Category Archives: science

Draining the Swamp

1 Reply

Everyone by now has heard this phrase popularized most recently by Donald Trump when running for president. This post is not about Trump, however. It’s about that swamp. The “swamp” that so many Americans, out of ignorance, love to hate.

You likely wouldn’t recognize the denizens of the swamp if you passed them on the street. With very few exceptions, they’re not Hollywood material and don’t appear in movies or television. But if you’re alive and reading this, it’s likely due to their work, the work that goes largely unrecognized outside the government itself.

Unknown most likely to most of the country, the extraordinary work of federal employees is recognized annually by the Partnership for Public Service with the presentation of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals. Mr. Heyman was the founder of the Partnership. In keeping with America’s attachment to award presentations, the “Sammies” are delivered in a black-tie award dinner every year in Washington (virtually during pandemics), much like the Oscars – with award announcements by notable presenters, acceptance speeches and all the rest. But, thankfully, there are no musical numbers or unpleasant comedians running the show.

No, the Sammy awards are serious business, although the dinner, rightly so, can be something of an extravaganza. https://servicetoamericamedals.org/about/ For the most part, it’s an inside-the-Beltway thing, but it shouldn’t be. The contributions these people make to the country and the world deserve national public recognition far more than the “award” shows watched by millions and scorned annually by many. The Sammies are cut from different cloth and it’s a shame that they are not recognized for the ways these people contribute to the progress of our lives.

I was moved to produce this post by the 2021 award for Federal Employee of the Year, shared by two swamp workers to whom you likely owe your life and that of your loved ones, at least if you are vaccinated. The awards went to Kizzmekia S. Corbett, Ph.D. And Barney S. Graham, M.D., Ph.D. As explained in more detail in the video at https://bit.ly/3Dekht8, they essentially created the COVID-19 vaccine that has, literally, saved millions of lives around the world.

For the full list of current and past winners/finalists, see https://bit.ly/3FgoDAm. Pay particular attention to the Finalists.  Their contributions to public life are beyond exceptional in fields so rich with talent and desire to serve that they were recognized but did not “win.” The real winners, of course, are the American public and in many cases people and ecosystems around the world.

So, the next time you hear someone put down those “federal bureaucrats,” remember the Sammies and the people who earned them. You owe them much more than clichéd derogatory labels.

Dear Mayor Bowser

Leave a reply

I am inspired to publish this now because I received your News message of October 15 entitled Accelerating Roadway Safety Projects. You stated a planned “acceleration of roadway safety improvements across DC,” driven by a wave of “traffic violence.” One of the primary solutions was the reduction of the default speed limit to 20 mph, although you recognized that speed is not the only problem – it’s also “distracted driving or a refusal to share the road.” Indeed.

One of the major “solutions” proposed is your request to DDOT “to move forward with a campaign to accelerate the construction of roadway safety improvement projects that will better protect pedestrians. This includes the installation of speed humps, stop signs, and right turn hardening measures. Starting this week, and continuing annually, DDOT will target 100 intersections that are within the District’s high-crash, high-injury corridors.”

Before going further, I suggest that solving the “traffic violence” problem is not achievable by placing obstacles in the path of already frustrated drivers. Speed humps may slow a car temporarily but if they lead to rapid acceleration after driving over one, the purpose seems defeated. Similarly, stop signs work if drivers stop and look before proceeding. If not, they can create more of a hazard as people in a hurry run through them. This happens every day all over the city.

While it may appear otherwise initially, rest assured that I am on your side. You have a difficult job for reasons too well known to reiterate here. Take what I offer as a good faith effort to help. As background, I moved to the District in December 2020, following three years in New York City. Before that, I lived in Northern Virginia (Falls Church, Reston, Alexandria) beginning in 1967, so I am no stranger to this area.

It is useful to begin with consideration of some general principles. The government is essentially a joint effort, funded with community money, to establish some rules within which a civilized society can function safely and fairly. This includes rules designed to establish order in what would otherwise be a chaotic, every-person-for-himself madhouse with high risks for everyone. Without such rules, the situation would resemble the Tragedy of the Commons in which each person would act in a manner designed to benefit him alone even though the result is destruction of the common good and losses for everyone. Today, DC roads resemble the Tragedy of the Commons because gross and serious violations of the laws, rules-of-the-road and common sense are rampant.

To be clear, I am not referring to “law and order” in the Republican/Tea Party/right-wing sense of the term, nor do I want to live in a “police state.”  The goal is a regime that, with reasonable compliance, benefits everyone – drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians. Everyone enjoys the benefits of more order, smoother traffic flow, less stress and more safety. There is an irreducible minimum of order that must be maintained to prevent chaos and avoidable harms.  DC appears to be well beyond that threshold.

For context, most days I drive two roundtrips from the West End (Washington Circle area) to the east end of town (10th & K), using L Street and returning west on I Street. When the traffic is unusually slow on I Street, I often move up to K Street for the return leg. Total roundtrip distance is exactly 4.1 miles. What occurs around me almost every day borders on unbelievable but it’s all true. A very select example includes:

Just this morning, we were confronted by a car traveling the wrong way on a one-way street (11th Street NW). The driver just kept coming, veering away at the last minute and turning the corner behind us. He was either completely oblivious or determined to place himself and us at risk to avoid turning around and driving in the proper direction.

Later, as I sat waiting for the light to change at Pennsylvania and 25th Street NW, two people, at least in their 30s, walked across Pennsylvania in reliance on the “walk” sign that was clearly lit. A car headed east on Pennsylvania ran the red lights facing west, passing between the pedestrians. Apparently, neither of them was aware of the danger – each had his nose buried in a cell phone and never looked up as the car raced between them.

A white Range Rover on K Street going west abruptly moved into the right lane in front of me with no signal, then a few blocks later, drove through a red light, turned left in front of the cars in the left lane and continued down the cross street, thereby also illegally crossing the service road on the other side.

A red truck in Washington Circle stopped at a red light, then drove thru it.

A driver ran three red lights in rapid succession in Dupont Circle.

It is routine to encounter drivers on M Street in Georgetown going 40 mph and more with impunity.

Illegal parking during rush hours is rampant. By taking up what would be traffic lanes, these parkers restrict the driving space for cars, leading to congestion, anxiety and angry, reckless driving behavior. Many sections of L Street are down to one lane in many places due to rush hour parking on sections already narrowed by construction sites. Many days a week the van in the photo below is illegally parked during evening rush in front of 1100 L Street NW:

Speaking of narrowed streets, the decision to block the left lane of the L Street/20th Street corner with pylons while allowing parking along the right side has reduced L Street at that intersection to one lane.

The result is that many drivers are surprised to find the left lane blocked and struggle at the last moment to enter the traffic flow in the one remaining lane of traffic. Conflict!

Worse yet, the complexity of the pylon arrangement misleads many drivers who then make a left turn from the remaining traffic lane, crossing the bike lane and the actual left turn lane, defeating the purpose of the pylon arrangement to provide additional protection to bicyclists.

