Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Ancient part of immune system may underpin severe COVID
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803092123.htm
One of the immune system's oldest branches, called complement, may be influencing the severity of COVID disease, according to a new study from researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Among other findings linking complement to COVID, the researchers found that people with age-related macular degeneration -- a disorder caused by overactive complement -- are at greater risk of developing severe complications and dying from COVID.
The connection with complement suggests that existing drugs that inhibit the complement system could help treat patients with severe disease.
The study was published on Aug. 3 in Nature Medicine.
The authors also found evidence that clotting activity is linked to COVID severity and that mutations in certain complement and coagulation genes are associated with hospitalization of COVID patients.
"Together these results provide important insights into the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and paint a picture for the role of complement and coagulation pathways in determining clinical outcomes of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2," says Sagi Shapira, PhD, MPH, who led the study with Nicholas Tatonetti, PhD, both professors at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Findings Stem from Study of Coronavirus Mimicry
The idea to investigate the role of coagulation and complement in COVID began with a sweeping survey of viral mimicry across all viruses on earth -- over 7,000 in all.
"Viruses have proteins that can mimic certain host proteins to trick the host's cells into aiding the virus with completing its life cycle," Shapira says. "Beyond the fundamental biological questions that we were interested in addressing, based on our previous work and the work of others, we suspected that identifying those mimics could provide clues about how viruses cause disease."
Coronaviruses, the survey found, are masters of mimicry, particularly with proteins involved in coagulation and proteins that make up complement, one of the oldest branches of the human immune system.
Complement proteins work a bit like antibodies and help eliminate pathogens by sticking to viruses and bacteria and marking them for destruction. Complement can also increase coagulation and inflammation in the body. "Unchecked, these systems can also be quite detrimental," says Shapira.
"The new coronavirus -- by mimicking complement or coagulation proteins -- might drive both systems into a hyperactive state."
Macular Degeneration Associated with Greater COVID Mortality
If complement and coagulation influence severity of COVID, people with pre-existing hyperactive complement or coagulation disorders should be more susceptible to the virus.
That led Shapira and Tatonetti to look at COVID patients with macular degeneration, an eye disease caused by overactive complement, as well as common coagulation disorders like thrombosis and hemorrhage.
Among 11,000 COVID patients who came to Columbia University Irving Medical Center with suspected COVID-19, the researchers found that over 25% of those with age-related macular degeneration died, compared to the average mortality rate of 8.5%, and roughly 20% required intubation. The greater mortality and intubation rates could not be explained by differences in the age or sex of the patients.
"Complement is also more active in obesity and diabetes," Shapira says, "and may help explain, at least in part, why people with those conditions also have a greater mortality risk from COVID."
People with a history of coagulation disorders also were at increased risk of dying from COVID infection.
Coagulation and Complement Pathways Activated
The researchers then examined how gene activity differed in people infected with the coronavirus.
That analysis revealed a signature in COVID-infected patients indicating that the virus engages and induces robust activation of the body's complement and coagulation systems.
"We found that complement is one of the most differentially expressed pathways in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients," Tatonetti says. "As part of the immune system, you would expect to see complement activated, but it seems over and above what you'd see in other infections like the flu."
Some Coagulation and Complement Genes are Associated with Hospitalization
More evidence linking severe COVID with coagulation and complement comes from a genetic analysis of thousands of COVID patients from the U.K. Biobank, which contains medical records and genetic data on half a million people.
The authors found that variants of several genes that influence complement or coagulation activity are associated with more severe COVID symptoms that required hospitalization.
"These variants are not necessarily going to determine someone's outcome," Shapira says. "But this finding is another line of evidence that complement and coagulation pathways participate in the morbidity and mortality associated with COVID-19."
Targeting Coagulation and Complement
Physicians treating COVID patients have noticed coagulation issues since the beginning of the pandemic, and several clinical trials are underway to determine the best way to use existing anti-coagulation treatments.
Complement inhibitors are currently used in relatively rare diseases, but at least one clinical trial is testing the idea with COVID patients.
"I think our findings provide a stronger foundation for the idea that coagulation and complement play a role in COVID," Tatonetti says, "and will hopefully inspire others to evaluate this hypothesis and see if it's something that can be useful for fighting the ongoing pandemic."
More Information
The study, "Immune complement and coagulation functions in adverse outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection," was published on Aug. 3, 2020, in Nature Medicine.
Other authors: Vijendra Ramlall (Columbia University Irving Medical Center), Phyllis M. Thangaraj (CUIMC) Cem Meydan (CUIMC and Weill Cornell Medicine) Jonathan Foox (WCM), Daniel Butler (WCM), Ben May (CUIMC), Jessica K. De Freitas (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), Benjamin S. Glicksberg (Icahn/Mount Sinai), and Christopher E. Mason (WCM.
