#Reasons for starting vaccine research

[sophsweet]

Quotes from Coronavirus Vaccine Designers and Researchers since SARS-COV1

Coronavirus Vaccine History Back in 2004, SARS vaccine trial spotlights continued peril by Helen Pearson was published in the science press. But public-health experts remain concerned that a second wave of infections could erupt, either from human contact with infected animals or by the virus escaping from laboratory samples.Pearson, Helen SARS vaccine trial spotlights continued peril. Nature…

[valentinedagger]

house md 2020 COVID season. princeton plainsborough is the epicenter for covid research for some contrived reason. cameron is extremely pro-mask. foreman isn't anti-mask but he thinks it's personal choice to wear one or not and if you decide not to wear one you deserve to die off anyway because something something natural selection. chase is just trying to clown around and start shit in the workplace. wilson has a very special episode dedicated to convincing his immunocompromised cancer patient to mask. early on in the season house gets hyperfixated on trying to find a cure for covid and starts to forgo his vicodin in favor of the best puzzle he's ever encountered. everyone tells him he can't do it and it can't be cured and to wait for the CDC to distribute vaccines but he keeps going with an insane obsession. towards the end of the season cameron gets irrationally attached to a covid patient who's on a ventilator. she tries to join house on his obsessive journey but he spurns her because she's doing it for sentimental reasons. her patient dies and gives her covid. in the season finale house is trying to save cameron but can't find the cure and starts to believe it's impossible. he enters her room without PPE in some insane patented gregory move to try to cure her that doesnt work. he catches covid as a result of this and passes out with a fever of 104. he hallucinates arguments with his coworkers and friends in an extended dream sequence that eventually culminates in the realization that he's been subconsciously blocking out the answer to curing covid this entire time because he doesn't want to give up the best puzzle he's ever encountered and go back to vicodin. he struggles with this moral conundrum and eventually decides to cure covid and also cameron. the season ends on a shot of him popping a handful of vicodin dramatically. covid is never brought up again.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

so… how does autism even happen? they say “there’s only in increase in numbers because they have better ways to diagnose” but I’ve seen two, normal and brain healthy adults have severely autistic kids. not to be “that person” but I genuinely believe it could be due to over vaccinating or all the chemicals we consume in food and products on a daily basis.

so are they just using the better ways of diagnosing as an excuse to why autism is increasing so they don’t have to admit they’re poisoning us? is it really a true statement that the amount of people born with autism has stayed the same and it is just because of better diagnostics?

I just can’t comprehend how two healthy adults, with no familial history of autism or anything like it, is at all possible. it must be what we consume, because the amount of chemicals and bioengineered products we consume daily now is absolutely mind blowing. I could totally see how a mother consuming these things whilst pregnant, and before, could lead to her birthing a child with brain issues.

i’m not trying to be ignorant - I just think autism (severe case - can’t be touched, can’t speak, can’t regulate emotions..) is really really really hard to deal with, for the individual yes but also for the parents. I couldn’t imagine not being able to touch or talk to my child, and I would feel absolutely awful if I caused that by what I consumed.

id like to be a mother someday, I have no family history of autism, nor does my partner. but… I know my limits, and having an autistic child would be quite the battle for me. even though mine and my partners bloodline is clean, is it still a likely risk?

Before getting started: I am NOT going over something like this again, so please do NOT send questions like this.

Question 1:

so... how does autism even happen? they say "there's only in increase in numbers because they have better ways to diagnose" but l've seen two, normal and brain healthy adults have severely autistic kids. not to be "that person" but l genuinely believe it could be due to over vaccinating or all the chemicals we consume in food and products on a daily basis.

Answer: two healthy people can have an autistic child. The same way two healthy people can have Down syndrome. Autism itself is a neurodevelopment disorder that affects how we learn and communicate. These disorders affect both the brain and spinal cord. If you do some actual research, the autistic brain is actually a bit larger than a neurotypical one. We have a smaller amygdala however, which helps regulate emotions. That could explain the emotional dysregulation. This disorder literally affects how the brain works. It’s not the same as a neurotypical one. We’re called neurodivergent for a reason.

Question 2:

so are they just using the better ways of diagnosing as an excuse to why autism is increasing so they don't have to admit they're poisoning us? is it really a true statement that the amount of people born with autism has stayed the same and it is just because of better diagnostics?

Answer: Autism itself is a complex disorder and was barely understood years ago. There’s no sign that vaccines are raising. If it were, then mostly everybody would be autistic. But this is not this case.

Here’s an article about the “autism epidemic” as people like the call it:

Question 3:

I’m not going into this part, because this is where you start to get delusional. Like I said before, it’s a developmenttal disorder that ANYONE can have regardless of family history. Yes, Autism tends to run in families, but there can be some where autism doesn’t run in families. Anyone can have autism. It doesn’t matter if it runs in families or not.

We have gotten better with diagnostics because of our more advanced technology. Autism isn’t rising. We’re just getting better at diagnosing and understanding the disorder. It’s still unknown what exactly causes it or how it happens. Some say it’s environmental, others say it could be genetics.

Yes, autism can be hard and difficult to live with. And the fact that you are insinuating that you wouldn’t or like to have neurodivergent child, then you probably shouldn’t be a mother. I would love my child and take care of them, no matter the circumstances. Even if they couldn’t talk, that wouldn’t make me love them less.

Do some research, spend some time talking to autistic people and parents to see their experiences and thoughts. We’re human beings, just like you.

[tlbodine]

So, Things Are Terrible and You Want to DO SOMETHING

The election is over and, ah...did not go well. While a lot of folks are doing a post mortem of the campaigns and trying to understand what happened with the vote and fighting over who shoulders the blame, we've gotta turn an eye toward the future and figure out, okay fam, where the fuck do we go from here.

I don't have all the answers on this, and I'm not an authority by any means, I'm just a horror author with a blog. But I've been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to share my thought process with others who might want to DO SOMETHING but feel they're spinning their wheels.

Buckle in. This will be a long one.

Step One: Understand the actual risks and stakes.

I think it is very easy to start panicking now about the worst possible case scenario -- jackbooted military busting into the door to disappear everyone who ever said something mean about Trump or bought a banned book or something -- and let fear turn into inaction.

I'm not saying things can't get that bad, and I'm not saying that it won't be absolutely terrifying right out the gate for some particularly at-risk groups -- but the distance between "now" and "V for Vendetta" is long and filled with a lot of intermediary steps. There will be so many opportunities to prevent the worst case scenario.

I say this because, if your mental image of "Bad Things Happening" is The Purge, it will be easy to wake up on inauguration day, look outside to see that the world is not on fire, think, hey, maybe things will be okay after all, and then completely disengage. Alternatively, you might feel so frozen with terror at the possibility of persecution that you do nothing. This is why people are saying: don't obey in advance.

It is essential for those of us with more privilege to use it to take care of those who are more vulnerable.

So. Who is most vulnerable? What does that vulnerability actually mean? What are the most likely risks of Trump's presidency? Here's a Guardian article that I think does a good job of summarizing some of the main issues. Go read that, then come back here.

Step Two: Take steps to protect yourself

You've gotta put your oxygen mask on first, right? So before you start getting involved in other causes, figure out what risks YOU are at, immediately, and do as much as you can to secure yourself. Some potential action steps depending on your circumstance may include:

Renewing your passport (helpful for leaving the country, but also for gender/name change purposes)

Getting vaccines / boosters

Securing birth control

Ensuring your necessary papers (birth certificates etc.) are where you have access to them.

Drawing up legal paperwork for spouses/partners (always a good idea, a helpful safety measure in case you lose marriage rights)

Bolstering your data privacy and online security. Here's a step-by-step guide I found that could help with that.

The specific steps you need to take here depend on what risks you, personally, face. You'll want to do some more research into this for your particular scenario.

No matter who you are, though, it's probably a good idea to start saving money and being a little more conservative with your spending and/or pay down debts to free up some cash. You don't know what kind of emergency may befall you, and having spare money for an emergency is never a bad idea.

There is a possibility that the cost of many things you rely on might go up, if Trump goes through with his tariffs plan. You will want to plan for that.

Food costs may also rise due to tariffs (we import a lot of food from Mexico and Latin America for example) as well as a loss of immigrant labor. There is also a possibility that food safety standards could fall due to overturning regulations. Now would be a good time to look into local food resources like farm share/CSA, community farms, etc., and to stock up on a few key staples like rice and beans.

Okay. Now that YOU are reasonably safe...what can you do to protect your community?

Step Three: Get Involved

Here is your mission: You need to stay engaged enough to know what's going on, without burning yourself out or exhausting yourself, and to take actual decisive actions instead of wasting your energy arguing on the internet.

Got that? Okay. Good. Here are some action steps:

Support independent journalism. Subscribe to local papers, donate to and watch public broadcast programming. I signed up for news from ProPublica, for example, as well as the news-roundup service What The Fuck Just Happened Today. The goal is to stay informed without falling down an endless rabbit hole of upsetting information.

Share news and resources with others in your circle. This can be a good use of social media. It's what I am doing right now!

