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Ralph welcomes back Dr. Michael Osterholm for a COVID check-up. They'll discuss the latest vaccines, what we know about long-haul COVID, updated testing guidelines, and some of the key lessons we can take from COVID and apply to future outbreaks. Plus, a call to action from Ralph.\xa0

Dr. Michael Osterholm is a professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In November 2020, Dr. Osterholm was appointed to President-elect Joe Biden's 13-member Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board. He is the author of Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs, and he has a weekly podcast called The Osterholm Update which offers discussion and analysis on the latest infectious disease developments.

I think what we're trying to do today is use this vaccine to target those high-risk people in particular to say\u2014you know what, you need to get it at least every four to six months, and that, unlike the flu vaccine, this is not going to be a once-a-year vaccine. If you did that\u2014 by just reducing serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths\u2014it would be a big accomplishment.

Dr. Michael Osterholm

The last time you had me on, Ralph, we actually talked about the need for a panel to actually do a post-pandemic review. Not to point fingers, not to blame people, but\u2014what should we have learned from that pandemic? And what I think is, for me, still a real challenge is we haven't seemed to learn through any of this. But more importantly\u2014we haven't realized what happened with COVID could be child's play compared to what we could see, if this was anything like a \u201c1918-like\u201d pandemic of influenza.

Dr. Michael Osterholm

We are using, today, virtually the same technology to make flu vaccines that we did in 1940. Now, that should wake everyone up.\xa0

Dr. Michael Osterholm, on why we need to invest in vaccine development

We have, as a society, a cultural aversion to foreseeing and forestalling omnicides.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven\u2019t Heard with Francesco DeSantis

News 8/28/24

1. Last week, the Uncommitted movement staged a sit-in at the DNC after the Democratic Party barred any Palestinian-American from speaking at the convention. According to Mother Jones, Uncommitted co-leader Abbas Alawieh, a delegate to the DNC, had been requesting a speaking slot for a Palestinian-American for two months in advance, and was only officially denied on the third night of the convention. Alawieh said he was \u201cstunned\u201d by the refusal, and added \u201cWe just want our voices to be heard.\u201d As the article notes, \u201cAt the DNC, Republican staffers have been offered the chance [to speak]. An Uber lawyer who is high in the campaign got a prime-time slot. But not a single Palestinian has been given even five minutes on that stage.\u201d Uncommitted gave the DNC an extensive list of potential speakers, including a physician just back from Gaza, and a Palestinian elected official from Georgia named Ruwa Romman. Her speech, available at Mother Jones, ended with the lines \u201cTo those who doubt us, to the cynics and the naysayers, I say, yes we can\u2014yes we can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not\u2026endless wars. That fights for an America that belongs to all of us\u2014Black, brown, and white, Jews and Palestinians, all of us\u2026together.\u201d This was deemed unacceptable by the power brokers of the Democratic Party.

2. In more bad news from the DNC, the New Republic reports that despite major progress in the party\u2019s foreign policy platform in 2020, \u201cthe center of gravity appears to have shifted almost as far\u2014right back to where it had previously been.\u201d Not only does the 2024 foreign policy platform include nothing about ending the sale and shipment of arms to Israel, the Democrats actually removed sections about ending the support for the Saudi war in Yemen, moving away from misguided forever wars, and cutting military spending \u2013 as well as criticizing Trump for being too soft on Iran. This article goes on to say \u201cThe Democratic platform abandons the progress made in 2020 in more subtle ways, too. The last platform noted that \u2018when misused and overused, sanctions not only undermine our interests, they threaten one of the United States\u2019 greatest strategic assets: the importance of the American financial system.\u2019\u2026the new platform does not repeat these concerns\u2026Both platforms call for competition with China, but in 2020 it said that Democrats would do so while avoiding the trap of a \u2018new Cold War\u2019\u2014language that does not appear this time around.\u201d In other words, the Democrats are trying desperately to scrub off any progress on foreign policy that pressure from the Bernie Sanders campaigns forced them to adopt into their platform. This is an ominous portend of what foreign policy could look like in a Kamala Harris administration.

3. In yet more bad news from the DNC, the Huffington Post\u2019s Jessica Schulberg reports \u201cThe Democrats quietly dropped abolishing the death penalty from their party platform. This is the first time since 2012 the platform doesn't call for abolition and the first time since 2004 there's no mention of the death penalty at all.\u201d Prior to 2012, the Democratic platform called for limiting the practice. This article continues, \u201cPublic support for the death penalty has been gradually declining. A Gallup poll last year found that 65% of Democrats oppose the punishment.\u201d Yet despite this super-majority support the Democrats are abandoning this promise and did not even bother responding to her email asking if the party still supports death penalty abolition.

4. On Monday, the Middle East Studies Association sent a letter to the University of Pennsylvania \u201cdenouncing its collaboration with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce\u2019s investigation of faculty members.\u201d This letter expresses the association\u2019s, and its Committee on Academic Freedom\u2019s \u201cgrave concern about the apparent cooperation of the University\u2026with the [Republican] witch-hunt\u2026against\u2026faculty, as well as faculty and students at other institutions of higher education.\u201d Specifically, the Association accuses the university of providing the committee with materials \u2013 including course syllabi \u2013 despite no subpoena being issued. The Association compares this \u201cwitch-hunt,\u201d to \u201cthe now-disgraced House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in the late 1940s and 1950s,\u201d and makes clear that the House committee members are \u201cless concerned with combatting invidious discrimination than with suppressing and punishing pro-Palestine speech.\u201d This letter ends with a demand that the university \u201cimmediately desist from any form of cooperation\u2026[and] to affirm [their] commitment to protect the academic freedom of [their] faculty, students and staff, and to vigorously defend them against all forms of governmental harassment and intimidation.\u201d

