Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Republicans* approve quack to direct HHS

“Kennedy, an “unfathomable” nominee in the eyes of public health experts, has questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, tied gay and transgender identities to chemical exposure, pushed to remove fluoride from drinking water, suggested COVID-19 was genetically engineered to target certain races, claimed Black people may have different immune systems and suggested anti-depressants are […]

They’re lying

““Contrary to the hysteria, redirecting billions of allocated NIH spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.” Here’s how you know they’re lying. If they were telling the truth, there would be no net reduction to the […]

15 Additional Drugs Selected for Medicare Drug Price Negotiations

HHS/CMS Drugs pricing negotiation. August 2023 . . . HHS announced they would negotiate the pricing for 10 drugs covered under Medicare Part D program. This was the first cycle of selected drugs to be negotiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or HHS as many know it. The first cycle of negotiations, with […]

No NIH cuts for mah state, y’all!

As John Kenneth Galbraith famously observed: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” I suspect that the Must techbros who concocted the recent announcement of immediate cuts to NIH grants imagined that they were just smacking around […]

Indirect costs and the business of biomedical research funding

Indirect costs on research grants represent charges to cover the administration of grant funds; heating, cooling, water, gas, fume hoods and other centralized infrastructure; building and grounds security; facility maintenance and custodial services. Historically, these have been negotiated every two years between each institution and the NIH depending on the proportion of infrastructure devoted to […]

What Happens When a State Kicks a Million or So People Off of Healthcare Plans?

They go without, show up at ERs, or go to overcrowded Clinics. The costs of the first two end up being far more than a healthcare plan. And at clinics the healthcare may be less because of less resource. It really makes a lot of sense for a state to do this also. In the […]

Sen. Cassidy accepts RFK Jr’s vapor-clad promises

Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.) is a physician. I’m sure he’s pretty smart, but as I’m frequently caused to observe, the traits of high intelligence are unlinked. Dr. Cassidy is exercising poor medical judgement by supporting RFK Jr.’s nomination for Secretary of HHS, although he may be showing good political judgement. “Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD […]

CAR IV

Since this is off topic for AngryBear I will post future CAR posts at my personal blog Robert’s Stochastic thoughts This post is a restatement and extension of the first post in the series CAR Crazy which discusses ex vivo treatment of killer T-cells with Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CAR) designed to cause the T-cells to […]

Development Assistance Cut Short by the World’s Richest Person

World’s richest person making life difficult by cutting development assistance and aid Somewhere within all the issues Congress has to deal with, with this administration, there must be a day of reckoning coming. I can not imagine Republicans being too thrilled with the damage trump and his pissant are creating. In less than two years, […]