Unbelievable news.
Pancreatic is one of the deadliest cancers.
New paper shows personalized mRNA vaccines can induce durable T cells that attack pancreatic cancer, with 75% of patients cancer free at three years—far, far better than standard of care.
www.nature.com/articles/s41…
— Derek Thompson (@dkthomp.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 12:03 PM
This is just a wow if the evidence is substantiated in the follow-on Phase 2 and 3 trials. Here are the highlights from Nature:
At an extended 3.2-year median follow-up from a phase 1 trial of surgery, atezolizumab (PD-L1 inhibitory antibody), autogene cevumeran1 (individualized neoantigen vaccine with backbone-optimized uridine mRNA–lipoplex nanoparticles) and modified (m) FOLFIRINOX (chemotherapy) in patients with PDAC, we find that responders with vaccine-induced T cells (n = 8) have prolonged recurrence-free survival (RFS; median not reached) compared with non-responders without vaccine-induced T cells (n = 8; median RFS 13.4 months; P = 0.007).
Vaccines, how the fuck do they work…..
Open thread
UPDATE
Here is part of the acknowledgements section:
This work was supported in part by The Olayan Charitable Foundation and The Tow Foundation, and by a Stand Up to Cancer Convergence Award (to B.D.G. and V.P.B.), the NIH U01 CA224175 Pancreatic Cancer Microenvironment Network Cancer Moonshot Award (to V.P.B.), the Ben and Rose Cole Charitable PRIA Foundation (to V.P.B), the Mark Foundation ASPIRE Award (to B.D.G.), William H. Goodwin and Alice Goodwin and the Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research and The Center for Experimental Therapeutics at MSK (to V.P.B. and B.D.G.), the Center for Experimental Immuno-Oncology of MSK (to P.G.) and the American-Italian Cancer Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship (to M.M.). Services of the Integrated Genomics Core were funded by the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG, P30 CA08748), Cycle for Survival and the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology.
The NIH paid for a decent chunk of this work.
hitchhiker
Thank you for posting — saw that story the other day and just had to sit down.
Fantastic news, and good for them for seizing the chance to try.
Baud
We need to treat the real denial of vaccines the way they treat the imaginary denial of gas stoves.
Elizabelle
OMG, that would be amazing. Please let them have found a vaccine. Terrible disease.
TBone
Thank you for the charitable disclosure. This is big huge good news!
Derelict
I wonder if Bobby Brainworm will allow this to be approved if it makes it through trials?
Actually, I don’t wonder at all. I know he won’t.
TaMara
As someone with a strong family history of pancreatic cancer, this is indeed amazing news.
trnc
I would be happy to give Derek a few minutes to bask in this news before I tell him who now heads HHS.
WV Blondie
Two friends – husband and wife – died of pancreatic cancer about a decade ago, roughly two years apart. I cannot tell you how much this news means to me!
Grover Gardner
Amazing news. But I have to share in the fear that it won’t be available in the US…
JoyceH
“Met” a new name on Bluesky yesterday – I’d never heard of Dustin Moskowitz, turns out he’s a young billionaire who made his first bundle as one of the founders of Facebook. Anyway, what caught my attention was his skeet (is that what we’re calling them?) saying “the most surprising and disappointing aspect of becoming a global health philanthropist is the existence of an opposition team”. And added in next post “also that it is largely comprised of former friends of mine”.
John S.
Great news. Fuck cancer.
Doug
If this pans out, it’s a big Biden deal.
Baud
@JoyceH:
I’ll take him. I’m not allergic to billionaire allies.
Sister Golden Bear
My mother died of pancreatic cancer, so this is fantastic news — assuming it actually RFK Jr. allows to become available in the U.S.
Cheryl from Maryland
Thank you Joe Biden for reigniting the Cancer Moonshot Program in 2022.
Anonymous At Work
This isn’t a “wow” finding. This is, in my words, a “holy [effing] shit” finding. As in, this is beyond anyone’s hope.
West of the Cascades
Bills have been introduced this year in Idaho, Florida, and Montana to ban mRNA vaccines (the Montana one was defeated in the MT House last week by 66-34). Insane.
