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Two top FDA docs step down over booster shots

Dr Marion Gruber and Dr Phillip Krause were not just at the FDA, they had been there for 30 years and were heading up the teams that decided last week to approve Pfizer for 16 year olds last week.

Two Top FDA Vaccine Regulators Are Set to Depart During a Crucial Period

Noah Weiland and Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times

Gruber and Krause were upset about the Biden administration’s recent announcement that adults should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, according to people familiar with their thinking.

Neither believed there was enough data to justify offering booster shots yet, the people said, and both viewed the announcement, amplified by President Joe Biden, as pressure on the FDA to quickly authorize them.

They are worried about that Israeli data showing people vaccinated in January only had 16% protection left in July.

White House officials have stressed that the plan for Americans to start receiving boosters next month was uniformly endorsed by the most senior federal health officials, including Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting FDA commissioner. They have described the need to develop a booster plan as […]

That’s compassion: Making students mentally ill for your own political gain

Tony Thomas has been reading academic papers so you don’t have to. Dr Blanche Verlie at the Uni of Sydney explores “the affective geographies of eco-anxiety” and seems to help create victims to study at the same time. A good business model maybe, but at the expense of mental health.

The more young people suffer, the more useful they are as political activists:

Getting Kids’ Climate Misery Just Right

Tony Thomas, Quadrant

Dr Blanche Verlie,Uni Sydney

Verlie correctly concedes that “climate anxiety can intersect with and contribute to clinically diagnosable mental illness” born of “hopelessness, disillusionment or apathy”. But she explains helpfully (if I might paraphrase) that the more kids suffer the better chance they’ll become green activists. In her own words,

climate anxiety is not an illness or disorder, but an appropriate and even valuable source of discomfort that can provide an important lens to help people re-evaluate what is important to them and find meaningful ways to inhabit the world. Education’s remit for cultivating critical thinking and empowerment thus makes it an exciting realm for supporting young people to contribute to what Verlie (2019a) [she is speaking of herself in […]

Wednesday Open Thread

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UN Climate conference banishes nuclear industry. China and renewables investors relieved.

The global nuclear industry has put in fifteen applications to display exhibits at the up-and-coming UN Climate COP26 event in Glasgow. But all fifteen have been rejected in preference for exhibits from industries that appear to solve climate problems but have little effect on actual emissions.

Nuclear power poses an existential threat to the Climate Porn and Fear Industry, potentially causing mass job losses by providing thousands of years of reliable electricity as well as grid scale spinning inertia, FCAS, and reserve capacity too.

President Xi could not be contacted, but has in the past encouraged the rest of the world to keep trying to cut emissions in the most expensive way possible.

Imagine what the world would look like if the UNFCCC wanted to solve the climate crisis? (And if there was one?)

hat tip GWPF

UK Govt under fire as nuclear industry claim they have been banned from COP26

The Sunday Telegraph

Up to 15 applications from nuclear-related bodies are understood to have been rejected by Mr Sharma’s COP26 Unit in the Cabinet Office.

They included an application involving the World Nuclear Association, which represents the global nuclear […]