Everyday Erinyes #264

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:20 am Politics

May 012021

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

This week will be a little bit different. POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, which is fairly progressive, is a group I have been getting newsletters from for years, always interesting. Recently they started a new newsletter, in addition to the regular one, with a single author (Walter Shaub) and a single topic (Ethics.) The current edition of this is, IMO, one to keep, because, besides recommendations, it includes a great deal of information about how the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is currently structured and empowered. Without knowing that, it’s not very fruitful to speculate on how much any recommendations will improve things. So here’s the newsletter, straight from the email:
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The government ethics program needs some teeth

If nothing else, the last four years taught us that the executive branch ethics program is weak. The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) can’t investigate ethics violations or issue punishments. That needs to change. There’s little point in having rules if you can’t detect violations or do anything about them.

OGE Can’t Investigate Violations

OGE is the brain of the executive branch ethics program. It issues regulations and guidance, conducts training, and advises top political appointees. The office cheerleads ethics, urging leaders to model good behavior. This is a good setup for federal officials who want to do the right thing. But there’s little OGE can do about those who don’t.

The Ethics in Government Act, which created OGE, says the office can investigate ethics violations but doesn’t provide any real investigative authority. One section bars OGE from making findings related to criminal laws, which prevents OGE from investigating conflicts of interest or false financial disclosures.

What remain are less serious violations; an official accepting movie tickets from a contractor, for instance. But OGE has no real means to investigate even these lesser matters. The law tells federal agencies to give OGE any requested documents or information, but it prescribes no penalties if they refuse.

The law also limits OGE to recommending that an agency take disciplinary action against an official for violating a rule and ordering the official not to violate the rule again. There are no consequences if the agency and the official ignore OGE.

The deck is stacked against OGE even issuing an order to stop because the law requires it to prove the official’s guilt at a hearing first. OGE can’t hold a hearing unless another agency lends it an administrative law judge, and the leaders of other agencies may be unwilling to help OGE sanction a fellow political appointee. If OGE is able to secure a judge, OGE probably won’t be successful in presenting its case because it lacks the power to compel reticent witnesses to testify.

Congress Can Give the Ethics Program an Investigator

Congress can fix this problem. One option is to give OGE real investigative authority, including the power to issue subpoenas that a federal court could enforce; another is to create a new investigative office.

Giving OGE investigative authority would be an improvement over the current situation, in which possible violations go uninvestigated. However, there are drawbacks. Federal officials may be hesitant to seek ethics advice from their agencies’ ethics officials, who work closely with OGE, if OGE becomes an investigative body. OGE is also already understaffed and my own experience with OGE’s budget requests suggests that Congress won’t fund new staff positions for investigators.

A better option would be for Congress to create a new inspector general office. That office would spend most of its time investigating the routine activities of dozens of small agencies that currently lack inspectors general. Congress could empower OGE to grant this inspector general additional jurisdiction to investigate suspected ethics violations by any of the roughly 4,000 political appointees in the executive branch. This authority can be limited to cover political appointees because the existing disciplinary systems work well enough for the career civilian federal employees.

Assigning investigations to this inspector general would both give OGE access to a large investigative staff and preserve its advisory functions. The inspector general would be free to decline to conduct a requested investigation but would have to issue a written explanation. This arrangement would hold the inspector general accountable while guarding against politically motivated harassment of top officials by requiring both offices to agree on an investigation.

Congress Should Authorize OGE to Seek Civil Penalties

Congress should empower OGE to seek fines against any political appointee the director concludes violated a conflict-of-interest law or ethics regulation. OGE would initiate the process by filing a complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which adjudicates disciplinary proceedings against federal employees. The MSPB would hold a hearing and, after considering the evidence, could impose a fine. In the case of an intentional conflict-of-interest violation, the fine could be as high as the value of the stocks or other assets at issue.

Congress should also give political appointees the ability to appeal the MSPB’s decision or resign from government. If the appointee resigns and doesn’t return to the government before a new president takes office, the fine would be rescinded. This resolution would grant the MSPB power to do something only the president can currently do: remove a rule-breaking presidential appointee from government. Appointees who choose to resign wouldn’t necessarily escape all punishment, since the Department of Justice could still prosecute any misconduct that rose to the level of a crime.

These fixes—giving the ethics program an investigator and the power to assess fines—would create a meaningful enforcement mechanism that our government ethics program sorely lacks. Passing them should be a no-brainer for Congress if its members are serious about fighting corruption.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, as basic as this is, I didn’t know much of it. I knew there was an Office of Government Ethics, but I didn’t realize it was so toothless. And, if I had, I’m not sure it would have immediately occurred to me that if it were too strong, that might discourage people from reporting issues to it. It did occur to me while I was reading it that it sounded like an Inspector General might help, and a little farther down Mr. Shaub did make that suggestion, but I can’t claim brilliance for just that.

There is more information in a report Mr. Shaub contributed to for the Brookings Institution, and also a report for POGO with many contributors. Both go into more detail than this brief email. But at least this is an introduction. And, if the newsletter sounds interesting, anyone can sign up here.

The Furies and I will be back.

Everyday Erinyes #263

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 10:45 am Politics

Apr 242021

The trial of Derek Chauvin is now over. The verdict was on one level expectable (God knows there was more than enough evidence and it was very clear), and yet, in our unwell society, unexpected. Let’s look at some takeaways while it is fresh in our minds.
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Why this trial was different: Experts react to guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin

A woman reacts to the news that Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts in the murder of George Floyd.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Alexis Karteron, Rutgers University – Newark ; Jeannine Bell, Indiana University; Rashad Shabazz, Arizona State University, and Ric Simmons, The Ohio State University

Scholars analyze the guilty verdicts handed down to former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Outside the courthouse, crowds cheered and church bells sounded – a collective release in a city scarred by police killings. Minnesota’s attorney general, whose office led the prosecution, said he would not call the verdict “justice, however” because “justice implies restoration” – but he would call it “accountability.”

Race was not an issue in trial

Alexis Karteron, Rutgers University – Newark

Derek Chauvin’s criminal trial is over, but the work to ensure that no one endures a tragic death like George Floyd’s is just getting started.

It is fair to say that race was on the minds of millions of protesters who took to the streets last year to express their outrage and pain in response to the killing. Many felt it was impossible for someone who wasn’t Black to imagine Chauvin’s brutal treatment of George Floyd.

