Covid
We haven't been addressing disease numbers lately since everyone has seemingly grown numb to them. Quick summary: Seven months in, 700 Americans dying and 50,000 newly documented infections every day. Just an epically tragic failure by virtually all levels of government.
Fresh Icebergs
In response to the assertion by a famous person that insulin is "like water" in America, RAND corporation released a report showing that at $98.70 (per whatever unit they measured), insulin is eight times more expensive in the US than in comparably developed countries. Maybe that famous person meant arctic iceberg water, available now for only $106 per liter. (Gotcha - we already bought it all. Best bath ever.)
This price comparison RAND did was based off manufacturer prices, which is not the price that ever gets paid. That's because in the US we have a mystically byzantine drug distribution system involving middlemen, rebates, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance systems and likely some demons and ghouls. Trying to directly compare anything in our health system to that of any other developed nation is like trying to compare the length of a string tied into a ball of 79 knots with a freely dangling one.
If you were able to untangle the healthcare knots, rest assured, you would find that in America we pay more for insulin just like we do for every other drug. But we'll also probably get first access to all the Covid treatments, so there's the upside.
It's Alive!
Josiah Zayner
The most prominent DIY-biohacker has accepted that Covid vaccine development is a difficult process that can't be accomplished out of your garage. He is moving on to the production of fake chicken.
F you, pay me
A Harvard professor who (allegedly!) violated federal law by not disclosing, and also actively lying about his income from the Chinese government whilst receiving $15M in US government funds, is being prosecuted. The news on this is he now claims Harvard should actually be paying his legal bills. Pretty sure violating federal law is also a violation of University policy, but that's for the courts to decide. We still have courts, right?
Storm Watching Website
At BioPharmGuy we love seeing simple things on the web. As years go by websites add more bells and whistles - just give us what we want (like, say, a simple list of companies). Here we have a collection of radar images, storm routes, etc. to enable you to easily track current hurricanes from Africa all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Pretty cool.