The apparent absence of law enforcement in the city has led to other dangerous practices:

Pedestrians routinely slow-walking through intersections with nose buried in can’t-wait-to-be- read cell phone messages

Scooters/motorcyclists/bicyclists lane-splitting among cars in traffic lanes, zigzagging among the cars to get ahead

Scooters suddenly flying off the sidewalk at intersections to enter traffic

Red-light violations everywhere – by cars, trucks and bicyclists – often without even showing down

Left turns on K Street across multiple traffic lanes to enter the service road going the opposite way, in effect a risky U-turn, causing much sudden lane shifting

Turning from the wrong lane, usually with no signal – failure to use turn signals is rampant everywhere

The city’s installation of bus-only lanes, sometimes changing every block or two, has created additional parking space for trucks and cars alike. Buses for which the lanes were intended are forced to veer into car traffic lanes to get back. There is no apparent enforcement.

The most egregious and often-repeated violations of good driving practices are (1) failing to use the turn signal to indicate lane-changes/turns on the streets and in the roundabouts, and (2) turning from the center lane in either direction across the actual turning lane. These happen every day on my short roundtrip.

Then there is the matter of noise. As noted, I have lived in New York City and am no stranger to the realities of compacted urban living. There is, however, a difference between the unavoidable sounds of a city, cars and buses, aircraft overhead, etc. and the entirely preventable racket made by people who get some bizarre satisfaction from drawing attention to themselves by making unnecessary noise. These include motorcycles with punched-out mufflers, or no real mufflers at all, and cars with mufflers designed to make huge bursts of sound during acceleration and braking. These cars often display spoilers on the trunk and are in the style of “muscle cars.” The drivers who race the engines in traffic, do high-rpm “jack rabbit” starts and engine-assisted stops are trying to draw attention and they do, along with a large dose of irritation at the unnecessary noise they produce. Their behavior screams “look at me, look at me!” It is irritating and distracting.

The city has, apparently, determined to address these issues by trying to force traffic to slow down, as noted in the Mayor’s news message above. Reducing speed limits may seem an easy and appropriate defense, but speed limits that are too low likely cause more problems than they solve. Take a drive on the 40 mph GW Parkway, for example. Anyone trying to comply with that speed limit on the four-lane divided road will find other drivers speeding around them, frequently showing anger, impatience and dangerous driving. Average actual speeds in those areas are vastly higher whenever traffic volume permits and often even when it doesn’t.

It seems most drivers most of the time assess the risk of getting a ticket or being involved in or causing an accident as vastly lower than the costs of being a few minutes later at their destination. There is little question that this happens on DC streets every day all day everywhere. My casual but repeated observation of DC driving behavior suggests a widespread belief among drivers that there simply are no meaningful constraints on their behavior – no laws, no rules, no risk of being caught while endangering others.

Studies in the Netherlands support the idea that higher speeds, both generally and in relation to other cars, produce more crashes with greater damage to drivers and others affected. https://www.littlerock.gov/media/2484/the-relation-between-speed-and-crashes.pdf [the Institute for Road Safety Research] But US studies suggest that may not be the whole story and that “posted limits are not the cause of auto accidents – reckless driving is.” https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/the-effects-that-speed-limits-have-on-auto-accidents-30226

The last cited article states that

A method known as the “85th percentile” is used by traffic engineers to establish speed limits. This tactic operates under the assumption that most drivers will travel at a speed that is reasonable, sensible and comfortable to them on any given roadway, regardless of the posted limit. Speed limits are set at a number that separates the bottom 85% from the top 15%. For example, if the speeds of 100 vehicles are measured and 85 vehicles are traveling at 37 mph or less, the speed limit for the road could be set at 35 mph. [emphasis added]

A California study,

showed that higher speed limits set in 1995 and 1996 did not increase the rate of fatal or injury traffic crashes. In fact, actual travel speeds on roads with increased speed limits barely changed. People were already traveling faster than previous speed limits, and once speed limits were altered they generally did not speed faster than their comfort zone…. Although findings across the country are conflicting, they have shown that drivers are by-and-large practical and cautious. In essence, posted limits are not the cause of auto accidents – reckless driving is. [emphasis added]

At the risk of exposing my confirmation bias, those US observations are consistent with my day-to-day experience in DC. Lowering speed limits to levels that most drivers will find unreasonably constraining and putting speed bumps and stop signs in more places, will not change that. Such policies simply make more people into scofflaws, but they won’t likely change outcomes much if at all.

What then to do?

First, identify some of the main drivers of the problem and put resources against them. These would certainly include illegal parking in rush hour and in places where such parking materially increases congestion and conflict. The return on investment to DC from a well-managed team of “meter monitors would likely be very high.

Second, hire, train and deploy small teams to monitor driver behavior on problematic streets and intersections. Take videos of excessively dangerous practices and have another team member stop the car and issue tickets. This is not much more complicated than fielding teams of police to use radar and then flag down speeders. Observation of vehicles in the “circles” alone would likely more than pay for the costs of the teams.

Third, use the email addresses of DC-licensed drivers to remind them of certain rules-of-the-road. Explain in stark terms that certain behaviors will no longer be tolerated and that if stopped after being notified, the consequences will be serious.

I do not suggest these steps will solve all the problems. Even a 25 percent reduction in aberrant driving would be a worthy achievement and city revenues would increase significantly.

As for noise, the solutions are similar. There is no reason that the city should put up with people who deliberately make noise just to attract attention. Horn honking by automobiles (and frequently by impatient bus drivers) should be outlawed unless essential in an emergency. You get what you tolerate. DC has a Noise Ordinance.

Section 20-2700 of the DC Municipal Regulations states,

It is the declared public policy of the District that every person is entitled to ambient noise levels that are not detrimental to life to life, health, and enjoyment of his or her property. It is hereby declared that excessive or unnecessary noises within the District are a menace to the welfare and prosperity of the residents and businesses of the District. It is the declared public policy of the District to reduce the ambient noise level in the District to promote public health, safety, welfare, and the peace and quiet of the inhabitants of the District, and to facilitate the enjoyment of the natural attraction of the District.

This regulation reflects a serious quality-of-life problem in the city. Enforce it.

The cars in question usually are Mustangs or sports cars/muscle cars that look like them, often fitted with a rear spoiler. The noise they emit is usually coincident with moving at high speed through crowded streets in places like Georgetown’s M Street and less-crowded (at least now) thoroughfares like Pennsylvania Avenue. Even casual observation by enforcement would readily identify locations where deliberate noise violations, and often related dangerous driving, occur daily. This past Sunday I observed a motorcyclist riding twice through the same Georgetown neighborhood gunning his unmuffled engine for no purpose other than making noise.

In addition to the obvious benefits to safety and good order, active enforcement of traffic safety and noise control would also benefit the city’s finances. The cost of a reasonably trained force of meter monitors, traffic monitoring teams (all of whom do not have to be police officers) focused on serious violations and repeated noise ordinance violations would contribute significant revenue to fund the city’s other obligations. Everyone wins.