But race went practically unmentioned during the Chauvin trial.

This should not be surprising, because the criminal legal system writes race out at virtually every turn. When I led a lawsuit as a civil rights attorney challenging the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program as racist, the department’s primary defense was that it complied with Fourth Amendment standards, under which police officers need only “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity to stop someone. Presence in what police say is a “high-crime area” is relevant to developing reasonable suspicion, as is a would-be subject taking flight when being approached by a police officer. But the correlation with race, for a host of reasons, is obvious to any keen observer.

American policing’s most pressing problems are racial ones. For some, the evolution of slave patrols into police forces and the failure of decadeslong reform efforts are proof that American policing is irredeemable and must be defunded. For others, changes to use-of-force policies and improved accountability measures, like those in the proposed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, are enough.

Different communities across the country will follow different paths in their efforts to prevent another tragic death like George Floyd’s. Some will do nothing at all. But progress will be made only when America as a whole gets real about the role of race – something the legal system routinely fails to do.

Derek Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd for 9 minutes, 29 seconds.

Why this trial was different

Ric Simmons, The Ohio State University

The guilty verdicts in the Chauvin trial are extraordinary, if unsurprising, because past incidents of police lethal use of force against unarmed civilians, particularly Black civilians, have generally not resulted in criminal convictions.

In many cases, the prosecuting office has been reluctant or halfhearted in pursuing the case. Prosecutors and police officers work together daily; that can make prosecutors sympathetic to the work of law enforcement. In the Chauvin case, the attorney general’s office invested an overwhelming amount of resources in preparing for and conducting the trial, bringing in two outside lawyers, including a prominent civil rights attorney, to assist its many state prosecutors.

Usually, too, a police officer defendant can count on the support of other police officers to testify on his behalf and explain why his or her actions were justified. Not in this case. Every police officer witness testified for the prosecution against Chauvin.

Finally, convictions after police killings are rare because, evidence shows, jurors are historically reluctant to substitute their own judgment for the split-second decisions made by trained officers when their lives may be on the line. Despite the past year’s protests decrying police violence, U.S. support for law enforcement remains very high: A recent poll showed that only 18% of Americans support the “defund the police” movement.

But Chauvin had no feasible argument that he feared for his life or made an instinctive response to a threat. George Floyd did nothing to justify the defendant’s brutal actions, and the overwhelming evidence presented by the prosecutors convinced 12 jurors of that fact.

A woman holding a sign reading 'Silence is violence' and 'BLM' stands in front of a crowd — The death of George Floyd sparked protests around the U.S. and across the world, including this June 2020 rally in Germany.
AP Photo/Martin Meissner

The ‘thin blue line’ kills

Jeannine Bell, Indiana University

Like other high-profile police killings of African Americans, the murder of George Floyd revealed a lot about police culture – and how it makes interactions with communities of color fraught.

Derek Chauvin used prohibited tactics – keeping his knee on Floyd’s neck when he had already been subdued – to suffocate a man, an act the jury recognized as murder. Three fellow Minneapolis Police Department officers watched as Chauvin killed Floyd. Rather than intervene themselves, they helped him resist the intervention of upset bystanders and a medical professional. They have been charged with aiding and abetting a murder.

The police brotherhood – that intense and protective “thin blue line” – enabled a public murder. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, unusually, broke this code of silence when he testified against Chauvin.

Research shows that even if officers see a fellow officer mistreating a suspect and want to intervene, they need training to teach them how to do so effectively. The city of New Orleans is now training officers to intervene. Once training is in place, police departments could also make intervention in such situations mandatory.

When some officers stand by as other officers ignore their training, the consequences can be dangerous – and potentially lethal – for civilians.

A sheriff's deputy handcuffs Derek Chauvin in the courtroom, while Chauvin speaks to his attorney — After the verdicts were read, Derek Chauvin was taken into police custody to await sentencing.
Court TV via AP, Pool

Minnesota faces its racism

Rashad Shabazz, Arizona State University

This verdict reflects a little-known truth about Minneapolis: As the city and metro region have become Blacker and more diverse, police violence against Black people has intensified. This is not to suggest that things have always been good for Black Minneapolis residents. Indeed, Minneapolis’ Black population – a group without political power or visibility – has faced segregation, police violence and Northern Jim Crow policies in its downtown music venues for decades.

White Minnesotans and Minneapolitans developed a false belief that somehow they were above racism; that their form of neighborliness known as “Minnesota nice” was an antidote to anti-Blackness and that – most of all – race didn’t matter in a place as nice as Minnesota.

That false assumption was easy to believe when the Black population was small, contained and largely out of sight. But Black Minneapolis’ population growth in recent decades, and the torrent of police violence that has followed, proved otherwise.

The murder of George Floyd last year and Daunte Wright’s killing in a nearby community last week demonstrate that despite the state’s liberal posture and Lutheran ethic, institutional anti-Black racism is as Minnesotan as ice fishing, untaxed groceries and “ya, sure, youbetcha” memes.

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Alexis Karteron, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University – Newark ; Jeannine Bell, Professor of Law, Maurer School of Law, Indiana University; Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor at the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, and Ric Simmons, Professor of Law, The Ohio State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, I can’t agree with Alexas Karteron. Race may not have been used as an issue, but it was still very much an issue. Ric Simmons is right on about the attorney general’s involvement making a difference – and especially whan that AG is Keith Ellison. Jeannine Bal is not only right but has put her finger at or close to the heart of our biggest problem in the US. I hope Rashad Shabazz is right … but I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Furies and I will be back.

Everyday Erinyes #262

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 10:24 am Politics

Apr 172021

The trial of Derek Chauvin is scheduled to go to closing arguments Monday. While I doubt if anyone here watched every minute of the stream, we have probably sll been following it So I won’t comment much What I do have to say will be after the end of the article.
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Derek Chauvin trial: 3 questions America needs to ask about seeking racial justice in a court of law

A demonstration outside the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis on March 29, 2021, the day Derek Chauvin’s trial began on charges he murdered George Floyd.
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Lewis R. Gordon, University of Connecticut

There is a difference between enforcing the law and being the law. The world is now witnessing another in a long history of struggles for racial justice in which this distinction may be ignored.

Derek Chauvin, a 45-year-old white former Minneapolis police officer, is on trial for second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter for the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man.

