France makes birth control free for women up to 25
THE REAL SOLUTION FOR ABORTION

Issued on: 09/09/2021 

The scheme covers the pill, IUDs, contraceptive patches and other methods composed of steroid hormones

 PHILIPPE HUGUEN AFP/File


Paris (AFP)

The French government said on Thursday it would make birth control free for all women under 25, expanding a scheme currently targeting under-18s to ensure young women don't stop taking contraception because they cannot afford it.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said surveys had shown a decline in the use of contraception among "a certain number of young women".

"Their main reason for going without (birth control) is financial," he said.


The scheme covers the pill, IUDs, contraceptive patches and other methods composed of steroid hormones.

Visits to the doctor for contraception will also be free, Veran said.

The move is part of a series of measures taken by President Emmanuel Macron's government to boost women's rights and alleviate youth poverty.

Last year, the government made free contraception available to girls under 15 for the first time -- previously it was only available to girls aged between 15 and 18 -- as part of a bid to end underage abortions.

Several European countries, including Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway, make contraception free for teens.

Britain makes several forms of contraception free to all.

In France, the number of abortions among 15-18 year-olds fell from 9.5 per 1,000 girls between 2012 and 2018 to 6 per 1,000.

But in some developed countries, the free contraception won by women after decades of campaigning is coming under attack again from the religious right.

In the US, former president Barack Obama's signature health reform, known as Obamacare, gave most people with health insurance free access to birth control.

But his successor Donald Trump scrapped the measure, allowing employers to opt out of providing contraception coverage on religious grounds -- a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in 2020.

Poland's conservative government has also heavily restricted access to emergency contraception as part of its war on birth control.

© 2021 AFP

UN nuclear watchdog launches review of Fukushima water release

Issued on: 09/09/2021 - 

An extensive pumping and filtration system removes most radioactive elements from the water stored at the Fukushima plant 

STR JIJI PRESS/AFP


Tokyo (AFP)

The UN nuclear watchdog on Thursday promised a "comprehensive" and "objective" review of Japan's controversial plan to release treated water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.

During its inspection, the International Atomic Energy Agency will consult experts including from China and South Korea, which have reacted angrily to the release plan.

More than a million tonnes of processed water has accumulated in tanks at the crippled plant since it went into meltdown following a tsunami in 2011, including liquid that was used to cool damaged reactors.

An extensive pumping and filtration system removes most radioactive elements, and Japan says the plan to dilute and release the water over several decades is safe.

The IAEA has endorsed the release, which it says is similar to the disposal of wastewater at nuclear plants elsewhere.

"The review includes several missions and technical visits in coming months and years," Lydie Evrard, the IAEA's deputy director general, said Thursday in Tokyo on a visit to kick off the inspection process.

Before sharing the results, the IAEA will ensure its review is "comprehensive" and "objective", she said in an online briefing after meeting officials in Fukushima and the capital.

The Japanese government's decision in April to go ahead with the release -- which could begin as soon as March 2023 -- sparked ire from neighbouring countries over environmental and safety concerns.

It also generated fierce opposition from local fishing communities, who fear it will undermine years of work to restore confidence in their seafood.

Debate over how to handle the water has dragged on for years, as space to store it at the site runs out.

The filtration process removes most radioactive elements from the water, but some remain, including tritium.

Experts say the element is only harmful to humans in large doses and with dilution the treated water poses no scientifically detectable risk.

The IAEA will send future missions to review "the radiological characterisation" of the water, as well as how to release it and its impact on the environment and people, the Japanese industry ministry said.

Last month, plant operators unveiled plans to construct an undersea tunnel for the release of the 1.25 million tonnes of treated water, which also includes rain and groundwater that seeps in daily.

© 2021 AFP

Afghanistan's last Jew leaves after Taliban takeover

Issued on: 09/09/2021 -

Zebulon Simentov in Afghanistan earlier this year 

WAKIL KOHSAR AFP


New York (AFP)

The last member of Afghanistan's Jewish community has left the country following the Taliban takeover, an Israeli-American businessman who organized his evacuation told AFP Thursday.

Zebulon Simentov began his journey out of Afghanistan on Friday and arrived in a "neighboring country" Wednesday, said Moti Kahana, who runs a US-based private security firm.

For decades, Simentov refused to leave Afghanistan -- surviving a Soviet invasion, deadly civil war, brutal rule by the Taliban and the US-led occupation of his homeland.

Having already endured the Taliban's regime from 1996 to 2001, Simentov was reluctant to go when Kahana's security team arrived 10 days before his departure.

"At that time, he did not want to come out," said Kahana, who explained to Simentov that he was at risk of being killed by Islamic State-Khorasan militants.

"But he listened and I think he came to the conclusion himself," Kahana recalled.

