Pixel Scroll 1/21/22 Just A Come-On From The Scrolls On Pixel Avenue

(1) THE MIND’S EYE. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Carmen Maria Machado was interviewed by Mikaella Clements in a Washington Post story about whether fiction writers see their characters as they’re writing about them. “Gillian Flynn, Carmen Maria Machado and other authors discuss their creative process”.

…Carmen Maria Machado describes a similar experience with “Especially Heinous,” a short story from her collection “Her Body and Other Parties.” “I was in the shower shampooing my hair and I suddenly had this image of a woman with bells ringing in her eye sockets.” Machado says that her deeply visual imagination infiltrates every element of her life. “It’s like there’s something playing inside of my head all the time, when I’m listening to music, walking around and writing as well.”…

(2) FINALLY IN THEATERS. Kurt Loder tells what he thinks of the film based on the late Vonda McIntyre’s Nebula-winning novel The Moon & the Sun in “Review: The King’s Daughter” at Reason.com.

… Considering the film’s cast (Brosnan, William Hurt, Kaya Scodelario, Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing) and its probable CGI costs (even though much of the budget was covered by Chinese production companies), it’s odd that The King’s Daughter is debuting in the joyless wastes of January. (The picture was shot in 2014 and quickly strangled in its crib, for various movie-biz reasons and maybe the 2018 decision by the Chinese government to come down hard on Fan for major tax fraud). In any case, here it finally is….

Author McIntyre went to France in 2014 to witness location filming at Versailles.

(3) WRITER DRAWS THE LINE. Star Trek writer David Mack has announced that he will not attend the Farpoint Convention in Maryland next month because the convention will not require attendees to provide proof of vaccination and/or a recent negative COVID test. “David Mack – Why I’ve withdrawn from Farpoint Con 2022”.

…On Tuesday, January 11, I emailed Farpoint via the programming chair, Cindy Woods, to express my concerns and reservations concerning this lax approach to health and safety. My message read, in part:

“Per item 2, I am seriously troubled by the concom’s decision to not require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for attendees, guests, and staff.

“The proffered explanation that this decision was made out of concern about the privacy of attendees’ private health information rings hollow. Many other small, fan-run and volunteer-supported conventions are managing to check vaccination and test status for their attendees without it being an undue burden on them or an imposition on their attendees and guests.

“I would strongly urge the Farpoint team to reconsider this section of its COVID policy immediately, and to plan for verification of attendees’ vaccination statuses and/or recent negative test results.”

Cindy replied that the Farpoint committee intended to discuss the matter again during its next meeting, scheduled for the weekend of January 15-16, and that she would share with them my concerns and inform me of their conclusions.

Their response and final decision was, to be blunt, disappointing….

(4) TAKEDOWN RECTIFIED. The Fantasy Book Critic blog has had its service restored after a flood of wrong DMCA takedown notices by the Link-Busters anti-piracy service caused it to be removed by host Blogger. Link-Busters subsequently acknowledged their mistake.

(5) PICARD SEASON 2. The new season of Star Trek: Picard premieres March 3, 2022 on Paramount+.

(6) TENTH DOCTOR COMIC. Titan Comics has revealed Cover A for Doctor Who: Special 2022 by artist Adam Hughes.

Doctor Who: Special 2022 is written by Dan Slott (Spider-Man) and illustrated by Christopher Jones and Matthew Dow Smith.

Writer Dan Slott is set to delight fans with an epic story that sees companion Martha Jones captured by the insatiable Pyromeths, and her only hope for survival is to keep them distracted with sensational untold tales of the Tenth Doctor facing off against his greatest foes – both classic and new!

Doctor Who: Special 2022 Comic Book One-Shot (SC, 64pp, $7.99) hits stores on April 27, 2022. Pre-order from your local comic shop and Forbidden Planet (UK/Europe).

(7) ROBOPOP. [Item by Olav Rokne.] Yesterday was the the 25th anniversary of Daft Punk’s debut album “Homework,” which might be worth noting given both how the band has been reflected in sci-fi movies, and given the fact that they took on stage personas as robots. One of the most science-fictional bands ever to hit the mainstream. “The real story of how Daft Punk became the robots” at DJ Mag.

