Texas and a Good Ole Fashioned Vaccine

 

Wow. Just Wow.



This kinda cool. I’m a Texas resident…not entirely willingly (I came to be near family) but I am. And it is nice, now and then, to see my new home state do something rather fine (all too often, in a conservative political climate, it does the alternative).


Anyway, according to a recent article on NPR, Peter Hotez and Maria Elena Bottazzi, a couple of researchers at Texas Children’s Hospital, have come up with an effective, but very inexpensive Covid vaccine. They used relatively old fashioned tools to produce it, and it can be made very cheaply, as in $1 to $1.50 a dose. This means it could be used in countries where otherwise vaccines might be just out of the picture.


That’s terrific—particularly since we won’t get the pandemic under control until the whole world have had access to a vaccine. So, three cheers to Hotez and Bottazzi and the Texas Children’s Hospital! 


Makes me proud to be a (sorta) Texan.


~mjt



p.s. - I've since learned that they didn't patent the vaccine so anyone, in any country, can make it. Wow! Just wow.



Source: “A Texas team comes up with a COVID vaccine that could be a global game changer,” Joe Palca, Jan 5, 2022, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/05/1070046189/a-texas-team-comes-up-with-a-covid-vaccine-that-could-be-a-global-game-changer

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Building, as an act of faith or from a dying dream to a multicultural reality

Image
 Crete: place of dreams and wonders Special note: Today we are doing something different. Instead of just talking about politics, we will begin a new series by the talented Colette Hartwich. In it, Ms. Hartwich will discuss her current project of finding a new home on the island of Crete. Stay tuned for more about her adventures in Greece.   By Colette Hartwich As a family, we consider Crete (Greece) our second motherland. With its magical diet, Crete is linked to longevity, fabulous jewelry techniques and of course olive trees. Crete, embedded in Minoan culture, is also the birthplace of the labyrinth and the Minotaur, or at least the legend of it.   For seven long years now, we have been looking for the ideal spot for a house: close enough to the sea as there is nothing better than a fresh morning dive straight from your porch; close enough to a village, so that, in recent years the frequent forest fires, at least to a part one could rely on some sort of fire brigade; with a few oliv
Read more

Christian Nationalism, and other contradictions in terms

Image
Very powerful piece over on Vice that everyone should read, " Christian Nationalism Drove These People Out of Their Churches " by Tess Owen. In it, Owen looks at how Christian Nationalism...an ideology which is surely a contradiction in terms...has begun to overwhelm churches across the country. The idea that Jesus, who preached against such things, should be used to support racism, nationalism, and dictatorship is, of course, grotesque. But, it is important for us to know what is happening in the world of right-wing churches. This is, in other words, what we're up against. Forewarned is forearmed... This has nothing to do with Christ.
Read more

Communists Sue Putin

Image
  Say what?   The Communist Party of Russia …remember them? Used to be big in the totalitarian business…has sued Putin and his pals for rigging the recent elections in that country. They’ve even joined with the Putin’s various other critics in launching a legal campaign to get the elections overturned.(*) In a word, Whoa. The elections were, obviously, completely crooked. But there is something a bit stunning about the fact that the Russian Communists would actually find the spine (and the will) to say so. And that they would join with other opposition candidates in beginning legal action against Putin is astonishing.   It says something about the modern world in general, and modern Russia in particularly, that even the Communist Party is looking a bit like a coalition of moderates, and a bulwark against corruption. ~mjt *”Communists sue, say online voting in Moscow was rigged,” by Daria Litvinova, AP, Sep 29, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/europe-russia-elections-lawsuits-voting-e83
Read more