Simentov asked Kahana if they could also take his "best friend" and their kids, so 29 neighbors joined him on the journey out.

Kahana said that Simentov has family in New York and plans to join them there soon, hopefully around the Yom Kippur holiday next week.

"He's definitely coming," Kahana added.

Born in the 1950s in the western city of Herat, Simentov moved to Kabul during the Soviet invasion in the early 1980s for the capital's then relative stability.

Over the decades, all Simentov's relatives left -- including his wife and two daughters.

But Simentov stayed put, despite the Taliban trying to convert him to Islam and imprisoning him four times.

He continued to mark Jewish new year Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at Kabul's only synagogue.

"I have resisted. I have made the religion of Moses proud here," he told AFP during an interview earlier this year.

Jews lived in Afghanistan for more than 2,500 years, with tens of thousands once residing in Herat, where four synagogues still stand -- testimony to the community's ancient presence.

But they have steadily left the country since the 19th century, with many now living in Israel.

© 2021 AFP

What the world's most accurate clock can tell us about Earth and the cosmos


Issued on: 09/09/2021 - 

This undated handout photo obtained September 8, 2021 shows Chinese-American scientist Jun Ye,

 the inventor of a super-accurate clock

  Jun YE/AFP

Washington (AFP)

It would take 15 billion years for the clock that occupies Jun Ye's basement lab at the University of Colorado to lose a second -- about how long the universe has existed.

For this invention, the Chinese-American scientist, along with Hidetoshi Katori of Japan, will split $3 million as co-winners of the 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

Working independently, the two developed techniques using lasers to trap and cool atoms, then harness their vibrations to drive what are known as "optical lattice clocks," the most precise timekeeping pieces ever built.

By comparison, current atomic clocks lose a second once every 100 million years.

But what is gained by greater accuracy?

"It's really an instrument to allow you to probe the basic fabric of space-time in the universe," Ye told AFP.

In Ye's lab, researchers have shown that time moves slower when the clock is moved closer to the ground by a matter of centimeters, in line with Einstein's predictions of relativity.

Applied to current technology, these clocks could improve GPS navigation accuracy by a factor of a thousand, or help smoothly land an unmanned spaceplane on Mars.

- A brief history of time -

Improving the precision and accuracy of timekeeping has been a goal since ancient Egyptians and Chinese made sundials.

A key breakthrough came with the invention of the pendulum clock in 1656, which relies on a swinging weight to keep time, and a few decades later chronometers were accurate enough to determine a ship's longitude at sea.

The early 20th century saw the advent of quartz clocks, which when jolted with electricity resonate at very specific, high frequencies, or number of ticks in a second.

This January 25, 2017, image courtesy of Dr. Ed Marti, shows a strontium optical lattice clock, stored at Jun Ye's lab in the University of Colorado, Boulder 

 Dr. Ed Marti/AFP

Quartz clocks are ubiquitous in modern electronics, but are still somewhat susceptible to variations caused by the manufacturing process, or conditions like temperature.

The next great leap in timekeeping came from harnessing the movements of energized atoms to develop atomic clocks, which are immune the effects of such environmental variations.

Physicists know that a single, very high frequency will cause particles called electrons that orbit the nucleus of a specific type of atom to jump to a higher energy state, finding an orbit further away from the nucleus.

Atomic clocks generate the approximate frequency that causes atoms of the element Cesium to jump to that higher energy state.

Then, a detector counts the number of those energized atoms, adjusting the frequency if necessary to make the clock more precise.

So precise that since 1967, one second has been defined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a Cesium atom.

- Exploring the universe, and Earth -

Katori's and Ye's labs have found ways to improve atomic clocks even further by moving oscillations to the visible end of the electromagnetic spectrum, with frequencies a hundred thousand times higher than those used in current atomic clocks -- to make them even more accurate.

They realized they needed a way to trap the atoms -- in this case, of the element strontium -- and hold them still with ultralow temperatures to help measure time properly.

If the atoms are falling due to gravity or are otherwise moving, there would be a loss of accuracy, and relativity would cause distorting effects on the timekeeping.

To trap the atoms, the inventors created an "optical lattice" made by laser waves moving in opposite directions to form a stationary, egg carton-like shape.

Ye is excited about the potential use of his clock. For example, synchronizing the clocks of the world's best observatories down to the tiniest fractions of a second would allow astronomers to better conceptualize black holes.

Better clocks can also shed new light on the Earth's geological processes.

Relativity tells us that time slows down when it approaches a massive body, so a sufficiently accurate clock could tell scientists the difference between solid rock and volcanic lava below the surface, helping to predict an eruption.

Or indeed, measure the levels of the oceans, or how much water flows beneath a desert.

The next great challenge, Ye says, will be miniaturizing the technology so it can be moved out of a lab.