 

 

 

More Than the Heart Can Bear

2 Replies

Early last evening we visited the Washington Monument grounds to see the acres and acres of white flags that have been placed there by artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg to memorialize the more than 670,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19. The display of flags is called America Remember. It has received little attention from media.

Stunning in scale, the flags cut into you, especially, I suspect if, like us, you have lost a loved one to the virus. Some who visited have penned notes on the flags, expressing their grief.

The setting is surreal, watched over by the Washington Monument. It can be seen from the White House. It is overwhelming. You have to see it, to walk among the endless row upon row of white symbols of death, of loss, of pointless tragedy. For those who can’t do so in person, I hope these photographs will suffice at least for now. There are no words.

 

 

Religious Exemption – What Religious Exemption?

1 Reply

I keep hearing about people claiming they have a religious objection to (1) wearing a mask and/or (2) getting a COVID vaccination. I have asked the Twitterverse to identify the religion that contains such prohibitions in its doctrine, so far without response.

To be clear, I am not writing this to belittle anyone’s religious faith. I write to raise the highly relevant question in the pandemic of what exactly qualifies as a valid “religious exemption” to masking and/or vaccination.

My thesis is that (1) the sudden discovery during the pandemic of one’s “religious doctrine” is just too convenient and is not a valid claim; (2) to make a valid religious exemption claim, at least two things must be demonstrated: (a) an established discoverable documented statement of clear doctrine opposing the use of masks/vaccinations to prevent/limit disease on the basis of an identified moral/ethical code, and (2) evidence that the claimant has in actual fact practiced the doctrines of the asserted religious for an extended period prior to the pandemic.

Point (1) should not be that hard. Established religions that have such doctrines can be expected to have produced writings/speeches/published practice directives that make these assertions and tie them to some “higher power” ethical controlling principles. I am not aware that such religions exist. Christian Science may be one, though I am not clear that it actually rejects vaccination conceptually. But I am not an expert on religions and there may be others. Waiting.

Point (2) may be much harder for many people. I do not accept that a person may make a valid religious exemption claim if they suddenly discover that their “religion” has some doctrine that may be used as an exemption support, and they then decide to assert it when the reality is that they never followed the doctrine before.

I am astonished and perplexed to learn that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission has adopted as policy in its Compliance Manual on Religious Discrimination the “principle” that in practice means a religious exemption is in most cases whatever the person says it is, regardless of past practice of adherence or any other considerations. I am not going to elaborate on my judgment of that – if you’re interested, you can find the details here: https://bit.ly/3yUWlIh I do believe it is conceptually and otherwise preposterous.

But that such muddled thinking is part of government policy, at least in one domain, it is small wonder that people are using religious exemption claims to cover their political or merely ignorant resistance to public health measures that have been shown to limit COVID infection spread. The resisters – the anti-makers and anti-vaxxers – are not only dying at much higher rates than the vaccinated, but they are facilitating the “evolution” of the virus into more virulent strains, such as the Delta Variant that is ravaging the country now. Breakthrough infections, with sometimes deadly outcomes, are increasing also. This is virtually certain to result from vast numbers of unvaccinated people walking among us.

My limited understanding of religion is that any legitimate one has an ethical/moral foundation of principles to live by. Whether it’s one deity or many, a set of principles to live by is the central idea. If so, I can’t help wondering what foundation of ethical/moral principles the people who suddenly found religion think they are asserting. Their new “religion” has the effect of exposing themselves and, worse, others to a deadly disease. What principle of ethics/morality justifies that? How do they square their supposed adherence to a set of ethical/moral principles while basically lying about their “sincerely held religious beliefs?”

The Road Not Taken

2 Replies

Kudos to President Biden for taking the hard but right path to restoring the physical and economic health of the country. Shame on those who continue to harp on the ignorant and irrationally resistant themes of “my rights” at the expense of the health and welfare of others. ENOUGH!

We’re at the fork in the road. Nothing short of a full-on frontal attack on the virus is going to get us out of this mess. The great American poet Robert Frost captured the idea in his famous poem, The Road Not Taken:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Biden has taken the road that many politicians would eschew – the one that will, and has, inevitably create another furor. Rather than the “safe path,” Biden has shown the courage of a leader by doing the right thing rather than the safe or easy route. You can hide from destiny only so long, as this great story reminds us:

A merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the market.
The servant returned, trembling and frightened. The
servant told the merchant, “I was jostled in the market,
turned around, and saw Death.

“Death made a threatening gesture, and I fled in terror.
May I please borrow your horse? I can leave Baghdad
and ride to Samarra, where Death will not find me.”

The master lent his horse to the servant, who rode away,
to Samarra.

Later the merchant went to the market, and saw Death in
the crowd. “Why did you threaten my servant?” He asked.

Death replied, “I did not threaten your servant. It was
merely that I was surprised to see him here in Baghdad,
for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra. 

The choice we face now, that we must face, is between aggressively striking at the virus with all the tools at our disposal or continuing to beg the irrational and uninformed to do the right thing. The former has a chance to stop the pandemic, to take advantage of the astonishing opportunity that the rapid deployment of vaccines has provided. The latter approach has virtually certain terrible consequences: more illness, more death, more permanently damaged bodies.

The reality is that the vaccines are safe and effective. The reality is that the rapid spread of the Delta variant has again overwhelmed the nation’s medical capabilities. COVID infections that are mainly in unvaccinated individuals are denying needed medical services for people with other medical conditions.

I have read some of the insane rantings of primarily right-wing and libertarian “authorities” who claim to have inside knowledge that the virus was released deliberately by agents of the federal government who are cashing in on the vaccines. These people claim that the vaccines contain various poisons, microchips and who knows what else.

It seems that one can always find someone who claims to have the inside track on awful secrets and conspiracies that are constantly being plotted against the rest of humanity. These sometimes include people with “medical credentials,” but often they are former workers in the pharmaceutical industry who are certain that they have inside information to expose the crimes being perpetrated in the name of … whatever. They readily accept the plausibility of conspiracies involving many thousands of people around the globe, no one willing to spill the beans, all in the name of “follow the money” or some other cliché that substitutes for actual thought.

We see this same theme played out in science fiction movies and what I call “caper movies” in which bad guys pull off, at least temporarily, extraordinary schemes to steal, blow up, capture huge sums of money, power over the world, etc. Movies like Air Force One, Die Hard and so many others. I have struggled through a few episodes of a TV series called Eureka that is loaded with utterly implausible, preposterous concepts and science-like doublespeak and gibberish. Some people apparently take such stories to be true. It’s an easy shift from one phantasmagorical storyline to another. Harry Potter is real, flying broomsticks and all.

Reality is more mundane. Two kinds of sickness pervade the country. One is the COVID-19 virus. We’ve learned a lot about it and about how to prevent its worst manifestations. Vaccines, masks, social distancing – that’s pretty much the essence. Study after study confirms the validity of these measures, if, at least, they are applied broadly and consistently.

But it’s damned inconvenient and mighty annoying. COVID has shuttered many businesses, interfered with our fun and instilled a deep-seated fear in many people that they and their loved ones, including children for whom they are responsible, are being exposed to an invisible, highly transmissible and deadly disease. More than 648,000 dead from a disease that our former president assured us would “soon disappear like magic.” Damned annoying.

