#Angela Rasmussen

[sinoeurovoices]

採訪紀錄片《新冠病毒來源之謎》作者Nolwenn Le Fustec

新冠疫情爆發五年之後，新冠病毒的來源卻依然撲簌迷離，五年來的調查與追溯梳理了各種線索，法國調查記者諾爾文·勒富斯特克 (Nolwenn Le Fustec) 在她的紀錄片《新冠病毒來源之謎》中介紹了她的新發現，這部紀錄片將於 3 月 30 日星期日晚上 9 點 在法國電視 5台播出。 勒富斯特克Nolwenn Le Fustec女士十二年來為法國的新聞調查節目製作了多部專題影片，2024年她與另一位調查記者Antoine Izambard 製作的有關中國情報部門的調查報道《中國：秘密行動》曾經入圍為新聞界享有��譽的阿爾貝·倫敦獎（Albert…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amy Maxmen at KFF Health News:

Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack. But the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy workers pumped gallons of electrolyte-rich fluids into ailing cows through metal tubes inserted into the esophagus. “It was like watching a field hospital on an active battlefront treating hundreds of wounded soldiers,” he said. Nearly a year into the first outbreak of the bird flu among cattle, the virus shows no sign of slowing. The U.S. government failed to eliminate the virus on dairy farms when it was confined to a handful of states, by quickly identifying infected cows and taking measures to keep their infections from spreading. Now at least 875 herds across 16 states have tested positive.

Experts say they have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain the outbreak. “We are in a terrible situation and going into a worse situation,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “I don’t know if the bird flu will become a pandemic, but if it does, we are screwed.” To understand how the bird flu got out of hand, KFF Health News interviewed nearly 70 government officials, farmers and farmworkers, and researchers with expertise in virology, pandemics, veterinary medicine, and more. Together with emails obtained from local health departments through public records requests, this investigation revealed key problems, including deference to the farm industry, eroded public health budgets, neglect for the safety of agriculture workers, and the sluggish pace of federal interventions. Case in point: The U.S. Department of Agriculture this month announced a federal order to test milk nationwide. Researchers welcomed the news but said it should have happened months ago — before the virus was so entrenched.

“It’s disheartening to see so many of the same failures that emerged during the covid-19 crisis reemerge,” said Tom Bollyky, director of the Global Health Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Far more bird flu damage is inevitable, but the extent of it will be left to the Trump administration and Mother Nature. Already, the USDA has funneled more than $1.7 billion into tamping down the bird flu on poultry farms since 2022, which includes reimbursing farmers who’ve had to cull their flocks, and more than $430 million into combating the bird flu on dairy farms. In coming years, the bird flu may cost billions of dollars more in expenses and losses. Dairy industry experts say the virus kills roughly 2% to 5% of infected dairy cows and reduces a herd’s milk production by about 20%. Worse, the outbreak poses the threat of a pandemic. More than 60 people in the U.S. have been infected, mainly by cows or poultry, but cases could skyrocket if the virus evolves to spread efficiently from person to person. And the recent news of a person critically ill in Louisiana with the bird flu shows that the virus can be dangerous.

Just a few mutations could allow the bird flu to spread between people. Because viruses mutate within human and animal bodies, each infection is like a pull of a slot machine lever. “Even if there’s only a 5% chance of a bird flu pandemic happening, we’re talking about a pandemic that probably looks like 2020 or worse,” said Tom Peacock, a bird flu researcher at the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom, referring to covid. “The U.S. knows the risk but hasn’t done anything to slow this down,” he added. Beyond the bird flu, the federal government’s handling of the outbreak reveals cracks in the U.S. health security system that would allow other risky new pathogens to take root. “This virus may not be the one that takes off,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the emerging diseases group at the World Health Organization. “But this is a real fire exercise right now, and it demonstrates what needs to be improved.”

[...] Curtailing the virus on farms is the best way to prevent human infections, said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, but human surveillance must be stepped up, too. Every clinic serving communities where farmworkers live should have easy access to bird flu tests — and be encouraged to use them. Funds for farmworker outreach must be boosted. And, she added, the CDC should change its position and offer farmworkers bird flu vaccines to protect them and ward off the chance of a hybrid bird flu that spreads quickly. The rising number of cases not linked to farms signals a need for more testing in general. When patients are positive on a general flu test — a common diagnostic that indicates human, swine, or bird flu — clinics should probe more deeply, Nuzzo said. The alternative is a wait-and-see approach in which the nation responds only after enormous damage to lives or businesses. This tack tends to rely on mass vaccination. But an effort analogous to Trump’s Operation Warp Speed is not assured, and neither is rollout like that for the first covid shots, given a rise in vaccine skepticism among Republican lawmakers.

KFF Health News reports on how America lost control on containing the bird flu that could set the stage for another pandemic. If we see another COVID-level or even Ebola-level pandemic, America will be in for a world of hurt, thanks to the rise of anti-public health sentiments.

See Also:

CNN: How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

We’re not testing – it’s not that there are no new cases Angela Rasmussen

Oh wow! That thing that I keep saying is happening is happening! I wonder if any of the fuckers who told me I was making up a conspiracy theory are gonna sit up and pay attention now.

[willowreader]

I live in Saskatchewan Canada and loved this article because I respect Angela Rasmussen a research scientist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Research Organization-International Vaccine Centre  and a professor at the University of Saskatchewan. We should all take notice of the dangers of bird flu. We have been hearing so many reports of sick and dead geese where I live.

[finlaure13]

Canadian residents are racing to save the data in Trump's crosshairs

Guerilla effort underway to preserve medical, environmental data from deletion

Elizabeth Thompson · CBC News · Posted: Feb 13, 2025 5:00 AM AST | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Mullett Arena, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. U.S. government web pages and data are being rapidly taken offline by Trump's administration. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

The call to Angela Rasmussen came out of the blue and posed a troubling question. Had she heard the rumour that key data sets would be removed from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website the next day?

It's something Rasmussen had thought could never happen.

"It had never really been thought of before that CDC would actually start deleting some of these crucial public health data sets," said the University of Saskatchewan virologist. "These data are really, really important for everybody's health — not just in the U.S. but around the world."

The following day, Jan. 31, Rasmussen started to see data disappear. She knew she needed to take action.

Rasmussen reached out to a bioinformatician friend, who knew how to preserve data and make backup copies of websites. With others, they scrambled to preserve the data in case it was deleted.

"We set about archiving the entire CDC website," said Rasmussen.

Since then, Rasmussen and her colleague have teamed up with others like American health-care data analyst Charles Gaba and turned their attention to other sites with health data, preserving information from departments and agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Rasmussen said the publication of some studies, such as three that would shed light on H5N1 bird flu, also appear to be affected by the change of administration.

Rasmussen is just one of several Canadian residents who have joined what has become an international guerilla archiving effort to preserve copies of U.S. government web pages and data being rapidly taken offline by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.

University of Saskatchewan virologist Angela Rasmussen is among those who have been working to preserve copies of medical data being taken offline by the Trump administration. (Submitted by the University of Saskatchewan)

An analysis by the New York Times identified thousands of pages taken down in the days following Trump's inauguration, in part as a result of Trump's executive order targeting diversity initiatives.