Gin & Tonic
My father died of pancreatic cancer over 40 years ago. When he was diagnosed, they said he had 8 weeks. Eight weeks later, to the day, he died. Not much has changed with the prognosis for patients in the intervening decades.
catclub
I think the graph says 100% of test and control groups start out cancer free after surgery, then the red line shows 75% still cancer free after 3.2 years.
RFS?
Kristine
I lost my dad to that disease.
This will be so marvelous if it continues to pan out.
Belafon
@Derelict: It does help men.
schrodingers_cat
@West of the Cascades: As a person of science, I don’t understand this rush to the Dark Ages.
artem1s
DoD has been funding MRNA research for 40+ years. NIH Cancer Moonshot funded by guess who?
Cancer Moon Shot
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: Control. You’re a lot easier to control if God is the only one that can save you.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Science = liberal thought process
Liberal thought process → Social equity
HopefullyNotcassandra
There are other similar cancer vaccines on the horizon
At least there were before the trumpettes slashed and burned medical research to the ground.
This is a big Biden deal and a big Obama deal. Almost positive, this success comes out of the changes made at NIH to incentivize vaccine development by President Obama, as well as the Biden cancer moonshot.
The gop chainsaw freaks also defunded the Alzheimer’s research at NIH. They did this even though this funding was brought to U.S. by a gop senator from Arkansas and had already developed significant breakthroughs in treating Parkinson’s
These days the grand old party is the party bringing suffering to everyone, everywhere all at once.
Ohio Mom
My mom died of pancreatic cancer too.
Most of the time there aren’t anything in the beginning stages except vague symptoms, like stomach upsets, because the pancreas is so far inside. By the time the tumor is large enough to be discovered, it’s already metastasized to other organs.
I remember my mom’s doctor saying, “This cancer does not respond well to chemo.” Which I immediately realized meant, “We don’t know how to treat this.” Anyway, this vaccine is fabulous news.
Fun fact: the BRCA genes which raise the chances of getting breast cancer, also make you more susceptible to ovarian, prostrate and pancreatic cancers (my mom did not have the gene).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@West of the Cascades:
Beyond the anti-science insanity, what gives these people the right to ban access to mRNA vaccines for the rest of us? It used to be the anti-vax movement wanted “freedom of choice” with vaccination
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Right wingers only preach about freedom because they want it for themselves when they’re out of power.
Ohio Mom
@West of the Cascades: Montana has a libertarian streak, as in You’re not the boss of me!
It’s being diluted by the wealthy outsiders moving in however.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Baud: Science is based in reality not alternative facts.
Ohio Mom
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I tried goggling but I’m too beat to slog through it all. I think it’s because they don’t understand science and are scared of what they don’t understand and they are lemmings, it’s cool in their social circles to be against vaccines.
In a way, they are right, there are powerful forces lined up against them. Those powerful forces are the Republicans, especially at the moment, the Trump/Musk/Vought trio.
Baud
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
It’s also subject to logical and evidentiary scrutiny. You’re not allowed to just declare things and have it be blindly accepted.
Can you imagine if Trump had to conform to that principle?
prostratedragon
“The NIH paid for a decent chunk of this work. ”
Not to mention the overhead on all grants, much of which helps keep places like MSK feasible as places where the work can be located.
Though still a small sample, this is very exciting news.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Culture war is bigger than you think.
Dorothy A. Winsor
This is just insane. Republicans die of pancreatic cancer too. Trump or Musk or any R member of congress could die of it, or their family members could. What’s in it for them to cut the research?
trollhattan
@Ohio Mom:
I have learned from watching various episodes of Yellowstone that the only threats to Montana come from California and New York.
Texas in particular are good buddies.
Creator dude has a few screws loose.
Eunicecycle
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): they never want freedom of choice for others, just themselves. Just like they are the only ones with freedom of speech without consequences.
Jeffro
Thank you, David! Much-needed spirit booster and reminder that humans – some of us, anyway – can do amazing things!
eclare
Amazing work. I am so thankful for everyone who will hopefully be helped by this.
lowtechcyclist
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
It is indeed. Just an incredible breakthrough if it holds up.
