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Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
@DrEricDing
Oct 16 • 8 tweets • 3 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
It is disgusting and shameful that the @CDCgov has TERMINATED its wastewater testing with @BiobotAnalytics—the world leader in wastewater surveillance for outbreaks. Once upon a time in Boston, I advised founder @NewshaGhaeli to pursue her idea of wastewater testing in 2015–the rest is history, and has led the pandemic in COVID surveillance ever since mass testing ended. Now, Google’s parent Alphabet has been given the CDC contract—despite Alphabet’s new dashboard being utterly useless & completely sucks!!! Sweetheart inside deal? Tech company my ass. Oh and #COVID19 wastewater signals are now as high as first 2020 wave still, and increasing again in Northeast U.S.—but no more CDC-funded BioBot dashboard. Honestly, @CDCDirector has no clue this is one of her agency’s biggest mistakes ever—why are CDC leaders so clueless about what people actually use and want?

By @BenjaminMateus7 #CovidIsNotOver

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2) “It appears that the disruption in wastewater data is another deliberate attempt by the CDC to further dismantle any semblance of organized real-time data on the state of the pandemic. Such shifts in contracts usually take place over a span of time to assure a seamless transition on the data being presented.

It was known in February 2023 that Biobot had been given a six-month extension to ensure data continuity for the NWSS program. The scope of the contract included data from more than 400 locations from over 250 counties across the entire United States, covering 60 million people. On top of this, Biobot also conducted genomic sequencing to identify the latest variants in circulation.”

Sadly not anymore.
3) BioBot wastewater testing has been so priceless throughout the pandemic in predicting the rise in each new wave. Especially when home tests aren’t reported to health departments and clinics anymore.
4) Biobot founders @NewshaGhaeli & Mariana Matus once had to desperately convince folks of wastewater testing. Others laughed... but @BiobotAnalytics was honored as Time 100 Most Influential companies of 2022. Fun fact—Both founders are immigrants. time.com/collection/tim…
@NewshaGhaeli @BiobotAnalytics 5) let this sink in—

- In 2019, the CDC’s budget for wastewater intelligence was 0
- In the 2020-21 fiscal year, CDC’s budget for wastewater intelligence = $2.5M
- In the 2022-23 fiscal year, CDC’s budget for wastewater intelligence = $275M

But they gave it to Alphabet instead?
@NewshaGhaeli @BiobotAnalytics 6) I hate this shit— so the world’s first wastewater testing company @BiobotAnalytics that pioneered it all and won a major TIME MAGAZINE award… now get defunded by the @CDCgov in favor of Alphabet (Google). This is a goddamn travesty @CDCDirector. And it smells funny as hell.
@NewshaGhaeli @BiobotAnalytics @CDCgov @CDCDirector 7) To be clear, there is a new wastewater website run by Alphabet subsidiary Verily. But it’s an ugly clunky nightmare mess of a website to navigate in order to see anything. Google engineers my ass. What the hell was @CDCgov even doing? @CDCDirector—bring @BiobotAnalytics back!!
8) The @CDCgov has completely lost its mind by defunding @BiobotAnalytics. Wastewater virus outbreak surveillance literally was invented by two MIT-graduates—immigrant women scientists—who founded BioBot. They literally pioneered the science of CDC’s entire NWSS program! ⬇️ @CDCDirector - reinstate BioBot funding! The public demands it!

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More from @DrEricDing

Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Oct 18
Shit, @CDCgov really screwed over @BiobotAnalytics—their CEO says Biobot had to lay off 35% of all their employees. is the world pioneer in wastewater surveillance for outbreaks—and built their entire company to help CDC ramp up their NWSS website when CDC had absolutely no experience and $0 funding in 2020, only to be screwed over when CDC’s wastewater funding ballooned to $275 million (BECAUSE OF BIOBOT’s SUCCESS!)—but now in a fishy deal taken away and then given to Alphabet (Google's parent). I personally know @NewshaGhaeli was the visionary who pioneered BioBot with @MarianaMatusG to be a Time-Magazine award winning company… only for their VISION & PLATFORM that they built to be hijacked. Honestly, Alphabet should acquire BioBot’s incredible company instead of stealing their vision and turning a pandemic wastewater website to shit 💩, because that’s what @Verily’s wastewater dashboard is right now. @CDCDirector — the public is angry, and this poop water stinks to high heaven. Bring back @BiobotAnalytics! Restore public trust. Honor the invention & hard work of two female MIT-graduate immigrant scientists. Thank you.BioBot.io

