#Research prior to and during COVID

[autodidacticpolymath-blog]

A Policy arm @ Cambridge had VERY interesting use of "confidential" patient data for Genomic & Medical Research during and post COVID.

20 15 Pathogen genomics into practice Data sharing to support UK clinical genetics and genomics services Genetic screening programmes: an international review of assessment criteria 2017 Personalised prevention in breast cancer – the policy landscape Developing effective ctDNA testing services for lung cancer Linking and sharing routine health data for research Variant classification and…

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Bill Shaw

A new study in eClinicalMedicine has found that healthy volunteers infected with SARS-CoV-2 had measurably worse cognitive function for up to a year after infection when compared to uninfected controls. Significantly, infected controls did not report any symptoms related to these cognitive deficits, indicating that they were unaware of them. The net effect is that potentially billions of people worldwide with a history of COVID-19, but no symptoms of long COVID, could have persistent cognitive issues without knowing it.

The study’s lead author, Adam Hampshire, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at King's College London, said:

"It … is the first study to apply detailed and sensitive assessments of cognitive performance from pre to post infection under controlled conditions. In this respect, the study provides unique insights into the changes that occurred in cognitive and memory function amongst those who had mild COVID-19 illness early in the pandemic."

This news comes as pandemic mitigation measures have all but been abandoned by governments across the globe. Public health practice has been decimated to the point where even surveillance data on SARS-CoV-2 infections and resulting hospitalizations, deaths, and other outcomes are barely collected let alone published.

The data that are available indicate, per the most recent modeling from the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) on September 23, that since the beginning of August there have been over 1 million infections per day in the US alone. This level of transmission is expected to persist through the remainder of September and all of October. For the months of August through October, these levels of transmission are the highest of the entire pandemic

The study on cognitive deficits has been shared widely across social media, with scientists and anti-COVID advocates drawing out its dire implications.

Australian researcher and head of the Burnet Institute, Dr. Brendan Crabb, who has previously advocated for a global elimination strategy to stop the pandemic, wrote:

"Ethical issues aside, this is a powerful addition to an already strong dataset on Covid-driven brain damage affecting cognition & memory. Given new (re)infections remain common, this work… should influence a re-think on current prevention/treatment approaches."

The study enrolled 36 healthy volunteers. These individuals had no history of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, no risk factors for severe COVID-19, and no history of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. The researchers determined whether the volunteers were seronegative prior to inoculation, meaning that they had no detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. If such antibodies were present, it would indicate past infection or vaccination.

These procedures resulted in a total of data from 34 volunteers being included for analysis. Two volunteers were excluded from analysis because they had seroconverted to positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies between the time of screening and inoculation. Notably, these two volunteers participated in all subsequent study activities, enabling a sensitivity analysis of the results that included them.

The researchers inoculated all 36 volunteers with SARS-CoV-2 virus in the nose and then quarantined them for at least 14 days. Volunteers only returned home once they had two consecutive daily nasal and throat swabs that were negative for virus. Thus, those volunteers who had an infection after inoculation spent the duration of their infection in quarantine. This quarantine was required by ethical study protocols, in order that the study itself not increase community transmission of the virus.

The researchers collected data on the volunteers daily during quarantine and at follow-up visits at 30, 90, 180, 270, and 360 days post-inoculation. The assessments included body temperature, viral loads from throat and nasal swabs, surveys on symptoms, and computer-based cognitive tests on 11 major cognitive tasks. The cognitive testing varied the particular exercise for each of the 11 tasks to avoid learning and memorization of solutions in subsequent sessions. Nevertheless, some tasks were more prone to learning so the researchers also studied the effect of infection on “learning” vs. “non-learning” tasks.

Of the 36 inoculated volunteers, 18 became infected and developed COVID-19 and 16 did not. The two groups did not differ significantly in key demographics. No volunteers required hospitalization or supplemental oxygen during the study. Every volunteer completed all five follow-up visits. 15 volunteers acquired a non-COVID upper respiratory tract infection in their community between the end of quarantine and the fifth visit at day 360.

The researchers found that the infected group had significantly lower average “baseline-corrected global composite cognitive score” (bcGCCS) than the uninfected group at all follow-up intervals. At baseline, the two groups did not differ significantly. The difference between the two groups did not significantly vary by time, meaning that the infected group’s bcGCCS did not improve during the nearly year-long study.

Because the bcGCCS was a composite based on individual scores for the 11 cognitive tasks, the researchers also looked at which tasks in particular were impacted. They found that the most affected task was related to immediate object memory, in particular, recall of the spatial orientation of the object. There was no difference in picking the correct object itself, just its spatial orientation. This means that infected individuals had a hard time choosing the correct spatial orientation of the object they had just seen, for example, erroneously picking a mirror image of the object they had just seen.

The results were not different based on sex, learning vs. non-learning tasks, or whether individuals received remdesivir or had community-acquired upper respiratory infections.

Because the investigators controlled for so many factors including the strain of SARS-CoV-2, timing of infection, quarantine, and lack of prior infection and vaccination, the study provides high confidence that SARS-CoV-2 infection was responsible for the cognitive defects. The control of the timing of infection also enabled clarification of whether and when cognitive deficits occurred and improved. The differences between the groups were apparent by day 14 of quarantine and as noted previously, the deficits in the infected group did not improve let alone resolve.

The symptom surveys did not differ between the two groups. None of the volunteers, infected or uninfected, reported subjective cognitive issues or symptoms. Thus the infected volunteers with measurable cognitive deficits at one year post-infection were not aware of these deficits.

The study reaffirms prior research into persistent cognitive deficits and brain damage associated with COVID-19, including other studies which have found deficits among patients without symptomatic long COVID. Building upon this prior research, the latest study indicates that basically every single unvaccinated individual with a history of acute COVID-19 is at risk for persistent, measurable cognitive deficits.

Given that other studies have shown that vaccination reduces one’s risk of long COVID by roughly half, similar measurable cognitive deficits are likely prevalent among vaccinated people who suffer “breakthrough” infection, albeit likely at reduced rates of decline.

The study raises the urgent questions about the level of protection provided by vaccination, whether strains since the original “wild type” SARS-CoV-2 strain have similar effects on cognition, and what is the impact of these cognitive deficits on people’s performance at home, work, and school.

The study also adds to the large body of damning evidence that the ruling class’ “forever COVID” policy is of immense criminal proportions. Enabling a dangerous, mind-damaging virus to circulate among humanity worldwide represents a scale of inhumanity and dereliction of duty that is practically unfathomable. The malignity of this intentional policy is underscored by the current situation where the U.S. alone has had over 1 million new infections per day since August, with levels not projected to drop below 1 million until November.

The working class must deepen the struggle to replace the capitalist system that prioritizes profit over lives with a world socialist society that places human needs first.

Study Link: www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370%2824%2900421-8/fulltext

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel Janfaza at Politico:

New data out of Yale’s Youth Poll broke the internet last week when it revealed a partisan split within Gen Z. Given a generic Democrat vs. Republican ballot for 2026, respondents ages 18-21 supported Republicans by nearly 12 points, while those ages 22-29 backed Democrats by about 6 points. It was a stunning gap that undermined the longstanding notion of younger voters always trending more liberal. On the contrary, today’s youngest eligible voters are more conservative than their older counterparts: According to the poll, they are less likely to support transgender athletes participating in sports, less likely to support sending aid to Ukraine and more likely to approve of President Donald Trump. Fifty-one percent of younger Gen Zers view him favorably, compared to 46 percent of older Gen Z. That split might seem surprising, but it’s only the latest example of an emerging dynamic I’ve noticed developing over the last few years: It’s increasingly clear that there are actually two different Gen Z’s, each with a particular political worldview.

Since just after the 2022 midterm elections, I’ve held listening sessions — open-forums for discussion — with teens and young adults across the country to find out how young people think and feel about politics. I’ve traveled to high school and college campuses, community centers and even homes. And as I’ve written before, these conversations with young people illuminated the distinctions between Gen Z 1.0 and Gen Z 2.0.

Gen Z 1.0, the older segment, graduated high school and tasted independence prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Their coming of age coincided with Trump’s first term in office and the rise of anti-Trump resistance movements for racial justice and gender equity. Social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat, with all their filters and made-for-social media aesthetics, were commonplace — but TikTok wasn’t yet the massively popular platform it is today. Fast forward to 2020 through today, and those in Gen Z 2.0 came of age under different circumstances. They graduated high school during or after the start of the pandemic, which disrupted their K-12 experience. When many in this cohort began college, it was largely on Zoom, or in a campus environment that barely resembled pre-pandemic times. The political situation was also starkly different: With President Joe Biden in office, Trump and his MAGA movement felt like the counterculture — especially for young men, who swung hard to the right.

Indeed, gender played a prominent role in shaping the youth vote in 2024. An analysis by Blue Rose Research found a 20-point gender gap in Democratic support between men and women ages 25 and younger — the largest such gender gap in any generation by far. “It’s normal to see women supporting Democratic candidates at like a five- to 10-point higher rate than men do,” said Ali Mortell, Blue Rose’s research director. “Among the youngest cohort of Gen Z, it’s north of 20 points. So this is really jarring, and I think, caught the Democratic Party somewhat flat-footed.”