Daft Punk have taken on a robot form for so long that it’s hard to remember a time that they didn’t don their famous helmets for public appearances. Although the official line has been well told — the one with an exploding discoball — in this excerpt from his new book, Daft Punk’s Discovery: The Future Unfurled, Ben Cardew tells the real story of how the enigmatic French duo transformed into robots, according to those closest to them at the time…

… The helmets, according to Martin, were very heavy and “quite a faff”. But they looked fantastic. Bangalter and De Homem-Christo’s robotic outfits initially comprised a bespoke helmet each, a gauntlet that allowed them to control the helmet’s electronics, a pair of gloves and a “spaceman backpack” to hide the wiring and hardware. All of this was created by special effects expert Tony Gardner from initial designs by Alexandre Courtès and Martin Fougerol, artist friends of the band. …

(8) NOW YOU KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY. Radio Times keeps track of all the Doctor Who loose ends and celebrates whenever one of them gets tied up – no matter how many years it takes! “Doctor Who teaser confirms what happened to Peri”.

Nicola Bryant played companion Peri Brown opposite Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor in the 1980s, but the character appeared to meet a dark fate in her final appearance as a series regular.

In the 1986 story The Trial of a Time Lord, the alien Kiv appeared to transplant his brain into Peri’s body, effectively killing her. It was later suggested, however, that Peri had survived, that the evidence of her death had been faked, and that she was now living as queen to the warrior king Yrcanos (Brian Blessed).

Fans never actually saw this happen, however, with some remaining convinced that Peri had died, while others were just curious as to what exactly her life with the eccentric King Ycarnos would’ve entailed.

36 years later and we’ve finally got our answer, as part of a trailer for the next classic Doctor Who Blu-ray set – The Collection: Season 22.

(9) MEAT LOAF OBIT. Singer Meat Loaf has died at the age of 74 reports the New York Times. His earliest genre credit cast a long shadow —

…His first major film role came in 1975 in the cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” in which he played Eddie, a delivery boy murdered for his brain by the cross-dressing Dr. Frank-N-Furter. …More recently, he had a role in several episodes of the TV series “Ghost Wars” from 2017-18.

(10) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1935 [Item by Cat Eldridge.] Eighty-seven years ago, Charlie Chan in Paris, the seventh in that series, premiered. It was directed by Lewis Seiler as written by the trio of Earl Derr Biggers, Philip MacDonald and Stuart Anthony. All the films featured Warner Oland, a Swedish-American actor who had also played Fu Manchu. Oland would play this role sixteen times.

Honolulu Police detective Lieutenant Chan was created  by Biggers who wrote six novels in which he appears. The House Without a Key is the first one. It’s available from the usual suspects for ninety nine cents. 

Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana and was intended to be the opposite of Fu Manchu. The real detective actually solved very few murder cases as he worked mostly on opium cases. M 

Over the years eleven different actors would portray him including Peter Ustinov and Ross Martin. 

This film was considered lost for decades until a print was discovered in Czechoslovakia with a collector in the seventies. After a number of showings in various revival cinemas throughout the States, it was released on DVD as part of a collection.  All of the films are in the public domain so you can watch it here.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born January 21, 1923 Judith Merril. Author of four novels, Shadow on the HearthThe Tomorrow PeopleGunner Cade, and Outpost Mars, the last two with C. M. Kornbluth. She also wrote many short stories, of which twenty-six are collected in Homecalling and Other Stories: The Complete Solo Short SF of Judith Merril (NESFA Press). She was an editor as well. From 1956-1966 she edited a series of volumes of the year’s best sf. Her collection England Swings (1968) helped draw attention to the New Wave. Oh, and between, 1965 and 1969, she was an exemplary reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. (Died 1997.)
  • Born January 21, 1925 Charles Aidman. He makes the Birthday Honors for having the recurring role of Jeremy Pike on The Wild Wild West, playing him four times. Other SFF appearances include Destination SpaceThe InvadersTwilight ZoneMission: Impossible and Kolchak the Night Stalker to name but a few of them. (Died 1993.)
  • Born January 21, 1938 Wolfman Jack. Here because I spotted him showing up twice in Battlestar Galactica 1980 playing himself according to IMDb. He also had genre character roles in the Swamp Thing and Wonder Women series plus two horror films, Motel Hell and The Midnight Hour. (Died 1995.)
  • Born January 21, 1939 Walter C. DeBill, Jr., 83. An author of horror and SF short stories and a contributor to the Cthulhu Mythos. Author of the Observers of the Unknown series about a Lovecraftian occupy detective which is collected is two volumes, The Horror from Yith and The Changeling. They don’t appear to be in print currently.
  • Born January 21, 1956 Diana Pavlac Glyer, 66. Author whose work centers on C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings. She teaches in the Honors College at Azusa Pacific University in California. She has two excellent works out now, The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community and Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings.