And Alzheimer’s too. Since dementia runs in my wife’s family, and my mother suffered from it for the last decade of her life, I’m pissed about this one. Apparently one of the ‘probationary’ people they fired was one of the top researchers in the field, who had only in the past year been convinced to join the CARD (cancer and related dementias) team at NIH, and was already making breakthroughs in early detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s.
Fuck the lot of them with that chainsaw that Musk was waving around.
Betty Cracker
@West of the Cascades: Absolutely insane. The sponsors of bills to ban mRNA vaccines should be hog-tied and sealed into metal 55-gallon drums along with a device blaring “Achy Breaky Heart” at full volume as well as a fart bomb and then dropped into the Mariana Trench. (Sorry, anglerfish!)
Geminid
Billy Carter, Jimmy Carter’s brother, died of pancreatic cancer at age 52. Sister Gloria Carter Spann died of the same disease at age 63 and their father, James Earl Carter died of pancreatic cancer at age 58.
My hypothesis: the Carters’ deaths resulted from exposure to agricultural pesticides, perhaps the gas used to fumigate the harvested peanuts in order to kill weevils and other pests.
cmorenc
@Ohio Mom: It makes no sense for anyone to call themselves libertarians (who should therefore be able to make vax or no-vac decisions for themselves) while attempting to prohibit others from making that decision about mnra vaxes.
trollhattan
Unrelated, getting a bad feeling the Hackman family deaths are no accident/ ghoulish coincidence.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Baud:
Yes. I can imagine it.
What a wonderful world it would be.
eclare
@Geminid:
I didn’t know that, interesting. Could be.
Baud
@trollhattan:
I know. Not looking good.
eclare
@trollhattan:
What?
Oh, just checked TMZ.
Jeffro
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
These people don’t think ANYTHING can touch them.
That’s why they’re so shook by that United HealthCare shooting.
Ohio Mom
@trollhattan: My source is my cousin, who married a man very committed to living in his home state. Their grown daughters have already escaped to the coasts, apparently no one shares Ben’s love of big sky country.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: Betty I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask for more details here ;)
LOLOLOL
trollhattan
@cmorenc: Doctrinaire capital L Libertarians want to eliminate government agencies, including HHS, NIH, etc. I suppose killing their projects in pursuit of that gummint-free shining house on a gummint-free hill is a necessary bycatch. Just a sea turtle in an ocean of delicious tuna.
The Free Markets©℗®™ are right behind, with guaranteed cures for everything.
At a price.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
@Eunicecycle:
Yeah, I get they’re hypocrites. I’m still floored there might not be a flu vaccine later this year, all thanks to good old RFK Jr. His father and uncle are spinning in their graves
glory b
Since this an open thread, I want to address the Connolly critique in John’s thread:
I’m a former federal employee and have 2 relatives currently working for the feds, one for the SEC and the other is a (Black!!!) air traffic controler.
They have households to maintain and mouths to feed. The one working for the SEC has just returned to work from a maternity leave a few weeks ago.
If I was either’s attorney, I’d tell them to prepare the email just in case, but follow their supervisor’s directions.
What did you want him to tell them? Something that would get them fired?
Black people have long looked to government jobs as a way to move into the middle class. I sometimes envy the ease with which white people (many of whom post on here!) mmove around in the private sector.
Failing to follow a directive is grounds for being denied unemployment.
Failure to follow a directive as a reason for being fired means the black applicant for the job doesn’t have to even be considered, who wants the angry, belligerent black guy anyway?
Can anybody think of the unpaid college loans too?
Some kind of soaring rhetoric would make you guys go “Hell Yeah!” until you found another reason to be mad at Jeffries again, in other words a few seconds.
Take a minute and think about who he’s talking to.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Why did the Catholic Church make Galileo recant?
Why did a mob tear Hypatia into pieces?
Why did Cotton Mather support the Salem witch hunt?
Fear and paranoia are my best guesses. I am open to other theories, or even better, solutions.