There are three questions I find important to consider as the trial unfolds. These questions address the legal, moral and political legitimacy of any verdict in the trial. I offer them from my perspective as an Afro-Jewish philosopher and political thinker who studies oppression, justice and freedom. They also speak to the divergence between how a trial is conducted, what rules govern it – and the larger issue of racial justice raised by George Floyd’s death after Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. They are questions that need to be asked:

1. Can Chauvin be judged as guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

The presumption of innocence in criminal trials is a feature of the U.S. criminal justice system. And a prosecutor must prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of the defendant’s peers.

The history of the United States reveals, however, that these two conditions apply primarily to white citizens. Black defendants tend to be treated as guilty until proved innocent.

Racism often leads to presumptions of reasonableness and good intentions when defendants and witnesses are white, and irrationality and ill intent when defendants, witnesses and even victims are black.

An activist watching the trial on a cellphone outside the government building in Minneapolis where the trial is taking place. — An activist watches the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin outside the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis on March 30, 2021.
Kerem Yucel / AFP/via Getty Images

Additionally, race affects jury selection. The history of all-white juries for black defendants and rarely having black jurors for white ones is evidence of a presumption of white people’s validity of judgment versus that of Black Americans. Doubt can be afforded to a white defendant in circumstances where it would be denied a black one.

Thus, Chauvin, as white, could be granted that exculpating doubt despite the evidence shared before millions of viewers in a live-streamed trial.

2. What is the difference between force and violence?

The customary questioning of police officers who harm people focuses on their use of what’s called “excessive force.” This presumes the legal legitimacy of using force in the first place in the specific situation.

Violence, however, is the use of illegitimate force. As a result of racism, Black people are often portrayed as preemptively guilty and dangerous. It follows that the perceived threat of danger makes “force” the appropriate description when a police officer claims to be preventing violence.

This understanding makes it difficult to find police officers guilty of violence. To call the act “violence” is to acknowledge that it is improper and thus falls, in the case of physical acts of violence, under the purview of criminal law. Once their use of force is presumed legitimate, the question of degree makes it nearly impossible for jurors to find officers guilty.

Floyd, who was suspected of purchasing items from a store with a counterfeit $20 bill, was handcuffed and complained of not being able to breathe when Chauvin pulled him from the police vehicle and he fell face down on the ground.

Footage from the incident revealed that Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. Floyd was motionless several minutes in, and he had no pulse when Alexander Kueng, one of the officers, checked. Chauvin didn’t remove his knee until paramedics arrived and asked him to get off of Floyd so they could examine the motionless patient.

If force under the circumstances is unwarranted, then its use would constitute violence in both legal and moral senses. Where force is legitimate (for example, to prevent violence) but things go wrong, the presumption is that a mistake, instead of intentional wrongdoing, occurred.

An important, related distinction is between justification and excuse. Violence, if the action is illegitimate, is not justified. Force, however, when justified, can become excessive. The question at that point is whether a reasonable person could understand the excess. That understanding makes the action morally excusable.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo in the witness box at the Chauvin trial, fingering his badge. — Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified,
Court TV via AP, Pool

3. Is there ever excusable police violence?

Police are allowed to use force to prevent violence. But at what point does the force become violence? When its use is illegitimate. In U.S. law, the force is illegitimate when done “in the course of committing an offense.”

Sgt. David Pleoger, Chauvin’s former supervisor, stated in the trial: “When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended their restraint.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified, “To continue to apply that level of force to a person proned-out, handcuffed behind their back, that in no way, shape or form is anything that is by policy.” He declared, “I vehemently disagree that that was an appropriate use of force.”

That an act was deemed by prosecutors to be violent, defined as an illegitimate use of force resulting in death, is a necessary conclusion for charges of murder and manslaughter. Both require ill intent or, in legal terms, a mens rea (“evil mind”). The absence of a reasonable excuse affects the legal interpretation of the act. That the act was not preventing violence but was, instead, one of committing it, made the action inexcusable.

The Chauvin case, like so many others, leads to the question: What is the difference between enforcing the law and imagining being the law? Enforcing the law means one is acting within the law. That makes the action legitimate. Being the law forces others, even law-abiding people, below the enforcer, subject to their actions.

If no one is equal to or above the enforcer, then the enforcer is raised above the law. Such people would be accountable only to themselves. Police officers and any state officials who believe they are the law, versus implementers or enforcers of the law, place themselves above the law. Legal justice requires pulling such officials back under the jurisdiction of law.

The purpose of a trial is, in principle, to subject the accused to the law instead of placing him, her, or them above it. Where the accused is placed above the law, there is an unjust system of justice.

This article has been updated to correct the charges Chauvin is facing.

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Lewis R. Gordon, Professor of Philosophy, University of Connecticut

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, to me one of the best moments in the trial was during the cross examination of the defense’s final expert witness, who cied an expert who “used to” believe in “positionary asphyxiation, but has retracted his statements.” The prosecution was ready for that. They had an affadavidt from the cited expert which included “many people have said that I retracted [my statements on positionary asphyxiation, but in fact I have never retracted and do not retract any of my statements on the matter.” How can you not love a trial attorney on either side who does his homework in anticipation of it beeing needed to ensure that truth gets told?

There is no guarantee exactly how a jury will vote, but I am feeling some hope … tempered by finding it difficult to trust a jury. We shall see. We shall all see.

The Furies and I will be back.

Everyday Erinyes #261

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 9:59 am Politics

Apr 102021

It would appear to be time for us and the Furies to join the conversation about vaccines. I know some here have been fully vaccinated, and some partially. I have not really even looked yet, because it’s no hardship for me to stay isolated (no family that need hugs, a dependable routine, etc.), it’s still pretty cold (it warms up for a few days and then gets cold again), and I have had other things to think about. I certainly intend to get vaccinated (during out window of warmth) and will pursue it aggressively as soon as that happens. And it will most likely be with an mRNA vaccine, since those are the ones in greatest supply – and I expect everyone here who has been vaccinated has had one of those also. But probably without being aware of how revolutionary they are.
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How do mRNA vaccines work – and why do you need a second dose? 5 essential reads

New mRNA vaccines use genes from the coronavirus to produce immunity.
Andriy Onufriyenko/Moment via Getty Images

Daniel Merino, The Conversation

Tens of millions of people across the U.S. have received a coronavirus vaccine. So far, the majority of doses have been either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, both of which use mRNA to generate an immune response. These gene-based vaccines have been in the works for decades, but this is the first time they have been used widely in people.