The scientist admits it's sometimes hard to explain fundamental physics concepts to the public.

"But when they hear about clocks, they can feel it's a tangible thing, they can make a connection to that, and that's very rewarding," he said.

© 2021 AFP

Cancer patients less likely to face 'catastrophic' care costs under ACA, study finds



The Affordable Care Act protects cancer patients from losing insurance, but they still face potentially catastrophic health costs, a new study has found. Screenshot courtesy Healthcare.gov


Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Adults with cancer are less likely to experience catastrophic care expenses under the Affordable Care Act than they were before implementation of the law, a study published Wednesday by JAMA Network Open found.

They are also less likely to lose or change healthcare coverage during their illness, thanks to the law, also known as Obamacare, the data showed.

Compared with the period immediately before the ACA's passage, 2005 to 2009, cancer patients covered by health plans under the law between 2014 and 2018 had a 3% lower risk for experiencing catastrophic care expenses.

The ACA also reduced cancer patients' risk for being uninsured -- or lacking healthcare coverage -- by more than 4%.

RELATED Biden calls for healthcare upgrades as ACA enrollment period nears end

Compared to the public, however, cancer patients still faced a higher risk for catastrophic health expenses -- which refers to costs exceeding 10% of a patient's annual household income -- making it difficult for them to keep up with expenses, according to the researchers.

"Non-elderly patients with cancer in the U.S. continue to cope with a complex insurance marketplace and high risks of catastrophic health expenses, despite the well-intentioned policy reforms of the ACA," researchers from Duke University in Durham, N.C., wrote.

"In particular, low-income patients with cancer with private insurance coverage may face lower risks of periods of uninsurance, but under-insurance is associated with high risks of catastrophic health expenses," they said.

RELATED 'Smart' default enrollment policies under ACA can help consumers save, study finds

Signed into law in 2010 and fully implemented by 2014, the ACA was designed to enable consumers to purchase healthcare coverage at a reduced cost, thereby reducing the ranks of the uninsured in the United States.

The law also stipulated that insurers could not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, meaning those with chronic or long-term conditions were more likely to remain insured.

For this study, the Duke researchers analyzed data on more than 6,000 adults with cancer in the United States annually from 2005 to 2018 and compared them with similar numbers of people without the disease.  

RELATED  Out-of-work Americans can now receive aid to pay for ACA health coverage

Most of the study participants were in their late forties or early fifties, the researchers said.

Over the study period, 5% of cancer patients lost their health insurance and 15% were uninsured, the data showed.

Among those without cancer, 8% lost their coverage and 24% did not have insurance.

However, 12% of cancer patients incurred catastrophic health expenses, not including insurance premiums, while 6% of those without the disease did so.

Including insurance premium costs, 27% of cancer patients experienced catastrophic health expenses, compared to 16% of those without cancer, the data showed.

Nearly 82% of cancer patients from low-income families, and with full-year private coverage, were at high risk for catastrophic health expenditures, the researchers said.

"Oncologists should be cognizant of the financial strains that cancer places on patients and families, even when insured," the researchers wrote.

"Further health reforms to cover the remaining uninsured individuals and to increase plan generosity are needed to adequately protect the population of individuals with cancer," they said.

Medicare Advantage Is a For-Profit Scam. Time to End It.

The simple solution to the Medicare Advantage problem is to kill off the program. 

It was just a Trojan horse to privatize Medicare, and its presence will make Medicare for All even harder to implement.

 (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

THOM HARTMANN

September 8, 2021

Over 100 Democratic lawmakers last week introduced legislation to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60. There is one small problem that needs fixing, though: so-called "Medicare Advantage."

This week my new book, The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich is officially available in bookstores nationwide and online. Here's a chapter excerpt I think you'll find interesting, particularly after all those awful TV ads with former football and sitcom stars we've had to endure the past few years…

The "Advantage" War against Medicare

Medicare Advantage is a massive, trillion-dollar rip-off, of the federal government and of taxpayers, and of many of the people buying the so-called Advantage plans.

It's also one of the most effective ways that insurance companies could try to kill Medicare For All, since about a third of all people who think they're on Medicare are actually on these privatized plans instead.

Nearly from its beginning, Medicare has allowed private companies to offer plans that essentially compete with it, but they were an obscure corner of the market and didn't really take off until the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress rolled out the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. This was the GOP's (and a few corporatist Democrats') big chance to finally privatize Medicare, albeit one bite at a time.

That law created a brand known as Medicare Advantage under the Medicare Part C provision, and a year later it phased in what are known as risk-adjusted large-batch payments to insurance companies offering Advantage plans.

Medicare Advantage plans are not Medicare. They're private health insurance most often offered by the big for-profit insurance companies (although some nonprofits participate, particularly the larger HMOs), and the rules they must live by are considerably looser than those for Medicare.