(12) FREE COMIC BOOK DAY IS MAY 7. Marvel Comics is getting a head start on Free Comic Book Day publicity by announcing the first of its three separate Free Comic one-shots. (This one also has a variant cover.)

 Announced last week, Spider-Man is gearing up for a brand-new era just in time for the character’s 60th anniversary! Fans who pick up Free Comic Book Day: Spider-Man/Venom #1 will see the very beginning of the major storylines writer Zeb Wells and legendary artist John Romita Jr. have planned for their run on Amazing Spider-Man, including Tombstone’s first steps towards becoming Spidey’s most terrifying villain.

Free Comic Book Day: Spider-Man/Venom #1 will also give fans a chance to check out the thought-provoking work Al Ewing, Ram V, and Bryan Hitch are doing on Venom! The groundbreaking changes this mastermind trio has in store for the symbiote mythos starts here!

(13) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to dig into duck with Usman T. Malik in Episode 163 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Usman T. Malik

Usman T. Malik won the British Fantasy Award for his novella The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn, which was also nominated for both the World Fantasy and Nebula Awards. His story “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” won the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction. His stories have been published in such magazines as Strange HorizonsBlack StaticNightmare, and Tor.com, as well as anthologies such as Black Feathers: Dark Avian TalesThe Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian FictionFinal Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, and others. His collection Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan, was published in 2021.

We discussed why the first pandemic year was his most prolific period ever as a writer, how the Clarion Workshop helped him decide what kind of writer he wanted to be, our shared concerns over revising our early stories, the way his medical training gives him an intriguing advantage as a writer, how every love story is a ghost story and every ghost story is a love story, what it was like running Pakistan’s first science fiction writing workshop, why he prefers Stephen King to Dean Koontz (and what that taught hm about his own writing), the cautionary tale told to him by Samuel R. Delany, how writers teach readers the way they should be read, and much more.

(14) FOR THOSE OF YOU JUST TUNING IN. Raquel S. Benedict has posted a transcript of the Rite Gud podcast episode “A Guide to Squeecore”.

JR: I was going to say, we can go back and talk about what is “squee”. If we’re going to call it squeecore, we have to say, what is the definition of “squee”, that horrible, horrible word? And I have a little –

RSB [crosstalk]: Right. Yeah. So what is the definition of squee?

JR [crosstalk]: As I defined it – yeah. “Squee” is a culture term for a sound or expression of excitement or enthusiasm. It’s the opposite of “feh” or “meh”, and very close kin to “amazeballs” and “epic sauce”. It represents a specific feeling, a type of frisson that readers value; the tingle of relatability as a beloved character does something cool, or says something “epic” and snarky.

RSB: [laughs]

JR: The essence of squee is wish fulfillment. Squeecore lives for the “hell yeah” moment; the “you go, girl” moment; the gushy feeling of victory by proxy. It’s aspirational; it’s escapism; it’s a dominant, and I would even say gentrified, form of SFF.

(In case you’re asking “How come Mike doesn’t say who JR is?” the answer is that’s the only identification given at the link.)

(15) INFLATION INDEX. Nate Sanders Auctions has set a minimum bid of $9,500 for this “First Edition, First Printing of Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ in Original Dust Jacket” – which is remarkable for a copy that was originally circulated by the Fitchburg Public Library of Massachusetts.

(16) THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY. MSN.com reports “Doctors Used Bacteria-Killing Viruses to Take Down an Incurable Superbug”.

The enemy of our bacterial enemy can indeed be our friend. In a new case report, doctors say they were able to treat their patient’s long-festering, drug-resistant infection with the help of specially grown bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria. Large-scale clinical trials will likely be needed for these treatments to become widely used, though….