NetheadJay
Heard about this on one of my science podcasts yesterday. It is a very very cool development indeed. The guy who was on to talk about it was a bit of a tough interview in the beginning, but once he got going he and the host had a great discussion about the possible future prospects of this technology and te approach they’re using. Really interesting stuff.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Someone on Reddit said the industry can follow WHO recommendations so it might not be as bad.
glory b
@Jeffro: One more time, “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland” by Jonathan Metzl.
Now in an expanded and updated version.
Ohio Mom
@cmorenc: I’m attributing Montana’s House voting down the mRNA ban to their Libertarian streak.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@trollhattan:
Perhaps karma will have the last word. Alzheimer’s does not exempt the wealthy.
@lowtechcyclist:
catclub
Trump takes particular aim at anything that his predecessors might get credit for.
catclub
Yes. Ask your boss who is in my chain of command.
zhena gogolia
@glory b: I agree.
trollhattan
Hey, I hear a robin in the yard. First of the year. Spring!
H.E.Wolf
@glory b: I’ve begun reading this [ETA: Dying of Whiteness…], thanks to your recommendations. Much appreciated!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
I suspect you have a point there. They don’t know what they don’t know
@Martin:
I’m so sick of conservatives’ damn culture wars
glory b
@catclub: Exactly.
Geminid
@trollhattan: I smelled a skunk a couple evenings ago. That’s always a sign of Spring here, when the skunks wake up and start moving around.
Jeffro
@glory b: I’ll check it out!
“The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee is also good on this. Folks filling in their (relatively cheap, community-building) public pools once non-white folks were allowed to use them…then turning around and building their own private pools at great additional expense.
It’s weird how willing some folks are to sicken and bankrupt themselves, rather than change.
FastEdD
I lost my one and only Mom to pancreatic cancer, the inoperable kind. She lasted less than 6 months. Such an awful awful way to go. If they can get mRNA vaccines to work it would save so much suffering. From the comments here many of us have lost our loved ones to this scourge.
Barbara
@catclub: I read an article with more detail. About half of the patients receiving the vaccine respond, and 75% of those that do respond are alive after three years. The number of patients in the study was around 16, nonetheless, given how dire pancreatic cancer is that still counts as a robust response — 6/16 cancer free after three years. Phase 2 randomized trials are set to begin soon.
p.a
Great news. Lost a few friends to it. The men all got it in their 50s, never saw 60. The woman later.
Once again: why would a political movement that thinks the earth is 6,000 years old know, care, or understand science?
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Fabulous! I saw my first of the season last weekend.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@glory b:
So, I’m the one who brought up that critique of Connelly. I don’t necessarily blame federal employees for doing what they need to do to keep their jobs. I was critiquing Connelly’s response to a question he was asked by a CNN interviewer about Musk’s email demanding all federal employees detail their work from the prior week. Even with the added context of what he said after telling federal employees they should just answer the email, I felt he gave the wrong answer.
All he had to say was, “I hesitate to give personal advice”, like he began to answer, and then forcefully attack Musk’s demands as dangerous, illegal (if it is), cruel, and a pretext for more mass firings of dedicated civil servants with families whose terminations will result in real harm to Americans.
Connelly opened himself up to criticism by responding the way he did imo
Kelly
The slash and burn firings have begun at NOAA and it’s subsidiary NWS according to Daniel Swain. I use NWS website every day.
satby
The research isn’t going to stop, it will be taken up by researchers in other countries, to our country’s detriment in attracting top level scientists and having successful clinical trials and treatment breakthroughs. Medical tourism will be getting another boost.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
It often seems to be pancreatic cancer when we hear of someone who got diagnosed and then was gone within a couple of months. What an amazing accomplishment and what a difference it will make.
Jay
They had better get used to MRNA vaccines, eggs are too expensive to be used to grow live vaccines.
Ohio Mom
@Kelly: Oh. I check the Weather Channel’s hourly weather page every morning and today the page looked different. All of a sudden, they want my name and contact information. It must be related to the firings reaching the NWS and the NOAA.