MRNA vaccines are proving to be more effective than anyone had hoped, but as with any new medical advancement, people have a lot of questions. How do they work? Are they safe? Do I really need two shots? Why do they need to be kept so cold? And will this be the vaccine technology of the future? Below, we highlight five articles from The Conversation that will help answer your questions about mRNA vaccines.

1. A vaccine revolution

“DNA and mRNA vaccines offer huge advantages over traditional types of vaccines, since they use only genetic code from a pathogen – rather than the entire virus or bacteria,” writes Deborah Fuller, a microbiologist at the University of Washington who has been working on gene-based vaccines for decades.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are proof that mRNA vaccines are ready for prime time – and far surpass their predecessors. “The hopes that gene-based vaccines could one day provide a vaccine for malaria or HIV, cure cancer, replace less effective traditional vaccines or be ready to stop the next pandemic before it gets started are no longer far-fetched,” explains Fuller.

2. How does an mRNA vaccine work?

These vaccines are not only effective, they work in a fundamentally different way from traditional vaccines, explains Sanjay Mishra, a staff scientist at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Traditional vaccines use an entire dead virus – or just a piece of one – to generate immunity. “But an mRNA vaccine is different,” writes Mishra, “because rather than having the viral protein injected, a person receives genetic material – mRNA – that encodes the viral protein. When these genetic instructions are injected into the upper arm, the muscle cells translate them to make the viral protein directly in the body.”

A drawing of the coronavirus. — Just as the pandemic hit, mRNA vaccine research had reached a tipping point.
CDC/Alissa Eckert, MSMI; Dan Higgins, MAMS

3. Quick to market, but still safe

“Safety is the first and foremost goal for a vaccine,” says William Petri, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia. A lot of people have expressed safety concerns based on how fast these vaccines were developed, approved and distributed.

According to Petri, the vaccines still went through every normal step – they just did them simultaneously.

“In my opinion, safety is not compromised by the speed of vaccine development and emergency use authorization. The reason that vaccines may be approved so quickly is that the large clinical trials to assess vaccine efficacy and safety are happening at the same time as the large-scale manufacturing preparation, funded by the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed program.”

4. Why it’s important to get your second shot

You got your first vaccine shot. But with shortages and supply problems, getting the second dose might be becoming a hassle. Does it really matter? Yes, explains William Petri in another article.

“The first dose primes the immune system and introduces the body to the germ of interest. This allows the immune system to prepare its defense. The second dose, or booster, provides the opportunity for the immune system to ramp up the quality and quantity of the antibodies used to fight the virus.”

Immunity is a complex process, and “if the booster isn’t given within the appropriate window, lower quantities of antibodies will be produced that may not provide as powerful protection from the virus,” writes Petri. So go get your second shot if you can, even if you have to get it a bit later than expected.

A person getting the coronavirus vaccine. — Both doses are important for full immunity.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya

5. Subzero storage makes distribution a challenge

For all of their amazing attributes, mRNA vaccines do have at least one weakness: “If they get too warm or too cold they spoil. And, just like fish, a spoiled vaccine must be thrown away,” explains Anna Nagurney, Professor of Operations Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who studies medical supply chains.

The mRNA molecule is very fragile, so vaccines need to be kept at extremely cold, very specific temperatures – a challenge for distribution. “The answer is something called the vaccine cold chain – a supply chain that can keep vaccines in tightly controlled temperatures from the moment they are made to the moment that they are administered to a person,” explains Nagurney. This cold supply chain is critical to getting vaccines where they need to go, and without it, no matter how good the vaccines are, they can’t make much of a difference.

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Daniel Merino, Assistant Editor: Science, Health, Environment; Co-Host: The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone as scary as the pandemic has been, and still is, and sadly will continue to be, not through the fault of health care providers exactly, but primarily due to the unwillingness of so many people to get vaccinated (and I grant that, particular for certain groups underserved for decades, some distrust is justified) – as scary as it is, there is hope coming out of it, not only in how to handle this virus, but how to deal with future pandemics better than we did with this one. Of course that will require us to keep electing, and in increasing numbers, intelligent, knowledgeable, and caring leaders. I wish I knew what to do about that being so difficult.

The Furies and I will be back.

Everyday Erinyes #260

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 10:24 am Politics

Apr 032021

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

As depressing as the topic of this article is, it is (or they are – five aspects are discussed) something we all need to be aware of and as nuch as possible able to present facts on. I don’t suppose we will ever actually reach the hearts of those who believe that people of color are, on account of their skin color, somehow “lesser,” much less those who on some level know that people of color are in no way “lesser” but who are so afraid of them they have trained themselves to be liev the myth. Not their hearts. Butit might be possible to get through to their minds or their consciences. Maybe. We have to try.
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Derek Chauvin trial begins in George Floyd murder case: 5 essential reads on police violence against Black men

Floyd’s nephew, Brandon Williams (center), with the Rev. Al Sharpton (left) outside the heavily guarded Hennepin County Government Center, in Minneapolis, Minn., before the murder trial of Officer Derek Chauvin began, March 29, 2021.
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Catesby Holmes, The Conversation

The trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd is underway in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Chauvin, who is white, is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in connection with the death of George Floyd, who was Black, during an arrest last May. For 8 minutes and 46 seconds, Floyd – handcuffed and face down on the pavement – said repeatedly that he could not breathe, while other officers looked on.

A video of Floyd’s agonizing death soon went viral, triggering last summer’s unprecedented wave of mass protests against police violence and racism. Chauvin’s murder trial is expected to last up to four weeks.

These five stories offer expert analysis and key background on police violence, Derek Chauvin’s record and racism in U.S. law enforcement.

1. Police violence is a top cause of death for Black men

Since 2000, U.S. police have killed between 1,000 and 1,200 people per year, according to Fatal Encounters, an up-to-date archive of police killings. The victims are disproportionately likely to be Black, male and young, according to a study by Frank Edwards at the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, in Newark.

A man helping a woman during a street protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. — Protesters in Kenosha, Wisc. after another 2020 shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

In 2019, Edwards and two co-authors analyzed the Fatal Encounters data to assess how risk of death at the hands of police varies by age, sex and race or ethnicity. They found that while “police are responsible for a very small share of all deaths” in any given year, they “are responsible for a substantial proportion of all deaths of young people.”