If it is safe for you to do so, challenge and educate your friends/family members/neighbors/coworkers. Only if it is safe for you to do so. Do not put yourself at risk doing this. And do not waste your time arguing with people who are unlikely to change. But if you have well-meaning people in your life who you think could be won over, look for opportunities to do this - the right way. I've had some success with this, I will probably write a guide about it in the future. In the meantime, here's a good article that can help.

Join local grassroots activism groups. You'll have to do some work to decide what groups to join and which causes you want to support, because you cannot do everything. But there are tons of organizations taking direct action in all kinds of causes. Search "grassroots [cause] activists in [where you live]" to start finding things. Once you get involved in one group, you might meet people who can introduce you to other groups and causes. Yes, this means you will have to go outside and meet people. I'm sorry.

Join direct action groups. Same concept as above. You'll have to search in your area but once you know people it'll be easier to find more opportunities. Some of these groups may overlap. You might find direct action opportunities by engaging politically and vice versa. GO OUTSIDE AND TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THINGS TO HELP.

Get involved in local politics. Here are some quick tips. A lot of things are affected at the city level - stuff like book bans and bathroom bills are often battled first at local libraries and schools, and you can be part of those conversations! Sheriffs are elected and can have a big influence on local policing. Local elections affect how tax dollars are spent, how homeless populations are treated, and lots more. Don't snooze on local elections. Get involved and stay involved.

Look up your representatives. Get in the habit of calling, emailing, and writing letters. Figure out what legislature is being passed and then call your reps and harangue them about it - both to support bills you approve of and shoot down ones you don't. Sign petitions. Join email campaigns. Here's one you can go sign right now from the ACLU. See? Not that scary.

I think a lot of people figure that getting involved in politics doesn't matter or that it's all small potatoes but...man. The president is not god, no matter what he thinks. The sitting administration is not the sole power in the universe. There is an entire machine of government we can lean upon and act upon.

Finally, some general safety notes:

Some forms of direct action are not legal. Take steps to be safe if you choose to partake. Follow the lead of more seasoned activists for what forms of communication to use and so forth.

If you're not willing or able to put yourself at legal risk to act, you can help others by donating to bail funds and legal defense funds.

We've already seen this in some areas, and it will only get uglier - some bad actors are feeling emboldened by the change in regime and will misbehave. It's a good idea to learn some self-defense skills, in whatever way is comfortable to you, and brush up on some tenets of victimology that can help you stay safe. I'll write more about that in the future.

All right. That's all for now. It's by no means comprehensive...but should hopefully help you get started taking the next step. Stay safe out there.

[kcinpa]

TL;DR Project 2025

Project 2025 has crossed my dash several times, so maybe tumblr is already informed about the hellish 900-page takeover plan if Trump wins office again. But even the articles covering Project 2025 can be a LOT of reading. So I'm trying to get it down to simple bulleted lists…

Navigator Research (a progressive polling outfit) found that 7 in 10 Americans are unfamiliar with Project 2025. But the more they learn about it, the more they don't like or want it. When asked about a series of policy plans taken directly from Project 2025, the bipartisan survey group responded most negatively to the following:

Allowing employers to stop paying hourly workers overtime

Allowing the government to monitor people’s pregnancies to potentially prosecute them if they miscarry

Removing health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions

Eliminating the National Weather Service, which is currently responsible for preparing for extreme weather events like heat waves, floods, and wildfires

Eliminating the Head Start program, ending preschool education for the children of low-income families

Putting a new tax on health insurance for millions of people who get insurance through their employer

Banning Medicare from negotiating for lower prescription drug costs and eliminating the $35 monthly cap on the price of insulin for seniors

Cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age

Allowing employers to deny workers access to birth control

Laurie Garrett looked at the roughly 50 pages within Project 2025 that deal with Health and Human Services (HHS) and other health agencies, and summarized them on Twitter/X in a series of replies. I've shortened even more here:

HHS must "respect for the sacred rights of conscience" for Federal workers & healthcare providers and workers broadly who object to abortions, contraception, gender reassignment & other issues - ie. allow them to deny services based on religious beliefs

HHS should promote "stable and flourishing married families."

Require all welfare programs to "promote father involvement" – or terminate their funding for mothers and children.

Prioritize adoptions via faith-based organizations.

Redefine sex, eliminating all forms of gender "confusion" regarding identity and orientation.

Eliminate the Head Start program for children, entirely

Ban all funding of Planned Parenthood

Ban birth control services that are "egregious attacks on many Americans' religious & moral beliefs"

Deny pregnancy termination pills, "mail-order abortions."

Eliminate Office of Refugee Resettlement; move all refugee matters to the Department of Homeland Security

Healthcare should be "market-based"

Ban all mask and vaccine requirements.

Closely regulate the NIH w/citizen ethics panels, ensuring that no research involves fetal tissue, leads to development of new forms of Abortions or brings profits to the researchers.

Redirect the Office of Global Affairs to promoting "moral conscience" & full compliance w/the Mexico City policy

The CDC should have no role in medical policies.

"Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism," HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence & by what method.

I'm still looking for a good short summary of the environmental horrors that Project 2025 would bring if it comes to fruition…

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - May 22-28

Like these weekly compilations? Support me on Ko-fi or $Kaybarr1735! Also, if you tip me on Ko-fi or CashApp (and give me some way to contact you if it doesn’t automatically), at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week - almost double the content!

1. Scientists Invent Healthier More Sustainable Chocolate

“The new chocolate recipe from researchers at ETH Zurich uses more materials from the cocoa pod that are usually discarded, including more of the pulp as well as the inner lining of the husk, known as the endocarp. […] The resulting chocolate also [was “deliciously sweet” and] had 20% more fibre and 30 percent less saturated fat than average European dark chocolate[, and] it could enable cocoa farmers [to] earn more from their crops.”

2. Vermont Is Coming for Big Oil, Making It Pay for Decades of Climate Pollution

“Legislators in Montpelier are on the brink of enacting the "Climate Superfund Act," modeled after the federal Superfund law, that seeks to make oil, gas and coal companies pay for damages linked to historical greenhouse gas emissions. […] Companies would be held liable for the costs associated with […] floods and heat waves, along with losses to biodiversity, safety, economic development and anything else the treasurer deems reasonable[, that were caused by their emissions].”

3. Important bird habitat now protected in the Rocky Mountain Trench

“Grassland-reliant species in the Rocky Mountain Trench now have more protected habitat thanks to a new [270-hectare] conservation area near Cranbrook. […] About one-third of the Skookumchuck Prairie Conservation Area is forested[…,] Most of the site is a dry grassland[…, and] Three hectares of wetlands add to the landscape diversity and offer crucial benefits to wildlife and water systems in the area. This conservation gem also provides habitat for endangered American badger and excellent winter range for elk, mule deer and white-tailed deer.”

4. Lemur Week marked by 70th breeding success

“A wildlife park has celebrated its 70th lemur breeding success ahead of a week raising money to help save the endangered primates. […] The park's open-air Madagascar exhibit is home to 31 free-roaming lemurs and was officially opened in 2008. […] Females are only sexually receptive for just one or two days a year, leaving a small window of opportunity for males to father offspring. […] The two playful siblings, one female and one male, were born to father Bernard and mother Hira.”

5. Innovative material for sustainable building

“Researchers introduce a polymer-based material with unique properties. This material allows sunlight to enter, maintains a more comfortable indoor climate without additional energy, and cleans itself like a lotus leaf. The new development could replace glass components in walls and roofs in the future.”

6. Isle of Wight eagles don't pose threat to lambs as feared

“While there had previously been fears that the eagles would feed on livestock, such as lambs, the project has found no evidence of this. [… “W]hite-tailed eagles effectively steal meals from other predatory birds[, which is] a really important ecological role that had been lost within the landscape and is being restored.” [… The birds’] population was boosted by a chick last year – the first time the species has bred in England in 240 years.”

7. Breakthrough discovery uses engineered surfaces to shed heat

“Cheng's team has found a way to lower the starting point of the [Leidenfrost] effect by producing a surface covered with micropillars. […] The discovery has great potential in heat transfer applications such as the cooling of industrial machines and surface fouling cleaning for heat exchangers. It also could help prevent damage and even disaster to nuclear machinery.”

8. New malaria vaccine delivered for the first time

“A total of 43,000 doses arrived by air today from UNICEF, and another 120,000 are scheduled to show up in the coming days. […] They're the first vaccines designed to work against a human parasite. […] Across four African countries, these trials showed a 75% reduction in malaria cases in the year following vaccination of young children. […] The Serum Institute of India, who will be manufacturing the new vaccine, says a hundred million doses will likely be available to countries by the middle of next year.”

9. Urban gardening may improve human health: Microbial exposure boosts immune system

“"One month of urban indoor gardening boosted the diversity of bacteria on the skin of the subjects and was associated with higher levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines in the blood. The group studied used a growing medium with high microbial diversity emulating the forest soil," [… whereas] the control group used a microbially poor peat-based medium. [… N]o changes in the blood or the skin microbiota were seen. […] “This is the first time we can demonstrate that meaningful and natural human activity can increase the diversity of the microbiota of healthy adults and, at the same time, contribute to the regulation of the immune system."”