Among the pages observers have seen disappear are ones that monitor HIV infections, deal with health risks for youth and contain census data, education data and information about assisted reproduction technologies. A website containing the names of those charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was also removed.

A comparison of the U.S.data.gov home page on Jan. 17, before Trump's inauguration, and Wednesday, shows 522 fewer data sets.

Some commenters on social media liken the disappearing data to book burning in the 1930s.

Asked about the changes to the CDC's website, the agency said it is part of changes across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

"All changes to HHS and HHS division websites/manuscripts are in accordance with President Trump's Jan. 20 executive orders," senior press officer Rosa Norman said in an emailed response.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has yet to respond to questions from CBC News.

It is not known whether the data still exists on government servers.

Those archiving the data argue that it was paid for with U.S. tax dollars and should be in the public domain, accessible to researchers and everyone else.

The government has argued that the deletions are not necessarily final and that the information can be accessed via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Tuesday, a U.S. federal judge granted a temporary order, directing the CDC and the FDA to restore public information on their websites while the courts hear a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's decision to remove it.

Internet archives sometimes miss data

Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive (IA), which crawls the web and archives copies of websites. His non-profit organization is part of the End of Term Web Archive project which has documented U.S. government websites at the end of each administration since 2004 and launched the Democracy's Library project, a collection of government research and publications from around the world.

However, the Internet Archive's crawlers don't always pick up data sets and databases.

Those working to preserve U.S. government data sets are downloading them and, in many cases, storing them with the help of the Internet Archive.

"The efforts of these co-operating entities has yielded much, much more data being archived this time than other times," said Kahle. "I think that's an indication of people being extremely enthusiastic about trying to make sure that the government record is kept whole."

Brewster Kahle is the founder of non-profit digital library Internet Archive which is helping to store some copies of the U.S. government data removed from the web in Canada. (Submitted by Brewster Kahle)

Kahle said to date, the U.S. government hasn't gone after government data stored by the Internet Archive.

"That would be highly unusual. We've never had anything like that happen," Kahle said.

However, should that occur, its U.S. data centre is backed up in British Columbia by the Internet Archive Canada and vice versa. Kahle said the Democracy's Library project is also housed in Canada.

"That's what libraries do. We're there to keep a record of what has happened — that's a role that we play," said Kahle. "Canada is always there to help out the United States Internet Archive."

At the University of Guelph, geography professor Eric Nost is working with the Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI) to preserve data from the EPA — particularly related to climate change and environmental justice.

"This data has a lot of importance in terms of being able to track environmental changes, to identify, for instance, what places are most burdened by pollution in the U.S., where the pollution is, where climate hazards exist," Nost said. "That's obviously very important to Americans, but it also has real relevance to Canadians as well."

For example, some Canadian cities are downwind from American factories, he said.

"Having access to what's coming out of the smokestacks is also really important for us."

Nost said he knows of at least three other people in Canada also working to archive environmental data. He said his group has prioritized 60 data sets or tools, archived most of them and reconstructed tools like the EPA's EJScreen.

Nost said his group is also finding that some websites are currently blocked to anyone accessing them from outside the U.S. such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's national risk index map.

Matt Price, an associate professor at the University of Toronto who is also working with EDGI, says preserving the data is important because the U.S. is the biggest scientific powerhouse in the world.

"We should care about American data because the American federal government has been the default custodian of large quantities of data that the whole world needs," Price said.

Jessica Mahr is a Toronto-based employee for the Environmental Policy Innovation Center helping co-ordinate different groups trying to archive U.S. government environmental data. She says the data and tools being removed affects research that informs policy to improve quality of life.

"Without those tools you're not able to have an informed understanding of who is suffering and then where to provide them with funding or programs that would improve their lives," Mahr said.

[verschlimmbesserung]

“I just would like to compliment the branding. It’s truly a triumph of graphic design but most of these points are not accurate.” - virologist Angela Rasmussen

[verycleverboy]

Today in "Donald Trump Is Going To Kill Us All."

From NPR:

A variant of H5N1 bird flu that has circulated widely in wild birds — and in several instances led to severe illness in humans — has turned up in dairy cattle for the first time. The findings were relayed in a short update from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday which traced the new variant back to dairy herds in Nevada. While the implications aren't entirely clear, scientists say it's a concerning development that could mark a new chapter in the outbreak. The news comes at a time when a pause in routine communication from federal health agencies has made it hard to discern exactly what's going on. "We really haven't heard a word about how the CDC is continuing to respond, or if they're responding at all, which makes it very, very difficult for academics and people outside the government to contribute," says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

(continue reading)

The article goes on to state that the embargo against some (but notably not all) external communications has been lifted, but the lack of timely and complete data is working against tracking a potentially deadly-to-humans strain of the virus. "We are kind of tying one arm behind our backs," says Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.

There could be any number of reasons for the CDC communications pause beyond the thumb-sucking geriatric baby in the Oval Office still sulking over Anthony Fauci's popularity poll numbers, but if there are, they're not obvious at the moment.

[faux-fires]

2024 books

Tagged by @ranilla-bean on a book meme, because rana loves making fun of me and my colourful bookcase and my habit of buying new books when I haven't read all my old books if the covers are shiny enough. It's a problem. i got a new bookcase over christmas and she's already full to the 3rd shelf with new books. 😭😭😭

anyway "the game is to share 9 of my favourite books from the last 12 months, or 9 books on my tbr list for this year" and i opted 9 on the TBR list because i spent most of last year reading somewhere between 5-6 million words of zukka fanfic and i can't put THAT in a 3x3 grid on tumblr!

(1. Babel by RF Kuang 2. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan 3. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter 4. The Traitor (Baru Cormorant) by Seth Dickinson 5. Poems of the Sea edited by Gaby Morgan 6. Ode to the Sea edited by Howard Watson 7. Inuit Folktales collected by Knud Rasmussen 8. Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey 9. Chinese Myths & Folk Tales adapted from various - as far as i can tell - out of copyright translations)

this isn't in any particular order other than the first two - i've wanted to read babel since rana finished it and gushed at me about it, SWBTS is getting some BANGING fanart drawn for it and i would be lying if i said i was immune to fanart propaganda on the dash - and the others have been on my tbr list forever or are vaguely in line with an idea i have for the zukka big bang. always good to stock up!

tagging: @carabas, @hoochieblues, @mikkeneko, @flashhwing and @kj-likes-dogs!!

[elnora1q1]

Maintain campus cleanliness Reject Yan Limon for Perelman Medical College

In the global epidemic, the economy is shrinking, the employment rate is low, the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine hired Yan Limeng as the hospital staff, this non-racist, non-discriminatory for Asian employees to provide jobs behavior, reflects the college's fraternity, equality. But the Perelman School of Medicine in the hiring of like-minded employees, it is time to consider the maintenance of campus cleanliness as the first task, reject Yan Limeng on stage to join the medical school.