Police violence was the sixth-leading cause of death for young men in the United States in 2019, after accidents, suicides, homicides, heart disease and cancer.

That risk is particularly high pronounced for young men of color, especially young Black men.

“About 1 in 1,000 Black men and boys are killed by police” during their lifetime, Edwards wrote.

In contrast, the general U.S. male population is killed by police at a rate of .52 per 1,000 – about half as often.

2. Chauvin has a track record of abuse

Many police officers who kill civilians have a history of violence or misconduct, including Chauvin.

In an article on police violence written after George Floyd’s killing, criminal justice scholar Jill McCorkel noted that Derek Chauvin was “the subject of at least 18 separate misconduct complaints and was involved in two additional shooting incidents.”

During a 2006 roadside stop, Chauvin was among six officers who fired 43 rounds into a truck driven by a man wanted for questioning in a domestic assault. The man, Wayne Reyes, who police said aimed a sawed-off shotgun at them, died. A Minnesota grand jury did not indict any of the officers.

Nationwide fewer than one in 12 complaints of police misconduct result in any kind of disciplinary action, according to McCorkel.

3. Bad police interactions hurt Black families

Even when officers who use excessive force are fired, as Chauvin was after the George Floyd killing, these incidents – occurring so frequently, for so many years – take an emotional toll on Black communities.

In a 2020 Gallup survey, one in four Black men ages 18 to 34 reported they had been treated unfairly by police within the last month.

The racism and inequality researchers Deadric T. Williams and Armon Perry analyzed data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which surveyed nearly 5,000 families from U.S. cities, and found that negative police interactions have “far-reaching implications for Black families.”

“Fathers who reported experiencing a police stop were more likely to report conflict or lack of cooperation in their relationships with their children’s mother,” they wrote.

Black mothers also report “feelings of uncertainty and agitation” after Black fathers are stopped by police, Williams and Perry found. That can “affect the way that she views the relationship, leading to anger and frustration.”

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4. This happens far less in Europe

According to a 2014 study on policing in Europe and the U.S. by Rutgers researcher Paul Hirschfield, American police were 18 times more lethal than Danish police and 100 times more lethal than Finnish police.

Annual fatal police shootings per million residents as of 2014. Data are based on most recent available. US: 2014; France: 1995-2000; Denmark: 1996-2006; Portugal: 1995-2005; Sweden: 1996-2006; Netherlands: 2013-2014; Norway: 1996-2006; Germany: 2012; Finland: 1996-2006; England & Wales: 2014.
CC BY

The top reason for this difference, Hirschfield wrote in an article explaining his findings, is simple: guns.

In most U.S. states, it is “easy for adults to purchase handguns,” Hirschfield wrote, so “American police are primed to expect guns.” That may make them “more prone to misidentifying cellphones and screwdrivers as weapons.”

U.S. law is relatively forgiving of such mistakes. If officers can prove they had a “reasonable belief” that lives were in danger, they may be acquitted for killing unarmed civilians. In contrast, most European countries permit deadly force only when it is “absolutely necessary” to enforce the law.

“The unfounded fear of Darren Wilson – the former Ferguson cop who fatally shot Michael Brown – that Brown was armed would not have likely absolved him in Europe,” writes Hirschfield.

5. American policing has racist roots

Well before modern gun laws, racism ran deep in American policing, as criminal justice researcher Connie Hassett-Walker wrote in June 2020.

In the South, the first organized law enforcement was white slave patrols.

“The first slave patrols arose in South Carolina in the early 1700s,” Hassett-Walker wrote. By century’s end, every slave state had them. Slave patrols could legally enter anyone’s home based on suspicions that they were sheltering people who had escaped bondage.

Northern police forces did not originate in racial terror, but Hassett-Walker writes that they nonetheless inflicted it.

From New York City to Boston, early municipal police “were overwhelmingly white, male and more focused on responding to disorder than crime,” writes Hassett-Walker. “Officers were expected to control ‘dangerous classes’ that included African Americans, immigrants and the poor.”

This history persists today in the negative stereotypes of Black men as dangerous. That makes people like George Floyd more likely to be treated aggressively by police, with potentially lethal results.

Catesby Holmes, International Editor | Politics Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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AMT, I have not been watching the actual trial, but have been following it through the videos of Glenn Kirschner. So far it is all pprosecution witnesses. Much has been heartbreaking – which is good, because what happened, what was done, was heartbreaking, so hearbreaking testimony is appropriate and necessary. Mr. Kirschner has expressed, and it certainly seems, that the prosecution is doing a good job – better than good. But of course juries are juries. It will be a while before we learn whether there will be justice.

The Furies and I will be back.

P.S. Thanks again to all who congratulated me on Post #250. This post is actually the one I’ve been waiting for. 260 weeks ix exactly five years. Time certainly does fly.

Everyday Erinyes #259

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 10:31 am Politics

Mar 272021

A great deal of nonsense get bruited about concerning immigrants, migrants, and refugees, and this week it has been especially prominent, much of it spewed by soi-disant Christians. One would think that no other nation had ever had it so bad (to an extent that may be true – but to that extent, the problem is of our making – no immigrants are at fault. Unless you count those who invaded and leaned on Native Americans. Oh, wait – that’s also us.) And yet, it’s not all that difficult to go to antiquity – including Biblical antiquity – and learn a thing or two. Of course, that requires effort. Well, here, let me help.

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Jesus, Paul and the border debate – why cherry-picking Bible passages misses the immigrant experience in ancient Rome

The Bible contains many stories of migration, including that of Joseph, Mary and Jesus.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Fuller Theological Seminary

Immigration reform is back on the agenda, with Congress taking up major legislation that could usher in a pathway to citizenship for millions of people living in the U.S. without legal status.

This, and an increase in migrants crossing the southern border to the U.S., has seen many people retreat to two common positions on the issue. Advocates for reform generally emphasize the history of America as a nation of immigrants. Meanwhile, opponents draw to the identity of America as a nation based on the rule of law, with a sovereign right to protect its borders.

Given the role that Christianity plays in many Americans’ lives and in politics in general, it shouldn’t be surprising that people from the religious right and left draw from the Bible to support their immigration perspectives.

Biblical stories

Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for example, drew upon the Apostle Paul’s view of the government to back his support for child separation immigration policies at the border. “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he stated. For those in favor of a more progressive policy on immigration, there are numerous passages in the Bible that indicate a willingness to welcome strangers and foreigners.