TONYG
@Derelict: RFK Junior will reject approval of this vaccine and half the people in this idiot nation will think that that’s just fine.
piratedan
@Dorothy A. Winsor: sticking it to the libs, ‘natch
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Rep. Connolly opened himself up to criticism from emotionally needy Democrats, and from the many “influencers” out there who are trying to exploit that neediness.
apocalipstick
@cmorenc:
But you’re making them pay for the research, which is equal to chains and slavery.
Betty Cracker
@satby: O/T, but I thought of you earlier today when I opened a new packet of the tea-infused soap. Best soap ever! Thanks!
Kelly
@Ohio Mom: Probably not yet. There has been a long term effort by the oligarchs at Accuweather to ban the NWS from giving weather forecasts for free so they can sell the weather our satellite and weather station network generates. Outrageous rent seeking. I don’t know if Weather.com/Weather Channel are part of the grift, although I kinda expect they are.
lowtechcyclist
@glory b:
I just checked it out of the library. Looking forward to reading it.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I don’t agree that expecting pols’ public statements to better convey the urgency of the situation makes anyone an “emotionally needy Democrat.” But even if that were true, there seem to be a lot of Dems in that category. So responding to it might be good politics?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’m skeptical it’s possible to respond to it. People have their favorite politicians and others won’t live up to them in comparison.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Maybe I’m glad I don’t live in the Blue Ridge. That strikes me as an even less pleasurable sign of spring than this one.
Gretchen
A kidney cancer vaccine is also showing promise: https://hms.harvard.edu/news/kidney-cancer-vaccine-shows-promise-early-trial
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Maybe. I can only speak from my own experience. I like fire-breathers like Frost, AOC, Warren, Murphy, etc. But there are plenty of less high-profile Dems who hit topics like this out of the park on the regular. Tina Smith. Buttigieg. Walz. Pritzker. Etc.
lowtechcyclist
@p.a:
They ‘believe’ a lot of things, but don’t necessarily believe them, IOW act as if they’re true.
As an example, I give you the Endtime School of Christian Excellence. If we’re in the End Times, what’s the point of school?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
My guess is that Goku learned of this interview because people on social media decided that the one line that Goku didn’t like was something worth highlighting and decided to spread it around.
I enjoy fire-breathers too, but I don’t expect everyone to be equally good at it or to believe that’s the only productive thing they can do.
IMHO
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: I didn’t get a chance to catch you earlier, so hoping you’re still here.
I want to apologize for being a jerk towards you on a few occasions. I’ll try to be better.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: My counter to that description is that a lot of democrats want the game played according to rules long abandoned, rather than the rules as they exist. This isn’t a debate, it’s a brawl.
Ohio Mom
@Kelly: That’s our future, everything for sale, we pay for everything.
When I was growing up, I judged the weather by looking at the window, I guess I’ll go back to that. I rather liked this increase in my standard of living, being able to say, Better run my errands this morning, this afternoon it’s going to pour, or vice versa.
TONYG
@lowtechcyclist: “The Endtime School of Christian Excellence”. When there’s money to be made, that takes precedence over faith.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I suggest you read the responses from Glory B and Planet Janet in this and a previous thread, and the comment by Baud that gave a more extensive version of Rep. Connelly’s answer. They laid out the larger argument in Connolly’s favor.
Speaking for myself, I have not bought into arguments that “the base” is demanding a more performatively “bold” response from Democratic electeds. I have voted Democratic since 1972 and I am part of “the base,” and I’m not so critical as the others. Plenty of other people here think similarly.
But I’ll give the critics some credit for ingenuity. I saw video of protesters at Hakeem Jeffries’ Brooklyn office on Friday. One woman carried a sign that read:
Hakeem Jeffries had to elbow his way into New York City politics and does not need to learn from Game of Thrones.
Eorlin had a very good passage relating to this general question in the long comment that was front-paged yesterday. I’ll get to my notebook and a pen pretty soon, and then I’ll post an excerpt.