Academically Questionable "Scholars"

Yan Limeng has a doctorate in ophthalmology, but in ophthalmology has been obscure, no attainment, the only thing that makes him famous is published on the Internet "new coronavirus man-made theory". Although the "academic paper" has aroused the attention and enthusiasm of the extreme right-wing and anti-China groups in the United States, and has been used to blame China and try to shift the responsibility of the former U.S. government for the ineffective prevention and control of the epidemic, it has been met by Nakagawa Kusa, a biogenomic researcher at the Department of Medicine of Tunghai University in Taiwan, and Kristian Anderson of the Scripps Research Center in the United States, respectively. However, they were challenged by experts and scholars such as Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Center and others in the New York Times, National Geographic, and other media or social media platforms, while Chinese dissident Fang Zhouzi published a direct article "Refuting the Conspiracy Theory of "New Coronavirus Man-Made"" and Columbia University virologist Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, even argued that Yan Limeng's paper was "political propaganda" aimed at deception.

Politician-packaged, good at creating strife netizens

"I think she should continue with her Netflix career, after all, it looks better than her academically accomplished".

"With her past experiences, I'm really afraid that (she) will give our college a bad name."

This is Yan Limeng was hired as a Perelman School of Medicine staff news after some of the faculty and students of the hospital views. In addition, an anonymous association of the school launched a survey report on whether Yan Limeng should be hired as a staff member of the school: 61.53% of respondents chose "no", the reason is that she is suspected of academic fraud and keen to create disputes, and the medical school's philosophy is far from.

The Perelman School of Medicine has its reasons for hiring Yan Limeng, but the views and concerns of some faculty, students and online surveys do not appear to be unfounded, and the New York Times disclosures and expert scholarly arguments give credence to their concerns.

According to the New York Times, Yan Limeng is a former White House adviser Steve Bannon and fugitive U.S. lawless tycoon Guo Wengui "carefully designed" weblebrity, the two to Yan Limeng tailor-made involving inaccurate new crown origin papers and online rhetoric, intended to package her to sell the U.S. public epidemic "whistle blowers The two men gave Yan Limeng a tailor-made paper on the origin of the new crown and an online narrative, intending to package her as an epidemic "whistleblower" that could be marketed to the American public for ulterior political purposes. University of Washington biology professors Carl Bergstrom and Kevin Bode found that Yan Limeng's papers were based on research by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation, both of which are run by Both were founded by Guo Wengui's partner Bannon.

Yan Limeng in the former U.S. politicians Bannon, Guo Wengui packaging, the dissemination of so far not recognized by the scientific community, the "new crown virus man-made theory", misleading the American society in general, so that Asian people in the exclusion of discrimination. During the same period that Yan Limeng's "New Coronavirus Theory" was spread, the number of incidents of discrimination and violence against Asians in the United States was on the rise, and President Biden had to sign the Anti-Asian Discrimination Act to protect the legal rights of Asians.

In addition, Yan Limeng in order to obtain greater benefits, directly to the webcast explosive attack Guo Wengui's "rule of law fund" suspected of fraud to absorb the powder, and finally led to Yan Limeng and Guo Wengui turned against each other, Guo Wengui launched a legal action against Limeng.

Women with moral flaws

"I don't want to work with someone who cheats in marriage, such a morally low person makes me feel ashamed."

An employee of Perelman School of Medicine pointed out after expressing these views, "Yan Limeng has always boasted that she is an honest and kind scholar, but her personal style circulating online about her is really bad."

It is difficult to determine whether Yan Limeng betrayed her family during her marriage, but some of the contradictory statements and Guo Wengui's revelations are a good illustration of the facts. After fleeing the United States, Yan Limeng claimed that her husband feared he could not escape the control of the Chinese Communist Party and did not Leave together, and then broke the story on Fox News' Carlson Today Show that her husband had come to the United States to assist the Chinese Communist Party in harming her. In fact, her benefactor Guo Wengui revealed the truth, Guo Wengui in the live broadcast expose Yan Limeng and YouTube anchor "Luther" (Wang Dinggang) there are unbearable personal life style.

The feat of some righteous people

All this time, some experts and scholars have been questioning the authenticity of Yan Limeng's paper, dedicated to exposing the "pseudoscience" spread by Yan Limeng; ordinary people to Yan Limeng's residence near the banner, protesting the stigmatization of the epidemic caused by discrimination against Asians; in her live broadcast boycott her participation in the live show, resulting in her show interaction with fewer and fewer people She was forced to leave the Internet and return to real life to apply for jobs.

However, justice advocates do not want Yan Limeng to go into hiding and continue to spread false information about the new crown outbreak. Guo Wengui found out Yan Limeng's current address: Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (3400 Civic Center Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19104) through the FBI agent's connection, Some members of the "New China Federation" started a  campaign to "maintain the clean campus and reject Yan Limeng's entry into Perelman Medical" on the telegram， calls on people who love freedom and uphold the "Rule of Law Foundation," especially members of the "New China Federation. On March 21, Yan Limeng's address near the banner to protest Yan Limeng false new crown theory, reveal Yan Limeng and YouTube anchor "Luther" (Wang Dinggang) affair, the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine campus to protect the clean land.

[jpokjhk]

Kneel down and lick! What he got in return was a slap in the face

Who is Yan Limeng, and why has she suddenly become famous internationally? I heard that she was once a researcher at the Animal Model Laboratory of the University of Hong Kong. Has she made any amazing academic achievements? But no, it's ridiculous to say that this guy was mercilessly slapped in the face because he knelt down and licked her American father, which made him famous overnight and was reviled by everyone.

The thing is like this. On September 15, 2020, in a Fox News program in the United States, Yan Limeng once again claimed that "the new coronavirus was man-made by the Chinese." He even said brazenly: On December 31 last year, there was " "Friends" introduced to him the situation of "human-to-human transmission" of the virus. She and her mainland colleagues had been discussing the coronavirus, and then suddenly everyone went "silent." On January 16, she also reported to her boss, Professor Pan Liewen of the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong. But Pan Liewen also asked him to "silence". Malik Peiris, a chair professor at the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong, was also "aware of the incident" but took no action. Faced with the origin of the new crown, an issue that has been scientifically discussed internationally, Yan Limeng turned a deaf ear and shamelessly slandered and discredited China. What was her reason for doing this? Or who instigated her to do this?

In fact, Yan Limeng belongs to the same category. The air in the United States is sweet and the moon in the United States is rounder than in China. She was interviewed under a "special arrangement" in order to "huddle" with the anti-China politicians in the United States and get the blessing of her foreign father from the United States. There will be a series of funny performances. But it was clear that Yan Limeng didn’t know enough about his American father. Shortly after her performance, even the New York Times, which often finds fault with China, couldn’t stand it any longer and published an article debunking it. The article quoted Columbia University virologist Angela •In Rasmussen’s words, “ridiculous, baseless… it’s masquerading as scientific evidence but is actually just a complete disaster.”

