Author: condor

A ~50% Improvement, In Melanoma Five Year Survival Rate Is… Pretty Darn Impressive!

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Merck, and its development partner Moderna are quite rightly taking a deep bow, on this one. When coupled to pembrolizumab therapy, the combo sees a 50% improvement in five year survival odds for people living with various melanoma diagnoses. Wow!

Here’s the latest — from Fierce Biotech:

…Adding Merck & Co. and Moderna’s vaccine candidate to Keytruda has continued to cut the risk of cancer recurrence or death across five years of follow-up, boosting the companies’ prospects as they close in on phase 3 data.

The five-year results come from a phase 2b study that tested intismeran autogene in combination with Merck’s Keytruda in people with high-risk melanoma after complete resection. Compared to single-agent Keytruda, the combination cut the risk of recurrence or death by 44% after two years and by 49% after three years.

Tuesday, Merck and Moderna said the risk reduction after five years was 49%. The partners have yet to share data on other endpoints, such as the risk of distant metastasis or death, that were included in the earlier analyses….

Onward, grinning — to catch a jet to the High Rockies now.

नमस्ते

Look At The Real World Results — Of Letting Non-Scientific Loons — Mind The US Public Health Policies. Damn — Trump 2.0’s Year One, With Measles.

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This is… reprehensible. The US is now on the verge of no longer being designated by UN health authorities and the WHO… as a nation that has ended the measles virus, on the ground. What is wrong with us?

And it is all — without doubt — utterly… avoidable. Just vaccinate your kids, people. But let us look down now (one year on), upon how “great” these jamokes are making… mostly Red / MAGA American states:

…On inauguration day a year ago, a small town in Gaines County, on the western edge of Texas, reported a cluster of measles cases.

“There’s a feeling this is going to be more and more common,” an infectious disease expert told The New York Times at the time.

That feeling turned out to be right. Within a few weeks, the case count had jumped to 24. Then to more than a hundred. And over the 12 months that followed, measles sickened more than 2,200 people across 45 states, making 2025 the worst year for measles in the United States in more than two decades….

Now you know. The man is a very dangerous… monster. US children will die (and have died), in excess numbers, because of this lunacy. And we all pay the price, with increased (mostly) public aid hospitalizations, nationwide. Be certain of that. Onward.

नमस्ते

Imperial College Of London’s New Ebola | Lassa | Marburg Vaccine Approach: “saRNA Rapid Scaling” — EML Vac Phase I/II Study Now Enrolling…

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This is excellent. And note that while this is only a smaller “safety testing” study, among healthy 18 to 50 year olds who volunteer to get jabbed, in and around London, it is a very encouraging step forward.

Fighting viral haemorrhagic fever outbreaks is a vital mission — both in Africa, and increasingly, in the rest of the world. Here’s the latest on it all — Cheerio!

…The collaboration between Imperial College London and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will deliver a first-in-human (FIH) clinical trial of three new vaccines targeting Ebola, Marburg and Lassa fever – viruses that can cause severe, often fatal illness and trigger devastating outbreaks.

The study, known as EML-Vac, is being led by Professor Robin Shattock, Chair in Mucosal Infection and Immunity in the Department of Infectious Disease, and Dr Marta Boffito, Consultant Physician and Clinical Director at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. . . .

The vaccines being tested in EML-Vac use a new technology called self-amplifying RNA (saRNA). Unlike traditional vaccines, which can take years to develop and manufacture, saRNA vaccines can be designed and produced much more quickly – a crucial advantage when new outbreaks emerge.

These vaccines work by giving the body instructions to make harmless pieces of the virus, allowing the immune system to learn to recognise and fight the real infection if it is encountered in the future.

The three vaccines have been designed to target the glycoproteins of the Ebola, Marburg and Lassa viruses and are delivered inside tiny fat-based particles, known as lipid nanoparticles….

This sort of highly-novel, cutting edge vaccine science… will increasingly be undertaken outside the USA, given out current Luddite leadership, in federal positions. Damn. But here’s to cheering our cousins, across the pond. Well done! Be like Rev. Dr. King! [But be entirely not like… the faux orange one.]

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Would Like To Re-Label “A Decrepit Sociopath’s Megalomania” — As Simply… Unforced Errors.

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John Hinderaker has forever been a Trump boot-licker — at lease since 2016. All of this time, rather than admit to what we all see — that the dozens of pattern-behaviors (on display for decades, over and over) ones that make the whole world cringe… might be evidence of a sociopath’s tendencies… John today (again) calls them “unforced errors“ — hoping that, by lying, he can magically make them isolated and random, in his viewers’ perception — or at least in his own mind.

He suggests this is like a split second thing, like… say, overthrowing first on a double-play ball, in triple A. Nope. Tangerine stews about his lunacy for months on end. And then acts every bit the lunatic, willfully.

John — Greenland / Denmark (and specifically, his threats)… are just the latest clear evidence of a… sociopath.

His stealing of trophies, any gold bobble that is not nailed down… and filchinig secret documents — thinking he “is owed” everything: is all deeply delusional.

