Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Bark louder, little dog.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Knowing One’s Worth

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Knowing One’s Worth

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From 2021, Glamour on “The Scientist Who Saved the World”:

In 2013—after enduring multiple professional setbacks, one denied grant after another, and a demotion at the institution to which she’d been devoted for decades—Katalin Karikó, Ph.D., walked out of her lab at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine for the last time.

For decades the Hungarian biochemist had been fixated on the possibilities of mRNA, the genetic messenger that delivers DNA instructions to the protein-making infrastructure in each of our cells. Karikó—with her collaborator, immunologist Drew Weissman, M.D., Ph.D.—believed in its potential to treat stubborn and fatal conditions like strokes and even cancer, hoping that mRNA could be used to program cells to produce their own cures. The two were evangelizers, but their work attracted few converts. Those who knew about it tended to be dismissive: fanciful, nice concept, dead end…

Back in 2013 pandemics were the subjects of big-budget blockbusters like Contagion and books about the great influenza of 1918. Few people expected to experience one, and even fewer knew the name of the scientist whose marginalized research would go on to serve as the foundation for some of the most effective vaccines ever made.

Karikó has never craved fame, nor did she spend decades toiling at the bench for prizes (although she and Weissman have received the Lasker Award, the Horwitz Prize, the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research, and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in just the past few months). But fine, she has started to take a little pleasure in certain aspects of worldwide renown. First there’s the dream turned real—for her, scientific progress is measured in actual impact. With millions inoculated and the path out of the pandemic charted on the foundation of her research, she has lived to see the purpose in her work. And second, there’s the small, modest delight she takes in the fact that a few weeks before our interview, she ran into the man who’d led her out of her beloved lab at Penn eight years earlier. He told her he was preparing to give a lecture about her.

“You will talk about me?” she asked him. What about?

The focus, he said, would be on how he’d missed it—one of the greatest scientific and humanitarian achievements in their lifetimes, and he’d let the woman responsible for it walk out the door…

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Proving your doubters wrong is one of the best feelings in the world.

    I hope to experience it someday.

  2. 2.

    lowtechcyclist

    We know the Baud 20XX campaign will prove the doubters wrong!

    We just aren’t sure what the correct values of XX are.

  4. 4.

    SFAW

    So they’re getting the Nobel for the fake science leading to the creation of a “vaccine” which has killed millions — if not billions — of sheeple, and has now allowed the survivors to be tracked by the Soros/Gates nano-transmitters in their bloodstream(s)?

    And I imagine if I posted the above on my local NextDoor, there’d be a bunch of responders agreeing.

  7. 7.

    RandomMonster

    and he’d let the woman responsible for it walk out the door…

    Now that’s a movie I’d like to see.

  13. 13.

    Steeplejack

    In my role as Alexa minion influencer (hoping to be promoted to thought leader), I will note that Amazon is running some scorching deals on Echo devices right now: Echo Pop for $18, Echo Dot for $23, big Echo for $55. “Limited time deals.” Steep Deep discounts for those interested.

  14. 14.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Any jackals have experience with positive tests vs disease progression?

    First positive test was last Tuesday so I’m on Day 7. Still testing a strong positive but I feel pretty much symptom-free and the CDC says I can go out in public (but should mask).

    Still I’d like to have 48 hours of negative results before I really feel like jumping fully back into regular life again.

    The premise of all this being it matters to me whether I expose my community to risk.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    More Nobel

    The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to a team of scientists who created a ground-breaking technique using lasers to understand the extremely rapid movements of electrons that were previously thought impossible to follow.

  21. 21.

    Yarrow

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:  I’m not sure what you are asking but I tested positive for 2.5 weeks and felt horrible the whole time and still felt awful after I tested negative. Edit: This was in June/July and I was as vaxxed as they’d allow me to be. Sill bitter they wouldn’t allow me another vaccine so I had to get really sick instead.

    If you’re testing positive, especially a strong positive (more likely to transmit it), you should stay home if possible and definitely wear a mask if you have to go out.