That gender gap has attracted a lot of media attention, but the headlines gloss over some important nuances. While young men turbo-charged Trump’s success in November, they’re not the only Gen Zers shifting right. Despite the overall gender gap, the Yale poll found that, while women ages 22-29 have a net-negative favorability of Trump, those ages 18-21 are more supportive of him, roughly split between a favorable and unfavorable view of the president. Young white women in particular are trending more conservative. Data from Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) shows that, while women of color ages 18-29 overwhelmingly supported former Vice President Kamala Harris, young white women were split between Harris and Trump, 49 percent to 49 percent. That’s a huge jump from 2020, when, according to CIRCLE’s data, young white women voted for President Joe Biden over Trump by a 15-point margin.

That could be in part because some of the most formative experiences separating Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 cut across gender — the most obvious being the pandemic. “We’ve definitely been cognizant that there feels like there’s a change between the kids who got through high school before and after Covid,” said Jack Dozier, the 19-year-old deputy director of the Yale survey. “There is a huge variation that came up between just the college-age young adults, and then the young adults who are over 22.”

In my own research, I started to hear about Covid’s impact in conversations with young Americans in 2022. Throughout history, young people haven’t liked being told what to do, and for many younger Gen Zers, the pandemic restrictions chafed against their youthful discomfort with authority. At first, they expressed annoyance with what they saw as prolonged social distancing on campuses that impacted the student experience. As one 20-year-old told me in a listening session at the end of March: “The adults don’t have it all together, and they don’t have my back.” When students finally went back to school, they complained about the policing of their behavior — not just regarding Covid protections like social distancing and masking, but also broader issues around language. Our national online discourse, these young people said, had adopted an overt political correctness and cancel culture – the tendency, particularly in online spaces, to denounce others for controversial statements or action. Many young people perceived this as promoted by Democrats — those in control, not just in D.C., but in pop-culture and on social media.

[...] “Young people are not only consuming digital media content, non-traditional sources at much higher rates than older generations, but they’re increasingly getting their news from non-political, non-traditional sources,” Mortell told me. But she took it one step farther: “We are seeing this very clear relationship between defection away from the Democratic Party and TikTok consumption.” The rapid onset of TikTok encapsulates the head-spinning pace of change younger Gen Zers have experienced. There are cleavages within every generation, but perhaps none more so than Gen Z, which has grown up amid the fastest speed of technological and political change in recent memory. When it comes to their politics, time will tell if the rightward shift sticks. Until then, anyone trying to understand this generation’s politics will need to figure out just which Gen Z they’re asking about.

The Yale Youth Poll confirms that there are two Gen Z’s, with the older Gen Z cohort tracking more liberal, and the younger Gen Z cohort, especially young Gen Z men, trending conservative.

We’ll see how this will hold up in a few years.

[reasonsforhope]

I'm sorry I'm sending so many asks. I've been struggling like this for a year now, and it's barely gotten easier, but you've often been a good help with my anxiety. I really appreciate everything you do. It's hard to have hope.

I've had a really bad moment again recently. I have to be honest, the worst thing, that makes me the most anxious out of everything else, is COVID. Because it feels like nobody is paying attention, and that there is no good news. There is never any good news. COVID is always the catalyst for the worst of my anxious slumps. It's really bad. COVID is very, very scary. If you somehow have anything for that, I'd be thankful. Often I've only been able to set my heart on nasal vaccines, or next gen vaccines in general, but they're not going fast enough whatsoever.

I'm sorry, again. I don't want to try and treat you like a therapist. I just trust you. If this is too overwhelming, you can just delete it, but if you do, I'd like to know. Just so I'm not waiting for it to be answered.

I just ravaged through someone's doomy collapse blog, again, after stumbling on it in my rising anxiousness, and it was not good. I think I'm clearly too open-minded of a person to some degree, and I feel so pulled around by information that I see. I don't want to be placated, out of the loop, or lied to, but I don't want to feel hopelessly depressed. Everything is too complex. I feel like I've been through this maze, top to bottom, over and over again, and again. I just wish I knew how much truth their words held, or anyone else's words held.

And I wish we were all masking, at the very least. I'm holding myself back from swearing. I don't know if you'd have a good way to counteract general "collapse" thoughts, either. But that's also a thing.

<3 I'm touched by your trust.

I just found some good news about COVID - the first genuinely good covid-related news article I've seen in a while, instead of all of the "ah but young abled people are fine!" bs - and remembered this ask.

"As new varieties of the coronavirus took center stage during the COVID-19 pandemic, the odds of developing long COVID dropped. Those who were vaccinated against the virus saw the biggest plunge over time.

For every 1,000 unvaccinated people, 104 developed long COVID up to one year after an infection during the pre-delta phase of the pandemic. That fell to 95 per 1,000 during the delta variant’s era and 78 during omicron’s reign. Among vaccinated people, just 53 out of 1,000 developed long COVID up to a year after infection during delta and only 35 during omicron, researchers report July 17 [2024] in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System data looked at people who had a COVID infection from March of 2020 — the month the pandemic began — to the end of January in 2022. The researchers, from the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, compared the rates of long COVID during three phases of the pandemic among those who had and had not gotten vaccinated...

A comparison of omicron infections with infections from prior eras found that 72 percent of the drop in the long COVID rate during omicron was attributable to vaccines. The remainder was due to changes in the virus and improvements in medical care and the use of antiviral treatments during the omicron phase.

Even with the steep decline in the occurrence of long COVID for vaccinated people, there is still a risk, the researchers write. With “the large numbers of ongoing new infections and reinfections, and the poor uptake of vaccination,” they continue, this “may translate into a high number of persons” with long COVID."

-via ScienceNews, July 17, 2024

--

Masking continues to be important. The virus continues to be a problem. But especially given the decline in masking, I'm really encouraged to see this news. Because long covid IS scary. And I'll take any good news on this front that I can get.

It's especially encouraging because it shows how much staying on top of your vaccinations really does matter and really can prevent long covid.

I'm also really hopeful (though I don't have a related background and have no idea how realistic my hopes are) that this trend has been continuing past the end of the study (2022).

[patriottruth]

Were you devastated about trump obliterating Kamala Harris in the popular vote, taking every swing state, and doing better with women, pro-choice, and all the minority voters he insulted his entire campaign, and his entire life? Would you like to see the truth about that massive lie? Here it is...

Rachel Maddow: Why was donald trump's campaign telling his supporters not to vote, they don't need any votes, and to skip the polls?

As of 3:00 pm EST, November 6, 2024: trump: 71,958,119 votes (323.19% turnout from primary elections - his best case scenario was 50.5 million votes) Harris: 67,133,693 votes (464.09% turnout from Biden's primary elections - her worst case scenario was 62.7 million votes)

donald trump received 74,223,975 votes in 2020.

donald trump currently has 74,650,754 votes in 2024 (as if he actually received 100% of 36 million Registered Republican votes, 100% of 32.1 million Registered Independent votes, and somehow gained 6,550,754 Registered Democrat votes).

Kamala Harris currently has 70,916,946 votes (roughly 10 million votes less than Biden/Harris received in 2020). Considering that's mathematically impossible, why aren't Republicans screaming about cheating and fraud like they did in 2020?

With that math, 45,100,000 Registered Democrats − 6,550,754 Registered Democrat trump Defectors = 38,549,246 Maximum Remaining Registered American Electorate for Kamala Harris, with an additional 32,367,700 voters who were unregistered prior to the beginning of early and same-day voting. Why aren't Republicans screaming about fraud and cheating when Kamala Harris clearly had 32,367,700 voters come out of nowhere? For everyone saying 15 million Democrats simply stayed home and didn't vote for Kamala Harris, there's the proof that they didn't; because that'd mean the maximum remaining registered Democrat electorate for Kamala Harris would've dropped to 23,549,246, and by some miracle,47,367,700 previously unregistered voters somehow came out of nowhere during early and same-day voting to vote for Kamala Harris without Republicans ranting and raving about massive cheating and fraud by Democrats.

74,650,754 trump + 70,916,946 Harris = 145,567,700 votes counted thus far in the 2024 presidential election.

60% to 80% of voters polled across the United States believed donald trump was too old to be president leading up to the election, yet he somehow gained 426,779 votes from 2020, while Kamala Harris lost 10 million votes from 2020.

40% of the American electorate might have been willing to overlook donald trump's extreme cognitive, emotional, and physical decline and vote for him. That makes donald trump's best case scenario 58,227,080 votes for the 2024 election.

20% of the American electorate might have been willing to overlook that donald trump is clearly past his expiration date and not expected to live long enough to finish a 4-year term. That makes donald trump's worst case scenario 29,113,540 votes for the 2024 election.

33% of Republicans and 33% of Independents said for months they wouldn't be voting for donald trump again because of his failed COVID-19 response, his insurrection/January 6th assault to overturn the 2020 election, his proven sexual assault/rape, his felony convictions for his 2016 election interference and cheating on his wife the entire time his wife was pregnant and again 4 months after their son was born, and his classified documents theft, unsecured storage at mar-a-lago, and his sharing America's classified secrets with mar-a-lago guests, yet donald trump somehow gained 426,779 votes from 2020, while Kamala Harris lost 10 million votes from 2020.