10. Cities Are Switching to Electric Vehicles Faster Than Individuals

“[M]ost large cities have adopted some kind of climate goal, and some of them are buying EVs for their municipal fleets at a faster rate than the general public. And that progress could speed up as more EVs enter the market and as cities get educated about grant funding and tax incentives that were passed over the last four years.”

May 15-21 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[autisticgingerblonde]

If Fallout 4 companions had TikTok accounts

Cait would have an account dedicated to fighting and thirst traps (aimed at women mostly). Teaches women self-defense techniques. She earns a spot in the algorithm of muscle mommies. She also raises awareness for addicts and former addicts, educating on the effects of drugs and the reasons people seek them out in the first place. Honestly, it's a very good account to follow.

Codsworth is just confused about TikTok. He's like "oh so what are the children saying these days? Aura? I'll have to add a new word to my vocabulary banks! Cheerio, mum!"

Curie makes educational videos for all ages and all subjects. She has a series of learning Japanese, a series of vaccines and the science behind them, a series about the effects of different types of parenting, you name it. She also takes suggestions from her audience on what new things to research.

Danse has unintentional thirst traps. He talks about power armor and the Brotherhood of Steel but also posts workouts. These are what get the most attention out of everything he posts. The BookTok girlies find him and all hell breaks loose in the comment sections. He responds to this with, "Thank you, civilians. I am not sure what you mean, but I am glad you are supporting the Brotherhood of Steel by being on my page. Thank you for your enthusiasm for our righteous cause. Ad victorium." People armchair diagnose him as autistic.

Deacon does "GRWM as i tell you about the time i ______" videos where each day he looks completely different and you can never tell if he's telling the truth or not. He also does head shaving videos that double as story times or opinion pieces. You can't tell if those are true or not either.

Dogmeat has a viral account followed by millions. Get's a lot of "I can't imagine liking this guy" comments with the op replying to their own comment with "anymore than I already do. Huge fan!"

Hancock does subtle cheeky thirst traps and dance challenges. This entire post was inspired by the FACT that Hancock would participate in the brat summer trend and would do the Apple dance with Fahrenheit filming it. He also tells stories, mostly of him being high. He gets a lot of requests to cosplay Deadpool.

MacCready has a lot of things he does. Some videos are sniper trick shots, some are Grognak the Barbarian yapping (he does short lore deep dives when he can), and some are about being a young single dad. He doesn't show Duncan's face because he's extremely protective. Casually drops the most insane lore about his childhood which leads to comments like "are we just ignoring that he said he grew up in a cave?"

Nick Valentine would be a very popular fashion and "a day in the life of a detective". He'd do vintage fashion looks, like loose slacks and suspenders with a trench coat to top it off. Sometimes does a deep dive into detective history. Gets a lot of thirsty comments to which he replies "that's one way to get the coolant pumping."

Old Longfellow has the appeal of the New England, stormy weather, sweater-wearing fisherman aesthetic, and he tells stories of his youth while showing people around the area he grew up. Learns mobile phone cinematography to make it look cooler. Every video has either a lesson or a skill for survival.

Piper's account is solely focused on news and truth, posting every source she uses. She uses the trend of an insane video, like someone falling badly on the ground or getting splashed with water, and stitches it to look like a seamless transition of her rolling from the fall or being splashed to start talking about her news stories. It gets traction so she continues.

Porter Gage has a side gig of running TikTok accounts for different people. Gets the money, doesn't get the backlash when they get canceled for racism or worker exploitation.

Preston has an account dedicated to charity work and social activism. He makes sure to highlight organizations he feels are doing the world a service and regularly has fundraisers. He's well-known for always sharing content from people in dire situations and raising money for them. Has a master document of Go Fund Me pages and vets every one of them.

Strong has a lot of those unintentional boomer tiktoks that are 1 second long and he's just looking at the screen in confusion.

X6 cyber bullies the rest of them because he thinks having a TikTok is cringe and stupid (he is currently writing hate comments with his TikTok account)

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

"No big deal." "Just a cold." "Back to normal."

The proportion of babies born with a congenital heart abnormality increased by 16 per cent after the first year of the pandemic, according to research at City St George's, University of London and published today in Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Heart defects are the most common type of anomaly that develop before a baby is born, with around 13 babies diagnosed with a congenital heart condition every day in the UK and impacting one in 110 births globally . These include defects to the baby's heart valves, the major blood vessels in and around the heart, and the development of holes in the heart.

In over 18 million births, researchers analysed data from US birth certificates from the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between December 2016 and November 2022 to evaluate the effect of the pandemic on the number of babies born with a congenital heart defect.

They compared the number of babies born with a congenital heart condition every month before the Covid-19 pandemic (1st December 2016 to 30th November 2019) with those during the pandemic (1st December 2020 to 30th November 2022).

This data was then compared to the number of babies born with Down's Syndrome - a genetic condition not affected by the virus. This was to help ascertain if any differences observed might have been due to Covid-19, or if they were a result of other factors including limited access to antenatal services during the pandemic.

A total of 11,010,764 births before and 7,060,626 births during the pandemic were analysed. Data was adjusted to account for mother's BMI, diabetes and blood pressure before pregnancy, age, number of times they had given birth and the season in which prenatal care started.

The number of births with a congenital heart condition increased by 16% after the first year of the pandemic, with 65.4 cases per 100,000 live births compared to 56.5 per 100,000 births in the period studied before the pandemic.

The number of babies born with Down Syndrome did not change for the duration of the study, suggesting that the increase in fetal heart defects were not due to a disruption of health services.

Studying this large US dataset has revealed an unexpected picture for how the pandemic has affected the hearts of unborn babies, but we need to untangle the reasons for this link. We need to determine if the SARS-CoV-2 virus directly causes the development of fetal heart problems during pregnancy, and if so, how the virus makes these changes in the heart.

We don't have this type of data set available in the UK, but it's important to see if this pattern is seen in other parts of the world.

Covid-19 is still circulating and is easier to catch in the winter months. These results act as an important reminder for pregnant women to get their Covid-19 vaccinations to help protect themselves and their baby."

Professor Asma Khalil, lead author and Professor of Obstetrics and Maternal Fetal Medicine at City St George's, University of London

Source: City St George's, University of London

Journal reference: Khalil, A., et al. (2024). Congenital heart defects during COVID‐19 pandemic. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology. doi.org/10.1002/uog.29126. obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/uog.29126

[mariacallous]

Updated vaccines against Covid-19 are coming, just as hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus are steadily ticking up again.

Today, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized new mRNA booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer, and a panel of outside experts that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to recommend the shots to everyone in the United States ages 6 months and older. Once Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Mandy Cohen signs off on the recommendations and the vaccines are shipped, people can start getting the boosters.

The recommendation is projected to prevent about 400,000 hospitalizations and 40,000 deaths over the next two years, according to data presented at the meeting by CDC epidemiologist Megan Wallace.

This year’s mRNA vaccines are different from the 2022 booster in a key way. Last year’s shot was a bivalent vaccine, meaning it covered two variants: the original one that emerged in China in 2019, plus the Omicron subvariant BA.5, which was circulating during much of 2022. This fall’s booster drops the original variant, which is no longer circulating and is unlikely to return. It targets just the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which was dominant throughout much of 2023.

Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines work by introducing a tiny piece of genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, that carries instructions for making SARS-CoV-2’s characteristic spike protein. Once it is injected, cells in the body use those instructions to temporarily make the spike protein. The immune system recognizes the protein as foreign and generates antibodies against it. Those antibodies stick around so that if they encounter that foreign invader again, they will mount a response against it.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the virus has acquired new mutations in its spike protein and elsewhere. These mutations result in new variants and subvariants that diverge from the original virus. When enough mutations accumulate, these new versions can more easily evade the antibodies created by previous vaccine doses or infections.

The constantly evolving nature of the virus is the reason health regulators decided last year to update the original mRNA vaccines, which were designed against the version of the virus that first appeared in 2019. This year, once again, the virus has changed enough to warrant an updated booster.

In June, an advisory committee to the FDA recommended that this fall’s booster be a monovalent vaccine—targeting only the then-dominant XBB.1.5 subvariant.

At that meeting, committee members reviewed evidence suggesting that the inclusion of the original variant may hamper the booster’s effectiveness against newer offshoots. “The previous bivalent vaccine contained the ancestral spike and thus skewed immune responses to the old spike,” says David Ho, a professor of microbiology at Columbia University whose research, which is not yet peer-reviewed, was among the evidence the FDA panel reviewed. “This is what we call immunological imprinting, and it results in lack of immune responses to the new spike.” He thinks taking out the old variant should optimize the immune response.

But over the past few months, even newer Omicron offshoots have arrived. Currently, EG.5.1, or Eris, is the dominant one in the United States, United Kingdom, and China. Meanwhile, a variant called BA.2.86, or Pirola, has been detected in several countries. Pirola has raised alarm bells because it has more than 30 new mutations compared to XBB.1.5.

Even though the new boosters were formulated against XBB.1.5, they’re still expected to provide protection against these new variants. “The reason is, while antibodies are important in protection against mild disease, the critical part of the immune response that’s important for protecting against severe disease is T cells,” says Paul Offit, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania and member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee.