Even more consequential, they don't get reimbursed directly on a person-by-person, procedure-by-procedure basis. Instead, every year, Advantage providers submit a summary to the federal government of the aggregate risk score of all their customers and, practically speaking, are paid in a massive lump sum.

The higher their risk score, the larger the payment. A plan with mostly very ill people in it will get much larger reimbursements than a plan with mostly healthy people. After all, the former will be costly to keep alive and healthy, while the latter won't cost much at all.

Profit-seeking insurance companies, being the predators that they are, have found a number of ways to raise their risk scores without raising their expenses. The classical strategies of tying people to in-network providers, denying procedures routinely during first-pass authorization attempts, and having very high out-of-pocket caps are carried over from regular health insurance systems to keep costs low and profits high.

But with Medicare Advantage, the big insurance companies have invented a whole new way to rip us all off while padding their bottom lines.

For example, many Medicare Advantage plans promote an annual home visit by a nurse or physician's assistant as a "benefit" of the plan. What the companies are doing, though, is trying to upcode their customers to make them seem sicker than they are to increase their overall Medicare reimbursement risk score.

"Heart failure," for example, can be a severe and expensive condition to treat . . . or a barely perceptible tic on an EKG that represents little or no threat to a person for years or even decades. Depression is similarly variable; if it lasts less than two weeks, there's no reimbursement; if it lasts longer than two weeks, it's called a "major depressive episode" and rapidly jacks up a risk score.

The home health visits are designed more to look for illnesses or codings that can increase risk scores than to find conditions that require medical intervention. They're so profitable that an entire industry has sprung up of companies that send nurses out on behalf of the smaller insurance companies.

In summer 2014, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) published an in-depth investigative report titled Why Medicare Advantage Costs Taxpayers Billions More Than It Should.

They found, among other things, that one of the most common scams companies were running involved that very scoring of their customers as being sicker than they actually were, so that their reimbursements were way above the cost of caring for those people.

Here are a few quotes from the report:


"Risk scores of Medicare Advantage patients rose sharply in plans in at least 1,000 counties nationwide between 2007 and 2011, boosting taxpayer costs by more than $36 billion over estimated costs for caring for patients in standard Medicare."


"In more than 200 of these counties, the cost of some Medicare Advantage plans was at least 25 percent higher than the cost of providing standard Medicare coverage."


The report documents how risk scores rose twice as fast for people who joined a Medicare Advantage health plan as for those who didn't.


Patients, the report lays out, never know how their health is rated because neither the health plan nor Medicare shares risk scores with them—and the process itself is so arcane and secretive that it remains unfathomable to many health professionals.


"By 2009, government officials were estimating that just over 15 percent of total Medicare Advantage payments were inaccurate, about $12 billion that year."


Based on its own sampling of data from health plans, the report shows how CMS has estimated that faulty risk scores triggered nearly $70 billion in what officials deemed "improper" payments to Medicare Advantage plans from 2008 through 2013.


CMS decided, according to the report, not to chase after overcharges from 2008 through 2010 even though the agency estimated through sampling that it made more than $32 billion in "improper" payments to Medicare Advantage plans over those three years. CMS did not explain its reasoning.


The report documents how Medicare expects to pay the health plans more than $150 billion this year [2014, the year the study was published].

Companies are almost never nailed for these overcharges, and when they are, they usually pay back pennies on the dollar.

For example, when the Office of Inspector General, Health and Human Services (which oversees Medicare), audited six out of the hundreds of plans on the market in 2007, they found that just those six companies "had been overpaid by an estimated $650 million" for that one year. As the Center for Public Integrity states, "CMS settled five of the six audits for a total repayment of just over $1.3 million."

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also, in 2012, decided to audit only 30 plans a year going forward. As CPI noted, "At that rate, it would take CMS more than 15 years to review the hundreds of Medicare Advantage contracts now in force." And that's 15 years to audit just one year's activity!

Things haven't improved since that 2014 investigative report from CPI. In September 2019, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and five Democratic colleagues sent a letter to President Donald Trump's CMS administrator, Seema Verma.

"The recent HHS Payment Accuracy Report exposes that taxpayers have overpaid Medicare Advantage plans more than $30 billion dollars over the last three years," Brown wrote. "This report comes on the heels of a 2016 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report and a 2013 GAO report on [Medicare Advantage] plan overcharges and the failure of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) to recoup billions of dollars of improper payments from MA plans."

Meanwhile, during the four years of the Trump administration, CMS went out of their way to illegally promote Medicare Advantage plans (which typically cost CMS far more than a regular Medicare plan).

A February 2020 report in the New York Times stated, "Under President Trump, some critics contend, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers Medicare, has become a cheerleader for Advantage plans at the expense of original Medicare."