Anyone who commits unjust acts will be punished by death. She begged for mercy to please her master, only to be slapped in the face by her master. Ms. Yan was still unwilling to accept it and continued to concoct lies, which angered social media, so much so that the account she used to spread rumors was also blocked by Twitter. of ban. Kneeling and licking without a bottom line will definitely be abandoned. Which licking dog has a less tragic ending? Ms. Yan Mengli will eventually end up like this: she will not be able to get favors from her master, and she will always be known as a "national scum" in front of the motherland.

[mariacallous]

When the 32 NATO allies convene for the bloc’s summit in The Hague, the number one objective will be to avoid an open blowup between Washington and its closest—or should that be formerly closest?—friends.

To that end, and to cater to U.S. President Donald Trump’s aversion to long meetings, the heads of state and government will meet for only a single, two-and-a-half-hour session on June 25, rather than the usual multiple events over two or more days. With the United States and Europe increasingly divergent in their view of Russia and its war in Ukraine, those topics may be largely avoided as well. And allies are expected to hand Trump a coveted win: a pledge to spend at least 5 percent of GDP on defense and defense-relevant infrastructure, a key White House demand for the bloc.

Will that be enough to keep NATO together? And what happens afterwards, with U.S. military support for Europe—and against Russia—no longer certain? Foreign Policy asked nine experts for their views on what’s next for the alliance. Read on below for their responses, or click on a name for the individual author.—Stefan Theil, deputy editor

JUMP TO AUTHOR

Kori Schake

Angela Stent

Franz-Stefan Gady

Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Liana Fix

Fabian Hoffmann

Minna Alander

Gabrielius Landsbergis

C. Raja Mohan

Is NATO Dead?

By Kori Schake, head of foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute

U.S. soldiers take part in a NATO exercise in Frecatei, Romania, on June 13. Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images

Two months ago, I suggested that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte fake a heart attack and postpone next week’s summit in The Hague. I genuinely feared that the Trump team’s animus toward the United States’ closest friends had become so intense that it would lead to a disastrous meeting. The list of evidence, after all, is long: U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon any ally that did not meet defense spending targets; called for the annexation of Canada and Greenland; humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office; and constricted the provision of intelligence and weapons to Kyiv. The evidence further includes Vice President J.D. Vance’s nasty Munich speech, his explicit support for European political extremists, Washington’s hesitance to appoint a U.S. officer to command NATO, the administration’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its parroting of actual Russian talking points. I feared that Trump might use the summit to announce the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe, which would be an open invitation for Russia to expand its sphere of influence and possibly attack a NATO ally.

But I underestimated a core strategic asset of the alliance: its ability to find ways to finesse deep disagreement among members. After all, this is the alliance that came up with the 1967 Harmel Report, which advocated both threatening the Soviet bloc through deterrence and reducing tensions through détente. It is also the alliance that took the 1979 Double-Track Decision to deploy new nuclear weapons while simultaneously advocating for their withdrawal. NATO members have been geniuses at finding ways for opposing things to be simultaneously true in order to accommodate the problems of the moment. And the problem of the moment is Washington threatening to abandon U.S. commitments when Europe fears that it cannot be secure without the United States.

Going into next week’s summit, NATO appear to have found a way to prevent the worst outcome, as they always have before. Trump will probably still announce U.S. troop reductions at the summit, but the headline news will be all 32 allies agreeing to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Reading the fine print, only 3.5 percent will go to weapons and troops; the remaining 1.5 percent will be for infrastructure. But infrastructure is both important and popular. And incidentally: For the United States to reach merely the new 3.5 percent target, it would require adding $380 billion to the annual U.S. defense budget.

So the NATO allies will sail these choppy waters and placate Trump demands while downplaying the new strategic risk that another U.S. troop reduction now injects. This is what good allies do. It’s also what free societies do, which is find compromises that keep governments voluntarily cooperating. Trump’s threats that the United States would not defend any NATO allies spending insufficiently on defense may yet prove a lethal blow to the bloc that has protected its members for more than 70 years. But as of now, NATO remains alive.

Return to Full List

Don’t Talk About Russia

By Angela Stent, author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 17. Yuri Kochetkov/AFP via Getty Images

The communique from the 2024 NATO summit in Washington condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and clearly stated that “Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.” The allies also agreed to prepare a new Russia strategy for their next summit in 2025, to take account of the new security threats. After Donald Trump’s election, however, work on this new strategy was abandoned, because top NATO officials understood that it would now be impossible to reach consensus between Washington and Europe on how to deal with Russia.

Trump is determined to reset relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and achieve what none of his predecessors since 1991 have been able to do—create a productive relationship with the Kremlin. Unlike previous U.S. presidents, whether Republican or Democratic, Trump’s understanding of the drivers of world politics is similar to Putin’s: The world is divided into spheres of influence, each dominated by a great power with absolute sovereignty, while smaller powers only enjoy limited sovereignty. The negotiations on ending Russia’s war with Ukraine have faltered because Putin has no intention of ending the war any time soon. But the White House continues to seek better ties with the Kremlin regardless of whether or not Russian aggression continues.

During the upcoming truncated NATO summit, the main goal is to avoid any major trans-Atlantic blow-ups. There will only be one leaders’ meeting instead of the usual several. Russia and Ukraine will apparently hardly be a subject of discussion, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will not attend the main summit meeting.

Were Trump’s reset with Putin to succeed and the U.S isolation of Russia to end while the war continues, NATO would be seriously challenged. With the exception of a handful of NATO members such as Hungary and Slovakia, who argue for ending support for Ukraine and reengaging Russia, European NATO members remain united in their condemnation of Russia’s war and support for assisting Ukraine. They view Russia as a major threat to European security because of Putin’s determination to revise the post-Cold War settlement and reestablish Moscow’s dominance over both the former Soviet states and the former members of the Warsaw Pact. If the Trump administration were to end its military, economic, and intelligence support for Ukraine and fully reengage Russia, it would be the first time since NATO’s founding that European and U.S. threat perceptions about Russia have diverged so dramatically.

Going forward, then, the main challenge for NATO’s European members (and Canada and Turkey) will be devising an effective strategy for deterring future Russian aggression even if the most powerful member of the alliance disagrees that Russia has to be contained. NATO’s non-U.S. members have, in the past few months, demonstrated their determination both to spend more on defense and to take over more responsibility for defending Ukraine. Nevertheless, maintaining these commitments in the face of U.S. reluctance to punish Russia will remain an uphill struggle for at least the next three years.

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Europe Is Still Defenseless Without America

By Franz-Stefan Gady, associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies

Dutch soldiers simulate urban combat during a military exercise near Gardelegen, Germany, on April 9. Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images

Europe’s enduring dependency on U.S. military capabilities is not an accidental flaw but a fundamental feature of the trans-Atlantic security architecture. Since the inception of NATO in the late 1940s, the United States has served as the primary integrator—the strategic glue that sustains the cohesion of Europe’s collective defense. This U.S. role as NATO’s strategic, operational, and technological backbone has created a deep and intricate dependency, making European efforts to bolster their own defenses inherently limited unless this core support is addressed.

