📧 NNU: Email CDC HICPAC 📣 Brown University trashed air purifiers, where's Ashish Jha on this?
Pfizer is planning on raising the price of Paxlovid and planning worker layoffs.
Contents:
- Events, Actions, & Campaigns
- Pandemic field notes & “Living with the virus”
- In the News (virus & adjacent media, science, news, and op-eds)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting & other outrages)
- He(a)rd Scuttlebutt (the pandemic grapevine)
USA - Email campaign: Tell the CDC: Release the Draft!
By National Nurses United: Important changes are being made to the CDC’s foundational infection control guidance – without transparency—and the CDC is poised to weaken protections for healthcare workers and patients. Send an email to CDC/HICPAC Leaders: We are calling on the CDC to open up the process and engage experts: release the draft updates and hold public meetings to provide health care workers, patients, and other experts with the opportunity to provide input before any vote to finalize updates.
USA - PUBLIC MEETING - CDC HICPAC - Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee
When: November 2-3, 2023 Where: Teleconference Only
The Oral Public Comment Request Submission Period will open October 2, 2023, and close at 11:59 pm on October 23, 2023. The Written Public Comment Submission Period Will open November 1, 2023, and close at 11:59 pm on November 6, 2023.
“If you were not selected in the lottery for oral public comment, please submit your written public comment to HICPAC@CDC.GOV. The written public comment period will open November 1, 2023, and close at 11:59 pm on November 6, 2023. All written public comments received before or after the comment period opens or closes will not be added to the meeting minutes.”
USA - PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD - Discrimination on the Basis of Disability in Health and Human Service Programs or Activities A Proposed Rule by the Health and Human Services Department on 09/14/2023
Submit a public comment on disability accessibility in healthcare settings.
Comments Close: 11/13/2023
🗞️ In the news
REUTERS - Pfizer slashes revenue forecast on lower COVID sales, will cut costs - By Michael Erman October 13, 2023 Pfizer (PFE.N) on Friday slashed its full-year revenue forecast by 13% and said it will cut $3.5 billion worth of jobs and expenses due to lower-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment.
Price of lifesaving Covid-19 antiviral Paxlovid expected to rise next year, raising concerns about access - By Meg Tirrell, CNN - Published 5:34 PM EDT, Mon October 16, 2023 One financial analyst who follows the company, Evercore ISI’s Umer Raffat, suggested that the price could go up three- to fivefold, to as much as $2,500 per course. Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, called the potential plans for a price increase “more bad news of price gouging by Pfizer.” “Less people who need Paxlovid will get it – whether it’s because of lack of insurance, or concerns about payment/co-pay,” Topol wrote in an email. “Even for those who have full coverage, sticking it to insurers just winds up, in the long run, increasing health care insurance premiums for all.” Infectious disease physicians shared Topol’s concern about people’s ability to get the medication.
ABC NEWS - Florida family sentenced to federal prison for selling 'dangerous,' fake COVID-19 cure: DOJ - The product contained toxic industrial bleach, the DOJ said. By Luke Barr and Meredith Deliso October 6, 2023 Federal prosecutors said the men manufactured, produced and sold a "dangerous product" they claimed would cure COVID-19. Their "Miracle Mineral Solution" -- or MMS -- was sold under the guise of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, according to prosecutors. MMS contained sodium chlorite and water, "which, when ingested orally, became chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleach typically used for industrial water treatment or bleaching textiles, pulp, and paper," the DOJ said in a press release.
MedPage Today - U.S. Healthcare System Creates Barriers to Vaccine Access, Expert Says — Clinics are struggling to purchase pediatric COVID vaccines and the monoclonal antibody for RSV - by Emily Hutto, Associate Video Producer October 13, 2023 Many people, I think, are aware of the problem of vaccine hesitancy and disinformation, but what's not as front and center, especially for a lot of clinicians, is the fact that there are a lot of people who want to get vaccines or to vaccinate their children who can't do so. The reason for that is in many ways our for-profit health system -- the fact that we're starting from a place where if we don't charge enough money and sell enough product, then we don't get paid, right? I can't provide healthcare without taking money from someone else because otherwise, I can't live in my house, I don't have food for my family. That's a reflection of the fact that we don't have reliable social services of any kind, really. So if you start from a for-profit system, then you have a setting where right now, for example, the COVID vaccine is commercialized and the RSV [respiratory syncytial virus] monoclonal antibody for infants is now available -- Beyfortus, also called nirsevimab. Beyfortus, the RSV monoclonal antibody, that's $500 or so per dose. That's something that clinics like mine have to buy upfront to then be able to give to patients and then charge the insurance for.