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2) The @CDCgov really royally screwed up. BioBot is the greatest invention of the pandemic, next to only the vaccines. Yet @CDCDirector has no clue the value of @BiobotAnalytics and what they did to change the world and how invaluable they were to help build CDC’s NWSS. Shameful.
@CDCgov @CDCDirector @BiobotAnalytics 3) Excuse me, @CDCDirector, did Alphabet win the Time magazine honor for wastewater testing invention and surveillance??? Nooooo. @BiobotAnalytics’s MIT-scientist founders @NewshaGhaeli & @MarianaMatusG did! @CDCgov literally threw the 2 immigrant women founders under the bus!
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Oct 14
⚠️Corrupt “SUE TO DELAY” big pharma shenanigan—➡️ Life saving cancer medicine lenalidomide (Revlimid) costs $720 per generic pill💊 in 🇺🇸. In 🇨🇦, same pill = $10. In Finland 🇫🇮, same pill = 2.5 Euros ($2.63)!!! Despite there being a generic drug, the brand maker Celgene sued to cap generic sales low until 2026–a corrupt pharma practice known as “sue to delay” deal. Meantime, until then, generic & brand drug makers collude and profit share to keep the drug price extremely high. Ever since lenalidomide generics emerged 13 years ago, there’s been plenty of lawsuits & back room collusion deals about it to keep prices inflated. Meanwhile, cancer patients suffer and die from delayed care from it. As a former childhood survivor of a life threatening tumor, this shit disgusts me, and I vow to go after this shit until the day I die. #BigPharma HT @VincentRK
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2) These corrupt pharma shenanigans of “sue to delay” price collision are well documented in many lawsuits. Here is one example. fiercepharma.com/pharma/new-ant…
3) So we did the math. Medicare alone spends ***$5 billion*** on Revlimid each year. US could buy all of it for $20-$100 million (Finland/Canada prices)—saving $5 billion. Every year!! From just this one cancer drug alone!!! But instead, we cut food stamps & kids healthcare. 🔥

Thanks @VincentRK
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Read 6 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Oct 3
🧪APPROVED—The FDA has now authorized #Novavax’s new XBB-variant booster shot for use in all ages 12+. Anyone previously vaccinated with a #COVID19 vaccine (any brand) are eligible to receive one dose, and unvaccinated may receive 2 doses. #CovidIsNotOver
fda.gov/news-events/pr…
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2) Why is Novavax’s vaccine unique? For those not familiar, it is the only non-mRNA #COVID vaccine available in the US, and it offers potentially broader protection (earlier studies) against different variants.
3) Being a protein vaccine will hopefully bring a lot more people who have been on the fence about mRNA to be vaccinated. To be clear - There’s nothing inherently wrong with mRNA (don’t give conspiracy or unscientific nonsense), but more choice is good too.
Read 4 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Oct 2
BREAKING—The 2023 Nobel Prize for Medicine goes to the inventors of the mRNA technology that made possible the vaccine against #COVID (and many other conditions)—Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. #NobelPrize Image
2) mRNA vaccines: A promising idea

In our cells, genetic information encoded in DNA is transferred to messenger RNA (mRNA), which is used as a template for protein production. During the 1980s, efficient methods for producing mRNA without cell culture were introduced, called in vitro transcription. This decisive step accelerated the development of molecular biology applications in several fields. Ideas of using mRNA technologies for vaccine and therapeutic purposes also took off, but roadblocks lay ahead. In vitro transcribed mRNA was considered unstable and challenging to deliver, requiring the development of sophisticated carrier lipid systems to encapsulate the mRNA. Moreover, in vitro-produced mRNA gave rise to inflammatory reactions. Enthusiasm for developing the mRNA technology for clinical purposes was, therefore, initially limited.
These obstacles did not discourage the Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó, who was devoted to developing methods to use mRNA for therapy. During the early 1990s, when she was an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, she remained true to her vision of realizing mRNA as a therapeutic despite encountering difficulties in convincing research funders of the significance of her project. A new colleague of Karikó at her university was the immunologist Drew Weissman. He was interested in dendritic cells, which have important functions in immune surveillance and the activation of vaccine-induced immune responses. Spurred by new ideas, a fruitful collaboration between the two soon began, focusing on how different RNA types interact with the immune system.