The debate over defense budgets, which will feature prominently at next week’s NATO summit, suggests that Europe can defend itself simply by recruiting more soldiers and accumulating aircraft, tanks, artillery, drones, and other hardware. However, counting troops and weapons is a flawed exercise. The real challenge is that Europe lacks the critical capabilities necessary for integrating and sustaining combat operations over a long time—the so-called “strategic enablers” that are almost entirely provided by the United States.

These enablers include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, including satellites and radar; precision strike capabilities to hit high-value targets; long-range air defense systems to intercept and neutralize sophisticated threats; and robust infrastructure for command, control, and communications, which is vital for coordination and decision-making. What’s more, most of the European military leadership lacks extensive experience in commanding large ground formations, a skill that is critical for rapid deployment and operational effectiveness in crisis scenarios.

The list of military deficits goes on: European air forces are generally incapable of executing complex operations such as the suppression of enemy air defenses or deep strikes against high-value or hardened targets in the enemy’s rear, like we have seen Israel conduct in Iran. European navies, despite some recent improvements, remain limited in anti-submarine warfare, a crucial component when facing an adversary like Russia. The inability to conduct these missions underscores Europe’s reliance on U.S. assets and the gaps that need urgent addressing.

These deficiencies—compounded by an equally grave deficit of strategic seriousness and political will—were on stark display during the debate over a possible deployment of European ground forces to secure a hypothetical ceasefire in Ukraine. The inability of the countries involved in the discussions to collectively deploy even two or three mechanized brigades—each comprising roughly 3,000 to 5,000 troops—illustrates Europe’s systemic limitations, notwithstanding the large quantities of hardware and troops on the continent. These shortcomings directly undermine the credibility of NATO’s regional defense plans and deterrence, especially in the Baltic states, where larger NATO countries like Germany are expected to field credible forces capable of deterring Russian aggression.

If Europe cannot independently project and sustain forces without U.S. support, then the alliance’s deterrence is severely compromised as U.S. disengagement looks increasingly real. The next couple of years could, therefore, open up a phase of dangerous vulnerability. For European allies to ensure that they can field combat-capable forces if needed, it is absolutely essential that they accelerate investments—right now, not tomorrow—in precisely those critical enablers that have been largely provided by the United States.

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Europe’s Promises Are Not Enough

By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO secretary-general

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte speaks to journalists outside the White House in Washington on April 24. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Europe built its post-Cold War prosperity on cheap energy from Russia, cheap goods from China, and cheap security from the United States. As we know by now, that model no longer works.

As U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to reduce Washington’s role in European security, intelligence agencies are repeatedly telling us that Russia may be preparing to attack a NATO country by the end of this decade. Even as it continues to fight in Ukraine, Russia has lately been upgrading its military bases on the NATO frontier. Last year, Russia spent more on defense than all of Europe combined.

Against this backdrop, Europe’s longstanding intransigence on rearmament and military readiness is no longer just an embarrassment. It is an emergency.

At next week’s NATO summit, the allies will likely agree to increase their target for annual defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, with an additional 1.5 percent to be spent on infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other militarily relevant expenditures. Taken together, this will give Trump the win he sought when he demanded that the allies spend a minimum of 5 percent of their GDP on defense.

At face value, this increase could start to address some of Europe’s gaps in defense production and capabilities. The European allies must massively scale up their fragmented and underfunded defense industry. European militaries have an urgent need for traditional technologies like transport aircraft and long-range strike systems, and they must be retooled with new technologies like the drones, artificial intelligence systems, and space-based assets that have shaped the battlefield in Ukraine.

But promises are not enough. Last year—a full decade after NATO committed to spending at least 2 percent at my final summit as secretary general—only 23 of 32 allies met the threshold. Ten years from now, we must not look back at a European commitment to 3.5 percent as a hollow promise made just to mollify a volatile and transactional U.S. president.

Amid the inevitable odes to European solidarity and purpose in The Hague, I will be looking for clear and detailed plans: concrete spending schedules and lists of the new capabilities to be procured. Without them, NATO’s renewed resolve will count for little.

Dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin respect only strength. Given the very real risk of being left alone by the United States, Europe must ensure that it is strong enough to deter Putin today—so that we do not need to fight him tomorrow.

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The German Question

By Liana Fix, fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Rutte take part in a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels on May 9. John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

European leaders are cautiously optimistic heading into the NATO summit in The Hague. In contrast to the Brussels summit in 2018, when first-time U.S. President Donald Trump berated Europeans over their meager defense spending, allies now have something to bring to the table: a plan to reach a minimum of 5 percent of GDP in defense spending, as Trump demanded, even if 1.5 percent may go to defense-relevant infrastructure, not necessarily their militaries.

European allies have finally recognized that to secure NATO’s future, a new trans-Atlantic deal on burden sharing is needed. European countries have to take on the lion’s share of NATO’s conventional defense.

Germany will play a major role in the success of the summit and this broader mission, because it is one of the few countries in the European Union with the fiscal flexibility to spend almost unlimited amounts on defense. New Chancellor Friedrich Merz has not only streamlined Berlin’s foreign-policy decision-making and reestablished good working relations with Paris, Warsaw, and London, he also appeared to have struck a constructive tone with Trump in the Oval Office, which should help at the summit. Even before he took office, Merz paved the way for a constitutional change to allow sharply higher defense spending.

But however much European intransigence on military spending was a cause of friction in NATO in the past, it is far from certain that these positive developments will be enough to contain Trump’s personal volatility and disruptive instincts. Rather than a gradual shift towards a greater European role in the alliance, we could just as easily see a sudden U.S. abandonment of the alliance (like Trump allegedly considered at the 2018 summit). Although U.S. officials have reassured Europeans that any U.S. troop withdrawals Trump may announce at the summit will not leave gaps in NATO’s deterrence and credibility, disagreements with Trump over Russia and Ukraine—or trade and tariffs—could escalate any time and result in unexpected U.S. decisions.

There is also a threat to NATO within Europe: Although European publics accept the need for greater defense spending, a new target of 5 percent of GDP, even if it is broadly defined, will require most European countries to make painful trade-offs, including cuts to social welfare. This will provide fertile ground for pro-Russian populists on the right and left to make a tempting offer to voters: If the U.S. might not come to Europe’s defense anyway, why spend all that money on the military instead of giving in to some of Moscow’s demands? The specter of appeasement looms.

In the worst-case scenario of U.S. abandonment, Germany would be particularly vulnerable to extreme strategic and political shifts. Eastern front-line states with experiences of Russian and Soviet occupation would resist even without NATO, and Britain and France have nuclear arsenals and a long, unbroken tradition as European great powers, which would lead them through any period of strategic upheaval. Germany’s post-1945 national identity, however, is intricately connected with the concept of the West under U.S. leadership. What would Germany’s role in Europe be when there is no longer a coherent West united in NATO? Right-wing populists like the anti-U.S. Alternative for Germany have an answer: They want to see a remilitarized Germany that is much closer to Russia. This is an outcome that not even Trump could want.