These cells are a different part of the immune response. Unlike antibodies, which neutralize a pathogen by preventing it from infecting cells, T cells work by eliminating the cells that have already been invaded and boosting creation of more antibodies. Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccines produce long-lasting T cells in addition to antibodies.

It’s why, Offit says, when the Omicron wave hit in late 2021 and peaked in January 2022, the US didn’t see a dramatic increase in hospitalizations and deaths even as cases rose significantly: People’s T cells kicked into gear, even when their antibodies didn’t recognize the Omicron variant.

“In some ways,” says Offit, when it comes to vaccine booster development, “it almost doesn’t matter what we pick to target” because the coronavirus has yet to evolve away from T cell recognition. “Everything works.”

Scientists think T cells are able to protect against severe Covid because they’re recognizing parts of the virus that have remained unchanged throughout the pandemic. “I suspect that as we continue to vaccinate, there are some conserved regions [of the virus],” says Jacqueline Miller, Moderna’s head of infectious diseases. “So even with the accumulation of mutations, we’re still building on previous immunity.”

People who have hybrid immunity—that is, have had a Covid infection and have also been vaccinated—seem to have the best immune responses to new variants, she says, which suggests that previous exposure shapes and improves immune responses to new variants. Preliminary studies show that antibodies generated by previous infections and vaccinations should be capable of neutralizing Pirola.

Earlier this month, Moderna issued a press release saying that clinical trial data showed that its updated booster generated a strong immune response against Pirola, as well as the more prevalent Eris variant.

In a statement to WIRED, Pfizer spokesperson Jerica Pitts said the company continues to closely monitor emerging variants and conduct tests of its updated monovalent booster against them. Data presented at Tuesday’s CDC meeting showed that Pfizer-BioNTech’s updated booster elicited a strong neutralizing antibody response against both Eris and Pirola.

The FDA expects that Covid-19 vaccines will continue to be updated on an annual basis, unless a completely new variant emerges that requires a different approach. “We will always be a little behind the virus,” says Ho. “In this instance, we won’t suffer too much, but that might not be the case going forward. Surveillance is imperative.”

[genderkoolaid]

Idk if this really fits ur blog (its not technically TRANSandrophobia) but i saw a post about how approximately 1/3 men have hpv and people in the notes are being, like, super radfem-ish and bioessentialist? Like, someone said that the reason this is the case is that “men generally don’t like getting vaxxed”, another person said “sex with men will kill you in some form” and lots more people were saying shit like “kill all men” (which, even ironically, makes me a little sick) and idk, it just felt very… weird? And wrong? And like, definitely morally questionable, if not outright wrong?

So I looked into this: apparently a study recently came out on HPV in men, and found that 1 in 3 cis men globally have HPV. The study itself brings up that most research has been done on cis women, concerning cervical cancer. Because that's a big concern, its why people need regular pap smears- but since there isn't an equivalent to that for those with penises, they are less likely to know they have HPV, especially since many cases are asymptomatic. This study is actually very important since its encouraging more effort be put into making sure everyone is given medical advice on HPV. Despite it being able to cause cancer in any sex, if its seen as a "female" disease, then everyone else is going to assume its not something they need to worry about. The CDC found that children AFAB started being recommended vaccinations in 2006 while children AMAB only started getting recommended them in 2011. Here's an academic paper on "the feminization of HPV" that dives into this issue, which I do recommend people check out, since it really illuminates just how much sexism has affected men's health in this regard.

So people with penises are a very under-researched group with regards to HPV, and that is killing people because they don't realize that they can get cancer and they aren't getting an equivalent to pap smears to check for it. This study is genuinely important! So people seeing the statistic "1 in 3 men have HPV" and jumping to "it must be because they hate getting vaccinated! this is proof men are disgusting and penises will kill you!" is absolutely some gross gross shit. Very radfem-flavored misandry. You are right to feel sick about this!

[cowgirlgirl2002]

Very tired of hearing how women think their weak and how men are biologically better when is is actually not true at all so here's why women are stronger, I'll put medical and scientific facts about women

1. Women have stronger Immune system

Females have better innate and adaptive immune responses to disease-causing pathogens than males. Females also produce better protective antibodies following vaccination against flu, yellow fever, dengue, and viral infections.

Females typically develop higher innate, humoral and cellular immune responses to viral infections and in response to vaccine

Women see more colors than men

Even when compared to males who have not been diagnosed with color blindness, women seem to be able to distinguish between colors more easily than men. This allows women to more accurately identify the color of an object that may be between two similar hues, like blue and green.

Women have better night vision

However, studies have suggested that there may be slight differences in night vision between men and women. One study published in the journal Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics found that women had better visual acuity in low-light conditions than men.

Women have better muscle endurance

While men usually have the upper-hand when it comes to strength, it may be surprising to many that women may actually have better muscle endurance than men do. Research has shown that in stamina-related exercises, women were able to exercise for about 75% longer than men could. It is suggested that the presence of estrogen in women makes their muscles more resistant to fatigue, and that women have more efficient metabolism within their muscles as compared to men.

Their bodies are structurally made for greater flexibility

When it comes to stretching and flexibility, women have an advantage in several ways.Firstly, their female muscles and tendons contain more elastin, the protein which gives our muscles, organs and skin the ability to stretch, and this gives them greater flexibility on the whole.

Women have higher levels of estrogen in their bodies, leading to wider hips that allow greater movement and flexibility in the pelvic region

Women are way more agile

Women on the other hand have greater agility.This is partly explained by the fact they are smaller and have a lower centre of mass thus are able to change direction and move quicker than their male counterparts. In addition balance is better for the same reason.

Women have stronger legs/lower body

In lower body absolute strength, a woman is 75% as strong as a man. This difference is usually attributed to the similar daily usage of legs between men and women. Both walk and use our lower body muscles about the same. This is not the case in daily activities using upper body strength.

Women have higher survival rate than men

Analysis of three centuries of historical data showed women are more likely than men to survive famines and epidemics. Their advantage is earned early. Female newborns were more likely to survive trying circumstances during the last three centuries. women has fundamental biological underpinnings is supported by the fact that even under these very harsh conditions, women survive better than men, and this starts at a very young age.

Women are more resilient

Several studies show that women score higher on the resilience scale than men. A study found that women outlived men during severe famines and epidemics. This survival advantage was found to be modulated by an interaction of biological, environmental and social factors.

They have better chances of surviving traumatic injuries

Another likely reason for women's longer life expectancy could be the fact that they have higher chances of surviving injury and trauma. Researchers, in studying data on patients who arrived at hospitals with traumatic injuries, found that women in the age range of 13 – 64 were significantly more likely to survive. Again, the key to this advantage may lie in the higher levels of female sex hormones in women, which may have an enhancing effect on the immune system.

Women have better memory

Remembering the faces of people you have just met may be a challenge for many, but it may be apparently less so for women in general. Women have been found to be stronger in memory skills than men, as suggested in studies where they outdid men in memory tests. Their superior memory skills are not just limited to remembering things, like items on a list, but also faces of people as well. Other studies have found that women can remember faces better than men, as they unconsciously spend more time studying features of new faces.

[phyrestartr]

HOUND | Miguel x M!Reader

Geneticist!Miguel x Guard!Reader Part 1 W/C: 2.5K | Part 1 of 2

Slight NSFW, zombie AU, apocalypse AU, mentions of exploitation and abuse, body horror, gore, immoral research and experiments, power imbalance, reader is a criminal, miguel is a scientist, dark themes, part 2 ends on a positive note, reader is morally grey, bottom!miguel, top!reader, sorry there's lore lol

Note: Wanted to post this bad boy in full, but the second half sorely needs some revising T-T It should be finished and up fairly soon, though! I hope this is ~intriguing~ for those who like darker stuff! Also I did a light edit on this part, but I really just want to get it out so lol sorry if things sound stupid/don't make sense asdjkf;l

--

There exists a cure.

That's what Alchemax declared. And it was the truth, just not the full truth. Not something the public would be happy with, anyway. 

The so-called "cure" was…unreliable, only recoding the RNA of select individuals for a reason that Alchemax's geneticists struggled to identify for the longest time. But after combing through the files of each expendable inmate and finding similarities, it became clear: those who'd been in the presence of nuclear energy, or high amounts of radiation, were suitable candidates for the vaccine. 

"Guess it's a good thing we didn't shut down those mines," Aaron had sneered at the board meeting. "Otherwise we wouldn't have the army of immune mutants running around for us." 

Miguel rolled his eyes. Sure, the idiot wasn't wrong, but he was taking it too far; plenty had died because of their experiments, and plenty more of the "immune" were sure to die with the unknown side effects of whatever the vaccine was bound to show in a matter of years (or in mere months, if they were unlucky). 

"It's a start," Miguel begrudgingly added. "But intentionally damaging civilian RNA with radiation, and then repairing it with S-2099, especially when we're not aware of any side effects yet? The UN won't have it. Can't imagine civilians would love it either." 