The other sickness is the resistance to the solution. We know what to do but for many Americans, the disease isn’t the real enemy. The real enemy is the government. Many people appear to believe the government unleashed the virus. Why would the government do that? Did the government want to destroy the economy? Weaken our national defenses? Reduce the population? End civilization? Apparently, many believe so.

Logic and reason have little to do with this mindset. It’s analogous to those who argue that the January 6 insurrection was actually the work of the winners of the election who wanted to stop the certification of their win so that the loser, whom they hate, would be installed as the winner. That make sense to you? If so, take two giant steps to the right.

Along comes the new president who starts an unprecedented and initially successful campaign to deliver life-saving and pandemic-ending medicine into tens of millions of citizens without any meaningful adverse consequences and at no cost. And yes, yes, I understand we can’t prove that ten years from now there won’t be some inexplicable adverse outcome for somebody. There is no scientific or medical reason to suspect that could or would happen, but we can’t predict the future with 100% certainty, so ….

But, you know, in the long run we’re all dead anyway. In the meantime, we can return to “normal life.” All we have to do is get vaccinated and comply with a few annoying but otherwise trivial practices a while longer with a few minimal restrictions on our behavior.

But, no, this is apparently asking too much for millions of Americans. They have their “rights” to protect, regardless of the consequences. “Freedom” is their watchword. Don’t tell me what to do even if it’s for my own good. Sounds like a teenager who thinks he knows everything already and is invulnerable. Or the guy with the boat who insists on going out in the hurricane because he can “handle anything.”

Many of these people end up in the ICU, begging for the vaccine, only to be told by doctors, “it’s too late for you. You should have taken the vaccine earlier. It can’t help you now. Nothing can help you now.”

The solution is in our hands, if only our minds will allow us to see it. I despair of it, after engaging yet another person who on first encounter seemed reasonable and thoughtful, but then insisted “we are being lied to” and that the vaccines contain deadly poisons that make them magnetic. She argued with me that the vaccination program was unnecessary because “natural immunity” was superior protection to the vaccines and lasted longer. How she knows this: read on the internet.

I end where I began. History will record that Joe Biden acted justly and rightly in ordering mandatory vaccination programs, with, in most cases, very generous opt-outs for people with true medical conflicts and genuine religious objections (I don’t know what religion that is, but the exemptions are available).

I find some inspiration in these closing words from Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

Texas, the Handmaid State

3 Replies

Texas, through its legislature, has now made unmistakably clear that women are not equal to men. It is no exaggeration to say that Texas has moved from being the Lone Star State to being the Handmaid State. The reference, for the small number of people who don’t know, is to The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood in which women in a theocratic authoritarian society are forced into what amounts to sexual slavery for the benefit of the men who run the country.

The headlines about the adoption of SB 8 by Texas are still fresh and resonating around the country and the world. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to enjoin the enforcement of the law while its constitutionality is considered on the merits. Thus, Texas, proud Texas, has become the leader in subordination of women. Through the back door in Texas, a Republican (53%)/male (73%)/aged (67% over 49/14% over 69)-dominated state legislature has introduced a version of Sharia Law to the United States.

There are, of course, significant reasons to believe that SB 8 is unconstitutional under both the Texas Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. Whether Texas likes it or not, the established federal constitutional principles of the Fourteenth Amendment “equal protection of the laws” and “due process” still apply to the states:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The dissenting opinions in the Supreme Court’s astonishing back-handed approval of the Texas maneuver say as much. If the Court’s current view of the law stands, states will be encouraged to adopt similar laws on other subjects, insulating such laws from judicial review. That, as with the current case, is simply unsustainable and would undermine the separation of powers, among other things.

It’s important to understand that Texas thinks it’s been very clever in crafting this statute so that it will escape meaningful judicial review on the merits. It had the audacity to represent to the Supreme Court that it was entirely realistic to believe that the entire elaborate text of SB 8 would have been enacted but that no one would take up the opportunity to earn a quick $10,000 (the minimum statutory damages). In perhaps the most ridiculous legal position I have seen in years, the Texas Attorney General told the Supreme Court, “This Court cannot expunge the law itself. Rather, it can enjoin only enforcement of the law.” He argued since government officials “explicitly do not enforce the law,” the abortion providers “have not shown that they will be personally harmed by a bill that may never be enforced against them by anyone.”

Thus, Texas would have us believe that it passed a law giving private citizens standing to bring lawsuits against other citizens with a minimum payoff of $10,000 plus attorneys’ fees and costs, with zero risk of having to pay fees & costs for the defendant if the suit were judged frivolous, but no one will bother to file suit under the law. That’s a whopper even by Texas standard.

There are a multitude of serious substantive problems with SB 8. Here are just a few of the big ones:

    • The medical premise for the law is not scientifically accurate;
    • The essence of the statute is to confer “standing” on the entire civilian population of Texas to bring actions to sue physicians who perform abortions in conflict with the many non-medical details of the statutory scheme and to sue any person or entity that aids and abets the violation, with the assured award of not-less-than $10,000 in damages for each successful case brought, plus reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and costs incurred;
    • Plaintiffs may not be assessed attorney’s fee and costs even if the suit is thrown out because the statute is ruled unconstitutional, so the millions of potential plaintiffs incur no risk in bringing such suits;
    • Being an aider or abettor is determined without regard to the actor’s knowledge of the legality of the procedure;
    • Relying on some unspecified mind meld, the law authorizes suits against aiders/abettors who merely “intend” to assist forbidden abortions;
    • The clear intent of the legislation is to stack the legal deck against people who would help a woman with an abortion and thereby prevent abortions from being performed in Texas;
    • The statute in the words of Justice Sotomayor, “a breathtaking act of defiance—of the Constitution, of this Court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas,” dissenting from the Court’s decision to allow the Texas law to be effective Sept. 1 without appellate review;
    • The Supreme Court’s decision to allow SB 8 to become effective was based on a complete distortion of the holding in California v. Texas, a 2021 case addressing whether injunctive relief could be had against a statute whose key operative provision had been removed by Congress. The Court there said, “to find standing here to attack an unenforceable statutory provision would allow a federal court to issue what would amount to “an advisory opinion without the possibility of any judicial relief.” That is plainly not the case with the Texas statute which is not only enforceable but is drafted precisely to induce massive enforcement by citizen bounty-hunters. The fact that enforcement may occur at the hands of private persons inspired and enabled by a state law does not affect the impact of the law on its targets. Further, the cause of action created by the statute is fully effective and ready to be used, totally different than the tax provision removed from the law at issue in California v Texas.
    • Texas devoted much legislative language trying to (a) prevent federal court review of the statute and (b) control the nature and effect of the review. The very obvious goal was to have the law continue to apply to everyone who had not yet been sued, even if judicial review held the law facially unconstitutional in one case. Texas-sized hubris here, trying to tell the federal courts what they can and can’t do. Texas has decided to simply ignore the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Justice Sotomayor’s eloquent dissent in Whole Woman’s Health v Austin Reeve Jackson, Judge, joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan, said everything that should have been needed to stop the law in its tracks:

The Court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.

