Member Info for hold4results

Unfair and unwarranted.
I stand tall

Bah. Could be. Could be time to pull back from the brink and live!

I dun a lovely soliloquy already. And frankly no-one could do a better job of destroying our leaders than they are doing for themselves. Farewell, Mr Burns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

Never heard of it.

But yeah I reckon we can stop it progressing, and maybe we could even help reset innate immunity to deal with persistent virus. Maybe Faron's systemic inteferons might help too. Who knows until we bloody well trial it.

I think you'll find that the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford has already explained that Long Covid is all in the mind.

I would bear less of a grudge if he could accept and admit he was wrong. That would be fine. Science relies heavily on people updating their positions in the light of new evidence.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Incidentally, I very much like Harry and Meghan. Meghan is a strong woman and I admire her. Perhaps a slight tinge of Californian narcissism, but certainly far less so than the Piers Morgans of this world.

I wish them all the luck in the world against the Mail, which has wrought great darkness over this land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I91DJZKRxs

Fine, 2 and a quarter years. 26th July at 18:47. Close enough. Further refence in Aug of same year. If Gilead were up for it there was no bloody sign of it. I can liberally apply Hanlon's razor but let's not pretend the big corps haven't been cashing in at humanity's expense.

I still believe all that stuff, for some value of 'me', it's ingrained through heritage, possibly epigenetics etc. In my book one must at least attempt to hold a variety of models in one's noggin and interrogate the most useful at the appropriate time.

I am wholly opposed to told-you-sos but in the interests of credibility, IIRC (which I am sadly all too good at), I called for combination with remdes, 2 and half years ago, in this very place.

A friend who I hope won't mind me sharing has pointed out this: https://twitter.com/DrGrahamLJ/status/1578330519112421376

Now, I know we don't want to be alarmist. However, I would like to re-iterate that the urge to avoid alarmism and assume normality will prevail has been a distinct disadvantage in recent years. So - we don't have to panic, but we do have to take things seriously and adopt an appropriate amount of concern.

Thank you.

Depends, Lockie. At this point the best buy might be iodine pills and stocks of food and water.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3676691-us-purchases-290-million-of-drug-for-use-in-radiological-and-nuclear-emergencies/

If anyone wants me I'll be in the garden digging my bunker :)
Stupid bloody humans etc.

IMO there was not a plausible mechanism of action - I believe the antiviral properties were only shown in vitro at vastly higher concentrations than were achievable in patients.

IIRC 14% was still high in comparison with contemporary trials but the difference may have been geographic population.
Again IIRC the Merck P3 trial was conducted solely in South America.
Not for me to make any accusations but I never liked this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyclqo_AV2M
Goodnight

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/05/toxic-air-pollution-particles-found-in-lungs-and-brains-of-unborn-babies

Presumably this one? Maybe a slight exaggeration, but not far off the mark if it had been successful:
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/SNG/licence-deal-with-astrazeneca-shw6k334n7ajowu.html
Personally think it still will be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR4HjTH_fTM

One notes and welcomes renewed interest in early years interventions on the right, while questioning why the hell they cancelled SureStart.

One is delighted to see conservatives of conscience now making a stand. One hopes a once-great party can survive, and one day thrive again.

Humanity has degenerated into fear and hate before, and it has progressed beyond this before. I request a new age of enlightenment. Why not get on with it now, rather than destroying ourselves?

Humanity has produced such vast amounts of information that one can now generally find some 'evidence' to back up just about any position.
Therefore, if one wishes to strive for higher truth, one must seek out and consider conflicting positions and attempt to improve one's understanding.
One must be prepared to be wrong - a quality in short supply of late.

One personally finds that the greater truths tend to resonate loud and clear, like an enormous bell, whereas lies have a muffled, scratchy, tinny quality.

I am much in favour of healthy competition. Healthy competition is difficult in an environment where a few large players have such financial dominance that genuinely valuable innovation is quickly subsumed or suppressed. I am also in favour of healthy co-operation, which is arguably the quality that made human beings the dominant species on earth.

I believe that humanity thrives when both competition and co-operation are properly valued.
I am certain that balance will one day be restored. One hopes it is before humanity commits collective suicide.

I agree that executive pay has got out of hand, even amongst the most deserving. I would love to see the board buy some ridiculously undervalued shares. One can hope.
One also suggests that if we need money, we will get money.

To be, or not to be?
(Exit stage right).

One could point out that between 1947 and 1979, in the golden age of capitalism, the income of the bottom fifth of Americans rose by 122%.
Since the introduction of 'Reaganomics' in 1979 until 2009, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%, and the income of the other 99% stagnated.
This has only accelerated since.

