Thoughts of a retired physician

  Two days ago, Margan and I had a disturbing experience. She saw an ad on Facebook for an RSV vaccine study. RSV is respiratory syncytial virus, and cases in the U.S. are exploding . Along with covid and flu, some are predicting a very bad respiratory season dubbed a “tripledemic” . As a pediatric infectious disease physician, Margan has lots of experience in dealing with severe RSV infection in infants and I am well aware it is also a threat at the other extreme of life. In the mid-1960s a formalin-inactivated RSV was developed but quickly dropped when it became apparent that it enhanced RSV disease rather than protecting from i t.  Researchers have been trying to understand this problem and construct vaccines that truly are protective against RSV disease. Now multiple vaccines are in trials that seem to have overcome the problem of that 1960s-era vaccine. Bavarian Nordic has developed an RSV vaccine that uses its Modified Vaccinia Ankara to deliver 5 RSV antigens and create neutr

  Several weeks ago the California Department of Social Services lifted the masking requirement for residents of residential facilities for the elderly. MonteCedro, our home, is one of those facilities. While masking is still encouraged , it was plain that a majority of our residents promptly shed their masks. After 30 months of required masking, that was no surprise. What is interesting is the response of the non-maskers to those of us who still take the mask precautions seriously. On more than one occasion, other residents have either suggested or plain asked that my wife and I remove our masks, saying “You don’t need to wear them anymore.” My prediction is that those seven words will lead to interesting problems. We have a pretty much fully vaccinated and highly boosted population here. But we also have an active population here that enjoys going to see family and friends on the outside, attends activities outside, shops outside. Family members and friends visit every day. It is not

  We got home after an almost 2-week road trip to New Mexico, with stops at Santa Fe, Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, Taos, and Albuquerque. Highlights were seeing Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and studio in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, where I grabbed a shot of Kitchen Dome from where she painted it numerous times. It is in this link as My Backyard . New Mexico is an interesting state with great views, indigenous culture, non-Anglo history, and great food. We enjoyed the trip immensely. We did keep up with current events. It was a very, very bad, awful, horrible week for Donald Trump. The January 6 Committee subpoenaed him as well as provided a chronologic recap of his involvement with the attempted coup. Trump will of course continue to lie, obfuscate, and delay but the rebuke from SCOTUS regarding his illegal possession of classified documents (a single sentence sufficed) and AG James’s motion to stop the Trump Organization from moving assets to avoid liability (to the Trump Organization II, a name