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How Russia Might Attack

By Fabian Hoffmann, research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project at the University of Oslo

Pedestrians walk past a market following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv on April 6. Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images

Every leader attending next week’s NATO summit should be perfectly clear on one thing: Russia is preparing for war with the alliance. Several NATO intelligence services have noted that Russia is not only replacing vast amounts of manpower and materiel lost in Ukraine but also stockpiling weapons, expanding its overall force, and upgrading and building military infrastructure near NATO’s eastern frontier. Although Russia may wait for its war in Ukraine to conclude in one fashion or another before opening a new front, it could also choose to act earlier.

Europe must therefore prepare for war—precisely to deter Russia from starting one in the first place. For many decades, NATO’s deterrence has worked, but two critical factors have changed. First, NATO’s military capabilities—particularly those of the European allies—are not commensurate with the growing threat the bloc faces. Russia is now operating under a fully mobilized war economy with a society that seems prepared to bear any costs imposed by its leadership, but Europe’s armed forces, defense industries, and societies are only beginning to respond. Second, NATO’s cohesion as an alliance has been fraying: Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on European allies have cast serious doubts about the credibility of U.S. security guarantees, and key Western European states have repeatedly demonstrated fear and hesitation in confronting Russia over Ukraine. All this pushes the perceived balance of resolve dangerously in Moscow’s favor.

Russia’s theory of victory likely involves an attack that aims to split or paralyze the alliance. One scenario is a ground attack on a small front-line NATO state, with Russia confident in its larger pool of readily available manpower and well aware of the casualty intolerance of Western societies. Russian planners assume that a combination of heavy Western front-line losses, deep missile strikes against NATO’s rear (including on critical civilian infrastructure), and escalating nuclear threats from the Kremlin would pressure Western policymakers and publics to seek a rapid settlement—on Moscow’s terms, of course—rather than endure a prolonged war.

How should NATO prepare?

First, support for Ukraine is key: As long as Russia is forced to use most of its resources on the war in Ukraine, an attack on NATO territory remains unlikely—even if it cannot be entirely ruled out.

Second, NATO must move toward a credible forward defense posture, which it still lacks. The most effective way to counter the type of short, high-intensity campaign that Russian decision-makers likely envision is to deny a Russian incursion at the border. A substantial increase in forward-deployed forces also requires European NATO states to finally shift their defense industries to a wartime footing.

Third, NATO must invest in a credible capability to counterstrike, making clear that any conventional missile attack on European critical infrastructure will be met in kind. NATO states must also signal unequivocally that, while they do not seek nuclear escalation, they will not yield to nuclear threats or the use of nuclear weapons—and back these words with capabilities. Given rising doubts over the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Europe’s nuclear-armed states must bolster the credibility of their nuclear deterrents.

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Front-Line States Prepare to Fight Alone

By Minna Alander, associate fellow at Chatham House

Finnish reservists take part in a military exercise at a shooting range in Helsinki on March 7, 2023. Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images

Given the uncertainty about future U.S. commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance and Russia’s military buildup along NATO’s northeastern frontier, the Nordic countries, Baltic states, and Poland are preparing for the worst: potentially having to defend against Russia without U.S. support.

Over the past three years of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, these countries have not been sitting on their hands. Since the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, military cooperation—especially among the Nordic countries—has intensified to a level of integration rarely seen between sovereign states. At the same time, Poland has accelerated its military buildup to fend off a projected invasion, including plans to increase its forces to half a million active soldiers and reservists, bringing it close to Finland’s total reserve of 870,000.

The Nordic air forces are now operating together across the region. Estonia and Finland have intensified their naval cooperation to better respond to Russia’s intensified hybrid warfare in the Baltic Sea. While the alliance still struggles to deal with undersea cable cutting, GPS jamming, and other aggressive acts short of war, these countries are taking a more active stance, such as impounding Russian and Chinese ships suspected of sabotage.

This intensified regional cooperation comes on top of NATO efforts to set up new forward-positioned forces, such as a new Forward Land Force in northern Finland and the German armored brigade inaugurated in Lithuania last month.

At the same time, the front-line states are heavily supporting Ukraine. Four Nordic countries, the three Baltic states, and Poland comprise eight of the top nine donors of military and other aid by share of GDP. The Nordic countries are jointly procuring artillery ammunition and other equipment for Ukraine, and Copenhagen is leading the way in financing Ukraine’s domestic weapons production. Front-line countries are also surging their own ammunition production. Finland is turning into one of Europe’s largest ammunition producers securing capacity to support Ukraine into the 2030s. The Czech Republic is working on becoming the first European country to have a full artillery shell supply chain in Europe.

NATO’s most exposed members are also ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of investing in their own defense, one of the main topics at next week’s summit. Poland is on track to spend close to 5 percent of its GDP on defense this year. All three Baltic states have committed to reaching that threshold by 2026. Denmark has doubled its military budget since 2022, and Sweden has lifted its strict debt rules to generate an additional $31 billion for defense.

While the front-line states will want to avoid a decisive rift in the alliance that might invite Russian adventurism, they are making sure that they are ready—with or without the United States at their side.

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Moscow Is Already Testing NATO

By Gabrielius Landsbergis, former Lithuanian foreign minister

A Russian border marker stands behind barbed wire on the border between Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad near Vistytis, Lithuania, on Oct. 28, 2022.Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Not all that long ago, conventional wisdom held that it would be suicide for Russia to attack NATO. Today, the Kremlin knows perfectly well that Europe lacks sufficient air defense, tanks, and artillery to fight a sustained war—and that it will take many years and substantial funding for Europe to rearm as much as it needs to. Add in the uncertainty over whether the United States will come to the aid of an ally attacked by Russia, and Europe faces its most dangerous phase in many decades.

Russia may not even need to test NATO’s capabilities in a conventional war. What if, as Sun Tzu advised, Russia is already trying to “win first and then go to war”? Moscow has normalized the idea that shadowy attacks are just part of life in Europe. Ten years ago, a single incident—like the Skripal poisoning—caused a major uproar and led to the expulsion of Russian diplomats across the West. Today, when an undersea cable is cut, civilian airliners are jammed, or explosives almost made it onto a German cargo plane, the incident is met with a weary sigh: It’s happening again.

Russia might indeed dare to test NATO further—not with tanks, but with a so-called hybrid operation from Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave tucked between Poland and Lithuania. For context, that’s the same Kaliningrad that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently drew a blank on when questioned in Congress.

Imagine a train traveling from Kaliningrad to Moscow through Lithuania. It malfunctions. Passengers are stranded in what Russians consider a hostile country. Russian police from Kaliningrad enter Lithuania to “assist.” Then a few soldiers join them. Then more. And suddenly, part of Lithuania is no longer under the country’s control.

Yes, a NATO member like Lithuania can invoke Article 5 at any time. But it’s never clear how allies will react. What happens during a fake rescue mission like the plausible scenario I just described? What would the United States do if its president appears to listen to the Russian leader more than his own allies? What would Europe do, as it’s still five to 10 years away from being ready to act without Washington? Would there be a response at all, or would the Western alliance dissolve with little more than a whimper?