5. Remember the astronauts stranded on the International Space Station due to Boeing\u2019s incompetence? According to AP, \u201cNASA decided Saturday it\u2019s too risky to bring [them] back to Earth in Boeing\u2019s\u2026capsule, and they\u2019ll have to wait until next year for a ride home\u2026What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months.\u201d As AP highlights, this is \u201ca blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side. Boeing had counted on Starliner\u2019s first crew trip to revive the troubled spacecraft program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.\u201d In other words, whether in the air or in space, Boeing craft are undependable and dangerous. According to Good Jobs First\u2019s Subsidy Tracker, Boeing has received nearly $100 billion in public subsidies, loans or bailouts since 1994.

6. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump, the BBC reports. In a press conference, Kennedy said he would \u201cseek to remove his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states\u2026where his presence would be a \u2018spoiler\u2019 to Trump's effort.\u201d That said, election officials in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada said it was too late to take his name off the ballot. In exchange for his endorsement, Kennedy\u2019s running mate Nicole Shanahan \u201centertained the idea that Kennedy could join Trump\u2019s administration as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services,\u201d per AP, a perch that would allow him to carry out his anti-vaccine agenda. Kerry Kennedy, his sister, released a statement saying his support for Trump was a \u201cbetrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story.\u201d

7. Last year, the Department of Justice announced an antitrust lawsuit accusing the meat industry of colluding to fix prices with the help of a data company, Agri Stats, that \u201cviolated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by collecting, integrating, and distributing competitively sensitive information related to price, cost, and output among competing meat processors,\u201d per Common Dreams. Now, More Perfect Union has released a video on the case featuring Errol Schweizer, the former vice president of Whole Foods' grocery division, saying \u201cThis is probably one of the top five food scandals of the 21st Century, and we can't underplay it\u2026People f*****g need to go to jail\u2026for this s**t.\u201d

8. Labor Notes\u2019 Luis Feliz Leon reports \u201cCostco turned down a card check agreement with the Teamsters.\u201d In a statement, the Teamsters explain \u201cCostco Teamsters were forced to suspend negotiations for a new National Master Agreement after the wholesale giant, despite its claims of being pro-union, refused to accept a card check agreement that would make it easier for nonunion Costco workers to join the Teamsters\u2026Despite Costco\u2019s public reputation as a \u2018worker-friendly\u2019 company, the wholesaler has undergone a troubling shift in its corporate culture and governance. Increasingly\u2026catering to Wall Street shareholders at the expense of workers.\u201d Teamsters General President Sean O\u2019Brien is quoted saying \u201cCostco\u2019s so-called \u2018pro-worker\u2019 image is now nothing more than a talking point for investors\u2026We are not here for empty rhetoric \u2014 we\u2019re here to win an industry-leading contract that stops Costco\u2019s corporate backsliding and guarantees workers the right to organize with a card-check agreement.\u201d This statement also notes that \u201cCostco is ranked as the 11th largest U.S. corporation on the Fortune 500 and reported $242 billion in revenue and $29.7 billion in annual gross profits in 2023.\u201d

9. According to Vox, the 2019 US teacher strikes were \u201cgood, actually.\u201d This piece cites \u201cNew research [which] finds labor stoppages raised wages without harming student learning.\u201d As this article explains, \u201cAnswering\u2026questions [like do these strikes work? Do they deliver gains for workers? Do they help or hurt students academically?] has been challenging\u2026due to a lack of centralized data that scholars could use to analyze the strikes\u2026Now, for the first time\u2026researchers \u2026have compiled a novel data set to answer these questions, providing the first credible estimates of the effect of US teacher strikes.\u201d According to this data, which covers 772 teacher strikes across 610 school districts in 27 states between 2007-2023, \u201con average, strikes were successful,\u201d delivering average compensation increases of 3 percent one year post-strike and reaching 8 percent five years out. Not only that, the data show strikes related to \u201cimproved working conditions, such as lower class sizes or increased spending on school facilities and non-instructional staff like nurses\u2026were also effective\u2026as pupil-teacher ratios fell by 3.2 percent and there was a 7 percent increase in spending dedicated to paying non-instructional staff by the third year after a strike.\u201d Perhaps most critically, \u201cthe researchers find no evidence that US teacher strikes\u2026affected reading or math achievement for students in the year of the strike, or in the five years after\u2026In fact\u2026they could not rule out that the\u2026strikes actually boosted student learning over time, given the increased school spending associated with them.\u201d The bottom line is this: teacher strikes get the goods, for teachers, staff, and students alike.

10. Finally, Bloomberg reports China has achieved their renewable power target six years ahead of schedule. According to this report, \u201cThe nation added 25 gigawatts of turbines and panels in July, expanding total capacity to 1,206 gigawatts\u2026Xi set a goal in December 2020 for at least 1,200 gigawatts from the clean energy sources by 2030.\u201d As Bloomberg notes, \u201cChina by far outspends the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy, and has repeatedly broken wind and solar installation records in recent years. The rapid growth has helped lead to declines in coal power generation this summer and may mean the world\u2019s biggest polluter has already reached peak emissions well before its 2030 target.\u201d Impressive as these achievements are, solar and wind still only account for around 14% of energy generation in China. In order to arrest catastrophic climate change, much much more remains to be done.

This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven\u2019t Heard.