It cannot be the case that a State can evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry.

… the Court has re- warded the State’s effort to delay federal review of a plainly unconstitutional statute, enacted in disregard of the Court’s precedents, through procedural entanglements of the State’s own creation

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that after further briefing and argument, a majority on the Supreme Court will find its way back to reality and reason by rejecting the Texas law on multiple constitutional grounds . Meanwhile, the women of Texas will have to live with the white hoods of handmaidens under the thumb of their totalitarian masters.

*****

For those with the interest and fortitude to understand the details of this astounding act of legislative hubris, here is an unfortunately long explanation of exactly what SB 8 purports to do.

The key scientific idea on which the law is based is that the presence of a fetal heartbeat “has become a key medical predictor that an unborn child will reach live birth.” Texas tries to tie this idea to a further finding that “the pregnant woman has a compelling interest in knowing the likelihood of her unborn child surviving to full-term birth based on the presence of cardiac activity.” Based on my limited review, those “findings” are of limited relevance, since there are other significant predictors of ultimate viability and nothing in the law specifically addresses the communication of this specific information to the pregnant woman considering an abortion.

Instead, absent a “medical emergency,” the statute bans abortions after the mere detection of a fetal heartbeat and nothing more. Adding to the pretextual nature of this, the statute conveniently fails to define “medical emergency,” thereby creating a condition in which both the physician and the pregnant woman can never be certain that later litigation will not reject the physician’s determination and expose the physician to an intolerable financial risk.

It’s important to understand that the statute does not directly expose the pregnant woman to lawsuits – the targets of the legislative scheme are the doctors, clinics and anyone else who,

Knowingly engages in conduct that aids and abets the performance or inducement of an [prohibited] abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an [prohibited] abortion through insurance or otherwise … regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this chapter….

The sweep of this language encompasses every imaginable form of support for the abortion process and is plainly designed to intimidate medical personnel, insurance companies as well as friends and family of the pregnant woman.

But that’s not all. The statute authorizes civil damage suits against any person who “intends to engage” in forbidden aiding and abetting of a prohibited abortion. No, I’m not making this up. We are in the land of science fiction, popularized by the movie Minority Report in which a special police force is authorized to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes. In Texas’ case, the “offense” is civil, not criminal but the penalties are large enough to deal a death blow to the finances of many people (minimum statutory damages of $10,000 plus costs and attorneys’ fees).

The damage provisions apply to every forbidden abortion the defendant performed or aided/abetted. If multiple parties are sued for aiding and abetting a single abortion, it appears the plaintiff stands to collect the minimum damages against each one.

Under the special statute of limitations applied by Texas, the specter of being sued will hang over potential aiders/abettors for six years.

The drafters anticipated that there might be other defenses presented to courts in the civil cases and have preemptively eliminated them. Thus, the following are rejected as possible defenses: a good faith belief in the unconstitutional nature of the law, reliance on court decisions that are later overruled or reliance on federal court decisions that are “not binding” on the state court where suit is brought.

These provisions are designed to prevent judicial review by federal courts of the state’s statutory law as written and as applied. Texas has, apparently seceded from the U.S. Constitution, or at least thinks it has.

In a cynical twist, Texas added a provision that seems at first look to mitigate the intimidation created by the rest of the statute: it provided an “affirmative defense” for those sued under the statute if (1) the defendant conducts a “reasonable investigation” and (2) then “reasonably believes” that the abortion physician “had complied” or “would comply” or “will comply” with the statute. I say this is cynical because the Texas legislators may be presumed to understand that that whatever a “reasonable investigation” means, an aider/abettor trying to conduct such an investigation will almost certainly be stymied by the privacy provisions of HIPAA (the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), not to mention the natural distaste any doctor will have to being embroiled in a lawsuit. The burden of proving an “affirmative defense” is on the person asserting it, so this looks like a Texas head-fake.

Not content to stack the deck against women, their physicians and their families and friends, Texas has added a provision barring absolutely the award of attorneys’ fees and costs against a defendant. This means that the most egregious unfounded lawsuits brought by damage-hunting lawyers and others can be brought with impunity. Which is, of course, exactly what Texas wants – a legal unchallengeable in terrorem regime that will force Texas women to take significant health risks and/or incur staggering expenses to get an abortion regardless of the reason or need. The statute also enables bounty-hunting plaintiffs to bring suits where they live against defendants who live across the state, with the proviso that venue can only be changed if the plaintiff agrees.

The statute also immunizes the state of Texas and its officers from any legal challenge to the statute and further provides that if a court finds the statute unconstitutional in its application to one person, the statute may still be enforced against everyone else. This is an obvious attempt to deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction to adjudicate the constitutionality of the statute as written and not just “as applied.” The courts of Texas may stand for such a violation of the separation of powers, but it is hard to imagine that the federal courts will accept it.

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of SB 8 is the provision that purports to instruct the courts in the nature and scope of their decisions and in the meaning of “unconstitutional:”

No court may decline to enforce the severability requirements … on the ground that severance would rewrite the statute or involve the court in legislative or lawmaking activity. A court that declines to enforce or enjoins a state official from enforcing a statutory provision does not rewrite a statute, as the statute continues to contain the same words as before the court’s decision. A Judicial injunction or declaration of unconstitutionality: (1) is nothing more than an edict prohibiting enforcement that may subsequently be vacated by a later court if that court has a different understanding of the requirements of the Texas Constitution or United States Constitution.

This is Texas-size hubris that banks on the willingness of the Supreme Court of the United States to permit a state to decide for itself the nature, scope and effect of the Court’s decisions as regards the U.S. Constitution. Maybe the current Court will buy that nonsense, but I will be surprised as it would seem to overturn the very foundations of the federal system and the separation of powers, among other things.

Texas gives prevailing parties in any constitutional or other challenge to the abortion law three years to file for award of attorneys’ fees and costs. This opportunity applies even if the plaintiff in such suit wins the case on grounds that the severability provisions are unconstitutional or preempted by federal law!

It appears that the desperation of the Texas legislators to insulate SB 8 from federal court review has led them to a strange and untenable place. The statute contains a confused and obtuse section that appears to say that even if a court finds the statute facially unconstitutional, the statute shall still be severed, and the “unconstitutional applications” shall remain enforceable. Further, in such case the statute “shall be interpreted as if containing language limited the statute’s application to the persons, group of persons, or circumstances for which the statute’s application will not violate the United States Constitution and Texas Constitution.

That seems like an overt invitation for the courts to rewrite the legislation to help the Texas legislature save it. There may be precedent for such an astonishing approach, but I am not aware of it. That is, I believe, precisely what courts don’t, and should not, undertake. If the legislature writes an unconstitutional statute, it is the responsibility of the legislature to rewrite the law to repair the damage, unless some form of severance is possible that satisfies the court that it is not in fact just rewriting the law.