2024 U.S. Registered Voter Stats (Pew Research): Republicans: 36 million voters

- 7 million (33%) Never trump voters = 29 million likely trump voters

- 11.5 million (55%) Never trump voters = 24.5 million likely trump voters

Democrats: 45.1 million voters

Independents: 32.1 million voters

- 10.6 million Never trump voters (33%) = 21.5 million possible trump voters

- 17.7 million Never trump voters (55%) = 14.4 million possible trump voters

If 100% of all registered voters actually turned out and voted in the 2024 U.S. presidential election:

trump (with a loss of 33% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 50.5 million votes

Harris (with a gain of 33% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 62.7 million votes

trump (with a loss of 55% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 38.9 million votes

Harris (with a gain of 55% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 74.3 million votes

Democrats outnumber Republicans by 9 million registered voters, and yet Kamala Harris allegedly received 10 million votes less than 2020, lost every swing state, and lost the election by 4 million votes nationwide?

Why is it that 33% of Independents said they wouldn't be voting for trump, yet he somehow received 100% of registered Independent votes?

There are approximately 41 million age 18-29 voters who usually vote Democrat, and up to 20 million of those females were expected to vote heavily for Harris/Walz in 2024, so where are all of those votes?

Why is it that hundreds of thousands of Americans are documented as voting FOR PRO-CHOICE on their state ballots, but then they all allegedly voted almost exclusively for ANTI-CHOICE donald trump instead of Kamala Harris based on HIS punitive non-Pro-Choice stance, his termination of national Roe vs. Wade protections, and nearly 1,000 women all over the United States are being raped and impregnated every week since his termination of Roe vs. Wade, women have been dying across the nation because they were denied emergency care, and 12 and 13 year old girls are being forced to carry their relatives' babies to term?

Why is it that hundreds of thousands of Americans are documented as voting for down-ballot Democrat candidates, but then they allegedly voted for donald trump instead of Kamala Harris?

Why is it that trump did so well in Michigan after repeatedly insulting Michigan during all of his Michigan rallies?

Why is it that trump did so well with Black men across the country after repeatedly insulting Black men across the country during his campaign and his entire life?

Why is it that hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans said they were going to put donald trump in the trash after they were called "garbage" at trump's Madison Square Garden rally, yet Puerto Ricans across the United States swung hard in his favor anyway?

Why is it that trump did better with Latinos across the United States than any other candidate in the last 40 years even after he called them rapists, scum, vermin, animals, inhuman, and murderous invaders who he's going to deport whether they're here legally, or not?

Why is it that donald trump told reporters he wasn't expecting any final results for at least 3 days immediately after he voted, but then somehow all of the nationwide election results were returned in less than 12 hours (which has NEVER happened in the United States)?

Lyin' and cryin' cowardly comrade donald j. trump has never won a championship at a course he doesn’t own and operate, always gets a turbo-charged golf cart that goes three times as fast as yours, so he’s always 200 yards ahead, and that gives him time to cheat. One time in L.A., he was playing $50 a hole with these three guys, he hits it in the pond. They see the splash. By the time they get there, it’s in the middle of the fairway, and they’re like, ‘What the F, Donald?’ And he goes, ‘It must’ve been the tide.’ He’s played in Pebble Beach, he’s played in the Tahoe one, where there are rules and judges and cameras. And in those, he’s never finished in the top half. So he wins when anybody who disagrees that he won is out of the club. That’s how he gets it.” - Rick Reilly

Kamala Harris currently has 70,916,946 votes (roughly 10 million votes less than Biden/Harris received in 2020).

Hillary Clinton beat donald trump by 3 million votes in 2016 with a total of 65,853,514 votes.

Clinton total fundraising 2016 election cycle: $769,879,088 Clinton total spending 2016 election cycle: $768,577,907 Clinton 2016 election votes: 65,853,514 Average Clinton voter 2016 presidential campaign donation: $11.69

trump total fundraising 2016 election cycle: $433,392,727 trump total spending 2016 election cycle: $422,620,473 2016 Republican Primary Voters: 31,047,313 trump 2016 election votes: 62,984,828 (202.89% 2016 national election turnout) Average trump voter 2016 presidential campaign donation: $6.88

Hillary Clinton's 2016 fundraising was 156% higher than donald trump's and she won the election by roughly 3,000,000 American votes.

Biden total fundraising 2020 election cycle: $1,624,301,628 Biden total spending 2020 election cycle: $1,614,843,740 Biden 2020 election votes: 81,283,501 Average Biden voter 2020 presidential campaign donation: $19.98

trump total fundraising 2020 election cycle: $1,087,909,269 trump total spending 2020 election cycle: $1,090,633,916 2020 Republican Primary Voters: 18,900,288 trump 2020 election votes: 74,223,975 (392.71% 2020 national election turnout) Average trump voter 2020 presidential campaign donation: $14.69

Joe Biden's 2020 fundraising was 167% higher than donald trump's and he won the election by an easy landslide victory and American patriots mandate of roughly 7,000,000 American votes.

Harris total fundraising 2024 election cycle: $1,048,224,950 9/22/2024 Harris total spending 2024 election cycle: $728,659,506 9/22/2024 Harris cash on hand 2024 election cycle: $364,537,369 9/22/2024

trump total fundraising 2024 election cycle: $802,832,560 9/22/2024 trump total spending 2024 election cycle: $603,161,559 9/22/2024 trump cash on hand 2024 election cycle: $264,091,834 9/22/2024 2024 Republican Primary Voters: 22,264,875

Kamala Harris's 2024 fundraising is 177% higher than donald trump's, her rallies are far larger and more energized, and her Fox News ratings are 2.5 times better than donald trump's. It's definitely time to turn the page on donald trump and his anti-American MAGA Nazi cult, and for American patriots to put country over party and elect the first woman American President of the United States of America; because All Lives Matter, and it's time to finally prove it once and for all by including and uniting all American women and girls at the great American "We The People" table so that President Kamala Harris will be the first woman American President, but certainly not the last.

Why is it that donald trump includes this disclaimer on his financial disclosures so everyone reading the document is supposed to understand it's completely worthless? Accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America require that personal financial statements and related footnotes to the financial statements: include a provision for current income taxes, as well as estimated income taxes on the differences between the estimated current values of assets and the estimated current amounts of liabilities and their tax bases; include the amount of unused tax credits and expiration dates; include amounts to be received in the future from estimated current values that are nonforfeitable, fixed and determinable, and do not require any future services; record the current estimated value of all closely held and other business entities as a net investment (assets net of liabilities) and disclose summarized financial information about each entity; record non-interest bearing deposits in exchange for rights or privileges; and, include all assets and liabilities of the individual whose financial statements are presented. The accompanying statement of financial condition does not reflect the above noted items. The effects of these departures from accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America have not been determined. Because the significance and pervasiveness of the matters discussed above make it difficult to assess their impact on the statement of financial condition, users of this personal financial statement should recognize that they might reach different conclusions about the financial condition of Donald J. Trump if they had access to a revised statement of financial condition prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

Kamala Harris is a prosecutor. donald j. trump is a career criminal and convicted felon who's been found guilty of rape, massive frauds in numerous court cases, and is being prosecuted for insurrection, election tampering, election fraud, racketeering, election interference, espionage against the United States, and theft of government documents and property. There's pretty much a 0% chance that there's no election fraud and tampering going on with these 2024 election results. donald j. trump and all of his other alleged newly-elected allies have to be able to maintain those lies and not have them overturned during the canvas, confirmation, curing, certification, recount, and litigation process between November 6 and December 17, 2024.

“If I happen to be president, and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.' They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.” - donald j. trump (November 9, 2023)

"I will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” - donald j. trump (November 12, 2023)

“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.” - Liz Cheney

“Labeling a political opponent as a ‘fascist,’ risks inviting a would-be assassin.” - Hypocrites, Irony Assassins, and MAGA Nazi Cult Member Republicans Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell (Finally coondemning donald j. trump and the entire treasonous, bigoted, and misogynist anti-American MAGA Nazi cult for calling all Americans who don't support or vote for donald j. trumpor MAGA Nazi Cult Republicans "traitors, anti-American, enemies from within, very bad people, very dangerous people, racists, radicals, extremists, communists, Marxists, fascists, thugs, liars, sick, ugly, stupid, mindless, thoughtless, brainless, disabled, deranged, criminals, rapists, cheaters, sleazebags, low-lifes, scum, trash, genetically inferior, weak, poison, insects, animals, rats, snakes, and vermin" during the majority of his interviews, speeches, and rallies for years on end since 2011 - October 25, 2024)

"As President, I was never an 'officer of the United States' and I did not take an oath 'to support the Constitution of the United States'. Therefore, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply to me, can't be applied to me, and can't prevent me from running for or holding office for my actions on January 6, 2021."- donald j. trump (November 27, 2023)

"Get out and vote, just this time. "You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore.You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote," - donald j. trump to his MAGA cult supporters (July 26, 2024)

“We gotta stop the cheating. If we stop that cheating, if we don’t let them cheat, I don’t even have to campaign anymore. We’re going to win by so much. The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. “Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.” - donald j. trump on "truth" social (September 7, 2024)

When he was asked about "outside agitators" affecting a peaceful 2024 election, certification, and transfer of power: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. We have two enemies. We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all those countries. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.” - donald j. trump (October 13, 2024)

[evidence-based-activism]

This has been on my mind a lot lately, but I couldn't find anything about this. I saw a data that says young people regardless of gender feel more lonely especially after covid. But articles everywhere describe the phenomenon as male loneliness epidemic. Is it true that loneliness affect men more than women?

