Sun: Do You Want Some Crudite With Your Whine?

I've Had RSV.  It's Nasty!

After more than five decades of trying, the drug industry is on the verge of providing effective immunizations against the respiratory syncytial virus, which has put an estimated 90,000 U.S. infants and small children in the hospital since the start of October.

But only one of the shots is designed to be given to babies, and a glitch in congressional language may make it difficult to allow children from low-income families to get it as readily as the well-insured.

Since 1994, routine vaccination has been a childhood entitlement under the Vaccines for Children program, through which the federal government buys millions of vaccines and provides them free through pediatricians and clinics to children who are uninsured, underinsured, or on Medicaid — more than half of all American kids.

The 1993 law creating the program didn’t specifically include antibody shots, which were used only as rare emergency therapy at the time the bill was written.

But the first medication of its kind likely to be available to babies, called nirsevimab (it was approved in Europe in December, and FDA approval is expected this summer), is not a vaccine but rather a monoclonal antibody that neutralizes RSV in the bloodstream.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is certain to recommend giving the antibody to infants, said Dr. Kelly Moore, president of the advocacy group Immunize.org. The CDC is currently assessing whether nirsevimab would be eligible for the Vaccines for Children program, agency spokesperson Kristen Nordlund told KHN.

Failing to do so would “consign thousands upon thousands of infants to hospitalization and serious illness for semantic reasons despite existence of an immunization that functionally performs just like a seasonal vaccine,” Moore said.

Governors Who Are Not DeathSentence Speak

Democratic governors can do more to advertise their states as places where Florida-style school crackdowns go to die.

Some Democratic governors — not just in coastal states but also in Midwestern ones — are beginning to test this idea. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has seized on DeSantis’s latest culture-warring — Florida’s decision to ban an Advanced Placement course in African American studies — to articulate a contrasting vision for what topics should be permitted in classrooms.

This week, Pritzker singled out DeSantis as an “extremist,” after the College Board introduced a revised AP course in Black studies in response to DeSantis’s attacks. Florida nixed the old version for including topics such as “intersectionality” and “queer studies,” and the new version removes explicit mentions of those or downgrades them to optional topics. [...]
In coming months, Pritzker will grow more vocal on this front, a source familiar with his thinking tells me. He will amplify the case that restricting classroom topics works against kids’ interests and risks stunting intellectual growth, and that a more open approach sharpens their arguments and thinking, making them more competitive in the quest for higher education.

They Were So Pro-Life, That They Killed Themselves

An entire Pennsylvania family of Trump supporters, including James Daub (62), Deborah Daub (59) and their daughter Morgan (26), were found dead in their backyard. An investigation found several notes inside the house that the family made a “joint decision” to end their lives.

There were no signs of foul play, no evidence that anyone else was present, and no signs of forced entry. The physical evidence pointed to self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Police also interviewed people close to the family who confirmed they were devout Christian conservatives.

The mother and daughter were avid bowlers, and Brett Stabley was the owner of a bowling supply shop who knew them well and gave lessons. He said they were despondent over Trump no longer being president:

Stabley said the Christian, churchgoing family “was never shy about letting anybody know what their beliefs were” when it came to religion and politics. Morgan and Deborah “very, very huge” supporters of former President Donald Trump, Stabley said.

“They were just so hell-bent on Trump winning, like this could be in the end if he doesn’t,” Stabley said, referring to an instance when he saw them just before the 2020 election. He said he stopped seeing the two after that.

Harrassment Costs $1 Million

In a December judgement that fined The Church At Planned Parenthood $110,000:

A Spokane County judge ruled that TCAPP violated state law for their protests which interfered with patient care.

TCAPP repeatedly violated Washington state law by “willfully or recklessly disrupt[ing] the normal functioning of a health care facility” by, among other things, “making noise that unreasonably disturbs the peace within the facility.” KXLY

Last week saw another legal victory for Spokane Planned Parenthood (SPP):

Spokane Planned Parenthood (SPP) has won its lawsuit against The Church at Planned Parenthood (TCAPP), as the Spokane Superior Court sided the SPP in December.

The church was fined over $100,000. Following the settlement, both parties negotiated to settle all remaining claims and attorney's fees. It was determined that TCAPP will need to pay $850,000 to account for those fees.

This development comes just two years after members of TCAPP held rallies directly outside of SPP, as members reportedly blocked access to the clinic, intimidated patients and at times carried concealed weapons. The rallies attracted a variety of local and national hate group representatives. — MSN

"This is a critical victory for Planned Parenthood at a time of historical attacks on abortion access,” Paul Dillon, Vice President of Public Affairs, PPGWNI said in a release. “We are so thankful for the work of Legal Voice as well as the overwhelming support of the community. We are proud to provide a safe, welcoming environment for our employees and our patients, so they can get the high quality health care they need. No one should ever face the threat of harassment and intimidation because they are seeking or providing health care. Our doors are open today, and they will stay open to provide the compassionate care that our patients need and deserve in Spokane and across the region." — KREM

Immigrants, They Get the Job Done

On January 23rd, Adolfo Molina Burgos, who works as an Uber driver, was driving with a friend on Interstate 93 to pick up a fare at Boston’s Logan International Airport.

The snow was falling and the road was icy, but the driving was even slower going than the weather allowed.

They saw a blue vehicle driving bizarrely in the middle of the road until it veered over to, and began scraping against the guardrail and a high rate of speed, and it was continuing unabated.

They could also see the female driver slumped over, apparently unconscious.

They knew that she needed help and she needed help right now.

So Adolfo, a tall and powerfully built 24-year-old lad, pulled over, got out and sprinted at a high rate of speed across the four lane highway, dodging and weaving through the slow moving cars, over slick ice in spots, all to reach the runaway vehicle before someone got injured.

He hauled ass.

He had to, because the car was still going between 25 and 30 miles an hour.



Recalled Adolfo, “I’m running through traffic. I try to open the door first, but it didn’t open initially. I ran even faster.”

Realizing that door was locked, he gestured to his friend for help and called out for something that would break the window.

“He brought two pieces of wood that were kind of thick, and I kept saying, ‘Break the window. Break the window.’

We started pushing the car towards the railing on the side so it wouldn’t go back on the highway and cause an accident.”

By then he had run for over a mile.

Finally the car hit a divider and stopped.

The men comforted the woman and stayed with her until emergency services arrived.

And then…. he went back to work. (!)

When he returned home, the adrenaline rush hit him.

He slept for hours, unaware that by then over a million people had viewed the video of his job well done.

When he finally woke up, his wife Pena told him that the phone calls from friends were constant, as were the texts.

“My friends asked me if something was wrong because they saw me running on the highway. That’s when I saw the video on TikTok.”

Adolfo is from the Dominican Republic,

That Didn't Take Long

The embattled New York Republican congressman George Santos has been accused of sexual harassment by a former aide.

Santos already faces local, state, federal and international investigations over professional and personal behaviour, campaign finance filings and a campaign résumé shown to be largely made-up.

He has admitted embellishing his résumé but denied wrongdoing and said he will not resign, as members of his own party and Democrats have repeatedly urged him to do.

Republican leaders who must govern with a slim House majority have stood by him, though he has withdrawn from two committees.

On Friday, the former aide, Derek Myers, published on Twitter a letter to the House ethics committee in which he claimed to have been put to work in Santos’s office as a volunteer, in violation of ethics rules, and to have been harassed.

“Today,” he wrote, “I filed a police report with Capitol police and a complaint with the House ethics committee regarding ethical violations and sexual harassment by Congressman George Santos during my time working in his office.