  23. 23.

    LiminalOwl

    @Baud: He’s pretty sick—high fever, very sore throat, extreme fatigue—but so far doesn’t look life-threatening. Thank you.

    (I’m replying because my beloved tends to minimize; he doesn’t want people worrying about him. But this community is very important to him, and I have his permission to post updates.)

    @eclare

    @Yarrow

    @Steeplejack

  28. 28.

    satby

    @LiminalOwl: My sister got the Pavloxvid (sp) as soon as she tested positive, and felt it really cut down on how long she felt really sick, so have him get that ASAP! The main benefit is that it reduces dramatically serious covid and complications.  All the best wishes for his full recovery and you dodging the virus!

  33. 33.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Yarrow: Basically asking if anyone did enough daily testing during the disease to see how positive tests and symptoms vary together or separately.

    We stockpiled tests during lockdown and never used most of them, so we’re testing about every 2 days for the data.

    My wife is about 2 days ahead of me on this and she’s fully negative. But she also had Paxlovid.

  35. 35.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: When I got COVID in January, I didn’t bother re-testing after I tested positive. But some experts seem to think the CDC’s shortened recommendation was affected by non-medical concerns and that you should still isolate for 10 days if you can.

  37. 37.

    Matt McIrvin

    @satby: When I got COVID I had a telemedicine meeting with a nurse practitioner who basically said, in not quite these words, “I can give you Paxlovid if you raise a stink but I don’t recommend it since your case sounds mild”. Of course, the very next day I got the worst sore throat I’d ever experienced. But it only lasted about a day.

  39. 39.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: Everything that’s circulating now is a descendant of Omicron, so, it probably is. Of course what’s different is that almost everyone has some degree of prior resistance, from vaccination, infection or both.

  40. 40.

    Fled the US

    Can’t wait for my first anti-vaxxer to tell me “Ivermectin won the nobel prize”  so I can reply “so did mRNA vaccines”

    Check.

    Mate.

    (as if. but it’s funny to think about)

  41. 41.

    catclub

    Selection bias is what the Nobel Prize is. It is awarded to people who do not benefit from the prize, because they have already won everything.
    There is probably more than one person with a similar (but slightly different!) career arc, doggedly studying something that other experts had dismissed as not promising… and getting nowhere.​

  43. 43.

    satby

    @Matt McIrvin: The trouble is, we still can’t predict who will have a mild case and whose mild case will progress to something worse, until it does. My sister is 63 and generally healthy, but the doctor ordered it for her right away. I would insist on it, being older.

  46. 46.

    SFAW

    @The Thin Black Duke: ​
     
    “I tested positive for COVID” kinda minimizes things, at least according to your beloved, doesn’t it?
    I had it recently, used tylenol to make sure I kept the fever down. High fever can mess you up, more than just in the moment (if I understand things correctly), so please keep yours knocked down.
    And best wishes for a speedy recovery and no “long COVID.”

  48. 48.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: The pharmacist I talked to about Paxlovid said he didn’t recommend it to people unless they were sick enough to possibly be hospitalized. He said it can have a lot of bad side effects, so preventing hospitalization with it is good but using it for a mild case would be unwarranted.

  52. 52.

    Ken

    @MattF: And here is a fact check (from CNN!) of RFK Jr’s various vaccine claims.

    Every now and then I long for the days when involuntary committal was a simple process.

  53. 53.

    O. Felix Culpa

    It’s not quite like winning the Nobel Prize, but I achieved my 365-day streak on Duolingo today.

  54. 54.

    LiminalOwl

    @satby: oh, I wish I could get him Paxlovid! But by the time he finally agreed to see a doctor, they said it had been too long since the onset of symptoms.

    (andre: HIPAA—well, I am a health care provider! But not for this patient.)

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    @Soprano2:

    I received similar advice from my doctor’s office. Since my case ended up being relatively mild (except for the high fever), I decided against it. They mentioned another treatment with zero or minimal side effects, but it would require traveling to a hospital for an IV dosing, for three consecutive days. No thanks.

