Here are some things that I think we get wrong in our increasing obsession with longevity 1/🧵👇 @NewYorker @DhruvKhullar
newyorker.com/magazine/2024/… Living a long time is not an end in itself. If it becomes the focus of your life, that is one of the worst mistakes you can make. It’s not that we shouldn’t exercise or eat well—but everyone goes through a decline. Spending your life worried about all these tiny things is a waste of time.

Great talking with @smerconish about my 2014 @theatlantic piece. Here are 3 key points I find often get lost in the discussion 🧵...

cnn.com/videos/health/… 1. Not everyone can be an outlier. By the time we reach 75, creativity, originality, & productivity are beginning to wane for the majority of us. There are exceptions to the rule, but too many ‘American immortals’ assume that they’ll be the anomaly.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Drug companies claim that drug price negotiations in the #InflationReductionAct will prevent as many as 100 drugs from being developed. PROBLEM: the person making that claim — Tomas Philipson — is a hired gun for big pharma. 🧵 1/4
yahoo.com/news/donald-tr… The nonpartisan @USCBO estimates that this bill will have a VERY SMALL impact on drug innovation. Maybe reducing the number of drugs approved by 8 out of 300 drugs in the next 10 years. That is a small price to ensure necessary drugs are affordable for Americans. 2/4

Here they go again….Pharma is scaring everyone that regulating the prices on just 20 drugs will kill innovation especially for cancer. As an oncologist, let me say this as clear as I can: this is ridiculous. Making drugs affordable for Americans will not kill innovation. The independent @USCBO predicts that one—YES ONE—drug will not come to market in the next 10 years because of this bill & 9 more in the next 20 yrs—all while 1300 drugs will be approved. thehill.com/policy/healthc…

While America retires its masks, fills restaurants, & treats COVID like it's in the past, I'm still masking & running HEPA filters. Here's why and a 🧵:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… I'm not a worrywart, I take more risks than my family would like! I ride an electric motorcycle 🏍️. But I desperately fear getting #LongCOVID. It's shockingly common in COVID patients, between 3-17% of all cases. Symptoms range from uncomfortable to life-altering or -threatening.

Let’s bust five common #COVID19 #vaccine myths in one thread:

Myth #1: “I already had COVID19, so I don’t need a vaccine.”

FACT: Vaccines provide better, more durable immunity from COVID19 than prior infection.
news.yahoo.com/fact-vs-fictio… Myth #2: Long-term side effects are a reason to avoid the #COVID19 #vaccine.

FACT: With over 1.3 billion doses administered, side effects are extremely rare & occur shortly after vaccination. Infection from COVID19 can cause long term health issues. cnet.com/health/what-is…

The President won’t release his medical records, but his treatment aligns with the protocol for patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. He is not out of the woods. @VinGuptaMD & I address the three most plausible scenarios moving forward: usatoday.com/story/opinion/… Scenario One: The President recovers from his pneumonia without complication, approximately two weeks from onset of symptoms (Oct. 1). This is the best outcome for him & for national security.

The #COVID testing at the White House Amy Coney Barrett super spreading event last Saturday was either faulty or the White House lied about the data.

About 150 people attended but there were NO positives on the rapid COVID test. That is nearly impossible. 1/4 There should have been a few false positives even if everyone did not have #COVID. But NONE? Something is fishy--either they are lying or they did not do the test right. 2/4

Despite our differences, I wish the President and First Lady a speedy recovery. Every person is different, and I have not examined the President. But what do we know based on public info and the public health data about what Trump is facing? 1/ nytimes.com/2020/10/02/us/… What we do NOT know is the full extent of the President's health. Unlike every President in the modern era, he has not released the full results of a physical exam.

washingtonpost.com/politics/trump… 2/

The US health care system is rife with structural racism. People of color face:
-Lower rates of insurance coverage
-Higher prevalence of chronic diseases
-Worse health outcomes
-Poor life expectancy

@Risalavizzo & I outline 5 steps to combat this problem:
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… 1. Provide universal health care coverage and finally eliminate the racial coverage gap. In 2018, 9% of white adults were uninsured, compared to 14% of Black adults and 25% of Latino adults.

The #COVID19 recession will make this gap worse.
commonwealthfund.org/press-release/…

Looking forward to this conversation at 10am ET today with @DrPaulOffit and Dr. Michael Kinch. Join here: facebook.com/watch/NBCNews/

https://twitter.com/CaroMT/status/1306277488620904450

What do we mean by “vaccine nationalism” and why is it harmful? Read more on what we should value in global vaccine distribution models in @ScienceMagazine: science.sciencemag.org/content/369/65… 2/4

Ethically distributing a #covid19 vaccine across the globe will be an enormous challenge. To create a framework for doing so, I and colleagues from around the world created the Fair Priority Model.

