Moderna has the first combined flu-Covid vaccine to cross the finish line. An overview of that race plus an update on nextgen Covid vaccine news.

Back in 2000, when I was Chairperson of the Consumers' Health Forum of Australia, I chaired the development of a joint National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Forum national statement on consumer and community participation in research. This month I saw that it has recently been revised—the second revision since "our" version was published in 2002. Over 1,100 people attended consultation workshops for this process, and there were more than 200 written submissions.

Visit the post for more.

Visit the post for more.

But I'm going to try and do it in as few as possible. #fml

It's wattle time here in country Victoria, and the bees are ecstatic! All that glorious yellow cheers up the middle of winter no end. It's such an optimistic color. I'm feeling optimistic, too, even though this month did not go as planned. That began, as disruptions so often do, with an unexpected email. This one was from PLOS, the home of my blog, …

Experimenting with colors for the Absolutely Maybe logo feels like another lifetime. It was 2013, and this blog was launching on the…

Before I get to the bumper crop of recent clinical trial news, there is news about this monthly update. This is the…

June was a relatively slow news month for next generation Covid vaccine development. So I took the opportunity to simplify the structure…

June was a relatively slow news month for next generation Covid vaccine development. So I took the opportunity to simplify the structure…

What makes an argument ‘correct,’ or, at least, reasonable? We can debate about each other’s claims endlessly, and there’s an interdisciplinary field…

OK, I admit this cartoon is not on point here. But I think it's one of my better cartoons, and that's my excuse for trotting it out! The point is a recent scoping review on active placebo controls, by David Laursen and colleagues. "Active placebo" sounds a bit like a contradiction in terms. That makes using them in trials one of those friction points capitalized in anti-vaccine evidence critiques: If it's active, so the argument goes, it's not a placebo, and the trial's results can be denigrated.

It was a big month for clinical trials of next generation Covid vaccines. An exciting phase 1/2 trial in Africa for an…

It was a big month for clinical trials of next generation Covid vaccines. An exciting phase 1/2 trial in Africa for an…

How a bedbound patient and a 73-page study changed the way doctors make decisions.

There are several reasons to buy Helen Pearson’s excellent new book, Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works—whether you want to…

"Dog-assisted intervention trials." That phrase was definitely going to make me click! For a brief moment in that odd mind space you're in while scrolling, I wondered how on earth dogs could assist intervention trials (!!). But of course the article was about trials of dog-assisted services—either professionally-delivered therapy with dogs trained to help improve mental health, or activities with untrained dogs.

This month intranasal and inhaled versions of a Covid vaccine are heading into a phase 1 trial in the US. The vaccine…

A paper published this month got me frustrated, yet again, about this situation: There really is still too much uncertainty about conflict…

"No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood." This is a line from a poster I used to have in my office. It popped into my head this week when I was in a queue to fuel my car. We've had shortages around here—not because the country didn't have enough, but because panic buyers have been draining supplies.

Several next generation Covid vaccines are now advancing into mid- or late-stage trials. So this month, I have started a new section—a…

When I was young, while I understood pandemics that kill millions could happen in theory, I really thought they were a thing…

When I was young, while I understood pandemics that kill millions could happen in theory, I really thought they were a thing…

When ads flooded some parts of the internet, I adjusted by avoiding those places when I recognized the signs—or hitting the back button quickly when I hadn't. When "AI" scrapers led to an explosion of sites making me wait while checking if I'm a robot, I got used to it, though it's a drag. And so on it goes. Now it seems cyber surveillance could advance in ways that might require bigger behavioral adaptation.

This month, there are phase 2 results for a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine from Japan—and that vaccine’s developers have recently completed a phase…

This month, there are phase 2 results for a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine from Japan—and that vaccine’s developers have recently completed a phase…

When Catharine Deaver Lealtad died at the age of 93, an obituary for her in the New York Times led a listing…

So many people in a position to do something are failing us, when it matters the most. The disappointments in cultural and political leadership just keep rolling in. Some parts of the culture keep meeting the moment, though—including many prominent political cartoonists. The assignment is to speak truth to power, and it takes an enormous amount of courage: Stepping on a…

Back in 2019 I wrote a couple of posts summarizing what we had learned from research about peer review at journals. Since…

This month, Arcturus’ self-amplifying mRNA vaccine was approved for use in the UK. There were also new clinical trial results for another…

ALT: a penguin is holding a black hat in its hand and saying thank you .

As of this month, I've been blogging—with words and cartoons—for 14 years. My enthusiasm for it has waned at times, but it always comes back. So when Joan Westerberg posted The Case for Blogging in the Ruins, I clicked quickly. And I anticipated being quick to agree with her case, too. Which I did, but not entirely. The post is a great read.