The legislation forces the physician to try to talk the woman out of going through with an abortion. This occurs through a series of compulsory disclosures and medical advice that the law declares, ipso facto, to be medically accurate and sound without any specific knowledge of the health condition of the woman in question.

The law addresses the issue of rape/incest and developmental abnormalities by exempting the woman from being forced to hear an explanation of the sonogram images, but rape/incest/developmental abnormalities, and, for that matter, threats to the woman’s life, are not otherwise treated as relevant to the process by which the woman gives consent to the abortion.

Finally, note that the Texas Constitution includes the following:

Sec. 3. EQUAL RIGHTS. All free men, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments, or privileges, but in consideration of public services.

But it also includes this:

Sec. 3a. EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed, or national origin. This amendment is self‑operative. (Added Nov. 7, 1972.)

But also this:

Sec. 32. MARRIAGE. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage. (Added Nov. 8, 2005.)

But there’s also this:

ARTICLE II

THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT

Sec. 1. SEPARATION OF POWERS OF GOVERNMENT AMONG THREEDEPARTMENTS. The powers of the Government of the State of Texas shall be divided into three distinct departments, each of which shall be confided to a separate body of magistracy, to wit: Those which are Legislative to one; those which are Executive to another, and those which are Judicial to another; and no person, or collection of persons, being of one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly attached to either of the others, except in the instances herein expressly permitted.

I predict the ACLU and other entities that are going to challenge SB 8 are going to have a field day with these contradictory provisions, some of which are inconsistent with existing Supreme Court precedent and, of course, the U.S. Constitution.

American Ignorance is Killing Us

Leave a reply

Dr. Anita Sircar, an infectious disease physician and clinical instructor of health sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine, has published an opinion piece in the LA Times, “As a doctor in a COVID unit, I’m running out of compassion for the unvaccinated.” https://lat.ms/2W9yrLp

I’m with Dr. Sircar.

Conditions continue to deteriorate in Florida and other states of the former Confederate States of America. The Governor of Florida continues to act like Donald Trump – basically taking the position that this virus is no more than a common cold. He preaches that some vague idea of “freedom” is more important than stopping the worst pandemic in modern history that is now, once again, ravaging the country. #DeathSantis, as he is often called on Twitter, claims that parents should be able to make all decisions regarding the health of their children, just because they’re parents, without regard to their knowledge or the impact their decisions may have on others.

Florida seems to have adopted as its unofficial motto: “my body, my choice,” a favorite mantra of the anti-vaccination mob. Ironically, Texas simultaneously has placed into law SB8 that effectively bans abortions regardless of rape, incest and so on. So much for “my body, my choice.” But that’s for another time.

Here I want to address the widespread ignorance that has left the United States and much of the world in a position of failing to stop a deadly viral pandemic even though the means to do so is readily available and free. I readily confess up front that at my late stage in life I am profoundly resentful of the arrogant and ignorant decisions being made by people that have effectively stolen two years of my life and threaten to continue doing so indefinitely.

Dr. Sircar’s op-ed tells a gruesome story of a patient under age 50, normally in good health (just some mild blood pressure issues). He tested positive 10 days before, began coughing with severe fatigue 8 days before and, after doctor-prescribed antibiotics did nothing, turned to … hydroxychloroquine, the drug promoted by Donald Trump and multiple medical quacks despite compelling evidence of its ineffectiveness against COVID. That, of course, also failed. As his health continued to decline, he was, Dr. Sircar reports, a “shell of his former self.” By the time he arrived at the clinic, treatment with monoclonal antibodies also failed.

He finally ended up in the ER with dangerously low oxygen levels, exceedingly high inflammatory markers and patchy areas of infection all over his lungs. Nothing had helped. He was getting worse. He could not breathe. His wife and two young children were at home, all infected with COVID. He and his wife had decided not to get vaccinated. [emphasis added]

Dr. Sircar goes on,

Last year, a case like this would have flattened me. I would have wrestled with the sadness and how unfair life was. Battled with the angst of how unlucky he was. This year, I struggled to find sympathy. It was August 2021, not 2020. The vaccine had been widely available for months in the U.S., free to anyone who wanted it, even offered in drugstores and supermarkets. Cutting-edge, revolutionary, mind-blowing, lifesaving vaccines were available where people shopped for groceries, and they still didn’t want them.

Outside his hospital door, I took a deep breath — battening down my anger and frustration — and went in. I had been working the COVID units for 17 months straight, all day, every day. I had cared for hundreds of COVID patients. We all had, without being able to take breaks long enough to help us recover from this unending ordeal. Compassion fatigue was setting in. For those of us who hadn’t left after the hardest year of our professional lives, even hope was now in short supply.

The man claimed not to be anti-vaxxer.

I was just waiting for the FDA to approve the vaccine first. I didn’t want to take anything experimental. I didn’t want to be the government’s guinea pig, and I don’t trust that it’s safe.

Dr. Sircar, notes that,

The only proven lifesaver we’ve had in this pandemic is a vaccine that many people don’t want. A vaccine we give away to other countries because supply overwhelms demand in the U.S. A vaccine people in other countries stand in line for hours to receive, if they can get it at all.

Dr. Sircar turned to remdesivir, explained its status among approved treatments with long-term side-effects unknown:

“Do you still want me to give it to you?”

“Yes” he responded, “Whatever it takes to save my life.”

It did not work.

 Dr. Sircar concludes the story:

My patient died nine days later from a fatal stroke. We, the care team, reconciled this loss by telling ourselves: He made a personal choice not to get vaccinated, not to protect himself or his family. We did everything we could with what we had to save him. This year, this tragedy, this unnecessary, entirely preventable loss, was on him.

She is exactly right about that. The op-ed goes on to lay out the likely outcomes for the unvaccinated going forward. If you, or members of your family, are like the patient described here, read the full story at the link above.

We are headed swiftly back into the abyss of a raging out-of-control pandemic, widespread deaths and long-term impairments, loss of businesses, collapse of the economy, failure of the education system and more. Many parts of the world are declining again to admit Americans. The travel industry, among many others, is reeling as business disappears.

The CDC has just issued another warning about Labor Day travel, asking the unvaccinated not to travel this weekend and suggesting that even vaccinated individuals carefully reassess the risks of travel.

Here are the reported facts, per CNN’s summary [https://cnn.it/3kIudDh]:

US is surpassing an average of 160,000 new Covid-19 cases a day

38.6% of eligible people (everyone 12 or older) are not yet fully vaccinated

Hospitalization rates for unvaccinated are 16 times higher than for vaccinated people

180 new COVID cases were traced to a multi-night church camp and a men’s conference, neither of which complied with CDC recommendations

More than 200,000 kids test positive in a week – infection rates in children are increasing exponentially

Less than half of children 12 to 15 are vaccinated with even one dose

More than 200,000 children tested positive for Covid-19 in the last week, a five-fold increase from a month ago, with corresponding increases in hospitalizations

Between August 20 and 26, an average of 330 children were admitted to hospitals every day with Covid-19 — highest rate of new Covid-19 hospitalizations among children in more than a year

Hospitals and staff are again being overwhelmed and some are running out of oxygen

If the virus had a personality, it would be laughing out loud at the folly of humans who are so able and willing to ignore reality in favor of conspiracy theories and myths perpetrated by other humans who have no credentials or other authenticity as authorities on health decisions. What else is there to say?