But by the 1940s, with the advent of the modern antibiotic era, phages had fallen out of favor for several reasons. The first antibiotics that saw wide use were broad-spectrum, able to quickly treat many different types of infections, and relatively easy to scale up in mass production. Phages, on the other hand, were harder to purify and store, and their benefits were often inconsistent.

Scientists and doctors in some parts of the world where antibiotics were less available, such as Eastern Europe and India, did continue to research and use phage therapy, though. And eventually, it became clear that antibiotics weren’t quite as miraculous as we’d hoped. Bacteria have evolved resistance to these drugs over time, to the point where we’re now seeing infections that can’t be treated at all. So, understandably, scientists have expressed renewed interest in phages as a weapon against bacteria in recent decades.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Dinosaurs invade the UN in this commercial from the UN Development Program. The message: Extinction is a bad thing!

…You’re headed for a climate disaster, and yet every year governments spend hundreds of billions of public funds on fossil fuel subsidies. Imagine if we had spent hundreds of billions per year subsidizing giant meteors….

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Chris Barkley, Rob Thornton, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]

40 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/21/22 Just A Come-On From The Scrolls On Pixel Avenue

  1. First!

    (9) MEAT LOAF OBIT. Several of his later videos were done in manner that made them explicitly genre in nature. I can’t remember which right now but I’ll have to look them up on Apple Music.

  2. Jim Janney: Why yes! If you have the aid of the Hubble Telescope, nothing could be clearer!

  3. 2) The Guardian review pissed me off: after all that snark he concludes by saying it’s not a bad movie. And midway through he manages to describe the excellent Edge Of Tomorrow as bland. An old friend and ex-colleague of mine from my game-writing days composed the music for this film. Back in the day he did the music for the Goldeneye game, and had a guitar in his office given to him by Eddie Van Halen after his band toured with VH as support. I was kind of in awe of him.

  4. (11) Wolfman Jack turned up everywhere in the 1970s (and relatively recently I spotted a Wolfman Jack-like character on the Curious George cartoon – and was surprised that my son’s babysitter didn’t recognize the reference. Fame passes…)

    “On the Avenue, Second-fifth Avenue, the Filetographers will snap us,
    And you’ll find that you’re in the Pixelgravure.”

  5. 9) I believe in the original theatrical Rocky Horror Show, “Mr. Loaf” (as the N. Y. Times once referred to him) played Dr. Von Scott as well as Eddie.

  6. Camestros Felapton: I see you’re serving the Kool-Aid on your blog, which is sad.

    Vox Day emailed me the item himself. He was booted from SFWA eight years ago. This is nothing but stale dated trolling. I’m not hosting a link.

  7. (3) Bravo to David Mack!

    (11) Homecalling and Other Stories: The Complete Solo Short SF of Judith Merril (NESFA Press), edited by moi.

  8. 3) So is Mack withdrawing from MidSouth Con, too? Last I looked, they didn’t have a shot/test requirement, either. (Prohibited by state law.)

  9. 14) Although I disagree with Benedict’s thesis and deplore her trolling and harassment of people in the genre community, I do appreciate the existence of the transcript.

  10. Ja: The Midsouthcon website shows Mack as a guest on the same page it acknowledges Tennessee state law prohibits requiring vaccinations (the Shelby County Covid directive also makes that clear), so that’s a good question.

  11. I am currently mourning the late Meat Loaf by cooking a meatloaf.

    While trying to figure out how to fit even more boy bands, cute feathery dinosaurs, and people with pink hair into my next girly-ass squeecore story. While having 90s memories about the kind of people who were telling me I should like corepunk non-squee artists like Marilyn Manson more than girly squee-ish ones like Shirley Manson. That didn’t age well.

    Meat Loaf told a story about when he was a teenager and picked up Charlie Manson hitchhiking on Sunset Boulevard, wanting a lift to Dennis Wilson’s house. When the Beach Boy wasn’t home, Manson started spouting doomsday predictions, which were so lackluster Mr. Loaf forgot all about them until he saw Manson’s mug on TV later and went, “oh no, it’s THAT guy!”

  12. @Charon Dunn: I don’t think “girly squee-ish” are words I would ever use to describe Shirley Manson/Garbage (of whom I’m a huge fan).