Yes, I've noticed this as well! (It's definitely frustrating!)

In short, no, women and men experience similar amounts of loneliness. (Therefore, it should simply be a "loneliness epidemic" not a "male loneliness epidemic".)

First:

A pre-covid meta-analysis [1] concluded that "across the lifespan mean levels of loneliness are similar for males and females". This is a robust finding because a meta-analysis synthesizes the results from many different studies; this one covered 39 years, 45 countries, and a wide range of other demographic factors from a total of 575 reports (751 effect sizes).

An interesting longitudinal study [2] used both indirect and direct measures of loneliness and (essentially) found no significant effect of sex. (But there were some interesting interaction effects between sex and age or sex and loneliness measure, if you want to look at the study!)

This literature review [3] states that "sex differences in loneliness are dependent on what type of loneliness is measured and how" and it's possible sex only "correlates with other factors that then impact loneliness directly". The first quote here is referring to similar sex-age/sex-measurement interactions found in [2].

During/after the COVID-19 pandemic however:

The earlier review [3] stated that "most studies found that women were lonelier or experienced higher increases in loneliness than men with both direct and indirect measures", but this may be a result of participant selection bias during the pandemic.

That being said, both a rapid review [4] and a systematic review and meta-analysis [5] found that women were either more or equally likely to report loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the Pew Research Center has collected some relevant data:

Prior to the pandemic, 10% of both men and women in the USA reported feeling lonely all or most of the time [6].

And while this doesn't measure loneliness directly, 48% of women and 32% of men in the USA reported high levels of psychological distress at least once during the pandemic [7].

References below the cut:

Maes, M., Qualter, P., Vanhalst, J., Van Den Noortgate, W., & Goossens, L. (2019). Gender differences in loneliness across the lifespan: A meta–analysis. European Journal of Personality, 33(6), 642–654. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2220

Von Soest, T., Luhmann, M., Hansen, T., & Gerstorf, D. (2020). Development of loneliness in midlife and old age: Its nature and correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(2), 388–406. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000219

Barjaková, M., Garnero, A., & d’Hombres, B. (2023). Risk factors for loneliness: A literature review. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 334, 116163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116163

Pai, N., & Vella, S.-L. (2021). COVID-19 and loneliness: A rapid systematic review. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 55(12), 1144–1156. https://doi.org/10.1177/00048674211031489

Ernst, M., Niederer, D., Werner, A. M., Czaja, S. J., Mikton, C., Ong, A. D., Rosen, T., Brähler, E., & Beutel, M. E. (2022). Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 77(5), 660–677. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001005

Bialik, K. (2018, December 3). Americans unhappy with family, social or financial life are more likely to say they feel lonely. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/03/americans-unhappy-with-family-social-or-financial-life-are-more-likely-to-say-they-feel-lonely/

Gramlich, J. (2023, March 2). Mental health and the pandemic: What U.S. surveys have found. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/02/mental-health-and-the-pandemic-what-u-s-surveys-have-found/

[darkmaga-returns]

Germany has just issued an alert after recording surges in non-Covid deaths across Europe among people who received mRNA “vaccines.”

The alarming findings were revealed following an investigation into skyrocketing excess deaths, which spiked globally after the Covid “vaccines” were rolled out for public use in early 2021.

The major peer-reviewed study was conducted by Dr. Günter Kampf of the University Medicine Greifswald in Germany and Maarten Fornerod of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.

The results of the study were published in the Journal of the Academy of Public Health.

During their study, the researchers analyzed publicly available mortality data from England.

The researchers confirmed that elevated age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality rates are soaring dramatically among individuals who received mRNA “vaccines” compared to the unvaccinated.

The study presents temporal patterns and dose-related mortality spikes that link Covid mRNA injections to surging excess deaths observed across Europe since 2021.

According to Kampf and Fornerod, Covid “vaccines” have caused an estimated 12.3 million global deaths so far.

Using mortality and vaccination data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in England covering April 2021 to May 2023, the researchers conducted an exploratory, non-pre-registered analysis comparing non-COVID-19 death rates among unvaccinated individuals and those vaccinated with one to four doses (with each dose given at least 21 days prior).

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XII (federal 2025): Health Environment Accountability Rights Transparency (HEART)

Running where: for the Senate in the ACT (lead candidate of Group F with running mate from the Libertarian Party), NSW (second and fifth candidates in Group I on joint ticket with People First and Libertarians), QLD (second candidate in Group K with the Great Australian Party), VIC (second candidate in Group O with People First), and in the House for the divisions of Bennelong, Eden-Monaro, and Lindsay (NSW), and Canberra (ACT)

Prior reviews: federal 2019, federal 2022. NSW 2023

Plus Health Australia, for reasons which will become clear: federal 2016, VIC 2018, federal 2019, VIC 2022

What I said before: “the pandemic only heated up their rhetoric, which seeks to undermine vaccines and other public health measures that are proven to be safe and effective … If you want your teeth to fall out and to die of preventable diseases, this is the party for you.” (NSW 2023)

What I think this year: This party began life in the mid-2010s as the Involuntary Medication Objectors (Vaccination/Fluoride) Party, which tells you everything you need to know in six stupid words. We are so close in time to when the world lacked vaccines for many once-widespread debilitating ailments that there is literally at least one childhood polio survivor still living in an iron lung, Martha Lillard in the US. Here’s a good long read from 2017 about Martha and two other American polio survivors (Mona Randolph, who died in 2019, and Paul Alexander, who attained popularity on Tik Tok before dying in March last year). They underscore their disappointment, even heartbreak, with the rise of the antivax movement and people who sow distrust about vaccines.

Many diseases that once stalked our society no longer threaten us thanks to the achievement of mass vaccination and herd immunity. This is not a miracle, as some would describe it, but the outcome of decades of hard work, investment, good policy, and genius alike. We witnessed one of the great achievements in medical history at the start of this decade: within two years of covid being identified, ordinary people could receive a safe and effective vaccine. Anybody who wishes to undermine the outstanding medical achievements of the past century or so and risk the spread of diseases—especially by misleading parents into gambling with their children’s lives by not receiving a full course of childhood vaccinations—is a horrific ghoul.

In December 2019, IMOP tried to soften their image as dangerous science denialists by renaming themselves the Informed Medical Options Party, a name about as inaccurate as it is possible to be. This change received approval in March 2020, days before the emerging threat of covid was declared a pandemic. At the time, IMOP got steaming mad about being called anti-vaxxers by senior medical professionals and politicians, with the party’s secretary suggesting that their members “only want their voice and concerns heard”. Now, it’s one thing to ask your GP questions to better understand a vaccination or any other medication. It's another thing to keep rejecting medical and scientific expertise, ignore the consensus of researchers, promote woo, and undermine public confidence in the transformative, lifesaving effect of vaccines. Do not say you are “just asking questions”. Do not pretend you are promoting “informed choices”. And definitely don’t say you have “done my own research” unless you happen to possess your own fucking world-class research laboratory staffed by a team of qualified researchers.

The most paranoid people amplified their fearmongering during the covid pandemic, but they were such malcontents that they struggled to work together. Cooker parties (some registered, some not) fielded rival candidates at state and federal elections. But in 2023 it emerged that IMOP were negotiating a merger with Health Australia, another “don’t call us antivaxxers” antivax party whose existence also predated the pandemic. In August, the two groups announced amalgamation under the name Health Environment Accountability Rights Transparency (HEART). Using IMOP’s registration with the AEC, they submitted an application to change the name, which received approval on 3 October. Astonishingly, later that month, IMOP-cum-HEART had to retract their own merger announcement. Health Australia chose to withdraw from the merger process, and collapsed a few months later.

So, HEART is just IMOP, rebadged, although I don’t doubt some ex-Health Australia people support this entity. Some of HEART’s rhetoric about affordable living, political transparency, and individual rights tries to appeal to politically disengaged voters in a cost-of-living crisis. But they cannot disguise how extreme their views are for more than sentence or two. Their website has predictable “big pharma” diatribes alongside promotion of completely unfounded alternative medicines and other woo popular in the backblocks of Byron Bay. And their fearmongering goes beyond healthcare: they are, for instance, concerned about the apparently imminent introduction of China’s “social credit system” to Australian cities. Their “transparency” policy is really a stubborn insistence that virtually all leading authorities on vaccines and healthcare are hiding conflicts of interest and that none of their studies or policies can be trusted. It’s striking how ready these people are to buy into unsubstantiated claims about “holistic” and “natural” medicines while insisting the most rigorous medical studies and expert bodies are compromised and sinister.