"Well, it's either get bit and die, stay afraid and die, or get painlessly exposed to a blast of radiation and then maybe die if 2099 doesn't fix them like we think," Liv offered with a shrug. "I, for one, would be honoured to die in the name of science." 

Miguel coolly looked over at her. "Thanks for volunteering." 

Liv's expression twisted. The energy in the room would've exploded if it hadn't been for Stone's interjection. 

"We will not be commencing civilian trials. Not until success rates increase with approved subjects provided by the state." The man spoke so steadily, so reasonably, like sacrificing the lives of orange jumpsuits meant nothing. 

They were dismissed soon after. Screens flickered out, holograms faded, and Miguel found himself alone with the other few scientists left at their Nueva York location. 

He stayed seated, vaguely aware of the others filtering out and murmuring amongst themselves, but his thoughts demanded his attention–he knew, even if the government didn't approve of essentially soft-nuking colonies of survivors, that Tyler Stone would find a way to do it, and would label it an accident. The man, his birth father, was ruthless, cold, calculated– 

"Sir?" A voice, your voice, cut through the silence. Miguel looked over his shoulder and found you still waiting, standing perfectly still by the door. 

"Sorry, I was just…" Miguel sighed and rubbed his face before standing. "Nevermind. Don't worry about it." 

Of course, you didn't say anything, instead nodding wordlessly and following your ward out of the room. Each step you took was punctuated by the shifting of your firearm against your thigh and the heavy thumps of your boots against the polished floors. Miguel used to hate your presence, think it unnecessary, but soon he grew to feel comfortable with you as his shadow. 

You, his powerful, mutant guard dog. 

"I can't fucking believe what this is turning into," Miguel muttered on the way to his quarters. "Too many unanswered questions, too many risks. And they don't care? We haven't even run further simulations yet–and we can run simulations with different alpha rays and different subject samples. It'd be harmless." The door hissed open and Miguel walked in, sorely wishing he could slam the door for once. Why did everything have to be automated? 

"In. Now," Miguel called when you stopped short of his residence. You obeyed, wandering inside before the door slid to a close behind you, and locked. 

You had reason to be nervous, Miguel knew that, too. Each key scientist in the building was assigned one of your kind, one of the immune mutants, and were free to do what they wanted with them. Sex, torture, chores–all of it was on the table. All of it had been asked of your kind. Done by your kind. Miguel figured that was why you kept a wall up. You hardly spoke, didn't request anything, never complained–all in an effort to keep the peace between you and your owner.

Miguel threw his white coat aside before stalking up to you. "Let me see," he mumbled as he held your jaw and tilted your head as he shone the light from his phone into your eye. 

Your pupils reacted at twice the speed of a normal human's, growing into the tiniest of pin pricks when the bright white flare assaulted your senses. Your eye twitched the slightest bit, but you remained still for Miguel. 

"Reactive. Not dead. That's good." He put his phone away, and examined the scarlet blotches contrasting against the natural hue of your iris. It was a relatively new side effect experienced by most of your batch, but you were amongst the more severe cases, if not the most severe case. Most of his peers didn't seem concerned by it, and Miguel could understand, seeing as it appeared to only be cosmetic, but the increased reactivity of your pupil accompanied with the bloody colour intrigued Miguel enough to keep tabs on it. 

"Any changes lately? To appetite, sleep, anything?" He asked as he let go of your jaw, nearly smiling as you tried to follow his touch for a moment longer like a sleepy cat. "Maybe neediness?" Miguel teased. 

You huffed lightly through your nose and looked around the main room of Miguel's living space. "Tired, I guess." 

Miguel's nerves smoothed with the sandpaper scratch of your voice. "Tired. Might be the anemia again. We'll draw blood tomorrow, see if you need supplements or another infusion." Miguel found himself mumbling now, going on about your health and your changes, wondering out loud what the best course of action would be to help you adjust to whatever was happening to your body, but you didn't say anything. You never did unless provoked. 

Miguel decided to provoke. He needed to speak, to be spoken to, to hear someone else’s voice right now. "What do you think about all this?" He called from the bathroom after washing up for the night. He poked his head out a moment later when you didn’t comment. 

“I know you were listening,” he prodded again over the toothbrush jammed into the side of his mouth. “The other ones don’t, but you do. I can tell by that look you get.” he waited for you to respond while he brushed his teeth, but you didn’t. You hadn’t moved from your post by his front door, actually, stood against the wall, arms crossed and staring forward like you were listening to everything beyond the door. Miguel wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen you sit down. He didn’t know if you’d ever laid down before. 

After he finished washing up for the night, he decided to try again. 

“You really gonna keep me in the dark?” Miguel asked as he walked up to you, arms crossed as well. He couldn’t help but feel smaller and smaller the longer he waited in silence, waited to hear your gravelled voice. He couldn’t grasp why he was so desperate for a friend suddenly, but he was. He really was, and he wasn’t finding it in you. 

“Forget it. Doesn’t matter anyway,” Miguel mumbled, turning away from you and rubbing his face tiredly. 

“Don't have much of an opinion.”

“What?” Miguel turned back around, brows raised as he waited for you to continue. Your gaze peeled from the ceiling and fell to him, like you were waiting for a reprimand of sorts, but Miguel wouldn’t, not when he tried so hard to get a peep out of you.

You shrugged and looked elsewhere. “Don't care what happens to civilians. Not my problem.” 

“It's the world's problem,” Miguel suggested. He didn't want to start an argument, but he didn't want you to feel so blasé about the fate of everything. “The more civilians that get infected, the more the world loses.” 

“Thought that was a good thing. Last I heard, the world was pretty overpopulated.” You said it so easily. Miguel would have shrugged it off if he didn't know about the blood on your hands, the crimes you'd committed, the evidence that you really, truly, did not give a shit about humanity. 

Miguel scoffed, a bitter, bewildered sort of thing. “Y'know, I used to pity you for this,” he started, gesturing to the soldiered-out state of yourself, “but you might be less human than those things out there.” 

“Probably.” 

“You don't even care,” Miguel laughed again. “Did you care when you killed that family?” 

“An eye for an eye,” you replied. 

“Right, right. Then what about your daughter? Did you care when–” the world spun before his back cracked against the wall. He grabbed your wrist and squeezed when your hands fisted in his shirt, ready to trigger your kill switch with one click of a button on his ring, but he didn't need to; you simply held him there, boring holes into his skull with your diamond-tipped stare. 

“You jokers don't know when to quit,” you said. “Always have to drag a kid into the equation, ‘n then act so fucking shocked when you end up dead ‘cause of it.” A sigh slipped past your lips as you leaned in. Miguel wanted to meet you halfway. “Fuckers like you make murderers out of men like me.”

Oh. The violence rippling through your crackling voice went straight down, into the pit below Miguel's stomach and coiled into something frightfully decadent. He wanted your hands around his neck. He wanted you to mutter more threats into his ear. He wanted–

He wanted you. 

“Let me touch you,” Miguel blurted. “Your skin.” You gave a reaction then, eyes blinking away shock and throat clearing with a strangled grunt, but you didn’t say no. You didn’t reject him. In fact, you looked him up and down in question, curiosity peeking through piercing eyes. 

“You're a deranged fuck, aren't you? Getting all hot ‘n bothered from a threat.” You reached for the straps of your kevlar vest, then, and Miguel’s nerves jolted with the sound of the buckles clicking loose. 

He scrambled to you and held your hands. He wanted to do it himself, to unwrap your bindings and see what laid beneath. Your hands fell, and Miguel took over. 

The warmth bleeding from your clothes intoxicated him. He fumbled with your gear, eager to get to the base of your tight, black shirt and rip it off, but you didn’t try to take over for him–you watched, patient like a dog, letting your master doff your armour at his leisure (or, rather, his frantic, desperate pace). Miguel appreciated it. He wondered if you knew he'd snap if you tried to interfere. 

Soon, your chest was bare. Exposed for him, dotted with memories of cruel bites, bullets, knives and surgical scars all over taught, humming skin. Man shouldn’t be allowed to touch you, Miguel thought. The imperfections were so gloriously human. You were so perfectly alive, standing here with him, breathing, emanating heat, allowing him to do what he pleased–he was the luckiest man on Earth. 

Miguel couldn’t look you in the eyes as his broad palm pressed against your chest, right over the rhythm of your soul. His pants strained and tightened more as his touch wandered through the valleys of firm muscle; what did the rest of you look like? What did you look like when you fought, or when you fucked? 

His hand slipped down to the tight adonis belt cinching your waist, and then lower, following the trail of fine hair disappearing beneath the waistband peeking above your cargos. The bunching and folding of thick material melted Miguel's mind in a vat of suggestion and insatiability–were you really that big, or was that fabric just making it an illusion? 

He didn't need to wait to find out, though, not when you guided his hand down over the very real curve of your goods packed away. And, yes, you were big. Miguel's eyes snapped up to yours. A smug look greeted him.

“Looked like you needed some encouragement.”

Miguel might have laughed if his heart weren't suffocating him, climbing up his throat. Your clothed cock under his hand was ruining his cognitive functions too, to be fair. 