Well, here’s something. A respiratory therapist, Karen Gallardo, described the Seven Stages of Severe COVID in a Los Angeles Times article at https://lat.ms/3yzlGan. It’s not pretty. Heavily summarized, they look like this:

Stage 1: Debilitating breathing problems force you to the ER

Stage 2: You’re drowning. Transfer to ICU

Stage 3: Breathing is worse. You are put on a “positive pressure ventilator” velcroed tightly to your face

Stage 4: In preparation for full intubation, from which most patients never recover, you are advised to call your loved ones, likely for the last time. Then,

You are sedated and paralyzed, fed through a feeding tube, hooked to a Foley catheter and a rectal tube. We turn your limp body regularly, so you don’t develop pressure ulcers — bed sores. We bathe you and keep you clean. We flip you onto your stomach to allow for better oxygenation. We will try experimental therapeutics.

Stage 5: If you’re not one of the few Stage 4 survivors, you may need special machine that bypasses your lungs and oxygenates your blood, if your hospital has one.

Stage 6 (Ready?):

The pressure required to open your lungs is so high that air can leak into your chest cavity, so we insert tubes to clear it out. Your kidneys fail to filter the byproducts from the drugs we continuously give you. Despite diuretics, your entire body swells from fluid retention, and you require dialysis to help with your renal function.

The long hospital stay and your depressed immune system make you susceptible to infections. A chest X-ray shows fluid accumulating in your lung sacs. A blood clot may show up, too. We can’t prevent these complications at this point; we treat them as they present.

If your blood pressure drops critically, we will administer vasopressors to bring it up, but your heart may stop anyway. After several rounds of CPR, we’ll get your pulse and circulation back. But soon, your family will need to make a difficult decision.

Stage 7 (End Game):

After several meetings with the palliative care team, your family decides to withdraw care. We extubate you, turning off the breathing machinery. We set up a final FaceTime call with your loved ones. As we work in your room, we hear crying and loving goodbyes. We cry, too, and we hold your hand until your last natural breath.

The End

Fix Stupid

Position of Republican Governors who fight to prevent implementation of strong, sensible public health measures recommended by federal and other health experts:

WAPO Undermines Public Health Confidence – Again

Leave a reply

I understand that the Washington Post and other so-called mainstream media think they have some obligation to report both (or many) sides to news matters of public interest. A lot is happening all the time so there is the difficult problem of triage – what do you choose to report and how much coverage do you give the chosen subjects?

In the latest problematic example, I am mystified as to the thinking behind the choice to devote 1,930 words to an item with the click-bait headline, “Biden team tries to get ahead of the virus — and maybe the science — with decision on booster shots.” https://wapo.st/2UChWHg The byline for this piece shows four names, all senior writers for WAPO with some degree of specialization in health policy.

To make the point of why this type of “journalism,” if that’s what it is, is so concerning, I am going to analyze the piece in some detail. Bear with me if you can.

The opening lines state the subject matter and point of view of the article:

President Biden vowed to “follow the science” in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, but some scientists say his decision to recommend widespread coronavirus vaccine booster shots relies on incomplete data and will put pressure on regulators yet to approve the plan.

You understand right off that the message is that the President has not lived up to his word, that “some scientists” think he’s made a major public health mistake in the fight against COVID-19 and is mixing politics with health science to get inappropriate approval from government health experts.

To support that thesis, WAPO quotes Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University that the data thus far do not support the need for a COVID booster shot. I checked out Prof. Racanciello. He is a major figure in virus science. He sided with Dr. Fauci in his fight with Moron Sen. Rand Paul about whether Chinese researchers were doing “gain of function” research with bats that led to COVID-19. He is not, therefore, one of those random “doctors” who are dredged up by right-wing media to contradict whatever the CDC and other important health authorities have said.

Prof. Racaniello has tweeted his position on the sustaining power of COVID vaccines thus:

Science tells us that most Americans do not need a COVID-19 vaccine booster 1. With time, vaccine-induced antibodies wane but the same happens with all vaccines and infections. 2. It is not correct to conclude that COVID vaccine efficiency is waning. What is going down is protection against infection. Most human vaccines do not prevent infection. Results of studies have shown that despite waning antibody levels, most fully vaccinated people are protected against severe disease, hospitalization, and death. What we need to do is get everyone fully vaccinated!

The delta variant is NOT in itself causing cases to surge in the US. That is being driven by unvaccinated people, failure to mask, and a return to physical interactions. ANY SARS-CoV-2 variant would behave in the same way.

Those messages were met with considerable hostility by many Twitterfolk – this is a sensitive subject in which nuances of language can have huge emotional effects.

Returning then to WAPO, the article noted that,

While Biden acknowledged the plan was “pending approval” from the Food and Drug Administration and experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the president mostly portrayed it as a done deal, saying that tens of millions of booster shots would become available the week of Sept. 20.

Thus, while the President expressly acknowledged that health policymakers’ approval was needed, WAPO’s writers assert that the President is dissembling. But then the article notes that he was not dissembling:

The president’s top science and medical advisers — including senior CDC and FDA officials — concluded last weekend that widespread booster shots were necessary, drawing on an array of data from the United States and Israel that suggested immunity from a two-dose regimen of coronavirus vaccine declined over time and that greater protection might be needed against the highly contagious delta variant.

Based on the rest of the article and on many other sources, the “dispute,” if there is one, is about whether to announce the booster program ahead of the surging infection numbers or wait until “more data” is available. Biden’s approach is supported by multiple health experts, including

  • Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes for Health, and
  • Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers

But, WAPO goes on, “a number of outside experts faulted Biden’s timing and said the White House was acting prematurely based on the latest vaccination data.”

For instance, the administration focused on multiple research studies showing that vaccine effectiveness against mild to moderate illness wanes over time, while boosters ramp up antibodies tenfold or more. Most, although not all, of the recent data shows the vaccines continue to provide robust protection against severe disease….

Many prominent figures in the scientific and medical communities said that’s the key measure of vaccine success. The vaccines’ main purpose is not to prevent infection, so much as to keep people from getting severely ill or dying, they note, and recent concerns about breakthrough coronavirus infections have been overblown….

It may be that WAPO and the White House may be talking about two different things. As a matter of national emergency planning, the President is concerned about waiting until the resurgent virus (Delta Variant and possibly others) is even more widespread before beginning to boost resistance. The “dissenters” are making technical points about what the data shows right now about the continued strength of the vaccine.

“The metric that matters is the protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death among people vaccinated,” said David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He said the booster decision was premature and potentially misleading. “It tends to portray that we’ve lost confidence in the ability of this vaccine to prevent severe infection. And I don’t think that’s the case,” he said.