It also tells you a lot about HEART that they have entered into the “Australian First Alliance” with three far-right parties, Rennick First, Great Australian Party, and the Libertarians. This explains the convoluted Senate tickets listed at the start of the entry: multiple parties can register a joint ticket of candidates to share a single column on the ballot, which is something the Liberals and Nationals have done in some states for years. People who vote 1 above the line for this ticket will have their first preference go to the candidate listed first in the column below the line; for example, an above-the-line vote in the ACT goes first to HEART but in Victoria goes first to Rennick First. In addition, HEART’s how-to-vote cards recommend that their supporters distribute preferences to religious fundamentalists (Family First, Australian Christians), racists (One Nation), and LaRouchean fantasists (Citizens Party). Anyone who actually follows HEART's how-to-vote recs—which won't be many, as minor parties struggle to get their HTVs in the hands of potential voters—will have their ballot exhaust before reaching any party likely to be in contention for a Senate seat, with the exception of One Nation, who are going to be competitive in some states (especially Queensland).

Despite some HEART members being leftover hippies who were once in the Greens, exiting that party once their penchant for woo became too unwelcome, HEART does not associate with the left at all. The company the party keeps is firmly right-wing and exclusionary.

Recommendation: give Health Environment Accountability Rights Transparency (HEART) a weak or no preference in the Senate, and a very low preference in the House.

Website: https://heartparty.com.au/

[racefortheironthrone]

Is there any way for governments to respond to a pandemic such as Covid 19 or something worse without provoking considerable public resentment? Take no measures to prevent the spread and you’ll be blamed for the resulting public health disaster. Try to prevent the spread, and you’ll be blamed for the inevitable inequities and negative effects taken to do so, and the (mitigated, but not entirely avoided) public health disaster.

I don't mean this to come off as pessimistic or overly negative, but I would say as a matter of historic record, public health campaigns (especially anti-pandemic campaigns) tend to be quite unpopular - and my suspicion is that the mid-20th century moment where public health experts like Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin became folk heroes with enormous amounts of popular support from the middle-class parents of the Baby Boom is probably the exception that proves the rule.

You can go all the way back to the very earliest days of public health measures - the Venetian invention of the quarantine during the Black Death - to find one of the first anti public-health backlashes. Conservative Venetians felt that the free food packages that were an essential part of the quarantine process (because you don't want potentially sick people wandering the city looking for food) would make people lazy and economically dependent on the government.

Likewise, when advances in medicine and state capacity in the early 19th century led to one of the first modern pandemic campaigns during the cholera outbreaks of the early 1830s, the public's response was not one of orderly compliance and gratefulness. Instead, you had what were called the "cholera riots" in both the U.K and Russia. Buoyed by conspiracy theories about shadowy cabals of doctors working hand in hand with an autocratic government to kill the destitute, mobs attacked symbols of public health (public hospitals, government doctors, public research clinics, anatomical colleges, health boards) and government authority (governors, police stations, quarantine cordons, court houses, etc.).

By contrast, all the anti-vaxx insanity of the past couple years seems a bit tame - at least in COVID-19, most violence has been rhetorical and abstract rather than involving the targeted murder of doctors and government officials.

Ultimately, we may just have to come to grips with the fact that public health/anti-pandemic policy is always going to be unpopular and that the correct approach is to use hard power rather than try to chivvy people into doing what's in their best interests. I certainly remember how California started to make strides against the anti-vaxx movement prior to COVID-19: it ultimately required legislation like SB 277 and SB 742 that made vaccinations more mandatory and made anti-vaxx harassment punishable with six months in jail.

[mariacallous]

For years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has spread conspiracy theories and factually incorrect information about vaccination, drug regulation, epidemiology, and biomedical science in general to advance his skepticism of evidence-based science and medicine.

The anti-vaccine organization Kennedy helped found, Children’s Health Defense, has conducted extensive disinformation campaigns, including funding propaganda films such as Plandemic, the Vaxxed trilogy, and Medical Racism: The New Apartheid, which specifically targeted Black Americans to discourage vaccination. The scale of the destruction Kennedy could wreak at the helm of HHS is immense.

HHS is tasked with overseeing government efforts to take care of the American people, and its 10 component agencies, from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), play different specialized roles to do so. Kennedy has already floated some of his ideas that would harm public health in the United States, including ending water fluoridation; rescheduling or withdrawing regulatory approval for numerous vaccines; reshaping the drug approval process and removing lifesaving drugs from the market; giving infectious disease research a “break”; and lifting food safety regulations on some products, such as unpasteurized “raw” milk, while imposing new regulations on others.

Even small changes to these essential functions of HHS would have catastrophic consequences without Kennedy needing to ban vaccines. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy used the tragic deaths of two infants from mis-formulated measles vaccines in Samoa to advance his theories. Kennedy flew to Samoa to support a campaign that falsely suggested that vaccination was unsafe and potentially deadly. Several months later, a massive measles outbreak sickened nearly 6,000 people and left 83 dead, most of them young children. Curtailing routine childhood immunizations would conservatively result in more than a million preventable deaths in the United States.

Highly pathogenic emerging viruses—such as the Ebola virus, avian influenza viruses, and coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic—often appear unexpectedly and, if not effectively contained, cause epidemics and pandemics. Imagining worst-case scenarios about outbreaks is essential for preparing for, responding to, and ideally preventing pandemics altogether.

As a virologist who specializes in such outbreaks, having Kennedy at the helm of HHS during an outbreak of a lethal virus is the worst pandemic scenario I can conceive—and it’s a worryingly real possibility. A massive outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza has impacted nearly a thousand herds of dairy cattle across 16 states. The cattle outbreak began in late 2023 with a single spillover from an infected bird in Texas because of the global H5N1 panzootic (a pandemic in animals) that has been ongoing since 2021. Because H5N1-infected cows were not detected for several months, animal transport and milking operations allowed the virus to spread throughout the United States.

More than a year later, the full scope of the cattle outbreak remains unknown. Spillovers from wild birds into domestic poultry have continued and necessitated culling millions of birds. As the tally of infected dairy herds and poultry flocks has risen, human cases have also increased at an alarming rate. Currently, there are more than 70 confirmed or probable cases, including the first cases with severe disease and the first fatal case in the United States. Multiple studies show that a substantial number of H5N1 cases in dairy workers are likely going undetected.

More troublingly, three cases of H5N1 have occurred in children in California, one of which is linked to consumption of raw milk, and spillovers directly from birds also continue with increasing frequency. Although there is no evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred, the biological reality is that with enough opportunities to adapt to a human host and potentially reassort with seasonal influenza viruses, H5N1 could gain this ability. If that happens, a rapid and effective response will be imperative for containment. If efforts to detect and contain a human outbreak fail, an influenza pandemic is a very real possibility.

Nobody can say with certainty when or if this will happen, but we can anticipate what might happen if it does under Kennedy’s leadership. Although the COVID-19 pandemic response in the United States was replete with mistakes, the first Trump administration did manage to execute some critical interventions that were largely attributable to HHS agencies’ actions.

The initial research on COVID-19 vaccines was conducted at the Vaccine Research Center at NIH in collaboration with NIH-funded academic investigators. The immediate action of these scientists that hastened the research into a development pipeline comprising pre-clinical studies and clinical trials was essential to producing mRNA vaccines at national scale within a year. Operation Warp Speed—which was a joint effort among multiple HHS agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NIH, and FDA, the Department of Defense, and the private sector—allowed for nationwide distribution of the vaccines and saved millions of lives.

In the event of a bird flu pandemic, millions of lives will again depend on the urgent actions taken by HHS and its component agencies. However, unlike the COVID-19 pandemic, these responses would be orchestrated by someone who promotes conspiracy theories, questions established tenets of science and medicine, and has significant financial interest in pseudoscientific profiteering. Given that Aaron Siri, the lawyer reportedly vetting Kennedy’s picks to lead HHS agencies, has previously petitioned FDA to withdraw or suspend the licenses on the polio and hepatitis B vaccines, it is likely these putative leaders would be equally unsuited to effectively lead essential pandemic responses.

Trump’s putative CDC director, Dave Weldon, is celebrated by anti-vaxxers for his consistent vaccination opposition. He rejects basic facts about vaccines, has appeared in several anti-vaccine documentaries, and is willing to dismiss reliable population-level data in favor of anecdotes.

The nominated FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, has stated that he may rethink current policies for approving diagnostics and medications, including vaccines. Until recently, Makary, a gastrointestinal surgeon who has indicated willingness to loosen food safety regulation and block essential medicines, also sat on an advisory board for Biosafety Now, an organization that opposes research on pandemic viruses, called for the prosecution of virologists, and whose founders have allegedly conducted harassment campaigns against virologists (including myself). Makary’s track record of COVID-19 pronouncements includes his prediction in early 2021 that America would reach “herd immunity” by April.

