The Dangerous Misuse of ‘Natural Immunity’ Against Covid Vaccination
Vaccination seeks herd immunity without the massive human costs that come with letting the virus run its course.
‘Moderna Is Trying to Turn This People’s Vaccine Into a Rich People’s Vaccine’
“From the beginning of the pandemic, unfortunately, the US government’s position has been to be extremely deferential to corporate interests.”
Peter Maybarduk on Moderna Patent, Tracy Rosenberg on Aaron Swartz Day
Drugs are developed by the government, and then pharmaceutical companies get patents on them and sell them back to the public.
Rick Claypool on OxyContin Bankruptcy, Dean Baker on Economic Disconnects
A bankruptcy ruling shields the Sackler family, profiteers on Oxycontin, responsible for, conservatively, half a million deaths by overdose.
‘The FDA’s Decision Showed a Stunning Disregard for Science’
“The FDA has lowered standards for approving drugs like this. And other companies are going to take advantage of that.”
Chris Bernadel on Haitian Assassination, Michael Carome on FDA Alzheimer’s Investigation
The long history of the US using state force to kill Haitians and their aspirations is sufficient and appropriate context for current events.
‘Government Money That’s Gone Into Vaccine Development Is Being Privatized by a Handful of Companies’
“People who have less power and less money around the world are the people last in line—and that line is going to be pretty long if you don’t speed up the production.”
Ahmad Abuznaid on Israel/Palestine Apartheid, James Love on Bill Gates & Vaccine Politics
Where elite media present a frozen he said/she said, never-the-twain-shall-meet debate over Israel/Palestine, more and more people see a different way forward.
‘It’s in the Interest of Everyone in the US to Vaccinate the World as Quickly as Possible’
“If we don’t ramp up manufacturing quickly, with some new investments and some high-level political leadership now, a million more people will die than would otherwise be the case, and trillions of dollars will be lost.”
Peter Maybarduk on Global Vaccination, Jane Chung on Big Tech Lobbying
If we don’t learn from this pandemic that none of us can be healthy unless all of us are healthy, how many chances will we get?
Media Elevate Eugenicists, Sideline Disabled Voices in Discussions of Covid Rationing
Corporate media have elevated some experts without disclosing their troubling views on disability, aging and the value of human life.
Keri Leigh Merritt on the New Lost Cause, Elisabeth Rosenthal on Troubled Vaccine Rollout
Historians are shaking their heads as media talk about January 6 as “unprecedented”; while shocking and dispiriting, it has layers and layers of precedent that need to be learned and engaged, if we are ever to actually have the racial reckoning that corporate media are forever insisting we’ve already had.
‘The Ones With the Most Risk Are the Ones We’re Most Ill-Prepared to Reach with the Vaccine’
‘We’ve had decades-long underfunding of state and local public health departments, and just myopic funding cuts for pandemic preparedness. And this hampers coordinated access, and leaves us ill-prepared to reach the very populations that are the most affected by this virus.”
Media’s Messaging Debate Eclipses Policies—and the Crises They Address
In coverage of Democratic positions on healthcare and climate change, the overwhelming emphasis was on electoral strategy, and not on the problems these policy proposals were designed to solve.
Julie Hollar on Moving Democrats to the Right, Josh Bivens on Pandemic Unemployment
Blaming the left has been the practice of elite Democrats and their media abettors for decades.
Evidence-Free ‘Lab Leak’ Speculation Boosts Trump’s Xenophobic Approach to Coronavirus
Even if it is exceedingly difficult to prove a negative, there’s little reason to entertain a lab origin theory when no actual evidence is presented that the virus originated at any particular lab.
Peter Maybarduk on Covid Treatments, Kia Rahnama on the Right to Protest
There is a connection—underexplored —between brutish police responses to peaceful protests and a history of Supreme Court rulings around the First Amendment.
Avoid This Kind of Coverage Like the Plague
Why does this medical misfortune in Inner Mongolia, one of hundreds of cases of bubonic plague that will occur worldwide this year, deserve a story in major news outlets?
US Campaign Against Cuba’s Medical Brigades Targets Healthcare, Not ‘Forced Labor’
As the Covid-19 pandemic results in increased demand for Cuban doctors around the world, corporate media appear to have shifted from vilifying them to casting them as victims of exploitation.
In Pandemic, Sunday Shows Centered Official Voices, Sidelined Independent Health Experts
On the networks’ Sunday morning political talk shows, which play an important role in setting agendas for national political debate, the voices asked to participate were overwhelmingly the usual narrow cast of Beltway actors, with independent public health experts playing a marginal role, and public interest voices almost entirely sidelined.
