Making Sense of Medical Science (MSMS)

A medical scientist explains medical news for lay people

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Steve Clark, PhD is a retired university professor with a PhD in immunology and a past Special Fellow of the Leukemia Society of America. Clark has published dozens of papers based on his research and holds two drug patents. He taught medical and graduate students about cancer biology and genetics, and about research ethics. He also directed an NIH-funded PhD Graduate Program and chaired several executive-level faculty committees. Clark served on the University Chancellor’s Speaker’s Bureau. While retired, Clark has been blogging on the COVID pandemic, which is the subject of his next book.

Category: Omicron

  • Still Digging Into Long COVID

    …some progress is being made; probably not fast enough if you are a long COVID sufferer, but medical science often moves at a glacial pace. Here, I describe some of our recent advances in learning about the problem.

  • Politics: A Risk Factor For Death From COVID?

    The bottom line was that after the vaccines rolled out, Trump voting counties saw 40% higher fatality rates per million residents. Before the vaccines, the COVID death rates were the same for all counties.

  • The Latest On Long COVID (So Far)

    some 16 million working age Americans now suffer from long COVID, which creates a huge burden on our health system. Up to 4 million of these are unable to work, which is a major drain on a labor market already short of workers. The annual cost in lost wages is up to $230 billion! The…

  • Updated: Over 65? Roll Up Your Sleeve Again

    Pfizer and its partner-in-vax, BioNTech, plan to seek emergency authorization for a second CoV-2 booster for those of us 65 and older (you know who you are). It is intended to beef up immunity that wanes a bit a few months following the previous booster.

  • Son Of Omicron

    There are reports of two new sons of Omicron circulating in the world. The original Omicron, or BA.1 has spawned BA.2 and BA.3.