This work was supported by the NIH (grants 5R01GM109018, 5U54CA209997, R35GM131905, F30HL140946, S10OD012351, S10OD021764, R21AI129851, R01MH117406, and R01AI151059), Scientific Computing Unit, XSEDE Supercomputing Resources, the Starr Cancer Consortium (I13-0052), WorldQuant Foundation, The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance, and NASA (NNX14AH50G, NNX17AB26
Story Source:
Materials provided by Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Vijendra Ramlall, Phyllis M. Thangaraj, Cem Meydan, Jonathan Foox, Daniel Butler, Jacob Kim, Ben May, Jessica K. De Freitas, Benjamin S. Glicksberg, Christopher E. Mason, Nicholas P. Tatonetti, Sagi D. Shapira. Immune complement and coagulation dysfunction in adverse outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nature Medicine, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-1021-2
Sanders Rips Trump for 'Obscene' Boasting Over Stock Market as 30 Million Americans Face Financial Doom
"One hundred fifty thousand coronavirus deaths, 30 million without an unemployment lifeline, five million newly uninsured, 14 million children going hungry. But Trump is too busy playing golf and boasting about the stock market."
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/03/sanders-rips-trump-obscene-boasting-over-stock-market-30-million-americans-face
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday slammed President Donald Trump for bragging on Twitter about the booming stock market just days after Republican inaction allowed the $600-per-week boost in unemployment benefits to expire, slashing the incomes of nearly 30 million Americans as the economy remains mired in deep recession.
In a tweet Monday morning, Trump hailed the "record high Nasdaq" and warned "it would all come crashing down, including your Jobs, Stocks, and 401k's, if Sleepy Joe [Biden] ever became president.""One hundred fifty thousand coronavirus deaths, 30 million without an unemployment lifeline, five million newly uninsured, 14 million children going hungry," Sanders tweeted. "But Trump is too busy playing golf and boasting about the stock market. Obscene."
The president didn't mention that the jobless rate under his leadership is already at historic highs—last week marked the 19th consecutive week that "unemployment claims have been more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession," according to the Economic Policy Institute.
"Tweeting this during the worst economic downturn in 70 years, a housing, hunger, and healthcare crisis, and days after extended [unemployment insurance] benefits expired because of the Senate GOP, is both shameful and shameless," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) wrote in response to the president's boast.
Trump's tweet came as the prospect of a deal between Democratic negotiators and the White House to extend the enhanced unemployment benefits at any level appeared as slim as ever.
The Washington Post reported that with relief talks at an impasse, "the Trump administration is looking at options for unilateral actions it can take to try to address some of the economic fallout caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic."
"It's not clear what steps the administration could take without the help of Congress on issues such as lapsed enhanced unemployment benefits or the expired moratorium on evictions," the Post noted.
Many congressional Republicans, meanwhile, have shown little interest in extending the boosted unemployment benefits even as coronavirus cases continue to surge and tens of millions of Americans struggle to afford food and rent.
The American Prospect's David Dayen argued Monday that the GOP's lack of urgency in the middle of worsening public health and economic crises stems from the fact that Republicans already secured the bailout they really wanted in March, when Congress approved a $4.5 trillion "slush fund" for big corporations.
"The suffering on Wall Street has been lifted," Dayen wrote. "On the day that expanded unemployment benefits expired last Friday, the stock market rose. It's back up again today. As we know, this is the cause of an ironclad vow from the Federal Reserve to do whatever it takes to protect asset prices, and a $4.5 trillion money cannon facilitated by Congress to back up the promise."
"The corporate bailout was the rescue Republicans wanted," Dayen added. "It was valuable to them and they were willing to give up a lot to get it. Democrats secured some pretty good terms but they were all temporary, and now they've mostly expired. The Fed money cannon, you will note, has not."
Trump Proclaims Nevada Has Made It 'Impossible' for GOP to Win by Expanding Voting Rights During Pandemic
"Trump and his allies have always been motivated by partisanship, even at the expense of American lives."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/03/trump-proclaims-nevada-has-made-it-impossible-gop-win-expanding-voting-rights-during
In a Monday morning tweet attacking Nevada's proposed expansion of mail-in voting as "an illegal late night coup," President Donald Trump once again openly admitted that increasing access to the ballot amid the Covid-19 pandemic poses a dire threat to the Republican Party's ability to win elections.
"Nevada's clubhouse governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state," Trump wrote, referring to the Nevada State Senate's passage Sunday of legislation that would send every active registered voter a mail-in ballot ahead of the November elections. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill.
"Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation," continued Trump, whose administration, critics warn, is currently attempting to sabotage and undermine the U.S. Postal Service.
"Using Covid to steal the state," the president added. "See you in Court!"
