be taken every day to be that effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

By contrast, to start Apretude, people initially receive two shots, spaced one month apart, and then they receive an injection every two months thereafter, according to the FDA statement.

"This injection, given every two months, will be critical to addressing the HIV epidemic in the US, including helping high-risk individuals and certain groups where adherence to daily medication has been a major challenge or not a realistic option," Dr. Debra Birnkrant, director of the Division of Antivirals in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in the statement.

The FDA hopes that the availability of a long-acting injectable drug for HIV prevention will increase the uptake of such medications in high-risk groups, the statement reads.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), meaning medications taken to prevent HIV, are recommended for about 1.2 million people in the US, and in 2020, about 25 percent of those individuals received a prescription for PrEP pills. That's up from only 3 percent in 2015, but "there remains significant room for improvement," the statement says.

Two clinical trials suggest that Apretude reduces the risk of HIV infection more effectively than the daily pill Truvada. The trials met the gold standard for these types of studies, because they were randomized and double-blind, meaning those who received the actual medication were randomly chosen and neither the doctors nor the patients knew who was receiving the real medication over the placebo.

The first trial included nearly 4,600 cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men, Live Science previously reported. Those who took Apretude had 69 percent lower risk of getting infected with HIV than the participants who took Truvada.

The second trial, which included about 3,200 cisgender women at risk of acquiring HIV, found that those who took Apretude had 90 percent lower risk of getting infected with HIV, compared with participants who took Truvada, according to the FDA statement.

The trial participants who took Apretude did experience more side effects than those who took Truvada, including headaches, fever, fatigue, back pain, myalgia, rash and reactions at the injection site, according to the statement.

As of December 20, Apretude has been approved for use in at-risk adults and adolescents weighing at least 77 pounds (35 kilograms), according to the FDA statement. Patients have the option to take an oral formulation of cabotegravir, called Vocabria, daily for four weeks prior to starting the injections, to see how well they tolerate the drug.

Patients should be tested for HIV and confirmed negative before starting Apretude and should be confirmed negative before each injection, to avoid the risk of developing drug-resistant HIV.

"Drug-resistant HIV-1 variants have been identified with use of Apretude for HIV-1 PrEP by individuals with undiagnosed HIV-1 infection," according to a statement from the drug's manufacturer, ViiV Healthcare.

"Individuals who become infected with HIV-1 while receiving Apretude for PrEP must transition to a complete HIV-1 treatment regimen."

Earlier this month, the CDC updated its guidance regarding how doctors should inform patients about PrEP, The Hill reported. The agency now recommends that health care providers inform all sexually active adults and adolescents about PrEP and offer the medications to all who ask for them, regardless of whether they report specific behaviors that would put them at high risk of HIV exposure. Apretude now joins the list of possible options that can be presented to these patients.

Apretude has a list price of US$3,700 per dose (or $22,200 per year, for six doses) and is expected to ship to wholesalers and specialty distributors in the US early next year, NBC News reported.

In July, the federal government mandated that most US insurance companies must cover Truvada and Descovy, as well as the lab tests and clinic visits needed to maintain the prescriptions, with no cost sharing; but as of yet, insurers are not required to cover all the costs of taking Apretude.