Science and Technology

Kino Eye: Medical pioneers on film

Here’s a film about the man whose name is forever associated with vaccination — the Frenchman Louis Pasteur. The Story of Louis Pasteur (director William Dieterle, 1936) concerns his struggle to convince a conservative medical establishment that diseases are caused by bacteria. He is opposed by Emperor Napoleon III’s personal physician Dr. Charbonnet. The Republican government which ousts Napoleon encourages Pasteur (actor Paul Munni) to continue his research which, in his experiments with anthrax, ultimately demonstrates the validity of his approach. One American review quipped: “If this...

The science of brains

Is there a Marxist analysis of the brain? Probably not, but a materialist analysis of this amazingly complex organ is possible (and necessary). Matthew Cobb’s book The Idea of the Brain: A History traces the history of our understanding of the brain from 1665, when the Danish anatomist Nicolaus Steno announced that the brain could be best understood as a machine, an idea that still resonates today. And, despite the intense research that has gone on over the years and the mountains of published scientific articles, brain research is still in the dark about how much of the brain functions...

Lab leak theory very unlikely

Jim Denham makes apt criticisms of the Morning Star in his article in Solidarity 596 , for yet another article that is both demagogic and championing the Chinese ruling class. Yet he is gives too much ground to the continued viability of a lab leak theory of SARS-CoV-2's origins. Contrary to what Jim's article implied, the WHO mission did investigate the possibility of a laboratory leak. They found "direct zoonotic spillover... a possible-to-likely pathway; introduction through an intermediate host... a likely to very likely pathway; introduction through cold/ food chain products… a possible...

Don't even investigate, says Morning Star

As matters stand the balance of scientific opinion is that the Covid-19 pandemic probably started by a virus jumping from an animal host to humans in the Wuhan wet market or elsewhere. But we don’t know and may never know. The Biden administration in the USA is launching an investigation, which includes considering the idea that the virus leaked from a lab. Of course the Biden administration will have political motives in including that idea, just as the Chinese authorities had their motives for promoting the theory that the virus came from outside China. But it is not pursuing Donald Trump’s...

Good wind for malaria vaccine

Vaccines have been prominent during the course of the Covid pandemic, with the development of several highly efficacious ones (over 90% protection) in less than a year. Even though much preparatory work had already been done, this was an outstanding achievement. Contrast this with the case of malaria, a scourge for thousands of years. After 200 years of vaccination techniques (one of the first examples of doctors actually preventing illness), and 50 years of research into a malaria vaccine, only in the last few weeks have we heard of one, R21, which is 75% effective against malaria (the WHO...

Vaccines and blood clots

Does the AstraZeneca vaccine (AZV) cause rare and dangerous types of blood clot? Probably yes, and AZV is now not recommended for people under 30. Let’s look at the overall picture. Out of 4.4 million people confirmed to have Covid-19, over 150,000 have died. That’s about 34,000 per million confirmed cases. Confirmed cases are likely to be an underestimate of actual cases but, taking the highest estimate, the fatality rate is still at least 10,000 per million cases or about 1%. In principle, mass vaccination should eventually be able to reduce Covid infection rates, and therefore deaths, to...

The underside of plutocrat philanthropy

Tin-hat conspiracy theory claims that vaccinations are a ploy by Bill Gates to implant tracking microchips in our arms communicate at least two lies. There’s the obvious lie, that vaccines contain microchips. Then there’s the subtle, implicit lie: that Bill Gates is helping net global vaccination efforts. Way back in April 2020, Oxford University pledged that they would make any technologies that they develop against the Covid-19 pandemic available under “non-exclusive, royalty-free licences to support” free or cost-price supply. They only pledged to do this for the duration of the pandemic...

More doubts on Malm's water power

I would like to add some rough and ready comments to the letter from Paul Vernadsky ( Solidarity 591 ). The idea that coal-fired steam power (as opposed to water power) was somehow adopted in order to control wage labour seems to me to be questionable. Certainly water power at one point in industrial development was very important, and not just in textile manufacture. I remember as a child growing up in Stockbridge, about ten miles west of Sheffield. There was a place called Tin Mill Wood where there was a small lake (now owned by an angling club) and piles of large stones lying around. I...

Break the world vaccine logjam!

Just over 13 Covid jabs have been given per 100 people, world-wide, as of 25 April. That’s about five more vaccinations per 100 people since 1 April. Over April, vaccination levels have increased, but only in a straight line, about 0.2 more jabs per 100 each day, not exponentially, as they need to. At current rates it will take more than a year to give everyone in the world one dose, and two years to give everyone full vaccination, even taking into account the contribution of the Janssen single-dose vaccine. Probably long before then, the vaccine protection for those who have already had jabs...

Covid: social battles still needed

The world’s measured Covid death rate has gone through a new surge since mid-March. It may be levelling out now, but is still higher than at any time except a peak around late January. Covid is not fading yet. The latest big spike is in India, from early March, where rates have risen from a low in early March to become even higher than India’s previous worst time, in mid-September 2020. Some scientists had thought that some of India’s big cities, at least, had so many people with some immunity from previous infection that non-immunity would be scarce enough to make chains of infection peter...

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