  58. 58.

    LiminalOwl

    @Lyrebird: I am… rather notorious for drinking tea (and tisanes) continuously throughout the day, even when healthy. Now I’m forcing him to do the same. And we’ll goget chicken soup latertoday if we can manage the logistics.  Thanks!

  59. 59.

    SFAW

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    It’s not quite like winning the Nobel Prize, but I achieved my 365-day streak on Duolingo today.

    Well, let’s see if we can put the pressure on the Nobel Committee to fix that.

  62. 62.

    Mousebumples

    Good morning! Busy day here, but we’ve got postcards and music tonight at 8pm blog time! Hope to see you there. 🤩

    Also, yay for mrna vaccines – and Paxlovid. Unless you’re on drugs that interact or have a contraindication, I vote get it if you’re eligible. Sure, mild cases don’t need it, but if you wait to see if you’ll be hospitalized, it’s often too late for Paxlovid to help.

    Take care of you and push for Paxlovid (*if you’re eligible). If Biden and Fauci get it, you should too.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @SFAW: If Trump deserves the Noble Prize — as he has repeatedly said, sometimes even getting the spelling right — then surely O. Felix Culpa’s accomplishment is prize-worthy.

  64. 64.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @SFAW:

    Hehe. I’d be happy with a smallish portion of the cash prize, to boost my travel budget. The *real* winners can still get their pictures taken and give speeches at the awards ceremony.

  65. 65.

    opiejeanne

    @MattF: I can’t find it now but this past week I saw a little article about 32 children who died of measles after RFK jr visited their South Pacific Island (Fiji?) and spoke against vaccination.

    The man is a menace.

  66. 66.

    SFAW

    @Ken:

    I know you meant well, but putting O. Felix in the same group/class as TIFG is not a good way of achieving the goal.

  69. 69.

    opiejeanne

    @opiejeanne: It was Samoa, and it was in 2019. RFK jr and others went there to inveigh against vaccination, and Samoa is already one of the least vaccinated places on Earth.

  72. 72.

    Scout211

    Our free COVID tests arrived yesterday. They are good until January with the extended expiration date.  Thanks, Biden!

    And in other good news (reposting from David’s thread):

    Drugmakers agree to negotiate drug prices with government, White House says

    Major drug companies including Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb have committed to participate in Medicare drug price negotiations with the federal government, the Biden administration said Tuesday.

    Thanks, Biden and the Democrats in congress!

  73. 73.

    opiejeanne

    @Eric S.: We need to go get our flu and Covid vaccines this week. We both had Covid in May 2022 and we were both as vaccinated as was possible. It was like the worst case of the flu I’ve ever had and I don’t want to repeat that experience. I credit the vaccinations and Paxlovid with keeping us out of the hospital.

    Tylenol and Paxlovid helped, and Riccola lemon sore throat lozenges helped with the nasty sour grapefruit taste caused by Paxlovid. When my husband tested positive I had the devil of a time getting him a prescription for Paxlovid within the time limit because the doctors were overwhelmed with sick people and half the staff was out with it.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: I get spooked by all these people I hear talking about mild or even asymptomatic cases of COVID leading to debilitating long COVID or organ damage (with a strong “what the health establishment won’t tell you” vibe). In the extreme they sound like the flip side of antivaxxers, but at least they’ve got something real to cite.

  76. 76.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Scout211: I haven’t gotten my tests yet. Should be arriving soon. I did get my flu and COVID shots so I’m about as immunized as I can be for the next few months.

  77. 77.

    Yarrow

    @LiminalOwl: That sounds similar to my experience. Can he get Paxlovid? Either way, I hope he recovers soon.

    The acute symptoms (fever, sore throat) lasted maybe about a week but the fatigue and brain fog took at least six weeks to improve.