His fingers, long, clumsy things, hurried at your buttons and the zipper keeping everything in check. Miguel's ears filled with the rhythmic drumming of desire when he finally got the damn thing undone, but you grabbed his wrist. You stopped him. 

Miguel scoffed out a held breath and tried to wrench free, but your grip held firm. “You can't back out after–” But when he looked at you, he froze still; your expression electrified the senses, the slightest narrowing and shifting of uneasy eyes freezing Miguel colder and colder by the second. 

“Bathroom. Now.” You popped just one of those buttons back into place before turning to the door. 

“Wh–” But you shoved him, hard, and sent him stumbling into the sterile white space as explosive carnage rippled through the room in his wake. The thing collided into you seconds after you'd gotten your charge out of the blast zone. 

It was big. A mass of human features and flesh and maybe something else weighing on a hulking frame. You barked a name, maybe the name of one of your fellow watch dogs, but it didn't change the thing's trajectory as it tore towards Miguel on all fours like a hound out of hell.

But you were quicker. You grabbed it by the nape and ripped it off its warpath with too much effort, just narrowly avoiding it barreling into the attached room by seconds. Its momentum, forced toward the wall, threw it into a dizzied tantrum; limbs flailed, mouths gnashed, and a symphony of mismatched voices wailed from their putrid prison. 

Miguel's body locked. What ifs plagued him, suddenly. If it got him. If it bit him. If you hadn't been there. What if–

“Close the damn door,” you demanded, and your voice sounded a bit shaky, too. Miguel looked at your broad back as you stood bravely in the way of the beast and its target. “Doctor–” 

“I–but you–?” Miguel stumbled and choked on his words and his reasoning. He didn't want you to fight. He didn't want to die. He didn't want you to die. Miguel hit the button to make it closed, but the door stalled halfway.

“Fuck it.” Barbs burst from your fingertips and dug into the door, forcing it to bend to your will and close. Miguel didn't like how you disappeared inch by inch. He didn't like seeing that thing behind you get up. He didn't like that look you gave him just before the door snapped shut. 

The next few minutes passed like years.

[xysidhequeen]

Equilibrium

So the Dead on Main server caused me to spontaneously spawn an entire outline for an AU because I wanted a Dark Danny fic. So. Here's a snippet of what I'm working on.

It had started out subtly. The beginning of the end. 

The GIW had crept into Amity Park, buying up empty office buildings. Making themselves known. 'Researchers' they called themselves. 

They could always be seen whenever there was a ghost attack. Not running, not helping, not hindering. Just. Watching.

The first red flag that became obvious in hindsight was when they'd reached out to the Fentons. When Jack's long winded rants on ghosts didn't scare them away. When they started taking notes.

The second red flag was the government contract sent to the Fentons a week later. 

But still, the GIW didn't do anything. They bought up the empty buildings, filled them with strangers in white suits. Amity Park gradually learned to ignore them. They were harmless, some weird government branch that had an interest in ghosts. It wasn't interesting after months of idleness from them.

Amity Parkers lowered their guard, answered the seemingly innocuous questions posed to them. 'How long have ghosts been attacking?' 'Have you ever been injured by one?' 'Have you noticed anything strange?' They were simple questions, questions any Amity Park resident could easily answer. 

Eventually the GIW became another quirk of Amity. Something expected, normal even.

Then the 'clinics' started popping up. They were free to use, offering simple health care for any Amity Park resident. Common colds, ear infections, broken bones, vaccinations. You had to do a blood test to use them, but no one minded much when they were free. And injuries were so common with the ghost attacks. Ghosts never seemed to care about collateral, except Phantom. But he was the one ghost who protected them, so that was expected. 

Amity Park became welcoming to the GIW. Open to their questions, freely giving information. Even Phantom was willing to stop occasionally when a question was called out to him by one of the white suited men or women. 

Yet still, the government contract remained. The Fentons handing over blueprints of weapon after weapon, prototype designs shipped off. Research papers handed over by the box full.

The GIW presence increased slowly, over the months that became a year. Their clinics and offices multiplied. Empty buildings and shop fronts were bought as soon as they went on sale. Soon it wasn't uncommon to see a person in a white suit everywhere you went. 

No one ever noticed how they never employed Amity Park residents. How they never hired, how there was never a help wanted sign posted or an ad made to ask for workers. No one wanted to look that deep.

Willful ignorance was easier than admitting they'd been invaded.

So the Amity Parkers kept answering questions. Kept visiting the clinics with their doctors who often asked questions unrelated to the reason for visiting. 'Have you noticed yourself becoming stronger?' 'How much sleep do you need, on average?' 'Have your eyes ever glowed?' 'How long can you hold your breath?'. 

The clinics began offering more services, addressing more issues. All still for the small cost of a vial of blood. It became normal to visit a clinic rather than a doctor for anything. Flu? Clinic. Broken bone? Clinic. A nasty burn from an ecto-ray? Clinic. 

Some people started vanishing, but that wasn't unusual in a city. People ran away or died all the time. It wasn't many, really. Maybe a one or two a month. There was no pattern in the victims, so it was presumed they were unrelated. The cops were stumped. No one paid attention to the fact that every single one of the missing had visited a clinic days before they vanished. 

Then came the blackout. Or maybe it came sooner, it was so hard to tell when it started. When it became impossible for anyone in Amity Park to reach out to someone out of it. At first anyone who mentioned it was called crazy, conspiracy theorists. 

But soon it became more obvious. Friends or family out of the city could no longer find any Amity Park resident on social media. Couldn't even find a mention of the city existing anywhere on the internet. They blamed it on the ghosts at first. They did weird things to technology, it must be them. Right?

Then they stopped being able to call out. Cell phones would no longer make or receive calls from anyone who didn't have an Amity number. They started to get restless. 

Then came the roadblocks. Anyone trying to leave Amity found that all roads out were inexplicably blocked. Construction, they claimed. All the roads at once, yes. There had been earthquakes that destabilized the roads all around Amity. So they said. 

They had been trapped, and they never saw the jaws closing on them until it was too late. 

It didn't take long, once the revelation that they couldn't leave, couldn't call for help, spread. 

The military moved in, penning them inside their city. Checkpoints were placed at every road in or out of Amity. You could only leave if you were in the company of a soldier or a GIW operative. 

'Quarantined' they were told. Because of what they weren't told. Something highly contagious and dangerous was all they were given. Hospitals were taken over by men in white suits. Doctors and nurses were sent away, fired. New ones were shipped in, strangers. 

More people started going missing. They all knew who took them but they couldn't say it. Couldn't admit it. Didn't want to. 

Curfews were enforced. No one was allowed out after sundown, businesses had to shut down an hour before. No one was allowed out until dawn, schools were forced to start later. Anyone found breaking curfew was apprehended, sent to a holding facility. They weren't seen again. 

[ersatz-ostrich]

See You Again

Chapter 1: The Coffin

Jason Todd x f!Reader

You were just a teenager when you lost your best friend, Jason Todd. Years later, your life is turned upside down, and you find your way back to him. He's changed. You've changed. But you wouldn't have it any other way.

[A/N]: Me? Publishing a Red Hood fic that's been sitting in my drafts for months? It's more likely than you think. Jason is such an interesting character and there have been so many takes on him and his story that I've lost count. All I can do is hope that I do his character justice, and that I can deliver something worthy to all of the Red Hood girlies (gn) out there!

Anyways, in this fic, f!reader is a researcher at STAR Labs Los Angeles for the Polestar program, a secret research operation investigating an ancient virus revived from the permafrost of the Arctic. She gets infected with the virus while trying to keep it from falling into the wrong hands—and that's when she meets the Red Hood.

Warnings: DC-typical violence

read here on ao3

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masterlist

STAR Laboratories Los Angeles

9:43:42 PM PT

The Coffin

You hated working in the Coffin.

The Coffin, as some of your coworkers called it—a cramped bunker of a cleanroom with thick concrete walls and vault-like hatches—was practically hermetically sealed from the rest of the world, and for good reason, too. 

The Coffin, STAR Laboratories LA’s so-called Sterile Research Unit, housed world-killers. 

They were all around you, housed in huge humming floor-to–low-ceiling freezers, in vials and Petri dishes. If one of those samples got out and contaminated the outside environment, you would have a huge, messy problem on your double-gloved hands. 

Located in the basement and separated from the rest of the facility by a sizable aseptics and decontamination unit, the only living things that shared the space with you were the dormant pathogens labeled and tucked away in the Coffin’s freezers. Chatter filtered through the radio comms unit on your lab bench, which you used to relay information with the rest of the researchers, your coworkers, involved in the Polestar study. 

“L/N, how are we doing down there?” A voice crackled through the comms. It was Dr. Davis, one of the senior researchers on the Polestar program.

“Hey, Davis. I’m happy to report that the Polestar vaccine prototype seems to be well on its way,” you reply, hearing the whoosh of your breath inside the respirator you donned before entering the cleanroom. “The vaccine seems to be pretty stable right now. I’ll continue to run tests.” You heard Dr. Davis’s hum of approval through the comms.