The nominated NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, has been an outspoken opponent of critical research priorities. In early 2020, he co-authored a profoundly flawed study underestimating the severity of COVID-19 to bolster economic arguments for ending pandemic mitigation measures. Bhattacharya co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), an anti-lockdown policy proposal recommending mass infection as a path to herd immunity, which studies estimate would have significantly increased deaths in the United States beyond the estimated 1.2 million Americans who died from COVID-19.

The GBD gave rise to the Brownstone Institute, where Bhattacharya was a regular content contributor. He has also appeared in a Falun Gong-produced documentary promoting anti-vaccine ivermectin conspiracy theories. He is deeply antagonistic to virology, vaccinology, and public health research, and, like Makary, was also affiliated with Biosafety Now, serving on the board of directors.

Finally, the nominee for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Mehmet Oz, is a cardiothoracic surgeon and failed U.S. Senate candidate who used his television show as a vehicle for promoting unproven supplements to promote weight loss and has a long history of distributing medical misinformation. During the pandemic, he opposed masking and vaccination in favor of hydroxychloroquine and supplements he sold through social media.

The damage these figures could do would be exponentially magnified during a pandemic. Early identification of human cases is essential to isolate and contain a growing outbreak. This depends on CDC and state public health officials identifying human cases using sensitive, specific molecular diagnostic tests in combination with standard epidemiological approaches such as contact tracing. This would trigger critical containment measures and medical countermeasures—such as antivirals and vaccines—rapidly.

For H5N1, we are already failing to detect human cases thanks in part to a sluggish response from the CDC, the CDC’s self-imposed monopoly on confirmatory testing, and continued incompetence at developing effective tests.

If the FDA delays or withholds authorization for diagnostic tests, we will be powerless to contain the spread, particularly for very mild or asymptomatic cases that are less likely to be identified clinically but may still be contagious. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC and FDA’s technical ineptitude, poor quality control, and bureaucratic paralysis resulted in a nearly two-month period of undetected virus spread. Containment failed, and the virus established itself in the American population.

In early 2024, the CDC and FDA under the Biden administration repeated many of these errors with H5N1 diagnostic tests, although fortunately no human-to-human transmission has occurred to date. Still, delayed implementation of diagnostic testing further hampered elimination from dairy cattle and delayed diagnosing some human cases. It’s hard to imagine improvement in the Kennedy HHS.

A failure to contain a human H5N1 outbreak will be disastrous over the long term if there is no biomedical research occurring to understand it. Some of the greatest successes of the COVID-19 response were led by NIH-funded investigators, both within NIH itself and by academic scientists supported by extramural NIH grants. Such research can drastically accelerate the timeline for developing and deploying effective countermeasures and inform us where the virus is spreading, who is at the greatest risk, and what treatments work best to save lives.

Kennedy and Bhattacharya have proposed radically reorganizing NIH and reducing funding for infectious diseases and vaccine research. Ultimately, this would create a situation in which we know little about the virus, how it spreads, how it causes disease, or how to treat it. Vaccines would be unavailable, we’d have no information on resistance to antiviral drugs or a pipeline for developing other therapies, and we won’t know where cases are primarily occurring until the hospitals are overwhelmed with H5N1 patients. Our options for intervention would be limited to supportive care and unproven remedies embraced by Kennedy: thoughts, prayers, raw milk, and roadkill.

The devastating impacts of such failures across HHS will not be limited to America, since pandemics transcend national borders. Any suppression of effective public health policy by Kennedy will exacerbate economic, agricultural, ecological, and medical ruin at home and abroad. Anywhere from thousands to millions could die as a direct result.

[fatphobiabusters]

I was a bit curious if anyone here had seen this study and their thoughts on it. The results of it seem questionable to me. Although I do agree with him that the BMI is bull.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2023/02/23/excess-weight-obesity-more-deadly-previously-believed

Firstly health doesn't equal worth or morals, always worth saying that.

On a quick review I can't say that he's taken into the account the damage of yo yo dieting. Those who are naturally lower BMI have no reason to put their bodies through the damage of a diet over and over whereas higher BMI people are harassed into.

I can't access the whole original paper, however "The statistical analysis of nearly 18,000 people also shines a light on the pitfalls of using body mass index (BMI) to study health outcomes," 18,000? Where are these people from? what's their diet history? did the higher BMI people have surgeries for weight loss?

"Masters mined the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1988 to 2015, looking at data from 17,784 people, including 4,468 deaths.

He discovered that a full 20% of the sample characterized as “healthy” weight had been in the overweight or obese category in the decade prior. When set apart, this group had a substantially worse health profile than those in the category whose weight had been stable. "

Weight loss does damage to your body??? Also "decade prior" how did these people lose weight because 10 years is ASTOUNDING to not have regained weight. Unless of course they were permanently on their diet which is, again, DAMAGING.

"Meanwhile, 37% of those characterized as overweight and 60% of those with obese BMI had been at lower BMIs in the decade prior. Notably, those who had only recently gained weight had better health profiles." The idea that people have natural ideal weights kind of leads to this. Your weight will fluctuate as you age and if your ideal weight goes up then its healthiest at that weight.

"Contrary to previous research, the study found no significant mortality risk increases for the “underweight” category." My first thought is does this include people who qualify for a DSM 5 diagnosis for anorexia? (This means they have weight loss, yes weight loss is required by the book don't get me started) 1 in 100 girls are estimated to struggle with anorexia alone. Are these people removed from the underweight category because they recently lost weight ??? How does that make sense! DIETING CAUSES DAMAGE, EATING DISORDERS CAUSE DAMAGE.

So my impression of this is its great at further proving BMI is crap at health but unless you account for the damage dieting does to a body you cannot say these statistics exist in a vaccum. It's astounding that in 2024 we are still accepting half the picture of weight analysis and statistics. Fat bodies don't just exist, we get pressured to do damaging and terrifying things to our body, we get our health ignored for weight first treatment.

Is our health really that bad or are there these other factors preventing equality in care?

Like in Sweden they left obese patients to die during COVID. Or having treatment stop over weight gain fears.

Or the time they decided polluting water because fat people drink it was okay.

So I guess my tldr is, this isn't saying what people might think it's saying. At least not as presented in this article. This really just proves weight loss is bad imo.

-mod squirrel

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive (Check out the site for full daily updates!)

By Dave Fornell

New research supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health revealed a history of COVID-19 can double a patient's risk of heart attack, stroke or death.[1] The study, published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, found that the heightened risks can sometimes last for years after a COVID diagnosis.

The research was led by Cleveland Clinic and the University of Southern California. Anyone who had a COVID-19 infection, regardless of severity, was twice as likely to have a major cardiac event, such as heart attack, stroke or even death, for up to three years after diagnosis, the group found. The risk was significantly higher for patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and more of a determinant than a previous history of heart disease.

The researchers also found that patients with a blood type other an O (such as A, B or AB) were twice as likely to experience an adverse cardiovascular event after COVID-19 than those with an O blood type.

These findings show that the long-term risk associated with COVID-19 “continues to pose a significant public health burden” and the findings warrant further investigation, according to the authors.

Cardiology may see increasing numbers of former COVID patients in the years to come During the pandemic, there were serious concerns that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may cause an increase in future cardiovascular issues in COVID patients. This was based on the larger than expected vascular and myocardial involvement seen in many cases. What was originally thought to be long-term damage subsided in patients overtime. While concerns about heart damage and increased numbers of heart failure patients did not come to pass, this study shows evidence that cardiologists may still see increasing numbers of patients in the years to come.

“Worldwide over a billion people have already experienced COVID-19. The findings reported are not a small effect in a small subgroup,” co-senior study author Stanley Hazen, MD, PhD, chair of cardiovascular and metabolic sciences in Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute and co-section head of preventive cardiology, said in a statement. “The results included nearly a quarter million people and point to a finding of global healthcare importance that promises to translate into a rise in cardiovascular disease globally.”

Why do COVID patients have elevated cardiovascular risks? Researchers used U.K. Biobank data from 10,005 people who had COVID-19 and 217,730 people who did not between February and December 2020. Certain genetic variants are already linked to coronary artery disease, heart attack and COVID-19 infection, so researchers completed a genetic analysis to see if any of these known genetic variants contribute to elevated coronary artery disease risk after COVID-19. They found none of the known genetic variants were drivers of the enhanced cardiovascular events observed post COVID-19 infection. Instead, the data highlighted an association between elevated risk and blood type.

Previous research has shown that people who have A, B or AB blood types were also more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, the researchers said.

“These findings reveal while it’s an upper respiratory tract infection, COVID-19 has a variety of health implications and underscores that we should consider history of prior COVID-19 infection when formulating cardiovascular disease preventive plans and goals,” Hazen said. “The association uncovered by our research indicates a potential interaction between the virus and the piece of our genetic code that determines blood type and signals the need for further investigation.”

“Given our collective observations and that 60% of the world's population have these non-O blood types, our study raises important questions about whether more aggressive cardiovascular risk reduction efforts should be considered, possibly by taking into consideration an individual's genetic makeup," explained Hooman Allayee, PhD, of USC’s Keck School of Medicine, who was co-senior author of the paper.