As Common Dreams reported in May, the Republican National Committee and right-wing advocacy groups are spending millions on lawsuits combating state efforts to expand mail-in ballot access as a safe alternative to in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic.
"It's incredible that the president of the United States keeps openly saying that the only way that he and his political allies can keep their grip on power is by making it harder for large swaths of the population to vote," said Robert Maguire, research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Trump's tweet Monday was just his latest baseless attack on vote-by-mail expansion, which the president has repeatedly claimed—without evidence—will lead to a surge in voter fraud and cost him the presidential race.
Contradicting the narrative pushed by the president and the GOP, Nevada's Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske told state lawmakers last week that her office is not aware of any voter fraud from the state's June primary, which was conducted largely by mail.
William McCurdy II, chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party, said in a statement Sunday that Trump's "protestations against mail-in voting represent an utterly hypocritical attempt to deny Nevadans the same rights" he and members of his administration have exercised repeatedly in past elections.
"Trump and his allies have always been motivated by partisanship, even at the expense of American lives," said McCurdy. "That he would threaten Nevada Democrats' work to protect voting access through a crisis of his own making is both despicable and par for the course. But Democrats will not be intimidated. We stand with Nevadans and will do the necessary work to ensure every eligible voter can participate easily and safely in what will surely be the most important election in a lifetime."
Trump's Millionaire Treasury Secretary Uses Debunked GOP Talking Point to Justify Slashing $600 Unemployment Boost
"Inflicting suffering on tens of millions of Americans by cutting unemployment benefits because of an anecdotal 'some cases' argument that has been refuted again and again is a stupid way to make policy."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/03/trumps-millionaire-treasury-secretary-uses-debunked-gop-talking-point-justify
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Sunday recycled a debunked right-wing talking point to justify the GOP's proposal to cut by more than half the $600-per-week federal boost in unemployment benefits that expired at the end of last week, depriving around 30 million Americans of a key economic lifeline as joblessness remains at historic levels.
In an appearance on ABC's "This Week," Mnuchin claimed "there's no question" that the $600 weekly boost in unemployment insurance (UI) created a disincentive to work.
As a counterpoint, the Treasury Secretary cited a "Chicago study"—apparently referring to May research from the University of Chicago showing that under the $600-per-week boost, 68% of unemployed workers who were eligible for UI could have received benefits that exceeded their previous work income. That study, however, did not examine whether the benefits created a disincentive for the unemployed to seek work.When host Martha Raddatz pointed to a recent Yale study that found "no evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work," Mnuchin responded, "I went to Yale, I agree on certain things, I don't always agree."
"There are cases where people are overpaid," said Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker whose net worth is estimated to be around $400 million.
The $600 weekly payment amounts to around what a worker would earn working 40 hours per week at a $15-an-hour wage. The fact that some workers earned more under the enhanced unemployment benefits than they did from their jobs makes the case for raising wages, not cutting benefits, progressives have argued.
Senate Republicans have proposed cutting the $600 weekly boost to $200—a $1,600 monthly benefit cut for tens of millions of people.
In response to Mnuchin's remarks, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) tweeted that "inflicting suffering on tens of millions of Americans by cutting unemployment benefits because of an anecdotal 'some cases' argument that has been refuted again and again by studies of actual data is a stupid way to make policy."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slammed Mnuchin for wanting to to "slash $600 a week in unemployment benefits for 30 million workers who lost jobs" while supporting "the continuation of a $500 billion slush fund for corporations."
"The Trump administration loves socialism for the rich, unfettered capitalism for everyone else," said Sanders.
The $600-per-week increase in unemployment benefits expired on Friday as Republican and Democratic negotiators failed to reach an agreement to extend the payments—even amid dire warnings that a lapse could lead to a surge in evictions, increased hunger, and massive job loss.
Mnuchin on Sunday touted the White House's offer of a one-week extension of the $600 payments, but Democratic congressional leaders and other critics dismissed the proposal as a "sham" given that it would likely take weeks for states to distribute the payments.
"They proposed it after it was too late to prevent a benefits lapse," tweeted HuffPost's Arthur Delaney. "The last checks had already gone out. State workforce agencies have thoroughly demonstrated they don't do policy changes on a dime. Republicans opposed the $600 from before anyone received their first check and they made sure the benefits stopped."
Democratic leaders met with Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Saturday for a rare weekend discussion as the two sides remain far apart on key priorities for the next Covid-19 stimulus package, from unemployment benefits to additional aid for state and local governments.
In a Dear Colleague letter on Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) described the weekend meeting as "more productive than our previous discussions" but added that no agreement was reached.