“Great to hear, Y/N. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t d—” It was an inside joke among the Polestar researchers that the Coffin was where bad researchers who half-assed their theses in grad school went to die. The sterile bunker was indeed a daunting place to run tests, with all of its doomsday-looking decor and freezers full of deadly viruses, but you had spent enough late nights in and out of decon to make the Coffin feel more like the world’s worst bathroom stall-turned-office cubicle.

“Dr. Davis?” You finally turned your gaze to the comms unit. “Dr. Davis, do you read me?” You could hear the faint sounds of commotion filtering through the comms; cacophony that should never be heard in a laboratory. “Is anyone there?” Someone started screaming—you recognized the voice to be Dr. Lee—and your heart jumped into your throat.

The sound coming from the comms unit suggested that the radio on the other end of the line had fallen to the floor. The speaker emitted more crackly yells. 

“ Doctor—” It was Dr. Davis. He was alive, but barely. The sounds of fighting rose around him. “Doctor—dammit, Y/N, do you hear me? Stay where you are and barricade yourself in the Coffin, they’re coming for the—” Dr. Davis’s voice cut out, replaced by garbled radio feedback. Right before the radio dissolved into static, you swore you had heard him howl in pain. You stared at the comms, heart thumping in your ribcage. You were beginning to sweat in your hood and coveralls and the respirator felt heavy on your face. You tore your attention from the comms to survey the frigid lab around you. The Coffin had been reserved by the Polestar program so you could test small lab animals to observe the virus’s behavior in living organisms and develop a vaccine for it, so most of the work laid out on the benches was Polestar’s. Cages sat in neat stacks, housing the lab rodents you had been studying. You could care less about the unbelievably expensive machinery or the infected rodents that could infect humans should they escape the Coffin, though; a dip into STAR Labs and the CDC’s research grants for Polestar would replace it all. Your eyes darted around the Coffin, eyeing the huge, heavy hatches that kept you encased inside the bunker. Whoever was outside, they’d have to get through aseptics and decon, which would keep them busy for at least a few minutes as they forced their way inside. 

“Oh, no, no, no,” you muttered to yourself as you swept glass vials and syringes around on your workbench into a cluster, creating a disjointed melody of clinking glass and metal. The rats began to turn restlessly in their cages. Your breathing picked up, coming out in short, shaky breaths as you ran from countertop to countertop, stowing away glassware still full of solutions and dumping solids into the trash—you’d get back to them later, if there was even a later for you. Screw how much that stuff cost by the gram, and screw how much time you’d spent synthesizing and isolating those precipitates.

No time to think about that , you thought to yourself as you rushed back to the workbench where your radio and the vials sat. You stared at the assortment of glass vials and syringes, panicking. They can all go in the freezer, right? Or the storage vault, or…

There was no time to think. You rushed to the freezer with trays full of vaccines and viruses alike in your arms, hurriedly punching in the code and scanning your retina to open the door to the walk-in freezer. The door unlocked with a hiss, and you silently begged the automatic door to open faster as you heard the sound of a squad’s worth of footsteps stomping through decon. Squeezing through the opening, you all but shoved the tray into the nearest vacant bottom shelf and sprinted out, hammering the button to shut the freezer doors.

You heard clanking against the entrance to the coffin, one, two, three…

A blinding flash of light followed by a deafening explosion shook the Coffin, and you instinctively turned away to shield yourself. You saw tongues of flame licking the entrance to the Coffin, flooded with red light. 

Oh, shit. 

How many of the substances stored in the Coffin were flammable? You hoped the explosion that blew the enormous hatch to the Coffin off its hinges and the flames that followed hadn’t reached far enough to hit the flammable substances storage unit. 

Behind the rubble of the hatch stood a cluster of black-clad figures, outfitted with bulky body armor and gas masks. They swept the Coffin with the muzzles of their rifles before stepping over the threshold and into the Coffin. You stifled a gasp and ducked behind one of the countertops, hoping that you weren’t spotted. Maybe you could find something heavy, like a fire extinguisher, and taken one out—

“Gotcha.” 

You couldn’t help the shriek that escaped your lungs as you whipped around, grabbing the nearest thing off of the countertops—a ring stand, luckily enough, and not something more expensive or fragile—and swung it in the direction of the voice. Your eyes widened as the heavy base of the ring stand failed to meet bone—and was instead stopped in its path by a strong, gloved hand around your wrist. Your hands shook as the hand’s owner, wearing a gas mask with round, reflective discs for eyes, lowered the ring stand with one hand and aimed the barrel of a handgun at you. 

“What do you want from me,” you choked out, your mouth feeling dry as you stared down the cold black barrel of the gun. The soldier chuckled, their voice—his voice?—deep and gravelly, muffled by the mask.

“Just your cooperation.” With a jerk of his hand, he lifted the ring stand, still attached to your hand, and forced you out into the open. “You know what we’re here for.” He wrestled the ring stand from your grip and tossed it away, the heavy thunk making you wince. He took your wrist in a crushing grip, and adrenaline shot up your spine. 

“I’m just a lab aide. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You replied quickly, not quite confident in your skills as a thespian (or a liar).

“Oh, yeah, Dr…” Still holding the gun in front of your face, they cocked their head to check your badge. “...L/N?”

Shit.

“You know how it is…the job market’s pretty tough for Ph. D.’s these days.” You chuckled nervously. “Seriously, though, I’m just here to wash glassware.” The soldier laughed coldly.

“You seem pretty calm for somebody staring down the barrel of a gun…I bet you’re smart. Bet you know a lot about all the super secret research in this shithole, too.” You couldn’t see it, but under his mask, his gaze settled upon something on the floor. “Maybe you could tell me a little about this thing right here.” You followed his line of sight and felt your blood go cold.

How could I have—

He nudged the syringe with the toe of his boot so that it rolled right to you. It took all you had to keep yourself from lunging for it. Your eyes caught the biohazard symbol printed on the label and you felt yourself die a little inside.

The Polestar virus was on the floor. The deadly ancient virus you had resurrected was in a syringe on the fucking floor. 

“Hmm, not sure how that got there—” Your words were taken from you when the barrel of the handgun made contact with the flesh of your chin, forcing your head back.

“Enough! Tell us where the virus is and maybe the actual lab aides won’t have to mop your brains off the fucking floor.” You grimaced.

“It’s right there,” You replied through gritted teeth. “In that syringe.” Keeping the gun’s sights on you, the soldier stooped to pick up the syringe. “It’s in a liquid suspension that was supposed to be for the rats. We were running tests—” You caught yourself rambling before you could divulge anything more damning. Maybe it was the gun pointed at your head and your life on the line, but you felt like your brain was out to lunch and had thrown out all common sense before it left. “—well, the bottom line is…just don’t break that syringe. The virus inside is viable and dangerous.” The soldier laughed again, this time more arrogantly.

“I don’t c—”

“I’d listen to her if I were you.” You, the soldier—everyone in the Coffin—turned to the source of the modulated voice. A huge silhouette passed through the sanguine lights of decon. The glint of the red helmet caught your eye first, then the red bat insignia splashed across the figure’s armored chest. 

Huh.

That posture—the way the helmeted figure stood to make himself look bigger—tickled the back of your brain. Your train of thought, however, was stopped short by your captor yanking your wrist and wrapping his free arm around you in a headlock. He trained his gun at the red helmet before you, who produced a pair of his own firearms.

“Don’t shoot,” your captor barked, and you realized what was in the hand that was clutching the fabric of your PPE. You struggled to break free, but the body behind you felt like a pillar with armor for cushioning. “Or she goes with me.” The helmeted Bat slowly lowered his weapons, which earned a smug huff from your captor, whose grip loosened on your PPE. You sighed in relief and started to extract yourself from you felt his arms quickly wrap around your neck again, making you cry out.

“No!” The helmeted figure called out. You heard the crack of the gunshot and the sound of the bullet meeting flesh. You felt warm blood—not yours—splatter on your face and trickle onto your coverall and you shuddered. You felt the soldier, impossibly heavy, slump over onto your body and slide to the ground. The gunfire of his squad mates erupts around you and you see the red-helmeted newcomer duck behind a glovebox and return fire. You dive for cover, watching the soldiers drop behind you. You see the red helmet emerge again to take out the last of the soldiers, engaging in hand to hand—these fighters seemed to be highly trained—and putting the occasional bullet through the weak points of their armor. The last bullet casing fell to the floor with a resounding ping! and you heard boots moving towards you once more. 

“Are you okay?” 

It hadn’t occurred to you why the soldier had held on so tightly to your PPE—you hadn’t felt the little prick in your collarbone when the gunfire had started. Dread pooled in the pit of your stomach as you slowly lowered your gaze to where the syringe stuck out above your clavicle, only dredges of fluid left, the black-and-yellow biohazard symbol turned up to the light like a bright and deadly flower. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[A/N]: We are hitting the ground running! Hope that was a good start to this fic.

Likes and reblogs are appreciated!

[zombie-projects]

I'm not antivax. I want to make that very clear. I think vaccines are typically a net positive for society, and we should continue to vaccinate people and work to better vaccines as a whole.

But my dad has probably got lymphoma caused by the moderna Covid vaccine. And it makes me frustrated and sad that we aren't allowed to question that vaccine without being looked at as a crazy antivax wacko. It was rushed out, and now there are tons of people that we have met with issues they can directly trace back to the vaccine. There's research showing that it isn't as great a net positive as it was made out to be. And no one can speak out about this without being labeled a far-right lunatic.

