Biology Digest

Despite my best efforts to stay away from politics, the antivaxx propaganda machine has come to the mainstream. In this video we are looking at hydroxychloroquine and how it failed. Then Ivermectin and how it's doing the exact same thing: Nothing. And it's being propped up by some real jerks.

President of the Jordan Smelski Foundation for Amoeba Awareness, Steve Smelski, joins me to tell his story and discuss the amoeba, Naegleria fowleri. Jordan Smelski Foundation for Amoeba Awareness https://jordansmelskifoundation.org/ Outbreak News Today http://outbreaknewstoday.com/ #naegleriafowleri #parasites #braineatingamoeba

  Until this week, Aubrey de Grey was best known as the longevity researcher who predicted the first human to live 1,000 years may already be alive. Now, de Grey stands accused of being a sexual predator.  Celine Halioua, who received research funding from de Grey’s SENS Research Foundation, set out her accusations in a blog  post  titled “Aubrey de Grey is a sexual predator.” Laura Deming, founder of life extension VC shop The Longevity Fund, set out separate allegations against de Grey in her own blog  post . Deming wrote: “I had one bad experience with him when I was 17—he told me in writing that he had an ‘adventurous love life’ and that it had ‘always felt quite jarring’ not to let conversations with me stray in that direction given that ‘[he] could treat [me] as an equal on every other level.’ He sent this from his work email, and I’d known him since I was 14.”  At the time, Deming said she “wrote it off as a mistake.” However, “in the past few months...

  With cases spiking across the country, top health officials are making it clear that COVID-19 is becoming   “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” According to  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , less than half of the total U.S. population has been fully vaccinated and yet fewer Americans are lining up for shots each week. Hospitals and health systems, which have borne the brunt of the pandemic, are now starting to look inward at the vaccination rates of their own workforces. A growing number of providers are shifting their policies away from simply encouraging staff vaccination to requiring the shots as a condition of employment. While this hard line has drawn  protests  and  lawsuits  from unvaccinated employees who say the requirements infringe on personal freedoms, mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies have picked up the support of  numerous professional and industry organizations . “COVID-19 vaccines protect healthcare personnel ...

  Editor's note: Check back here for updated vaccine requirements in biotech, or submit your company's policy via email to klahucik@questex.com. Fierce Pharma is  tracking  employer vaccine requirements in pharma. With a 97% vaccination rate among its staff, Alector elected not to mandate COVID-19 shots for employees. But the CEO is reaching out to every straggler in an effort to get that number up to 100%. Vaccination, as CEO Arnon Rosenthal, Ph.D., sees it, is the "best way out of the pandemic crisis." So, he has attempted to encourage the 3% to get inoculated, said Michelle Corral, vice president of communications and investor relations. The neurodegenerative disease biotech has also indefinitely postponed its early-September return to office/reopening. The Delta variant has sent shockwaves across the world as people began to emerge from more than a year of isolation. The workplace has become a new line of defense against the pandemic....

  Compared to the problems encountered by makers of adenovirus COVID-19 vaccines, it’s been a relative cakewalk for the overwhelmingly successful mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. But on Wednesday, Europe’s drug regulator  revealed  that it is  investigating  a possible link between mRNA vaccines and new conditions reported by a few recipients of the shots.   The European Medicines Agency is trying to determine if the mRNA shots can trigger an allergic skin reaction called erythema multiforme or two kidney disorders. It has requested additional data from Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna. "We take adverse events that are potentially associated with our COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2, very seriously," Pfizer said in a statement. "We closely monitor all such events and collect relevant information to share with global regulatory authorities." Hundreds of millions of people have received Pfizer's vaccine, the company's spokesperson pointe...

  The Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention ( Beijing CDC ) reported Monday a human inhalation anthrax case in a patient from Chengde in North China’s Hebei Province. Bacillus anthracis bacteria Image/CDC The patient was transported to Beijing via ambulance four days after showing symptoms and was later quarantined and treated. The patient had a history of contact with cattle and sheep, and associated products from those animals. Anthrax is a bacterial pathogen in  livestock  and wild  animals . Ruminants such as bison, cattle, sheep and goats are highly susceptible, and horses can also be infected. Anthrax is a very serious  disease  of livestock because it can potentially cause the rapid  loss  of a large number of animals in a  very short  time. Affected animals are often found dead with no illness detected. When conditions become favorable, the spores germinate into  colonies  of...