The New York Times - Mosquitoes Are a Growing Public Health Threat, Reversing Years of Progress. Climate change and the rapid evolution of the insect have helped drive up malaria deaths and brought dengue and other mosquito-borne viruses to places that never had to worry about them. By Stephanie Nolen Photographs by Malin Fezehai Sept. 29, 2023 Because the genetic makeup of mosquitoes evolves quickly in response to changing environmental conditions, they have also developed resistance to the class of insecticides in wide use — while the malaria parasite itself is increasingly resistant to the once highly-effective drugs used to treat it. And a new mosquito that thrives in urban areas has come from Asia to Africa, where the spread of malaria had always been confined largely to the countryside. That change has made more than 100 million additional people vulnerable to mosquito-borne infections, researchers at the University of Oxford recently estimated. The multiplying risks, experts say, mean there’s an urgent need for a method to protect people from all mosquitoes — one that will help defend against malaria, but also dengue, yellow fever and whatever pathogen lurks around the corner. (Only female mosquitoes bite; they need the protein in blood to produce eggs.)
PAYDAY REPORT - 1,200 Pittsburgh Nurses to Strike for $40-an-Hour – Italian Dockworkers to Refuse Israeli Warships – 3,700 Detroit Casino Workers Strike - BY: MIKE ELK OCTOBER 18, 2023 “There’s no shortage of nurses. There’s a shortage of nurses who are willing to work in the conditions that are present in all of the hospitals around here right now,” Annalee Yobbi, a Flight Nurse at Allegheny General, told WPXI.
Government Executive - Senate bill would codify remote work, increase telework reporting - The Telework Reform Act also would authorize noncompetitive hiring of military and law enforcement spouses into remote work positions. - OCTOBER 13, 2023 - ERICH WAGNER The Telework Reform Act (S. 3015), introduced by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., codifies the Office of Personnel Management’s administratively determined definitions of telework and remote work—including the requirement that teleworkers commute to their traditional worksite at least twice per pay period—and institutes a barrage of new reporting requirements for agencies. First, the bill sets up a new requirement that agencies and federal workers renew telework and remote work agreements each year, following an annual process in which employees and their supervisors review whether the employees’ duties and performance or the agency’s needs have changed.
KRON4 - SF Supervisors vote to end remote public comment with exceptions - by: Alex Baker, Bay City News - Posted: Oct 17, 2023 Seniors and people with disabilities can still use the phone-in comment option under the changes approved Tuesday. The measure was opposed by Supervisors Dean Preston, Joel Engardio and Myrna Melgar, who asked that alternatives be used, such as a time delay from when the call is given to when it is broadcast. “I hope that we can find a way to strike a balance,” said Melgar. “The Board of Supervisors, we are arguably the most forward-facing public entity in the city and county of San Francisco.”
This is NOT fine
Brown University trashed air purifiers that were in the student dorms.
I have heard they were taken out stealth-like with no explanation, from locked offices of professors, and people were told air purifiers are “no longer being necessary” - which still doesn’t explain why they’d put functional appliances in the garbage.
‘Inconvenient,’ ‘wasteful,’ ‘frustrating’: Students react to removal of paper towels, air purifiers from on-campus housing. Students cite concerns about hygiene, accessibility, sustainability. By Aniyah Nelson University News Editor - October 11, 2023 Air purifiers have also disappeared from University dormitories. While walking through campus in July, Christopher Vanderpool ’24 stumbled upon an unexpected scene: dozens of air purifiers in a dumpster.
Ashish Jha is the Brown University Dean of the School of Public Health, Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice. And when Ashish Jha was the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, he said we should adopt air filtration and ventilation as a pandemic measure and going forward for infectious disease and other health reasons.
In September 2022, he was at a National Association of Manufacturers telling everyone that indoor air cleaning is the future of pandemic mitigation, infection control, and good for general health.
Dr. Ashish Jha on the Next Phase of Pandemic Response - By NAM News Room September 27, 2022
Air quality: Last, Jha cited the importance of improving air quality to combat all respiratory infections, whether COVID-19, influenza or RSV (a common respiratory virus).
Most Americans spend 90% of their time indoors, but don’t really think about the quality of the air they’re breathing, he noted.
Yet, that air quality helps determine your likelihood of getting sick, and even “makes a difference to your cognition,” he pointed out. Research shows that improving air quality raised students’ test scores in schools and reduced worker absences.
We can improve indoor air quality by upgrading filters, improving air exchanges with the outdoors or using air purifiers, he advised.
The question that needs to be asked is who made this decision to put everyone at this university at greater health risk?
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
I recommend the youtube video Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson Interview with a former anti-vaxxer (w/ Lydia Greene). It’s illuminating into the perspective of those who have been tricked into believing anti-vax misinformation. Clearly there are two types of anti-vaxxers, the people who push it and promote it, and the people who just get swept up into it. I agree with Lydia Greene in believing the best hope is to do widespread pre-bunking, to divert people from getting conned into the anti-vax milieu. This is why I think we need a proper promotional vaccine drive now.
We need input from occupational health experts, industrial hygienists, and aerosol scientists whose expertise would be very helpful in this area. We need more input from impacted communities, workers and unions, disabled and immunocompromised patients, and health workers.
Lara Jirmanus MD MPH, Public comment at the CDC HICPAC Meeting on June 8th 2023