If you said you would refuse to take the 'Trump vaccine' but advocated for everyone to get their shots once Biden was in office, you are a sheep. It's the same fucking vaccine. They didn't just scrap all their research and start working on a new vaccine when the US president changed.

On that same note, if you defended the vaccine under Trump but refused to take it after the election, you are also a sheep. For the exact same fucking reason.

Because that vaccine was so highly politicized, there are many people suffering. I'm not saying Covid isn't a terrible disease. But people are getting harmed by the shot and it isn't even that effective. So did we even help people by giving it out?

[fox-bright]

In Response to the H5N1 Ask:

I'm not answering the ask with your name on it, because I think you came off poorly, and I'm not in the habit of pointing my followers at people when I feel this angry at them. But having had some fresh chocolate chip cookies, some cat snuggles, some sifu-husband hugs, some delightful kindly asks from people who are prepared to behave like equals today and no shortage of groupchat “Would you look at the fucking cojones on THIS one?!” mockery, I now feel settled enough to take this line by line.

So let’s do it.

Hello. I am someone who works alongside people in ornithology. Hi! I work alongside a master of IT and frequently work arm-in-arm with medical doctors. What does that make me? I’m not a sysadmin and you’d better not trust me to install an arterial stent.

Your bird flu post was linked to me and I would like to privately share some reassurance about H1N1 as well as some problems I have with your post.

My post was about H5N1. H1N1 is the swine flu.

Bird flu has been studied for years and indeed is very lethal to humans, but it does not have the same viral characteristics as a mammal-originating virus like COVID does. This is not a useful statement. Bird flu has been studied for decades—over a century, in fact, as the 1918 flu was an avian influenza. You know, the one that killed tens of millions of people, to the point that it derailed a world war? Personally, I have been paying attention to and reading research papers about H5N1 since 2015, and giving my very close attention to it for the last five years.

Since the SARS outbreak, vaccines and treatments for these rare case of direct bird-to-human flu transmission have been developed and have been poised to be deployed immediately should direct bird-to-human transmission ever occur. Let’s be clear: bird-to-human transmission is occurring too frequently. More than eight hundred times in the last twenty years, and more and more rapidly in recent years, and again, more than half of those were lethal. That tends to be from exposure to wild animals hunted for food, or exposure to home-raised animals who get sick from wild animals. Bird-to-human transmission is not yet occurring frequently in the States, where our food is generally factory-produced and hunting is less common, but it is occurring with increasing regularity outside of the US. No vaccine will be useful to a person who is already infected (useless!); currently the treatment for infected people is antivirals and supportive care, alongside strict quarantine. Current H5N1 vaccines may or may not be very effective against any human-to-human variant, as it may have mutated to evade them. We do not have enough H5N1 vaccine doses to go around, and the ones we do will be concentrated first on the military and medical personnel.

The reason monitoring agencies and professionals are on “high alert” for these bird-to-cow-to-human incidents is because they are taking it seriously on a more theoretical level essential to their profession. Why are you so smugly, confidently incorrect? “We have never seen this scale of infections in mammals, and in such diversity of mammals. We have now seen more than 40 species of mammals infected during the last outbreaks, which is unprecedented.”

In this case, the people and cows who contracted H1N1 did not die. It’s literally been days since the human contracted it from the cows, and we do not yet know that he’s the only one. We are NOT in a position to say “okay, so things are peachy!” We also do not know how many cows have it (we’re up to what, fifteen farms now?) and we do not know how rapidly it’s evolving in those massive groups of mammals.

My first concern about your post is its lack of linked to sources and the framing of it as an advice post. The New York Times has an article available on this issue as well as the Audubon Society and various wildlife agencies. Some of these articles are a year or two old, This is the point where I started getting really pissed at you. You demand I provide citations, but you provide none. You suggest I go to the fucking New York Times to read outdated articles? So you haven’t read anything more recent, or from anywhere more reliable, and thus you don’t imagine that I have, either? Arrogance.

but that is because this strain is a very slow-moving development ABSOLUTELY not the case. It is mutating rapidly, over and over and over again. You demanded sources, so I expect you to read those, but if you’ve only got time for one, pick the last of them.

with no immediate signs of consequences for humans outside of people working directly with cattle getting sick— and these humans have neither transmitted the virus to others or suffered anything worse than pink eye from it. So since it hasn’t happened, we don’t need to worry about it happening, hmm? Are you familiar with the term “gain-of-function research?” It’s when an organism is changed, in a lab, to make it more powerful, more infectious, more virulent, something along those lines. When you put a disease into tens of thousands of animals, you’re performing a natural gain of function experiment, as it has tens of thousands of chances to mutate. The “Spanish flu” pandemic, which actually was first noted in a Kansas army base, was almost certainly the result of an avian flu infecting pigs. Pigs are really similar to us, in terms of receptors; what makes them sick is much more likely to make us sick; when this hits pigs-to-pig transmission, it’s time to batten down the hatches. Cows aren’t nearly as similar, but they’re still mammals, so they bring it a lot closer to us; and when you can get unaltered H5N1 from bodily fluids, guess what? Meat and milk are disease vectors. And we don’t actually know that pasteurization of milk inactivates the virus. As I said in my previous post, now is the time to prepare, and to be wary.

This strain is lethal and highly viral between birds and will likely remain this way for a very long time.

This strain has been rapidly, monstrously lethal to MANY animals. Sometimes in huge numbers. You may remember the mink farm where it mutated to spread mink-to-mink (those are mammals), or the sea lions (which I will point out to you are also mammals), where it spread sea lion-to-sea lion and rapidly killed them by the thousands. It’s killing polar bears. It’s killing other predators. It’s killing all manner of US mammals singly and in multiples. However, the mammal-killing mutations don’t stop it from still killing birds.

My final concern— Spring is coming and that means horny birds are about to start hitting windows. Wildlife rehabbers are currently updating the public’s general info on what to do with stunned birds— they often do not recover if left on their own to fly away after a window strike and concerned citizens need to take these birds to a rehabber immediately if found. If people read your post, they will likely conclude that bird-to-human crossover is likely and be afraid to touch a downed bird that needs emergency medical care. I want to be absolutely, painfully clear to any non-doofus reading this right now: I have loved birds since infancy. I grew up with a smalltime conservationist; I have spent no small amount of my photographic hours on birds. I have saved wild birds—poisoned by farmers, wingshot by rednecks, window-struck, sick, attacked by feral cats, orphaned by agricultural machinery--long enough to get them to rehabbers on many occasions, and I have on three occasions assisted with that rehab, including keeping very odd hours to feed nestlings with a dropper. I have assisted with ecological rehabilitation and rewilding programs to provide them with territory; I have written my politicians and donated to wildlife efforts. So know that this is not coming from a place of not respecting or loving the wildlife. This is not “framed as” or “presented as” advice, this is absolutely the advice I would give you face to face, in absolute conviction. This year? If you see a fallen bird? You WALK THE FUCK AWAY. H5N1 gives birds seizures, disorientation, clumsiness and gasping. Or, sometimes, it is completely asymptomatic, and a perfectly healthy-seeming bird could still give you the disease. You can not tell if that bird hit the window because it’s horny and stupid and you forgot to put the stickers up, or because it’s in the grip of a disease that could kill you if the creature breathes too closely to you.

Given all of this, I ask that you please delete your original bird flu post before it has the chance to scare a lot of people and potentially hinder them from helping birds. Yeah, that's not going to be happening.

If you’d like to repost it, please add linked sources and resources for those concerned about avian flu. As previously mentioned, the New York Times has an article with the latest developments on monitoring this virus. Fuck you and your ignorant superciliousness sideways. You do not walk into my fucking Asks with this bullshit like you know ANYTHING when you plainly haven’t read jack shit about the situation as it’s evolving on the ground.

Bird flu is indeed very scary but not nearly in the same league as Covid or even the seasonal flu for most people. You’re absolutely right, in absolutely the wrong direction. If-when this goes human-to-human, it will rapidly outstrip covid’s dangerousness to a shocking degree. Today, it is not dangerous to anyone who leaves birds the fuck alone, but that’s today, and we need to prepare for the potential of tomorrow.

I hope this information helps and please excuse my stiff language. I suspect I sound really angry and condescending when I haven’t had much sleep. Yeah, you came off as a total jackwagon. “This information,” you say, as if you brought ANYTHING with you but attitude.

Sorry if that’s the case, but I didn’t want anything picking up steam before sharing this with you! Please educate yourself more adequately before you attempt again to correct someone. I have myself in the past been raring to go with a correction, checked to make sure that I had my phrasing right, and been caught flatfooted by new information. It’s better to feel that embarrassing moment of “oh, shit,” and realign your understanding silently, than to go in without doing any of the work and waste someone else’s time having to educate you.

If you reply to this in any way that is even slightly confrontational, I'm just going to block you. You aren't worth my time--you weren't worth this time! I have things I am supposed to be doing!--and I genuinely hope you do better in the future.