  13. @PhilRM: While I agree that Garbage is not stereotypical “girly squee-ish”, I would certainly squee in the presence of the amazing Ms. Manson. Possibly even girlishly. 🙂

  14. JR [crosstalk]: As I defined it – yeah. “Squee” is a culture term for a sound or expression of excitement or enthusiasm. It’s the opposite of “feh” or “meh”, and very close kin to “amazeballs” and “epic sauce”.

    I come back to this, and ask, why would a reader read stories that elicit a “feh” or “meh” reaction? Don’t all readers want to read stories that make us “squee” in some way? Or am I doing it wrong?

  15. @Cliff, it’s the title Edge of Tomorrow that’s described as bland, not the film itself.

  16. I come back to this, and ask, why would a reader read stories that elicit a “feh” or “meh” reaction?

    A sense of duty!

    (been squeeing since the 1970s, and not going to stop now)

    “I’ve been squeeing at the SF, all my livelong life,
    I’ve been squeeing at the SF, along with my dear wife.”

    “We didn’t start the squeeing,
    It’s been always sounding, as the world’s been rounding,
    We didn’t start the squeeing
    No, we just like it, and we won’t fight it.

    Virgil Samms, Van Vogt’s Slans,
    Arkady Darrell, Susan Calvin, an alien named Plinglot
    Simak’s City, cyberpunk gritty, Ray Bradbury
    Captain Kirk, Vir Kotto, Ninefox, Murderbot!

  17. @Ja “Roadie” had Cheap Trick doing the soundtrack, and I was definitely squeeing over Robin Zander back in the seventies.

    With regard to the awesome Ms. Manson, who far surpasses any male Manson I’m familiar with in sheer awesomeness, her band “Garbage” was (according to legend) named by Trent “NIN” Reznor, whose reaction upon hearing Shirley’s undeniably feminine voice combined with heavy industrial chords was to exclaim “what is this garbage?” In a tone that sounds awfully proto-squee-dismissive to me, even though I adore Mr. Reznor’s super heavy nihilistic industrial noise too. To which Ms. Manson replied something to the effect of “f you, then, that’s what I’m calling it, Garbage,” and the band Garbage featuring Shirley Manson went on to achieve great commercial and critical success.

  18. @Xtifr: Fair point! I would do some squeeing of my own.
    She was terrifying in season 2 of the sadly short-lived Sarah Connor Chronicles.

  19. @Paul King: The title of the original Japanese light novel was All You Need is Kill which is kinda “wtf?” but certainly isn’t bland.

  20. Whilst mourning MeatLoaf (the Robert DiNero “I always sing in character” of Bombastic Rock) i was wracking my brains as to how the lead-off single “Bat out of Hell” could be shoehorned in somewhere adjacent to Horror as ‘Gothic/Romance Body-Horror’.
    To honor him and his late other half Jim Steinman I would point out that the album “Bat out of Hell” went 14x Platinum.

    @Jon Meltzer: “Scrollidise by the Pixel Light”!

  21. @ Paul King – ah yes, you’re right. I read too fast. He’s equating bland titles with ‘being messed around with in production’. I don’t know if that applies in the case of Edge Of Tomorrow, but it certainly isn’t a poor film for it if true.

  22. (6) I don’t claim to grok squeecore but that picture of the Doctor and his companion sorta visually defines the trend as described.

    (9) Am I the only fan who found Rocky Horror to be unwatchable? I mean literally- at the insistence of multiple friends I’ve tries three times and have never made it to the end. It’s in my top five Most Boring Movies I’ve Watched Or At Least Tried To Watch.

  23. @Miles Carter

    The first time I watched RHPS, I was baffled by it a bit, but then it dawned on me that it was a sendup of all those B movies sung about in the main title sequence; I rewound it and watched it again and thought it was hysterical.

  24. For me, RHPS just isn’t RHPS without VHS artifacts and Japanese subtitles.

  25. For me, RHPS just isn’t RHPS without VHS artifacts and Japanese subtitles.

    “Mou ichido Time Warp o shiyou….”

