Citizen Cartwright

Make your voice heard on a health threat bigger than coronavirus

As infectious disease experts routinely point out when a new virus emerges, a greater threat to the public is the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics.

 

As you know, the point of this blog is to share with you what’s going on so you can weigh in, in any way you wish, to keep this democracy going.

 

So I don’t advocate any specific policy. Except on antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

 

That’s because superbugs are a threat to all humans, regardless of political party, wealth or anything else that divides us from each other. It’s all of us, together, against superbugs.

 

Earlier this week, I ran an item about an antibiotic that’s been developed by MIT researchers using artificial intelligence.

 

That’s good news, but the fight against antibiotic-resistant infection isn’t over by any means.

 

This week, a group of superbug survivors, doctors, bacterial disease experts and others has been in Washington visiting lawmakers as part of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Stand Up To Superbugs initiative.

 

"The very future of modern medicine is at stake. Without effective antibiotics, we will return to a pre-antibiotic era, when common infections accounted for a third of all deaths,” says Pew.

"The administration has proposed deep cuts to funding for several federal agencies — including CDC and the Department of Agriculture — which puts all of us at risk. We need these agencies to continue their work preventing, tracking, and treating dangerous resistant bacteria and jump-starting the development of new antibiotics through more research and incentives.

 

Pew is asking you to email, tweet or call your representatives about superbugs.

 

And so am I.

 

All you have to do is complete the form here.

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Calming words from financial columnists amid stock market plunge

I’m a long-time reader and respecter of the financial columnists at The New York Times and The Washington Post.

 

When the stock market drops as it has this week, both the Times’ Ron Lieber and the Post’s Michelle Singletary quickly move to ease readers’ fears and advise against panic selling.

 

Your aim as an investor, says Lieber: "is to find a way to put your money in an investment that will grow over time at a rate that outpaces inflation. And you want to do that without taking on so much risk that it could all go to zero and stay there.

"Owning a big basket of stocks and paying very little for the privilege, say via an index mutual fund or exchange traded fund, is generally the best way to execute this strategy.”

 

The S&P 500 has gone up 183 percent in the last decade, even counting this week’s drop.

 

So, many investors are out of practice experiencing downturns. And young people have no real experience with drops at all.

 

"A multiday decline, in your first few years of managing to put a bit of money away, can be harrowing," says Lieber. "Putting long-term savings someplace safer is probably tempting, and perhaps it’s the only way for you to sleep better at night. But long-term returns in bonds will most likely be lower, so permanently moving money into them means you’ll need to save that much more to meet your goals."

 

“Drastic investment moves are sensible only when there have been drastic changes in your life, like a big new job or consequential medical news,” says Lieber.

 

For people who’ve retired already, three to five years’ worth of income needs should be set aside that isn’t impacted by roller-coaster swings in the stock market, experts tell Singletary. And a common recommendation is to maintain a 60-40 mix of stocks and fixed-income investments.

 

"The stock market will do what it does — rise and fall,” says Singletary. "If you’ve got a plan based on your risk tolerance and investment horizon, don’t let fear make you swerve in the wrong direction and lose traction."

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At Democratic debate, Sanders is target as rivals try to show they’re a better option

After spending 40 years as a protest politician on the outside looking in, the Vermont senator is learning what it’s like to be the front-runner for a major political party, says an analysis by Julie Pace, Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press.

 

Sanders has run for office as an independent and is a loner on Capitol Hill. He prides himself on being ideologically rigid and has been willing to criticize Democratic leaders, including former President Obama, for what he’s seen as politically expedient compromises.

 

And now, four years after his insurgent White House bid made him a household name, Sanders is poised to become the Democratic Party’s pick to take on President Trump.

 

It’s three days until South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary and six days before more than a dozen states vote on Super Tuesday. The next Democratic debate isn't until the middle of March. 

So Tuesday’s debate likely was the last chance for some candidates to "save themselves and alter the trajectory of the nomination fight,” says a separate AP article.

 

Sanders' competitors tried on Tuesday to shift the direction of the race, but none of them "rose significantly above the others,” says Dan Balz in The Washington Post.

 

Here are the Twitter observations of some veteran campaign strategists, consultants and analysts on the performances of the various candidates, compiled by The New York Times.

 

And here is a fact check of the debate, from The Washington Post.

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Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian leader ousted in Arab Spring pro-democracy uprising, dies at 91

 

World’s oldest man dies in Japan at 112, credits his long life to smiling

Some good news about antibiotics, thanks to artificial intelligence

It’s 10 years ago yesterday that I first wrote in this blog about the threat of deadly infections, as bacteria became resistant to existing antibiotics and the drug industry didn’t find it profitable to research new ones.

 

And a big old downer appeared on The New York Times website on Christmas day last year saying companies that were developing new versions of drugs were going out of business, for a variety of reasons.

 

So let’s celebrate a new antibiotic that’s been developed by MIT researchers.

 

In lab tests, the drug has killed many of the world’s most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics, says MIT.

 

The antibiotic was identified using a machine-learning algorithm. The computer model, which can screen more than 100 million chemical compounds in a matter of days, is designed to pick out potential antibiotics that kill bacteria using different mechanisms than those of existing drugs, says MIT.

 

The researchers also identified several other promising antibiotic candidates, which they're planning to test further. They believe the model also could be used to design new drugs, based on what it's learned about chemical structures that enable drugs to kill bacteria.

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Democratic establishment, moderates’ fear of Bernie

The Vermont senator’s decisive win in the Nevada caucuses Saturday is forcing the Democratic Party to reckon with the strong possibility that a democratic socialist who views himself as fighting equally against the Democratic and Republican establishments will be the nominee, says USA Today.

 

"I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment," Sanders tweeted on Friday. "They can't stop us."

 

Some Democrats fear that a Sanders nomination could cost them both the White House and Congress.

 

Rival campaigns and other moderate Democrats warn that Sanders’ nomination is all but inevitable unless other candidates start dropping out and stop splitting up the anti-Sanders vote, says an Associated Press analysis.

 

“Everybody other than Bernie thinks everybody other than Bernie should drop out — except themselves,” Chris Lippencott, a Democratic strategist in Texas, tells Politico.

 

An AP article describes how Sanders has worked since 2016 to build his campaign organization and to better frame issues.

 

Vox says Sanders has been courting Latinos for months, and they were key to his victory in Nevada.

 

Here is Nate Silver’s take in FiveThirtyEight, titled "Bernie Sanders wins Nevada — putting him in the driver’s seat to win the nomination."

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