  79. 79.

    jonas

    I hope Penn is feeling appropriately embarrassed about having demoted Dr. Karikó for not appearing to be “productive” enough as she was painstakingly working on what would become one of the most consequential pharmaceutical breakthroughs in history. Schools need to think more seriously about how they value short-term publication outcomes vs. encouraging scientists to invest time and thought in longer-term problems where you may not see the payoff for a number of years.

  80. 80.

    Eunicecycle

    @Mousebumples: I opted to get Paxlovid but my husband didn’t. He has almost no symptoms whatsoever; he only tested because I was positive! It’s so weird how it can be different for different people.

  82. 82.

    Nelle

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: i embroider a line each day to record a color in the sky that day.  Doing a bit of traveling now, so taking photos, then I’ll need to catch up when I get back.

  84. 84.

    Eunicecycle

    I was diagnosed in the ER, because I had passed out at my daughter’s house and the family insisted that I go to the ER. It was not my local hospital so I was giving my history and said I had had all the boosters. The nurse looked at me in horror and said, “Don’t you know that the more boosters you get the more likely you are to get infected?” I can’t remember what I said but I was definitely shocked.

  85. 85.

    Leto

    @jonas: listen, we’re going to turn everything in our life into a corporation. Short term profits versus long term steady growth will always favor the short term, because I gotta get mine. Simple as that. In education we will implement programs punishing students for failing to complete a 4 year program in 2 or less years. We’ll call it, “You’re a lazy moocher, have you thought about the shareholders?” Penalty. This transformative effect on our society will absolutely unleash the inner potential of every peon person and lead me us to our financial destiny!

  86. 86.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT Another day, another disturbing news from India.

    A news organization, NewsClick and its employees that has often held Modi’s Brahminical Junta Party accountable has been raided under spurious charges in Delhi

    The laptops and phones of their journalists and copy editors have been seized.  Mother of Democracy? more like stepmother of democracy

    I sincerely wish that Biden hadn’t given Modi the state dinner. It makes all his talk of defending democracy hollow. Its as if he only cares about democracy at home and in Europe. Celebrating the Indian Orban at the WH undermines the pro democracy message IMHO.

    More context here

  87. 87.

    Anyway

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    ETA: 365 days of anything is hard. I once tried to take and post a picture every day for a year, but after 8 months, March in Iowa defeated me.

    I like taking photos and tried doing the picture-a-day but lacked the discipline to do it for a year.

  90. 90.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: I know, lots of times when you look at the studies of long Covid the people who have it are mostly those who were so sick they were hospitalized. There are people with long Covid who had mild cases, but I think they’re relatively rare. I’m not going to live in terror of something with such a small chance of happening to me, especially because I’m fully vaxxed and have had Covid twice, both times it was mild for me and I fully recovered.

  92. 92.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Louisiana’s far right attorney general Jeff Landry faces accusations of targeted retaliation and a major conflict of interest after he pushed to remove an independent counsel representing the state’s pardon board as it prepared to hear clemency petitions from dozens of death row inmates.

    Landry, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, has ardently opposed the historic mass clemency petitions and last month joined a civil suit against the pardon board itself in order to block hearings from moving forward, citing alleged infringements of “eligibility and notice rules”. After an independent lawyer, hired by the parole board, pushed back against the lawsuit, documents reveal the attorney general moved to block his appointment. The move has placed the entire clemency process in jeopardy as the first round of hearings are due to begin in less than two weeks.
    …………………………….
    In response to Landry’s lawsuit, the board hired an independent attorney, J Arthur Smith III, who argued in pleadings on behalf of the board that the civil action should be dismissed due to its attempted “unconstitutional exercise of the governor’s exclusive pardon power”. The pleadings affirmed the board’s position, that neither the state attorney general, nor the group of local conservative prosecutors who are also suing, had authority to block the clemency hearings.

    Documents obtained by the Guardian show that Smith also wrote directly to Landry on 26 September, urging him to voluntarily recuse himself from the suit, arguing his move against the state’s board is a conflict of interest and a violation of Louisiana legal ethics.