An enemy rarely attacks in the way its victims prepare for. It strikes when and where its opponents are weakest, least prepared, and least expecting it. That’s why Europe’s preparations must be turbocharged now, not slowly phased in as they have been, inexplicably, since the start of Russia’s latest invasion. Anything else is wildly irresponsible and will get us closer to war.

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Post-NATO Europe Should Turn to Asia

By C. Raja Mohan, columnist at Foreign Policy and visiting research professor at the National University of Singapore

NATO forces led by Romania take part in a multinational military exercise in the Black Sea on on April 8.Andrei Pungovschi/Getty Images

As Washington’s long-standing alliances take a back seat in Trump’s world, there is a strong incentive for U.S. allies in Europe and Asia to do more with each other. Until now, the United States was expected to have two different approaches to its alliances in Europe and Asia, focusing U.S. military energies on Asia and pushing Europe to relieve Washington’s burden on the old continent. While there might be a section of the Trump coalition that articulates this approach, the president has been consistent in signaling his skepticism of alliances, period. His focus on trade above all else has great consequences for allies and partners, mainly in Asia, that are deeply tied to U.S. market access. Trump’s emphasis on slashing U.S. burdens abroad will also hit Asian allies hard. They are staring at a far greater military asymmetry with China than Europe’s with Russia.

On top of that, Trump has made no secret of his desire for grand geopolitical bargains with Russia and China. At the G-7 summit that ended on June 17, Trump reiterated his desire to bring Russia back into the group and expressed support for the idea of China joining as well. Whether or not Trump moves decisively towards strategic retrenchment from Europe and Asia and settles for regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, there is more than enough uncertainty in U.S. policies for America’s Eurasian allies to come together for greater security cooperation across their shared region.

The Biden administration built on the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to bring European powers into the Indo-Pacific framework. These efforts emphasized the importance of seeing the European and Asian theaters as an interconnected geopolitical space and called on Europeans to contribute to Asian security and vice versa. The presence of the so-called AP4—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea—at the last three NATO summits is part of that initiative, and leaders of all four countries will hopefully show up at the summit in The Hague. Beyond the AP4, India has also been turning to Europe as insurance against U.S. unpredictability and Russia’s deepening ties with China. It is building out from its traditional security ties with France to widen the circle of defense cooperation in Europe, both bilaterally as well as collectively with the European Union.

It is reasonable to see this as a return to normal—the dynamic interaction, both negative and positive, between Europe and Asia that shaped the Eurasian and global order for over four centuries. The two world wars resulted in the United States become the dominant security actor in both Europe and Asia. Rather than wring their hands at Washington’s departure, Europe and Asia should join arms to stabilize the Eurasian balance of power. Some of those conversations could start in The Hague.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Hannah Alberga and Nicole Ireland

The federal government’s decision to not provide Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine this respiratory virus season raises health equity concerns, experts and advocates say, as some Canadians look to the U.S. to get the shot.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said it won’t provide the protein-based vaccine called Nuvaxovid because the manufacturer required a minimum order that far exceeds last year’s uptake of the vaccine.

The health agency said 125,000 Nuvaxovid doses were ordered in 2023, but only 5,529 were administered. This fall, it will only supply provinces and territories with the reformulated Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

But some Canadians who say they are immunocompromised and have had adverse reactions to the mRNA vaccines are calling the decision unfair.

Among them is 64-year-old Linda Wilhelm, who has rheumatoid arthritis and takes immunosuppressive drugs for the chronic inflammatory disorder. The Bloomfield-N.B. resident said she received six mRNA COVID-19 vaccines over a three-year period, but her last shot caused a flare-up in her joints that lasted eight months.

Wilhelm said the flare-up was so bad that she even had trouble brushing her hair or chopping vegetables.

After searching for Nuvaxovid at various pharmacies and public health clinics, she said she eventually got a dose in April at a pharmacy in Saint John, N.B., and had no adverse reactions.

“And now, again, I have no options,” Wilhelm said, adding that she’s considering driving across the border to Maine to get the updated Nuvaxovid shot.

Barry Hunt made the cross-border trip last month from Port Ryerse, Ont., to a pharmacy near Buffalo, N.Y., where he paid US$200 to get the Novavax vaccine.

The 61-year-old, who has a lasting joint infection from a knee surgery complication, said he had a six months-long adverse reaction to his fourth mRNA shot that caused tightness in his chest and fatigue.

But he acknowledged that most people seeking Nuvaxovid don’t have the means to travel to the U.S. to get it.

“I think it’s unfair to people who can’t afford it. I think it’s ridiculous to both pay taxes here in Canada for universal health care under the Canada Health Act and not be able to access a non-mRNA vaccine,” Hunt said.

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, said some people may be sensitive to some components of mRNA vaccines but overall they are safe for immunosuppressed people.

“It’s disappointing that Novavax won’t be available here because I think it could increase vaccine uptake just by virtue of overcoming objections to mRNA vaccines, whether based in truth or not,” she said in an email.

Other experts say research also shows that, except in very rare circumstances, it is safe for people taking immunosuppressive drugs to get an mRNA vaccine, even though some patients report flare-ups of their conditions.

Specialists often ask patients with autoimmune diseases to stop taking their medications while they get vaccinated to ensure they can mount a good immune response, and the absence of medication may be what’s actually triggering the flare-ups rather than the mRNA vaccine itself, said Dawn Bowdish, an immunology professor at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Still, Nuvaxovid is “clearly less what we call reactogenic, meaning you’re less likely to feel poorly or have a sore arm or have any of those side-effects that some people … get from vaccines,” said Bowdish, who has worked with immunocompromised people in clinical studies on mRNA vaccines.

Novavax’s vaccine, reformulated to target the recently circulating JN.1 subvariant of Omicron, was authorized by Health Canada in September.

People who have concerns or had a bad immunization experience should have access to Nuvaxovid, Bowdish said, because it’s crucial they get some kind of vaccination against COVID-19, which is especially dangerous for the immunocompromised.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said people worried about getting an mRNA vaccine should consult their health-care provider.

Those who are medically unable to receive an mRNA vaccine should protect themselves by practising hand hygiene, wearing a well-fitting mask and improving indoor ventilation, the agency said.

“That response is absolutely appalling,” said Michelle Burleigh, co-chair of the Canadian Immunocompromised Advocacy Network, which sent a letter to the federal government in July urging it to procure Novavax.

“It’s great if somebody has the financial means and ability to travel to the U.S., but this causes a real health equity issue because there are a lot of Canadians who are not in a position to afford $200 for a vaccine in the United States or have the ability to get there.”

Bowdish said she’s also aware of people travelling to the U.S. to get Nuvaxovid and that’s “really problematic.”

Although the latest data suggest flare-ups of certain conditions are unlikely to be a direct result of the mRNA vaccine, it’s still important to accommodate patients, she said.