His remarks about people with disabilities — his remarks about his own [current] wife — his remarks about Jimmy Kimmel, Whoopi Goldberg, George Clooney and Morning Joe… his ACTIONS in Venezuela; his actions in Chicago, LA, Portland and now Minneapolis… his keeping close company with avowed well-known Klanners and Neo-Nazis…

His threatening NY State prosecutors with a baseball bat (thinking he’s a latter day Capone)…

And that’s all BEFORE we mention… his forcible sexual assaults — of at least ten different women — and maybe even some girls who were underage… as well…

Yep. This is… a sociopath.

These are not “mistakes“.

This is who he is. This is who he’s always been — and his nearly 80 years of life, are making him ever more… demented, and detached from the reality of the way the world sees him.

It’s past-time you admitted this emperor has no clothes.

Just wanton chaos, as his reason for existing.

Give it up John — Damn.

Power Alley: When Is A Generic’s FDA Label… “Skinny” Enough? New Cert. Granted, On The Issue, At US Supremes…

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So — back to an old topic: how to be certain that the reforms wrought about 40 years ago now, by Hatch-Waxman (to more readily encourage lower priced but safe generics to reach US shelves sooner). . . remain the effective law of our land — even as branded manufacturers try to chip away at such competition — in the courts around the nation?

This latest case (out of the erroneous ruling on appeal in the Federal Circuit) was just granted a review on this past Friday — by the Supremes. We will now follow it closely, as it will without a doubt potentially impact tens of billions of dollars in savings, on genrics, to US consumers — in the years ahead, if correctly resolved in favor of the generics, here:

…This case offers another chance to review the Federal Circuit’s erosion of section viii and § 271(b) — with a much better vehicle than GSK, where the Federal Circuit credited alleged evidence that the generic drugmaker’s “partial label instructed the method of use claimed.” 7 F.4th at 1328. Here, it is undisputed that Hikma’s label is “skinny enough.” App. 13a, 17a.

This case [if not corrected at teh Supremes, by a cert. petition] thus confirms what the dissent in GSK predicted: “a generic can be deemed liable for inducement for saying that its product is a ‘generic version’” — “a drastic holding” that “makes little sense.” 7 F.4th at 1353 (Prost, J., dissenting)….

In short, the decision below is an imminent threat to generic competition, which is critically important to the U.S. healthcare system. And the “very permissive pleading standard for induced infringement” that the decision creates will dramatically expand the risk of inducement liability, even “outside of just the pharmaceutical context….”

We will — of course — now keep you posted. Onward, smiling — and do note: the experimental theater last evening was at once wildly maddening, moving, and inspiring… so, we will be thinking, and acting… on it, for many months to come, indeed.

नमस्ते

NASA’s Ultra High Altitude “Zero Pressure” Balloon Flights — Have Concluded, At McMurdo Station — On The Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica…

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This was some very cool (literally), cutting edge balloon tech.

And it worked… flawlessly. Here’s the story — and you’ll recall that we covered the lead-up (and launches), last month:

…NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program has completed four successful Antarctica flights during a long-duration campaign that began in early December. The balloons launched from the agency’s facility located near the U.S. National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station on the Ross Ice Shelf.

The General AntiParticle Spectrometer (GAPS) balloon lifted off Dec. 15. The GAPS payload is an experiment designed to detect anti-matter particles entering Earth’s atmosphere to help reveal the origin of dark matter — an invisible form of matter that’s estimated to make up more than 80% of the total matter in the universe. The GAPS mission flew for a total of 25 days, 2 hours, and 53 minutes before returning to the ice Jan. 9.

The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) launched Dec. 19 and flew a total of 23 days, 8 hours, and 52 minutes, returning to the ice Jan. 12. The PUEO payload is designed to detect signals from neutrinos, high-energy particles that travel across the universe undisturbed, carrying information about events billions of light-years away. This was the first mission to launch through NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers program, which supports compelling astrophysics science at lower cost….

Onward, grinning — with lil’ ladies here shortly, then dinner out and a new experimental/journalistic “living documentary” theatre production tonight, based on the various experiences of people without papers here in the City of Big Shoulders — called “Sanctuary Stories“. Will report manana.

नमस्ते

While Not As Sweeping As The Chicago Orders, Minneapolis Is Now Covered By A Prelim. Inj., Against Bovino/Noem Lawlessness. First Amend. Rights Prevail.

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This is a good start — the larger suit is now scheduled for a hearing shortly on a much broader preliminary injunction — as we mentioned earlier in the week.

But this one plainly prohibits the use of lethal force against people in their cars, or observers, unless they are trying to mow down ICE agents. It also prevents tear gas against protesters who are not violently assaulting federel agents. That’s enough for the moment. Here’s the 83 page federal court order, in full — and a bit:

…Some nonparty declarants have described disturbing conduct of agents during and after these stops, including: threatening to arrest and detain them despite knowing that they were citizens; threatening to break the driver’s windows; waiting for the witnesses outside their homes; following them to their homes or to an address where their vehicles are registered; and telling the witnesses that they know where they live. (Rudolph Leon Decl. ¶¶ 24–26; Jackson Decl. ¶ 8; Levy Decl. ¶ 12; Smith Decl. 2 ¶ 4; Kellermeyer Decl. ¶ 4.) Ms. Salm describes having her phone seized from her hands while recording agents; being choked by the collar of her shirt… and being threatened with “a fucking bullet in [her] skull.” (Salm Decl. ¶¶ 9–23.)….

