- Study: there are no economic rewards for expedited discovery of new Part B cancer drugs.
- In its 4.5-billion-year history, the Earth has experienced five mass extinction waves when more than 75 percent of the species on the planet were snuffed out. A nuclear winter could be the 6th.
- Tyler Cowen: the greatest danger to civilization is war, rather than intelligent robots.
- Walensky on the CDC on Covid: “our performance did not reliably meet expectations.” That’s it?
- Yglesias on leftist values. Recommended.
- Can this be true? “Big pharma is betting on psychedelics for mental health.”
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
One Day a Pill May Provide the Benefits of Intense Exercise
Researchers have identified a substance in blood that is produced when people exercise. Researchers analyzed blood plasma compounds in mice who had just finished intense treadmill running. They found a modified amino acid called Lac-Phe, derived from lactate. Lactate is the chemical that is responsible for the burning sensation in muscles after a strenuous workout. The substance also reduces food intake and decreases obesity in mice.
In mice with diet-induced obesity (fed a high-fat diet), a high dose of Lac-Phe suppressed food intake by about 50% compared to control mice over a period of 12 hours without affecting their movement or energy expenditure. When administered to the mice for 10 days, Lac-Phe reduced cumulative food intake and body weight (owing to loss of body fat) and improved glucose tolerance.
Thursday Links
- Study finds socioeconomic gaps in deaths by alcohol and wonders how we can achieve equality. That’s easy: have successful people drink more.
- Spain bans air-conditioning below 80 degrees during record-setting summer heat.
- Pfizer CEO tests positive for Covid.
- Democrats could have used the IRA bill to add on all kinds of abortion protections; yet not a single amendment was offered.
- Five ways the government has made things worse, not better, for diabetics.
- Why you can’t trust the Covid death statistics.
- More on the debate over SSRIs.
Where the Covid Relief Dollars Went
In the midst of the pandemic, the government gave unemployment benefits to the incarcerated, the imaginary and the dead. It sent money to “farms” that turned out to be front yards. It paid people who were on the government’s “Do Not Pay List.” It gave loans to 342 people who said their name was “N/A.”
The federal government provided about $5 trillion in relief money in three separate legislative packages. The result: “one of the largest frauds in American history.”