The report pointed to the draft release of the 2019 Medicare & You handbook, which is mailed every year to all enrollees and posted online. "Advocates and some lawmakers criticized language describing Advantage as a less expensive alternative to original Medicare."

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) compared Medicare Advantage with traditional Medicare and found the Advantage programs to be mind-bogglingly profitable: "MA insurer revenues are 30 percent higher than their healthcare spending. Healthcare spending for enrollees in MA is 25 percent lower than for enrollees in [traditional Medicare] in the same county and [with the same] risk score."

At the same time, Medicare Advantage often screws its customers. According to the NBER study, people with Medicare Advantage got 15 percent fewer colon cancer screening tests, 24 percent fewer diagnostic tests, and 38 percent fewer flu shots.

Speculation is rife as to why CMS would allow—much less promote—privatized plans that cost Medicare far more than original Medicare to rip off taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars a month.

One possibility is regulatory capture—people working in CMS know that if they go along and get along, very well-paid jobs are waiting for them at for-profit insurance companies after a few years of government service. This is a chronic problem at other regulatory agencies, particularly those overseeing pollution, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and banking.

Another answer is that the Bush administration—where Medicare Advantage started—was so enamored of the idea of privatizing Medicare to eventually destroy the program (George W. Bush campaigned extensively from the late 1970s through his presidency to privatize both Social Security and Medicare) that they turned a blind eye to abuses.

The Obama administration had other priorities, as they were trying to push through the Affordable Care Act and didn't want to upset the apple cart. And when Trump came into power, his folks saw anything that drained resources out of Medicare and into the pockets of multimillionaire health insurance executives—a group notoriously generous when it comes to making political contributions—as a plus.

You Are Locked in to Medicare Advantage

A fellow I'd known decades ago recently bubbled back into conversation among a few of us who'd hung out together in New York back in the 1970s. Sam, I'll call him, had turned 65 and hadn't had employer-provided health insurance in years. He spent a few hours trying to figure out how to sign up for Medicare and then gave up, totally confused, figuring he'd try again in a few months.

Unfortunately, his prostate intervened. When Sam started experiencing pain urinating, he visited a local "doc in a box" urgent care clinic, where they gave him a PSA test. The result was shocking: his PSA was so high that it was a virtual certainty he had prostate cancer, and possibly it had even metastasized, a situation that is the second-leading cause of cancer death in American men.

Telling him that he'd be facing hefty doctor and hospital bills regardless of the outcome, the urgent care clinic signed him up for a Medicare Advantage plan offered by an affiliate that almost certainly paid them a commission for the sign-up. Sam was excited, though, because he now had insurance, and it was a "no dollar" plan that didn't cost him a penny.

Sam then got on the phone to find a urologist who specialized in cancer. He found that the best worked out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and, telling them he was "on Medicare," he made an appointment to see one of their top docs. A month later, when his appointment finally opened up, the person who was checking him into the system told him that he'd have to pay cash because his Advantage plan didn't include Sloan Kettering.

In fact, more than a third of all Medicare Advantage plans nationwide do not include any of the National Cancer Institute centers, and none of the Advantage plans offered in the New York City area include the nation's most famous one, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Shocked, Sam contacted Medicare to see if he could transfer from Medicare Advantage to regular Medicare. This all happened in fall 2020, so they told him that he could make the change during the "open enrollment period" of October 15 to December 7. He made the change and called Sloan Kettering back.

This time, they wanted to know what Medigap policy he'd signed up for to fill in the 20 percent of billing that Medicare doesn't cover. That sent Sam back to the internet and, ultimately, to an insurance agent, who told him that while Medigap plans can't refuse you because of preexisting conditions when you first sign up when you turn 65, if you shift from Medicare Advantage back to traditional Medicare after that first enrollment, particularly if you're older or sick, they can simply refuse to cover you.

Reporter Mark Miller wrote for the New York Times in February 2020 about Ed Stein, a 72-year-old man with bladder cancer and a Medicare Advantage plan that didn't cover the cancer docs in his area who specialized in his type of cancer. He tried to shift back to traditional Medicare to cover what promised to be complex and expensive surgery and chemotherapy. As Miller wrote, "That was when he ran up against one of the least understood implications of selecting Advantage when you enroll in Medicare: The decision is effectively irrevocable."

As of this writing (November 2020), my friend Sam still hasn't seen a doctor. This is the state of healthcare in America as it's been sliced and diced by the multibillion-dollar insurance industry.

Meanwhile, every fall, Americans are inundated with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of TV, direct mail, and internet advertising for Medicare Advantage plans. And where does the money come from to pay for that advertising?

It comes from the same place that provided over $1 billion in wealth to the former CEO of United Healthcare, and over $100 million a month in compensation to senior executives in the largest health insurance companies: denying claims while collecting risk adjustment claims from your tax dollars and mine.