"This is a very different kind of negotiation, because of what is at stake," Pelosi wrote. "Millions of children are food insecure, millions of families are at risk of eviction, and for the nineteenth straight week, over one million Americans applied for unemployment insurance... All parties must understand the gravity of the situation in order to reach an agreement that protects Americans' lives, livelihoods, and the life of our democracy."
When Corporate Power Is Your Real Government, Corporate Media Is State Media
Caitlin Johnstone August 1, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/when-corporate-power-is-your-real-government-corporate-media-is-state-media/
The New York Times published an astonishingly horrible article the other day titled “Latin America Is Facing a ‘Decline of Democracy’ Under the Pandemic” accusing governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua of exploiting Covid-19 to quash opposition and oppress democracy.
The article sources its jarringly propagandistic claims in multiple US government-funded narrative management operations like the Wilson Center and the National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored Freedom House, the extensively plutocrat-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the United States Naval Academy.
The crown jewel of this piece of State Department stenography reads as follows:
“Adding to these challenges, democracy in Latin America has also lost a champion in the United States, which had played an important role in promoting democracy after the end of the Cold War by financing good governance programs and calling out authoritarian abuses.”
Whoa, nelly.
The fact that America’s most widely regarded newspaper feels perfectly comfortable making such a spectacularly in-your-face lie on behalf of the US government tells you everything you need to know about what the mass media in America really are and what they do.
The United States has never at any time been a champion of democracy in Latin America, before or since the Cold War. It has intervened hundreds of times in the continent’s affairs throughout history with everything from murderous corporate colonialism to deadly CIA regime change operations to overt military invasions. It is currently trying to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela after failing to stage one during the Bush administration, it’s pushing regime change in Nicaragua, and The New York Times itself admitted this year that it was wrong to promote the false US government narrative of electoral shenanigans in Bolivia’s presidential race last year, a narrative which facilitated a bloody fascist coup.
Why is propaganda used in an ostensibly free democracy with an ostensibly free media? Why are its news media outlets so consistently in alignment with every foreign policy objective of US government agencies no matter how destructive and inexcusable? If the media and the government are two separate institutions, why do they so consistently function as though they are not separate?
Well, that’s easy. It’s because they aren’t separate. The only thing keeping this from being seen is the fact that America’s real government isn’t located where people think it is.
In a corporatist system of government, where no hard lines are drawn between corporate/financial power and state power, corporate media is state media. Since bribery is legal in the US political system in the form of corporate lobbying and campaign donations, America’s elected government is controlled by wealthy elites who have money to burn and who benefit from maintaining a specific status quo arrangement.
The fact that this same plutocratic class also owns America’s media, which is now so consolidated that it’s almost entirely run by just six corporations, means that the people who run the government also run the media. This allows America’s true rulers to set up a system which promotes narratives that are favorable to their desired status quo.
Which means that the US has state propaganda. They just don’t call it that themselves.
Strip away the phony two-handed sock puppet show of US electoral politics and look at how power actually moves in that country, and you just see one more tyrannical regime which propagandizes its citizens, brutally cracks down on protesters, deliberately keeps its populace impoverished so they don’t get powerful enough to change things, and attacks any nation which dares to disobey its dictates.
Beneath the thin layer of narrative overlay about freedom and democracy, the US is just one more despotic, bloodthirsty empire. It’s no better than any of the other despotic, bloodthirsty empires throughout history. It just has good PR.
Plutocrats not only exert control over America’s media and politics, they also form alliances with the secretive government agencies whose operators remain amid the comings and goings of the official elected government. We see examples of this in the way new money tech plutocrats like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Pierre Omidyar have direct relationships with the CIA and its proxies.
We also see it in the sexual blackmail operation which was facilitated by the late Jeffrey Epstein in connection with billionaire Leslie Wexner and Israeli intelligence, along with potentially the FBI and/or other US intelligence agencies. Today the internet is abuzz as newly unsealed court documents relating to Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell reveal witness testimony regarding underage sex trafficking, with such high-profile names appearing in the documents as Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew.
The Overton window of acceptable political discourse has been shrunk into such a narrow spectrum of debate that talking about even well-known and extensively documented facts involving the real nature of America’s government and media will get you laughingly dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, which is itself a symptom of tight narrative control by a ruling class which much prefers Americans thinking they live in a free democracy whose government they control with their votes.
In the old days you used to be able to tell who your rulers were because they’d sit on thrones and wear golden crowns and make you bow before them. Human consciousness eventually evolved beyond the acceptability of such brazen indignities, so it became necessary for rulers to take on more of a background role while the citizenry clap and cheer for the illusory puppet show of electoral politics.
But the kings are still among us, just as cruel and tyrannical as ever. They’ve just figured out how to mask their tyranny behind the facade of freedom.
But 2020 has been a year of revelations, a trend which seems likely to continue accelerating. Truth cannot stay hidden forever.
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