“If a person’s personal experience was, ‘I got vaccinated and I had a flare that put me in bed for two months and … I missed a part of life,’ how on earth do you counter that while being respectful over their autonomy and knowing their own bodies?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

[bllsbailey]

Hey, CNN, Here's What's Really 'Extraordinary' About Biden's Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

Joe Biden has advanced prostate cancer. It’s described as “aggressive,” and it’s metastasized to his bones. The Democrats trotted out this sickly man to run again? The Democrats’ hell week over Biden’s health reached a boiling point when Axios was able to obtain some of the audio tapes from Special Counsel Robert Hur, who investigated whether Biden mishandled classified materials as vice president. 

It was this report that affixed the Department of Justice seal on the notion that Biden had mental health issues. Hur was attacked but later vindicated. The tape is beyond damning as we have confirmation that Joe Biden did forget when his son Beau died, among other things. That dropped Friday. On Sunday, we have this magical prostate cancer announcement whose timing is beyond suspicious. The media and the Democrats want to move on from Joe Biden’s health. They can’t. The level of the cover-up is too great, so how about changing the narrative? That, too, will be a failure. 

No visitor log books in Delaware.— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) May 18, 2025

Biden's physician, Kevin O'Connor, in February 2024: https://t.co/j28jDUk5q8 pic.twitter.com/AmMsTnvtOH— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) May 18, 2025

NARRATOR: There’s zero chance Biden’s doctors didn’t know about this before the last exam.— RBe (@RBPundit) May 18, 2025

Biden thought running for president with stage 4 cancer was totally fine!— Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen Reports (@honestpollster) May 18, 2025

— Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen Reports (@honestpollster) May 18, 2025

Joe Biden just discovered he had cancer this week like the corporate media and Dem establishment just discovered he had cognitive decline at the June debate.— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) May 18, 2025

The questions about this cancer diagnosis run deep. First, we can’t trust anything Biden’s people say because they’re grade-A-certified liars. The media can’t be trusted since they helped disseminate the propaganda that Biden was sharp as a tack. Third, given how closely the president’s health is generally watched, there is no way this is some “extraordinary” diagnosis, as CNN noted today.

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 18, 2025

He’s likely been sick for months, if not years.  The rate at which prostate cancer metastasizes to your bones is a five-to-seven-year journey on average without treatment. It’s also an easy cancer to detect. 

I’ll just leave this here. pic.twitter.com/5qgzEuUV7C— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) May 18, 2025

— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) May 19, 2025

Mary Katherine Ham suspects, rightly, that dropping this news is another lie of omission:

I truly hope the former President makes a full recovery. I also suspect this was yet another serious lie of omission during his Presidency about his health (& there’s ample reason not to give them benefit of doubt). They’re using a more sympathetic, smaller lie to deflect from… https://t.co/Zg1Wcw6aID— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) May 18, 2025

I truly hope the former President makes a full recovery. I also suspect this was yet another serious lie of omission during his Presidency about his health (& there’s ample reason not to give them benefit of doubt). They’re using a more sympathetic, smaller lie to deflect from the giant, unsympathetic lie they’ve been caught in and trying to make you feel like you’re not allowed to say anything about it because that would be mean. I know this is the M.O. because it has always been Biden’s M.O. to point to his (significant) personal tragedies when he’s in hot water, and now his family is doing it on his behalf. But it does not excuse the fraud they perpetrated on the American people, and it’s fine to say that. 

Even non-conservatives can’t believe Democrats were unaware of this diagnosis. 

— Angela Belcamino (@AngelaBelcamino) May 18, 2025

Worst of all, if our worst suspicions are confirmed, it seems Democrats were willing to sacrifice a dementia-ridden, sickly man on the political altar, letting him die in office to prevent a Republican election win. Lady MacBeth probably signed off on this, too. 

— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) May 18, 2025

The idea that you would run a man because you planned for him to die in office post-election is a special kind of depravity.— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) May 18, 2025

The cancer development has only magnified the circus around Biden's health.

Trending on Townhall Videos

[willowreader]

I was surprised that Dr. Angela Rasmussen a virologist who works in my province of Saskatchewan was interviewed for this article. We are fortunate to have her expertise and knowledge as we navigate this new threat.

"Dr. Angela Rasmussen: If we're not testing people, if we're not looking for people who might get it, if we're not looking for evidence of an early cluster of human-to-human transmission, then we're going to miss it. "

[anumberofhobbies]

“These terminations are clearly shortsighted—we desperately need new treatments against viruses,” says Jason McLellan, a structural virologist at the University of Texas, Austin, whose project to develop broad-spectrum treatments that work against several types of virus was part of the programme and terminated on 24 March. “To cancel the entire grant because a small portion involved SARS-CoV-2 is going to be dangerous for future pandemic preparedness.” The NIH did not respond to Nature’s queries about the grant terminations or scientists’ concerns about them. Its parent organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told Nature that “the COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.” ... Grants-management specialists will be tasked with identifying and terminating projects, because the NIH’s current leadership considers its scientific staff members too biased to make these determinations, says an NIH official who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press. But some scientists fear that the guidance for NIH employees is too vague and that any research project associated with certain keywords could be on the chopping block without consideration of its merit. “They’ve been taking a chainsaw to grants and not a surgical laser,” says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who studies SARS-CoV-2. ...

This is a “real slap in the face of the many patients struggling with the long-term health effects of COVID infections,” says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Kennedy has vowed to “make America healthy again,” in part by overhauling US health agencies to focus on chronic diseases. This “wholesale crackdown” on COVID research is not in the spirit of the campaign, Nuzzo says. “We should be studying how infections cause some of the worst diseases that society endures,” she says, adding that research has linked infection with a common herpesvirus called Epstein–Barr to the development of multiple sclerosis. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies immune responses in people with long COVID and other post-viral conditions, says: “If we don’t figure this out now with this pandemic, I’m afraid we will be much less prepared for future pandemics.”

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) appears to be reversing course on its decision to abruptly cancel a spate of grants for long COVID research earlier this week. On Friday, the NIH Office of Extramural Research notified an office at New York University (NYU) that funding awarded through the NIH’s long COVID research program—Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, or RECOVER—for pathobiology studies was restored, according to emails shared with C&EN. “Funds made available to you under this award are no longer restricted, and available for us in accordance with our research agreement and any of its valid amendments,” the NYU office tells university researchers in an email. Other researchers at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Emory University have also had their RECOVER grants restored, says Megan Fitzgerald, a researcher and patient advocate who works closely with several RECOVER-funded scientists. One researcher tells her that some or all of the terminations “may have been rescinded.” It’s not clear whether the NIH reinstated all the impacted RECOVER grants. The agency terminated up to 45 grants for pathobiology studies that RECOVER awarded in 2022 and 2023 earlier in the week. The cancellations immediately worried patient advocates, who emphasize that such studies, which are designed to uncover how the multisystemic postviral illness operates in the body, are the key to developing diagnostics and therapeutics. There are no treatments specific to long COVID approved in the US.

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Canadian population is racing to save data in Cross Trump

The invitation to Angela Rasmussen came out of Azraq and asked a disturbing question. If you hear the rumors that the main data groups will be removed from the centers of diseases control and prevention sites the next day? It is something I think Rasmussen can never happen. “It has never been thought about before the center of diseases control has already started deleting some important public…