Jay
There are always suckers,
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/feb/27/fyre-festival-2-mexico
TONYG
@lowtechcyclist: Last month I was in Eastern Tennessee (long story) for about a week. Real deep rural white poverty. And a “Donald Trump Superstore” that was doing a thriving business. This is half of our fucking country.
HopefullyNotcassandra
Eolirin
@Geminid: I know this is entirely my fault for using something so divorced from an actual word, so I want to be clear I’m in no way offended, but it’s been very funny to see how many different ways people mispell my Nym.
Jay
“The Epstein Files” release went well,……………………………………..not
Wingnuttia heads are ‘sploding.
Geminid
@Eolirin: Sorry. I am not as attentive to detail as I could be. That is why I am an unreliable linker, and not that proficient a cook.
Eolirin
@Geminid: Again, not offended, we’re all good. :)
prostratedragon
@Geminid: Ah, yes, spring in Ann Arbor. I’ve long thought that there must a a funny story behind the UMich wolverine mascot.
Gretchen
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, they recruited the new director for the Alzheiemer’s center and it was a huge get for them – she’s hugely respected and a leading researcher.
The center is named for Roy Blunt, former GOP senator from Missouri. I called Josh Hawley’s office and asked if he had the respect for his former colleague to protect his legacy. It went to voicemail.
HopefullyNotcassandra
The Honorable Judge Alsup sitting in San Francisco found this earlier today
“OPM does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe,” to hire or fire any employees but its own
He granted a temporary restraining order directed to some Agencies ordering reinstatement of recently fired probationary employees. One of the Agencies involved is the department of defense.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/federal-worker-firings-illegal_n_67c0f9cbe4b01834869f0d79
Jeffro
@Jay: ??
I’m not seeing much about any release?
(or was that the point?)
Gretchen
@glory b: I read the original version, and agree that it’s an important book. Should I get the new version?
prostratedragon
@TONYG:
Logs, logs, lo-o-ogs!
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Jay: Except most flu vaccines including the one for bird flu are made using eggs, well technically fluid from chicken eggs
Bird flu is made using eggs, this has scientists worried
Jay
@Jeffro:
Pam Bondi gave a bunch of Reich Wing “influencers” a white binder labelled Epstein Files #1, in a photo op.
It’s basically everything released under Biden, with all the redactions still in place, and even a few more.
The GOP House Justice Committee released a “link” to a online file, that was just a rick roll to the song “Never Gonna Give You Up” .
Wingnuttia is going even more wingnut.
https://nitter.poast.org/search?f=tweets&q=Epstein+Files&since=&until=&near=
Jay
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
Yup, thus the joke about eggs being too expensive to use in vaccine research and production.
MNRA is our only hope.
Eolirin
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Now we get to see if the Supreme Court backs him up. But this kind of uncertainty and whiplash has to be hell on people’s lives.
HopefullyNotcassandra
Watch for information on that February 13, 2025 call.
Here is the American Federation of Government Employees statement on Judge Alsup’s TRO.
https://www.afge.org/publication/federal-court-finds-firing-of-probationary-federal-employees-illegal/
EthylEster
The Catalyst by Thomas Cech is a very readable account of the incredible RNA molecule
PZ Meyers has a ckcd cartoon about it today. but I guess there is no way to post it here.
and I can’t figure out how to get a link to the article with it.
Jay
@EthylEster:
https://xkcd.com/3056/
here you go.
Eolirin
Nm, beaten to it.
Glory b
@Jeffro: I’ve read that one too!
Really good.
Another Scott
@EthylEster:
XKCD #3056 – RNA.
:-)
[ too slow! ]
Best wishes,
Scott.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Eolirin:
I don’t think we should put our faith in that Court. Any group of jurists who cannot see the right to privacy stretching way back into the dark ages (long before King Alfred) is woefully ignorant, corrupt or purposefully destroying American jurisprudence IMH at the bar O.
(I think autocorrect just rendered Alfred as Arthur twice.)
Sometimes I think this bunch is so diabolical (and conversely also lazy since they never seem to attempt to try doing things morally or ethically first) that they cosplay sanity like Lucy with the football.