The simple solution to the Medicare Advantage problem is to kill off the program. It was just a Trojan horse to privatize Medicare, and its presence will make Medicare for All even harder to implement. At the same time, the 20 percent hole that the GOP insisted on for skin in the game with real Medicare needs to go, too.

A comprehensive Medicare for All program will eliminate both of these problems.

This article, which appears here with permission, was first published on The Hartmann Report.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

THOM HARTMANN
Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.

Co-inventor of mRNA shots sets sights on pan-coronavirus vaccine


Issued on: 09/09/2021 -

The University of Pennsylvania immunologist, who on Thursday shared the $3 million 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences with his long time collaborator Katalin Kariko, is now spearheading efforts to design a new vaccine against all coronaviruses 

Sharon L. Taffet Pennsylvania School of Medicine/AFP


Washington (AFP)

Drew Weissman's decades of research helped pave the way for mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, but the scientist isn't resting on his laurels.

The University of Pennsylvania immunologist, who on Thursday shared the $3 million 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences with his longtime collaborator Katalin Kariko, is now spearheading efforts to design a new vaccine against all coronaviruses.

The Silicon Valley-backed award honors major discoveries with the highest cash amounts in science.

"There have been three (coronavirus) pandemics or epidemics in the past 20 years," Weissman told AFP in an interview, referring to the original SARS virus, MERS and Covid-19.

"You have to assume there's going to be more, and our idea was that we could wait for the next coronavirus epidemic or pandemic, and then spend a year and a half making a vaccine. Or we could make one now and have it either ready to go, or use it now."

The 62-year-old and his team started work on the project last spring and have so far published two papers, with promising results.

One of the vaccines was shown to prevent SARS and a few other animal coronaviruses that have the potential to cross into humans.

By now, many are familiar with the basic principles of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccines: they deliver genetic instructions to our cells to build the spike protein of the coronavirus, in order to evoke antibodies when our bodies encounter the real virus.

The new focus is to try to train our immune systems to parts of the virus that do not mutate as fast as the spike. These are called "conserved regions."

As a practicing doctor for most of his life, "my dream since starting college and medical school was to make something that helps people," Weissman said, adding it made him "incredibly happy" to see the vaccines he laid the groundwork for save lives.

But while he foresaw the issue of global vaccine inequality -- and is working on a project with the Thai government to develop their own Covid-19 vaccine for this reason -- he admitted to being astonished by the level of vaccine hesitancy seen in wealthy countries.

"The conservative anti-science, anti-government people completely surprised us. I just didn't expect that group to come out against vaccines," he said.

- New applications -

While mRNA technology is enjoying huge attention, Weissman remembers a time when the field was a scientific backwater.

"We started working together in 1998, and that was without much funding and without much in the way of publications," he said of his work with Kariko.

In 2005, they found a way to alter synthetic RNA to stop it from causing a massive inflammatory response found in animal experiments.

"Just before our paper was published I said 'Our phones are going to ring off the hook,'" he recalls.

"We sat there staring at our phones for five years, and they never rang!"

With a second big breakthrough in 2015, they found a new way to deliver the particles safely and effectively to their target cells, using a fatty coating called "lipid nanoparticles."

Both developments are part of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines today.

Beyond vaccines, mRNA technology is also being heralded for its potential to revolutionize medicine.

Weissman's team is working on using RNA to develop a single-injection gene therapy to overcome the defect that causes sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disease that 200,000 babies are born with in Africa every year.

Significant technical challenges remain to ensure the treatment is able to correctly edit genes and is safe, but the researchers are hopeful.

Bone marrow transplant, an expensive treatment with serious risks, is currently the only cure.



French scientist recognized for rapid DNA sequencing technique key in Covid fight



Issued on: 09/09/2021 

Image non datée d'observations au microscope du SARS-CoV-2, le virus causant le Covid-19, transmise par les Instituts nationaux de santé (NIH) américains 

Handout National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/AFP


Washington (AFP)

Twenty-five years ago, French biophysicist Pascal Mayer had an idea that seemed nothing short of "crazy." Today, his research has paved the way for a rapid and inexpensive DNA sequencing technique used around the world in the battle against Covid-19.

On Thursday, Mayer, 58, who hails from the town of Riom in central France, was awarded the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in life sciences, alongside British researchers Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman.

The American prize, launched by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to recognize the latest scientific advances, carries an award of a hefty $3 million, compared to $1 million given to Nobel Prize laureates. Mayer and his colleagues will get $1 million each.

Thanks to the new method, known as next generation sequencing (NGS), scientists can analyze coronavirus mutations day by day to identify and monitor new variants.

Without this technique, studying the rapidly spreading new Covid-19 mutations would be much more costly and, more importantly, take much longer, Mayer told AFP.