3) The breakthrough
Karikó and Weissman noticed that dendritic cells recognize in vitro transcribed mRNA as a foreign substance, which leads to their activation and the release of inflammatory signaling molecules. They wondered why the in vitro transcribed mRNA was recognized as foreign while mRNA from mammalian cells did not give rise to the same reaction. Karikó and Weissman realized that some critical properties must distinguish the different types of mRNA.
RNA contains four bases, abbreviated A, U, G, and C, corresponding to A, T, G, and C in DNA, the letters of the genetic code. Karikó and Weissman knew that bases in RNA from mammalian cells are frequently chemically modified, while in vitro transcribed mRNA is not. They wondered if the absence of altered bases in the in vitro transcribed RNA could explain the unwanted inflammatory reaction. To investigate this, they produced different variants of mRNA, each with unique chemical alterations in their bases, which they delivered to dendritic cells. The results were striking: The inflammatory response was almost abolished when base modifications were included in the mRNA. This was a paradigm change in our understanding of how cells recognize and respond to different forms of mRNA. Karikó and Weissman immediately understood that their discovery had profound significance for using mRNA as therapy. These seminal results were published in 2005, fifteen years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Read 8 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Sep 20
AMAZING—The US government will relaunch a program to provide free #COVID19 home tests starting Monday September 25th, 2023. Officials say the tests are able to detect the latest variants. In other words, the US govt admits that #CovidIsNotOver.

The return of the free testing program comes after Americans navigated the latest uptick in covid cases with free testing no longer widely available. The largest insurance companies stopped reimbursing the costs of retail at-home testing once the requirement to do so ended with the public health emergency in May.

Experts say free #COVID testing proved to be an effective public health tool, allowing people to check their status before attending large gatherings or spending time with older or medically vulnerable people at risk of severe disease even after being vaccinated. It also enables people to start antiviral treatments in the early days of infection to prevent severe disease.




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2) we are way behind once again. Late is better than never. But glad the Biden WH is getting things back into action on #COVID and taking it seriously.
3) I believe the UK 🇬🇧 Canada 🇨🇦 and the EU 🇪🇺 and any countries that can afford it should also launch / relaunch the free testing kits for all program. The UK’s #COVID hospitalizations are getting crazy high too, especially in kids.
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Sep 19
What the hell is @CDCgov doing again weakening public health standards to water down protection in hospitals to just wear surgical masks instead N95 respirators? Healthcare workers are furious! Can’t believe @CDCDirector might go along—utterly insane.🧵
nbcnews.com/health/health-…
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2) “Nurses, researchers and workplace safety officers worry new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens in hospitals.
A CDC advisory committee has been updating its 2007 standards for infection control in hospitals this year. Many health care professionals and scientists expressed outrage after the group released a draft of its proposals in June.
The draft controversially concluded that N95 face masks are equivalent to looser, surgical face masks in certain settings — and that doctors and nurses need to wear only surgical masks when treating patients infected by “common, endemic” viruses, like those that cause the seasonal flu.”
3) “The committee was slated to vote on the changes at a public meeting on Aug. 22, but it postponed the vote until November. Once the advice is final, the CDC begins a process of turning the committee’s assessment into guidelines that hospitals throughout the United States typically follow. After the meeting, members of the public expressed concern about where the CDC was headed, especially as Covid cases rise. Nationwide, hospital admissions and deaths due to Covid have been increasing for several consecutive weeks.
“Health care facilities are where some of the most vulnerable people in our population have to frequent or stay,” said Gwendolyn Hill, a research intern at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after the committee’s presentation. She said N95 masks, ventilation, and air-purifying technology can lower rates of Covid transmission within hospital walls and “help ensure that people are not leaving sicker than they came.”
Read 10 tweets

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