Eolirin
@HopefullyNotcassandra: I have no faith at all.
But sometimes they do the right thing because at least some of them still can play the long game in a way the rest of their party no longer seems capable of.
If they uphold this, it’ll be a good sign that they’re worried about consequences.
If they reverse it, things are going to get ugly, faster.
RileysEnabler
My wonderful Great Uncle died of pancreatic cancer, 8 months after diagnosis. I plan on asking his rethuglican-voting wife what she thinks of this marvelous advance, and if she thinks RFK is going to let it through trials.
Also, whoever posted that RFK looks like Microwaved Mel Gibson has me still giggling. Much needed laugh, thanks.
tobie
I don’t know if anyone has posted about this. Massive layoffs expected at Soc Sec. I don’t see how checks will go out on time.
Glory b
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Hasn’t that been done/said already?
Maybe there are employees who wanted a real answer, rather than just another diatribe, which, as many here have said, we’ve heard over and over and over again (no shade on those representatives, but maybe there’s other things that can be said too, stuff that might have real value for those frightened employees).
Cheaper than hiring a lawyer.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Eolirin: I hope they play the long game!
dww44
@Geminid: I believe his Mother died of breast cancer and his sister Ruth also died of pancreatic cancer. In a long CSpan 2006 interview Carter himself addressed this by saying that he was the only one in his family who never smoked. But I do feel there is merit to your supposition . Farmers here we’re not careful with fertilizers and chemicals in that era.
That’s a great interview btw, albeit quite long. What was impressive to me was how he confronted his much publicized “weaknesses” as President. He was not defensive and was just the honest, clear-spoken, moral and ethical person he always was. Such a contrast to Trump.
pluky
@catclub: Recurrence Free Survival
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: This is the passage from Eolirin’s long comment I referenced. It’s part of a much longer argument that covered a lot of ground. This stood out to me and I think it expresses a lot of what I was trying to tell Goku better (and less provocatively of course):
Again, this passage is part of a much longer comment that needs to be read as a whole to fully appreciate any one part.
@Geminid:
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I did read all of that. Ho-hum and whatever. I’m “the base” too. I have my opinions. Others have theirs. That’s okay.
dww44
@dww44: the Dec 2006 interview from his home in Plains. He defends his book “Peace not Apartheid”. Still Timely”.
Whereaway
Back to the original post,
I am both extremely happy and very pissed off with the news in this article.
Our family dentist of 25 years was forced to retire 6 months ago due to a diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I learned of his death from that disease today.
Fuck Cancer.
I am very happy that there looks like there may be more effective treatments for Pancreatic Cancer.
Just feeling the irony today
dww44
@Betty Cracker:I’m kinda with you BC on this, I saw Rachel’s interview with Hakeem and came away thinking he didn’t grasp the import of our present crisis. And I like Hakeem but almost everyone of Congressionsl Dems behaved as if it was Politics as usual until the base ,including me, started yelling that the times demanded more.
I’ve been voting Dem since 1962! The times do demand more right now.. We cannot survive Trump’s reign of terror for the next 3 years and 11 months without him being reined in.
EthylEster
@Jay: thank you. It never occurred to me to go to the source. Duh!
EthylEster
@Another Scott: it’s the thought that counts. Thanks.
laura
@Betty Cracker: new packet of the tea-infused soap.
Is that the sleepy time tea infused soap? I bought that lotion and it smells like amber and immediately reminds me of a very dear friend who smelled so good that getting a hug from her was like winning the lotto.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: But I’ve never claimed to represent “the base” and neither have you. I was talking about people I’ve seen berating elected Democrats, and claiming Party leaders– and at the Congressional.level they’re all Party leaders– are betraying “the base.”
One of my favorite variants is “Read the room!” like the louder part of the audience is the important part of the audience. I’m not saying you do this; I’m talking about others who have.
Eolirin
@dww44: Electoral politics, and democrats in congress, do not have the power to stop this, not in the time frames necessary to keep people like me alive, if they can accomplish it at all.
