The updated vaccine will be the first COVID-19 shot to be distributed in the way most vaccines have in the past, prior to the pandemic, on the commercial market for around $120-$130 per dose, rather than purchased and provided for by the government. That means that pharmacies and doctors’ offices will purchase the vaccines at their own cost and get reimbursed for the shots. Most insurers, including Medicare and private companies, will continue to cover the vaccine, without co-pays, since it is recommended by the CDC.
So how did this go down anyway? First, I heard that Musk deactivated his already active satellites in the region and thus disrupted the attack. This article suggests that the satellites were not active in the region and Musk simply refused to activate them.
Which is true because those are very different scenarios. In one, he used his authority to disrupt one government's actions against another, thereby taking sides in the conflict. In the other, he refused to take an action that would help one side against the other, thereby refusing to take sides.
Knowing what I know of Musk, I'm currently assuming he is a Russian asset and helped them, but I'd like to know for sure.
Does anyone know if phenylephrine is otherwise harmless? If it's essentially harmless, and assuming all these various products have other ingredients that remain effective, then it seems to me that the easiest thing for the companies to do is to move phenylephrine from the "active ingredients" section to the "inactive ingredients" section.
It is harmless. But moving it to the inactive ingredients will still leave many of them without a decongestant and they’ll have to change all of their packaging/marketing. The other ingredients are usually for fever reduction or cough suppression. It would be a waste of their money to keep a useless ingredient.
Oh no, phenylephrine definitely has effects. It's just that decongestion isn't one of them. Intravenous phenylephrine is sometimes used in critical care hospital settings to deliberately raise a person's blood pressure:
An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration agreed unanimously on Tuesday that a common decongestant ingredient used in many over-the-counter cold medicines is ineffective.
The panel’s vote tees up a likely decision by the agency on whether to essentially ban the ingredient, phenylephrine, which would result in pulling products containing it from store shelves.
If the F.D.A. ordered their removal, a trade group warned that numerous popular products — including Tylenol, Mucinex and Benadryl cold and flu remedies — might become unavailable as companies race to reformulate them.
On Monday and Tuesday, the panel reviewed several existing studies and largely agreed that the research settled the question that the ingredient was useless and no better than a placebo.
Several advisers noted that patients taking the drug were merely delaying their journey to a useful remedy.
“I think we clearly have better options in the over-the-counter space to help our patients, and the studies do not support that this is an effective drug,” said Maria Coyle, the chairwoman of the panel and an associate professor of pharmacy at Ohio State University.
Why It Matters: These Are Popular Staples of the Medicine Cabinet.
Every cold and flu season, millions of Americans reach for these products, some over decades. The decongestant is in at least 250 products that were worth nearly $1.8 billion in sales last year, according to an agency presentation. Among the products: Sudafed Sinus Congestion, Tylenol Cold & Flu Severe, NyQuil Severe Cold & Flu, Theraflu Severe Cold Relief, Mucinex Sinus Max and others.
The ingredient has long been considered safe and effective under an old, outdated agency standard, and the F.D.A. still says that it is safe.
Many remedies that do include phenylephrine also contain other, more effective medicines as well.
And medications that are considered effective for sinus and nasal congestion do still include nasal sprays with phenylephrine, like Afrin, or oral pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, or nasal steroids, such as Flonase.
Many popular cold and flu products that don’t specifically target congestion do not include the ingredient.
And it is still widely considered effective when it is used in surgery and to dilate the eyes. It is destroyed in the gut, though, scientists have concluded.
If the agency decides the decongestant should be eliminated from products, it could significantly disrupt the market for the makers of cold medicines if they do not have enough time to replace it in popular items.
What’s more: It could possibly renew widespread use of an alternative, pseudoephedrine, which was placed behind store counters or in locked cabinets because it was often used in illicit meth labs.
Dr. Hendeles, now an emeritus professor, said in an interview on Tuesday that he had been evaluating the ingredient since 1993.
“The bottom line is quality research has told the true story about phenylephrine,” he said.
The F.D.A. has formally now concluded that phenylephrine, when taken orally, is “not effective as a nasal decongestant.”
For consumers, the potential benefits of ending use of the ingredient, the agency suggested, would include avoiding unnecessary costs or delays in care by “taking a drug that has no benefit.”
Huh, really goes to show how insulary our social circles can be. I struggle think of a time anyone I know has ever bought a Twinkies, let alone its ownership would sell for a hotly-contended 5.6 billion.
Good, get your leisure while you’re young and have your life ahead of you.
This whole “sell your body back to society and then maybe you’ll get some free time in your old age where you can no longer do much” is such a sick sad joke.
As someone who became disabled in their early 30s, I wish more people understood this.
Don't wait to live your life. You never know if you'll be able to later. I am endlessly grateful for my younger self traveling while I was still able to do so, even if I was broke.
Quick! Build walls around Italy and establish guard posts demanding visa/passports to all living beings trying to cross the border in order to stop immigration…
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
It makes me upset when people forget what it means to be an American.
Good stuff in the UK the NHS is only offering Covid boosters to those in front-line medicine/caring and the over 65s. In that context 50% of the US population planning to get jabbed sounds (literally) quite healthy
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