But back in 1996, when Mayer began developing the idea, it sounded wild.

"It seemed crazy, so I looked pretty crazy when I talked about it," said Mayer, who now works at his own bioresearch company.

- DNA colonies -

A genome is a complete set of an organism's genes: its hereditary information.

Each gene represents a small piece of DNA, which in turn, consists of four letters: A (for adenine), T (thymine), C (cytosine) and G (guanine).

Made up of 23 chromosomes, the human genome contains more than three billion letters.

"It's a bit like having an encyclopedia consisting of 23 volumes," Mayer explained.

To sequence the genome is to "read" the order of these letters.

The sequencing of the first complete human genome was completed in 2003, after ten years and an investment of over $1 billion. The technique that was used then is called Sanger sequencing.

Thanks to NGS, also called massive parallel sequencing, the process can now be done overnight at a cost of $1,000.

How is that achieved? Instead of reading the pages of each book one by one, they are all read simultaneously.

"It's like putting all the pages on a soccer field, and being able to take a photo of the field at once," explained Mayer.

One of the keys to his technique is creating clusters of DNA, by cutting up the genome into small pieces, then creating thousands of copies of them and grouping them into islands of sorts.

Assembled together, they can be read simultaneously and more easily by fluorescence.

Mayer said the simplicity of the technique is its key strength and a source of pride for him.

The sequencing takes place "with a stroke of the pipette," he said.

- 17,000 machines -

After studying at the University of Strasbourg and completing postdoctoral fellowships in Canada and in France, Mayer tested his idea for the first time in Geneva, in the research center of a pharmaceutical company where he then worked.

Two key patents were filed in April 1997.

The technology was later acquired by a start-up founded by Balasubramanian and Klenerman, two British scientists working on the same problem.

Their company was eventually bought by the US genetic research company Illumina, the global leader in genetic sequencing, which has 17,000 sequencing machines around the globe.

Besides Covid-19 research, massive parallel sequencing is widely used to diagnose and treat certain cancers and rare diseases.

It is also used in forensic investigations to analyze DNA samples from crime scenes.

Mayer does not own the property rights to the sequencing method, so he doesn't share in the profits.

But he hopes the award will give a boost to his bioresearch company Alphanosos, which he founded in 2014.

Mayer intends to invest a part of his award to fund projects at his company, including treatment for coronavirus.

© 2021 AFP

 

A number of global unions including the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), UNI Global Union, and the International Domestic Workers Federation are taking part in the #Essential4Recovery summit, the first gathering of its kind to lay out a global vision for a just economic recovery that recognizes the value of essential workers. The summit will take place over three days, 8 September – 10 September. Register now! This event will include English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Hindi subtitles. Throughout this forum, we will hear from essential workers, union leaders, celebrities, artists and more to describe what we need for a just recovery. We’ll tackle the most urgent challenges facing essential workers today including:  Increased income and improved working conditions  An end to sexual harassment and violence  Healthy and safe workplaces and access to healthcare  Social protection benefits and support for vulnerable workers We'll hear stories, have conversations and feel compelled to make commitments to a more fair, just and inclusive environment for all essential workers. To find out more, visit http://www.labourstart.org/go/efr Please spread the word - share this email message with your fellow trade unionists! Eric Lee

California passes bill targeting Amazon warehouse speed quotas 

(ENDING SWEATSHOP CONDITIONS)

The California Senate voted Wednesday to approve legislation preventing companies like Amazon from imposing production quotas that force employees to miss breaks or jeopardize their safety. 

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 8 (UPI) -- The California State Senate on Wednesday passed a bill placing limits on production quotas for warehouse workers.

In a 26-11 vote, the Senate passed Assembly Bill 701, which prohibits companies from imposing production quotas that prevent workers from taking state-mandated breaks or using the bathroom when needed as well as those that keep employers from complying with health and safety laws.

The bill also would provide workers, their representatives and government officials greater access to detailed records of quotas and workers' rates.

It was crafted in part as a response to a report by the Strategic Organizing Center that said that Amazon's serious-injury rate nationally last year was nearly double the rest of the warehousing industry.

Amazon uses algorithms to track workers' "time off tasks," which the company says monitors "issues with the tools that people use" as well as underperforming workers. The company, however, has said that less than 1% of terminations among operations employees are performance-related.

"In the Amazon warehouse space, what we're trying to take on is this increased use of quotas and discipline based on not meeting the quotas, without a human factor in dealing with a reason why a worker might not make a quota," said the bill's author, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez.

Retail and business groups have opposed the legislation, saying it will result in costly litigation and holdup the industry despite its apparent focus on Amazon.

RELATED Walmart raises wages of 565K employees by $1

Ron Herrera, international vice president of the Western Region for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, hailed the approval of the bill as "a historic victory for workers at Amazon and other major warehouse companies."