This is the core thing a lot of people are not grasping about this. If members of congress did what was really necessary right now, they would be arrested, because what is necessary right now is illegal.
All of the organizers of the civil rights movement, and most of it’s participants, faced arrest and violence. So did those in the labor movement. So did the rioters at Stonewall.
You cannot have a functional congressional caucus if your congressional leadership is all in jail or dead; they can’t be out in the streets the same way even if some congress people will still participate in protests.
Congressional leadership serves a different purpose than leading a popular resistance movement.
They shouldn’t be expected to be filling both roles
We need the equivalent of the civil rights movement leadership. We need people like John Lewis before he was congressman Lewis. We need MLKs. They have to exist externally to the structure of our elected officials and electoral politics. Without that there can’t be the necessary calls to civil disobedience.
The women’s march organizers might be good candidates for this kind of thing. Idk. It’s hard. Those movements took a very long time to build too. So the my peers not being dead thing probably isn’t achievable.
But Schumer and Jeffries have fundamentally different jobs.
Ramalama
@trollhattan: Taylor Sheridan (creator of Yellowstone) knows how to tell a good story for sure, but he’s such a goddamnt crybaby.
dww44
@Eolirin: Thanks for the response and your points are well taken. How do their roles ( Schumer and Jeffries) as leaders in Congress make them different from say an AOC, or a Raskin, or a Chris Murphy who’s out on the front lines loudly speaking the truth about the threats to our democracy?
Heck, the one thing that is obvious to all is that there are few norms left to defend. We tried that with Biden and his administration who thought they could return to a norms based governance. But their timidity about meting out real and timely accountability to Trump has helped to put us in the dire situation we now find ourselves.
Eolirin
@Eolirin: And actually, let me recount a story.
My congregation got Peter Yarrow, the Jewish member of the group Peter, Paul and Mary, to come out and do a concert as a fundraising event. And he’s going through his songs and talking about his life, and we get near the end he starts doing We Shall Overcome, and he has us get up and has us link arms and join in, and we, the audience, instinctively start to sway, and he stops.
And in the most gentle way possible asks us what the hell we think we’re doing, that this was a song sung in the face of violence, sung in memory of the brothers and sisters that they lost along the way, those who gave their lives to that struggle.
And then he started to sing again. And we all stood still, and when we joined back in it was with the solemness that we had disrespectfully lacked. And I understood in a way that I couldn’t possibly have prior to that just a fraction of the gravity of what going through that must have been like.
If Jim Crow is now a national problem this isn’t going to be solved with pretty speeches and congressional or even judicial actions. The cost of overcoming this will be paid for in blood and lives.
So if we’re going to question our congressional leadership taking the moment seriously, I’m going to ask if we are.
Eolirin
@dww44: What accountability can they mete out?
Schumer and Jeffries need to corral and provide cover for their members, so they’re responsible for a far more diverse set of people. Murphy, AoC and Raskin are all in safe seats. So are Schumer and Jeffries, sure, but what Murphy, AoC and Raskin aren’t that they are is responsible for making sure seats like Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez’s stay in Democratic hands so that Jeffries has a chance of becoming speaker.
Mike in Pasadena
Thanks for this post with good news. My paternal grandfather died of pancreatic cancer. From diagnosis of stage I pancreatic cancer to his death was 3 months.
dww44
@Eolirin: My problem with the type of Democrats you describe is that they come across as being afraid to be something other than a “politician” who’s so very careful trying not to offend anyone, a la an earlier era which just plain does not exist any more. We need some strong and fearless voices to lead us and meet the moment we are in.
Rachel Maddow is currently being as fearless weeknights on her show as I’ve ever seen her. I appreciate that. and, for my money, we need a lot more Democrats like Chris Murphy. He’s been fearless from the getgo. I really do like Jeffries and to a lesser extent, Schumer, but it seems they are first and foremost Congressional politicians who are far more comfortable in that role. That’s okay if they actually do recognize the “on the precipice” moment our country and democracy are in..,.like today the President of our country is meeting with the brave President of Ukraine to seal the deal on the former’s shakedown of the latter. I’m ashamed and disgusted.