Sadly, there are many poor deluded fools in that 1% and those who serve them seem who believe this is actually in their interests. It is not.
Their sums are all too simplistic and fail to account for externalities.

Some argue that this is the 'right order' of humanity, ordained by evolution. It is not.
It is the right order of unconscious animals. Human beings are almost all innately altruistic as long as their basic needs are met.
We are now in a situation where basic needs are not being met right across the spectrum, and that is very dangerous.

The Conservative party were highly successful in blaming Mr Brown for a global financial crisis caused by greedy, unregulated bankers mis-selling US sub-prime mortgages.
I believe Brown had many faults, but he arguably rescued the banking system - or at least kicked the can down the road.
I note that there is no suggestion that the right is to blame for the global pandemic, or for Putin's imperialist fantasies.
However, the current economic crisis in the UK is an own-goal of epic proportions. One ought not fight one's own central bank.

It is very wrong that people working very hard in essential jobs cannot earn enough money to meet their basic financial needs.
It is even wronger to pretend that cutting their benefits, in real terms, is morally justified.

Benefit fraud is a real problem. There are currently about 3,000 people in the DWP working on £1 billion of benefit fraud.
Tax fraud is a much bigger problem. There are currently about 300 people in HMRC working on about £70 billion of tax evasion.

One imagines the disparity is rather obvious. Global co-operation on tax havens is necessary, and is eminently achievable - just as has been achieved with big tech.

One also suspects that attempting a real terms benefits cut for the working poor while bribing unproductive pensioners will not stand in a nation as Great as Britannia.
So why make things worse? One fears that the corridors of power are infected with a strange sort of masochism.

I am putting this thread here. It may not be overly welcome and there are certainly places it would go down better, but why preach to the converted?
I like it here. If you don't like it, you can ignore it, or filter it, or argue with it, whatever. Free speech, innit.

'On the Nature of 'Reality''
or 'The Musings of an Amateur PPE Scholar'.

I believe that there are many realities and many truths.
Some individual, some shared, some conflicting and some even universal.
Some self-evident, and some quite difficult to access.

One can tolerate and respect people who hold very different positions, if honestly held.
However, one has very little time for those seeking to impose their beliefs on others by force, except in true self-defence or the defence of others.

For example, it is possible that Mrs Truss truly believes that far-right libertarianism is the path to growth.
I suspect her primary interest is power and she is willing to change her mind to serve it, but it may be a temporary truth or reality for her at the moment.
It is certainly an extreme minority pursuit without a democratic mandate, owing to systemic failure.
It also relies on various precepts that have been comprehensively debunked.
For example, the UK has long had among the most 'competitive' corporate tax rates in the developed world, but this has not delivered growth.
Whereas France, with much higher corporate tax rates, has approximately three times our inward foreign investment.

One could argue that in recent times truth has been heavily corrupted, exploiting base human prejudices, in-group preferences, and fear of 'other'.
Largely to serve the supposed interests of a small minority of inordinately wealthy, rather stupid people.
People of insatiable appetites and arrested emotional development, who would rather watch civilisation collapse than learn to share.
People who have great power - but no authority - and apparently cannot appreciate that they are hurting themselves.

There is no 'anti-growth coalition'. On the contrary - sustainable growth is the mission. There are valid forms of growth beyond economic concerns, but let's allow that economic growth is a Good and Necessary Thing.

'Twas right and natural to remove the mendacious buffoon, entertaining and well-meaning as he was and is.
'Twas wrong to allow a silly selectorate to choose his successor.

Mr Windsor has a right to privacy. Arguably more of a right than most public figures, since he never had a bloody choice in the matter. Though one suspects Mr Windsor would be amused.

Largely agree. It is notable that rates of hospitalisation were higher in the US home trial even though it was not targeted at all (I think just 18+?). Health inequality is much worse in the US and unfortunately right now the UK seems set on going down the same road :(

What we don't know yet is how the new 'convergent' immunity-evading variants will affect this.
There is potential for a major setback, possibly even to similar rates as at the start of the pandemic.

I also agree that mAbs have been very useful and hold lots of promise for all sorts of conditions.
However, given that they have all been knocked out fairly quickly by new variants, I would argue that refocusing on innate immunity makes very good sense.
Sadly I suspect flu could also evolve around many treatments with a single mechanism of action.
I believe there are some polyclonal antibodies that might do better against resistance developing.
I also believe that combination therapies should be urgently explored to avoid resistance developing.

To extend my analogy, it is much harder to lob a grenade over two or three separate walls than just one.

Re biomarkers for severe disease, I'm hopeful that work is being done urgently.
In a situation where hospitalisation rates do increase, I guess using age/comorbidity or other obvious factors for increased risk would be reasonable.