Study link: www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/ATVBAHA.124.321001

[petervintonjr]

Meet the unsung contributor to revolutionary breakthroughs in treating polio, cancer, HPV, and even COVID-19: Henrietta Lacks. Born in 1920 Roanoke, Virginia, Henrietta's mother Eliza died when she was only four, and she was ultimately raised by her maternal grandfather in Clover, Virginia. Henrietta worked as a tobacco farmer and attended a segregated school until the age of 14, when she gave birth to a son, Lawrence. A daughter, Elsie, was born three years later --to compound the family's difficulties, Elsie had cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Henrietta and her now-husband David Lacks moved to Turner Station (now Dundalk), Maryland where David had landed a job with a nearby steel plant. At the time Turner Station was one of the oldest African-American communities in Baltimore County and there was sufficient community support for the family to buy a house and produce three more children.

In 1951 at the age of 31, Henrietta died at Johns Hopkins Hospital of cervical cancer, mere months after the birth of the family's youngest son. But before her death --and without her or her family's consent-- during a biopsy two tumour cell samples were taken from Henrietta's cervix and sent to Johns Hopkins researchers. Hernietta's cells carried a unique trait: an ability to rapidly multiply, producing a new generation every 24 hours; a breakthrough that no other human cell had achieved. Prior to this discovery, only cells that had been transformed by viruses or genetic mutations carried such a characteristic. With the prospect of now being able to work with what amounted to the first-ever naturally-occurring immortal human cells, researchers created a patent on the HeLa cell line but hid the donor's true identity under a fake name: Helen Lane.

It is no exaggeration to state that in the 70 years since her death, Henrietta's cells have been bought, sold, packaged, and shipped by thousands of laboratories; with her cells being used as a baseline in as many as 74,000 different studies (including some Nobel Prize winners). Her cells have even been sent into space to study the effects of microgravity, and were instrumental in the Human Genome Project. While no actual law (or even a code of ethics) necessarily required doctors to ask permission before taking tissue from a terminal patient, there was a very clear Maryland state law on the books that forbade tissue removal from the dead without permission, throwing the situation into something of a legal grey area. However because Henrietta was poor, minimally educated, and Black, this standard was quietly (and easily) circumvented and she was never recognized for her monumental contributions to science and medicine ...and her family was never compensated. The family remained unaware of Henrietta's contribution until 1975, when the HeLa line's provenance finally became public. Henrietta had been buried in an unmarked grave in the family cemetery in Clover, Virginia but in 2010 a new headstone was donated and dedicated, acknowledging her phenomenal contribution. That same year the John Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research established a new Henrietta Lacks Memorial lecture series. A statue of Lacks was commissioned in 2022, to be erected in Lacks's birthplace of Roanoke, Virginia --pointedly replacing a previous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which had been removed following nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd.

Dive into The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, originally published in 2011 and subsequently adapted into an HBO movie in 2017, starring Oprah Winfrey as Henrietta's daughter Deborah and Renee Elise Goldberry as Henrietta. (And yes, this book has been challenged and banned in more than one school district.)

[didanawisgi]

Spatiotemporal variation of excess all-cause mortality in the world (125 countries) during the Covid period 2020-2023 regarding socio-economic factors and public-health and medical interventions

Denis G. Rancourt*1; Joseph Hickey1 2; Christian Linard2

Summary

We studied all-cause mortality in 125 countries with available all-cause mortality data by time (week or month), starting several years prior to the declared pandemic, and for up to and more than three years of the Covid period (2020-2023). The studied countries are on six continents and comprise approximately 35 % of the global population (2.70 billion of 7.76 billion, in 2019).

The overall excess all-cause mortality rate in the 93 countries with sufficient data in the 3-year period 2020-2022 is 0.392 ± 0.002 % of 2021 population, which is comparable to the historic rate of approximately 0.97 % of population over the course of the 1918 “Spanish Flu” pandemic.

By comparison, India (which is not included in the present study) had an April-July 2021 peak in excess all-cause mortality of 3.7 million deaths for its 2021 population of approximately 1.41 billion, which corresponds to an excess death rate of 0.26 % for 2021 alone (Rancourt, 2022).

Our calculated excess mortality rate (0.392 ± 0.002 %) corresponds to 30.9 ± 0.2 million excess deaths projected to have occurred globally for the 3-year period 2020-2022, from all causes of excess mortality during this period.

We also calculate the population-wide risk of death per injection (vDFR) by dose number (1st dose, 2nd dose, boosters) (actually, by time period), and by age (in a subset of European countries). Using the median value of all-ages vDFR for 2021-2022 for the 78 countries with sufficient data gives an estimated projected global all-ages excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts up to 30 December 2022: 16.9 million COVID-19-vaccine-associated deaths.

Large differences in excess all-cause mortality rate (by population) and in age-and- health-status-adjusted (P-score) mortality are incompatible with a viral pandemic spread hypothesis and are strongly associated with the combination (product) of share of population that is elderly (60+ years) and share of population living in poverty.

There are large North-South (Canada-USA-Mexico) differences in North America, and large East-West differences in Europe, which are due to large national jurisdictional differences, or discontinuities in socio-economic and institutional conditions. Such systematic differences in mortality and underlying structure are captured by hierarchical cluster analysis using a panel of (yearly) time series, including to some extent the likelihood of persistent excess all-cause mortality into 2023.

Excluding borderline cases, 28 countries (of 79 countries with sufficient data, 35 % of countries) have a high statistical certainty of persistent and significant excess all-cause mortality into 2023, compared to the extrapolated pre-Covid historic trend, excluding excess all-cause mortality from peak residuals extending out from 2022, and excluding accidentally large values: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, and USA. More research is needed to elucidate this phenomenon.

The spatiotemporal variations in national excess all-cause mortality rates allow us to conclude that the Covid-period (2020-2023) excess all-cause mortality in the world is incompatible with a pandemic viral respiratory disease as a primary cause of death. This hypothesis, although believed to be supported by testing campaigns, should be abandoned.

Inconsistencies that disprove the hypothesis of a viral respiratory pandemic to explain excess all-cause mortality during the Covid period are seen on a global scale and include the following.

• Near-synchronicity of onset, across several continents, of surges in excess mortality occurring immediately when a pandemic is declared by the WHO (11 March 2020), and never prior to pandemic announcement in any country

Excessively large country-to-country heterogeneity of the age-and-health-status- adjusted (P-score) mortality during the Covid period, including across shared borders between adjacent countries, and including in all time periods down to half years

Highly time variable age-and-health-status-adjusted (P-score) mortality in individual countries during and after the Covid period, including more-than-year- long periods of zero excess mortality, long-duration plateaus or regimes of high excess mortality, single peaks versus many recurring peaks, and persistent high excess mortality after a pandemic is declared to have ended (5 May 2023)

Strong correlations (all-country scatter plots) between excess all-cause mortality rates and socio-economic factors (esp. measures of poverty) change with time (by year and half year) during the Covid period, between diametrically opposite values (near-zero, large and positive, large and negative) of the Pearson correlation coefficient (e.g., Figure 29, first half of 2020 to first half of 2023)One might tentatively add:

No evidence of the large vaccine rollouts ever being associated with reductionsin excess all-cause mortality, in any country (and see Rancourt and Hickey,2023)

Exponential increases with age in excess all-cause mortality rate (by population),consistent with age-dominant frailty rather than infection in the limit of high virulenceWe describe plausible mechanisms and argue that the three primary causes of death associated with the excess all-cause mortality during (and after) the Covid period are:(1) Biological (including psychological) stress from mandates such as lockdowns and associated socio-economic structural changes(2) Non-COVID-19-vaccine medical interventions such as mechanical ventilators and drugs (including denial of treatment with antibiotics)

(3) COVID-19 vaccine injection rollouts, including repeated rollouts on the same populations

In all cases ― for all three identified primary causes of death ― a proximal or clinical cause of death associated (such as on death certificates) with the quantified excess all-cause mortality is respiratory condition or infection. Therefore, we distinguish (and define) true primary causes of death from the pervasive and accompanying proximal or clinical cause of death as respiratory.

We understand the Covid-period mortality catastrophe to be precisely what happens when governments cause global disruptions and assaults against populations. We emphasize the importance of biological stress from sudden and profound structural societal changes and of medical assaults (including denial of treatment for bacterial pneumonias, repeated vaccine injections, etc.). We estimate that such a campaign of disruptions and assaults in a modern world will produce a global all-ages mortality rate of >0.1 % of population per year, as was also the case in the 1918 mortality catastrophe.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Marc A. Caputo at The Bulwark:

DONALD TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN IS PREPARING a full-scale blitz on Vice President Kamala Harris, with broadsides on her record that borrow from the ad that came to define dog-whistle politics. The question is not just whether it will work, but whether Republicans—including the former president himself—will have the discipline to keep the racial subtext of their new strategy from becoming the text.