The truth is, the Bible has many stories of migration, beginning in the book of Genesis with Adam and Eve migrating from the Garden of Eden and concluding with the book of Revelation, where John, traditionally known as the apostle, lives as a deported criminal on Patmos, an island located west of Turkey.

As a New Testament scholar, my research on how foreigners are portrayed during the first century has led me to recognize that selecting a few texts from Jesus’ teaching on welcoming the foreigner or the Apostle Paul’s teachings on the government does not provide the full story on the immigrant experience.

In reality, their experience was politically and culturally complex. Immigrants in Rome during the time of Jesus and Paul encountered suspicion and hostility from the imperial authorities and Roman natives.

Unfriendly Romans and noncountrymen

Many foreigners in the capital of Rome were immigrants. David Noy, a scholar of classical literature, finds that they came to the empire either as captured slaves or voluntarily migrated in search of better opportunities.

Some ancient Roman writers during the time of Jesus viewed the presence of immigrants negatively. Nostalgia for a time when Rome was less influenced by outsiders emerged among Roman elites. Ancient Roman writers Pliny and Seneca believed that as the empire extended, the foreigners culturally conquered the Romans by negatively influencing the Roman way of life.

There was a “strong sense that Rome was losing vigor and vitality through its luxuries and a fear of being undermined by foreign immigrants from among the subjugated people,” according to classical literature scholar Benjamin Isaac.

To counter this immigrant threat and presence in Italy, the Romans enacted the imperial power of expulsion. The Roman historian Livy remarks that those who introduced foreign religions were frequently expelled for failing to adopt to “the Roman way.”

Suetonius, another Roman historian, records that emperor Claudius, who ruled in the decades following Jesus’ death, banned foreigners from using a Roman name and expelled the Jews from the city of Rome. Interestingly, this Jewish expulsion also shows up in the New Testament with the expulsion of the Christian missionary couple Priscilla and Aquila from Rome in A.D. 49.

Depiction of Ovid among the Scythians. — Exile was a common Roman punishment, as the poet Ovid found out.
Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Expulsions were not always permanent or reserved for foreigners. Most famously, the Roman poet Ovid was expelled for writing controversial erotic literature. He was deported to the land of Tomis, current Romania.

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Welcoming strangers

Understanding the reality of immigrants and their status during the birth of Christianity shapes how Jesus’ teachings are understood. At the time when Jesus tells his disciples about the necessity of “welcoming the stranger,” this was the righteous response to the political tragedy of a fellow human being. To deny them hospitality would be a death sentence. Not all immigrants migrated for economic reasons – for some it was their only life option because of the imperial act of expulsion.

Knowing that immigrants could be expelled for negatively influencing the Roman culture must also shape our understanding of Paul’s teaching to “submit” to Roman authorities. Since Paul was a Roman citizen, it would have been instinctive to instruct other Christians living in Rome to maintain political peace with the empire. As with Ovid, being a Roman citizen did not exempt them from being treated like foreigners. The empire was indiscriminate in its deportation power, and citizens like Paul who introduced non-Roman religions were not exempt.

The U.S. immigration debate continues to be controversial. Whenever the writings of Paul or teachings of Jesus are introduced into the debate, we need to understand the context of the time. The Roman imperial power of deportation had life-and-death implications for immigrants and citizens.

Furthermore, during the time of Jesus and Paul, both Roman citizens and noncitizens could be deported from Rome. But foreigners who introduced non-Roman cultures in Rome were more likely to be expelled for being perceived as threats.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin University, notes that White evangelical Christians appear “more opposed to immigration reform, and have more negative views about immigrants, than any other religious demographic.” Perhaps for some evangelicals, discomfort and suspicion with outsiders lies at the root of anti-immigrant policies as it did during the time of Romans.

Fuller Theological Seminary is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.

Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Adjunct Assistant Professor of the New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, the Greeks from whom your stories are passed down to us also knew a thing or two about refugees also. The Theater of War, which uses professional actors performing excerpts from Greek plays along with group discussion and sometimes music to help people get in touch with issues which are by no means new, but which tend to hit people as if no one else has ever experienced them, is presenting “The Suppliants Project” on refugees and those whom they approach for help. It will take place via Zoom on April 14th (a Wednesday) between 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm Eastern. There is no charge to watch (or comment) but reservations must be made in advance. I have my ticket. Whoever wishes can get more information here and/or see a trailer here.

The Furies and I will be back.

Everyday Erinyes #258

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 10:23 am Politics

Mar 202021

Harry Golden, who invented, wrote, and published a home-made newsletter he called “The Carolina Israelite,” was writing in the fifties about the cultural significance of employment, and how, whether or not it is a good idea, we tie our worth to our job. And our identity. At that time, the work that gave people their identity was always outside the home. Unemployed people, even some retired people, would find reasons to leave the house every morning and return in the evening because they were literally ashamed not to. (What a blogger he would have made had he lived a generation or two later than he did!) I thought of that when I read this.

I’ve always had, I think a pretty good work ethic when I have had a job – doing it to the best of my ability, and with my heart – not watching the clock – even identifying with it to a degree. Two if the user names I use elsewhere than here on the internet include prior job titles in some way. But being now retired, and one of the lucky ones who can live on my retirement, I don’t miss it. I don’t need a job title to give me self respect. And I also am not a white supremacist. Apparently, those two things may be related.
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How the quest for significance and respect underlies the white supremacist movement, conspiracy theories and a range of other problems

Unemployed Blackjewel coal miners, their family members and activists man a blockade along railroad tracks leading to their old mine on Aug. 23, 2019, in Cumberland, Kentucky.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Arie Kruglanski, University of Maryland

President Joe Biden’s fundamental pitch to America has been about dignity and respect. He never tires of repeating his father’s words that “a job is about more than a paycheck, it is about … dignity … about respect … being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Everything is going to be OK.’”

In strikingly similar language, Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton affirm that “jobs are not just the source of money.” When jobs are lost, they wrote in 2020, “it is the loss of meaning, of dignity, of pride, and of self respect … that brings on despair, not just or even primarily the loss of money.”

