Author: Henry Miller

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November 15, 2022 Coronavirus, Issues

To the old saying about the inevitability of death and taxes, we should add another: another health crisis linked to COVID-19. As of the end of October, the CDC’s official tally of U.S. COVID infections was just under 100 million, but with many positive home test results unreported, the real number is estimated to be several times greater. Infections, while unfortunate and sometimes deadly, do provide immunity to survivors, but only for a limited time. Natural post-infection and vaccine-induced immunity wane...

October 27, 2022 Innovation, Issues

October 29th marks the 40th anniversary of one of biotechnology’s most significant milestones — the approval by the FDA of human insulin synthesized in genetically engineered bacteria to treat diabetes. The first “biopharmaceutical,” or drug made with molecular genetic engineering techniques, to be approved, it launched a revolutionary era in drug development. Insulin is secreted in the pancreas and is essential to the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats. Insulin deficiency leads to the development of diabetes. Many diabetics require regular injections...

September 5, 2022 Issues, Policy Proposals

The wife of California Republican congressman Tom McClintock, Lori McClintock, died of dehydration due to gastroenteritis caused by “adverse effects of white mulberry leaf ingestion,” according to a just-released coroner’s report. That herb is just one of many dubious and potentially life-threatening herbal remedies and other dietary supplements on the market today. Dietary supplements are big business. Three out of four Americans take one or more regularly. For older Americans, the fraction is four out of five. One in three children also takes supplements....

July 18, 2022 Issues, Policy Proposals

Every month, it seems, the United States smashes another unenviable record when it comes to drug addiction and overdose statistics. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the latest data show a jaw-dropping 108,000 overdose deaths in 2021. America’s families and communities are reeling — and the federal government needs to help. As part of a broader strategy to save lives, Congress and the Biden administration must embrace efforts to prevent addiction before it can begin. This means reducing the overprescribing of...

July 1, 2022 Industry Trends, Issues

Imagine you’ve been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, told by your physician that if it can’t be managed, you may eventually need a transplant or long-term dialysis. This scary situation is one faced by hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is an illness that affects an estimated 37 million people in the U.S. That’s more than one in seven adults across the country, or nearly the entire population of California. Despite this alarming statistic, investment in kidney disease...

March 17, 2022 Coronavirus, Issues

It ignores the risk of hazardous drug-drug interactions with the Pfizer pill. As someone who has closely followed and written extensively about the development of COVID-19 vaccines and drug treatments since the beginning of the pandemic, one pronouncement in President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech raised red flags: "We're also ready with antiviral treatments. If you get COVID-19, the Pfizer pill reduces your chances of ending up in the hospital by 90% ...

March 8, 2022 Issues, Price and Costs

Popular wisdom is often wrong. Consider, for example, how it views organic agriculture, which has grown to a $48 billion a year industry in the U.S. Organic products are sold at outlets ranging from local farmers' markets to large supermarket chains, and many people assume that there is something more natural, wholesome, or environmentally sustainable about them. None of that is true. What's remarkable about this agriculture sector is that the government's extensive promotion has been a hoax from the beginning, having nothing...

March 7, 2022 Issues, Value

In his last blog post before resigning as director of the National Institutes of Health in December 2021, Francis Collins touted many of the important areas of research NIH conducted or funded in his more than 12 years leading the organization, “from innovative immunotherapies for treating cancer to the gift of mRNA vaccines to combat a pandemic.” He could have added to this list other frontiers of medicine explored by NIH-supported researchers: how the human brain works; the health benefits of the trillions of microbes that call our bodies...

March 4, 2022 Coronavirus, Issues

‘Test to Treat’ ignores the significant risk of drug interactions with the Pfizer pill. President Biden touted a new anti-Covid initiative in his State of the Union address Tuesday. “We’re also ready with antiviral treatments. If you get Covid-19, the Pfizer pill reduces your chances of ending up in the hospital by 90%,” he said. “And we’re launching the ‘Test to Treat’ initiative so people can get tested at a pharmacy, and if they’re positive, receive antiviral pills on the spot at no...

March 2, 2022 Innovation, Issues

“That morning I squeezed every orange and it felt like a wet sponge – I knew I lost the whole crop,” said Natalia Derevianko, a small farmer in the tiny Florida town of Archer, somewhere in the void between Orlando and Tallahassee.   Florida’s peninsular climate offers farmers an opportunity to grow high-value fruit crops in the winter months when much of the rest of the country is blanketed in snow. On Jan. 30, this season’s valuable crop of citrus, peaches, and avocados was...

February 14, 2022 Blog

When President Joe Biden nominated former Obama-era Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf to return to his old post, he made what was widely seen as a safe, if uninspired, choice. He easily sailed through a Dec. 14 Senate committee hearing to vet him. "[Califf] gushed about his love of high-quality data, skillfully navigated questions on hot-button topics like abortion and drug pricing, and even had personal anecdotes about COVID-19 testing and opioid prescribing at the ready," according to Stat. Since then,...

February 7, 2022 Blog

With pandemic fatigue becoming ever more intense, there is increasing speculation about when the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, might become “endemic” – a time when outbreaks will be more modest and manageable and we can “coexist” with the virus. That juncture has been described as when the virus has become “annoying but rarely deadly or disruptive.” Unfortunately, there are no quantitative milestones that tell us when we’ve arrived. It’s really a judgment by individuals and society, and prematurely concluding that we’ve...

January 27, 2022 Innovation, Issues

Gene editing, which allows precise edits to the genome, has been widely used for a variety of applications in laboratories worldwide since its discovery a decade ago. It has tremendous potential: Researchers hope to use it to alter human genes to eliminate diseases; improve the characteristics of plants; resist pathogens; and more. The two scientists who discovered the iconic gene editing technology, the CRISPR-Cas9 system, were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In spite of the fact that gene editing is...

December 16, 2021 Coronavirus - Alternate

Dr. Henry Miller joins the John Batchelor Show to talk about the latest news coming out of the United Kingdom, NHS reports on omicron, how the new variant compares to other variants of the COVID-19 virus, and what it means for Europe and the United States. Miller also talks about how transmissible omicron is, how effective vaccines and boosters could be, and it's impact on lockdowns, mask mandates, and travel. ...

December 7, 2021 Coronavirus

Dr. Henry Miller and John Batchelor breakdown the latest developments of Omicron, a new variant of the coronavirus that was recently detected in South Africa. Miller talks about the latest information regarding infections, vaccine efficacy, and how countries are responding to the news. ...

October 15, 2021 Coronavirus-Alternate2

This year's influenza ("flu") season, which has already begun in some parts of the country, revs up in November, and last until spring, will be made more ominous than ever by the current high numbers of COVID-19 cases in many parts of the nation. The coincidence of infections in the population by the two highly infectious respiratory viruses has the potential to create a "twindemic" for our already stressed healthcare infrastructure. As of October 7th, daily cases of COVID-19 nationally were...

October 12, 2021 Coronavirus - Alternate

After more than a year and a half of an agonizing pandemic, researchers at Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have announced a successful oral antiviral treatment. The drug, called molnupiravir, prevents about half of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations. The data monitoring committee, which oversees clinical trials, stopped the trials because the evidence of efficacy was sufficiently persuasive — hospitalizations reduced by 50%, deaths by 100% — that they deemed it unethical to continue with a placebo-treated control group. On Oct. 11, the sponsors requested emergency...