Defendants have not provided declarations or other evidence regarding the circumstances of the stops of Plaintiffs Webb, Biestman, and Lee, nor have they provided evidence to refute the accounts provided by the nonparty witnesses who were stopped by immigration officers….

[Witness] Crenshaw entered the restaurant, he saw “two agents… violently slamming a young black man against the wall.” (Id. ¶ 4.) The man was “yelling in pain and saying that he was a U.S. citizen,” but the agents “didn’t seem to care” and “dragged [the man] outside,” even though he continued to tell them he is a citizen. (Id.) When Crenshaw and other observers followed the agents outside, one of the agents “slammed the door on [them]” and appeared to be “frustrated with [them] being there and filming them and telling them that what they were doing was wrong[.]” (Id. ¶ 5.) Once Crenshaw was outside the restaurant, he saw the agents “violently push the young man into the snow for no apparent reason” and “put him in handcuffs” and into a car with “black windows” and a Florida license plate….

This is not conduct befitting… American law enforcement — at all. Moreover, the stupidly evil DoJ “investigation” into Tim Walz and the Mayor of Minneapolis — is not worthy of any real comment. So… I won’t. It’s a dead letter. Onward.

नमस्ते

“Tuskegee 2.0”? That Is Not Really Much Of A Stretch, For RFK, Jr. And Tangerine 2.0. Damn.

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This has to be read — in full — to be believed, in 2026.

Kennedy and Trump — both billionaires who believe people… living in the poorest parts of Africa — those with darker skin should be experimentation subjects. [Hey — doesn’t that ring some… Nazi bells?!]

Here’s the story — and my long term friend Paul Offit is quoted near the end — if he says it was happening, you may trust that it was:

…What do you get when you put a vaccine conspiracy theorist in charge of the agency responsible for funding medical research throughout the globe? A recipe for Tuskegee 2.0, apparently.

Some bombshell reporting over the last month has revealed a monstrous plan by Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services to fund a $1.6 million study on hepatitis B vaccines among 14,000 newborns in the West African country of Guinea-Bissau. As protocol documents obtained by Inside Medicine show, the study would have been a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes.”

In other words, the study aimed to withhold Hep B vaccinations from 7,000 infants in one of the poorest countries on Earth — so that western researchers could compare their long-term health to babies that got the vaccine…. [searching for non-specific effects, here.]

“Non-specific effects” is a key buzzword swirling around Kennedy’s orbit of vaccine skeptics and holistic wellness influences, which essentially means “unintended harms.” The HHS’s chosen researchers for the Guinea-Bissau study were Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn, a controversial Danish couple who have spent years chasing after non-specific effects in vaccines.

Thankfully, “the good guys won,” as Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician told the Guardian. “This administration did not see people in Africa as valuable… We were able to stand up for them. We were able to convince people about the fact that this was unethical….”

You literally could NOT make this malignant insanity up — if you were trying. And on MLK weekend, no less.

नमस्ते

If NASA Is Going To Reconnect With MAVEN — Its Best Shot Is… Now: January 16, 2026

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Well… Mars has just now gracefully moved, floating — this morning, from out behind our home star — relative to Earth’s vantage point. But if the tumble of MAVEN has resulted in less than complete charging via solar cells, the craft may already be dead stick, without electric juice.

There is no update from Goddard, so we may assume that so far, the tumbling spacecraft is 404 — off grid, thus (from December 15, 2025):

…Although no spacecraft telemetry has been received since Dec. 4, the team recovered a brief fragment of tracking data from Dec. 6 as part of an ongoing radio science campaign. Analysis of that signal suggests that the MAVEN spacecraft was rotating in an unexpected manner when it emerged from behind Mars.

Further, the frequency of the tracking signal suggests MAVEN’s orbit trajectory may have changed. The team continues to analyze tracking data to understand the most likely scenarios leading to the loss of signal. Efforts to reestablish contact with MAVEN also continue….

Here’s to hoping — but the realist in me accepts that this excellent, long serving spacecraft is at end of mission.

नमस्ते

In Which Scott Johnson Purports To Ask A “Non-Leninist” Question. Heh.

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Scott Johnson this morning quotes a savage approvingly, for suspending all civil law — in Minneapolis. “It’s an… insurrection, doncha’ know!?!”

And at the end of all of this, because he realizes this is idiotic, Scott throws in a rhetorical flourish, to hint that maybe he doesn’t think that this is the way to go about it… I am not amused.

Here’s Scott’s in any event: “where does he… err?” he asks.

Hilarious… but not in a good way.

When civil law is suspended and people start rounding up people like Scott Johnson for their views… We shall see how much he endorses this Attila the Hun view.

But whatever it takes to bend a knee and lick a boot for Donald Trump… The Powerline boys are more than willing to do…

Disgusting.

Out.