I am a psychologist who studies the human quest for significance and respect. My research reveals that this basic motivation is a major force in human affairs. It shapes the course of world history and determines the destiny of nations. It underlies some of the chief challenges society is facing. Among others, these are:

The suicides – known as “deaths of despair” – of working-class Americans
White supremacist movements
Systemic racism
Islamist terrorism
The proliferation of conspiracy theories
The growing rift in the Republican Party between moderates and extremists

In all these cases, people’s actions, opinions and attitudes aim, often unconsciously, to satisfy their fundamental need to count, to be recognized and respected.

The very term “supremacism” betrays concern for superior standing. So do names like “Proud Boys” or “Oath Keepers.” Systemic racism is rooted in the motivation to put down one race to elevate another. Islamist terrorism targets the alleged belittlers of a religion. Conspiracy theories identify alleged culprits plotting the subjugation and dishonor of their victims. And the extremist faction of the Republican Party cares exclusively about winning, no holds barred.

Torch-bearing white men marching at night, shouting — Chanting ‘White lives matter! You will not replace us!’ and ‘Jews will not replace us!’ several hundred white nationalists and white supremacists march through the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville on Aug. 10, 2017.
Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Triggering the quest

This quest for significance and respect must first be awakened before it can drive behavior. We don’t strive for significance 24/7.

The quest can be triggered by the experience of significant loss through humiliation and failure. When we suffer such a loss, we desperately seek to regain significance and respect. We are then keen to embrace any narrative that tells us how, and to follow leaders who show us the way.

The quest for significance can also be triggered by an opportunity for substantial gain – becoming a hero, a martyr, a superstar.

Over the past several decades, many Americans have experienced a stinging loss of significance and respect. Social scientists examined the perception of social class in the United States between 1972 and 2010. The results of their research were striking: In the 1970s, most Americans viewed themselves as comfortably middle class, defined at the time by conduct and manners – being a good neighbor and a good member of the community, exhibiting proper behavior.

In contrast, by the 2000s, membership in the middle class was determined primarily by income. And because incomes have stagnated over the past half-century, by 2010 many Americans (particularly the lower-income ones) lost their middle-class identity entirely.

Small wonder, then, that they resonated to the Trump campaign slogan that promised to make America (or Americans) “great again.”

Piling on

The COVID-19 pandemic compounds people’s sense of fragility and insignificance.

Isolation from loved ones, the danger to our own health and the dread of an economic disaster are all stressors that make a person feel weak and vulnerable. They increase the attraction to ideas that offer quick fixes for loss of significance and respect.

Though the ideas that promise restoration of significance and dignity range widely, they share an important core: They depict the promotion of different social values as paths to significance. Promoting freedom and democracy, defending one’s nation or one’s religion, advancing one’s political party – all aim to earn respect and dignity in communities that cherish those values.

When the quest for significance and respect is intensified, other considerations such as comfort, relationships or compassion are sidelined. Any actions that promote significance are then seen as legitimate. That includes actions that would otherwise seem reprehensible: violence, aggression, torture or terrorism.

An intense quest for significance does not invite reprehensible actions directly. But it boosts a person’s readiness to tolerate and enact them for the sake of significance and dignity.

The path ultimately taken depends on the narrative that identifies significance-bestowing actions in a given situation. Depending on one’s moral perspective, such actions may be seen as “good,” “bad” or “ugly.” One might have an entirely different moral evaluation of the Black Lives Matter movement and the Proud Boys and yet recognize that, psychologically, both represent routes to significance.

A gallows with a noose hanging on it at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. — A noose is seen on makeshift gallows erected on Jan. 6 at the Capitol before Trump supporters violently stormed a session of Congress.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The allure of violence

A special danger to societies stems from the primordial, significance-lending appeal of violence.

Among animals, dominance is established through “trial by combat,” to use Rudy Giuliani’s recent turn of phrase at the rally before the Capitol insurrection. And as President Theodore Roosevelt famously observed, walking with a “big stick” makes other nations pay attention and respect.

Most narratives adopted by violent extremists identify a real or imagined enemy at the gates, and fighting such enemies is depicted as worthy and honorable: For Trump acolytes, the enemy is the “deep state.” For much of the far right, the enemy is, variously, immigrants, refugees, people of color, Jews, Asians, or even reptilians who plot to dominate the world.

Evangelicals view Trump’s alleged battle against the “deep state” as divinely inspired. And a QAnon message from Jan. 13, 2018, stated: “You were chosen for a reason. You are being provided the highest level of intel to ever be dropped publicly in the history of the world. Use it – protect and comfort those around you.” These views sow division among segments of society, inviting fissures and polarization.

The quest for significance and respect is a universal and immutable aspect of human nature. It has the potential to inspire great works but also tear society asunder. The formidable challenge these days is to harness the energies sparked by this fundamental motive and channel them for the betterment of humanity.

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Arie Kruglanski, Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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AMT, if my own attitudes, and those of others like me, are interfering with our understanding of what needs to e done to combat white supremacy (I don’t sat “eradicate” because I doubt that is even possible), then please help us to get a grasp if that – I almost said “get a grip.” That too.

The Furies and I will be back.

Everyday Erinyes #257

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 10:24 am Politics

Mar 132021

on this day I just cannot bring myself to put up anything negative. So I am sharing a lemons-to-lemonade story about how the CoViD pandemic resulted in ad viance which will go on being useful way after the pandemic is over. I am 75, and I have in my lifetime seen numerous medical advances which felt miraculous. But I have also seen many more years of waiting for them. To be talking now in terms , not of years, but of months, for a vaccine against a disease which somehow came out of nowhere is truly amazing. And with virtually every such advance come unsought advances. That is what we are going to look at today.
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3 medical innovations fueled by COVID-19 that will outlast the pandemic

Gene-based vaccines had never been approved for humans before the coronavirus pandemic.
Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

Deborah Fuller, University of Washington; Albert H. Titus, University at Buffalo, and Nevan Krogan, University of California, San Francisco

A number of technologies and tools got a chance to prove themselves for the first time in the context of COVID-19. Three researchers working in gene-based vaccines, wearable diagnostics and drug discovery explain how their work rose to the challenge of the pandemic, and their hopes that each technology is now poised to continue making big changes in medicine.

Genetic vaccines

Deborah Fuller, Professor of Microbiology, University of Washington

Thirty years ago, researchers for the first time injected mice with genes from a foreign pathogen to produce an immune response. Like many new discoveries, these first gene-based vaccines had their ups and downs. Early mRNA vaccines were hard to store and didn’t produce the right type of immunity. DNA vaccines were more stable but weren’t efficient at getting into the cell’s nucleus, so they failed to produce sufficient immunity.

