Some health care problems, part 3

On August 5th the US Department of Health and Human Services announced it would wind down mRNA vaccine research, terminating 22 contracts.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mrna-vaccines-diseases-tech 

That was focused on infectious diseases, so there are some arguing that it will not affect cancer research. 

(I think there are signs and signals that they are going to ruin everything, but it will take more than one announcement. There's a lot of stuff to wreck, no matter how fast you go.) 

It is still worth noting that mRNA research is one of the most promising areas for cancer. I will also note that around the time of that announcement, I learned of two friends with cancer diagnoses. Two other family friends with cancer died.

I know enough people who have had cancer -- many of whom did not survive the battle -- that I did not need those four people for it to feel terrible, but I really think that news did make it worse.

Well, humans aren't always logical. I mean, the HHS decision cited many research studies that were not well-designed or even applicable while ignoring a lot of other studies that would vehemently contradicted the decision; I am not the only one going on emotion here.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/hiltzik-rfk-jr-s-cancellation-of-mrna-vaccine-research-is-even-worse-than-it-first-seemed/ar-AA1KmQ5x?ocid=BingNewsSerp 

I should also point out that mRNA was really showing promise for curing AIDS.

It is true that people can live pretty well with HIV currently due to treatments for that. It is also true that there are a lot of countries where HIV positive people do not have access to those medications. In addition, AIDS is an infectious disease where prejudice and devaluing human life did a lot to impede treatment and prevention efforts.

That seems relevant in COVID times; it would matter on its own, but we should acknowledge these patterns.

Now, you can reasonably say that before this accursed administration pharmaceutical companies focused their efforts on long-term treatments rather than cures. That is one reason that having government and academic research was so important.

About those terminated contracts...

I already tend toward tired, but this cycle of rage and despair is really not helping with that.

I don't have anything useful to say here. I could spend a lot more time on health problems, so I will probably get back to it, maybe with better post titles. There are other bad areas that I will probably address first.

What I want to stress is that this is bad, but also that we don't get here without devaluing people first. 

That's what we need to keep fighting, over and over again.