Meanwhile, a few days ago the EMA published its EPAR (public assessment report) on the Moderna vax (HT @pajz_) https://t.co/LHW4rGgFwV It's 169 pages ...1/n

...There was "a major objection" to the US manufacturing sites, so they were withdrawn. Complete transfer for Europe to Swiss manufacturing due to conclude soon. (There have been Qs in the US about a batch there https://t.co/g573j7uFNQ)...2/n
...If you're interested in the chemical & biological aspects of this vaccine, there are pages for you to dig into - not an area I have any expertise in. Small amount of detail of reproductive toxicity study (in rats): no cause for concern....3/n
...The clinical trial data is from November, as for the FDA data. There's more detail than in the FDA report, though, of the phase 2 study, which hasn't been published. 600 people: a lot of data on immunogenicity (but not cell-mediated immunity)...4/n
...More methodological data on blinding etc for the phase 3 trial & *a lot more data* than in the FDA report. And take a moment to appreciate this: 30,000 people enrolled in less than 3 months. Giant thank you's due all round ...5/n
...In my posts, I've pointed to FDA report someone with apparent severe Covid-19 not adjudicated or in Moderna's analyses. Now we know why: no cases before dose 2 & not all suspected ones were adjudicated. That's not reassuring, though they conclude "no substantial bias" ... 6/n
...Like FDA, EMA point to person with severe Covid-19 in the vaccine group. Overall, data on severity reassured them, but "the cases overall seem mostly mild, which is a limitation of the dataset". "No definitive conclusion on clinical efficacy after one dose can be drawn" ...7/n
...They also conclude the definition of severe Covid-19 "could have been more stringent from a clinical
perspective". They say open questions remain about the lower bound for the confidence interval of efficacy, partly because of the case ascertainment issue, so... 8/n
...they want more data in a final report by December 2022 before considering approval. Serious adverse events seem similar to FDA's conclusions (but I haven't cross-checked case by case). Apropos today's other discussion: 7,520 people were aged 65+...9/n
...Conclusion? This is a far better report than the FDA's one on this vaccine: it's the "go to". Not comfortable that the unadjudicated person with severe Covid signals a bigger issue, but very glad the EMA is on it. 10/10

More from Government

I don't normally do threads like this but I did want to provide some deeper thoughts on the below and why having a video game based on a real world war crime from the same people that received CIA funding isn't the best idea.

This will go pretty in depth FYI.


The core reason why I'm doing this thread is because:

1. It's clear the developers are marketing the game a certain way.

2. This is based on something that actually happened, a war crime no less. I don't have issues with shooter games in general ofc.

Firstly, It's important to acknowledge that the Iraq war was an illegal war, based on lies, a desire for regime change and control of resources in the region.

These were lies that people believed and still believe to this day.

It's also important to mention that the action taken by these aggressors is the reason there was a battle in Fallujah in the first place. People became resistance fighters because they were left with nothing but death and destruction all around them after the illegal invasion.

This is where one of the first red flags comes up.

The game is very much from an American point of view, as shown in the description.

When it mentions Iraqi civilians, it doesn't talk about them as victims, but mentions them as being pro US, fighting alongside them.

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"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".
I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹

I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