Given that case counts are surging in multiple states, vaccinations are lagging, and health resources are being overrun yet again in multiple states, why is this “conflict” being written about as if the President were being dishonest or has, like his predecessor, attempted to politicize national health policy?

WAPO cites efforts by Dr. Fauci and others to reassure health policy staff but then “some experts said the White House was backtracking on its pledge to allow regulators to shape coronavirus policy,” citing Biden/Harris’s criticism of Trump for “publicly pressuring regulators to approve the first coronavirus vaccines.”

Does WAPO really believe that disagreement over whether it’s timely to talk about a booster program is the same as Trump’s declaration that the virus is “their new hoax” or whether hydroxychloroquine is a real treatment for COVID?

WAPO keeps doing the dance, first stating why the White House wants to get ahead of the virus, then citing more people who think it should wait for more data and trying to equate the push for a booster program to the “pressure the Trump administration exerted on scientific agencies, like a threat to fire then-FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn if he didn’t move quickly to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.”

I can just imagine the reaction if a booster program becomes critical – “why didn’t the White House plan ahead and get on top of this instead of waiting until the catastrophe was obvious?”

WAPO continues both-sidesing this for many paragraphs, almost as if the authors were told they had to produce a certain volume of words. Granted, both sides are covered, but is this just a question of two honest differences of opinion when the political machinations of the prior administration are repeatedly injected into the discussion? Is WAPO really unaware of the differences between the Trump administration’s denial of the existence of a pandemic, and all that followed, versus the Biden administration’s effort to plan ahead and prepare for worst-case scenarios which are already present in places like Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana?

I have argued before that the main-stream press needs to be more cognizant of the effects of the words they use and how those words can be misused by people whose goal is not to protect the public but to score political points. WAPO seems intent upon feeding the misinformation media rather than focusing on critical issues of what is truth and what is not.

Norwegian Cruise Line Fights the Right Fight Against Ignorance

Leave a reply

The case is Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Ltd., et al. Plaintiffs, vs. Scott Rivkees, M.D., Defendant, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The opinion was written by U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams acting on the Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. The defendant is the Surgeon General of Florida and the head of the Florida Department of Health.

The lawsuit was brought to enable Norwegian to protect its customers to the maximum extent possible in the face of directives from the Republican “small government” Governor of Florida who has forbidden cruise lines operating there on international itineraries to require use of face masks, vaccinations and proof of vaccinations.

Judge Williams’ thorough and carefully crafted 59-page opinion grants the plaintiff’s motion. This allows Norwegian to establish its own COVID health protocols, including requiring proof of vaccination as a condition for cruising. The opinion skewers the defense for its failure to present evidence on key issues. While it’s always tempting to blame this on the lawyers, the reality in this case is that the evidence for the defense simply doesn’t exist. The state’s attempt to prevent cruise lines from adopting safe health standards is a political maneuver, not a rational health policy decision with demonstrable roots in local health needs or medical science.

Judge Williams’ opinion should stand up well in the appeal that Governor DeSantis, known on Twitter as #DeathSantis, has announced he will file. DeSantis’ statement about the case included this gem, “A prohibition on vaccine passports does not even implicate, let alone violate, anyone’s speech rights, and it furthers the substantial, local interest of preventing discrimination among customers based on private health information.”

That suggests the good governor did not read the District Judge’s opinion or lacks understanding of the legal principles involved. His lack of awareness extends to the growing public support for “vaccine passports,” and he is also unaware of federal ventilator resources sent to his state by the federal government to help relieve the crisis caused by the Delta Variant and his refusal to recognize the challenges it poses. Delta threatens to overwhelm the health facilities of multiple, mainly southern, states, including Florida, that have largely ignored the danger still posed by COVID-19. Florida’s governor is earning his moniker as #DeathSantis every day.

Norwegian Cruise Line is on the right side of health science, health policy and rational business behavior. Kudos to NCL’s management for standing up to the Florida Governor’s rejection of all of those as he plays to his right-wing political audience, the same base that thrives on adoration of Donald Trump (you remember him, speaking about Democrats: “the virus is their new hoax.”)

In an op-ed in TravelMarketReport, https://bit.ly/2VKcfri, way back in October 2020, long before anyone had heard of the Delta Variant, I argued that the path to travel industry recovery required restoration of consumer confidence but that the path then in play was more chaos than order. I suggested an approach that, in those troubled times, I thought might work:

I suggest that the atomization of the industry’s approach must be replaced with an across-the-board cooperative regime of joint decision-making to which individual firms commit to total compliance for a significant period into the future. For example, and as a great beginning, the cruise industry players (of which there are relatively few independent entities) have undertaken a collective effort to establish firm rules about how ships will be sanitized, how masking and social distancing will be applied and so on. Obviously, the science behind this is still evolving, but much is already known about how to manage indoor environments. I believe that the new rules should be vetted with a representative sample of cruise travelers to evaluate whether the rules are understandable, practical and reassuring. The likely outcome is not a return to full-on unlimited cruising and many economic challenges will remain. The concept is not a cure-all but an attempt to establish a common and trustable arrangement that will permit business to resume on some scale.

Call me a dreamer if you like. We are not close to what I had envisioned. Nowhere is this clearer than in the battle Norwegian Cruise Line is fighting, alone, with Florida. Downloadable CDC data for Florida, from August 6, paints a grim picture. https://bit.ly/3lU94rX This will not deter Florida’s governor from resisting science and common sense as he continues his efforts to stop the cruise lines from using the best defenses available to control the virus and resume safe cruising.

The chaos will thus continue for a while longer. I am confident Norwegian Cruise Line will continue the fight and hopefully will succeed, however long it takes.

 

 

 

A Walk in the Park

Leave a reply

 

Having barely survived the restraints of the pandemic in New York City before returning to Washington, we crave the outdoors, subject, of course, to the constraints of the insufferable heat and humidity. Fortunately, the area writ large has much to offer. One of our favorites has been Huntley Meadows in Alexandria. We returned there a couple of times in recent weeks, following an earlier visit when the plants were still dormant and it was cold, very cold. If you go in winter, wear warm clothes.

The recent trips were a cornucopia of delights, some of which are revealed by these photos, a small sample. The lead-in from the parking lot is a nice flat stroll on a fine-gravel path winding through tall trees and swamp-like undergrowth, in which you may see an occasional bird, but the goods lie ahead — when you enter the boardwalk.

You must pay attention to the near and the far to catch some of the remarkable sights.

More on the beaver in a moment. The turtles that inhabit Huntley Meadows can grow to surprising size but are hard to spot among the dense vegetation that surrounds the boardwalk. So too are the frogs whose relentless chorus you may hear, especially near evening:

The entire acreage of Huntley Meadows is covered with Swamp Roses that resemble hibiscus:

There are, however, many other beautiful flowers, sometimes hidden among the more prominent species:

The biggest treat for us are the foraging birds, who grow to shocking sizes, and the beaver on the special occasions when they fearlessly go about their business:

We’ve never had a boring visit to Huntley Meadows. Highly recommended. Best to go early or late because the parking lot can get crowded. And please leave a dollar or two in the box provided. Keep the beauty going.