More @ScienceMagazine: science.sciencemag.org/content/early/…
1/5 The Fair Priority Model is built on 3 moral principles:
✔️Benefiting people and limiting harm,
✔️Prioritizing the disadvantaged, and
✔️Equal moral concern — discrimination in matters of global health is not an option
2/5

I wrote in the @nytimes w/ Cathy Zhang & @amayahdiana yesterday on how American clinical research needs to step up its game against #Covid19. Here’s more on what we can learn from Britain: nytimes.com/2020/09/01/opi… 1/8 .@MartinLandray, who is leading Britain’s #Covid19 effort, known as Recovery, identified 6 factors that contributed to its success in an interview with us. They should be applied in the U.S. to produce more rapid, large-scale clinical trials of therapeutics. 2/8

Often overlooked but critical in the US response to COVID: the US has produced little pathbreaking clinical research on treatments to reduce cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

Some thoughts:
nytimes.com/2020/09/01/opi… 1/ The @US_FDA recently allowed convalescent plasma for emergency use for hospitalized #Covid19 patients -- despite lack of definitive data b/c the large 35K-person study on the treatment lacked randomization+placebo. Points to larger problem in research. nytimes.com/2020/08/19/us/… 2/

Last night at the #GOPConvention we heard praise for how Trump managed COVID-19, especially in NY. Unsurprisingly, a Trump supporter has a loose grasp of the actual facts.

Let’s take a look:
1010wins.radio.com/articles/lee-z… 1/ Take personal protective equipment. They touted Trump sending 200,000 N95 masks to NY. But just one hospital in NYC was going through 40,000 masks a day!
cnbc.com/2020/04/06/new… 2/

Once we have an effective COVID-19 vaccine, we likely will not have enough to give all Americans, despite the gov purchasing from candidates in clinical trials. This is a difficult ethical challenge, but I’ll try my best to outline in this thread.
fiercehealthcare.com/payer/zeke-ema… 1/5 Some people are misinterpreting the primary goal of the COVID-19 vaccine, which is to reduce premature mortality from the virus. Many assume the way to do that is to give front-line healthcare workers the vaccine first. 2/5

The psychological pressures that #Covid19 has brought — isolation and physical distancing, fast-rising unemployment and economic loss — have triggered what amounts to a secondary pandemic for millions of Americans.

@DrWennberg and I wrote for @CNN:
cnn.com/2020/08/12/opi… 1/ Research published in @AmerMedicalAssn in April 2020 found that about 3X as many adults reported psychological distress as in 2018. That same month, texts to the federal government's Disaster Distress Helpline increased by almost 1,000%. jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/… 2/

There’s a lot @HHSGov @SecAzar can learn while he’s in #Taiwan. Taiwan’s successful response to #Covid19 was not a matter of luck. It was the result of careful planning and digital innovation. statnews.com/2020/06/30/tai… THREAD 1/6

https://twitter.com/cnni/status/1292835605081198595

#Taiwan's health card offers a basis for a fast and effective response. Though not designed to stop a pandemic, their EHR system was nimble enough to be reoriented toward one. It also helped ID patients at risk based on travel history, as well as candidates for testing. 2/6

Given Trump’s #Covid19 response so far, it’s not surprising we're already behind in preparing to administer a #vaccine. What needs to happen? @TopherSpiro and I outlined 4 steps:

1-Fill and finish
2-Syringes and needles
3-Payment
4-Delivery

washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-… 1/6 1-We'll need special glass vials + plants to get the vaccine into vials. Right now, there aren't enough.

The government should retrofit existing facilities, expand the production of glass vials, and build new fill-finish facilities. Trump MUST invoke Defense Production Act. 2/6

As school approaches with insufficient guidance from the Trump Admin, parents and teachers deserve a clear assessment of the #covid risks. So @SaskiaPopescu, @DrPhillipsMD and I made a risk index for schools. Below and in @nytopinion. Please share widely 1/nytimes.com/2020/07/29/opi… First things first: schools should only open in places where there is low community spread. That is fewer than 75 cases per 100,000 people over previous 7 days with a test positivity rate below 5%. By our count, 12 states and DC meet both metrics. 2/

There has been remarkable progress toward a #COVID vaccine, but the Trump Admin has shown no leadership in preparing for its production and distribution. As @TopherSpiro & I lay out in our new @amprog paper, it will take a massive, unprecedented effort. 1/ americanprogress.org/issues/healthc… To date, the Admin. has not released a comprehensive vaccine plan. Meanwhile, experts believe two doses will be needed,requiring the manufacturing, financing, distribution, and administration of 462M doses to achieve herd immunity and 660M doses for the entire U.S. population. 2/