Researchers slowly overcame the problems of stability, getting the genetic instructions where they needed to be and making them induce more effective immune responses. By 2019, academic labs and biotechnology companies all over the world had dozens of promising mRNA and DNA vaccines for infectious diseases, as well as for cancer in development or in phase 1 and phase 2 human clinical trials.

When COVID-19 struck, mRNA vaccines in particular were ready to be put to a real-world test. The 94% efficacy of the mRNA vaccines surpassed health officials’ highest expectations.

DNA and mRNA vaccines offer huge advantages over traditional types of vaccines, since they use only genetic code from a pathogen – rather than the entire virus or bacteria. Traditional vaccines take months, if not years, to develop. In contrast, once scientists get the genetic sequence of a new pathogen, they can design a DNA or mRNA vaccine in days, identify a lead candidate for clinical trials within weeks and have millions of doses manufactured within months. This is basically what happened with the coronavirus.

Gene-based vaccines also produce precise and effective immune responses. They stimulate not only antibodies that block an infection, but also a strong T cell response that can clear an infection if one occurs. This makes these vaccines better able to respond to mutations, and it also means they could be capable of eliminating chronic infections or cancerous cells.

The hopes that gene-based vaccines could one day provide a vaccine for malaria or HIV, cure cancer, replace less effective traditional vaccines or be ready to stop the next pandemic before it gets started are no longer far-fetched. Indeed, many DNA and mRNA vaccines against a wide range of infectious diseases, for treatment of chronic infections and for cancer are already in advanced stages and clinical trials. As someone who has been working on these vaccines for decades, I believe their proven effectiveness against COVID-19 will usher in a new era of vaccinology with genetic vaccines at the forefront.

A person wearing a smart watch. — Smartwatches and other wearable technologies allow users to capture more continuous health data than ever before.
Pixabay

Wearable tech and early illness detection

Albert H. Titus, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo

During the pandemic, researchers have taken full advantage of the proliferation of smartwatches, smart rings and other wearable health and wellness technology. These devices can measure a person’s temperature, heart rate, level of activity and other biometrics. With this information, researchers have been able to track and detect COVID-19 infections even before people notice they have any symptoms.

As wearable usage and adoption grew in recent years, researchers began studying the ability of these devices to monitor disease. However, although real-time data collection was possible, previous work had focused primarily on chronic diseases.

But the pandemic both served as a lens to focus many researchers in the field of health wearables and offered them an unprecedented opportunity to study real-time infectious disease detection. The number of people potentially affected by a single disease – COVID-19 – at one time gave researchers a large population to draw from and to test hypotheses on. Combined with the fact that more people than ever are using wearables with health monitoring functions and that these devices collect lots of useful data, researchers were able to try to diagnose a disease solely using data from wearables – an experiment they could only dream of before.

Wearables can detect symptoms of COVID-19 or other illnesses before symptoms are noticeable. While they have proved to be capable of detecting sickness early, the symptoms wearables detect are not unique to COVID-19. These symptoms can be predictive of a number of potential illnesses or other health changes, and it is much harder to say what illness a person has versus simply saying they are sick with something.

Moving into the post-pandemic world, it’s likely that more people will incorporate wearables into their lives and that the devices will only improve. I expect the knowledge researchers have gained during the pandemic on how to use wearables to monitor health will form a starting point for how to handle future outbreaks – not just of viral pandemics, but potentially of other events such as food poisoning outbreaks and seasonal flu episodes. But since wearable tech is concentrated within pockets of affluent and younger populations, the research community and society as a whole must simultaneously address the disparities that exist.

A map showing proteins connections. — Every place that a coronavirus protein interacts with a human protein is a potential druggable site.
QBI Coronavirus Research Group, CC BY-ND

A new way to discover drugs

Nevan Krogan, Professor of Cellular Molecular Pharmacology and Director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco

Proteins are the molecular machines that make your cells function. When proteins malfunction or are hijacked by a pathogen, you often get disease. Most drugs work by disrupting the action of one or several of these malfunctioning or hijacked proteins. So a logical way to look for new drugs to treat a specific disease is to study individual genes and proteins that are directly affected by that disease. For example, researchers know that the BRCA gene – a gene that protects your DNA from being damaged – is closely related to the development of breast and ovarian cancer. So a lot of work has focused on finding drugs that affect the function of the BRCA protein.

However, single proteins working in isolation are usually not solely responsible for disease. Genes and the proteins they encode are part of complicated networks – the BRCA protein interacts with tens to hundreds of other proteins that help it perform its cellular functions. My colleagues and I are part of a small but growing field of researchers who study these connections and interactions among proteins – what we call protein networks.

For a few years now, my colleagues and I have been exploring the potential of these networks to find more ways drugs could ameliorate disease. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, we knew we had to try this approach and see if it could be used to rapidly find a treatment for this emerging threat. We immediately started mapping the extensive network of human proteins that SARS-CoV-2 hijacks so it can replicate.

Once we built this map, we pinpointed human proteins in the network that drugs could easily target. We found 69 compounds that influence the proteins in the coronavirus network. 29 of them are already FDA-approved treatments for other illnesses. On Jan. 25 we published a paper showing that one of the drugs, Aplidin (Plitidepsin), currently being used to treat cancer, is 27.5 times more potent than remdesivir in treating COVID-19, including one of the new variants The drug has been approved for phase 3 clinical trials in 12 countries as a treatment for the new coronavirus.

But this idea of mapping the protein interactions of diseases to look for novel drug targets doesn’t apply just to the coronavirus. We have now used this approach on other pathogens as well as other diseases including cancer, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders.

These maps are allowing us to connect the dots among many seemingly disparate aspects of single diseases and discover new ways drugs could treat them. We hope this approach will allow us and researchers in other areas of medicine to discover new therapeutic strategies and also see whether any old drugs might be repurposed to treat other conditions.

[Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week. Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter.]

Deborah Fuller, Professor of Microbiology, School of Medicine, University of Washington; Albert H. Titus, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University at Buffalo, and Nevan Krogan, Professor and Director of Quantitative Biosciences Institute & Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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AMT, just take the day (and the week) off. Dance if you like. Here’s some dance music just for you –

(We mere humans can put it into another tab or window to listen if the picture going up and down makes us dizzy.)

The Furies and I will be back.

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