    In an extraordinary move, Landry wrote back to Smith on the same day, seeking his removal as independent counsel suggesting the board had hired him “prior to obtaining the necessary approvals for state contracts” and arguing that his request for recusal “calls into question your competency as a lawyer”.

    “You are not authorized to serve as legal counsel,” Landry states in the letter.

    Typical authoritarian Repub.

    Although the state has not executed anyone since 2010, Landry is currently the frontrunner to replace Edwards as governor in elections later this year. He has advocated for continuing executions, and argued for reintroducing the electric chair, hangings and firing squads.

    “First we’ll hang ’em, then we’ll shoot ’em, then we’ll fry ’em.” Just a peach of a guy.

  97. 97.

    artem1s

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Last year when I had the virus I was told that I could test positive for a while because the tests read the dead virus as positive. The better question would be to ask your doctor or the expert jackals when you aren’t likely to be infectious anymore.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    I will never stop laughing at Dolt45’s lawyers being incompetent enough to not put in the paperwork for a jury trial.

     

    BWA HA AH AH AHA HA HA HA HA HA HA AHA HA

  99. 99.

    BellyCat

    The reader context for the Penn brag-tweet is priceless.

    Innovation in academia is often a perilous pursuit.

  100. 100.

    rikyrah

    @Matt McIrvin:

    @Soprano2: I get spooked by all these people I hear talking about mild or even asymptomatic cases of COVID leading to debilitating long COVID or organ damage (with a strong “what the health establishment won’t tell you” vibe).

     

    It was two ‘ non-hospital’ COVID cases that have left the lasting fear of God in me.

    One was the Black woman on the NYT Editorial Board. Young, thin, health nut that ran 5 miles a day.

    Got a case of COVID ‘ not serious enough to send me to the hospital’.

    And, could barely walk A BLOCK afterwards.

    5 mile a day runner ——–A BLOCK walking.

     

    The second was a doctor that Nicole Wallace would have on her show.

    Mid-40’s White Male Doctor – fit.

    His case didn’t send him to the hospital either.

    But, next time we saw him, he had oxygen on.

    When I tell you those 2 cases terrified me down to my soul….

    So, no, I’ve never believed in a ‘mild case of COVID.’.

  101. 101.

    VeniceRiley

    Dr. Karikó’s mother used to rib her that she didn’t have a Nobel. Ha! And watching Penn get dragged on X is an extra cherry on top.

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @SFAW:

    So they’re getting the Nobel for the fake science leading to the creation of a “vaccine” which has killed millions — if not billions — of sheeple, and has now allowed the survivors to be tracked by the Soros/Gates nano-transmitters in their bloodstream(s)?

    I heard someone joke that tomorrow’s test of the Emergency Broadcast System on smartphones was really an excuse to set off the Gates transmitters.

  103. 103.

    Origuy

    @O. Felix Culpa: Good job. Once you make it a habit, it’s easier to keep it going. I’m up to nearly 5 years, but Duolingo lets you skip a day here and there if you spend the credits (called “gems”). I finished the Italian course a few months ago and went back to Spanish, but they added more to the Italian course so I had to go back and finish the Italian course again.

  105. 105.

    Martin

    So, Penn deserves to get dragged here, but the fact that Karikó accepted an adjunct position there tells us that she came to an agreement with Penn. I guarantee she’s the best paid adjunct at Penn by *miles*. She knew that without that position, Penn couldn’t run their PR the way they are, and she understands the reputational impact on Penn around this story. So I’m pretty confident in saying that Penn has to a reasonable degree made right by Karikó.

    I will also offer that this doesn’t necessarily make Penn look bad, because there’s no institution that wouldn’t do the same thing. So if you’re a prospective faculty member, and you think Penn is a bad actor here, you’re wrong – every institution will do this to you. Penn at least has the cash to fix it – not all will. This is more of an indictment of the growing crisis in higher education.

    I’ve been behind decisions like the one that terminated her. It’s garbage, but it’s how institutions are required to operate. Thankfully some of us can afford to retire early and get out of that thankless task.

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