  26. 16) Americans shouldn’t hold their breath. The FDA has previously ruled that phage therapies would need to be approved on a per-phage basis. The development of a single phage therapy relies on sampling a given infection to produce a unique treatment. Doing double-blind studies on each unique phage therapy isn’t cost-effective or frankly time-effective as bacteria can evolve.

    But the USFDA isn’t likely to approve the larger technique/process so that many phage therapies can be produced. They are from the government and here to help! The unwashed masses will simply have to be patient for a few more decades.

    @Miles Carter

    I wouldn’t go so far as unwatchable. I enjoyed one or two viewings, but wouldn’t rush back to see it again. The movie alone isn’t that good. But I think (only because I haven’t yet had the experience) that the “live” performances are what make the movie more of a phenomenon.

    Regards,
    Dann
    I don’t think I’ve met anyone with a stronger work ethic than Ray Charles. – Clint Eastwood

  27. @Dann665–

    But the USFDA isn’t likely to approve the larger technique/process so that many phage therapies can be produced. They are from the government and here to help! The unwashed masses will simply have to be patient for a few more decades.

    Because if one phage treatment is safe and effective, obviously all phage treatments will be safe and effective, and only wicked elitists would suggest testing first is a good idea.

    Except, Dann, I don’t know if you’ve heard, apparently you haven’t, but antibiotics are losing their effectiveness because bacteria evolve so fast and antibiotics were treated like miracle drugs to be used almost indiscriminately. Both the pharmaceutical industry and De Ebil Gubmint are highly motivated to solve the problem of it becoming harder and harder to develop NCEs that are promising as new antibiotics. They want new solutions. Although yes, De Ebil Gubmint will insist on testing for safety and effectiveness.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere in the real world, viruses evolve quickly, too, but we keep developing new vaccines. And we now have a new technology for that, that’s been in development for over three decades, and made its first serious run at a vaccine for a new virus, SARS-CoV-1 two decades ago, though effective use of tracking, isolation, and quarantine stopped that in its tracks before a vaccine was achieved.

    So that work was available to be taken off the shelf and developed further, to confront SARS-CoV-2, i.e., covid, plus the accompanying epidemic of people insisting that social distancing, isolation of the ill, and quarantine of the exposed, and of course, wearing masks ? in public, are Socialistic Infringements of Our Sacred Rights.

    And we have people now insisting that the vaccines haven’t been tested enough, and that random idiots on the internet know better than epidemiologists and virologists and experts in infectious disease and public health, and anyway it’s all an exercise government mind control.

    So please don’t waste our time with claims that the FDA will overtest phage therapy for too long to let it be useful. No matter how long it gets tested, if a Democrat is president, and/or Dr. Anthony Fauci is still head of NIAID, the fools howling about mRNA vaccines now will be howling about phage therapy being insufficiently tested and an exercise in government mind control, and demand “normal” antibiotics and moreover demanding that doctors be required to prescribe any antibiotics the patient wants anytime they want it, and will also be angry and confused about how the hospitals fill up everywhere. ?

  28. @Lis Carey

    I apologize for the delay. Busy few days here.

    That is a curious array…group…drift…of persons of hay.

    I have heard about antibiotic resistance. That is why I think phage treatments ought to be facilitated by the USFDA by creating a tracking/regulatory framework that doesn’t treat them like discrete, one-time inventions. As you suggest, bacteria evolve. Our government regulator framework should also evolve. I know…crazy, right?

    “Government” is amoral. It is just force waiting to be used.

    Morality comes into play when considering the people who use their authority to establish and enforce government policies. They are just people with all of the usual personal strengths, weaknesses, and interests. The people in the FDA are slow to approve drugs/treatments because not approving something poses less of a risk to their employment than approving something that has unexpected and lethal consequences for patients.

    Why should a company have to completely re-do their research for a drug/treatment that has been approved for use by the EU? That happens.

    Since you wanted to drag Covid into things, why should the FDA actively obstruct the deployment of a pretty good (not perfect, but worth using) Covid test kit in the early months of Covid-19? Right at the time when we needed a quick and cheap test kit, the FDA slow-walked their denial of the application for that test kit. ProPublica had the story a few weeks back.

    The humans that establish and enforce government healthcare policies are not immune to error and they shouldn’t be shielded from legitimate criticism. Again, crazy idea, right?

    Regards,
    Dann
    The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. – John Stuart Mill

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