In the 24 hours since Joe Biden announced he was ending his reelection campaign, Trump and his fellow Republicans have been put on the defensive for the first time in more than a month. Their response was broad, flailing, and conspiratorial, accusing Democrats of staging a coup, suggesting the president faked his COVID diagnosis, and even floating the notion that Biden might be dead. The frenetic reaction left Democrats gleeful, confident that Harris had scrambled a race that seemed static. But it also belied the game plan that the Trump campaign and its allied groups have been crafting for this very scenario, in which the vice president suddenly took center stage.

[...] The Trump campaign’s internal polling indicates that Harris’s involvement in Biden’s immigration policy and her record number of tie-breaking votes on Biden’s various spending bills, including the Inflation Reduction Act, are vulnerabilities, according to campaign insiders familiar with the research. But they see her real weaknesses in specific elements of her record as a prosecutor and her positions on criminal justice issues more broadly. In the weeks ahead, the Trump campaign is signaling that it plans to focus on a Minnesota bail fund Harris supported while a presidential candidate during the George Floyd protests in 2020; her 2004 refusal to seek the death penalty for a man who murdered a San Francisco police officer; and the decision by her district attorney’s office in 2007 to give probation to a man who went on to commit a brutal assault.

[...] Trump has not shied away from injecting race squarely into politics. A quick Google search will return a plethora of examples that have been roundly criticized: He helped spread the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, attacked the judge in the Trump University case as “Mexican,” and has consistently used epithets like “racist” against black prosecutors and lawyers in his civil and criminal trials that he doesn’t use against white lawyers. As president, he reportedly distinguished between immigrants from Northern Europe and those from “shithole” countries like Haiti and the countries of Africa.  Given the former president’s inclinations, Trump confidants and advisers are bracing for the candidate to ratchet up the rhetoric beyond what the campaign had planned and move from defensible criticisms of Harris’s record into open racial animus. “Trump leads this campaign,” said one. “So we’re ready for him to call her a DEI hire by Biden, and we’ll see what we see when that happens.” Race was already playing an important role in the Trump campaign prior to Biden dropping out. The former president picked JD Vance as his running mate in part to stem the hemorrhaging of support from white males��Republicans suffered between 2016 and 2020. Vance’s first campaign ad in 2022 mocked critics for calling conservatives racists over restrictionist immigration policies.

The Trump campaign is seeking to launch a racist Willie Horton campaign against Kamala Harris.

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Five

Week 29:

Film(s): Five (Dir. Arch Oboler, 1951, USA)

Viewing Format: Streaming Video (Amazon)

Date Watched: 2022-02-11

Rationale for Inclusion:

Late in the runtime of last week's film, The Thing From Another World (Dir. Christian Nyby, 1951, USA), as part of a monologue trying to convince his fellow occupants of the Arctic base not to destroy the carnivorous plant alien that has already drained the blood of multiple scientists and sled dogs, Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) concludes his plea for the importance of the pursuit of knowledge at all costs with, "We split the atom." At which point, one of the airmen, Lt. Eddie Dykes (James Young), cuts in with, "Yes, and that sure made the world happy, didn't it?" The sardonic quip stops Carrington cold.

In 1951, only six years had passed since the United States had deployed atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August of 1945. Whilst news of the destruction and atrocities were initially slow to spread, by the time the film takes place the scientists and airmen in The Thing no doubt knew the horrors inflicted upon Japan. Furthermore, the Soviet Union had detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1949, and the Cold War was very much underway.

With this cultural context in place, it follows that the post-apocalyptic film would make a comeback in the 1950s. Rocketship X-M (Dir. Kurt Neumann, 1950, USA) featured a post nuclear disaster society on Mars, but this survey has not featured a film where the central narrative is built around people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world since natural disaster film Deluge (Dir. Felix E. Feist, 1933, USA). So when I encountered Five (Dir. Arch Oboler, 1951, USA) described as the "first to depict the aftermath of an Earthly atomic bomb catastrophe" whilst perusing Wikipedia's science fiction cinema list, I knew it was an essential film to view.

Five was an independent film written, directed and produced by Arch Oboler, a successful radio dramatist who followed in Orson Welles' footsteps in transitioning to filmmaking. Oboler had directed three films prior to Five, and to keep costs down on the production the cast featured relatively unknown working actors, the crew was recruited from recent University of Southern California graduates, and the primary filming location was a Frank Lloyd Wright designed guest house on Oboler's Malibu ranch.

Reactions:

With its limited cast and locations, Five is dominantly the kind of no frills character study that would become more commonplace during the 1960s. It is simply and competently made with aesthetics that may remind modern day audiences of episodes of anthology television series, like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits.

As implied by the title of the film, the small cast of characters includes five people: the pregnant Roseanne Rogers (Susan Douglas Rubeš), white everyman Michael Rogin (William Phipps), the aged bank clerk Oliver P. Barnstaple (Earl Lee), black everyman Charles (Charles Lampkin), and supposedly affluent adventurer Eric (James Anderson). Roseanne's sex and Charles' race become sources of drama, mostly because Eric exhibits a behavior described decades later by sociologists as "elite panic."

Lee Clarke and Caron Chess of Rutgers University coined the term in a 2008 journal article, in which based on available research and case studies of disasters from the 1950s through 2001 they determined that the source of panic in these scenarios was not the general public devolving into a mob, but by elites, fearing that their power and wealth would be violently stripped from them by a mob. Clarke and Chess specifically identify three relationships with panic that occur during disasters: elites fearing panic, elites causing panic, and elites panicking. My introduction to this concept came via an episode of the podcast Behind the Bastards recorded during November of 2020, when amid the COVID-19 pandemic and stress around the presidential election having a reminder that the majority of people are inherently giving, caring, communal creatures was a huge comfort.

In Five, after an initially violent encounter, Michael and Roseanne band together for survival, with Oliver and Charles later joining them. They compassionately deal with Roseanne's pregnancy and Oliver's mental dissociation and decline from radiation sickness amid their limited resources. Oliver's dying request to visit the nearby ocean results in the old man having as peaceful a death as available under the circumstances, and the discovery of a man washed ashore, Eric.

The injured Eric's explanation for how he survived the atomic bombing is bizarre compared to the banality of the others' explanations, who were shielded from the blast via being in an elevator, lead-lined hospital x-ray room, and bank vault, respectively. Instead Eric was actively climbing Mount Everest alone when a blizzard stranded him. When he made it back to basecamp he found other climbers dead. On foot and via abandoned conveyances Eric had made his way back to America, encountering no other survivors along the way, just dead bodies.

Eric's journey in its entirety sounds highly unlikely, but at first only one aspect utterly defied my credulity: who climbs Mount Everest alone? Mountaineering is not a pet topic of research for me, but I know enough to know that no serious climber attempts Everest without guides, frequently members of the local Sherpa community. "What happened to his sherpa?" I demanded aloud when we got to this point in the film. "Did he eat them?"

Given that Eric is gradually revealed to be a greedy opportunist, in retrospect his story may have been nothing but lies. It seems more likely he was in the United States the entire time and leapfrogged from one pocket of resources and survivors to another until he ended up washing up on the beach. Regardless of whether he actually was a billionaire or not--and the film does nothing to disprove his account--he nevertheless has an elite mentality: trying to hoard resources (including Roseanne) to himself. 

Eric is the sociopathic evolution of the wandering rapists from Deluge, and ultimately serves the narrative role of Michael's doppelganger. Michael may have initially tried to sexually assault Roseanne, but spends the rest of the film making up for that feral moment. Eric is predatory and ends up becoming a murderer in the course of the narrative; after being banished by the others, he goes back to steal supplies and kills Charles when he is caught. Michael is spared having to also become a murderer by the reveal near the end of the film that Eric has radiation poisoning and likely does not have much time left. The film makes it clear that Michael is a good man, and deserving of being the new Adam of the post-apocalyptic world.

Roseanne earns her new Eve status in part by being the token female, and in part because she is devoted to her missing husband until she finds definitive proof that he died in the bombing. Her dedication to her husband and baby are all that is needed to qualify her as a good woman. 

Unfortunately, her newborn dies for reasons of narrative convenience. Apparently it was too much to ask for Michael to be father to a baby he did not conceive. Instead it ends with Michael and Roseanne left alone. Despite the tragedies and threat of radiation sickness lingering, Five closes conservatively and reasonably optimistically: life will go on.

Before I wrap up, I would be remiss if I did not spend more time discussing Charles. His presence is itself a progressive act, given how the casts of most mainstream films surveyed thus far have been all or mostly white. However, he is introduced in a subservient role to an old white man, and spends the remainder of his time in the narrative as a litmus test to show who is the superior white man to repopulate the world: Michael or Eric. The notion that Charles might be a candidate for Roseanne's mate is never so much as suggested. For all the indignities Charles suffers throughout Five, he at least is spared the trope frequently placed on black men of being the first to die. Overall, Charles is a minor step forward for black representation in science fiction cinema.

Five, on the other hand, is a solid first representation of the post-nuclear apocalypse narrative. Later films built on the premise, like On the Beach (Dir. Stanley Kramer, 1959) and The World, the Flesh and the Devil (Dir. Ranald MacDougall, 1959), would result in better movies, but Five deserves greater attention within the sub-genre.