"These workers have been on the front lines throughout the pandemic, while suffering debilitating injuries from unsafe quotas," said Herrera.

The Senate measure will be sent to the Assembly, which passed an initial version in May, before making its way to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk for signature.

United Airlines says workers without COVID-19 vaccine will be put on unpaid leave



A United Airlines Boeing 787 lands at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Ill. The carrier said in a memo that pilots, flight attendants and others with vaccine exemptions who interact with large groups will be able to return to work once the pandemic "meaningfully recedes." File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Ahead of the carrier's deadline this month for employees to be fully vaccinated, United Airlines said Wednesday that workers who have an exemption from the policy will be placed on temporary unpaid leave.

In a memo to the airline's 67,000 employees, United Human Resources Vice President Kirk Limacher said exempted employees will be placed on leave starting Oct. 2 while the company institutes "specific safety measures for unvaccinated employees."

The carrier said pilots, flight attendants and others with exemptions who routinely interact with large groups of people will be able to return once the pandemic "meaningfully recedes."

Exempted employees who work as technicians, dispatchers and others in support roles that require few interactions with customers will be required to undergo weekly testing and wear masks at all times, including outdoors.

If their request for exemption is denied, United said workers have until Sept. 27 to receive their first vaccine dose and will be terminated if they're not fully vaccinated within five weeks of receiving their denial.

"Given the large number of people who work at and travel through our operation daily, we need to do everything we can to ensure their safety," Limacher said. "As we said when we introduced our vaccination policy, everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated."

United Airlines became the first major airline to institute a vaccine mandate last month and was followed by Delta and Hawaiian Airlines. In late August, Air Canada, Canada's largest airline, announced that all employees have until Oct. 30 to be fully vaccinated.
RELATEDBiden admin. ousts Trump appointees from military academy advisory boards


Since United unveiled its mandate, more than half of the unvaccinated employees in early August have since been inoculated. The carrier said "a large majority" of employees have already uploaded their vaccination records or promised to get their first shot before the deadline.

EGEB: Researchers ran tests on wind turbine noise and got a surprise

A technique used to improve wind farms’ performance makes them quieter, too.

Michelle Lewis - Sep. 8th 2021 

In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

Onshore wind farm noise

As onshore wind farms rapidly multiply in the US, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory decided to run tests on the noise levels of wind turbines. So it tested a new technique that wind farm owners and turbine manufacturers are using to increase wind farms’ performance called wake steering, to see if it increases noise:

Wakes are regions where winds slow behind a wind turbine, which can decrease energy production of downwind turbines. By yawing wind turbines – turning them to face the wind at slightly different angles – wind plant operators can steer wakes, decreasing energy production for specific turbines but increasing production for the entire wind plant. Before yawing becomes the go-to technique for plants, wind plant developers need to know if it increases (or decreases) noise.

Researchers placed 11 microphones beneath a US Department of Energy-owned, GE, 1.5-megawatt wind turbine. The microphones collected noise across the range of frequencies that humans can detect. They also captured “full-field data” to measure how noise fluctuates across a large area.

The researchers thought yawing would increase noise because of acoustic emission model predictions, but they got a surprise: It actually slightly decreased noise. (And it wasn’t very loud to begin with.)

So if an onshore wind farm uses wake steering, then it can create more energy as a whole and, bonus, potentially decrease noise, too. Good news.
Brazil’s hydropower – and solar

Hydropower supplied 66% of Brazil’s electricity demand in 2020. Wind and solar have grown quickly in recent years and made up a combined 11% share of Brazil’s electricity generation in 2020.

Further, biomass makes up 8%, fossil fuels supply 12% of electricity generation, and nuclear makes up 2%.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA):

National electricity reliability is challenged because of the country’s reliance on one resource (hydropower), the long distance between hydropower generation, and demand centers, continued drought conditions, and deforestation.

Unfortunately, Brazil is trying to grow its natural gas supply to diversify. It’s developing its offshore natural gas reserves that are mostly in the south, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

However, the EIA reports:

Non-hydro renewables are the fastest-growing technologies in Brazil’s generation mix. With 4,600 miles of windy coastline, Brazil has abundant wind resources. Wind capacity in Brazil, which totaled 17,198 MW in 2020, is growing as new projects come online. One of these projects, Lagoa dos Ventos, began commercial operations in June 2021 and is the largest wind farm in South America. Although solar still represents a small share of the country’s generation mix, it more than doubled between 2018 and 2020, from 3.5 billion kWh to 6.7 billion kWh.

In the Brazilian government’s latest 10-year plan, it forecasts that renewable sources will account for most of the additions to installed power capacity expansion by 2030. The largest forecast addition will come from solar.

Photo: Dennis Shroeder/NREL